TLDR
- Balaji Srinivasan’s Network School acquired Farcaster from Neynar and renamed it the Network State Protocol.
- Several users said their accounts went read-only on the same day because of older posts that broke the new rules.
- Users must accept a “social smart contract” or keep only read-only access, while holding on to their keys, funds and followers.
- AI will help enforce the rules, and users will gradually have to prove they are human.
- Financial terms were not released, and Neynar’s future plans for Clanker are unclear.
Network School announced on Thursday that it has acquired Farcaster from Neynar. The decentralized social platform will now be called the Network State Protocol.
NEW: NETWORK SCHOOL IS ACQUIRING @farcaster_xyz pic.twitter.com/PVLx9q3bgR
— DEGEN NEWS (@DegenerateNews) October 15, 2026
Neynar took over Farcaster from its original developer, Merkle Manufactory, in January. That means the platform is changing hands for the second time this year. Financial terms have not been released.
Neynar co-founder Rish said the company is transferring the Farcaster app, protocol repositories and related products. He said Farcaster needs a different operating model for its next stage.
Rish and co-founder Manan will move on. Other Neynar employees will join Network School to keep building Farcaster.
New Rules and a Wave of Bans
Users are now asked to accept or decline a “social smart contract.” Those who accept receive an access NFT that confirms their choice onchain.
The new owner of farcaster, @balajis, has banned me from their side of the fork.
Absolutely incredible work.
So anyway, we're doing the hard fork of farcaster and would love to hear name ideas for our non-cancerous side.
Spinning up an emergency group chat:… pic.twitter.com/lWyl3luwxr
— Cassie Heart (@cass_on_mars) October 16, 2026
The contract lets the core team set the app’s rules. A set of guidelines called the Network Code sorts violations into digital felonies, misdemeanors and infractions. Penalties range from warnings and suspensions to bans.
Digital felonies include hate speech, death threats, scams, repeatedly starting fights, stalking and passing off AI-generated content as your own. The rules also apply to posts made before the change.
On the same day, several users said on X that their accounts had been restricted to read-only. They said the cause was posts about Elon Musk, Flock cameras and “gay appreciation” that were at least three months old. The Block has not independently verified the bans.
One reportedly banned user was a former Farcaster engineer. Kunal Gandhi, a former India ecosystem lead at Eigen Labs, criticized the move. He said removing accounts over past posts goes against the ethos of decentralized social media.
Srinivasan Defends the Approach
In a post on Farcaster, Srinivasan said the bans are part of a plan to build “the Singapore of social media.” He described it as a community of techno-optimists who follow a shared code of conduct.
He compared the effort to President Bukele’s jailing of a small share of repeat offenders in El Salvador. Srinivasan said Network School moderated out a small group of repeat offenders who many accounts had already muted or blocked.
He said humans and AI reviewed millions of posts to decide who to ban. He added that an appeals process is available.
The code also promises rewards for helpful behavior, such as teaching others, sharing projects and disagreeing politely. It does not say what those rewards will be.
An open-weight AI model will apply the rules, with some manual judgment calls. Network School also wants to warn users about possible violations before they post, and the app plans to require users to verify they are human.
The underlying Farcaster protocol will stay open. Users who decline the contract keep their keys, funds, followers and post history, so they can move to another client. Farcaster co-founder Dan Romero said the platform had 250,000 monthly active users in December 2025.
Neynar’s January deal also included the token launchpad Clanker. Rish did not say what will happen to it. Hosts of the GM Farcaster stream said Rish was considering breaking Clanker apart and looking for a different buyer.
Network School’s goal goes beyond social media. It wants online groups to take physical form through meetups and pop-up events, and later grow into startup cities.
The deal follows a recent setback for the group. Malaysian authorities revoked its Forest City business licence and ordered it to stop operations, citing alleged licensing and premises-use violations. Srinivasan later announced an agreement to set up a campus in Kazakhstan.
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