Fostering Plurality, Integrity and Safety in Digital Public Spaces
Social media platforms have become central arenas for public discourse. They are also persistent vectors for misinformation, electoral interference, and harm to marginalized communities. The risk to digital sovereignty lies not only in non-European jurisdictional control over these platforms, but also in a surveillance-driven business model that structurally amplifies these harms. Regulation can introduce important safeguards, but it cannot replace public stewardship of core communication infrastructure or create viable alternatives to dominant models.
This policy brief—the fourth in the Policy Building Blocks for Digital Commons series—proposes a framework for public investment in interoperable, commons-based communication infrastructures that prioritize plurality, integrity, and safety over engagement and virality. It is part of Open Future’s work within the NGI Commons project and informs advocacy ahead of the next Multiannual Financial Framework (2028–2034).
Emerging protocol-based networks—such as those built on ActivityPub and the AT Protocol—show that decentralized and federated approaches are technically viable. However, they face structural constraints, including network effects and the first-mover advantages of incumbent platforms. Public investment is needed to ensure that the open infrastructure these networks depend on is sustainably provisioned and resistant to capture.
The brief identifies interconnected areas for intervention:
- Supporting plurality and public interest curation—funding a diverse ecosystem of algorithmic curation providers, including public interest, commons-based, or non-profit models, that do not depend on engagement maximization or surveillance-based advertising.
- Supporting resilient infrastructure—public investment in core hosting and safety infrastructure on interoperable networks, to prevent new chokepoints and commercial capture as these networks scale.
- Public coordination for safety—establishing coordinated mechanisms for responding to cross-platform and cross-protocol threats—functions that decentralized networks currently lack the capacity to perform at scale.
Ensuring a resilient Digital Public Space is not a one-off investment. It is an ongoing infrastructural commitment, analogous to the sustained public funding that underwrites public broadcasting or press freedom.
