Protocols and Purpose in a Global Democratic Crisis (EN) Christine Lemmer-Webber, The Spritely Institute Christine Lemmer-Webber, co-author of the ActivityPub specification, frames the work of decentralized networks within an emerging global democratic crisis. What can we do? What do current systems solve? What can our future technology build? (Includes discussion of the work occuring at the Spritely Institute.) Christine has devoted her life to advancing user freedom. Realizing that the federated social web was fractured by a variety of incompatible protocols, she co-authored and shepherded ActivityPub's standard­ization. She has also contributed to many other free and open source projects, including co-founding MediaGoblin.