People on ActivityPub-powered platforms like Mastodon, and Bluesky, which uses the AT Protocol, can now follow each other, see posts, like, reply, and repost them, thanks to the work of @snarfed.org@snarfed.org, creator of Bridgy Fed. @Sarahp interviewed him for Tech Crunch about the future of bridging networks, how to bridge your account from the fediverse to Bluesky, and what to expect when you do.
If you want your name (you don't need to be Canadian!) on the letter that goes to officials in Canada's Parliament advocating for using #OpenSocialWeb services you need to let me know before 9AM PDT tomorrow (Monday Jun 3).
Last chance. If you want to have your signature on the real life letter that goes to Canada's House of Commons Speaker and others, you must tell me before 9AM PDT (about 40 minutes).
You do not have to be Canadian to sign.
Signatures received after 9AM will be on the web version.
I've made some updates to the letter including more supporting links and sources.
Dear all Canadians and also all Fediverse Citizens!
Please boost and sign (name and place please) this open letter that will be sent to the Parliament of Canada. This is a followup to #e4769 petition which is now awaiting a formal response from Government. This Open letter will be sent on Monday June 3rd to the Speaker of the House of Commons and other critical officers and Ministers to encourage a positive response to the petition.
This sounds like a reason to call for our MPs and other government officials to remove themselves from toxic corporate social media spaces and create government-run, spaces, federated into the open social web so that Canadians can interact with their elected officials and those elected officials can be protected from harassment!
I am a tiny bit sad. If only because now I will remember a number -- 23149880 -- that is truly and completely obsolete. I really need to conserve brain space for more important things.
Also, if ICQ can last, what, 15 years? after it became irrelevant, what does that say about how long we're going to have to suffer with Twitter/X if people ever actually leave en-masse?
There’s a new playbook being written right now when it comes to the future of social media. The early-mover advantage is still in effect, and there’s a lot to figure out. Gone are opaque algorithms and the whims of any single company.
The fediverse represents a chance for quality journalism to shine again.
We talked to two leaders at fedi-forward publications — @TheConversationUS's @BostonAbrams, and @404mediaco's @jasonkoebler — about why they’re investing in the open social web, what they’ve learned so far, and their advice for other publishers just getting started.
We'd love to get the #NewstodonFriday hashtag going again. This, as far as we can remember, was started by @gbhnews, and is an initiative to feature work from newsrooms that have an active presence in the #fediverse
If you're a news organization, share your handle and your favorite story of the week in the comments to this! And if there's a publication in the fediverse that you love, let us know about that in the comments too.
@molly0xfff is a leading cryptocurrency critic, but get to know her and you’ll see she’s anything but cynical about the future of the web. Hear why this researcher, writer and software engineer thinks so in this fascinating conversation with @mike:
1/2 Today in, "Chris writes to Politicians” 🤣
I wrote to the British Columbia Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness today in relation to this news that she was negotiating with Meta to try to get access to Facebook to post emergency updates. How did we allow ourselves to be so beholden to these corporations for basic communication!
Here is my letter:
Dear Minister Ma (EMCR.Minister@gov.bc.ca)
CC: My Local MLA Minister Josie Osborne
I understand and agree with why you feel you must try to get Meta to allow you to post Emergency messages on that platform, especially during the fire season when we all now face so much uncertainty.
However, you must also acknowledge that:
Meta has made it clear its concern is curating its own content and “news” for its own financial benefit separate from any public benefit consideration.
You will never be able to control the algorithm on any Meta platform, so while you may post, you are still never guaranteed that your message can reach 100% of the people 100% of the time.
You as a Minister and as a representative of the Government of British Columbia cannot rely on third parties to get timely messaging out to communities and citizens. You are government, you have the means and responsibility to get the message out directly.
The question is how do you, as government, use social media directly? This has not been possible before, but it is now.
