“The Kansas Reflector published an artical about Meta censoring environmental articles about climate change — deeming them ‘too controversial’.
Facebook then censored the article about Facebook censorship, and then after an independent site published a copy of the climate change article, Facebook censored it too.”
I doubted they would ever federate this far, but assuming they go all the way, won't their shitty policies lead people to move from there to here if the lock-in is gone? If none of fedi federated with them, wouldn't you expect them to retain their users and grow faster than the fedi does? I see a growing #threads as a way to kill #xitter, and federation eventually killing them. Threads talking about federation is good PR for us too. #SocialWeb
"We're not decentralizing for the sake of decentralization. We're decentralizing because it allows us to reach towards that terminal value of cognitive liberty." - @mmasnick
Thinking and talking about why the #SocialWeb matters is so needed. I love the earlier examples in the show and agree that no ads or owner run algos improves our CL, but by following others who follow and boost others etc, the freedom is very limited by their choices. I prefer #AttentionDemocracy.
whoa, hang on. I think this is the reason #threads isn't fully federating yet. because the algo limits visibility of threads posts to threads users but not us, the vast majority of #threads accounts would see a ton more interaction from other #SocialWeb accounts than from other #threads accounts. it would expose how much their algos serve #meta and their top users over the interests of most users. I wonder if they saw that in their early testing. #fediFTW
If/when #threads enables two way federation, we need the biggest accounts there to set up and move to their own #ActivityPub servers ASAP to lock #meta open. #SocialWeb
Can #podcasting be made to work with #ActivityPub as well as #RSS? Then podcatchers could work like a #Mastodon client, allowing us to interact directly via comments, favorites and spreading around the best episodes via boosts. #podcasts
update: it exists but no podcatcher fully supports it yet.
imo the magic here is that we can make everything natively able to go viral. there aren't separate episodes, articles and videos we link to from here, but the item itself is an #ActivityPub post. creators stay in control. that's our killer app and how we sell creators on the #SocialWeb.
I want to know how fedi sharing got turned on for the @potus#threads account. Basically, how is this outreach happening? In what circles are people being convinced that the decentralization of social media matters? Cause this is either a huge moment or more just nice/lucky. #SocialWeb
If you're on #threads, please ask people there to turn on federation. Tell them that there are tons of accounts on the #SocialWeb that would love to follow them. Especially news outlets and journalists.
And then we need a tag here to track accounts from there that we can now follow here. Maybe #FederatedThreads? Something better must already exist.
The biggest problem in a predominantly capitalist democracy is that money becomes power, so that as wealth concentrates, a few interests overwhelm those of the general public. Lessening the opportunities for money to decide what we pay attention to and how we understand the world via media ownership and advertising, would help a lot. That's why I prioritize both the decentralization of and direct and automatic funding for media. #SocialWeb#AttentionDemocracy#LiberalValues
Hey journos, we don't need you all here on the fedi today. But please just move from #xitter to #threads and enable sharing to the #socialweb. Thanks. #journalism
Great interview with Jay Graber (CEO, #Bluesky) on Decoder with Nilay Patel (@reckless1280), where they dig into some of the major difference between Bluesky (#ATProtocol) and #Mastodon (#ActivityPub).
Big convo going down among people who prioritize a safer fedi. I don't agree but I'm glad people are talking about it. Sadly, choices will have to be made. I hope that a future larger conversation will be had that also includes people who prioritize other stuff. And if this can be done with decentralized social media, why not also have a separate safer web? Would the internet be what it is today if the kinda choices they want made today, were made back then? #fediverse#socialweb#fediblockmeta
I have so many follow relationships with so many talented people here!
It's so great to see all of you and your interesting projects and creations across such a variety of hobbies and professions.
It's only going to get better with Threads federation under way! Future of Fedi will sure be interesting and I'm glad to be a part of something that could fundamentally change the way "Internet" is done as a whole.
The future awaits. After years of gaining steam, Fedi has arrived.
Since they can only see our favorites over there on #threads, favorite lots of posts from threads here. If you want to encourage full #meta federation. #socialweb#fediverse
An important distinction is slowly being uncovered about the definition of the term "fediverse." Who is it that gets to decide what this place is? How are we being represented? These are not easy questions to answer and if we don't do a better job describing ourselves, then the job will get done for us by people who don't understand the underlying values we hold. #fediverse#meta#threads
@liaizon Personally, and the way the term was used, since it was first coined, was any software with #OStatus support (later #ActivityPub).
