They Gave Us a Rigged Web. We're Building Over It!

Meta-Layer SIG Update #1

Hey crew,

After 7 years of R&D on meta-layer infrastructure including the development of meta-layer prototypes and being published by Taylor & Francis, we’ve officially submitted our application to become an Internet Society SIG (Special Interest Group). That means: we’re legit applying to govern the interface layer of the internet—the space above the webpage where trust, presence, and civic code can actually run.

They won’t advertise it, but here’s the truth:

Boomers, GenX, and GenY built a web that spies on us, sells us out, and calls it normal.
It extracts our data, flattens our attention, and replaces truth with engagement metrics.

Now GenZ and GenAlpha - with a modicum of intergeneration support - are left to pick up the pieces, and rebuild, on that infrastructure. Sounds like lunacy...

We see the cracks. And we’re moving through them.

The Meta-Layer Infrastructure SIG is about interface-level freedom. It's about building the civic substrate over their extractive platforms. It’s where the real work begins.

The best time to start a meta-layer was 30 years ago. Back in 1993, Mosaic had native annotations. Netscape even beta-tested group annotations, but the project was crushed when Microsoft ran them out of the market. By 1995, annotations were stripped from browsers, and with them, the ability to layer knowledge on knowledge. Chapter 8 of The Metaweb lays it out.

The second best time is now.
Platforms as we know them - surveillance empires fueled by virality - only exist because the meta-layer was never allowed to evolve. It was obvious then. It’s undeniable now. And it’s urgent.

Let’s be real: most XYBoomers won’t help us win digital sovereignty.

Many will defend Big Tech to the end.

This doesn’t move without Gen Z.

And GenZ does not move without the Meta-Layer Infra SIG.

This is the moment.

Here’s our submission to become officially recognized as a SIG of the Internet Society: themetalayer.org/isoc-sig-application