DO NOT #update to #ubuntu#24.04 on #LXC if you use #proxmox, the containers will NOT start. I believe this is something that needs to be fixed by the proxmox team as they seems to be checking for ubuntu version manually in a startup script
This edition of Last Week in Fediverse seems to be a President’s edition; Barack Obama turns on fediverse sharing for his Threads account, and Brazil’s president Lula joins Bluesky. Lots more going on this week, lets dive in:
The News
IFTAS, the nonprofit organisation for Trust & Safety on the social web, has put out a guide for the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). The guide caters towards ‘small and micro services’ that has member accounts in the EU, which is the large majority of fediverse servers. It is a practical and easy overview of what is expected if you are the operator of a fediverse server, and highly recommended if you are a server admin to check it out. Most requirements in the DSA that are applicable to ‘small and micro services’ (platforms with less than 50 employees and less than 10M EUR turnover) are on how to provide ways of communication with authorities and how to handle their requests. The requirement (art 13) in the DSA that might give server operators the most difficulty is that platforms that are located outside of the EU, but ‘serve EU users or make their services available in the EU are required to have an EU-based
legal representative to manage compliance and communication with EU authorities.’ It seems a significant number of fediverse servers are currently not in compliance with this requirement, and no clear direction yet on how to get there.
Sora is an iOS and MacOS client for the fediverse (for Mastodon, the Forkeys as well as Bluesky), which has been pushing the boundaries with what is possible with 3rd party fediverse clients. The app features a custom For You algorithmic feed, and the developer recently showed during FediForum how people have complete control over their algorithm. Now the developer is back with another update, this time adding P2P video calling to the client. A gif in the announcement post shows how it works. You can schedule a meeting, which send a link for the other person’s fediverse account to join. Both people need to use Sora to use the feature. The developer stated that if there is enough interest in the feature, he will work on making the feature available as a web client that does not require Sora.
Flipboard has reached another major milestone in their process fully federate Flipboard and have full interoperability with the rest of the fediverse. There is now two-way interaction with fediverse accounts and Flipboard accounts that are federated. CEO Mike McCue explains: “Now when a federated Flipboard user curates, people in the fediverse can reply, favorite, boost or follow those Flipboard users who will in turn see that activity in their usual notifications tab. Even better, Flipboard users can directly reply to people in the fediverse — and very soon they will also be able to follow each other.” Furthermore, Flipboard has enabled federation for another 11000 magazines, creating increasing the amount of curated content that is available in the fediverse.
Lyrak is a new social platform that focuses on real-time news and revenue sharing with creators that was announced this week. In the announcement post, Lyrak also stated that fediverse integration will be added to the platform ‘soon’. For more information on Lyrak, Sarah Perez has more extensive look, over at TechCrunch.
Russia’s censorship agency blocks access to the lgtbqia.space server in Russia. The admins of the lgtbqia.space server got a notification by the Russian agency demanding that they remove an account from their server. The account is for a ‘blog about LGBTQ+ people, literature, sports, humor, etc.’ The admins refused to comply, after which the server is now inaccessible in Russia.
During FediForum, Newsmast showcased their new project Patchwork. In a new update, Newsmast says that they ‘are looking at rolling out a Beta version in the coming months, with features like easy opt in or out of networking with Threads & Bluesky, spam management and content filters.’
A blog post on using Mastodon to follow on Threads accounts, from the perspective of someone who has mainly been using Threads. The blog showcases how third party clients are a major selling point for the fediverse.
Meanwhile, Threads invites developers to sign up for API access, but it seems the API can only be used for posting into Threads, as well as analytics. It rules out the possibility of building full-featured third-party clients as you can with the rest of the fediverse.
