Search results for tag #fediverse
![[?]](https://fed.interfree.ca/files/public-0344fa38-515c-41d6-8b00-3042416d32e5.webp)
Thought: if #open, #federated, and #distributed solutions were the most #accessible solutions, people with disabilities would be some of the biggest allies in pushing adoption. I already constantly have to get my friends, co-workers, etc, to switch tools for me. If we're working or playing together, the tool needs to be accessible if I'm involved. But unfortunately, that's almost never the case, and I find myself having to force my friends to switch away from open tools and into closed ones: And on and on it goes.
* Jitsi meet doesn't offer captions or transcripts, and still had an unlabeled button or two last I checked. So I usually have to force people working with me to switch to Zoom.
* github is still more accessible than Forgejo and codeberg, even with the recent regressions. So I won't contribute to projects that aren't on github.
* None of the existing Matrix clients offer good accessibility; they either lag, have unlabeled controls, the message list won't scroll, messages won't read as they come in, etc. So I have to force people onto Slack or Discord.
* Neither Only Office or Next Cloud offer a web interface that works for collaboration with screen readers, so I have to force people to use Google Docs.
* Linux accessibility remains a joke compared to Windows or mac.
![[?]](https://files.mastodon.social/accounts/avatars/109/714/028/472/236/238/original/d8df1f4064a33e43.png)
In the Fediverse track at SFSCon, Tobias Diekershoff spoke about:
Fediverse: Beyond text in the stream: An expedition into the Fediverse to discover uncharted services
![[?]](https://cdn.masto.host/socialgrowyourownservices/accounts/avatars/109/735/325/872/938/965/original/49b4235271e24d2c.png)
In case you missed it, I've reformatted the Fedi.Garden website so that it is as simple and easy as possible to sign up on a server that is well-run and reliable. If you know someone interested in the Fediverse, this might be a good way for them to sign up:
(Sorry to repeat this announcement, but last time I posted about it my hosting company decided to unexpectedly update its software and totally break the site 😖 Fedi.Garden is now working properly!)
Alt...
Screenshot of the Fedi.Garden website's front page menu showing some text and some buttons as options below that. Text on the page is as follows:
Mastodon (and the wider Fediverse it is part of) is a non-corporate social network owned and operated by ordinary people and grassroots community groups. Here are the basics:
To join Mastodon and the Fediverse, you need to sign up on a server.
Whichever server you sign up on, you can follow people from other servers and they can follow you.
If you change your mind later, you can move your account to a different server while keeping your follows and followers.
To get started, pick the option that suits you best:
- I want to sign up, please suggest a good server
- I want to choose from the full list of good servers
- I have questions I need answered before I sign up
- I’ve signed up for an account, what do I do next?
![[?]](https://cdn.masto.host/indiewebsocial/accounts/avatars/000/099/701/original/5a8fb50389d445ba.png)
Good news everyone! We hit our first milestone: maintenance is 100% funded. Thank you all ❤️
Next up: unlock the stretch goal to co‑design federated groups: community‑owned spaces to organise across the fediverse, with no server or platform lock‑in.
Read about why this matters and how it can empower communities: https://bonfirenetworks.org/posts/why-community-matters-groups-as-the-next-step-for-the-fediverse/
Support the campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bonfire/community?refcode=tBIbwXI4dU25KvW4HBM0hQ
![[?]](https://cdn.social.linux.pizza/system/accounts/avatars/112/927/662/249/095/507/original/fba52736c8053ef7.jpg)
🫂 It’s #FollowFriday! 🫂
Here are a few accounts you should check out:
@RandamuMaki
@SrRochardBunson
@hmm_cook
@syphilia
@BigTittyBimbo
@FruAleydis
@alipunk
@Lydie
@amici
Hope you have an amazing weekend ahead!
#Weekend #Friday #FollowerPower #Follow #Boost #Fediverse #Fedi
![[?]](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/accounts/avatars/115/667/719/085/514/328/original/4c024e50082ec3fd.png)
Hey everyone,
@casey and @aseelfromgz had the honour of speaking to two families from Gaza today and we’d like to welcome them to Gaza Verified.
They are:
• Aral Balkan (@aral)
• Aral Balkan (@aral)
Please give them a warm welcome to Mastodon and to the fediverse, follow their accounts, and donate to their fundraisers if you can (and please share this so others can do the same).
Also, remember that you can find all our families who have fundraisers listed at the following page, ordered by those who have received the least in donations over the last week (on a rolling basis):
https://gaza-verified.org/donate/
Thank you for making Mastodon and the fediverse a safe space for our friends in Gaza and for your support.
💕
#Gaza #Palestine #GazaVerified #Mastodon #fediverse #newMembers #verification
![[?]](https://josemurilo.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/cropped-ecodigital_logo.gif){kind=logo}
“Museus no Fediverso” – Apresentação do Ibram-Museus no 1º WebSocialBR
É uma satisfação participar deste evento... será uma oportunidade para apresentar as reflexões e os experimentos que o Ibram-Museus realiza no tema das redes sociais descentralizadas. [SENSITIVE CONTENT]
Apresentamos abaixo, os slides e o texto da apresentação de José Murilo, representando o Ibram-Museus, no 1º WebSocialBR, em Brasília, 03/12/2025.
É uma satisfação participar deste evento, quero agradecer a todas as pessoas envolvidas nesta realização. Será uma oportunidade para apresentar as reflexões e os experimentos que o Ibram-Museus realiza no tema das redes sociais descentralizadas. Queremos também escutar todas as iniciativas aqui apresentadas, e nos colocar a disposição para o diálogo efetivo em torno de ideias, estratégias, e aplicações em prol do desenvolvimento deste ambiente das redes sociais descentralizadas no âmbito da política pública.
Após a efetivação da compra do Twitter pelo Elon Musk, em 2023 culminou entre especialistas e políticos, no Brasil e no exterior, a percepção de que os serviços gratuitos prestados pelas redes sociais das BigTechs — contaminado com esquemas agressivos de vigilância para oferta de anúncios customizados — estariam prejudicando a saúde e o bem estar dos cidadãos usuários, especialmente os jovens. O problema da desinformação, por seu lado, estaria criando ameaças aos regimes democráticos.
Este cenário indesejável no ambiente das redes sociais, somado à predileção especial do brasileiro por este modo de comunicação online, nos levaram a imaginar que uma política pública para o campo, em um país com a escala do Brasil e aproveitando de um momento propício, poderia causar um efeito demonstrativo relevante. Por isso o Ibram entende que é oportuno a realização de um experimento com redes sociais federadas, e museus — instituições de memória.
O Ibram desde 2016 realiza importante parceria com a universidade pública no desenvolvimento do Projeto Tainacan. Trata-se de uma aplicação de repositório digital em software livre, especializado na publicação online de acervos digitais, que o Ibram apresenta como parte integrante do Programa Acervo em Rede – uma política pública baseada em software livre.
E aqui tenho que abrir um parêntese: a área de TI de uma instituição pública que desenvolve e oferece uma aplicação em software livre para o seu público, é absolutamente, completamente diferente de uma área de TI que cuida exclusivamente de contratos. Trata-se de uma outra vida. Fecha parêntese.
Na gestão iniciada em 2023, e especialmente com a reestruturação administrativa do Ibram, conseguimos expandir a escala dos serviços digitais oferecidos pelo Ibram para o campo museal. Para que isso se concretizasse, foi necessário acelerar a construção de capacidade no instituto em operar políticas públicas de Cultura Digital de maneira autônoma e para tal, foi crucial a cooperação com departamentos de Ciência da Informação na universidade pública.
Outro parêntese: a vinda do Prof. Dalton Martins, da UnB para o Ibram, para ocupar o cargo de Coordenador-Geral de Sistemas de Informação Museal (CGSIM), foi um grande diferencial. Trazendo a expertise da Ciência da Informação, Dalton protagonizou no Ibram a reunião da área de Tecnologia da Informação com a área de Sistemas de Informações Museais. Importante dizer também que Dalton coordena o Projeto Tainacan desde sua concepção, em 2015. Fecha parêntese.
O desenho institucional proposto para essa cooperação Ibram-Universidade favoreceu o envolvimento de jovens museólogos, arquivistas e bibliotecários na formulação e implementação de aplicações, e na ativação de redes para o campo museal.
Nestes 10 anos de desenvolvimento, uma medida do desempenho do Tainacan e de sua comunidade no campo da memória digital é o fato do software já ter versões em 12 línguas, contar com mais de 2 mil instâncias ativas e mais de 40 mil downloads.
Para inaugurar a iniciativa dos Museus brasileiros no Fediverso, em Jan/2024 nós ativamos o plugin ActivityPub no site WordPress da Brasiliana Museus, e publicamos o primeiro post de um domínio gov.br na websocial, ou seja, no Fediverso. Comentários a este post, originados no Fediverso, foram registrados também na seção de comentários do post no blog da Brasiliana, demonstrando a possibilidade de integração de websites institucionais com o Fediverso.
É importante mencionar que a Brasiliana Museus é um serviço de agregação de coleções museológicas desenvolvido a partir do Tainacan, que se tornou base para o desenvolvimento de novas aplicações, como veremos adiante.
Tratou-se de um início, uma experimento singelo, mas nós consideramos que a iniciativa teve grande significado. Nossa esperança era que fosse o início de um processo transformador na maneira como nós, como pessoas e como instituições, nos conectamos online, e que pudesse proporcionar um aperfeiçoamento em nossa relação fundamental com o digital e com a web.
Aspectos técnicos: O Projeto Tainacan é desenvolvido no formato de plugin para WordPress, da mesma forma que o plugin ActivityPub, que conecta o WordPress ao Fediverso. O WordPress, por sua vez, é utilizado em 43,4% de todos os sites na internet, sendo a plataforma de gerenciamento de conteúdo mais popular do mundo. O ecossistema se expande na medida em que a comunidade aumenta a biblioteca de plugin disponíveis.
Não por acaso, recentemente o especialista Dave Winer, criador do formato RSS (formato XML para difusão aberta de conteúdos web), declarou que enxerga o WordPress como o “sistema operacional” ideal para a web social aberta.
Logo que experimentamos o plugin ActivityPub do WordPress, percebemos como imediatamente podíamos escolher, na interface do plugin (imagem no slide acima), o tipo do post Tainacan que poderíamos selecionar para postagem no Fediverso.
Ou seja, o Tainacan, como num passe de mágica, passou a ter canal direto para difusão segmentada de conteúdos do patrimônio cultural para usuários assinantes. Naquele momento, nós da equipe Tainacan no Ibram ficamos impactados com o que passamos a poder imaginar em termos de novas aplicações do Tainacan para redes sociais descentralizadas.
A partir daí, definimos como objetivo da iniciativa prover museus e demais instituições de memória com uma ferramenta que facilite a exploração das redes sociais descentralizadas como ambiente de difusão de seus acervos.
A partir de outros experimentos de museus no Fediverso, como é o caso do Museu do Aeroporto de San Francisco (SFOMuseum – Iniciativas em ActivityPub), percebemos que no caso dos acervos dos museus publicados em Tainacan, cada item poderia virar um post, ou mesmo um novo perfil no Fediverso — no caso, por exemplo, de bens museais de amplo interesse.
A partir da atuação das equipes de suporte e desenvolvimento do Tainacan no Ibram, viemos adaptando o core da aplicação para o desenvolvimento de outras funcionalidades além da agregação, como o registro de eventos no site “Visite Museus“, e para cadastro de instituições de memória, no serviço “MuseusBR“. Outra iniciativa planejada é o desenvolvimento do módulo de editais que completaria, juntamente com o Tainacan, o que consideramos um pacote de aplicações úteis para instituições públicas. O aspecto mais interessante é que estas novas aplicações, desenvolvidas no âmbito do ecossistema WordPress, da mesma forma como o Tainacan, imediatamente se integram ao Fediverso.
Por este motivo, entendemos que o momento é propício na comunidade Tainacan para abraçarmos a conexão com o Fediverso, e efetivamente explorar como as instituições de memória podem tirar o melhor proveito da open social web. O objetivo é prover as instituições que promovem acesso ao conhecimento com ferramentas atualizadas para a gestão de seus públicos online.
Quando penso no desafio que é deslanchar um estratégia de popularização do Fediverso no Brasil, não posso deixar de pensar nas universidades como instituições melhor posicionadas para o protagonismo. Impossível não lembrar do período de mobilização para a eco-92, onde as universidades entraram em uma competição saudável em termos de diligência na instalação de seus primeiros servidores institucionais de email. Naquele momento, a internet nascia sob os auspícios da institucionalidade.
Os problemas da Internet certamente tem múltiplas causas e ingredientes, mas na perspectiva do Instituto Brasileiro de Museus, apresentam os contornos de uma crise de institucionalidade. Isto porque tecnologias que realizam a mediação de relações sociais, como a Internet, de maneira intrínseca criam instituições.
Um mecanismo de coordenação que possibilita a ação coletiva, com capacidade de processamento de informações para resolver problemas cada vez mais complexos, independentemente de ser apoiado ou não por tecnologia da informação, é uma instituição.
Nos primórdios da Internet, houve uma corrente de ‘hackers’ que advogou a total ausência da atuação de governos no ambiente digital. Isto aconteceu com a publicação da Declaração de Direitos do Ciberespaço (A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace). Os últimos 20 anos parecem indicar que a ausência da política pública somente favoreceu a tomada da web pelos interesses do capital especulativo, e dos monopólios transnacionais.
“Governos do Mundo Industrial, vocês gigantes aborrecidos de carne e aço, eu venho do Ciberespaço, o novo lar da Mente. Em nome do futuro, eu peço a vocês do passado que nos deixem em paz. Vocês não são bem-vindos entre nós. Vocês não têm nenhuma soberania onde nos reunimos.” (Davos, Fev / 1996)
A decisão crucial está entre a política que defende o interesse comum e deliberadamente favorece a emergência das novas institucionalidades digitais na rede, e a política cega que por inação permite que a evolução do ambiente digital ocorra de maneira aleatória, ao sabor dos interesses das grandes empresas estrangeiras de tecnologia.
Poderíamos talvez imaginar uma “Declaração por um Ciberespaço de Interesse Público”, para se contrapor à declaração do John Barlow nos anos 90.
Aqui eu quero mencionar um último desdobramento dos experimentos do Ibram com o Fediverso, que surgiu como uma oportunidade muito interessante.
O grande desafio é como encaminhar a transição do ambiente centralizado, proprietário, para o ambiente descentralizado, que estabelece responsabilidades distribuídas, e estabelece um papel ampliado para as instituições que promovem acesso ao conhecimento.
Nos últimos 2 anos fizemos alguns experimentos, e recentemente estivemos em contato com Michael Foster, da NewsMast Foundation. Trata-se de uma organização dedicada ao desenvolvimento da WebSocial, e que oferece a possibilidade de criação de apps comunitários para organizações interessadas em explorar o Fediverso.
O aplicativo trabalha integrado ao WordPress, e promove o engajamento com a comunidade com base em uma instância Mastodon. Ou seja, a partir da parceria com o Instituto NewsMast, o Ibram planeja impulsionar a estratégia de ocupação do Fediverso pelos museus brasileiros.
O Michael Foster, idealizador do projeto, costuma dizer que o Fediverso é um ambiente determinado pela tecnologia, onde tudo começa com um servidor, ou mesmo um protocolo. Entretanto, não é assim para as pessoas em geral, ou para as comunidades em geral. Para comunidades e pessoas, especialmente no Brasil, os espaços sociais começam com um app.
O app do Ibram nasce a partir do conjunto de usuários do Forum (WordPress) que desenvolveu de forma participativa o Plano Nacional Setorial de Museus – PNSM, e se acopla à instância do Fediverso (social.museus.gov.br) onde pretendemos oferecer aos museus brasileiros a oportunidade de criação de contas institucionais. Se tudo correr dentro do planejado, no início de 2026 lançaremos o app “Museus no Fediverso” nas lojas Android e Apple.
