Two initiatives to create a extra open net, the place customers are in command of their very own digital identities and information, could also be coming collectively. At SXSW 2025, entrepreneur Frank McCourt, whose Challenge Liberty is creating open web infrastructure (and is throwing its hat within the ring as a possible purchaser for TikTok), introduced that his group has been in discussions with web pioneer Tim Berners-Lee about an integration with Stable, his open supply challenge aimed at giving individuals management over their very own information.
In a panel at SXSW, McCourt shared that his group had “talked to Tim Berners-Lee about Stable,” including that “Challenge Liberty is appropriate with Stable.”
Although he didn’t announce an official partnership, McCourt recommended that discussions had been underway on a future collaboration.
“We’re debating, or speaking, proper now about tips on how to incorporate that — him and Stable, his Stable Pods — into the challenge,” McCourt teased.
Berners-Lee, often called the father of the World Vast Net, introduced in 2018 he had been working with a small group on the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise to develop Stable. He had additionally tapped British engineer John Bruce to go up Inrupt, a startup constructed on high of the open supply challenge.
Inrupt has gone on to launch a privateness platform aimed toward enterprises, the place individuals management their information in on-line storage entities referred to as Private On-line Information Shops, or Pods for brief.
With related missions in thoughts, Berners-Lee has been supportive of Challenge Liberty’s efforts. He even backed its TikTok bid, saying: “This challenge has my assist. The net I invented was to offer energy and worth to people, which they don’t have in the meanwhile.”
Nonetheless, there has not been a proper collaboration between Stable and Inrupt and Challenge Liberty, the latter of which is targeted on the event of Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP).
That protocol at the moment is being adopted by a handful of apps and different tasks, together with MeWe; Soar.com (based by Ancestry.com’s Paul Allen to construct apps by a studio mannequin); and the permissionless blockchain Frequency (developed by Challenge Liberty Labs).
Challenge Liberty additionally just lately introduced a partnership with Free Our Feeds, an effort targeted on defending the AT Protocol, which powers Bluesky’s social community.
