Network School, an initiative led by former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, says it is acquiring the decentralised social network Farcaster from Neynar. The platform will be renamed Network State Protocol and gain AI moderation, proof that users are human and a code of conduct. The underlying protocol is expected to stay open. Financial terms were not disclosed, and this is the second change of ownership in about nine months.

What it means: Farcaster was one of the most visible experiments in decentralised social media, backed by $150 million in 2024, but it struggled to keep users. Another change of ownership shows that technology alone is not enough to compete with the large social networks. Adding AI moderation and human verification is, ironically, a step away from the original idea of total openness and an admission that bots and spam are the biggest problem for any open platform. For Greek businesses the direct impact is limited, but the story highlights two trends. First, verifying that a user is a real person is becoming central to every digital service, from social networks to dating platforms and online shops. Second, automated moderation with AI must come with transparency and a right of appeal, as the EU Digital Services Act requires of platforms operating in the Union. Anyone designing communities or apps with user content should think about these issues from the start, not after spam has already flooded the service. Startups should also budget for moderation from the first version, since retrofitting trust and safety tools later usually costs far more than building them in early.

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