A tecnologia em rede que media grande parte de nossas vidas é uma engenharia social — o que significa que decidir como ela funciona é (ou deveria ser) uma questão política. Se quisermos ter alguma esperança de que esses espaços coletivos digitais vão resultar em um mundo que vale à pena, precisamos construir nossas políticas para Internet de acordo com princípios institucionais sólidos.
Importa para os museus, por exemplo, que se houver um serviço de rede social que se disponha a abrigar instituições de memória de interesse público, que os dados da interação dos museus com seu público interessado fique também preservado, como acervo digital, e para pesquisa.
O Ibram entende que os museus brasileiros tem uma contribuição a dar na reflexão sobre o futuro do ambiente digital, especialmente no que se refere à questão da memória digital.
Agradecendo a oportunidade, encerramos a nossa apresentação.
![[?]](https://files.mastodon.social/accounts/avatars/109/648/744/105/191/077/original/8182254f0835279e.png)
Fediverse Report #145 - this week's #fediverse news:
- @holos is a project currently in development that allows you to run an #activitypub server on your phone
- More on Threads' user statistics, which do indicate the platform's popularity in Asia
https://connectedplaces.online/reports/fediverse-report-145/
![[?]](https://social-cdn.vivaldi.net/system/accounts/avatars/109/553/464/208/348/012/original/1c9c4b7d2455a827.png)
After reading about a major #Funkwhale instance shutting down, I'm wondering whether I should keep my podcast on open.audio.
https://blog.liberta.vip/libertadmin/its-over-for-liberta-audio
However, the idea of an audio app that uses #ActivityPub to be part of the #Fediverse is excellent.
Any suggestions on where to host a #podcast?
P. S. I just discovered @Castopod , an alternative to @funkwhale
I want to inspect which one is more stable, and if there are good servers as well. Feedback welcome!
![[?]](https://bewegung.social/system/accounts/avatars/114/352/126/282/593/537/original/6a488942f59f0c60.png)
Liebe Stadt @mainz_de,
schön, dass Ihr dabei bleibt. Das ist garantiert die richtige Entscheidung. 😉
Und vielen Dank für die guten Worte. Von #Solidarität ist viel zu selten die Rede.
Wir nehmen die Gelegenheit wahr und weisen nochmal auf die bereits auf #Mastodon aktiven #Städte und #Gemeinden hin. Das gezeigt Bild kann von hier
👉 https://cloud.wechange.de/s/G3Q262oPBeG9tQt
herunter geladen und gerne auf anderen Plattformen geteilt werden.
Die Mast-Accounts sind als Links in das pdf eingebaut. Alternativ ist die Liste von @sabrinkmann zu nutzen
👉 https://mastodon-listen.playground.54gradsoftware.de/?liste=staedte-und-gemeinden-DE
Oben rechts auf der Seite könnt Ihr auch von „Accounts folgen Importieren“ Gebrauch machen.
Der Stadt #Mainz wünschen wir viel Erfolg im #Fediverse weiterhin!
#sozialeMedien #AlleInsFediverse
Alt...
Das Bild zeigt die Logos von deutschen Städten und Gemeinden, die einen Account auf Mastodon betreiben. Unten links ist noch das Mastodon-Maskottchen gezeigt und unten rechts der QR-Code des Aktionsbündnis neue soziale Medien, das das Bild in Kooperation mit dem Forschungswerk Dresden erstellt hat.
![[?]](https://blorbo.social/system/accounts/avatars/113/564/196/478/086/187/original/1956f8537db5a392.png)
#blog #fediverse #blorbosocial #onblorbing
Hello! I was wondering if anyone could help me with a problem I'm having (it has to do with fediverse/blorbo.social) 
I can't figure out how to block tags? I have a lot of key words blocked and I have them also blocked like [Hashtag][InsertThingHere] but this does not seem to work? I keep seeing posts with the tags I have blocked It's really quite distressing since most often the keywords I have blocked are topics that are extremely distressing or upsetting to me.
If anyone could please tell me what I need to do to be able to block tags so I do not have to see toots that upset me when I open this website, I would really appreciate it.
![[?]](https://cdn.masto.host/iosdevspace/accounts/avatars/109/524/999/307/593/382/original/c6bd0b873cb33dd3.jpeg)
A new release of TootSDK - 21.3.0 📣
https://github.com/TootSDK/TootSDK/releases/tag/21.3.0
What's changed:
- Support mastodon experimental async refresh API @dale_price
Community contributions are greatly appreciated 🙌
![[?]](https://files.mastodon.social/accounts/avatars/115/629/391/603/847/920/original/b86304269d73876e.jpg)
Hallo Fediverse, ich bin Lars / Boxcarrace und neu hier. Ich lebe vegan Straight Edge, mag Linux, Filme, PS5 und Vinyl. Dazu NHL, besonders die Toronto Maple Leafs – durchwachsen, aber spannend. Ich lerne das Fediverse kennen und freue mich über Austausch hier im Alltag
#Fediverse #NeuHier #Austausch #Linux #Vegan #PS5 #Vinyl #NHL #Mastodon #FediverseCommunity #Intro #NewHere #OpenToChat #TechAndCulture
![[?]](https://triptico.com/social/angel/s/4489c37d896224fc004b7759f2960515.jpg)
![[?]](https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/accounts/avatars/110/740/169/477/916/693/original/dfa8f1b9beefa405.png)
Happy Friday, #BSDCafe
Happy Friday, #illumosCafe
Happy Friday, #Fediverse
I hope the sun I see from my window right now can light up and cheer up your day.
https://song.link/s/4IhTXiZLKATmwhMZIb1GQN
#Music #MastoMusic #MastoRadio #FediMusic #FediRadio #JukeBox
![[?]](https://files.sueden.social/accounts/avatars/109/417/399/935/812/789/original/8a1b43c463844774.jpeg)
RE: https://freiburg.social/@JoKi/115665476982320669
Was @JoKi zum #Fediverse & konkret hier zu #Mastodon sagt, darin finde ich mich wieder.
Danke.
![[?]](https://files.mastodon.social/accounts/avatars/113/448/605/682/927/936/original/6a60ce5bde0d5cc2.jpeg)
#Linux statt Windows
#fediverse statt meta und Twitter
e/OS oder andere statt Android
#Signal statt WhatsApp
YouTube schauen geht auch mit Tubular - und macht sogar mehr Spaß
Und man ist digital unabhängiger, kein elender Dreckskonzern liest per Default auf dem eigenen Gerät mit
Und das geht auch als IT noob.
Meine Lehre aus den letzten Wochen.
Danke, hier ist freilich das Gegenteil von #Dualismus gemeint: Ich mache mir & uns bewusst, dass es Menschen gibt, die das #Fediverse anders empfinden als ich. Konkret dachte ich dabei z.B. an @heinerme.
Dies dient jedoch nicht der Konstruktion eines Feindbildes, nicht dem #Thymos oder #RageBait - sondern der Einladung zur #Reflektion und zum #Dialog.
Menschheit ist immer auch #Vielfalt. Und das ist gut so.
Guten Morgen - Tässle Kaffee ☕️?
Es gibt Menschen, die das #Fediverse „zu ruhig“ oder gar „langweilig“ finden.
Habe selbst das algorithmische #Neurohacking & die #Empörungssucht der antisozialen #Konzernmedien „durchgespielt“. Und bin sehr dankbar, dass es hier mehr #Ruhe & also #Freiheit & #Dialog gibt… https://www.newsroom.de/news/aktuelle-meldungen/multimedia-9/medienethiker-blume-monopole-von-google-meta-und-x-werden-enden-975689/
![[?]](https://battalion.mobileatom.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/cropped-Battalion-Logo-AdobeStock_578697404.svg_-e1749505616236.png){kind=logo}
Destroying Autocracy – December 04, 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
The Programmer’s Fulcrum is the future (and smaller) home for a fusion of Symfony Station and Battalion. Its tagline is Devs Defending Democracy, Developing the OMN.
You can sign up now and for 2025 get an email with links to each week’s Symfony Station Communiqué and Battalion “Destroying Autocracy” post along with their featured articles. And you’ll be set with TPF after the fusing in January.
We are posting on the Fediverse now at @thefulcrum @thefulcrum.dev and original website content will start next month.
Featured Item(s)
Hamish Campbell writes:
ActivityPub is a shared vocabulary, a public language for moving meaning and connection across the open web. It gives you nouns and verbs, and the community defines the grammar through lived use.
This is why the OMN works with ActivityPub, a metadata and meaning layer, not a platform, flows, not silos. ActivityPub is the widely deployed 4 Opens protocol that treats publishing as a flow, a conversation.
Unlike the more vertical stacks (ATProto is a good example), ActivityPub doesn’t force a worldview. It doesn’t tell you, “this is how your network must be structured.” It doesn’t enforce hierarchy or lock you into one interpretation of identity, authority, or workflow. It’s a KISS path – here’s a shared language, verbs for publishing and receiving, express objects, updates, relationships. The rest is up to the commons.
This flexibility is exactly why the OMN can become a part of this flow.
Why the OMN works with ActivityPub – And why we need a bridge to p2p
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes, Techno Feudalism, and other douchebaggery
DDEV has:
Power Through Blackouts: How DDEV Community Helped Me in Ukraine
TechPolicy Press shares:
How to Test New York’s Algorithmic Pricing Law
The EU’s Digital Omnibus Must Be Rejected by Lawmakers. Here is Why.
Singapore announced an:
Issuance of Implementation Directives to Apple and Google Under the Online Criminal Harms Act
The MIT Press Reader has:
The Secret History of Tor: How a Military Project Became a Lifeline for Privacy
The Guardian reports:
Irish authorities asked to investigate Microsoft over alleged unlawful data processing by IDF
Neutral
TechPolicy Press reports:
What the European Commission and Civil Society Both Get Wrong on the Digital Omnibus
Why Platforms Don’t Catch Climate Misinformation — and How to Change That
EuroNews asks:
Which European countries are building their own sovereign AI to compete in the tech race?
Numerama reports:
TechCrunch reports:
Mistral closes in on Big AI rivals with new open-weight frontier and small models
Wired reports:
The Age-Gated Internet Is Sweeping the states. Activists Are Fighting Back.
The Evil Empire (AKA Autocracy) Strikes Back
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports:
Lawmakers Want to Ban VPNs—And They Have No Idea What They’re Doing
EDRi has:
Promises unkept: The EU-US Data Privacy Framework under fire
404 Media reports:
Flock Uses Overseas Gig Workers to Build its Surveillance AI
Pariah States
DarkReading reports:
Tomiris Unleashes ‘Havoc’ With New Tools, Tactics
DPRK’s ‘Contagious Interview’ Spawns Malicious Npm Package Factory
Student Sells Gov’t, University Sites to Chinese Actors
TechPolicy Press reports:
The Gulf’s AI Rise and the Risk of Entrenching Authoritarianism
The Register reports:
China using AI as ‘precision instrument’ of censorship and repression, at home and abroad
Big Media
Axios reports:
Fox News hires Palantir to build AI newsroom tools
Big surprise.
Big Tech
The Guardian reports:
How big tech is creating its own friendly media bubble to ‘win the narrative battle online’
More than 1,000 Amazon workers warn rapid AI rollout threatens jobs and climate
Anti-immigrant material among AI-generated content getting billions of views on TikTok
BleepingComputer reports:
Leak confirms OpenAI is preparing ads on ChatGPT for public roll out
Big surprise here. But, if you’re amoral enough to use it, you deserve all the privacy invading ads you get.
Google deletes X post after getting caught using a ‘stolen’ AI recipe infographic
Nature reports:
Major AI conference flooded with peer reviews written fully by AI
Wow.
The Guardian reports:
The question isn’t whether the AI bubble will burst – but what the fallout will be
National Review reports:
Meta Researchers Privately Compared Instagram to Addictive Drug, Bombshell Court Filing Shows
Wanna-be Big Tech
OMG Unbuntu has:
Mozilla’s ‘Rewiring’ to AI – Saving the Web or Saving Itself?
Cybersecurity/Privacy
TechCrunch reports:
European cops shut down crypto mixing website that helped launder 1.3B euros
DarkReading reports:
New Raptor Framework Uses Agentic Workflows to Create Patches
Bleeping Computer reports:
Fake Calendly invites spoof top brands to hijack ad manager accounts
The Register reports:
Microsoft quietly shuts down Windows shortcut flaw after years of espionage abuse
Fediverse
Coywolf has:
Mastodon creator shares what went wrong with Threads and ponders the future of the fediverse
Ben Werdmuller shares:
Sean Coates explores:
The Fediverse and Content Creation: Monetization
Great and important stuff.
Ploum asks:
Is Pixelfed sawing off the branch that the Fediverse is sitting on?
Wouldn’t the fix to this would be to show a larger version of a user’s profile image with text posts?
RSS
Planet Codigo has:
Mi solución RSS con software libre y autogestionado
Slightly Decentralized Social Media
TBD
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS. Or even our future home in 2026, if you want a head start.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse
#ActivityPub #AI #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #Pixelfed #Roundabout #RSS #StopChina #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine #TechnoAnarchism #TechnoFeudalism #Threads
https://battalion.mobileatom.net/?p=4147
Alt...
Spaceship at the site of a battle
![[?]](https://hub.azkware.net/photo/profile/csolisr.jpeg?ts=1754582308)
#OurFedi2025
![[?]](https://media.lighthouse.co.im/accounts/avatars/114/913/161/052/263/510/original/891ebb8d4dd3a86d.png)
Lighthouse lore vi
Post 1/5
The night the Lighthouse server woke up was the night the wind stopped whispering and started preaching over Peel. Fans hummed like monks, LEDs blinking like something with opinions. Caroline swore she heard it sigh. The machine wasn’t rebooting — it was becoming.
![[?]](https://s3.toot.io/system/accounts/avatars/113/809/600/289/520/204/original/125b6c3e5e949cc9.png)
In the #Fediverse there are now
716 media accounts federated by @Flipboard.
628 were active today.
Some accounts, that were active today are
@EuronewsCulture
@Hipertextual
@GoodNewsDE
@BBCNews
@RollingStoneIta
Find the whole list on:
➡️ https://fingolas.eu/fediverse/overview.html
Built by @mho
#MastodonMigration #SocialMedia #Mastodon #Media #Press #Newspaper #TwitterMigration #Newstodon
![[?]](https://a.mindlycdn.com/accounts/avatars/109/314/751/759/220/747/original/0f68fdbbfd257b21.jpg)
Hello, $MASTO_USER!
It's December, which means the end of the year is fast approaching. Here's a quick overview of what you accomplished in the Fediverse this year:
I have no idea. We don't track what you do.
#surveillance #privacy #wrapup #annual #stats #Mastodon #Fediverse
In the Fediverse track at SFSCon, Mayel de Borniol and Ivan Minutillo spoke about:
Bonfire: Public Interest Social Networks
![[?]](https://todon.eu/system/accounts/avatars/115/128/240/481/244/520/original/059d839e1de1a7ec.jpg)
Are you tech savvy and planning to migrate away from mastodon.social to help to prevent the Fediverse becoming centralized ?
#mastodon #fediverse #decentralise
| Yes: | 3 |
| No: | 3 |
| Other (comment): | 7 |
Closes in 1:15:25:33
![[?]](https://microhive.me/oliver/s/avatar-0a7a3ad1b59ac3746819abe70764c7bf.JPG){kind=avatar}
You don't know Snac? But you should: https://codeberg.org/grunfink/snac2
A simple, minimalistic and well documented #ActivityPub instance server written in C, no database needed, totally JavaScript-free, no cookies either, not much bullshit.
Do you see this post? It comes from a Snac server.
