Block Party Newsletter

Back in February 2020, when Block Party first launched, we announced that our goal was to bring a safer online experience to everyone. While a lot has changed in the two years since then, that mission has only become more urgent and essential. Although the sheer size of the challenge can be daunting, we still firmly believe that solutions are possible and that we’re making progress. (In fact, we’ve made enough progress to have raised a seed round - scroll straight to the end for the details.)

We’re more convinced than ever that the path to meaningful change lies in letting users have more direct control over their own online experiences. It’s time for not just Block Party, but a whole ecosystem, to tackle this area. 

Block Party is what Daphne Keller of Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center refers to as “ middleware”. We sit between the social media platform and its users, allowing users to curate their experience more actively than the platforms allow out of the box. 

Unlike other platforms with thriving third-party ecosystems that help to provide users with greater choice and more functionality — think browser extensions on Chrome — there’s little available for social media consumers today. So what needs to change?

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