Digital Protocols

This module is taught as part of a one-year programme: Introduction to Political Technology. If interested in these ideas read more and explore participating at: newspeak.house/study-with-us

Protocols are structured communication. In this module, we explore how structured communication works in the digital world. We talk about (a) the technical side of digital protocols and (b) we will examine them from a social impact and polity perspective.

We focus on:

Semester 1: Fall 2025

Distributed Ledgers and Databases

Protocol ecosystems and tech we'll focus on:

Protocols of Social Networks

Protocols and tech we'll focus on:

Semester 2: Winter 2026

Pseudonymity, Anonymity, Encrypted Communications

Protocols and tech we'll focus on:

Semester 3: Spring 2026

Peer-to-peer Protocols and Knowledge Infrastructure

Protocols and tech we'll focus on:

Open Problems

These problems are things to work on. If you're looking for what to work on, work on these things, they are really important and I know how to work on them so I can help you, but I don't have enough time to work on them myself, because I'm working on other problems.

1. Distribution and publishing systems for the global scientific community

Global academic scientific paper distribution has a lot of problems. A bunch of people are working on this but the tide hasn't turned yet. There might be space for something else: an open platform where (a) anyone can sign up, publish, review, ask for review, (b) research labs have their own overlay journals and (c) independent researchers can get monetary rewards for open and verifiable paper reviews and rubric scores.

Why is it important?

Research is about communication. If researchers can't do literature reviews, they can't know what exists, and they can't know if what they are doing is something that has been done before. Researchers need to be able to trust the papers that they read. Research is about asking a question, making a hypothesis, and testing it. Without reliable communication, a researcher won't know what question is worth asking.

The current scientific publishing system serves three functions at the same time: (a) dissemination, i.e. researchers reading papers, (b) validation, i.e. knowledge that is true and paper content that is reliable, (c) reputation, i.e. prestige based on journal fame and h-index. We don't have to have one system that satisfies all of these, we can create unbundled systems, each optimised for each role.

2. Democratic debates in local citizen assemblies and in digital forums

People collectively thinking, discussing, and deciding what they think about an issue is an important aspect of quasidemocratic polities. Ideally, deliberation enables peaceful synthesis of conflicting preferences and needs. Local assemblies are a simple yet dangerous tool to do this. They are simple because it's just people gathering; they are dangerous because unless there is appropriate structure to them, chaos is likely.

Research and understand how these work before starting:

  1. Polis by The Computational Democracy Project
  2. Community Notes by Twitter
  3. vTaiwan's open consultation platform

Read this book:

  1. Open Democracy, Hélène Landemore, 2020

See how others do it:

There are a number of organisations in the UK that are working on citizen assemblies and participatory democracy. I think there is space for more. Having a lot of options for different kinds of assemblies can help make assemblies more popular and higher quality.

3. Intentional communities focused on learning

Universities around the Western world are becoming less relevant. Anybody can learn anything online on their own. However, communities around learning are still crucial. They facilitate people meeting, inspiring, supporting each other. Residential communities are a great way to approach this. You are in one this year. Let's start 20 more like it! In addition to Newspeak House, research: