Balaji Srinivasan’s Network School has begun its reign over the decentralized social platform Farcaster. Its first order of business? An apparent wave of bans that has prompted backlash from members of the decentralized social network.
Network School on Thursday announced it has acquired Farcaster from Neynar, rebranding it as the Network State Protocol. The same day, several users said on X that their Farcaster accounts had been restricted to “read-only,” as a result of previous posts that broke its new rules.
“I know most of these folks. They shaped Farcaster with their quirks and wit,” said Kunal Gandhi, former India ecosystem lead at Eigen Labs. “Obliterating accounts from the get-go for past posts is pretty silly. Goes against the ethos of decentralized social.”
The overhaul is the latest attempt to find a sustainable direction for Farcaster, which is changing hands for the second time this year. Co-founder Dan Romero said the platform had 250,000 monthly active users in December 2025.
Balaji wants the ‘Singapore of social media’
In a post to Farcaster on Thursday, Srinivasan said the bans were part of plans to turn the reference app into “the Singapore of social media,” a positive-sum community of techno-optimists that operate under a shared code of conduct.
One of the first steps was to institute “law and order,” he said. “In the pre-Internet world, it was simply unheard of to run up to a stranger and start cursing at them. We’re restoring that offline norm online.”
“Much like how President Bukele jailed a small fraction of repeat offenders to essentially eliminate crime in El Salvador, we’ve moderated out the small fraction of repeat offenders that have been muted or blocked by many accounts to stop random attacks within this Farcaster reference client.”
Srinivasan said both humans and AI were used to go through millions of posts to determine those to ban, adding there is an appeals process in place for them.
Rewarding “pro-social behavior”
Under Network School’s vision for Network State Protocol, users opt into a “social smart contract” authorizing its core team to set the app’s rules. Its accompanying “Network Code” classifies violations as digital felonies, misdemeanors or infractions, with penalties ranging from warnings and suspensions to bans. The rules apply to past posts as well as new ones.
The code also promises rewards for constructive behavior, including teaching others, sharing projects and disagreeing civilly, although it does not specify what those rewards entail.
Related: Farcaster to return $180M to investors following Neynar takeover
Network School says an open-weight AI model will apply the rules, with some manual judgment calls, and eventually wants to warn users of potential violations before they post.
The underlying Farcaster protocol will remain open, according to the announcement. Users who decline the contract will have read-only access to the main app but retain their keys, funds, followers and post history, allowing them to move to another client. Srinivasan described this ability to join, leave or build competing clients as “decentralized democracy.”
The eventual ambition extends beyond social media. Network School said its goal is for the online community to take physical form through meetups and pop-up events, ultimately developing into startup cities and network states.
Network School’s acquisition of Farcaster comes months after Malaysian authorities revoked its Forest City business licence and ordered it to cease operations, citing alleged licensing and premises-use violations. Srinivasan subsequently announced an agreement to establish a campus in Kazakhstan.
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