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Balaji’s ‘Singapore of social media’ begins with a wave of bans
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Network School, founded by Balaji Srinivasan, acquired Farcaster from Neynar on Thursday and rebranded it Network State Protocol. The same day, several users said their Farcaster accounts were restricted to read-only over past posts that broke new rules. The move marks the second ownership change for Farcaster this year.
Farcaster is a decentralized social platform co-founded by Dan Romero. Romero said in December 2025 it had 250,000 monthly active users. Network School's takeover aims to create a sustainable direction for the platform. It follows a previous $180 million investor return after Neynar's takeover.
Srinivasan described the bans as "law and order" for a "Singapore of social media." He compared the moderation to El Salvador President Nayib Bukele's crackdown on repeat offenders. He said humans and AI reviewed millions of posts to identify repeat offenders. An appeals process exists.
Under the new vision, users opt into a "social smart contract" authorizing a core team to set rules. The "Network Code" classifies violations as digital felonies, misdemeanors, or infractions. Penalties range from warnings and suspensions to bans, applying to past and new posts. Rewards are promised for constructive behavior.
An open-weight AI model will apply the rules with some manual judgment, and eventually warn users before posting. The underlying Farcaster protocol remains open. Users who decline the contract keep keys, funds, followers, and post history, but get read-only access to the main app. Srinivasan called this ability to join, leave, or build competing clients "decentralized democracy."
The backlash was immediate. Kunal Gandhi, former India ecosystem lead at Eigen Labs, said he knew many banned users and criticized erasing accounts for past posts. He argued it goes against the ethos of decentralized social. Network School's ambitions extend beyond social media, aiming for meetups, pop-up events, and eventually startup cities and network states. The acquisition follows Malaysian authorities revoking its Forest City business licence and ordering it to cease operations; Srinivasan later announced a Kazakhstan campus agreement.