The Fediverse is larger than you assume 😉
![[?]](https://s3.c.im/accounts/avatars/109/308/711/020/000/246/original/71b7781c839b3b1f.png)
Via @ploum - Is Pixelfed sawing off the branch that the Fediverse is sitting on? https://ploum.net/2025-12-04-pixelfed-against-fediverse.html
#fedi #fediverse #decentralization #decentralized #Pixelfed #ActivityPub #federation
![[?]](https://s3.plasmatrap.com/plasmatrap/e926d299-8e29-433c-bb93-6eccefd330dc.webp)
🏀 🏑 ⚽ 🏓 ⚾ 🤿 🏐 🛹 Das sind die Sportvereine mit Fediverse -Präsenz (die mir bislang begegnet sind). Gibt es noch mehr?@psvhd@rheinneckar.social @Tauchclub@troet.cafe @BSV_Wedding_Reinickendorf@troet.cafe @tsvbordesholm@social.schleswig-holstein.de @tsgoberradtt@mastodon.social @mtvlecktt@mastodon.social @floorball@uhc-elster.de @unihockeyclub_elster@tube.tchncs.de @golf@crossgolf.uhc-elster.de @greenbears@norden.social @skatehub@troet.cafe Sportarten u.a. : Davon sind aber m.W. noch keine Accounts bei Wäre schön, wenn die Vereine sich bei Interesse untereinander vernetzen und austauschen! Für regionale Vernetzung und Auffindbarkeit vielleicht auch noch interessant:
neu: @SVArminia@mastodon.social @tvmettenheim@mastodon.social
neu2: @tsvmodau@mastodon.social
Pixelfed wäre sicher für Vereine interessant, die in erster Linie Fotos posten möchten, Friendica könnte noch ein paar weitere Funktionen abdecken wie Terminkalender, interne Gruppen, Fotogalerie, Pinnwand usw.
Alt...
Ich bin im Sportverein. Bitte folgen!
Quelle: https://www.vereins-a.de/
![[?]](https://media.mementomori.social/accounts/avatars/110/827/148/983/327/589/original/b825e507e4dcf500.jpg)
🎸🎼🐦🚴
![[?]](https://social.anoxinon.de/system/accounts/avatars/000/079/552/original/231fc6938aaf9353.png)
Das Fediverse stirbt langsam
Wir können in den letzten Monaten einen deutlichen Rückgang der aktiven Nutzenden feststellen. Doch was genau sind die Gründe dafür und was können wir dagegen tun?
![[?]](https://cdn.dol.do/dol.social/accounts/avatars/115/045/361/579/662/833/original/17e62f29987acc81.jpg)
Sometimes I find it ironic that people used to be more social before social media. Now we can reach anyone in a second, yet most feel lonelier than ever.
Constant notifications replaced genuine connection. So many chasing likes, so few real conversations (or friends).
And with an endless stream of AI bots pretending to be human, the internet itself feels like a "slowly cooling universe". I personally find it spooky.
What would you prefer?
Having more followers and reach on Bluesky, but being tied to their bsky.app platform - or having less visibility for your posts, but full independence on your own Mastodon instance?
#Mastodon #Bluesky #Fediverse #Decentralization #SelfHosting #OpenSource
| Mastodon: | 5 |
| Bluesky: | 0 |
Closes in 5:01:33:47
Annoin tänään joululahjan. Anna sinäkin!
https://joinmastodon.org/sponsors#donate
Alt...
Kiitossivu lahjoituksen jälkeen
![[?]](https://mstdn.matthewmcgranahan.me/system/accounts/avatars/112/071/388/897/478/723/original/8874807f527acc9f.jpg)
I am waiting for ActivityPub and the Fediverse to make an appearance. I would suspect that the "expensive and annoying game of whack-a-mole" will start to get very hard to manage.
#auspol #activitypub #mastodon #pixelfed #fediverse #socialmedia
In the #Fediverse there are now
716 media accounts federated by @Flipboard.
625 were active today.
Some accounts, that were active today are
@FrommersMag
@USAToday
@FinancialPost
@ntv2019
@bravo
Find the whole list on:
➡️ https://fingolas.eu/fediverse/overview.html
Built by @mho
#MastodonMigration #SocialMedia #Mastodon #Media #Press #Newspaper #TwitterMigration #Newstodon
In the Fediverse track at SFSCon, Tommi Marmo spoke about:
What is the Fediverse? Defining Values and Key Challenges.
![[?]](https://elbmatsch.de/system/accounts/avatars/109/429/724/598/537/626/original/836477b179eb89fa.png)
RE: https://mastodon.social/@mainz_de/115656922648428867
Die Stadt #Mainz bleibt doch hier vorerst im #Fediverse. Gute Entscheidung ✌️ #Mastodon
Liebe Community, ihr habt uns überzeugt: Die Stadt Mainz bleibt auf Mastodon. Für die vielen, konstruktiven Reaktionen vielen Dank! Offen gesagt: Wir haben nicht damit gerechnet. Denn wir hatten in den letzten Jahren hier wenig Resonanz erfahren. Daher wollten wir uns auf die Plattformen konzentrieren, auf denen wir zigmal mehr Follower und Reaktionen haben. Ihr macht uns jetzt Mut, dass Mastodon lebt. Lasst uns hier geMAINZam austauschen: lebendig, vielfältig, solidarisch. 🙂
![[?]](https://files.mastodon.social/accounts/avatars/109/907/289/343/887/710/original/7cc3814c114c8912.png)
CupOfTea.social is a general Glitch Mastodon server for casual chit-chat and good wholesome content, based in the UK.
This server has a post size of up to 1000 characters.
You can find out more at https://cupoftea.social/about or contact the admin account @Whiskeyomega
#FeaturedServer #Mastodon #GlitchMastodon #Fediverse #FreeFediverse
![[?]](https://media.mstdn.social/accounts/avatars/109/498/913/994/594/288/original/6816f773595e34c4.gif)
![[?]](https://mastodon.sdf.org/system/accounts/avatars/112/514/964/931/031/746/original/a40cfab2609d9262.jpg)
“Butterfly Landing” — a whimsical reminder that magic shows up in the smallest moments. https://1-lisas-baker.pixels.com/featured/butterfly-landing-lisa-s-baker.html
#art #dogart #butterfly #whimsical #animalart #mastodonart #artshare #lisabaker #lisasbaker #arte #artwork #wallart #homedecor #artforhome #artforsale #buyintoart #artprints #canvasprints #dog #dogs #pup #doglovers #insect #cuteanimals #mastoart #fediart #fediverse #fedigiftshop #puzzles #artforkids #mammal #painting #whimsical
Alt...
A close-up view of a dog’s nose and eyes captures a butterfly delicately perched on its snout. The vivid contrast between the dog's black and white fur and the butterfly's colorful wings creates a striking visual. Art by Lisa S Baker.
![[?]](https://files.sueden.social/accounts/avatars/109/348/795/949/338/491/original/f5c73beeb7e788ad.png)
Weiter sagen : Es gibt eine Alternative, die heisst #Fediverse*
"Für viele Menschen ist ein Verzicht auf Plattformen wie #Instagram keine Alternative, weil sie ansonsten auf gesellschaftliche Teilhabe verzichten müssten" https://netzpolitik.org/2024/abonnieren-oder-akzeptieren-eu-datenschuetzerinnen-watschen-abo-modelle-ab
* "...hat die Instagram-Alternative Pixelfed starken Zulauf erhalten" https://www.heise.de/news/Anbindung-an-Mastodon-Co-Forensoftware-NodeBB-ans-Fediverse-angeschlossen-10251690.html
#Mastodon #PeerTube #Pixelfed #Friendica #Mobilizon #ActivityPub #SocialMedia
![[?]](https://surlaterre.org/system/accounts/avatars/114/068/282/135/054/281/original/7e05158bb8b0267d.jpg)
"Vous Revoir" is now available in a more international form as SocialBand.
The whole project aims to provide a platform that allows artists and their audiences to publish events without relying on gafams. The software acts as a bridge to the Fediverse by linking Mastodon accounts to promote Fediverse adoption within the cultural sector.
The server is maintained by a non-profit Belgian organization.
Welcome to all!
https://socialband.eu
![[?]](https://s3-eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/mastodon-aral/accounts/avatars/000/000/001/original/0d9c2e06a0f43906.png)
Hey everyone,
@joynewacc, @aseelfromgz, and I had the honour of speaking to one family from Gaza today and we’d like to welcome them to Gaza Verified.
They are:
• Ameen.Gaza (@ameengaza)
Please give them a warm welcome to Mastodon and to the fediverse, follow their account, and donate to their fundraiser if you can (and please share this so others can do the same).
Also, remember that you can find all our families who have fundraisers listed at the following page, ordered by those who have received the least in donations over the last week (on a rolling basis):
https://gaza-verified.org/donate/
Thank you for making Mastodon and the fediverse a safe space for our friends in Gaza and for your support.
💕
#Gaza #Palestine #GazaVerified #Mastodon #fediverse #newMembers #verification
![[?]](https://media.mementomori.social/accounts/avatars/113/793/988/702/077/195/original/d536493331dff07d.png)
Okay, I have to ask: What is it with #Fediverse developers running lousy #crowdfunding campaign?
I mean, I thought that the one for #Pixelfed wasn't great, but the one for #Bonfire is truly appalling. The Indiegogo campaign has been going on for what, almost a month? And yet there has not been a SINGLE update on their campaign page!
Look, if you want support, you need to actually talk to your supporters repeatedly, especially during an active crowdfunding campaign! How else are they going to be enthusiastic enough to spread the word about what you are doing? Give us some extra details about your plans beyond your initial description, or _something_! Make us _care_!
https://www.indiegogo.com/en/projects/bonfire/community/updates
![[?]](https://files.mastodon.social/accounts/avatars/000/200/084/original/bf9647a53e00b83e.jpg)
They're so close. Support @bonfire today and give the #fediverse an early Christmas present 🎁 🔥
https://www.indiegogo.com/en/projects/bonfire/community
![[?]](https://s3-fra.23m.com/soc.umrath.net/accounts/avatars/108/248/897/387/886/383/original/814dba95f99fa2dc.jpeg)
Im Vergleich zur shit show, die @heiseonline durch ihren Besitzer abliefert, wirkt #Golem geradezu angenehm.
Ich konnte bisher nichts finden, was irgendwie Grund zur Kritik liefern würde.
(Einzig das fehlende Engagement im #Fediverse kann ich ihnen ankreiden.)
Entsprechend werden zukünftige Abogelder in deren Richtung fließen.
![[?]](https://o.mastodon.au/accounts/avatars/109/687/092/362/837/425/original/8e66b8c0e6de7d95.png)
![[?]](https://files.mastodon.social/accounts/avatars/000/454/368/original/c2bbc6f6676ecb69.jpg)
@Heliograph we're not even on the radar #Mastodon #fediverse
Alt...
Services that Australia eSafety considers will be age-restricted social media platforms:
Facebook
Instagram
Kick
Reddit
Snapchat
Threads
TikTok
Twitch
X (formerly Twitter)
YouTube
Services that eSafety considers will not be age-restricted social media platforms:
Discord
GitHub
Google Classroom
LEGO Play
Messenger
Pinterest
Roblox
Steam and Steam Chat
WhatsApp
YouTube Kids
I think I have identified a fairly significant flaw in how the #Fediverse currently operates. Hear me out.
The Fediverse currently consists of all sorts of different systems - #Mastodon, #Friendica , #Pixelfed , #PeerTube, #BookWyrm , and so forth. And while they are all connected via the #ActivityPub protocol, they all have different functionalities and different ways of presenting themselves. Which is as it should be, because Diversity Is Our Strength(TM).
However, it is here that the ActivityPub-based interactivity hits its limits - for usually, you can either experience the relevant system as it was intended, or you can interact with it, but not both - _unless_ you have an account on the same system (though not necessarily on the same instance).
Let's say that you are a Mastodon user who looks at another person's BookWyrm page. You scroll through their books, posts, and comments. Then you see some comment you want to comment on yourself, but can you do so?
Not directly. You need to figure out the URL of their comment, and then copy and paste that comment into the search bar of your Mastodon instance. Then it will show up in the same format as a Mastodon post, and you can interact with it - boost it, like it, comment on it.
Sure, it works, but it's a whole lot of tedious effort.
Or you can search for the user account in Mastodon and scroll through all their posts and comments as if they were a Mastodon user - and thus, you will miss out on all the unique user interface features of BookWyrm.
So what is missing?
Well, Mastodon already has an "Open original page" feature when looking at someone's post. What we need is an "Open original page AND AUTHENTICATE" feature. This way, the target instance (whatever software they are using) could acknowledge the viewer as an external user who could nevertheless fully interact with the local user interface, including the ability to boost, like, and make comments.
This is something that should be theoretically possible to implement, right? #FediHelp
Alt...
A Mastodon menu that pops up when clicking on another user's post, showing the options:
"Expand this post
Open original page
Copy link to post"
![[?]](https://files.mastodon.social/accounts/avatars/109/984/446/505/647/260/original/8762cb0d2d6fe4dc.png)
Was würdet ihr tun?
Wenn ihr in einer Welt leben könntet,
wo ihr nicht arbeiten müsst.
Was würdet ihr tun?
Wie z.B. bei Star Trek, niemand muss arbeiten da alle Güter "repliziert" werden
Bitte teilen, viele Meinungen wären toll
Danke 🙏 ❤️
Liebend gerne auch Kommentare, eine Diskussion wäre super
#mastodon #fediverse #umfrage #boost #welt #menschen #arbeit #leben #meinung #politik #philosophie #gedanken #freiheit #recht
| Arbeiten: | 6 |
| Nicht arbeiten: | 3 |
| Ich weiß nicht: | 3 |
| So etwas wird es nie geben: | 3 |
What would you do?
If you could live in a world
where you didn't have to work.
What would you do?
Like in Star Trek, for example, where no one has to work because all goods are “replicated.”
Please share, lots of opinions would be great.
Thanks 🙏 ❤️
Comments are also very welcome, a discussion would be great.
#mastodon #fediverse #survey #boost #world #people #work #life #opinion #politics #philosophy #thoughts #freedom #rights #poll #share #comments #human
| Work: | 1 |
| Don't work: | 1 |
| I don't know: | 0 |
| There will never be such a thing: | 1 |
Huh. Just chatted in person with someone who's been on #mastodon for a while, now, who honestly thought that all the Mastodon domains were run by Mastodon. And having a different domain was, like, just a vanity thing to look cool. It only came up because they were complaining about an issue they were having, and they were on a smaller server (not naming it for anonymity), so I suggested contacting their server admin about the problem. I was surprised when they answered "Dude nobody at big companies reads those reports. It just all goes to AI or whatever." It took some actual convincing to get them to believe that the server they're on does, in fact, have a living breathing human admin who can be talked to. Anyway, folks, support your
![[?]](https://cdn.masto.host/musiciansocial/accounts/avatars/111/454/875/201/515/175/original/0790633e75ea218a.png)
It's our birthday today. 🎉
Two years ago today, we filed the paperwork for Mirlo to officially become a legal entity. We're so grateful and humbled by everyone who has contributed to the experiment since then. Here's to many more years making music together on the internet! 🐦⬛🐸🎺
#Music #Musicians #OpenSource #Mirlo #Fediverse #FediMusic #Birthday
![[?]](https://rheinneckar.social/system/accounts/avatars/108/141/986/612/183/119/original/4f3b16f6932d47c2.png)
#Eventbrite to be acquired by #BendingSpoons, following their acquisition of #Meetup.com which caused many users to migrate to Eventbrite in the first place. I think at this point it becomes very obvious that the #Fediverse is the best place to coordinate your meetups, and you have many options to choose from: #Mobilizon, #Gancio and even #Wordpress with the #ActivityPub Event Bridge plugin. Everyone knows Bending Spoon's playbook, enshittification is inevitable.
![[?]](https://files.mastodon.social/accounts/avatars/109/259/207/144/483/733/original/47ad35da5e393b00.png)
Spectra.video is an important PeerTube instance for the fediverse. Home to @fediforum @fedicon @decentered_podcast to name a few.
Costs are building up, and funding is needed. Let’s do this!
https://opencollective.com/spectra-video
#Fediverse #ActivityPub #fundraiser
Alaskan.Social is an independent Mastodon server created, moderated and owned by Alaskans.
