FFDW 2024 Annual Report

In an era of eroding cultural memory, the need for innovative approaches to preserving collective history has never been greater. Decentralized technologies offer a transformative path forward, enabling communities to reclaim ownership of their narratives while democratizing access to the past. To address these challenges, TechSoup has joined forces with Gray Area and Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web (FFDW) to launch the Cultural Memory Lab (CML), an incubator designed to empower cultural organizations, archives, libraries, and museums. By leveraging peer-to-peer networks, distributed storage systems, and blockchain technologies, this initiative aims to reshape how stories are preserved and shared, ensuring that diverse voices remain integral to the historical record. With funding, mentorship, and technical support, the Cultural Memory Lab invites participants to explore the potential of decentralized tools in safeguarding cultural heritage and expanding access to collective knowledge. In this Q&A, we sit down with Billy Bicket, Head of Maker Labs at TechSoup, to discuss the goals of the CML, its implications for cultural preservation, and how this initiative is building a more inclusive and equitable future for archiving. How does the Cultural Memory Lab address gaps in traditional archival practices, particularly for historically excluded communities? Throughout history, the stories that shape our collective memory have often been dictated by those in positions of power. However, a growing movement of community-driven and grassroots archiving practices is working to widen the aperture through which we view the past, so that we can better include those who have been excluded. These decentralized, participatory approaches to cultural memory acknowledge the diversity of human experience and empower marginalized communities to take ownership over their own histories. We believe that decentralized technologies may serve as critical infrastructure for collecting, preserving, and sharing community-generated cultural artifacts outside of centralized control. The Cultural Memory Lab will help projects explore how these tools can equip disparate voices to come together to construct a more pluralistic understanding of the past and help democratize access to history. Marginalized peoples are often at risk of having their stories and cultural memory excluded from traditional narratives, or may even be at risk of having their stories erased. Therefore it's vital that communities have the knowledge and skills to take control of their cultural memory. The CML enables communities to take ownership of their narratives through ethical and culturally informed approaches, rather than relying on large, centralized institutions. This approach not only addresses resource disparities but also aligns with the values and priorities of these communities, making certain that marginalized voices remain central to the historical record. At a more logistical level, we know that archivists often lack access to technical expertise and struggle with prohibitively high storage costs, which leave many community-based organizations unable to fully preserve or share their narratives. For example, a recent TechSoup survey found that 53% of cultural heritage organizations lack the technical expertise needed to manage their collections, and 37% cite high storage costs as a significant barrier. By introducing decentralized technologies to these grassroots groups, the Lab aims to provide a more accessible and affordable storage solution. What role do decentralized technologies play in transforming cultural memory preservation? Decentralized technologies like blockchains and peer-to-peer storage networks represent a transformative shift in how we approach cultural memory preservation. By distributing data across a network of nodes rather than storing it in a single location, these technologies ensure that vital records are more resilient to natural disasters, political instability, or other disruptions. This is particularly important for communities whose histories are at risk of erasure or destruction. One of the most compelling aspects of decentralized technologies is their transparency and immutability, which help build trust in the authenticity of archived materials. However, these features must be carefully balanced with the need for community agency, especially when privacy and the right to modify or delete data are concerned. Overall, these tools create opportunities for equitable, community-led preservation efforts that challenge reliance on any single centralized institution. How do you envision decentralized technologies democratizing access to historical records and cultural narratives? Decentralized technologies have the potential to fundamentally democratize access to historical records and cultural narratives. By eliminating reliance on centralized institutions, a more decentralized web permits communities with limited resources to protect and share their histories on their own terms. For marginalized groups, this means their voices can gain visibility and recognition without being filtered through traditional gatekeepers. These technologies also enhance resilience, ensuring that histories are maintained even in the face of political suppression or environmental catastrophes. The transparency of decentralized platforms fosters trust in the authenticity of these narratives, enabling them to play a more prominent role in shaping public discourse. In this way, decentralized technologies are not just tools for preservation but also instruments of empowerment and equity. What unique opportunities do tools like Filecoin offer for cultural preservation compared to traditional archiving methods? Filecoin, a decentralized storage network, provides significant advantages over traditional archiving methods. Its distributed infrastructure mitigates the risks associated with centralized systems, such as single points of failure. This decentralized resilience makes it particularly valuable for maintaining archives in regions vulnerable to political instability or natural disasters, as data is distributed across a global network rather than concentrated in a single location. Filecoin's open market model also fosters competitive pricing, making high-quality, secure storage more accessible to smaller organizations with limited budgets. Moreover, the platform emphasizes community-driven stewardship, empowering local groups to maintain control over their cultural heritage without relying on large, external corporations. This approach aligns with values such as equity, autonomy, and cultural preservation, which are central to the mission of organizations like the Cultural Memory Lab. What are some of the key milestones or outcomes you hope participants achieve during the four-month incubator? The Cultural Memory Lab emphasizes learning and exploration. Toward that end, one of the program's major milestones is completing Gray Area's DWeb for Creators course, an 8-week intensive that helps activists, archivists, and other culture workers apply the principles of decentralized technologies to their practice. This course, combined with the technical workshops, will support teams' efforts to prototype decentralized solutions for their digital archiving projects. The Cultural Memory Lab program emphasizes process over final output, so the presentation of the projects can come in the form of progress reports, interactive prototypes, or learnings from teams' experiments with the decentralized web. At the CML, we aim for participants to achieve several significant milestones. These include: Prototyping decentralized solutions for their digital archiving projects Developing a tailored digital preservation plan: Participants will design strategies that leverage decentralized storage solutions to safeguard their cultural assets. Integrating decentralized storage into workflows: By the end of the program, participants will have hands-on experience implementing platforms like Filecoin to store and share their archives securely. Empowering community ownership: Archives will understand how to set up and manage community-driven cultural memory. Sharing knowledge: Participants will contribute insights and best practices that can inform and inspire other cultural heritage organizations globally. A showcase event will enable participants to share their work with peer organizations. What insights do you hope the broader field of digital archiving and cultural memory will gain from the work of the Cultural Memory Lab? The Cultural Memory Lab aims to provide the broader field of digital archiving with actionable insights into the potential of decentralized technologies. First, the CML's work will demonstrate how community-controlled infrastructure can enhance resilience and sovereignty over cultural assets. Second, our in-person DWeb Node workshops will highlight the importance of integrating regional leaders and support networks among cultural heritage organizations to foster collaboration and provide technical assistance. Additionally, the Lab's emphasis on responsible and ethical technology implementation will offer a model for integrating new technologies in ways that center community agency and minimize harm. By addressing the unique needs of historically marginalized communities, the Lab hopes to inspire more inclusive and culturally informed practices in digital archiving and cultural preservation. Ultimately, these insights aim to advance the field by creating tools and systems that prioritize agency, equity, accessibility, and long-term sustainability. We see this work as part of a broader movement to reimagine technology infrastructure for civil society. We invite you to join us in exploring key questions like these: What governance models best support community control? What regional support networks and collaborative models will best serve small cultural heritage organizations exploring DWeb tools? How do we ensure our technical support and microgrants create lasting value for community-based archives? This is complex work that requires ongoing dialogue between communities, Makers, funders, and cultural heritage practitioners. We're grateful to be learning alongside so many dedicated partners as we work toward more equitable and sustainable approaches to cultural preservation. Stay tuned to learn more about our inaugural cohort!

