The Beyond Platforms Initiative aims to renegotiate the rules for media consumption on the Internet. The aim is to build up alternative access and establish a media infrastructure of its own. This is the only way to ensure that social networks and platforms become a commodity in the long term and thus break their position of power. This is not about imitating large social media networks. Instead, we want to work on a media system and therefore on media services that are based on standards, interoperability and decentralization. The most important thing in this context is that it is first and foremost about infrastructure, structures and the technology. We need to ensure the distribution of media in the digital sphere in order to bring competition back to the content level.  

The Beyond Platforms initiative is (still) a network of people looking for a better digital ecosystem for media. The loose exchange and many conversations led to the realization that, on the one hand, the topic is connectable and many people in the media industry are concerned with it and, on the other hand, it takes not only words but also results. Thus, a network emerged from the common interest, which has been supported by the City of Hamburg, the Hamburg Kreativ Gesellschaft and nextMedia.Hamburg since mid-2021.