Conventional social networks bundle the account, audience, feed, moderation rules and advertising system inside one company. Decentralized social networks try to separate those layers. A person may choose a host, use a third-party client, follow accounts on other servers or select a different ranking and moderation service without abandoning the underlying network.
That design offers an alternative model for online speech: fewer decisions need to be made by one platform owner. It does not produce a rule-free public square. It moves responsibility among protocol developers, hosts, app providers, feed operators, moderators and users—and makes the boundaries between them a central governance question.
Two protocols illustrate different choices
ActivityPub became a World Wide Web Consortium recommendation in January 2018. The W3C calls it a "decentralized social networking protocol" with a client-to-server API for creating and changing content and a server-to-server API for federation. Users are actors with inbox and outbox endpoints; servers deliver activities across the social graph. Services such as Mastodon implement this model, allowing independently governed communities to communicate.
The AT Protocol takes another approach. It roots an account in a persistent decentralized identifier and stores signed records on a personal data server. Relays aggregate network events, app views assemble user-facing experiences and separate labelers can attach moderation information. Its design explicitly distinguishes a permissive speech layer from the reach layer that indexes and recommends content in the protocol overview.
That distinction matters. A host can carry a person's repository while several apps or feeds make different choices about discovery. AT Protocol documentation describes account migration between hosting providers as a core goal, with identity able to move independently of a personal data server in the account specification. Portability is not merely downloading an archive; it aims to preserve identity and relationships when a provider changes.
These protocols are not interchangeable, and federation is not binary. An ActivityPub server can block another server. An AT Protocol service can choose which accounts or content to redistribute. Bridges can connect systems but introduce translation, consent and moderation problems. The useful question is which layer is open, who can replace it and what dependency remains concentrated.
Portability changes the platform bargain
Open protocols can lower switching costs for users and entry costs for developers. A new client or feed can build on an existing social graph rather than creating a network from zero. Creators may be less exposed to a single company's API shutdown or ranking change. Hosts can compete on service, privacy or community rules.
Bluesky offers evidence that this model can operate beyond a small technical community, though the company remains a major provider within its ecosystem. It reported growth from 25.94 million to 41.41 million users during 2025, including accounts on independently operated personal data servers in its 2025 transparency report. By March 2026, it reported more than 43 million global users, more than 1,000 AT Protocol apps used each week and about 20 billion public records in its funding announcement.
Those figures are company-reported and do not establish that infrastructure is evenly distributed. If most identities, relays, discovery or moderation still depend on one operator, the protocol may be open while practical power remains concentrated. Decentralization should be measured layer by layer: host diversity, migration success, independent clients, feed choice, moderation choice and the cost of running core services.
Moderation becomes composable—and complicated
Centralized platforms are criticized both for removing too much and for allowing too much. Decentralized systems permit communities to set different norms and users to add filters or labelers. AT Protocol implements moderation through signed labels, while applications can decide how those labels affect visibility in its moderation documentation. ActivityPub communities can moderate locally and limit federation with abusive servers.
Pluralism can improve context: a specialist organization may recognize harassment or misinformation in a language that a global queue handles poorly. It can also create gaps. Harmful content can replicate across hosts; a small volunteer administrator may face threats that require legal and psychological expertise; inconsistent blocks can confuse users; and appeals may have no obvious destination. Shared blocklists can concentrate unaccountable power even when infrastructure is distributed.
Scale does not remove those costs. Bluesky said users submitted 6.48 million reports in 2024, 17 times the 2023 total, as its user base grew from 2.89 million to 25.94 million. It expanded to roughly 100 moderators and introduced more automated detection in its 2024 moderation report. Open architecture still requires people, policy, tooling and due process.
Regulation must follow functions
Platform law often assumes an identifiable provider controls ranking and moderation. In a federated network, hosting, dissemination and recommendation may be separate services in different jurisdictions. The EU Digital Services Act scales obligations by role and reach; very large platforms must assess risks involving illegal content, fundamental rights, civic discourse, elections and public security at least annually in Article 34. Applying that framework requires clarity about which operator creates each risk.
Regulators should avoid making only the largest firms capable of compliance. Shared reporting tools, interoperable notices and proportionate duties can help small hosts, while high-reach aggregators and feed services should not evade accountability merely because they do not store every post.
Decentralized social networks offer a credible way to separate the right to speak from an entitlement to algorithmic reach. Their promise is user exit, provider competition and governance diversity. Their test is whether those freedoms survive real abuse, infrastructure costs and legal duties without quietly recreating the same gatekeepers at a different layer.