Welcoming the Decentralized Web  Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web (FFDW) is the sister nonprofit of Filecoin Foundation. FFDW is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to preserving humanity's most important information and supporting the development and adoption of decentralized technologies. While Filecoin Foundation stewards the Filecoin network's future, FFDW promotes the broader development of the decentralized web (DWeb).   FFDW's work includes supporting open source software and protocols that safeguard critical data from centralized control and single points of failure. FFDW also empowers institutions to preserve vulnerable information by leveraging the resilience of decentralized storage.  FFDW's work in 2024 showcases the benefits of decentralized technology at a moment of growing interest in and adoption of the decentralized web.   Some of FFDW's work in 2024:  500,000+ cultural artifacts preserved on the Filecoin network  5,000+ DWeb Community members educated on decentralized technology In this report, you'll see the progress achieved by FFDW and our exceptional roster of project partners over the last year.  FFDW's Impact Areas  FFDW's efforts span the critical areas listed below. Each of these domains is vital in its own right, and FFDW's breadth of work reflects its commitment to driving meaningful change not just in one industry but across the expanse of the web.   DWeb Research and Development: FFDW supports initiatives that advance decentralized technologies. Education: FFDW champions initiatives that increase education and understanding of blockchain, cryptocurrency, and other decentralized technologies. Human Rights: Records of the fight for human rights can be some of the most vulnerable data in the world –– susceptible to tampering or total disappearance on unsecured platforms. FFDW's work with human rights organizations is dedicated to safeguarding this critical data.  Cultural Preservation: The world's digital artifacts are fragile –– many at risk of disappearing forever. FFDW's work in the area of cultural preservation aims to preserve and safeguard humanity's digital cultural heritage for the long term.  Government Datasets and Policy: FFDW educates policymakers about the promise of decentralized technologies and works to preserve government data using decentralized technologies like the Filecoin network.  Science and Environment: Scientific research produces large amounts of data, but there are limited systems in place to preserve this information publicly and for the long term. FFDW is working with universities and other scientific institutions to preserve scientific data by leveraging the reliability of decentralized storage. Impact Areas   DWeb Research and Development Distributed Press Distributed Press is a free and open source tool for publishing text and other multimedia works to the DWeb. Distributed Press creates beginner-friendly, open source publishing tools that offer creators an alternative to centralized publishing platforms. With FFDW's support, Distributed Press has built out a user-friendly, DWeb-native, no-code publishing platform that is both scalable and easy to adopt. The project automates the publishing and hosting of content using decentralized protocols like IPFS and Hypercore through the Sutty content management system. It also adds social features to websites by integrating with the Fediverse using ActivityPub. In 2024, over 100 websites used this platform to host content on the DWeb.  Library Innovation Lab at Harvard Law School As a specialized lab within the Harvard Law School, the Library Innovation Lab (LIL) explores new ways for libraries to share knowledge through technology. FFDW's support of the Democratizing Open Knowledge program is focused on enhancing discovery and engagement with open data and exploring new ways to preserve digital information.  In 2024, LIL facilitated the development and launch of the Institutional Data Initiative, aimed at improving data resources for AI training. Additionally, they published insightful pieces addressing key considerations for preserving assets for more than 100 years. They continue to spearhead efforts to revolutionize web archiving through tools such as Scoop and perma.cc, a service to prevent link rot by archiving a copy of the digital source and preserving it in perpetuity through a network of libraries and institutional partners.  Rust Foundation FFDW is a member of the Rust Foundation, an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to stewarding the Rust programming language, nurturing the Rust ecosystem, and supporting the global set of maintainers governing and developing the open source project. Spritely Decentralized storage focuses not just on storing data but also on enabling methods to authorize access to and process information without relying on centralized brokers or gatekeepers. Spritely is a nonprofit innovating in areas ranging from decentralized identity and social networks to encrypted and portable storage.  Two of Spritely's core projects are Spritely Goblins and OCapN, the Object Capability Network. Spritely Goblins is a library and toolkit to make secure, distributed programming the default. Since its initial release, the team has shipped implementations across two programming languages: Racket and Guile. OCapN is the powerful protocol behind Spritely's distributed objecting programming. OCapN is a standard that will let decentralized services link together securely and share processes, identities, and data. This ambitious, multi-year project will permit the DWeb to interconnect and share resources in a way that centralized tools cannot.  Web Foundation The Web Foundation advanced Sir Tim Berners-Lee's original vision for an open web that is safe, trusted, and empowering for all its users. FFDW's award helped Web Foundation to assess the current state of the web and determine how to use its voice to advocate for a better, re-decentralized future for the web.  Education  Center for Law Tech and Social Good The Center for Law Tech and Social Good (CLTSG) at the University of San Francisco's School of Law seeks to equip the legal, government, and policy communities with the knowledge and frameworks to grasp the challenges and opportunities of emerging technology. As part of this mission, the Center conducts government trainings –– diving into decentralization and demystifying encryption, blockchain, cryptocurrency, DAOs, and more. Examples of government agencies that have received these trainings include the National Association of Attorneys General, Executive Staff of the California Department of Motor Vehicles, the Federal Public Defender, and California legislative aides. In February, the Center partnered with FFDW to host a Social Impact Summit, bringing technologists, policymakers, lawyers, and changemakers together to explore how emerging and decentralized technologies can build a better web. Additionally, CLTSG launched the FFDW International Affiliated Scholars (IAS) Program to bridge global academic communities pursuing research at the nexus of blockchain technology and the law. The inaugural cohort includes blockchain leaders from Denmark, Rwanda, Brazil, and Ecuador exploring how emerging technology might solve issues relevant to their communities. An FFDW Teaching Fellow helped bring emerging technology into the classroom with a "DeFi and the Law" course offered in Fall 2024. Gray Area Gray Area is a San Francisco-based nonprofit counterculture hub with a mission to cultivate, sustain, and amplify a community of creative practitioners at the intersection of culture and technology. Gray Area and FFDW worked together to develop the DWeb for Creators course to help creators incorporate DWeb technology into their work. As part of this collaboration, Gray Area has brought together a team of internationally recognized artists, technologists, and museum professionals to design an open source curriculum to empower anyone with free access to use, modify, adapt, and distribute the content. Also in 2024, Gray Area's annual festival programming heavily featured DWeb creative practitioners as speakers. The event closed with an education panel where the curriculum creators explored why decentralization should matter for artists, makers, and GLAM institutions.  TechSoup TechSoup equips changemakers worldwide with access to solutions and strategies, skills development, and peer-to-peer community support that help them better use technology to make their organizations more flexible and resilient to the challenges of our world today. TechSoup launched Accelerating Makers, a DWeb education program designed to help early career civil society makers explore and develop potential use cases for decentralized technologies, then build and integrate decentralized applications into the civil society tech stack. Insights from this program inspired the launch of the Cultural Memory Lab, a learning incubator to empower libraries, museums, community archives, and other cultural organizations to put their learnings on decentralized technology and storage into practice. Human Rights  Freedom of the Press Foundation FFDW's work with the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) supports infrastructure, user experience, and security enhancements for decentralized tools used by journalists around the globe. This collaboration has led to the design of a novel, zero-trust architecture for SecureDrop, an open source news and information submission system used by newsrooms worldwide for secure document exchange and communication between journalists and anonymous sources. FFDW's work with FPF also furthers FPF's efforts to preserve historically critical information, such as its comprehensive database of press freedom violations in the United States and government data that belongs in the public sphere.  Guardian Project Guardian Project is a global collective of software developers, designers, advocates, activists, and trainers who develop open source, mobile security software and operating system enhancements. Their free software is built from the ground up to support the DWeb.  Guardian Project has integrated decentralized storage into its suite of privacy-focused, open source mobile applications and software libraries, including ProofMode and F-Droid. The FFDW collaboration aims to expand access to these technologies for human rights defenders, journalists, and activists as part of the Guardian Project's ongoing commitment to empowering individuals against human rights abuses. Guardian Project's ProofMode app uses decentralized technologies to authenticate and verify "eyewitness" content through cryptographic signatures and metadata. In 2024, its adoption expanded with ProofCorps, a global network of creators documenting verified content. Guardian Project made its free, verifiable camera app for Android and iOS, along with web-based ProofCheck verification tools, available to aid organizations and citizens in securely documenting the 2024 U.S. election. Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) HRDAG has been turning raw human rights data into usable findings for nearly 30 years. The collaboration between FFDW and HRDAG focuses on outreach to and research with human rights organizations across the globe to explore how and when storing and accessing data on the DWeb may benefit their work. HRDAG is using the Filecoin network and IPFS to store multiple critical human rights datasets. In 2024, HRDAG uploaded to Filecoin and IPFS the largest dataset in the history of the human rights movement to ensure the data's resilient preservation. HRDAG partnered with the Colombian Truth Commission and amnesty courts in Colombia to bring this information about Colombia's 50-year conflict to light.  