You can find out more at https://alaskan.social/about or contact the admin account @moderators
#FeaturedServer #Alaska #Alaskan #Anchorage #Juneau #USA #Mastodon #Fediverse #FreeFediverse
![[?]](https://social.heise.de/system/accounts/avatars/109/716/823/887/331/838/original/8e6ed1997a8208a6.jpg)
The five largest verified accounts of #news organisations in the #Fediverse are:
@arstechnica
@mediapart
@tazgetroete
@heiseonline
@tagesschau
Interested in where the followers are? Have a look 👇🏼
And find a larger table over at:
https://fingolas.eu/fediverse/overview.html
Alt...
Follower-Breakdown by software
Three are from germany, they have an overlap of roughly 30k followers. But the rest not so much, for example just a couple of hundred between the french and the german ones.
And did you see? Three of the five are on their own instance, having much more control about their presence in the #Fediverse.
![[?]](https://social-cdn.vivaldi.net/system/accounts/avatars/114/106/376/421/117/575/original/2d1d68cd168219f6.jpeg)
Did you know there is a book called "Mastodon For Dummies"?
It's part of the widely read and well known 'For Dummies' series.
This is the cover of the one I brought home from my local library.
Does your library have a copy? If not, maybe you can suggest a new acquisition! It's only 14.99 US, 17.99 CAN, and 11.99 UK.
#mastodon #MastodonHelp #library #fediverse #web #socialmedia
Alt...
The cover of Mastodon For Dummies by Chris Minnick and Michael McCallister. It uses purple and yellow and depicts a mammoth with tusks.
The recordings of the talks from the Fediverse track we organized at SFSCon in Italy a few weeks ago are now available. They range from technology to public policy, from culture to governance and more.
Check them out: https://fediforum.org/2025-11-sfscon/
A lot of people are resistant to any kind of business uses for the #Fediverse , but consider this:
- While most of us here are rightfully scornful of #Capitalism , the notion of a "market economy" is not going to go away. There are innumerable small to midsized businesses in the world who _aren't_ like the Capitalists we know and loathe - they haven't established any monopolies, they haven't managed regulatory capture, and they are oppressed by Big Tech just as much as ordinary people are.
- For many such businesses, maybe even the majority, a #Facebook Business Page is more important than a website, and thus many such small businesses _only_ have a Facebook Business Page, since it is far easier to set up than hosting your own website on your own domain, it is easier for your customers to find you there (because #GoogleSucks ), and it is easier for you to interact with your customers as well.
I think it would be very worthwhile if the Fediverse would develop an alternative to Facebook Business Pages for such businesses.
A good example for an industry that could benefit from such "Fediverse Business Pages" would be the #TTRPG industry. While some gamers might whine that "RPG books cost too much these days!", the reality is that this is an industry that has razor-thin margins, and only the very biggest TTRPG companies have employees that number more than in the single digits. Every business decision they have to make must involve the question:
"Is this worth the effort?"
Well, if there _was_ a Fediverse Business Page system that was either easy to self-host, or easy to join on larger instances, and which had a similar design to Facebook Business Pages, then there wouldn't be much effort involved in adding the same material to the former if they already maintained the latter. And as #Meta declines, the Fediverse could gradually take its place.
What would such a Fediverse Business Page require? It would need an ActivityPub-enabled feed, of course. It would need a configurable link list that would point towards their product pages or sales platforms, as well as space for all the usual business information. And it would require a robust scheduling system with a calendar view (I used the one provided by Meta for a time, and I think it is possible to do better).
Did I miss any important features?
Oh, and the same system would work well for non-business organizations as well - whether clubs, NGOs, or even political parties!
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The Paizo Facebook page, showing their latest news and products.
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The Chaosium Facebook Business Page.
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The Facebook Business page for Free League Publishing.
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The Facebook Business Page for Pinnacle Entertainment Group.
![[?]](https://files.mastodon.social/accounts/avatars/000/016/041/original/28c12d417f6c0f3b.png)
Here's to the crazy ones. The digital revolutionaries. The #fediverse builders. The ones who see social media differently.
They're not fond of #BigTech. And they have no respect for the #SurveillanceEconomy.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people crazy enough to think they can change social media, are the ones who do.
![[?]](https://media.mstdn.social/accounts/avatars/109/437/065/894/480/444/original/4f03519b3a29a098.jpg)
@dansup Most of the #Fediverse advertises the lack of any kind of feed algorithm as an intentional feature of the platform. How is the #Loops #FYP generated and do you believe it’s prone to creating echo chambers?
![[?]](https://cdn.masto.host/oslotown/accounts/avatars/110/657/784/877/383/896/original/1b3f8b85dc5b45c4.jpeg)
Alt...
Three panel comic, titled "Probably not how it works".
First panel: A woman holds hands with a small boy wearing a baseball cap and a t-shirt with the Apple logo. Boy says "Mommy what's Fediverse?", while pointing at the Fediverse logo.
Second panel: Mother says "Don't look at them, Ricky. I don't want you to be influenced by... Oh God no"
Third panel: Mother says "Rickyyy". Son says "It is too late, mother I have seen everything". The son is now sparkly, and wearing colorful clothes and heart shaped classes. His pink vest now says: "No to AI", "No to Big Tech", and "Tax the rich". It also has the Palestinian flag, an Antifa patch, and the Linux penguin logo.
(Original comic credit: Extra Fabulous Comics. It has been lightly adapted.)
We don't need to look to TikTok and so forth as inspiration for "monetizing the #FediVerse ".
Instead, think of small online businesses. My favorite example of this is the #ttrpg industry - the majority of companies are very small indeed.
And for them, it is vital that they can interact with their fans and customers. On #Facebook , they can do that via Facebook Business Pages, which provide a feed that regular Facebook users can intee
![[?]](https://social.wedistribute.org/media/740be115-a798-487c-9477-7a1946880fc5/8f15b15f53b197e6.png)
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about #PeerTube, #Loops, #Bandwagon, and other platforms in the #Fediverse that are geared around artists. I might get flamed for this, and you’re welcome to disagree, but I think the network is in dire need of having support for commerce.
Not “Big Capitalism” commerce, but the ability for people to buy and sell things, support projects, and commission their favorite creators to keep making more stuff.
https://deadsuperhero.com/the-fediverse-and-content-creation-monetization/
![[?]](https://cdn.social.linux.pizza/system/accounts/avatars/108/601/899/922/616/283/original/fa735d7aa8d66b20.jpg)
![[?]](https://s3.c.im/accounts/avatars/108/213/678/468/634/848/original/a527bb1318be4674.png)
@allkpop Is the first #Kpop & #Kdrama news site I saw which enabled #Fediverse Threads.
This is beneficial to the Fediverse network because Kpop and Kdrama related accounts are one of the most sought after in social media or SNS, which, let's be honest, pretty much lacking in the Fediverse. (Many of them easily embraced the ATmosphere network instead.)
![[?]](https://gruenesocial-userfiles.nbg1.your-objectstorage.com/accounts/avatars/113/652/219/691/057/269/original/3dbf2daf993f85e0.jpg)
https://gruene-muenchen.de/ listet 9 soziale Netzwerke, nur eins fehlt. #Grüne #München #Fediverse @grnmuc
![[?]](https://eldritchcafe.files.fedi.monster/accounts/avatars/109/362/623/121/322/154/original/6ed50a52858250ea.png)
Is it me, or is the new #Mastodon #quote feature the MOST USELESS tool ever to be designed? It overloads a button, making you take an extra tap to boost, not to mention having to read and target a new menu with a finger or a mouse? In case you didn't know, it is hidden under the boost button in the Web UI. It allows you to quote a whole toot, annotate the quote, and ask, if necessary, if the poster will allow you to do so. The poster can revoke permission.
...to quote something, copy and paste only the content you need. Be sure to include the user's handle if you want to attribute the quote.
Nobody that would abuse quoting, that is would misappropriate or twist a toot's meaning, would use the feature. They will copy and paste. This leaves the remainder of the community doing an extra tap, with the extra dexterity required for potentially challenged users, while trying to figure out why they would use the feature in the first place.
Boost for Sample Size when you vote, please!
#fediverse #write #author #writingCommunity #writersOfMastodon #writingCommunity
| I've used the quote feature and like it.: | 6 |
| I've used the quote feature and don't like it.: | 2 |
| I've not used the quote feature.: | 8 |
| What quote feature?: | 5 |
| I left a comment.: | 1 |
![[?]](https://ams1.vultrobjects.com/mastodon/accounts/avatars/113/561/512/435/791/818/original/4151aadcf5b3d398.png)
There are so many projects tackling the identity #decentralized social community that it's natural that people also make projects whose goal is to unite everything into one project.
@activitypods is such a project:
It tries to:
1. unite all your #Fediverse apps (#Mastodon, Lenny, Pixelfeld etc.) into one,
2. use Solid for storing your data (separating data from app).
They were very active till April this year, but seems more quite recently. Is it still being developed? Who tried it?
My post traveling through the #Fediverse got another push over the weekend (thx @pallenberg), motivating me to have another look. And surprise: After adding the software of multiple instances, #Sharkey came in before #Bluesky. 🥳
Alt...
A graph showing the distribution of the boosts by software
Alt...
A graph showing the distribution of the favs by software
![[?]](https://files.mastodon.online/accounts/avatars/108/195/206/593/034/058/original/f54f94b2f34b83a8.jpeg)
Hi #fediverse. We need to talk about something.
While talking to a colleague it came up that they have never sat on a cow. Like, not even once in their childhood.
Another colleague listening in admitted they also have never sat on a cow.
My hypothesis is that most people have at one point in their life sat on a cow.
🐃 🐄 🐮
Have you sat on a cow?
Please boost for scientific accuracy.
| Yes: | 15 |
| No: | 224 |
In the #Fediverse there are now
716 media accounts federated by @Flipboard.
610 were active today.
Some accounts, that were active today are
@CountryLivingUK
@BikeRadar
@CasaVOGUE
@MSFTstories
@CicloVivo
Find the whole list on:
➡️ https://fingolas.eu/fediverse/overview.html
Built by @mho
#MastodonMigration #SocialMedia #Mastodon #Media #Press #Newspaper #TwitterMigration #Newstodon
Arabi.gay is a Glitch Mastodon server for Arabs, people from the SWANA region or Arabic speakers (including all dialects) who are LGBTQIA+. Anyone over 18 is welcome to join.
You can find out more at https://arabi.gay/about or contact the admin account @ishraaf
#FeaturedServer #Arabic #Arab #LGBTQIA #Gay #SWANA #SouthWestAsia #NorthAfrica #العربية #GlitchMastodon #Mastodon #Fediverse #FreeFediverse
Self-hosting your Mastodon media with SeaweedFS
https://it-notes.dragas.net/2025/11/06/self-hosting-your-mastodon-media-with-seaweedfs/
#FreeBSD #SeaweedFS #Mastodon #ITNotes #Fediverse #Hosting #OwnYourData #RunBSD
🌒 Lighthouse Lore IV
A quiet beacon on the edge of the Fediverse.
The Lantern stays lit for travellers, creators, misfits and night-owls. No algorithms, no noise — just a warm doorway in the digital fog.
Come in, share the fire, stay as long as you like.
The Lighthouse keeps watch.
#Fediverse #Mastodon #Lighthouses #HauntedTech #DigitalHaven #QuietWeb #IndieWeb #IoM #FediAdmin #SmallServerEnergy #CreatorsWelcome #NightOwlsClub #BeaconInTheDark
![[?]](https://lazybear.social/system/accounts/avatars/000/000/001/original/3462887fef61ddb1.png)
#OverUnder 044 with @orhun
He's the creator or Ratatui 🐀.
It's a #Rust crate used in many #TUI that you have probably used or seen.
Today, he shares his thoughts on #GUI, #Ghostty, #VPN, #opencode, and, of course the #Ratatouille.
#terminal #shell #opensource #crate #blog #fediverse #mastodon
![[?]](https://cdn.masto.host/indiewebsocial/accounts/avatars/113/137/044/748/223/427/original/d1a0d04a5db70457.jpeg)
Did you know I run a site called FediverseResources.com.
If you have a Fedi resource please submit it here: https://fediverseresources.com/submit-a-resource/
![[?]](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/93c61ca8347f2552bffeff952b12250b4c8a15dfc8631e43f32a503fa35f37db?s=120&d=identicon&r=g)
Social and Organizational Talks at FOSDEM 2026
Hey, all. One thing that's different this year about the Social Web Devroom at FOSDEM 2026 is that we're going to include talks about the organizational and social aspects of rolling out Open Source Fediverse software for individuals and communities. Last year, we focused pretty heavily on technical talks from the principle developers of FLOSS packages. This year, we want to make sure the other aspects of Fediverse growth and improvement are covered. Consequently, the guidance for last […] [SENSITIVE CONTENT]
Hey, all. One thing that’s different this year about the Social Web Devroom at FOSDEM 2026 is that we’re going to include talks about the organizational and social aspects of rolling out Open Source Fediverse software for individuals and communities. Last year, we focused pretty heavily on technical talks from the principle developers of FLOSS packages. This year, we want to make sure the other aspects of Fediverse growth and improvement are covered.
Consequently, the guidance for last year’s event, which was focused on how to make a great technical presentation, might seem a little outdated. But on reviewing it, I’ve found that it still has good advice for social and organizational talks. Just like software developers, community builders see problems and construct solutions for them. The solutions aren’t just about writing code, though; more often they involve bringing people together, assembling off-the-shelf tools, and making processes and rules for interaction.
I’m looking forward to having the interesting discussions about bringing people together to make the Social Web. If you haven’t already, please consider submitting a talk to https://pretalx.fosdem.org/fosdem-2026/cfp. Select “Social Web” from the “Track” dropdown, and include the length of your talk (8/25/50) in the submission notes. The deadline is December 1, 2025, so get them in as soon as possible!
![[?]](https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/accounts/avatars/110/732/168/329/095/187/original/b20ee37f76d683cc.png)
xsukax Mastodon Browser
A lightweight, privacy-focused web application for browsing #Mastodon public timelines, user profiles, hashtags, and individual posts across the #Fediverse without requiring authentication or account registration.
https://github.com/xsukax/xsukax-Mastodon-Browser
It’s kind of funny that I have to use the #Enby tag instead of #NonBinary just to see fewer furry or anime nudes. 
Life on the #Fediverse sure is an adventure , but hey, welcome aboard, friends and fluff alike! 
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The LGBTQIA+ bear pride flag featuring horizontal stripes in dark brown, orange, golden yellow, beige, white, gray, and black, with a black bear paw print in the upper left corner.
I’m following like twenty people on Pixelfed right now, which feels absurdly small in my timeline, so I guess I’m gonna follow some more:
https://pixelfed.social/midtsveen
Drop your Pixelfed below and I might follow you, especially if you are anywhere near these tags:
#Trans #LGBTQIA #Bisexual #Pansexual #Anarchism #Syndicalism #Socialism #Atheist #NonBinary #Linux #Debian #Fedora #Secureblue #Nature #AntiFascism #FreeSoftware
Fair warning: if your feed is mostly landscape shots, abstract clouds, or endless photos of trees pretending to be meaningful, I probably won’t follow.
I want faces. Actual humans. Show me the messy, beautiful self, show that you exist and haven’t been replaced by an algorithm yet.
Love you! ❤️
#FediHelp #Fediverse #Pixelfed
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A Wojak style cartoon figure sits in a dark room lit only by a laptop screen staring tiredly at it with their reflection visible in the window behind them and several mugs and containers scattered on the desk.
![[?]](https://dirt.social/system/accounts/avatars/113/041/129/307/561/907/original/e47f9ac81c910547.jpeg)
Hey #fediverse, is there an activitypub application similar to meetup? I would really like to add a trail ride planning platform to Dirt Social and i'm curious if something already exists.
I thought i remembered seeing one somewhere. but i can't find it now.
Thanks!
Sunday morning on the Isle of Man — the island’s quiet, but the office never sleeps. Coffee, sea air, and a bit of CEO scheming while the world drifts slow. Building systems, shaping ideas, steering a small company from a small rock with big ambition.
#IsleOfMan #Entrepreneur #DigitalNomad #CEO #SundayVibes #Mastodon #Fediverse #MorningFromTheRock
RE: https://mastodon.social/@BrennpunktUA/115638077140603189
Habe hier im #Fediverse heute Morgen eine #Umfrage zum Thema #Demografie gestellt. Und bin ehrlich begeistert über die Beteiligung, Qualität und Vielfalt (!) der Beiträge.
