Balaji’s Farcaster takeover sparks wave of account bans

Farcaster has introduced new moderation rules and restricted some user accounts following its October 15 acquisition by Balaji Srinivasan’s Network School, prompting complaints from members of the decentralized social network. Summary Network School acquired Farcaster from Neynar on October 15, introducing new rules for platform users. Several Farcaster users reported account restrictions linked to older posts after the ownership change Thursday. Balaji Srinivasan said humans and artificial intelligence reviewed millions of posts before restricting repeat offenders. Users rejecting the new social contract retain read access and can move to alternative clients. Farcaster’s new Network Code sets penalties for misconduct and includes an appeals process for affected users. Network School announced that it was taking over the platform from Neynar and introducing a new operating model called the Network State Protocol. The changes require users to accept a code of conduct to continue participating through Farcaster’s main application. Several users reported receiving notifications that their accounts had been switched to read-only mode over earlier posts. The restrictions drew criticism ...