The answer is the Open Social Web. You may cringe at this example (and rightly so), but the pioneer and most famous person using the Open Social Web tools for public communication is Donald Trump with his “truth.social”.
When he built a bridge to connect Bluesky to Mastodon and other ActivityPub-powered platforms, @snarfed.org@snarfed.org started a new chapter for the fediverse. The software engineer opens up to @mike about his rollercoaster ride in the latest episode of Dot Social:
I am going to be super busy all day, but this response from the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada just came into my inbox. I argued Public Safety Canada (emergency communications) services were violating privacy laws using corporate social media. They say they don't have jurisdiction to make the call. Would be interested in your guys thoughts on a response before I have time to think on mine. #Fediverse#OpenSocialWeb#Mastodon#Emergencies#Communication.
We got 10 more signatures yesterday! Only need 13 more to break 1000!
Share this link and post about the #e4769 petition on your Facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, and Threads feeds!
Last month, Meta's Threads took its first step into the fediverse. @quillmatiq, aka @quillmatiq took that as his cue to experiment with how his Threads feed would look like on Mastodon. Here's what he discovered about organizing the chaos, different clients (hello @phanpy) and whether he'll cut the Threads cord when federation is complete.
So Fediverse people are replying to @potus on the Threads account. (eg. https://www.threads.net/@potus/post/C5R2tfZLYXD ) "He" can't see those replies because Threads doesn't allow them through, but we can reply to ourselves on the Fediverse side. It's weird.
Questions:
If I wanted to send a link to someone (including the OP/POTUS) so they could see that Fediverse reply stream what link would I send? I guess it would depend on who replied from what server and if they are public? (eg. https://mstdn.party/@seibelsays/112204482012631501)
I guess a case can now be made to Threads management @mosseri that one way federation is limiting the freedom of expression of citizens to be heard by their politicians? lol. Or maybe you don't need to go that Musk-ian route. You can just say it's really weird to be able to see and reply to someone on Threads but thise replies can't be seen by the Threads user. Like really, how stupid. 😝
I may create a Threads account specifically to advocate for Federation asap , and to encourage people to leave Threads. 😈 Especially while the #e4769 petition is on.
Anyway, I see it as inevitable now that Threads fully federates and becomes interoperable with #Mastodon and the #Fediverse.
As a proponent of the #OpenSocialWeb, no matter my opinion of Meta, this is what the Open Social Web must be, a mix of commercial and non conmmercial, evil and not evil, blocked and not blocked.
The mix will mirror the wider Internet and society and that is far far better than the monopolistic, closed, Social Media behemoths we have had in the previous era.
That's why Federation of #Threads is good, Very good.
"Follower counts matter less than view and like counts”.
Discuss!
(Not only the statement itself, but why the head of Threads would say this, at this moment in particular).
To me integrity is huge and I view talk as cheap. If you are going out of your way to loudly talk about #Threads and how horrible #Meta is then go all of the way. Scolding people and pushing people to block Threads is cheap if you’re not willing to block those federating with Threads. I see people attempting to harass Eugen for his instances federating with Threads and tell him he aligning himself with a company guilty of genocide. Why not block him & others for being guilty by association? Many of the loud ones won’t because they can’t get over the slight discomfort & inconvenience of cutting off large parts of the networks. Personally, I find it hard to respect such opinions. When people protest it’s for change and they don’t back out due to discomfort and inconveniences. To be clear, my focus isn’t on those simply making the choice to defederate or not, it’s those being very forceful and vocal on either side of the fence. #Mastodon#Fediverse#OpenSocialWeb
Thank you to all of our supporters who appreciate our human curation. We're so pleased to be welcomed into a community with such a genuine passion for all things tech. We'll continue to champion exceptional journalism and boost posts we think deserve some eyeballs.
Let us know in the replies what you'd like to see more of in the future and we'll do our best to make this an even more enjoyable and insightful space for tech lovers. #Flipboard#OpenSocialWeb#TechNews#Tech#SocialMedia#AI