Als einer, der lange sehr erfolgreich auf #Facebook , #Instagram & #X (damals #Twitter) aktiv war, kann ich sicher sagen: Auf #Mastodon ist durch den Verzicht auf algorithmisches #Neurohacking sehr viel besserer #Dialog möglich! 🤩📚🫶🏻
Danke allen, die sich hier konstruktiv & also dialogisch einbringen! 🙏🇩🇪🇦🇹🇪🇺🇨🇭🤔💡
![[?]](https://digitalcourage.social/system/accounts/avatars/109/463/418/409/282/835/original/fdceb5889c002ec6.png)
Meine IT Datenschutz Liste für alle !! 🔒
auch als PDF:
https://cryptpad.digitalcourage.de/file/#/2/file/6Q+0QYc2Wqc6cgA843YfKoxN
#Datenschutz
#Privatsphäre
#sicherheit
#Chatkontrolle
#Linux
#Endof10
#UnplugTrump
#Windows
#AI
#Fediverse
#Mastodon
Alt...
Meine IT Datenschutz Liste für alle !!
2025
![[?]](https://m.azis.pt/system/accounts/avatars/115/563/454/604/174/343/original/b4e5a4bc02b49a68.png)
I just love that in the fediverse we can be whoever we want, for me that is not true in other social network environments, I feel like everybody is so friendly in here!
![[?]](https://media.ranranhome.info/misskey/files/9e5d3af2-b0de-4cf2-a155-4e75a3a45e39.webp)
![[?]](https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/accounts/avatars/115/633/823/737/749/714/original/e5ff42d07784d783.png)
Here is a character you might enjoy.
They call him... Fedi Mercury 🔥
#fediverse #FediMercury #fedi #b3d
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the Fedi Mercury challenge coin - it's Freddie Mercury but he's got 2 mechanical keyboards instead of a mic stand
his signature in fire appears on the coin which spins around to reveal a rainbow elephant (MASTODON)
made in blender #b3d
![[?]](https://media.burningboard.net/accounts/avatars/115/466/486/841/624/422/original/6bf63f9e05a519e0.png)
What freedom of speech, but without hate speech?
Always pick an Asian site.
You'll have better odds of being able to call a spade a space, and even disagree with someone, without your post or account going "poof".
You'd think the United States or Europe would be a safe bet. It's not.
![[?]](https://files.mastodon.social/accounts/avatars/000/128/924/original/7e1c18f39cfb53ec.jpg)
![[?]](https://s3.eu-central-2.wasabisys.com/mastodonworld/accounts/avatars/109/382/872/368/481/301/original/7396bfa24f5a81a7.png)
![[?]](https://cdn.masto.host/coywolfsocial/accounts/avatars/109/236/200/131/116/709/original/b12193c68061858b.jpg)
In a wide-ranging interview with @Gargron, creator of the decentralized social network @Mastodon, Rochko shared why Threads federation fell flat, why #ActivityPub and #ATProto will likely never merge, and what it will take to grow the #Fediverse.
fedicat boostedMastodon creator shares what went wrong with Threads and ponders the future of the fediverse
In a wide-ranging interview with Eugen Rochko, creator of the decentralized social network Mastodon, Rochko shared why Threads federation fell flat, why ActivityPub and ATProto will likely never merge, and what it will take to grow the fediverse. [SENSITIVE CONTENT]
Eugen Roshko, creator of Mastodon
I’ve been enamored with the idea of controlling my social presence ever since Diaspora launched in 2010. Diaspora, like many other decentralized solutions that fizzled out, was trying to solve the problems of closed social platforms: no interoperability, no real control over your feed, no data privacy, no way to opt out of ads, and no way to move your profile somewhere else.
While I put up with what I thought was my best choice at the time, which was a pre-Musk Twitter, a web developer named Eugen Rochko was busy building what would eventually become my primary social network, a platform called Mastodon.
I joined Mastodon in 2022 and created a single-user instance at henshaw.social, which I host on Masto Host. I was attracted by the ability to 100% control my social presence using my own domain while also following and engaging with people on countless other Mastodon servers and other fediverse platforms that support the ActivityPub protocol.
Mastodon profile page on a single-person instance hosted at henshaw.social
After altogether quitting centralized social networks (except LinkedIn), I can honestly say I love using Mastodon. I follow interesting people, my mental health is much better without X and Meta (Facebook, Instagram, etc.), and the absence of performative posts is refreshing. I follow and engage with whom I want, easily block bots, spammers, and annoying people, don’t care about my follower count, and enjoy an algorithm-free feed without ads or people posting things for disingenuous reasons. So, it caught my attention when the news came out that the creator of Mastodon was stepping down as CEO and transferring his ownership of the trademark and other assets to the non-profit.
I had communicated with Rochko via Mastodon over the years, but I had never had a face-to-face conversation with him. I thought he would be the perfect person to restart the Coywolf podcast, especially given the significant changes underway with Mastodon. But mainly, I just wanted to learn more about Eugen. What did he do before Mastodon? What has it been like running Mastodon? And what does he plan to do next?
Eugen Rochko interview highlights
📝 Editor’s Note
The conversations below have been edited for brevity and clarity, but the original, unedited versions can be heard in the full audio interview or read in the transcript.
- Why Threads interoperability with Mastodon fell flat
- What it will take to get people to switch to the fediverse (open social web)
- Why Rochko views Mastodon as a “social network” instead of a “social media platform”
- Why Mastodon chose ActivityPub and whether or not it will ever merge with ATProto
Why Threads interoperability with Mastodon fell flat
Jon Henshaw: I got pretty excited when Zuckerberg and Meta were being serious about integrating ActivityPub into Threads. And a lot of people I knew were just like, “It’s not going to happen,” and “They’re going to screw it up,” but I thought it was going to be for real this time. And The Verge had a couple of good interviews that convinced me they were committed to it. However, while I saw some really nice updates come through, I also saw some that weren’t so great. It felt like they were making poor choices, likely because of their legal department.
Eugen Rochko: That’s exactly how I would put it. It’s like Cambridge Analytica burned them, and they didn’t want a repeat. And that really limited what they could do. I obviously cannot speak for them. I haven’t spoken to anyone from their side for a long time now. But from our discussions when they were launching it, they asked questions about implementation details and how to do different things. It turned out they couldn’t do things because of their legal department, which was highly disappointing. I think the product they launched was promising, but it didn’t deliver to the very end. The whole concept of having federation behind an additional opt-in that people are not even aware of is not helpful, and there are a couple of details that are designed so carefully that it’s almost alienating, like how the pop-up appears every 30 days, asking users if they still want to continue fediverse sharing. As if it’s like, “my god, like I didn’t know, stop that.”
“Continue sharing to the fediverse?” popup on Threads
JH
: It’s a joke and terrible. It sounds like it started pretty well. The people were in the right place as far as hearts, minds, and whatever their original intentions were. It even sounds, from some of The Verge interviews with Mark, like the intentions were genuine and that they wanted to create interoperability. But it all kind of ground to a halt because of legal concerns.
ER
: So it’s far from perfect, but at the same time, I do see people on Threads in my home feed, which is a huge win. That would not have been possible otherwise. And I think it enhances the experience. Some people might disagree because it’s still associated with Meta and don’t want to see anything from Threads. But for someone who cares about staying in touch with more mainstream people, creators, and so on, it can be an enriching experience rather than a negative one.
JH
: I totally agree. I was going to say, we definitely know there are plenty of outspoken people and those who manage instances that consider Threads an insta-block. But for others like us, I appreciate that we can follow people on Threads to stay informed. Even with the most basic ActivityPub integration, I can at least follow them, and they might even know I engaged with their post, even though it’s still constrained. There are still plenty of good people on Threads I want to hear from.Later in the interview, Eugen expanded more on why Threads may have stopped working on fediverse-related features.
ER
: I think what happened is that the engineers who were working on Threads were excited to do something decentralized and participate in the Fediverse. And before it launched, they felt like, on an organizational level, they needed to promise something different to Twitter, some more freedom to creators to move around, to have this decentralization that would basically provide a layer of security against things happening on Twitter for them to gain market share. But as it turned out, once they launched, they still got a lot of users, and their priorities quickly shifted. So instead of focusing on missing fediverse features, it became, “We need to build an NBA score widget into the sidebar,” or something like that. And I think that the only way to put this back on their roadmap is for more companies, platforms, and communities to make the fediverse a bigger part of their strategy, which will push them to refocus on it.What it will take to get people to switch to the fediverse (open social web)
JH
: What do you think it will take to get more people to see the fediverse as a better solution? Mastodon is my social network now. I don’t use anything else because I don’t want an algorithm showing me what it thinks I should see, rather than what I want to see. I follow people for a reason. I turn on notifications for people for a reason. I prefer to experience social media that way, rather than every time I come here, it’s just like, “Oh my god, it’s always the same people and the same topics,” which is a bubble, and I don’t want to be part of it. There are other things, too, like the lack of advertising, which is fantastic.A big one is the ability to control my social presence. I’m one of those nutty people who runs a single-person instance. I love the idea of having henshaw.social, and controlling every aspect of my social presence. I love it for brands, whether they’re nonprofit, for-profit, or whatever. I even run an instance for the Coywolf brand at coywolf.social. You get to control everything. It drives me nuts that more people don’t see that.
I know the general answer to why people aren’t there: their audience isn’t. And for many companies, they can’t advertise, and I know that’s important to them. With all that said, what do you think it’s gonna take in society, with technology, something political, or whatever, to get people to finally move over into something like we’re experiencing on Mastodon?
ER
: Good question. I’ve been saying this for a long time: if everybody were using smoke signals, we’d all be on smoke signal dot social. The features matter a lot less than the people who are using the platform, and it’s always been that way.It can sometimes be a bit misleading when you get a lot of ideas and feature requests in a community, and the conversations become, “We definitely need feature X to grow because that’s what’s stopping people from using the platform.” While that’s true in some cases, the sad reality is that any flaw can be overlooked as long as the people you want to reach are there. And that’s why so many people are still using X, which, by the way, is an absolutely god-awful platform.
The most basic answer to the question is that there needs to be more knowledge about what the Fediverse gives you, and that requires more knowledge about what the other platforms take away from you. I think there are promising developments on this front because more and more people care about digital sovereignty. People no longer want to rely on US tech companies, especially if they live in Europe, Asia, or anywhere else on Earth. And what Mastodon and the fediverse offer is a social media platform in your country, local to you, not subject to whatever is happening in the US or to any third-party developers of the software. And I think as more people and organizations realize this, the easier it becomes to convince others to join and use Mastodon on a personal and organizational level.
JH
: I love that answer. It’s gonna take education. That answer actually excites me.
ER
: It’s a long road because it’s always been about education. Back in 2016, when Mastodon launched, the marketing strategy was constantly explaining to people that Twitter was bad because of how it was structured. The message was: “This is how it works. We have a different structure, and it works differently. Therefore, it will not suffer the same fate.” Mastodon provides an alternative that will not follow the same path. And it’s always been about convincing people of this.Why Rochko views Mastodon as a “social network” instead of a “social media platform”
ER
: I’ve historically overused the phrase social media platform to describe Mastodon, but I think it’s more true that what we’re building is a social network. I think there is a difference in those terms because media is something you consume passively. It’s TV, it’s radio, it’s just reading stuff. Network is you networking with people, you talking with them. And I think that has always been a part of how we think of Mastodon and how we’re building it.In terms of how we speak about it, we haven’t always done that because one of the complexities of doing this is that people care a lot about the words and definitions you use. So when you say, “Mastodon is a social network,” some people would respond, “Mastodon is part of the fediverse, which is the network. So how can you say that Mastodon is a network?” That’s why we’ve been avoiding saying network and trying to be more like a media platform. But I feel we should pivot more toward the term social network.
JH
: I think of that concept, as it relates to Mastodon, as more positive and healthy engagement versus everything else being a place where people broadcast and are performative. And that’s probably one of the things I should have mentioned when I was talking about what I like about Mastodon. It’s a respite from the other networks, and I feel like everywhere else is about being performative. I don’t feel that pressure on Mastodon. On Mastodon, I’m just having fun, and I’m engaging with people who interest me.
ER
: I think Mastodon and the fediverse are part of the old internet that was more about communicating with each other and having fun, and less about passive consumption and just essentially watching TV, which is what TikTok is, except worse. And I think that part of this is that Mastodon and the fediverse will never pay people to create content for it? Like, you can make money off of being on it by being an artist and offering commissions, or by selling artworks, and you post about it and direct people to your website, but it’s not Mastodon that’s paying you. We’re not paying you to create content. We’re not paying you to get more views and then paying you based on the number of views you get, which is what’s been implemented on almost every other platform. On Twitter (X), you get money for views. On TikTok, you get money for views. So basically, you end up being almost like a TV channel for a TV network, except it’s a hustle, because you don’t have a contract. You’re just trying to make something and see what sticks.
JH
: Again, it’s performative. Paying you is just another way to push you to be performative.
ER
: Yeah, but the big question is that obviously the market for passive consumption is much bigger than the market for active participation, which I think is some of the explanation for why the numbers have turned out the way they have over the years, because the internet has moved to the passive consumption model.I personally think Mastodon should stick with an active participation model rather than try to appeal to a passive consumption audience. You can still argue that a passive model would bring in more users and make it easier, because it’s just like turning the TV on and your brain off, but it wouldn’t be the platform we know today. It would be a different platform then. And I think there is still space on the internet for a platform like Mastodon.
JH
: I think you could even make an argument that at some point, you could have more real people engaging, creating, and sharing on Mastodon than many of the other networks. I read all the time about a huge percentage of “users” being bots, whether to cause trouble or whatever, but that’s not necessarily what we would consider genuine, active human engagement.Why Mastodon chose ActivityPub and whether or not it will ever merge with ATProto
JH
: From all the decentralized protocols and solutions you were looking at, what made you choose ActivityPub for Mastodon?
ER
: There was heavy campaigning from people who were working on ActivityPub to make me implement it in Mastodon. I remember GitHub issues being opened and messages being sent. And to be fair, when I started looking into it, I realized that it was more well-rounded than what we were using at the time. There were a lot of shortcomings. As I mentioned before, it was based on the idea of public feeds with extra information on top, but essentially amounted to little more than an RSS feed for a website. There were components for interactivity, and it used a lot of the features that supported Mastodon’s functionality to deliver the user experience it needed. And ActivityPub promised that basically all of that would be baked in from the very beginning, and would be a cleaner, all-encompassing solution, rather than having a mix of XML and different protocols. ActivityPub just felt cleaner and was more future-proofed. It was well thought out, and the fact that W3C was developing it convinced me this is the real deal.
JH
: Do you foresee a future where we’ll have ActivityPub 2.0 that addresses concerns people have had about it, like efficiency, scalability, and other issues? Or do you see ActivityPub potentially merging with ATProto or something similar?
ER
: I don’t see that happening. I don’t think there’s much to merge. I think ATProto, as far as protocols go, is very opinionated about how things work, and there’s not much room to make it work differently. But ActivityPub is very flexible. And since we implemented it in 2018, there’s been a lot of work on defining how things are done, because ActivityPub is essentially a language. Or rather, it’s a vocabulary, and what developers and the federalists have been doing is defining grammar. Like, how do you say thing A and how do you say thing B, and understand each other?Some of the most basic stuff is baked in, straightforward, and easy to do. But when you want to do something more advanced, like when you need some agreement, and you can use the same vocabulary, but you have different grammar, you can’t understand each other. So, different platforms have been collaborating to create fediverse extension proposals that define how different functionality is to be understood within the protocol. And there is now quite a big collection of these, and Mastodon itself has worked on a couple, most recently the quote post thing, where we’ve proposed allowing quotes to include consent from the author of the original post to be published. And what I see is that the protocol is evolving this way. So it’s not verbatim the same protocol as in 2018, but on a more official level, it still is. So, I don’t think there’s going to be an ActivityPub 2.0, or rather, I wouldn’t want it to be a 2.0. I think that would be a bad idea. I think a continuation and progressive evolution of the protocol is going to happen, is happening, and is a good thing. But a clean break would at this point no longer be a good thing.
