“AI Is Eating the Internet. Can Protocols Save What’s Left?”,- Sebastian Vogelsang, Eurosky Social

Fri, Jan 2, 2026, 12:00 AM

Sebastian Vogelsang is a Berlin-based developer and consultant, founder of Flashes.blu and co-creator of Eurosky Social, an initiative to provide European ATProto infrastructure that complies with DSA/GDPR and offers shared moderation and hosting for new apps. He explains how Eurosky was born from the need for affordable, commons-style moderation and safe hosting, especially as political pressure and jurisdiction risks increase. Sebastian talks about why protocol-based social like Bluesky/ATProto matters for Europe’s “digital sovereignty,” how authentic, organic communities on Bluesky differ from X/Twitter, and why he believes privacy should stay with dedicated tools like Signal rather than “do-everything” platforms. Timecodes 00:00 – Intro & Background: Who Sebastian is, 20 years in IT, building ATProto clients, creating Flashes.blu. 01:20 – Eurosky Social Origin: Why he created European ATProto infrastructure, moderation limits, lexicon problems, ephemerality, and the need for a commons-based moderation/hosting solution compliant with GDPR/DSA. 03:45 – Moderation & Jurisdictions: How Bluesky handles country-specific content restrictions, alternative clients, and why shared moderation teams are essential for EU-aligned apps. 05:20 – Adoption & Digital Sovereignty: Why people leave Big Tech platforms, the appeal of protocols, Europe’s “digital sovereignty” movement, and how ATProto solves cold-start problems by sharing its entire user base. 07:30 – Advice for Builders: Join the dev community, build small utilities, collaborative culture, and how newcomers get uplifted by Bluesky’s ecosystem. 08:45 – User Growth & Authenticity: How to gain followers on Bluesky, genuine engagement, scientists moving from X, and early-Twitter vibes returning. 10:30 – What Makes Bluesky Different: More organic discussions, customizable feeds and why it provides a safer, more diverse social environment than X/Twitter. 12:00 – Privacy Perspective: Bluesky as a public network, why private data belongs on Signal, the problem of platforms trying to “do everything,” and the value of separation between social and encrypted communication. 13:45 – The Future of the Internet: His fear of AI killing the open web, disappearing links, LLMs replacing search with unverifiable output, biases in training data, and the AI-wrapper bubble. 16:40 – Cypherpunk & Digital Rights: First impressions of the movement, democratic access to data, broader human-rights framing, and building Eurosky as rights-oriented infrastructure. 18:00 – Nonprofit Challenges: Funding difficulties, AI sucking up resources, hope in European digital sovereignty for future support. 19:30 – Final Moments: What Bluesky would be as an animal (blue butterfly), closing thoughts & outro. ... This conversation is part of Privacy Academy Interviews – a peer-to-peer knowledge project exploring the most important ideas in Web3, privacy, and digital freedom. Learn more: https://academy.web3privacy.info/p/interviews A W3PN Media House production. Directed by Federico Marchi https://x.com/BabyBitProd Interview by Peter Farbey https://x.com/0xfarbey Let privacy be with you!