This piece appeared in Just Security.
Middleware, third-party software that serves as an intermediary between users and platforms, offers a potentially promising solution to counter the concentrated power of centralized social media platform governance. Middleware, in this context, refers to open, third-party products and services that are composable—meaning they allow multiple providers to be mixed and matched for specific use cases, allowing users agency over the overall user experience. One example of this was the app BlockParty, which let users nuke trolls from their feeds on X by configuring settings in BlockParty’s easy-to-use interface. Although middleware may serve as a user agent for many purposes, scholars who study the impact of concentrated platform power on democracy and society have speculated about middleware’s potential benefits for increasing user agency over content curation and moderation specifically. In giving users more agency over the content that they see—or the content they wish to avoid–middleware might encourage a more pluralistic and democratic digital ecosystem.
For the still-nascent middleware market to flourish, however, incentives must be aligned, regulatory barriers addressed, and platform cooperation encouraged. Here, we outline key steps necessary to cultivate a viable middleware market, balancing innovation with user protection and regulatory clarity. The insights presented here are derived from a paper we co-authored for the December 2024 Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy and Foundation for American Innovation whitepaper, titled “Shaping the Future of Social Media with Middleware.”
Paths to Middleware Adoption
A few short years ago discussions of social media middleware policy focused largely on how to compel large platforms to cooperate. But lately, recent technological trends and user adoption of protocol-based social media communities (such as Bluesky or the Fediverse, which use open technical standards – or protocols – that allow different apps to connect and share content across a common network) suggest that middleware adoption now has the potential to follow one of two paths: via integration within centralized platforms or via the expansion of decentralized, federated networks.