OpenArchive OpenArchive is a nonprofit committed to protecting our histories to advance human rights. Co-created by and for archivists and human rights defenders, they develop privacy-first, decentralized, easy-to-use archiving tools and resources to advance justice and accountability. Their flagship app, Save helps people securely archive, verify, and encrypt their evidentiary mobile media. Through the collaboration with FFDW, OpenArchive is implementing decentralized backends into the Save app to enhance verification, redundancy, and provenance of the media. This will enable people to preserve their media with decentralized storage via their mobile devices. Additionally, OpenArchive's Decentralized Archivist Community Program –– which includes seven international communities –– jointly supports, stewards, and leverages archiving, research, and decentralization to ensure their documentation is safe and accessible for the long term. Starling Lab Starling Lab is using Filecoin and other DWeb protocols to capture, store, and verify sensitive digital records, like evidence of war crimes and genocide survivor testimony. In 2024, the Lab hosted the "Trusting Digital Content in the Age of AI" conference, coinciding with the opening of the "To Trust or Not To Trust" exhibit at Stanford University's Green Library. This museum-style exhibit explores the evolution of digital authenticity and preservation, showcasing everything from 9th-century cryptography to 20th-century storage devices and cutting-edge Web3 projects. The Lab wrapped up the first edition of its "Designing for Authenticity" class at Stanford, which was expanded to an even larger offering the following academic year. Additionally, Starling collaborated with Numbers Protocol to develop authentication approaches, tested by photojournalists during the Taiwan election. Ushahidi Ushahidi's mission is to help people everywhere easily gather data and generate insights that help tackle the issues that matter most to them. Since its founding in 2008 as a tool to monitor and map post-election violence in Kenya, Ushahidi's open source crowdsourcing tools have been used by millions of people and thousands of groups to raise voices, inform decisions, stop suffering, and influence change. Recognizing the deep value of maintaining historical records of election-related data, FFDW collaborated with Ushahidi on the Election Data Resilience Initiative to use the Filecoin network's distributed storage to provide a resilient and verifiable repository of historical election data.  WITNESS WITNESS is an international nonprofit organization that helps people use video and technology to protect and defend human rights. With the rapid evolution of generative AI and synthetic media, FFDW and WITNESS are working together to secure the next generation of trustworthy human rights information by creating, preserving, and protecting human rights documentation and other public interest information. As part of this work, WITNESS is exploring how the DWeb can assist the work of activists, civic journalists, and smartphone witnesses who go to great lengths to capture human rights evidence. WITNESS creates and shares tried-and-tested guidance and resources in a free library for anyone anywhere using video for human rights.  Cultural Preservation  Artizen Artizen's mission is to unlock human creativity by reinventing how society funds art, science, technology, and design. Artizen leads a program that facilitates participatory funding of projects selected by its diverse community. With Artizen, FFDW co-funds the "Filecoin Fund for Cultural Preservation," a match fund that supports projects using decentralized storage technologies, including Filecoin, to archive, preserve, and disseminate cultural works.   Digital Public Library of America The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) amplifies the value of libraries and cultural organizations as Americans' most trusted sources of shared knowledge. It does this by collaborating with partners to accelerate innovative tools and ideas that equip libraries to make information more accessible. With FFDW's support, DPLA is uploading a dataset of 2.25 million archival government records with visual historical material to the Filecoin network. DPLA is also convening conversations with its partners about the impact of decentralized technology on the preservation of digital media. Flickr Foundation FFDW provided funding to launch a new cultural organization, Flickr Foundation, to develop and sustain a social and technical infrastructure to steward the invaluable Flickr collection for future generations. The nonprofit is striving to ensure this treasure remains available for people to contribute to, learn from, and enjoy for the next 100 years. In 2025, the team will launch an alpha of its Data Lifeboat concept, exploring how decentralized methodology can underpin such an enormous system.  MIT Open Learning MIT Open Learning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is transforming teaching and learning through the innovative use of digital technologies. MIT Open Learning makes educational resources and courses available to learners around the globe. With FFDW's support, Open Learning is exploring how decentralized technology can bolster its programs, including MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW). A core component of FFDW's work with Open Learning is exploring avenues to utilize IPFS and the Filecoin network to store and distribute OCW content. This could enable broader access to OCW's 2,500+ MIT courses that have reached more than 500 million people worldwide since the program launched in 2002.   MuckRock MuckRock is a vital resource for public records requests on the local, state, and federal level; a collaborative news site; and a long-term store for the data behind the news, backed up on IPFS and Filecoin. MuckRock integrated IPFS and Filecoin into DocumentCloud, a platform hosting over 5.5 million verified documents. To date, over 500,000 files –– including key documents from newsrooms, nonprofits, and researchers –– have been uploaded to the Filecoin network through this collaboration.  Over the course of its collaboration with FFDW, MuckRock has conducted three rounds of Gateway Grants to assist over a dozen global projects to analyze, preserve, and increase access to critical documents by leveraging decentralized storage technology. This initiative has helped newsrooms, researchers, and community groups upload and analyze a record number of materials, ranging from tracking governmental spending to FEMA housing reports.  Prelinger Archives The Prelinger Archives is digitizing and preserving a vast collection of archival 8mm, 16mm, and 35mm film footage to further its mission to make rare and one-of-a-kind films, especially films by and about members of underrepresented communities, accessible to the public.  Prelinger Archives has scanned nearly 5 million feet and over 3,000 hours of film. Prelinger Archives' collaboration with FFDW explores methods for uploading and accessing motion picture datasets to Filecoin at scale. The project currently uploads roughly one terabyte of new motion picture data to Filecoin every day.    Rohingya Project Rohingya Project champions stateless Rohingya, using blockchain-based technologies to equip them with a virtual community that can encourage collaboration and entrepreneurship. FFDW's collaboration with Rohingya Project supports digitization and archiving efforts to preserve the collective identity of the Rohingya –– safeguarding cultural artifacts for education, research, community building, and advocacy purposes –– along with the use of decentralized technologies such as Filecoin to advance the project's mission. Rohingya Project is also training Rohingya youth on decentralized archival methods. Shift Collective Shift Collective is a non-profit consulting and design group that helps organizations better engage, collaborate with, and reflect their local communities. FFDW's support enables Shift to explore decentralized storage solutions for Historypin.org and map the ethical and material digital storage needs of community-based archives. This includes work to build a pilot storage network in collaboration with institutional and community archive partners. The goal is to design a prototype for community-centered, affordable, and accessible long-term, decentralized storage that is also ethical, autonomous, and sustainable.  Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution is the world's largest museum, education, and research complex. The Smithsonian seeks to shape the future by preserving heritage, discovering new knowledge, and sharing resources with the world. The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History is working with FFDW to upload nearly 300 digitized sound recordings from Alexander Graham Bell to IPFS and Filecoin. Famous for patenting the first practical telephone in 1876, Bell also pioneered recorded sound. Experimental recordings from his Volta Laboratory in Washington, D.C., dating from 1881 to 1889, are some of the earliest recordings ever made. The surviving collection of about 300 records was considered unplayable until new technologies in the 21st century made it possible to hear them. TRANSFER Data Trust TRANSFER Data Trust is a decentralized, artist-owned archive and cooperative value exchange network for time-based media art. FFDW's collaboration with TRANSFER brings 10 years of new media and virtual artworks across five studios onto the Filecoin network. The Data Trust is a proof-of-concept prototype of open culture infrastructure for galleries, libraries, archives, and museums. Government Datasets and Policy  Authors Alliance Authors Alliance seeks to advance the interests of authors who want to serve the public good by sharing their creations broadly. The Alliance creates resources to help authors understand and enjoy their rights while championing policies that make knowledge and culture available and discoverable. FFDW backs the Alliance in its work to address restrictions on preservation and access to knowledge, especially concerning limitations on new technological use cases.   Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping build and sustain a thriving commons of shared knowledge and culture online. As part of its work, CC helps overcome legal obstacles to knowledge sharing and creativity to address the world's most pressing challenges. FFDW promotes CC's work through financial aid, technical advising, and communications amplification.   Democracy's Library The Internet Archive is a nonprofit digital library that has archived the web for decades and preserves other cultural artifacts in digital form. Democracy's Library is an Internet Archive initiative to preserve government research and publications from around the world. Since 2022, FFDW has supported the Democracy's Library project, which has also received funding from Filecoin Foundation.  As the Democracy's Library collection grows, the initiative is focusing on the preservation and accessibility of U.S. and Canadian government documents, including uploading collections to the Filecoin network. In addition, the project is exploring how it can empower countries that are currently under-resourced for public digital record keeping.    Fight for the Future Fight for the Future (FFtF) is an activist group focused on digital rights. Through its collaboration with FFDW, FFtF advocates for human rights-centered technology regulations and frameworks to promote data privacy, the right to code, and the preservation and distribution of knowledge and culture. Additionally, the project organizes privacy-preserving financial and data systems in new constituencies.  Foundation for American Innovation Foundation for American Innovation's (FAI) mission is to develop technology, talent, and ideas that champion a better, freer, and more abundant future. FFDW works with FAI to inform and educate American policymakers and leaders on the benefits and values of open, decentralized technologies. The project seeks to bridge the divide between the tech and policy communities through coalition building, educational outreach, translational research, and both in-person and online events.   