New blog! 📣 Social networking interoperability can give users real choice - but new analysis from @phipz.com @oii.ox.ac.uk shows it only works when regulators get the details right. Read his blog: www.oii.ox.ac.uk/how-social-m... 1/2
Philipp Riederle
@phipz.com
Researching the Political Economy of Internet (De-)Centralisation | Platforms, Infrastructures, and Interoperability | Doctoral Researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute @oii.ox.ac.uk 🌍 https://www.platforce.net // 📬 philipp.riederle(at)oii.ox.ac.uk
🎉 Congratulations to OII doctoral researcher, @phipz.com named winner of The Jovana Karanovic Impact Award. The award recognizes early career scholars working at the forefront of digital platform research. 1/2
US export bans on computer technology are not that new after all: already in 1999, Apple's G4 processor was considered dangerously powerful. web.archive.org/web/20030919...
CNN - Apple tries to get G4 export ban lifted - September 17, 1999
web.archive.org
Apple announces deep AI system-level integration. It blames EU competition rules for not making it available in Europe. Public blackmail in the interest of profit? www.heise.de/en/news/Due-...
Due to DMA competition rules: No AI Siri for EU iPhones
When iOS 27 launches in the fall, many features will be missing in Germany. Apple points the finger at the EU Commission.
heise.de
End-to-end encrypted messaging interoperability via RCS? Works. But it also has already worked for years with @matrix.org.
Tech Policy Press@techpolicypress.bsky.social · 2mo agoApple and Google are rolling out end-to-end encrypted RCS between iPhone and Android. Billions get instant security gains — and the "interoperability undermines security" argument both companies pushed for years just got much harder to defend, writes Mallory Knodel.
What happens if the US decides to push a "kill switch" on individuals (or whole countries) using US-based services? Well: no payments, no communication, no data, no deliveries, no bookings. www.ft.com/content/4c3a...
Life without US tech
What happens if Washington pulls the ‘kill switch’ on digital services?
ft.com
The UK using Palantir to process NHS health records: bad enough. Allowing contractors unlimited access to identifiable patient data: showcases the extent of this geopolitical privacy disaster. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...
Palantir’s access to identifiable NHS England patient data is ‘dangerous’, MPs say
Health service has given US tech firm ‘unlimited access’ to certain data to build integrated platform, according to reports
theguardian.com
“JAAI does not discriminate against human contributors — however, undisclosed human involvement constitutes a violation of our editorial integrity policy.”
James Grimmelmann@jtlg.bsky.social · 4mo agoThe new "Journal of AI by AI" is perfect in every way. jaai.pub
Regulators and courts around the world increasingly acknowledge harms of social media. Will we see a big regulatory intervention in platform design? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
What next for big tech after landmark social media addiction verdict?
The ruling could be the beginning of the end of social media as we know it, writes the BBC's technology editor Zoe Kleinman.
bbc.co.uk
I've been looking up the definition of an AI agent and ... it turns out I've been using AI agents for ~20 years without even realising it. An AI agent to filter out spam emails. An AI agent to respond to people when I'm out of office. An AI agent to correct my spelling. Why all the fuss?
AI automation replacing human labour? Nah, but we can't afford humans anymore because we need to invest in AI. Interesting new narrative. www.heise.de/en/news/Atla...
Atlassian CEO: AI doesn't replace people here, but we're firing them anyway
AI should not replace people at Atlassian, says CEO Cannon-Brookes. But they still have to lay off 1,600 people to have money for AI investments.
heise.de
What do Big Tech companies do to raise their revenues? Enshittification, the thesis of @doctorow.pluralistic.net portrayed wonderfully by the Norwegian Consumer Council. www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Up...
A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator
YouTube video by Forbrukerrådet - Norwegian Consumer Council
youtube.com
A witty write-up on the dependence on how deeply Microsoft Office is culturally ingrained in office work, attempts to move to FLOSS alternatives, and a plea for a paradigm shift towards plain text. ia.net/topics/trapp...
Trapped in MS Office
Seeking IT independence, Europe wants to escape Microsoft Office. The question is: where to?
ia.net
Great to see startup funding go into interoperable platform projects: a @github.com alternative built on @atproto.com.
Tangled@tangled.org · 5mo agotoday, we're announcing our €3,8M ($4.5M) seed financing round, led by byFounders with participation from Bain Capital Crypto, Antler, Thomas Dohmke (former CEO of GitHub), Avery Pennarun (CEO of Tailscale) among other incredible angels. read more on what's next: blog.tangled.org/seed
As someone sceptical of the loud AI hype train, I enjoyed reading this calm account by an indie developer on LLMs‘ capabilities in software development these days.
