In this episode of Elixir Wizards, Charles Suggs and Emma Whamond are joined by Mallory Knodel, executive director and founder of the Social Web Foundation, to talk about internet governance, open standards, and the future of the social web. Mallory shares how her work as an activist, systems administrator, and public interest technologist led her into the organizations and working groups that shape how the internet functions, including the IETF, W3C, ICANN, and ITU.
The conversation explores how the internet shifted from a collection of open protocols toward a small number of dominant platforms, and what that centralization means for users, developers, and independent service providers. Mallory explains how decisions made at the protocol level can affect everything from email deliverability to identity, data portability, trust and safety, and the ability to move between platforms. We also discuss the Social Web Foundation, ActivityPub, the Fediverse, and the idea of building a more multipolar social web.
Mallory also looks at what happens when AI agents, automated accounts, and algorithmic feeds enter open social ecosystems. She shares her perspective on privacy, usability, encrypted messaging, and designing technology around user needs rather than engagement alone.
Key Topics Discussed
What it means to be a public interest technologist
How internet governance affects everyday software development
The role of global internet standards organizations
How the IETF and W3C develop technical standards
Corporate influence inside internet governance and standards bodies
The internet’s shift from protocols to centralized platforms
Email deliverability and the hidden costs of centralization
How platform control affects identity and user autonomy
Why data portability remains difficult across social platforms
The mission behind the Social Web Foundation
How the Fediverse connects independent social platforms
ActivityPub and Activity Streams as open web protocols
AT Protocol, an alternative to ActivityPub
How federated servers exchange content and user activity
Why a multipolar web differs from decentralization
What Meta’s ActivityPub adoption means for federation
The embrace, extend, extinguish risk for open protocols
Discoverability challenges across federated social networks
Trust and safety for smaller platform operators
How protocol decisions can affect human rights
AI agents entering open social web ecosystems
Whether federated platforms should block automated crawlers
Designing algorithmic feeds around values and user choice
Privacy-first principles for developers building social software
Encrypted direct messaging for the open social web
Elixir projects building across the Fediverse ecosystem
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