Listen to the full interview
Read the audio transcript
Jon Henshaw: I’m here with the creator of Mastodon, Eugen Rochko, and I’m excited to finally meet you.
Eugen Rochko …and I’m excited to talk to you in person. Well, not in person, but you know what I mean.
JH
: It’s more in person than it’s ever been. Yeah. As opposed to the random Mastodon post. Yeah. So it’s neat to see somebody from afar and just get to to know them a little bit. So one of the one of the reasons I really wanted to reach out to you was just the announcement that that you were leaving Mastodon, at least in your current capacity. I know you’re still gonna be an advisor, but I felt that personally because I had a software company for about 10 years and it was the greatest feeling ever to finally like be able to leave that, you know, because I was ready to leave it for years, but couldn’t.Are you feeling sort of a similar relief of like, even though you’ve loved it and you made it and stuff to be able to move on to something new?
ER
: Yeah, I mean, I’d say it’s like a mixed bag of feelings because there is definitely an element of relief. A relief that I’ve only felt in a similar way when I went on my honeymoon with my wife. And for the first time, Mastodon had a DevOps engineer and some other people to actually run it and handle all the tasks while I was gone.Like that was the relief I felt back then. It’s like, oh, finally, I don’t have to do everything. I can just forget about it for a while. And I’m feeling a similar relief now, which is, finally, after 10 long years, this is kind of not my problem anymore.
JH
: That is a really good feeling to go on vacation, in your case you’re honeymoon, and to know that there’s somebody there who can actually fix something or deal with something while you’re gone. You can actually just relax for like the first.
ER
: Yeah, yeah. That’s been one of the hardest parts, I think, is because a long time I’ve been doing this alone. I started working on Mastodon in 2016, and it wasn’t until 2023 that we officially had a second hire, I think.It’s not that, I mean, it has to be specified that alone, by alone, I mean like working on it full-time or like even being on the team officially, because there’s been people who freelanced for me before that. And obviously there’s a lot of contributors from the community to the open source software of Mastodon, but 2023 was the first time that we had somebody to handle the tasks of running Mastodon social and handling maintenance of the repository without me and so on and so forth. And since then I’ve only delegated more and more tasks. Now there’s a lot of people working for Mastodon, I have to add an asterisk by a lot. I mean like about 10 or so. I don’t mean like, you know, because in the software world, a lot can mean a lot. Mastodon is still a very, very small organization in the scheme of things, but compared to 2016, it’s 10 times larger.
JH
: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I want to get more into some Mastodon related questions, but I’m always interested in more of the career origin story. And so I kind of want to start at the beginning of your career and just ask you what got you into coding? Like what drew you to it? How did you sort of start?
ER
: Gosh, okay, that’s going way back. Well, I think my first coding attempts were I wanted to make a video game. I was a child. It was before I moved to Germany, so it was before I was 12. I don’t know, could have been 10. I think I had bootleg copies of some game maker software. Obviously I of course had some 3D modeling software as well as I was, know, born in Russia. It was the peak of the bootleg industry over there. To buy some software, you would go to the market and you would just buy like a CD with a hundred different pieces of software for, I don’t know, the equivalent of probably one dollar. And it came with a key gen included and sometimes it didn’t even need a keygen, dependent on the software and how secure it was originally. But yeah, so I had access to 3D modeling software and some game making programs. I don’t remember which anymore. There was different game makers at the time. And I remember just messing around trying to make something.I think the peak of what I achieved back then was having like a shiny ball sphere move around through terrain in three dimensions and that was about it. Like my first attempts I remember some programming that I didn’t really understand back then was like piecing together documentation and just literally like a monkey and a typewriter type thing until something works.
JH
: Trial and error, figuring it out until something.
ER
: Exactly. And then it wasn’t until a couple years later after I moved to Germany where I got into making websites and it was because I was… Well, I wanted to make a fan site for a cartoon that I was watching at the time. Avatar the Last Airbender, one of the best cartoons out there. So I was like… It was at the time that I think the second or third season were just coming out and there was a lot of online discussions about it and I was reading all of these fan sites and I wanted to be part of it. So I was coding my own as well.It was like my first foray into HTML and then eventually upgrading to PHP and trying to build more fun features into the site, like having a forum and stuff like that. And that was all very extremely basic. And I think I probably was like 13 or 14 at the time and I was putting this on like some free hosting platform under a fake name and so on.
I remember being very afraid that somebody would find out that I put like a fake name on the free hosting website and somebody would come and get me.
JH
: That’s hilarious. Nobody, nobody can know you though. So I’m, picking up a theme of what I would call autodidact, which is teach yourself how to do these things. It sounds like obviously you you’re learning from other people’s documentation or videos or whatever it might be, but like, it sounds like as you went along, you wanted to do something and you figured it out. Like you just trial and error. Like I said, banging on the keyboard, like a monkey, which we’ve all done.
ER
: Yeah, I kind of started my career in software development before I even went to Uni because I was obviously the fan sites that was early work and then eventually I moved on to making WordPress themes and plugins and eventually eventually moving on to Ruby and starting to to do more complex applications and I remember already starting to like freelance to try to make some money on the side and save up. And then…
JH
: Are you 18 yet? Are you 18 yet? Are we talking like you’re still 15 or something?
ER
: I’m trying to remember. I don’t remember when I started freelancing for sure. I think that my very first small clients were before I was 18. But probably the more serious projects were after I graduated high school. But I went to Uni basically already knowing that I kind of have the skills to make money with this career. But wanting to get a degree to satisfy my parents and have some kind of some kind of safety net. Also because I knew that in Germany it at least from what I heard at the time it didn’t matter so much what you could do as what kind of degree you had to get a job so I kind of like I needed it. My attitude to Uni was like I feel like I don’t really need this but I’m gonna do it just to have a check mark but then, in hindsight, after going to Uni and studying computer science, I mean, I only have a bachelor of science. I didn’t go all the way to masters, but it was very useful, and it was stuff that I learned that I did not expect. And I think it’s helped me along the way. I think it’s important knowledge.
JH
: So you weren’t completely bored out of your mind, at least in the first year or two of classes?
ER
: I can’t promise that. I have to admit, if we’re doing confessions, I spent most of my university just kind of doing random stuff on my laptop and not listening.
JH
: Because you already knew how to do it, right? It’s all basic computer science.
ER
: Yeah, but I did, I did fail a couple of exams a couple of times too. So it wasn’t like, you know, it wasn’t just breezing through, it was difficult. And the degree was, was difficult for everybody actually. Like the first, the first year there was so many people, there were so many people in those classes, they were full. And then as you went to second and third year of this degree, you just go into these more advanced classes, it would be like less than 10 people sitting in the room.
JH
: Oh yeah, that’s small. So then you kind of kept doing stuff, it sounds like on the side or as a consultant, you got your degree and then looking at your LinkedIn, it looks like you had a handful of regular jobs at companies or something like that.
ER
: I was freelancing but that was basically all during university. I don’t know how they’re chronological on on linkedin specifically but most of them were kind of ongoing on and off for you know during university and funnily enough Mastodon was one of the things I was also doing in university to not pay attention to class.
JH
: Okay, that’s kind of the timeframe is 2016.
ER
: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think if I remember looking up the first commit in the GitHub repositories from March 2016 and then it wasn’t public on Hacker News until I think September 2016. that was the time that was being developed for the first time.
JH
: When I think of something like Mastodon, it’s like audacious, you know, it’s sort of like, I’m going to make a thing to compete against the big ones, the Twitter at the time and so on.What was sort of like going through your mind at the time that this is going to be sort of a fun project. Maybe somebody will use it or you’re like, or was it on the further extreme of just like, I’m going to create the alternative that everybody switches to, you know, in this federated type of approach.
ER
: I mean, I guess the big secret is that I didn’t think that it would be competing with Twitter and do all of that ambitious stuff. I just wanted to work on a fun project and I wanted to have an alternative to a website that I didn’t like anymore. And to be fair, I did research. How could I make this better for other people as well? I remember interviewing some people on forums and stuff, like what do you wish was different about Twitter, and trying to build it around those expectations. It was also the kind of the post-Gamergate period on Twitter. So like a lot of people were traumatized by how that platform was, and how many alt-right and Nazi people were active on it. And so that influenced a lot in how the initial mass was being developed because I was trying to make it like, how do we prevent this? How do we make this safer?
JH
: Was the Fediverse component always a part of it or did that come later?
ER
: No, absolutely, yeah. Because my first contact with the Fediverse was actually not building Mastodon, but using a platform called GNU Social. And my first ideas were to build a Tweet Deck equivalent for GNU Social. And it wasn’t until I started working on it and wanted to start looking up the documentation for the Social API that realized that it would actually be simpler to try and make a start from a blank slate than try to fit my expectations onto a somewhat antiquated piece of software by that time.
JH
: Was there a solution prior to ActivityPub? Because I think I read somewhere that ActivityPub was added later.
ER
: True. the first platform, actually you know what I’m not going to make the statement the first federated platform because I don’t know, technically email is federated. The first social federated platform, social media-like federated platform that I know of was Identica founded by even in 2010 I think around that time.I remember I might have used it or I might have at least seen it at the time because I had friends who were programmers who were very into this federation idea.
But I wasn’t super heavily aware of it or interested. I was just kind of aware that it’s there. There were more interesting things happening. I think Google Wave something was the first experiment. First experiment, I remember people creating links and then having a shared workspace. Everyone was typing at the same time. It was revolutionary at the time.
JH
: Now it’s another dead Google product.
ER
: Yes, among thousands. But yeah, so I was kind of aware that this kind of space existed when I started looking for it again in 2016.By the time that I came back to GNU Social, the ecosystem and the protocol was called OStatus. I don’t know if it was originally called that or if it kind of transitioned to being that over between 2010 and 2016. It’s possible it was OStatus from the very beginning. I know that it was never a completed standard. It was always basically what’s called a draft. So it was a collection of different component protocols, but also some of them were in draft stage, some were actual standards like Webfinger. And basically that’s how this whole thing worked. It was centered around the concept of feeds, kind of like RSS feeds, but they were using Atom with some extensions, some of the activity streams extensions that are kind of the same as what we’re using in ActivityPub. It was like the predecessor for basically telling in more detail, like what is this activity? What is it doing? What is the metadata for like attached images and whatnot? And so obviously I was never and have never been a protocol designer. So I just, you know, researched how did GNU Social do it, what’s this protocol, how do you implement it, and I tried to do the same with Mastodon. There were other examples. GNU Social itself was open source, so could always look up how did they do this, how did they do that, but there were a couple other Fediverse projects that I was able to look up to solve.
JH
: I think there was Diaspora back then and some other things.
ER
: Diaspora was there, but Diaspora, to be fair, was not part of the Fediverse. They had their own. They were also federated social media platform, but they had their own protocol that was Diaspora specific. And I never, I remember being interested in it. And I think a couple of years earlier than that, when they had their Kickstarter.
JH
: (18:17.006)You’re saying to Diaspora is sort of like its own non-federated protocol. I was gonna ask you, do you remember TentIO?
ER
: Yes, yes, I do remember.
JH
: Was that also sort of like not federated?
ER
: Just a correction, I did not say Diaspora was not federated, because I think it was. It was just not, it was not using the same protocol as everything else that I was using. And I think the same is true for TentIO. I think it was its own project that was like trying to do it in a new way. And I don’t know much else beyond that. I remember looking at their website. I don’t remember what it said.
JH
: I just remember thinking Diaspora hadn’t really worked out that well. and TentIO just really intrigued me. I was like, this is going to finally be it. Like, this will be the one, that’s going to work. And, and I was, I had my own service. I was going to call it camp out cause it was called tent. You know, it was very clever. That was a joke. And then it just like went away and I was so frustrated. It’s like watching these different attempts sort of happen. and then came along ActivityPub and then came along Mastodon. I meant Mastodon came in and then ActivityPub. What about ActivityPub from all the protocols and solutions you were looking out there got you to be like, I’m going to commit to this. Like, this is going to be the protocol that’s going to be used for Mastodon moving forward.
ER
: Well, there was heavy campaigning from people who were working on ActivityPub to make me implement it in Mastodon. I remember GitHub issues being opened and messages being sent. And to be fair, when I started looking into it, I realized that it was more well-rounded than what we using at the time. There were a lot of shortcomings. As I mentioned before, was based around the idea of public feeds with extra information on top, but essentially not much more than having an RSS feed for a website. And there were components for interactivity. Obviously, it was using something called Salmon to send replies back to people. But a lot of the stuff that supported Mastodon’s functionality to actually get get the user experience to be what it needed to be was, let’s say creative, applications of that protocol or stretching it to its limit. And ActivityPub promised to basically all of that has been baked in from the very beginning. And it would just be a cleaner, all-encompassing solution, rather than having this mix of XML and different protocols and it just felt cleaner and like it was more future-proof, like it was actually thought out and of course the fact that it was being developed by W3C convinced me as well because like okay this is the real deal.
JH
: Standards-based. Do you foresee a future where we’ll call it ActivityPub 2.0, whatever, you we want to call it. But just a future where that protocol kind of addresses concerns people have had about it, concerns around like efficiency or scalability and that type of thing. Or do you see ActivityPub potentially kind of merging with something like an ATProto or something like.
ER
: I don’t see that happening. I don’t think that there’s a lot there to merge, if I’m honest. think that ATPoto is very, as far as protocols go, it’s very opinionated about how things work and there’s not a lot of room for making it work differently. But ActivityPub, on the other hand, is very flexible and over the past, how many years since it’s been since 2017 when we first started discussing it. think in Mastodon was implemented in 2018. I remember the big launch. There’s been a lot of work on defining how things are done because essentially what ActivityPub is, it’s kind of a language. It’s a, or rather it’s a vocabulary and what developers and the federalists have been doing is defining grammar. Like how do you say thing A and how do you say thing B and understand each other? Some of that is baked in. So some of the most basic stuff is baked in and very straightforward and easy to do. But when you want to do something more advanced, you need some kind of agreement because you can use the same vocabulary, but if you have different grammar, it can basically, it doesn’t help you understand each other. So different platforms have been collaborating to create Fediverse extension protocols or proposals, sorry, proposals, not protocols, to define how different functionality is actually to be understood within the protocol. And there is now quite big collection of these and, and Mastodon itself has worked on a couple, most recently the quote post thing, where we’ve worked on a proposal that would allow quotes to include consent from the author of the original post to be published. And what I see is that the protocol is evolving this way. So it’s not, it’s not, verbatim the same protocol that it was in 2018 but also on a more official level it still is, right. So, I don’t think there’s going to be an ActivityPub 2.0 or rather I yeah I would I wouldn’t want it to be a 2.0 I think that would be a bad idea I think a continuation and progressive evolution of the protocol is going to happen is happening and is a good thing. But a clean break would at this point no longer be a good thing. It’s kind of like, I mean, why did Blizzard turn Overwatch into Overwatch 2, right? What was the point of that? It became kind of a worse game.
JH
: It’s interesting because, one of the things I heard was with quote posts, which is something I wrote about because I was pretty excited about it. I wrote about that on Coywolf because I really liked sort of the controls that were baked in for the user from a safety perspective. What I pick up on is I feel like Mastodon is in a position to help push the protocol to a better place. So if I heard you correctly, the way quote posts were done in Mastodon helped create sort of a proposal for how that could be, the rules around that could be handled in the protocol. And either they’re already done the same way, or if ActivityPub adopts that, then the people working on Mastodon today would would tweak the code to work with whatever changes remain to ActivityPub.
ER
: Mostly right.