Steve Troughton-Smith@stroughtonsmith.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 5mo ago⭐️ New blog post: A Month With OpenAI's Codex https://highcaffeinecontent.com/blog/20260301-A-Month-With-OpenAIs-Codex It's been literal *years* since I last posted anything, so you know this is a big deal for me 😜
🚨New Preprint 📝👨🎓 Digital Platform #Interoperability – almost unanimously proposed in Economics and Policy literature to counter #BigTech platform power. The EU's Digital Markets Act already mandates it for messengers. BUT: Empirical evidence so far? Scarce. Let's see what I found. 🧵👇
SocArXivBot@socarxivbot.bsky.social · 6mo agoDoes Digital Platform Interoperability Deliver on Its Expectations? Evidence from User Switching on Mastodon: https://osf.io/6wsrq
When a private company controls critical infrastructure and gets the power to influence the course of war: Elon Musk switches off Starlink for Russia. www.forbes.com/sites/davidh...
Starlink Shutdown: Musk Throws Russian Forces Into Chaos
Russian forces relied heavily on Starlink for tactical communications, Now SpaceX has deactivated their terminals, causing chaos as units lose contact with commanders.
forbes.com
We're ready for another term of our "Digital Economic Security Seminar" at @oii.ox.ac.uk and @aalto.fi. We've got 8 exciting sessions lined up around tech geopolitics. Warm invitation to join for fellow researchers! diesl.eu/digital-econ...
Digital Economic Security Seminar – Winter 2026
Organisers/Hosts: Vili Lehdonvirta, Philipp Riederle Sessions: Tuesdays, 1–2pm (UK time), during Oxford term time, via Zoom Participation: Open to researchers and students from any university or resea...
diesl.eu
Very lucky to be working within such a brilliant community of fellow Internet scholars
Oxford Internet Institute@oii.ox.ac.uk · last yr.From conducting simulations of how communities evolve using LLMs, to applying quantitative research to the real world, they share how they spend their time at the OII and what they love about studying here. #OIIBeyondtheBooks @graduate.ox.ac.uk @ox.ac.uk @socsci.ox.ac.uk
The next season of our “Digital Economic Security Seminar” is about to embark - organised by yours truly and Vili Lehdonvirta. Check out our schedule and sign up here: diesl.eu/digital-econ...
Digital Economic Security Seminar – Spring 2025 Programme
Organisers/Hosts: Vili Lehdonvirta, Philipp Riederle Sessions: Tuesdays, 12pm–1pm (UK time), during Oxford term time, via Zoom Participation: Open to researchers and students from any university or re...
diesl.eu
The new 🇩🇪German Coalition just made an explicit commitment to #EuroStack - the plan for digital strategic autonomy supported by European industry which doesn’t rely on a Brussels fund showering taxpayer money on projects w no commercial prospects, that no one wants - like #AI_factories. Big deal.
German government's "Centre for Digital Sovereignty" (ZenDIS) develops open source collaboration suite "openDesk" by bundling multiple great OSS projects - and deploys into public administration. Exciting! @sovereign.tech
Framework agreement: MS-365 alternative OpenDesk to conquer the Bundeswehr
The IT system house of the BWI has concluded a framework agreement with Zendis for "sovereign communication and collaboration solutions" such as OpenDesk.
heise.de
The municipality of Aarhus in Denmark moved its cloud hosting from a US provider (Microsoft Azure) to German Hetzner. This brings data within EU borders, ensuring data protection and digital sovereignty. Most surprisingly, it even reduced costs by 2/3. itk.aarhus.dk/nyheder/proj...
ITK skifter til europæisk cloud-hosting leverandør
ITK tager sammen med Kultur og Borgerservice i Aarhus Kommune konsekvensen af uroen mellem EU og USA og flytter cloud-hosting fra Azure til Hetzner.
itk.aarhus.dk
If it’s technically possible, it will inevitably be abused in illegitimate ways. A clear NO to encryption backdoors and chat control.
Challenging @timbl.bsky.social's view that internet concentration has a technical fix. The issue is network economics & social institutions. SOLID/EWADA has great use cases (e.g., healthcare) but can’t decentralise multi-sided platforms. @oxmartinschool.bsky.social
The rise of a fascist party in Germany - a repetition of history? This page by @michaelkreil.bsky.social illustrates the chilling similarities. datajournal.org/schon-wieder/
Schon wieder
Der Aufstieg der NSDAP/AfD
datajournal.org
Fantastic update of @beeper.com iOS and Desktop! Wouldn't want to miss the luxury anymore of using only one chat app for all the networks. Living the dream of client-side #interoperability based on @matrix.org. blog.beeper.com/2025/02/24/t...
Try out the new Beeper Desktop and iOS beta
It’s been a while! Since joining Automattic last year and merging with the Texts team, we’ve been building brand-new apps for desktop (on the foundations of the Texts desktop app) and i…
blog.beeper.com
My doctoral research at @oii.ox.ac.uk deals with the Political Economy of Internet (De-)Centralisation. In particular, the governance (and power implications) of internet platforms. Bluesky (alongside the Fediverse/Mastodon) are both quite interesting cases I look at.
Hello Bluesky! I have been in a social media freeze lately, with all the centralised internet platforms and their worrying governance. Much of my crowds have come here - so, let's give this a try.