Just want to shout out @dansup for being an amazing developer. He literally worked through the night consulting with the community to rework the onboarding flow to center decentralization while still giving new users a simple sign-up option. That's on top of the impressive number of features and fixes released in the last few weeks or dropping in the coming days.
@pixelfed is such a a great project. It looks great, works well, and is an easy IG replacement. He's also built the most beautiful Fediverse app I've seen. I'm sure there's been help along the way as well but he's built the entire thing as a lone developer.
If you haven't checked out #pixelfed yet, you should! If you have and you love it, you should consider supporting his patreon.
When we measure for activity – not accounts – Mastodon isn’t even in first place. Misskey is.
Mastodon is in 2nd place.
And other server types, like Pixelfed, aren’t doing so shabby either.
But what’s more interesting is what this all means when you also take into consideration account sign-ups.
It’s true that according to total accounts, mastodon.social is the biggest server on the Fediverse with 1,159,110 accounts. In comparison, misskey.io only has 183,549 accounts.
As someone who actively monitors both misskey.io and mastodon.social, it actually looks like mastodon.social produces more spam. I have yet to encounter spam on misskey.io, nor have I received spam from there. I can’t say the same about mastodon.social – seeing how I received crypto spam to my inbox from there twice last month.
What’s going on?
First, I must acknowledge a fact. The Fediverse is simply more popular in Japan. When I look at the 10 most active servers on the Fediverse, 6 of them are Japanese. Yes, even the Mastodon servers.
And in Japan, it looks like Misskey is overtaking Mastodon. This is not yet true in terms of sheer account numbers, but the fastest growing servers are clearly Misskey. In terms of raw post production, though, Misskey has already overtaken Mastodon.
Something I often hear is, “So what if something’s big in Japan? Lots of bands are big in Japan too, and we don’t hear a whisper from them here in the West.”
While comparing software to music is silly, it is a mistake for Westerners to ignore the cultural impact of Japan and other Asian nations.
We live in an era where many Western kids grow up with Japanese video games, anime, and J-Pop. Many of them don’t even look at Japanese media as “foreign”. It’s simply part of their cultural rubric.
Why do I bring this up? Because while the majority of Fediverse accounts are from the West, the majority of Fediverse content is from Japan. And while there is a language barrier, it’s only a matter of time before that content finds its way out West.
But if you’re a content producer making stuff for the Fediverse, I also think it’s important to ask yourself, “What are Japanese content producers doing right?”
As it turns out, a lot. The Japanese Fediverse is less focused on technology and politics, more focused on art. And there’s a ready community willing to interact with that art.
This is not so true for the West’s version of the Fediverse. Over here, the culture is to deem art “unimportant”. There have been times when I’ve shared thoughts on video games and music, and someone came out of the woodwork to tell me I was wrong for doing this since some political thing in the USA was happening, and I was insensitive for sharing my interests.
For the Fediverse to take root in the West, it must be as much about art as it is about politics and tech.
All this said, there is a further fact that likewise underlies my contention: the 3rd most active server on the Fediverse is pixelfed.social, Pixelfed’s flagship server.
Why is this? Because #Pixelfed is based on images, not text. Which also means that, as a result of content filtering, it is more focused on art than politics and technology.
Interestingly, pixelfed.social is focused on English speakers. As it turns out, the desire to share art is universal – not exclusive to people who speak Japanese. Most people like art.
Don’t get me wrong, politics and technology have an important effect on our daily lives. But it’s art that makes life worth living.
My takeaway: if we want the Fediverse to be as big in the West as it is in Japan, we need to share art.
@pixelfed now disables atom feeds and both post/profile embeds for spam accounts, and hides their profile unless you are logged in!
This will not affect new or existing users that create a post that is flagged for review by Autospam unless the post(s) are marked as spam by a human admin.
tl;dr: pixelfed now limits access to human reviewed spam posts and accounts to deincentivize SEO and other forms of spam.
I’m thrilled to announce that @pixelfed is extending our innovative Autospam feature into a dedicated service!
✨ Better Spam Detection
✨ New instances don’t need to train models
✨ Network intelligence retrains model in real time
✨ Any fedi project can easily add support for this
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• Fediverse since November 2022
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Point blank, a mass Fediblock isn't going to work with #Meta.
The cold truth is that people will use #Barcelona whether it federates or not. Even if it fails, Barcelona will probably have more users out of the gate than almost every project save Mastodon. Hell, it will probably eclipse #Bluesky too.