Institute for Education The Institute for Education (IFE) is a nonprofit organization committed to helping the global community through the powers of data, innovation, and soft diplomacy. FFDW backs IFE in its partnerships with diplomats, entrepreneurs, technologists, journalists, and leaders across the political and technology spectrums to promote better understandings of next-generation technologies, like blockchain and distributed storage. IFE also works to educate students of all backgrounds in computer science through its CS@SC coding camp. Basic CS skills are integral to ensuring that every child has equal access to future opportunities. Public Knowledge Public Knowledge is a nonprofit shaping policy to promote freedom of expression, an open internet, and access to technology to benefit the public. FFDW supported the 2024 Emerging Tech Conference that convened industry leaders, policymakers, innovators, researchers, and technologists to exchange ideas and learn about cutting-edge technology, including the DWeb.  TechCongress TechCongress is an organization that provides one-year fellowships to bridge the informational gap between technologists and policymakers in Congress by placing technologists on Capitol Hill to serve as Congressional technology advisors. Funding from FFDW has supported fellowship participation, with technologists placed in offices including Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY); Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR); the Senate Finance Committee; the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee; and elsewhere. Science and Environment  Earth Species Project Earth Species Project (ESP) is a nonprofit dedicated to using artificial intelligence to decode non-human communication. ESP is building open-access machine learning tools to assist researchers as they endeavor to make meaning of their data. FFDW supports ESP's core work, including its explorations in using distributed storage technologies to redundantly store researchers' datasets.   The EASIER Data Initiative The EASIER Data Initiative at the University of Maryland leverages decentralized storage technologies, including Filecoin and IPFS, to transform data access and computation in the geospatial field.  In 2024, the EASIER Data Initiative expanded its work on the Web3 Geospatial Dashboard, which lets users click on Landsat scenes and see key Filecoin and IPFS metadata. They published compelling new decentralized geospatial use cases for crop classification data and GEDI tutorials and hosted a workshop bringing together over 30 experts to explore the intersection of geospatial sciences, open science best practices, and the decentralized web. The EASIER Data Initiative also continues to steward the world's first Decentralized Geospatial Web Working Group (dGWWG), a community of individuals passionate about decentralized applications for geospatial data. Building the DWeb Community  2024 Social Impact Summit The Social Impact Summit, hosted by FFDW and the University of San Francisco School of Law's Center for Law Tech and Social Good, gathered leaders to explore how emerging and decentralized technologies may enhance trust in the digital age. The day-long event featured discussions on various applications of blockchain and DWeb technologies, including document preservation through platforms like DocumentCloud, community-driven internet infrastructure, safe communication tools like SecureDrop, and applications for humanitarian aid distribution. Talks throughout the day highlighted how decentralized technologies are being used to address global challenges in financial inclusion, human rights documentation, and digital equity. The Summit emphasized the importance of thoughtful technology deployment that prioritizes community needs; regulatory frameworks that encourage innovation; and the critical role of decentralization in creating a more transparent, resilient, and equitable digital future. Looking Forward  We invite you to join us as FFDW continues to work toward broader DWeb adoption and development. Whether by engaging with our ongoing projects or staying informed about our efforts, the community's involvement is crucial to building a robust and decentralized web. Together, we can shape a more interconnected and empowered digital future.

As the Internet continues to evolve, so does the need for more open, transparent, and decentralized technologies that ensure long-term access to knowledge and safeguard individual privacy. Fight For the Future (FFtF) has been a key advocate in advancing these ideals, working to protect digital rights and promote a web that empowers users.  Now, through a collaboration with Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web (FFDW), FFtF is expanding its efforts to build creative solutions that fight to preserve knowledge and protect human rights with the power of decentralized technologies. Together, FFDW and FFtF aim to mitigate the power imbalances that enable centralized technologies to thrive  –– advancing the fight for digital freedom and an equitable, open web. FFtF recently wrapped up a call for short stories to reshape narratives around centralized surveillance technologies. They invited writers to challenge the portrayal of surveillance as a tool for public good and safety, offering a platform to reimagine how technology and the power to control it can support human rights and justice.  In this Q&A, we sit down with Lia Holland, campaigns and communications director at Fight for the Future, to explore the significance of this collaboration, their vision for a decentralized web, and how storytelling can help change the future of technology. Can you tell us about the mission behind FFtF and how it aligns with the goals of the decentralized web (DWeb)? FFtF is a queer women- and artist-led organization that’s working for a rights-affirming tech future. I like to think of myself as a bit of an Internet mean girl, packing an outsized punch when technology –– and the policies that govern it –– erode our human rights. We do this through legislative campaigns, corporate accountability campaigns, and thought leadership on the intersection of emerging tech with the experiences of queer, Black and brown, low-income, artistic, and other traditionally under-respected communities here in the U.S.\ Through this work, it’s become clear that big tech’s priorities are often in conflict with building technology systems that protect individual rights. That’s why we’re so jazzed about technologies that the DWeb community is working on.  Many of the best conversations about the future of technology are happening in the DWeb space, making it a privilege to defend against bad tech policies. We’ve spent the past couple of years pushing back against attacks on the right to privacy, the right to code, and the right to contribute to open source tech projects. Can you share a little more about FFtF's advocacy work?  FFtF is at the forefront of digital rights advocacy, actively working to combat harmful legislation that threatens privacy and the right to code. In 2021, we launched the #DontKillCrypto campaign in response to misguided cryptocurrency provisions in the 2021 U.S. infrastructure bill. FFtF mobilized massive public opposition, generating over 40,000 calls and thousands of emails to lawmakers, and in response, Senators Wyden and Lummis introduced a bill to override the worst of these provisions, with additional support from a coalition in the House. FFtF continues to advocate for these legislative fixes, emphasizing that truly private and decentralized cryptocurrencies may be a crucial stepping stone toward a future where power is decentralized, and we can choose collectively to prioritize human rights and community-driven solutions.  What role do decentralized technologies play in protecting privacy and freedom of expression online? Decentralized technologies are increasingly vital in protecting privacy and freedom of expression online. These technologies distribute control and ownership across multiple users rather than centralizing them within a single authority, making it harder for governments or corporations to infringe on individual privacy. It’s quite exciting to me that decentralized tools can be used to defend the principles of freedom of expression and access to knowledge, liberties that are crucial in empowering people and communities worldwide. By protecting these rights, decentralized technologies are clear tools for carving our path toward a resilient digital ecosystem where people maintain control over their personal data and choices, free from undue surveillance or censorship.  FFtF has been a champion for privacy, coordinating a coalition of more than 40 privacy-focused organizations to call for legislative actions that safeguard privacy, decentralize power, and promote privacy technologies, stressing that privacy is a core human right that must be upheld for democracy to thrive. As we move forward, defending these tools and their developers is essential to fostering a secure, democratic, and liberatory digital future for all. You just ran a call for short stories aimed at addressing the harm caused by centralized surveillance technologies. Can you tell us more about this initiative and its significance? One of the most valuable tools we have as human rights activists is storytelling. For many people, the harms and threats of technology don’t become real until you’re able to point to a real scenario that pulls at their heartstrings. This is true when it comes to encouraging everyday people to call their representatives about an Internet bill, all the way up to how President Biden changed his approach to AI after seeing Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning.  To wield this power, FFtF and many of our allies strategically hone our storytelling skills to support communication on crucial issues. We’ve gotten quite good at it.  But one of the challenges that we’re up against is stories that uncritically normalize technologies, like facial recognition, that put more power in the hands of centralized organizations. The reality is that many emerging technologies –– from AI to facial recognition –– also introduce complex challenges. They often reinforce existing inequalities and consolidate control among few players, raising important questions about accountability, civil and human rights, and who truly benefits from technological advancement.  These stories explore new perspectives when it comes to writing about centralized surveillance technologies. The first step is gathering short stories from authors who are already doing the work and telling stories that further human rights narratives around tech.  How will this project incorporate decentralized technologies, including IPFS and Filecoin?  From these stories, we’ll create an accessible, decentralized toolkit for writers and readers that will be published in COMPOST, a DWeb native magazine that leverages the Interplanetary File System (IPFS) to empower authors and amplify free expression worldwide. Any storyteller will be able to tap into this toolkit to explore how they might craft narratives that challenge common assumptions and more closely reflect our lived experience. As storytellers, we should invest collectively in making room for a more rights-affirming future that encourages privacy, choice, and many voices.  What advice would you give to creators or activists who want to contribute to the fight for a more just and decentralized web through storytelling or technology? Imagine alternatives. Point to alternatives. Celebrate alternatives and try to get them implemented in your own communities and lives. Even a small shift of living our digital lives a different way by using just one open source, privacy-preserving, or decentralized technology can teach us a lot about what the future could look like and reduce stigma around everything from Signal to privacy coins. Normalization is a double-edged sword that my organization constantly confronts when dealing with residential surveillance networks and similar technologies. This experience has taught us the power of intentionally discussing and using the kinds of technology we want to see in our future. No matter how we feel about the state of tech today, we need to be asking — what tools can we have in the future that aren’t about concentrating power, but about building healthier, more resilient technology? And what gets us there?

