Bix dot Blog

The underlying layer consists of “open protocols,” which were “defined and maintained by academic researchers and international-standards bodies, owned by no one.” Websites and emails still operate on these protocols; they are a commons. The World Wide Web, on which you are probably reading these words, is a platform so ubiquitous it has become invisible, synonymous with The Internet writ large. There is no CEO of email. But above this layer is “a second layer of web-based services — Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter — that largely came to power in the following decade.” Today, instead of a central public sphere, the internet is dominated by competing feudal states.

—Shuja Haider, in “Mr. President, I am arresting you for Twitter crimes”