And even if you convince every server to defederate -- which you won't -- this will not be a PR coup for the Fediverse. Newspaper headlines won't blare "Fediverse successfully resists Meta." Instead, they will probably follow @gruber take with "Open source zealots complain that an open protocol is open."
Again, as I've said countless times, I'm not saying you should federate with Barcelona or any Meta-owned property. If you want, defederate. The joy of the Fediverse is freedom of association.
But a mass Fediblock doesn't solve a few important problems with Meta, and perhaps makes them worse.
The most critical problem is that Meta users need to migrate away from Meta-owned social networks. Until now, a migration path has simply been unfeasible to most. But when Barcelona gets launched, it is possible that many of them will become aware of a greater Fediverse.
How to build that awareness? By interacting with them through services beyond Barcelona.
This approach works. I've interacted with many Mastodon users through services beyond Mastodon, and this has resulted in adoption of other Fediverse software. #Calckey is a case in point.
However, there's a bigger problem concerning Meta: Fediverse replacements for Meta-owned social networks aren't getting mass adoption. And it's not because these apps aren't good.
#Pixelfed is an #Instagram replacement. It is also one of the slickest apps on the Fediverse. Yet, Pixelfed only has 150,000 registered accounts.
#Friendica is a #Facebook replacement. It's been around since 2010. It is a mature product that does many things very well, but Friendica only has 17,000 registered accounts.
The software is great but we are failing to effectively market the Fediverse beyond Mastodon. Now I'm trying my darnedest to change this, and so are many people. But facts are facts. Fediverse alternatives to Meta are a blip on the radar.
Refusing to federate with Barcelona won't change this. How do I know?
Because we don't federate now, and the status quo remains intact.
Meanwhile, Meta is practically gifting Pixelfed and Friendica an opportunity for federation, and it would be foolish to not consider broader implications.
How is it that more people aren't considering this opportunity?
Dare I say that most people -- including devs -- suffer from myopia concerning what the Fediverse is. The Fediverse is not Mastodon, and it is wrong to view the Fediverse solely through the eyes of Mastodon.
And I'll go further: by focusing Barcelona on text, I suspect that Meta is likewise making the same mistake of viewing the Fediverse as a "Twitter killer".
What they may not be considering is that the Fediverse might be a "Meta killer" too. And connecting Barcelona to the Fediverse is opening a can of worms Meta hasn't entirely considered yet.
If Barcelona is indeed text-based, what will happen when a Barcelona user encounters Pixelfed and asks, "Why does this post show reels? And why can't I do the same?"
Believe me, this is the kind of content that triggers migration.
We need to think bigger than Fediblock. Yes, for your own mental health and safety, you may not want to federate with Barcelona. However, there needs to also be a means for Barcelona users to encounter content outside Barcelona.
Perhaps there needs to be "lobby" servers that help Barcelona users enter the greater Fediverse -- helping them make the switch beyond Meta.
Follow generously. If you don't follow anyone, you won't have anything in your Home feed! That's fine if you're here to broadcast, but it might be hard to find followers if you don't follow.
Lead generously. If you don't let anyone follow you, you won't have any reach into networks outside your own. That's fine if you want a private experience, but remember: nothing is really private in the Fediverse. Even DMs are not really private.
Mute on a whim. You can silence users and threads with a click, either temporarily or permanently. You don't have to take any shit.
Block at will. Silencing the bigot not good enough? You can block individual users, or whole domains. Probably most of the worst of the worst are already defederated from your instance. But if not, you can do it yourself, for yourself.
#Mastodon is NOT the #Fediverse. You can migrate from Mastodon instance to Mastodon instance. Or, you can migrate from Mastodon to #Calckey. You can have a #Pixelfed user, and see and boost your pics in your Calckey timeline, or Mastodon timeline, or #Lemmy or #kbin or, or, ... Don't limit yourself to this one playground. YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL.
Why I like #Pixelfed way more than #Instagram based on one example of the same photo posted to the both platforms.
I have 224 subscribers on #Instagram. The photo has been shown to 48 people. And all of them are my subscribers. It has received 22 likes.
On #Pixelfed, I had 2 subscribers this morning. After posting the same photo, I’ve got 9 more subscribers, the same photo has been shared by 16 people and liked by 60 people.
The choice is obvious.
Meta joining the Fediverse is like AOL joining the internet: something that will bring a mass amount of people in, create some friction, but ultimately make the net better as more people federating on #Mastodon, #kbin, #lemmy, #pixelfed and other parts of the Fediverse make open protocols that much stronger.