In a world where decentralized technologies enable new avenues for preserving cultural heritage and identity, Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web (FFDW) is proud to announce a collaboration with Rohingya Project. With FFDW’s support, Rohingya Project will digitally preserve an array of cultural heritage documents that capture the essence of the Rohingya people – including audio recordings, photographs, videos, and written materials – to safeguard the cultural heritage of the Rohingya community.  “For decades, Rohingya have endured genocide and forced displacements from their ancestral lands. There are nearly three million Rohingya living as stateless persons, meaning they don’t have access to basic elements of identity or true representation,” said Muhammad Noor, Managing Director, Rohingya Project. “Rohingya Project is a grassroots, humanitarian initiative to leverage emerging technology to offer stateless Rohingya people both identity and opportunity. This includes archiving Rohingya heritage with a digital collection of memories and stories – safeguarding Rohingya’s collective identity.” The collaboration with FFDW aims not only to preserve but also to expand access to the rich culture of the Rohingya people, leveraging decentralized data storage solutions including the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) and the Filecoin network. Over upcoming months, Rohingya Project will work closely with FFDW to undertake a series of projects designed to safeguard the cultural heritage of the Rohingya community, ensuring these invaluable resources remain accessible to the dispersed Rohingya population and global community for future generations. Projects will include:  Field Training: One of the first steps in this collaboration is to train Rohingya field officers in archival techniques and equipment and best practices for metadata collection. This training will empower local community members to actively participate in the preservation of their own culture, making the process both inclusive and sustainable. Data Collection: Over the course of the project, a diverse range of cultural heritage materials will be collected and digitized. These include photographs, traditional music recordings, and other artifacts that are integral to the Rohingya identity. The goal is to gather at least 400 heritage items, all meticulously documented and maintained in digital format. Promotion and Accessibility: Once digitized, these cultural materials will be curated into thematic collections and made available on the Internet Archive platform. This will  make these materials accessible to a global audience, further raising awareness of the Rohingya culture and the challenges faced by their community. Open-Source Feedback: As part of the collaboration, the project will also test and refine open-source software tools for cultural preservation. While the current scope is focused on testing, the insights gathered will lay the groundwork for future development of these tools, which could benefit other communities facing similar challenges. “We are honored to support the preservation of the Rohingya people’s cultural heritage through decentralized storage solutions. The Internet Archive’s commitment to making knowledge freely accessible aligns perfectly with the goals of this initiative,” said Mark Graham, Director, Wayback Machine, Internet Archive. “By ensuring that these vital cultural assets are preserved and accessible on a global scale, we are reinforcing the importance of safeguarding marginalized communities' histories for future generations. This collaboration is a testament to how the decentralized web can empower communities to maintain their identity and legacy.” By utilizing decentralized data storage and retrieval networks, the project enhances the resilience and permanence of Rohingya cultural archives. This approach mitigates the risk of data loss or single points-of-failure, ensuring that the Rohingya cultural heritage remains secure and accessible, even in the face of geopolitical challenges.  The collaboration between FFDW and Rohingya Project represents a powerful alliance between technology and cultural preservation. By working together, these organizations are taking meaningful steps to ensure that the Rohingya people’s cultural heritage is protected, accessible, and celebrated by future generations. This partnership is not just about the past – it's about empowering the future of the Rohingya community. Our mission is to permanently preserve humanity’s most important information. We are proud to support Rohingya Project’s work to preserve critical human rights data using the decentralized web. —Marta Belcher, board chair of the Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web For more information on how you can support this initiative, visit Rohingya Project’s website and support its Artizen fund project, Preserving Heritage: The Rohingya Digital Legacy Initiative.

We often hear the phrase “the internet is forever,” but recent events have underscored just how fragile our digital world can be. With incidents like the sudden disappearance of MTV News, wiping decades of cultural media, we’re constantly reminded that online content can vanish in an instant.   In this fragile digital landscape, organizations like Prelinger Archives are working to preserve our cultural heritage. Today, Prelinger Archives holds a vast collection of archival film, showcasing culture and industry of the 20th century through amateur and industrial films, home movies, and more.  In 2022, Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web (FFDW) began working with Prelinger Archives to digitize a vast collection of archival film footage and make these materials broadly accessible through the Internet Archive and the decentralized web. From collections of activism and propaganda films across the 1960s and 1970s to films documenting the lead-up to today’s climate crisis and chronicling the history of technology, Prelinger Archives is curating vital historical materials and ensuring their long-term preservation on the Filecoin network.  Read on for a Q&A with Rick and Megan Prelinger, co-directors of Prelinger Archives, as we explore the organization’s contributions to archiving and disseminating cultural works in an age of digital fragility. What motivated you to work with FFDW to digitize and preserve the Prelinger Archives collection? Our film archives hold unique and irreplaceable footage containing evidence of everyday life, culture, labor, leisure, and activism across the Americas and around the world in the 20th century. Even under the best conditions, born-analog media materials may not endure much more than a century. We believe that infinitely duplicable digital storage in a decentralized environment is the best strategy for ensuring that the 21st and 22nd centuries, and beyond, can benefit from knowing the history of the 20th century. Unlike most other moving image archives, we collect film with the intention of sharing it. Stepping up our collaboration with FFDW has enabled us to scan and share archival film on a much broader scale than has ever been possible before. Can you explain the challenges you face with traditional archival methods and how decentralized solutions, like Filecoin and IPFS, address these issues? Traditional archival methods are rooted in institutional enclosure, typically lacking a noncommercial model for access even for interested people today –– much less a century from now and beyond. Traditional archival methods are also oriented to the preservation of born-analog material. While this is very important, each analog original is unique and ultimately vulnerable to the forces of either time or catastrophe. Digitization of analog originals is essential to the long-term preservation of the evidence contained in those materials and expanding access to them, and decentralized storage is a useful intervention into the problem of any one storage facility being vulnerable to failure. It also offers insurance against single points of failure; immutability of the original digital object; and distributed content and metadata. What potential do you see for decentralized web technologies to revolutionize the field of archival science more broadly? In the first quarter of the 21st century, archival materials are subject to cancellation by political actors and vulnerable to being caught in politics of enclosure. In addition, organizations that rely on commercial cloud providers for the storage of records that exist in the public interest are placing the public interest at risk from corporate fallibilities and decision-making processes. In any of these contexts, unique originals –– both analog and digital –– are single points of potential loss of historical memory if they are compromised. Decentralized web technologies have the capability to serve as a global memory repository that is a healthy layer of technology removed from the externalities that affect the viability of both analog materials and existing storage environments. What role does Prelinger Archives play in educating other archivists and institutions about the benefits of decentralized web technologies? Our project with FFDW is recognized in the field of moving image archives as a well-regarded example of mass digitization at scale. We have presented about the project at professional symposia such as "Stewarding Indigenous Knowledge Through Ethics, Law, and the Archive" in Mexico City, presented by the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA); at “Century of 16” at the University of Illinois, recognizing the centenary of the 16mm film format; and annually at the Association of Moving Image Archives (AMIA) annual conference.  The project has hosted two Pathways internships through the AMIA, and in 2024 the Pathways intern attended DWeb Camp and learned more about decentralized technology to benefit the archival field. We regularly hear questions and comments from archives expressing interest in learning about decentralized storage. In addition, the status of a fully funded workshop afforded by the partnership with FFDW has made possible the development of many partnerships with small, regional, and special interest archival collections, including community and tribal collections, that are now being digitized. As word has spread about these partnerships, interest only grows. Looking ahead, what are your hopes and plans for the future of Prelinger Archives in the context of the decentralized web? We are deeply thrilled and gratified to have this opportunity to begin preserving so many essential moving images and the evidence they hold in decentralized web storage. This partnership has created a new standard for the efficiency, scope, and reach of mass digitization projects. Looking ahead, we want to workshop how decentralized storage of these archives can continue to be resilient and accessible after our collaboration winds down. As we commence year three of our collaboration, we are seeing our efforts to build partnerships with community and government agencies gain momentum. We’re finding that a bounty of unique and vulnerable materials are becoming available for digitization and long-term decentralized storage, and we hope to continue preserving and making these materials accessible for the public benefit and use by all.