JH
: It doesn’t have to be completely right. Cause I’m not saying I know exactly everything I know what I’m talking about. So, okay.I got pretty excited when, Zuckerberg and Meta were actually being serious about integrating ActivityPub into threads. And a lot of people I knew were just like, it’s not going to happen. They’re going to screw it up. They’re going to like, you know, whatever. like, no, I think, I think it’s for real this time. And The Verge had a couple of good interviews, you know, where it’s like, no, I think they’re really committed to it. And, we had some really nice updates that came through. I didn’t like them all. It felt like they were making really poor choices because of maybe their legal department, you know, where they’re making it so convoluted.
ER
: That’s exactly how I would put it. It’s like they’ve been burned by Cambridge Analytica and they didn’t want to repeat of that. And that really limited what they were able to do and what they are able to do. I obviously cannot speak for them. I haven’t heard, I haven’t spoken to anyone from their side for a long time now. But from our discussions when they were launching it and they were asking questions about implemention details and how to do this, how to do that and us asking them like what will you be able to do? Just a lot of it is like we can’t do that because of legal which ended up being extremely disappointing from my perspective because I think the product that they launched is just it’s the promise is there but it really does not deliver to the very end because this the whole concept of federation is behind an additional opt-in that people are not even aware about is not helpful and there are a couple of details about that like like designed so carefully that it’s almost alienating like how the pop-up appears like 30 days every 30 days asking if you still want to continue fediverse sharing as if it’s like, my god, like I didn’t know, stop it, you know, like.
JH
: It’s a joke. I mean, it is terrible what it ended up becoming. And it sounds like it started off pretty good. The people were in the right place as far as like hearts, minds, whatever, whatever their intentions were. It even sounds like from some of The Verge interview stuff with Mark that that was, you know, genuine intention to do these things to create interoperability. But it all kind of ground to a halt because of legal concerns is what it sounds like.
ER
: So it’s far from perfect, but at the same time I do see, you know, people on threads in my home feed or master, which is already a huge win. I mean, that would not have been possible otherwise. And I think it enhances the experience. Some people might disagree because like, people using Threads. I don’t want to see them. I don’t want to know about them, but you know, for somebody who cares a little bit about, you know, being in touch with some more mainstream people, creators and so on, it can be an enhancing experience rather than a negative one.
JH
: I totally agree. I was going to say, we definitely, more you than me know there are plenty of outspoken people and plenty of people who manage instances that are like, Threads is an insta-block. But for others, which it sounds like you and I are kind of similar. I appreciate it at the very least to be able to follow some people to be informed where I wouldn’t otherwise if they didn’t have even the most basic of ActivityPub type of integration, where I could at least follow or they might even know I had some interaction, even though it’s very limited because of the way they have it locked down. I really like it. Like I, there are still good, there are plenty of good people on Threads, that I want to hear from. I want to know when they post something. Sometimes it’s even a brand, but you know, usually it’s a person, a journalist, whatever it might be, that that’s what they’ve chosen and that’s fine, that’s their choice.What do you think it will take to get more people. I know this is not first time you’ve been asked this question to get more people to be like, this is a better solution. From my perspective, Mastodon is my social network now. I don’t really use anything else. and, and that’s because I don’t want some algorithm showing me what it wants to show me versus like what I actually want to see. Like I follow people for a reason. I turn on notifications for people for a reason. Like I want to experience social in that way versus like every time I come there, it’s just like, oh my God, it’s always the same people that they want me to see their post and always the same topics that they’re trying to get me to see, which is a bubble or whatever I don’t want to be a part of.
There’s also other things, know, it’s the lack of advertising is kind of fantastic. There’s so much about it, controlling my social presence. I run, I’m one of those nutty people who runs a single person instance because I love it. I love the idea that I have henshaw.social and I control every aspect of my social presence. I love it for brands. know, a brand can be a nonprofit, or-profit, whatever. I love it for brands, which I’m running for Coywolf at coywolf.social. And it’s like, you control everything. It drives me nuts that more people don’t see that. And I know the answer, I know the general answer, which is, people aren’t there, my audience isn’t there, or it’s whatever it might be. Or, for lot of companies, it’s like, can’t advertise, you know what I mean? I know that’s important to them. With all that said, what do you think it’s gonna take, I don’t know, in society, with technology, something happening, something political, whatever, to get people to finally move over into something like we’re experiencing on Mastodon?
ER
: Good question. I mean, I feel like your question evolved a little bit since you started asking it because I think originally I understood it as like what does Mastodon need to do for more platforms like threads to start thinking seriously about implementing ActivityPub. The answer to which would be it has to grow because I think what happened is that obviously the engineers who were working on Threads were excited to do something decentralized and participate in the Fediverse. And before it launched, they felt like on an organizational level, they felt like they needed to promise something different to Twitter, some more freedom to creators to move around, to have this decentralization that would basically provide a layer of security against things happening that have happened on Twitter for them to gain market share. But as it turned out, once they launched, they got a lot of users regardless and their priorities quickly shifted. So instead of, there are features missing in our Fediverse integration, it became, we need to build like an NBA score widget into the sidebar or something, you know? And I think that the only way around that to put this back on their roadmap and on more companies and platforms and communities roadmap is for the Fediverse to become a bigger component in the market, to have a bigger market share because it’s all about people. I’ve been saying this for a long time, but if everybody was using smoke signals, then we’d all be on smoke signal dot social. The features matter a lot less than the people who are using the platform, and it’s always been this way. And sometimes it can be bit misleading because you get a lot of ideas and feature requests in a community and then the conversations become like, we definitely need feature X. This is what’s stopping us from growing. This is what’s stopping other people from using the platform. And sometimes in individual cases, it’s true, but the sad reality is that any kind of flaw can be overlooked as long as the people you want to reach are there. And that’s why so many people are still using X, which is absolutely god-awful platform.
JH
: Well, with your answer, you talked about that it likely will take these other platforms having better integration with the vocabulary, the way that ActivityPub works so that like Mastodon could talk to them. I was kind of was going two different directions. I think the one that I was really thinking about was people moving over to Mastodon in a similar way, and for those listening, I’m not saying it’s good or bad, but in a similar way to WordPress, know, where, WordPress just kind of became the de facto CMS because you know, people would, again, would argue maybe not today, but leading up to today, it was so easy to install. There’s so many benefits to it. It’s has a huge developer community. you know, so to the point that in 2025, over 50% are using it.
ER
: To answer your more broad question, which is what will it take in society for people to switch to the Fediverse in large? I think the answer is there. The most basic answer is that there needs to be more knowledge about what the Fediverse gives you. And that requires more knowledge about what the other platforms take away from you. And I think there is promising developments on this front because more and more people care about digital sovereignty. People no longer want to rely on US tech companies, especially if those people are living in Europe or Asia or any other place on earth. And what Mastodon and the fediverse offer is that you can have a social media platform that is in your country, that is local to you, that is not subject to whatever is happening in the US. Or for any matter, not subject to any third party that is doing whatever, even us, people developing the software. And I think as more people and more organizations are realizing this, the easier it becomes to convince people to join Mastodon and start using Mastodon on a personal and organizational level.
JH
: I love that answer. It’s gonna take education. That answer actually excites me.
ER
: It’s a, it’s a long road. It’s a long road because it’s kind of, it’s always been about education. Back in 2016, when it launched the, if I may do air quotes, the marketing strategy for Mastodon has always been explaining to people Twitter is bad because this is how it’s structured. This is how it works. We have a different structure. It works differently. Therefore, it will not suffer the same fate. It provides an alternative that will not follow the same path. And it’s always been about convincing people of this.
JH
: That’s great. I think the last part of that that I want to ask you is, does there still need to be certain features that are typical? And I don’t know if that means adding some type of quasi algorithm or adding or whatever it might be. And I know that you’re working on packs, you know, so it makes it really easy for people to instantly follow people with similar interests, which is you know, that’s one of reasons why I use social media is because I want to interact with people with similar interests. And so do you think it’ll likely take adding some of those features and things that you’re seeing success for as long as it fits within the paradigm of what you want it to be. Meaning like at this point, even as I stated earlier, you know, we don’t want it to be algorithm driven and stuff, but…
ER
: I think as before the answer to this is a couple different angles. There’s never just a singular answer to these questions because it’s quite a complicated area.So first packs, we’re actually calling them collections now internally and probably publicly as well. But I do think that one of the things that has always been hindering Mastodon adoption is discovery and onboarding. So on a platform like Twitter or Facebook, where you just have a single website and a database with everything that’s in it, a person joining, you just show them whatever is interesting to them.
You you have all the data, have all the users, search works as expected. It’s the most simple thing to do. On a decentralized platform like Mastodon, there’s kind of no guarantee that whatever the user is interested in is already in your database, and there’s an element of you would browse around other websites to find this content and then subscribe to it. But obviously this is not, this hasn’t stood the test of time and the skillset of an average internet user, people have lost the ability to browse websites. So now everything is a lot more like you never have to leave your interface on Mastodon and you never have to like venture out. I guess unless somebody sends you like a specific link through an instant messenger. So solving the discovery problem, helping people get started with here’s the people I may want to see from is going to be very helpful in that regard. So I think that is the big hope around collections and I think it is going to be helpful. That being said, it’s always there’s pros and cons and collections may also be, when working on this feature, we’ve heard feedback from Bluesky developers who worked on their starter packs feature of how this feature was abused on Bluesky, how it was misused to basically you would create a list of like interesting people and like most of them would be, you know, what the user wants to see. But then you would include like one or two accounts. They’re just like extra and it would just accrue followers and become like a big influencer account or a spam vector or something like that. And so we’re obviously thinking about how can you prevent that? How can you avoid that? But on some level, having a feature like this, there’s always going to be some kind of risk with that. Any kind of publicity always brings with it a risk of it being misused in some way. So, I mean, it’s all going to be tightly integrated with the report feature and all sorts of things, but yeah.
JH
: It’s funny you say that because I’ve been doing SEO for like forever. And of course SEO has a pretty bad connotation to a lot of people because there’s a lot of people in SEO who have done a lot of bad things. And it just made me sort of laugh when you’re describing it. It’s like, yeah, I know plenty of people who would do that. I know plenty of opportunists who would be like, yeah, that’s my vector.
ER
: Yeah.
JH
: But what you did describe, I feel is consistent with the way Mastodon has been built to this day, which I think was also described in the new quote feature, which is everything that, does get added has a lot of thought behind it. And, and I think care and, and I really like hearing that whatever collections ends up being will be the better version than what was, say, launched on a different platform.
ER
: I’ve historically abused the phrase social media platform to describe Mastodon, but I think it’s more true that what we’re building is a social network. And I think that there is a difference in those two terms because if you think about it, media is something you consume passively. It’s TV, it’s radio, it’s, you know, just reading stuff. Network is you’re networking with people, you’re talking to them. And I think that has always been a part of how we think of Mastodon and how we’re building Mastodon to allow that. But obviously in terms of like how we speak about it, we haven’t always done that because there’s one of the complexities of doing this is that people care a lot about the words that you use and the definitions that you use. So when you would say, Mastodon is a social network, they would be like, well, Mastodon is part of the Fediverse, which is the network. So how can you say that Mastodon is a network? That’s why we’ve been kind of avoiding saying network and trying to be more like media platform, social media platform. But, you know, that’s, I feel like we should pivot more to the other one.
JH
: I think of it as positive or healthy engagement versus everything else being a place where people broadcast, where people are performative. And that’s probably that’s one of things that I should have included when I was talking about things I like to mess about Mastodon is it is a respite from the other networks and that I feel like every other place is about being performative. And I don’t feel that pressure on Mastodon. On Mastodon, I’m just like having fun and I’m engaging with people that interest me.
ER
: I think Mastodon and the Fediverse is part of the old internet that was more about, you know, communicating with each other, having fun, and less about passive consumption and just essentially watching TV, which is what TikTok is, except worse. And I think that part of this is that Mastodon and the Fediverse will never pay people to create content for it? Like you can make money off of being on it by, you know, you’re an artist and you offer commissions or you sell artworks and you post about it on Mastodon, you direct people to your websites, but it’s not Mastodon who’s paying you. We’re not paying you to create content. We’re not paying you to get more views and pay you based on the amount of views that you get, which is what’s been implemented in almost every other platform, I believe. On Twitter, you get money for views. On TikTok, you get money for views. So basically you end up being almost like a TV channel for a TV network, except it’s a hustle, because you don’t have a contract. You’re just trying to make something and see what sticks.
JH
: Again, it’s performative. It’s performative. Again, that’s just another thing to push you to be performative.
ER
: Yeah, but the big question is that obviously the market for passive consumption is much bigger than the market for active participation, which I think is some of the explanation for why the numbers have turned out this way over the years, because the internet has moved to the passive consumption model.I personally think that Mastodon should stick with active participation model and not try to appeal to the passive consumption audience as much as you could argue that it would bring more users in, make it easier because obviously it’s easier to just turn on the TV and your brain off, but it wouldn’t be the platform that we know today. It would be a different platform then. And I think there is still space on the internet for having a platform like what Mastodon is.
JH
: I think you could even make an argument that at some point you could actually have more real people engaging, creating, sharing on something like Mastodon than maybe some of the other networks. I read all the time about a huge percentage are probably just bots, a huge percentage are just there, whether it be to cause trouble or whatever, but it’s not necessarily what we would consider to be genuine engagement.Alright, you you have been really generous with your time. I have one last question. And that is, what are you going do next? mean, I know you’re still an advisory role. I know you’re not disappearing from Mastodon, but I also know that you’re going to do something next. Like you’re like, this is good, I’ll continue to help, but like I need to move on with my life and do something, maybe something different. What is that?
ER
: That’s a good question. As you pointed out, I still have a role at Mastodon. I’m now an executive strategy and product advisor, which is very long title that I haven’t seen anywhere else before, but I guess it fits. I’m basically coaching and advising the new leadership team. I have a lot of knowledge, historic and current, about the Fediverse, the key players, the community and my task is to transfer that knowledge into the new generation of leadership at Mastodon. But also it is to provide a voice during product decisions. So I no longer have the authority to say, we’re doing this, we’re doing that. But I still get to say, I think that this or that is a bad idea and have my opinion heard. And of course I’m still in charge of the merch, which is actually something that’s been bringing a lot of joy to me.
JH
: Jon shows Eugen the Mastodon plushie on camera.
ER
: That’s lovely to see. That is lovely to see. It always brings a lot of joy.As I’ve mentioned in my announcement, I’ve been feeling burned out for a couple of years now, since 2022. The collapse of Twitter as a platform has been a good thing for Mastodon in all things, but it’s also put this intense spotlight on my work and put so much responsibility on my shoulders. And growing the organization, having more people has pushed me kind of far out of my comfort zone. And working on merch and the plushies and so on has been like almost like a little vacation within my work. And just because it’s such a physical component that, you know, unlike all of the code that we’re writing that is just somewhere in the ether, it’s a physical product that you can touch and you can squish. And I love the community aspect of it because I follow the Plushodon hashtag and I ask people to, you know, post under it when they get their plushie or some other merch items and I just love seeing people like unpack the toy and play with the toy and like the the situations and scenes that they put it because it’s basically like a character and it gets to participate in all these different scenarios in the world, like sometimes it goes to the polls to vote and sometimes it’s sitting somewhere playing with a cat and some you know and it’s just it’s it’s it’s very delightful thing.
JH
: So it’s funny you say that because when I had my company, my very favorite thing was creating the swag and the t-shirts and in my business partner, we used to do these poker tournaments at a conference, the annual conference we would have. And that was the only thing he enjoyed doing like out of the entire year. Out of everything we did in the business, we had to do, is the only thing he actually like enjoyed in life, was creating this special coin, which was just for the event. Everything else he was miserable. But that was the one time where he was happy and had a smile on his face because that was like the thing that brought him joy and everything else was like, I hate this. So I think that’s, you know, as far as you enjoying that, I think a lot of people can relate.Thank you so much for spending this time. It was really fascinating to me you. I learned a lot. Right now I’m just really thinking about your answer about what’s going to make the biggest change is going to be educating the market. And now that’s where my head is.
Yeah, well, I’m happy to be of service.
Alt...