Some news from Bluesky
Brazilian president Lula has opened an account on Bluesky, Brasil247.com reports. The news comes after an escalating conflict between X and the Brazilian Courts. Elon Musk publicly refused to follow orders by the Brazilian court to block certain accounts on X, and a Brazilian judge has ordered an investigation of Elon Musk for obstruction of justice. President Lula opening an account on Bluesky is a direct response to the ongoing conflict between the Brazilian government and X, and indicates how governments are starting to be fed up with the situation at X. President Lula used his first post on Bluesky to say that 38 slaughterhouses will be authorised to export meat to China. (?)
The Links
Mastodon is hiring a new core team member for back-end development.
An update on BridgyFed, the upcoming bridge between the fediverse and Bluesky, and the work to make it fully opt-in/consent based.
Fediverse Event planning tool Mobilizon has transferred ownership recently, and the new team, Kaihuri, will give a presentation of the new version next week on Monday April 15th.
A reading of the Canadian Online Harms Act, from the perspective of fediverse admins.
An update on radio free fedi, who have launched their new website as well.
A bit of a quieter news week, especially after last week’s business with Threads’ open beta for federation and Fediforum, with a variety of smaller news items. So let’s dive into this week’s news:
The News
Fediverse event planning platform Mobilizon transfers ownership, from Framasoft to Kaihuri. Framasoft (who also develops PeerTube) has been developing Mobilizon for the past few years, and feels that they have achieved their vision. The Kaihuri association has obtained funding from the NLnet organisation for futher developement.
@Oliphant has maintained the Oliphant’s blocklists over the last few years. He has been working together with IFTAS on the upcoming FediCheck project. FediCheck is a Web service from IFTAS that allows service providers to review and subscribe to external sources such as the IFTAS CARIAD database for automated updates. @Oliphantsays about his blocklist project that “project I’m doing is an “interim step on the road to something better.” FediCheck is the “something better”, at least so far as what I can contribute.” As such, future work on the Oliphant blocklist will be minimal, and more information on this will be out soon.
Mastodon’s upcoming new release will feature ‘severed relationship’ notifications. Mastodon CTO Renaud Chaput explains that these notifications will appear when a moderator or admin blocks a user or a whole domain and this action caused you to loose some follows or followers. Screenshots how this will look like available here. There will also be new ways to filter your notifications. The new update, version 4.3, is expected to be released in the next 6 to 8 weeks.
A short update on statistics about Threads: Threads’ legal department denied the request to share NodeInfo data, according to Daniel Supernault, who maintains fedidb.org. Mastodon’s CTO Renaud Chaput meanwhile indicates that mastodon.social knows about 2800 Threads accounts who have turned on federation. While the mastodon.social server does not know about all Threads accounts, it does provide a good indication of roughly the amount of Threads accounts that have turned on federation.
WeDistribute wrote about the decision by the maintainer of fedi.garden to only list instances that do not federate with Threads. The article has a good explainer of the situation, but what stands out to me is that this is another small step towards understanding the fediverse as multiple fediverses instead.
John Spurlock has given an extensive write-up of the current state of work on ActivityPub and podcasting. It is a subject that deserves significantly more attention, something that I hope to get to soon. For people who are interested in a deep dive on the subject, the write-up by Spurlock is excellent.
Sora, an iOS fediverse client for Mastodon, the Forkeys as well as Bluesky keeps pushing the boundaries of innovation in fediverse clients. Last week on Fediforum the developer showcased how Sora has client-side algorithmic feeds that are customisable.. The latest update is a ‘fediverse watch tab’, a scrolling feed of fediverse videos.
The Links
FediTest, a framework to help fediverse developers test, has some new information about the feedback they’ve received.
@Crell@ramsey@cedx I once read a good argument in favour of tabs, shared by Fabien Potencier, but not from him: with tabs you can determine the degree of indentation yourself, similar to line spacing. This option could help people with visual impairments. A really strong argument from my point of view!
She's so adorable :ChikaHappy: it's crazy how even after 4 years I still get butterflies in my stomach from seeing her. That's true love right there <3