This is a guest post from FFDW project partner, Authors Alliance, written by Dave Hansen, Authors Alliance Executive Director.  Authors Alliance launched in 2014. We were founded with the support of creators –– like Jonathan Lethem, Katie Hafner, Cory Doctorow and Kevin Kelly –– who understood the role that technology can play for authors, enabling new research and forms of creative expression and ensuring long-term access to their own intellectual legacy. Ever since, we've been advising and informing creators of their rights in a fast-changing digital world, as well as defending those principles in court. This year, Authors Alliance is celebrating 10 years of advancing the interest of authors who want to serve the public good by sharing their creations –– playing a crucial role in helping authors understand the nexus of creativity and technology. On the cusp of the 10th anniversary of Authors Alliance, we're excited to collaborate with Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web (FFDW) on how the decentralized web and protocols like Filecoin can support the preservation of copyrighted works.  One particular challenge we focus on at Authors Alliance is text and data mining (TDM), which involves extracting information and deriving patterns from datasets. TDM research holds incredible promise for yielding new insights into human creativity and language, allowing research to identify hidden patterns across massive corpora –– from computer code to scientific articles. Authors Alliance and many of its founding members played an important role as amici (outside expert "friends of the court") in establishing the transformative nature of these uses before the courts in Authors Guild v. Google and Authors Guild v. HathiTrust.  Both cases significantly influenced how copyrighted digital content can be used under the fair use doctrine, especially for crucial educational and research purposes like indexing, search, accessibility, and preservation. These precedents shaped the landscape of digital copyright law, encouraging the proliferation of digital libraries and other scholarly resources. Those precedents also support a wide variety of other new, non-expressive technological uses such as data ingestion for AI and machine learning, where the decentralized web and protocols like Filecoin can play a key role. We, at Authors Alliance, want to expand those exemptions in the upcoming Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) triennial rulemaking so collections of written text created by one researcher can be shared with others.  The expansion of licenses that restrict fair use is another major challenge that we're aiming to tackle at Authors Alliance. As an increasingly concentrated group of distributors control access to the vast majority of creative works online, their terms of service place contractual limits on many downstream fair uses. The practical effect is that humanity's most important information –– millions of books, movies, songs –– are locked up by contracts that limit productive uses that the law and policy behind fair use would allow. Beyond TDM, these licenses pose an incredible challenge to another fair use: preservation and access through the decentralized web. They also threaten to usurp fair use in a wide variety of other crucial contexts, like web scraping or use of content as training data for generative AI. We want to address this challenge by exposing the scale of the problem and advocating for legal strategies to overcome it.   To learn more about Authors Alliance and how our work intersects with the decentralized web, join us for Authors Alliance's 10th anniversary event, "Authorship in an Age of Monopolies and Moral Panics" on May 17, 2024 in-person at the Internet Archive in San Francisco. Marta Belcher, President and Chair of FFDW, will moderate a panel on 'Technology, the Law, and Authorship' exploring how technology and the law can advance the work of authors. Register here to attend. About Authors Alliance Founded in 2014, Authors Alliance is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that advocates for the interests of authors who want to serve the public good by sharing their creations broadly. Our vision and voice are unique among organizations participating in debates about copyright, free expression, fair use, and other public policy issues affecting authors. While several non-profit organizations represent the interests of libraries and of the public at large, Authors Alliance is the only non-profit, membership-based organization that brings a progressive author's perspective to bear on issues of information policy. We provide an alternative to the protectionist positions of entertainment and big media lobbyists that represent only a limited perspective on the interests of authors.

Imagine a scenario where a local government is looking to support a community garden but lacks resources, so motivated gardeners plant seeds and cultivate the garden because they recognize this public good is needed. The community comes together to fund and support a shared resource, and everyone benefits. This is an example of public goods funding. Last month, leaders from across Web2, Web3, research, and philanthropy came together at Funding the Commons, an event in Berkeley, California, to seek solutions for funding public goods, including Open Source Software (OSS) development. The event featured several Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web (FFDW) project partners, who shared their visions for the path forward for public goods and OSS funding in domains from human rights to visual art. The decentralized web (DWeb) has been advanced largely from open source and public contributions, but the infrastructure to fund the work of such contributors has lagged behind the pace of innovation; this challenge is magnified for particularly under-resourced fields that serve the public good, such as software for human rights defenders. Early Builders of the Internet Pursue Public Goods Solutions for the DWeb Brian Behlendorf, Chief AI Strategist at the Linux Foundation and an FFDW board member, delivered a keynote on the structure of the Linux Foundation –– a steward and funder of some of the most widely-used OSS on the Internet. Drawing on his expertise as a long-term builder of the open web, Behlendorf talked about the importance of preserving trust as a reliable, behind-the-scenes facilitator of OSS development, expressing that "trust and persistence make projects that last decades." Resilient tech does not sprout from piecing together one-time grants or altruism, Behlendorf added, but from connecting with the intrinsic motivations of stakeholders building and consuming public goods. FFDW Senior Fellow Danny O'Brien picked up these threads by facilitating two workshops: "Public Goods Profit Sharing in Tech" and "Internet Standards as Public Goods." The first dove into how tech organizations could support the commons that supports them –– open source dependencies, volunteer contributors, and basic shared infrastructure. The breakouts drew much of their inspiration from similar experiments in the world of ecology and climate change, from the theories of Elinor Ostrom to practical regenerative projects in Africa and beyond. O'Brien led the second workshop on a voyage through the ancient history of web standards-making, highlighting just how revolutionary Internet pioneers like Dave Clark were when it came to forging shared, net-wide agreements: "We reject: kings, presidents, and voting. We believe in: rough consensus and running code," Clark wrote in 1992. O'Brien's group deliberated over what to reject –– and what to believe –– when trying to apply the standards process to the explosion of open source protocols and communities now spreading through the decentralized web. Deliberately Designing Tools for Good Natalie Cadranel, founder and executive director of OpenArchive, shared her philosophy for building human rights-centered tech that serves people, not centralized powers. Drawing on her years of research experience, she dove deep into the usability and privacy challenges faced by activists performing critical, on-the-ground work to document and archive evidence of human rights abuses. She outlined OpenArchive's culture of researching and iteratively designing tools alongside the activist communities they aim to serve. This methodology informed the design of the Save app, a mobile application that authenticates and safeguards media uploaded by human rights defenders using decentralized backends. Preaching a thoughtful approach to toolmaking that infuses harm reduction for vulnerable users from the beginning, Cadranel cautioned against a culture that builds tech that breaks: "We do not move fast and break things. We deliberately move slowly and learn things. We take the time to put things back together." Touching on the challenges of obtaining funding for public goods and OSS for human rights use cases, Cadranel took a few moments to recognize her positive experience working with FFDW. "Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web's] funding model is the most effective I have been lucky enough to explore," praised Cadranel. "They really center on organizations instead of red tape." Bridging Technology and the Arts [Gray Area Executive and Artistic Director Barry Threw sat down with TRANSFER Founder Kelani Nichole to discuss building a cultural infrastructure that connects artists with technology for fruitful and sustainable creation. In recognition of a long-time convergence between art and technology, Threw said of Gray Area's outlook, "We treat technology innovation and art as part of the same practice because they, historically, \have] been." Coupling artistic thinking with technology creates new forms of expression that interface with audiences and deepen perspectives on how innovation impacts our world. Pursuing this interplay between art and tech calls for public infrastructure that fosters experimentation in the arts –– infrastructure currently lacking, as Threw cited a [limited endowment for the arts in the United States. Threw shared his appreciation for how decentralized tools have the power to augment artists' impacts on society through new methods of creation and display, but also to transform the models of how we share and view art through technologies like cryptocurrency and the metaverse. In an apt response to Threw's directive for updated infrastructure, Nichole gave an overview of the TRANSFER data trust structure, an organizational framework leveraging decentralized technologies to steward artist-owned data –– from the studio to the audience experience. This model employs decentralized tech for a novel way of archiving artists' data, including proofs of appraisal, in a community-run trust cooperative. Here's how it works: Creators use the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) to seed backups of archives and the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) to resiliently store data in the shared trust. Once the data is stored securely in the trust, TRANSFER allows for a range of ways to experience the art as a public good, like in a decentralized catalog. Attendees of the conference were able to interact with a uniquely participatory exhibition at Gray Area using the TRANSFER Download installation format. Offering Gray Area's own answer, Threw plugged the ongoing DWeb for Creators course, supported by FFDW and joined by Nichole as an instructor. The course empowers artists with the tools and skills to incorporate decentralized technologies into all stages of the creative process –– from creation to curation to publishing. Look out for an open-source version of the curriculum available later this year. FFDW's mission is to serve the public good by supporting the entire decentralized web community. To learn more about our work cultivating the open web alongside project partners in impact areas like cultural preservation, human rights, science and environment, and government data, read our 2023 Annual Report.