Eugen Rochko of Mastodon
![[?]](https://coywolf.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/cropped-coywolf-icon.webp){kind=icon}
![[?]](https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/accounts/avatars/113/448/947/611/730/728/original/73724016d6f0bd50.jpg)
Long-overdue #question and request for #recommendations: What to use besides #GIMP? I don't hate it (I've become used to it) but I object to the name and it has annoyances galore. If I can use something better I will. I'd very much like it to be #FOSS.
My use case: mostly photo editing (though a lot of that has been replaced with Darktable), sometimes making memes or flyers, etc. Occasionally I draw or make something from scratch.
What else is there that does these things, and (very important) is better at them, hopefully with a more intuitive, useful interface?
![[?]](https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/accounts/avatars/109/301/891/382/895/881/original/f48a64d950c8e634.jpeg)
... [SENSITIVE CONTENT]
Man darf sich ja manchmal was wünschen: vielleicht schaffen wir hier im #wandern #hiking #fediverse ja meinen Mini #youtube Kanal bis #weihnachten auf 100 Abos zu bekommen.
https://youtube.com/@smallelephantontrail?sub_confirmation=1
![[?]](https://bardicperspiration.club/system/accounts/avatars/114/530/878/424/510/175/original/2471fd5ed4de05c4.png)
Unpopular Opinion, Rant, Fediverse [SENSITIVE CONTENT]
Maybe this will make some ppl mad but tbh that's okay.
The fediverse has evolved into a taker society.
There. I said it.
I see a lot of "please give me X" or "I need help with X" or "Ppl owe me X" or "you NEED to do X" but tbh not a lot of "I can help with Y" or "I would like to offer Y." There's not rly any reciprocity to things; it doesn't feel "pay it forward" but like, "pay it into my acct."
And tbh? It's fking tiring.
Mutual implies reciprocity. So if u want a community based on mutual support, u should figure out how u will give back.
![[?]](https://media.mastodon.de/accounts/avatars/114/266/697/231/386/766/original/d57dd28c620b45c2.jpg)
Hallo #fediverse ,
mit sofortiger Wirkung trennen wir uns von unserem langjährigen Lieferanten
#conrad Electronics ,
https://conrad.de
weil das Unternehmen Mitglied in folgenden Lobbyvereinen ist:
#familienunternehmer
https://www.familienunternehmer.eu/
UND
#familienunternehmen
https://www.familienunternehmen.de/
Wir sind der Ansicht, dass die Ziele der beiden Vereine/Institutionen
unseren Zielen entgegenstehen.
Dazu gehört: u.a.
#co2reduktion
#Gleichbehandlung
#Steuergerechtigkeit
Guten Morgen - Tässle Kaffee ☕️?
Hassnachrichten bekomme ich seit Jahren täglich. Doch diese Woche wetterte 1 Pro - #Musk - Rechtsdualist erstmals auch gegen meine Unterstützung von #Wikipedia & Mitgliedschaft bei @wikimediaDE.
Du weißt bestimmt, warum der mit #Tesla scheiternde #X er u.a. mit #Grokipedia gegen Wikipedia als Teil des #Fediverse vorgeht?
Wenn das #Fediversum fiele, könnten wenige #Medienkonzerne und ihre #KI - Bots auch die mediale Realität kontrollieren…
![[?]](https://files.mastodon.social/accounts/avatars/108/193/032/039/339/512/original/7767f9271f2e44d7.png)
Moin #Fediverse und kleine Frage an die #Linux Community - Stichwort Gaming unterm Penguin.... #Bazzite oder #CachyOS oder vielleicht sogar #SteamOS ?
Ich haue #Windows nun von meinem Gamingrechner runter. Schon recht betagter Intel 10900K aber mit ner 4070TI.
Was wuerdet ihr nehmen und warum?
Alt...
Ein Computer-Monitor zeigt eine große weiße Schrift auf blauem Hintergrund: „GOODBYE WINDOWS. PERMANENTLY REMOVING OS… PROGRESS: 100%“. Darunter steht kleiner: „Drive Wiped. Ready for new beginning.“ Rechts neben dem Monitor steht ein PC-Gehäuse mit beleuchtetem RGB-Lüfter und einem eingesteckten USB-Stick, der mit „Linux Mint Installer“ beschriftet ist. Auf dem Schreibtisch liegt eine Windows-10-DVD neben Tastatur und Maus.
![[?]](https://kolektiva.social/system/accounts/avatars/109/367/437/697/238/997/original/9ab1f56484688a16.jpg)
Oh darn! I missed my 3-year #Fediversary! So glad I'm here! And in such good company! The #Fediverse Rocks!
Alt...
Mastodon logo with an assortment of mastodons of various colors!
![[?]](https://media.mstdn.social/accounts/avatars/109/000/854/757/148/967/original/bf5a2a23bea23e00.jpg)
![[?]](https://s3.eu-central-2.wasabisys.com/mastodonworld/accounts/avatars/113/876/623/300/380/632/original/c398eed81e0780fe.png)
Aside from YouTube, which platform is Peertube's next biggest competition?
#Polls #Fediverse #VideoSharing #SocialMedia #PeerTube #YouTube #Survey #Odysee #TikTok #Poll #Vimeo #DailyMotion
| Daily Motion: | 0 |
| Odysee: | 0 |
| TikTok: | 0 |
| Vimeo: | 0 |
![[?]](https://kolektiva.social/system/accounts/avatars/000/009/947/original/d4959a2dbf7af217.jpg)
I'm very disappointed to see so many posts advertising Black Friday stuff today on the Fediverse.
Although I guess it means that the Fediverse is starting to gain some traction in the world outside. But I really hate advertising. Always have.
Black Friday is the high holy day of capitalism. And capitalism is the antithesis of humane life.
![[?]](https://s3.eu-central-2.wasabisys.com/mastodonworld/accounts/avatars/115/086/157/598/619/206/original/825f38a464ff9f5f.png)
Can anyone advise me on how to complete this?
I followed @bsky.brid.gy 's link, & the instructions,
but every time I try to "Set Bluesky handle:" by entering a name.domain, it gets rejected.
I've searched online and tried different things, but none have worked. some guidance is about setting an ATProto name? i'm stuck
Would appreciate some advice. Thanks
#Mastodon #Bluesky #Bridgy #Bridge #socialmedia #fediverse #ATProto #domain
Alt...
a screen shot of my attempt to set up bridgy fed
![[?]](https://m-cdn.flipboard.social/accounts/avatars/109/943/657/145/922/527/original/5a0f8e38d86bbaba.jpg)
How to and Why Interact with Your Flipboard Federated Account
#flipboard #fediverse #surfthreads #bluesky #mastodon
How to grow your Flipboard presence on the #socialweb https://medium.com/flipboard4business/how-to-grow-your-flipboard-presence-using-the-decentralized-web-1c0e034ba282
#Flipboard #mastodon #bluesky #fediverse
![[?]](https://media.bsd.cafe/bsdmmedia01/accounts/avatars/115/484/083/681/484/629/original/bdbd7c7d0548e00d.jpeg)
Be careful what you favourite on Mastodon. An old post can be edited with statements you don’t believe in or of hatred. Third party apps may not refresh the post until you interact with them.
![[?]](https://mitra.social/media/94b1ca41dd450eaf9bd5c8edf0723281c06eb9f03bc107e31c9e2a07a86f8c2d.png)
Week in Fediverse 2025-11-28
Servers
- tootik v0.20.0
- Ktistec v3.2.1
- NodeBB v4.7.0
- Wafrn v2025.11.01
- Loops v1.0.0-beta.5
- Mitra v4.14.0
- Misskey v2025.11.1
- Omnom v0.8.0
- PieFed v1.3.5
- stegodon: An SSH-first federated blogging platform
- linkblocks: A federated network to bookmark, share and discuss good web pages with your friends
Clients
- Chihu v1.14.0
- Phanpy changelog
Tools and Plugins
- feed2fedi v3.4.0
- FIRES Server v0.7.0
- OwncastLive Panel: A GNOME Shell extension that monitors your favorite Owncast instances and notifies you when they go live
Articles
- Git as Federation Transport — Rethinking How Small Social Networks Talk to Each Other
- Now witness the power of this fully operational Fediverse!
- Fediverse onboarding resources
- Owncast Newsletter November 2025
- Fediverse Report – #144
-----
#WeekInFediverse #Fediverse #ActivityPub
Previous edition: https://mitra.social/objects/019aa829-83b6-d369-eedb-8725125ced7b
TurtleIsland.social is an Indigenous owned and operated Mastodon server for Indigenous people. TurtleIsland.social is ad-free, corporate-free, bigotry-free, and culture respectful.
You can find out more at https://turtleisland.social/about or contact the admin account @TurtleIsland
#FeaturedServer #Indigenous #FirstNation #Mastodon #Fediverse #FreeFediverse
Fediverse Report 144 - this week's #fediverse news:
@newsmast launches news app for the Bristol Cable that combines local news with fediverse integrated news feeds, and the first Brazilian fediverse conference with WebSocialBR
![[?]](https://media.hachyderm.io/accounts/avatars/109/296/581/037/186/439/original/bfc6d281d68ee887.jpg)
Hey #fediverse people, I've an ask: If you appreciate all that I do for the fediverse and open social web, and you'd like to see me continue to do that work, please support my work financially.
Right now I'm having to look for work outside of the Fediverse because I simply cannot make ends meet.
I need €60-70k per year to support myself, with costs everywhere feeling increased (so that number may even be too low)
Right now, year to date, I've received a total of €20,170 in financial support from the community, and €22,450 from NLNet grants. I've also only had minimal freelance work this year, as I've been busy on grant work & try to focus on the fediverse & open social web.
So my total income isn't yet enough to be regularly sustainable. I've had problems being able to make rent payments this year because cashflow on grants comes in large chunks usually months after the work has been done.
So if you want to see me keep doing what I'm doing, please support my work!
![[?]](https://files.mastodon.social/accounts/avatars/107/651/441/592/242/630/original/f74c431007e1fef3.png)
Oi #Fediverse..
Check out this 2min walkthrough of #Emissary's upcoming data migration tool. It's the last big feature I'm delivering in 2025.
It uses the "LOLA" data portability spec to transfer account data from one server (like Bandwagon.fm) to a new one (like bandwagon.your-band-here.biz)
No CSV files required. Just authenticate and approve, and everything just moves.
There's tons more to do, but I'm confident this will be live by Christmas. 🤘🏻
Bonfire isn’t easy to pin down, and that’s the point! We seek to enable a tapestry of social spaces, all built from shared building blocks but diverging in flavour, practice, and purpose.
We gathered a whole collection of answers from across the fediverse:
👉 https://bonfirenetworks.org/posts/what-is-bonfire-plural-by-design/
Want to help shape what comes next? Support and share the crowdfunding to join install parties, co-design sessions, and more:
👉 https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bonfire/community?refcode=r7GaxBU-z0yejFPdalMOKQ
![[?]](https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/newsmast/accounts/avatars/110/666/864/999/145/616/original/9b4ac35ed1938a0e.png)
Recently, we were asked why we, a knowledge & community focused charity, were posting to celebrate cultural and religious holidays.
We believe that the Social Web has the potential to be the most diverse space on the entire web. But to get there, we have to start simple.
We aren't experts. We're learning each time we post (and we hope you are too). Our goal is to provide the very first stepping stones to that, diverse, Social Web we dream of.
#Diversity #SocialWeb #Fediverse #Mastodon
Alt...
The background of the image shows silver stars. Over it, text reads: Why we celebrate Diversity across the social web. Newsmast Foundation.
Alt...
The background of the image shows silver stars. Over it, text reads: Awareness. The Social Web, especially the Fediverse, has a long way to go before it represents the diversity of the real world.
The Social Web is dominated by the Western perspective.
We hope that, by celebrating cultural events and holidays across our Social Web presence, we can highlight the many missing voices in the timeline.
Alt...
The background of the image shows silver stars. Over it, text reads: Education. There are so many cultures and religions on our small planet. We are a species of dreamers and believers.
It’s unfair to presume that a person would be educated on the experiences of others from different countries, cultures, and beliefs. But to welcome diversity to the Social Web, we should make a collective effort to learn.
We’re not experts. Our commuity team are all from the English countryside. We’re not always perfect, but we try to take time to educate ourselves.
We hope that by sharing that knowledge on the Social Web, others may too learn about the experiences of those different to them. Together, we can make this space more welcoming.
Alt...
The background of the image shows silver stars. Over it, text reads: Acceptance. We hope that if someone from a group or culture which is a minority on the Social Web sees one of our posts, they feel a little more at home.
In the past, the culture of the Social Web itself has felt unwelcoming to those marginalised by Western society. This is not acceptable.
The Social Web is a place for everyone who can treat others with respect and decency. It belongs to no one.
We welcome everyone, no matter their culture or religion, and trust that they too will welcome the diverse opinions and voices of the Social Web.
Out of curiosity, what #FediVerse applications _other_ than Mastodon have you used?
In my case, it's:
- #BookWyrm
- #PixelFed
- #Lemmy
- #NeoDB
- #WordPress #ActivityPub plugin
![[?]](https://social.firesidefedi.live/fileserver/01KPBJBGFRKAF2GPRHMHT3THH3/attachment/original/01KAH37C4A2EKEXV9H0GA6JKZK.png)
20 days left to contribute to @bonfire ! Let's help fund the #Fediverse and support some #Developers so they can keep investing in US!
Dads.cool and cooler.mom are Hometown Mastodon servers for parents of all kinds, including biological and non-biological parents, foster parents, adoptive parents and people of all gender identities.
You can find out more at https://dads.cool/about and https://cooler.mom/about or contact the admin accounts @alex and @sydney
#FeaturedServer #Parents #Parenting #Children #Kids #Mastodon #Hometown #Fediverse #FreeFediverse
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Something Fediverse related that I am working on —
Toddlerverse
Basically, what I have been thinking about is —
What would take to make areas of the Fediverse geared towards toddlers.
(The document I am writing is still a work in progress.)
(I am a parent of young children, so I have first-hand experience with kids usage of online media, including social-media.)
#FediUX #Fediverse #FediverseUX #SpreadFediverse #Toddler #Toddlers #Toddlerverse
Alt...
Imagine an online world designed for your toddler — not to sell to them, or track them, or overstimulate them — but to help them grow. One that puts parents in control.
The Toddlerverse is a safe, gentle, ad-free digital space inspired by the calm, educational approach of Mr. Rogers and Ms. Rachel. It gives your child access to simple, developmentally appropriate videos, songs, and activities — without autoplay traps, noisy algorithms, or surprise content. You (the parent) stay in control of what your toddler sees, and everything is built around real early-childhood learning science The Toddlerverse isn't about more screen time; it's about better screen time. It is a place where your toddler can explore safely, learn at their own pace, and experience the kind and thoughtful media every parent wishes existed online
The Toddlerverse is not a business, and it is not driven by profit. Its purpose is far greater: to create a lasting resource for parents, families, caregivers, and communities that nurtures the growth and development of young children. Every video, story, and activity is designed to serve the public good, freely accessible and shareable, so that parents everywhere can support their toddlers' learning and curiosity
The Toddlerverse is built with the future in mind—a cultural and educational commons that can be used, adapted, and enjoyed for generations, leaving a legacy of knowledge, creativity, and care that will benefit children and families long into the future
A new release of TootSDK - 21.2.0 📣
https://github.com/TootSDK/TootSDK/releases/tag/21.2.0
What's changed:
- Quotes feature marker and quotes support in push notifications @luckkerr
Community contributions are greatly appreciated 🙌
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Looks fab!
Concerned #accessibility comes after all being worked on now.
I ❤️ #monetization options are planned. Concerned "ad free" options imply ads are planned as part of the roadmap?
Absence of #AI is refreshing!
Is #UnifiedPush part of "push notifications", or just feeding everything via #Google / #Apple? (cue usual: "They're encrypted. Don't ask whether metasdata / future decryption / #MobileLinux matter" discussion)
Project Moebius (#decentalized?), better editing & live streaming look super cool! ❤️
Finally, a regular reminder to please avoid creating a digital 1% elite by focusing "For you" on relevance not rolling-snowball-boosting of already popular accounts/content.
Thanks for all your amazing hard work! 💕 You ROCK!