This is a guest post from FFDW project partner Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG), written by Patrick Ball, HRDAG’s Director of Research.  From documenting human rights abuses to promoting accountability and justice, data serves as the backbone of truth in our collective memory.  At the core of HRDAG’s work are the datasets it gathers, tidies, and uses for estimation and analysis. The data includes evidence of homicides, disappearances, kidnappings, recruitment of child soldiers, and forced displacement. These are some of the most traumatic events that could happen to anyone, and proof of these events is crucial –– so that societies remember the suffering of the past in order not to repeat it in the future. By remembering, we help to validate the experiences of the survivors, enable social recovery, and provide evidence with which to hold the perpetrators accountable. It is therefore essential to preserve and protect this information. Records of the fight for human rights can be some of the most vulnerable data in the world –– susceptible to tampering or total disappearance on unsecured platforms. We began working with Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web (FFDW) in 2021 to explore how decentralized technologies can support efforts to safeguard this critical data and promote accountability for human rights abuse.  One way to remember – and safeguard – the data is to replicate it outside of the traditional web, on services that promise resilience to data loss, whether through centralization or single points of failure. Exploring Decentralized Storage Solutions  With FFDW’s support, HRDAG has been experimenting with new mechanisms for data storage, including IPFS and the Filecoin network.  IPFS, which stands for the InterPlanetary File System, is a decentralized content storage system that makes content available via Content Identifiers (CIDs), rather than traditional location-based URLs (like https links). These CIDs are unique cryptographic hashes of the content being stored. This means when data is requested using a CID, it returns an unforged, unmodified, exact copy of the data that was uploaded –– as long as someone, somewhere in the world is hosting a copy of that data.  Filecoin combines IPFS with economic incentives –– to provide certainty that data is being stored. With cryptographic proofs, Filecoin ensures storage providers continue storing and serving the data. And because there is redundancy in who is storing and sharing the data, if one node goes down, the data is still accessible. By design, decentralized storage ensures redundancy and resilience, in contrast to the vulnerability of data on centralized servers.  HRDAG’s Approach and Insights   Decentralized storage is a new approach to data longevity –– for the Internet broadly and for HRDAG.  Some of the information our team at HRDAG has uploaded to IPFS and Filecoin is part of a massive dataset about the 50-year conflict in Colombia. This data was used by Colombia’s truth commission and by the courts granting amnesties to some of the guerrilla and military leaders from the civil war. Because the dataset is an open resource, data scientists, researchers, civil society groups, and others are invited to explore the data to see what else can be learned. The nature of the data that HRDAG stewards, such as the truth commission data, raises novel questions as we explore how to best leverage decentralized technology to store and share important human rights work How should we provide data on the web? With the usual approach, we put a link to the data files on a page to allow access, and that’s it. On the decentralized web, how to best share stored data is still under discussion. How do you link to data stored on IPFS on a web page? How do you point people to data on IPFS and help them to understand what they’ve found when they locate it? Unlike https links, CID links are not as widely accessible and require an IPFS node or gateway.  HRDAG’s experiment with decentralized storage began 18 months ago when we put a few older datasets onto IPFS, including data from the Colombian Truth Commission. We made the files available on the decentralized web (DWeb) via IPFS, as well as with the usual https web links.  At its core, IPFS is as its name implies: a file system. One of the easiest and fastest ways to put data onto the network is to just upload files and directories from your laptop. So we created a script that downloaded the datasets from the HRDAG website, put them into a directory, and put that directory onto IPFS with CID links. There’s nothing fancy about this method, and it may not be the best way to organize a long-term archive. But when time is of the essence, as it often is during human rights crises, this can be an effective way to ensure critical data is remembered rather than forgotten.  How to host the data? IPFS works by having people host data for you, which introduces the question – who should host our data? One advantage of content-addressing is that it doesn’t matter. Unlike with centralized storage, the provider can’t edit or modify the original files without changing the CID, and as long as the data is hosted by somebody, it will be available, which is where the Filecoin network comes in.  HRDAG uploaded the Colombian data to two Filecoin storage services to ensure greater distribution and redundancy. The upload process was easy: our first uploads were manually done with an early Filecoin web service called Estuary. When Estuary was decommissioned, we switched easily to another service and the unix command line interface w3cli for our work. There are other options provided by other organizations built on top of Filecoin, but the end result is the same: data stored on a decentralized network, accessible through the same CID. We found the process mostly smooth, although in some cases, larger files required us to have a very good internet connection or the upload would fail. Each of these Filecoin-based services typically partners with different storage providers, meaning data will get replicated to a more diverse set of nodes in different locations. Of note, this diversity can also cause confusion – sometimes data is packaged slightly differently, resulting in different CIDs for what is the same data.  The data is accessible through the Filecoin network, leveraging IPFS's decentralized storage capabilities. This access point is provided through a web gateway operated by web3.storage, our chosen platform for data uploads. For enhanced accessibility and redundancy, additional public web gateways are available through providers like Cloudflare and other services. While IPFS is not a single point of failure, the web gateway is a single point of failure – if that link breaks, the data would still be on IPFS but you wouldn’t be able to find it using that specific link. You’d need to pull out the CID and then feed it either to another gateway or connect directly to IPFS by using a client program or a browser that supports it, like Brave or Agregore. Ultimately, our datasets are backed up on Filecoin, which uses cryptocurrency to incentivize long-term storage of the data, but there’s nothing to stop others from providing other stores as a voluntary service. Another question is how you would go looking for this data without the HRDAG website pointing to it. There is very early work in IPFS search and creating a more interconnected IPFS world –– just as the original Web is interconnected. InterPlanetary Linked Data (IPLD) is an ongoing project to create data structures for interconnected data. We didn’t turn our ancient grungy CSV files into an IPLD structure but that would be an option – and perhaps a more natively DWeb approach.  Exactly how to best structure and store long-term archives of critical data on the Filecoin network is still an open question, one that our colleagues at the Internet Archive and Starling Lab are exploring, and we’re continuing to discover how the benefits of decentralized storage can better safeguard the human rights data that we curate.  What did we learn? Well, most people are not using those IPFS links yet, but that’s okay — not many people download our datasets anyway. This method still serves as a backup for data in a way that differs from centralized servers, offering redundancy in how the data is stored. Ironically, we hope that there will be little need in the future to use or reuse evidence of human rights abuses. However, it’s crucial that this evidence remains accessible so we never forget and continue to learn from humanity's gravest mistakes.

This month, the Social Impact Summit 2024, co-hosted by Blockchain Law for Social Good Center (BL4SG) and Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web (FFDW), brought together changemakers to explore how emerging technologies can influence trust in the web. Through a series of thoughtful discussions, the Summit illustrated that these technologies are not merely theoretical concepts but are actively fostering a more connected, empowered, and resilient world.  The Summit was also a moment to promote collaboration across the DWeb and FFDW communities. Trust was a central theme that emerged through the Summit, highlighting the need to reassess how to establish credibility online amidst an evolving digital landscape shaped by AI, deepfakes, and other technologies. The event was a chance for the community to explore integrating trust into the fabric of emerging technologies and enhancing the reliability of digital content –– and an opportunity to establish a foundation for collaborative efforts to reimagine trust in the digital age.  Read on to learn more about the sessions and themes that emerged from the inaugural Social Impact Summit 2024.  The Importance of Decentralization in a Centralized World The Summit opened with a keynote from Rainey Reitman, Board President at Freedom of the Press Foundation. Through three real-world stories, she captured the essence of decentralization as a beacon of transparency, community empowerment, and protection of freedom. Rainey first shared about the creation of DocumentCloud, a platform for analyzing and sharing source documents used by journalists all over the world. To ensure the archive would stay indefinitely available to the public, FFDW teamed up with MuckRock to create new functionality in DocumentCloud. Now, any journalist who uploads to DocumentCloud can also send a copy to the Filecoin network, a decentralized data storage system designed to be resilient against problems that plague centralized models, like single points of failure and linkrot.  I rest easier knowing there is a decentralized data storage system that will enable the long-term preservation of vital documents. Her narrative continued to a story about a small Oregon community and its residents’ struggle with reliable internet service without public infrastructure. Residents leveraged a decentralized project called Althea to provide community-driven internet in the absence of major Internet Service Providers (ISPs). For Rainey, this highlighted another key aspect of decentralized technologies –– anyone can become a key contributor to the network. The best decentralizing projects create more human experiences of technologies, so people can actually contribute. Lastly, Rainey transitioned to a story about James Risen and SecureDrop. Risen was an award-winning journalist, who faced a legal battle to protect his sources. Through invasive surveillance, his source was ultimately identified and convicted. Freedom of the Press Foundation developed SecureDrop to create a better way for sources to contact and communicate with journalists without disclosing their identities, highlighting yet another critical feature of decentralization – apps or software that can operate outside of centralized control.  Rainey’s compelling illustrations of how decentralized technologies improve lives set the tone for a day of exploring the promise of the DWeb. Watch Rainey’s full keynote here.  Global Outlook on Blockchain and Tech Innovation  Head of Global Social Impact Programs at FFDW, Hunter Treseder, led a discussion around blockchain’s global potential to drive transformation. Featuring members of BL4SG’s first cohort of the FFDW International Affiliated Scholars program, the panel explored the merits of digital currencies from different geographical and socio-economic perspectives.  David Adepoju, a prominent mind in African tech policy, dove into how many African populations are rapidly embracing cryptocurrencies to circumvent unpredictable inflation, work around banking inefficiencies, and foster economic activities. David emphasized that in Africa, crypto is a valuable tool for daily transactions and supporting local business economies where traditional banking falls short. Alexandra Andhov, an Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen, spoke to European governments’ motivations for adopting digital currencies, including enhancing existing digital infrastructures and exploring unified digital currencies.  These diverse perspectives underscored the challenge of redesigning financial institutions' infrastructure in a way that benefits everyone. Blockchain’s Role in Global Equity Sam Gregory, Executive Director of WITNESS, led a panel on how blockchain and decentralized web technologies can foster global equity. The panel brought together Enrique Crespo Peñaherrera from the United Nations Development Program, Alex Esenler from Open Archive, and Candace Kelly from Stellar Development Foundation, who all shared insights on integrating emerging tech into various sectors to address critical issues ranging from financial inclusion to human rights documentation. Enrique discussed the UNDP's efforts to harness digitalization to cultivate development across Latin America and the Caribbean, spotlighting the importance of inclusive digitalization to prevent people from being left behind. Candace highlighted Stellar's mission to provide equitable access to the global financial system by showcasing a project with the UN High Commission for Refugees that utilized blockchain to safely and efficiently distribute humanitarian aid. Alex from Open Archive shared their focus on secure, decentralized archiving for human rights media, ensuring that communities and smaller organizations can safeguard and verify their digital content.  The conversation centered on the crucial theme of co-designing technology with the communities it aims to serve. In contrast to Big Tech’s approach of “move fast and break things,” the panelist emphasized the need to move slowly and thoroughly understand any implications before deploying new technologies.  Finding Balance between Law and Innovation The panel, moderated by Nik De of CoinDesk, dove into the pressing issue of how existing laws often fall short of addressing current needs. Johnette Jauron of the CA Department of Justice and Debroah McCrimmon from Ripple both discussed the enforcement and legal challenges arising from a lack of regulatory clarity in the digital asset space. Travis Moore of TechCongress called attention to the importance of integrating technological expertise into the legislative process to address the evolving landscape. And Kat Walsh from Creative Commons, spoke on the parallels between blockchain and open-source software, stressing the need for legal systems to adapt to new models of content distribution and ownership. The conversation highlighted the need for regulatory frameworks that accommodate emerging technologies, and the panelists advocated for proactive, inclusive legislation that is forward-looking, rather than reactive –– merely responding to past incidents. The discussion emphasized the significance of involving both lawmakers and the public to better understand blockchain's benefits beyond finance, suggesting that personal stories and practical uses could help connect complex technology with effective legislation. A Fireside Chat with Marta Belcher Marta Belcher, President and Chair of FFDW, was initially drawn to cryptocurrency for its capacity to bring civil liberties protections like financial privacy into the online realm. In her fireside chat with Evîn Cheikosman, she emphasized the importance of decentralized technologies that do not concentrate power within the hands of a few corporations, thus fostering a more inclusive and equitable digital future. Marta introduced the audience to the world’s largest decentralized file storage network, Filecoin, and the broader mission of Filecoin Foundation and its sister organization FFDW –– to leverage decentralized web technologies to preserve humanity’s most important information and bring trust and transparency to an increasingly AI-driven world. She envisions decentralized storage and compute as underpinning the next generation of the internet, offering an alternative path to Big Tech and enhancing users’ control over their data.  Innovations in Tech Integrity Brittan Heller, a professor at Stanford University specializing in international law, human rights, and tech policy, led an engaging panel on the gravity of building trust and integrating integrity within the tech stack. The discussion brought together experts from diverse initiatives, each sharing their unique approach to embedding authenticity and provenance into current technologies –– all aimed at creating a web that is both trustworthy and robust.  Nathan Freitas discussed the Guardian Project's focus on verifiable audio-visual evidence and decentralized distribution, emphasizing the project's efforts to ensure the integrity and longevity of digital content. Nikil Raghuveera explained Atheos's decentralized policy engine, which aims to embed policies which enhance transparency and accountability within blockchain smart contracts. And Brewster Kahle spoke about the Internet Archive's mission to decentralize digital information, ensuring broad accessibility and preservation.  The panel underscored decentralization’s pivotal role in advancing a digital environment that users can trust.  Bridging the Digital Divide  To close the day, Crypto Council for Innovation CEO Sheila Warren delivered the closing keynote, sharing insights on the current state of technology, policy, and social change. In a fireside chat with Evîn, she highlighted her work to bridge the digital divide, shape inclusive policies, and foster community engagement in technology –– all through a lens that protects civil liberties and social justice.  She also covered how decentralized web technologies could transform power dynamics into more inclusive and equitable systems and stressed the boundless potential for community, collaboration, and dedication to drive significant change. She urged attendees to remain involved, patient, and active in using technology for social good –– advocating for a balanced approach to innovation that equally values progress and well-being. Thank you to all those who joined the Social Impact Summit 2024 in person and on the livestream. The Social Impact Summit underscored the critical need for open dialogues and partnerships across different sectors to ensure that the development of new technologies is aligned with social impact values, and we look forward to continuing our work to support the development of decentralized technology.  Check out the full playlist on our YouTube channel or read more about decentralization in the DWeb Digest.