When there were discussions of having a new name, I ran suggestion threads and polls about it, and one suggestion/choice was mycelial, mycelium. I like it so I started using it myself.
For me, it's #AttentionDemocracy. Adding an attention layer to the open web, so that now we can not only post anything to the world, but it can earn eyeballs. That we all decide what info, ideas and art should go viral, not money. It's so huge and only possible here. I fear that the failure to see this potential, or the pursuit of other goals, will impede us from getting there.
When the social media conceptualized in the late 2000s, new services started to pop up every other week. Some of them were even popular. I remember being registered to over 160 different social media services. Jaiku, Qaiku, Bebo, Ello, Tsu, Path, PicPlz etc… there were so many. Then they died one by one after Facebook and Instagram took over.
Some people who remember this are saying the same is happening to Mastodon, Pixelfed and Loops. But they clearly do not understand the concept or interoperability and the social web, Fediverse, that is. They think of these platforms as a singlular, centralized services and they are using the commercial mindset.
The Fediverse will last. It will prosper. And it has already. That is what I sincerely believe. Since 2022 nothing has proven otherwise. I like the direction this is heading to.
Since most users wouldn't understand what ActivityPub / Fediverse is, it is likely there will be far less than 40% or 30% (guesstimate) of their userbase who will appear in the Fediverse network.
It will highly depend on how they will explain the benefits of enabling ActivityPub in their accounts.
If you haven't heard, sadly, #ChirpSocial, one of the popular #ActivityPub “groups” platform, is shutting down “probably” on February 29th.
In an email they sent to admins, the owner and developer can no longer support https://chirp.social financially as they failed to find a new job after they were laid off by #Google last year.
This reminds us the importance of having a built-in groups feature, and one where the groups feature actually federates.
Back in 2008, when the #Fediverse was born, we did have a built-in federated groups in #Laconica / #StatusNet (today known as #GNUsocial). We used bang (!) instead of at (@). A built-in groups feature is more stable as established instances can host them.
Today, we have #Friendica and #Hubzilla (as well as #Streams-based instances) to fill in that, as groups is a built-in feature in those software products. It's just a matter of finding an instance that's open to hosting groups for any topic for the ActivityPub protocol.
That said, any Friendica, Hubzilla, Streams-based instances you suggest for groups?
I THINK I’ve posted this already, but I think it’s evergreen.
Rahaeli is talking mostly about #Twitter and #Bluesky so I don’t know what the ratios here on #Mastodon are.
“Okay, it's time again to talk about what the experience of having a social media account with a bunch of followers (*) is like.
Maybe I should start an irregular series of "What Hubzilla is like" posts for people in the Fediverse, Mastodon specifically, who don't know anything about it. Not for those who want to switch, but for those who assume that Hubzilla is just like whatever else they know. Like, for Mastodon users who blindly assume that Hubzilla is just like Mastodon with a different UI and then act accordingly. Thus, it'd mostly focus on how Hubzilla is different from Mastodon.
The difficult part would be to limit these posts to only 500 characters. Minus what I'll need for the hashtags, namely #Hubzilla, #FediTips and #FediverseTips to increase discoverability for those who are interested and #FediMeta, #FediverseMeta, #CWFediMeta and #CWFediverseMeta so that these posts are automatically removed or hidden behind generated content warnings by already existing filters. Because I know for a fact that many Mastodon users won't touch anything that goes even a smidge over 500 characters. And I know that there are Mastodon users for whom any and all Fediverse meta is too nerve-gratingly techy.
> Three, vice versa, Mastodon and its users rejecting the culture of non-Mastodon projects whenever it differs from Mastodon's. Many Mastodon users want everything that is "un-Mastodon-like" banned all across the whole Fediverse because it disturbs them, be it posts over 500 characters, be it quotes, be it "quote-tweets", be it text formatting in any way. However, all this stuff is perfectly normal and absolutely part of the culture everywhere outside of Mastodon.
Character limitation. It's funny that it is a reason because three are Mastodon-powered instances (a lot in fact) with more than 500.
What the "purists" did not realise is that the customizable number of characters has been part of the Fediverse since the first Fediverse managed service launched: StatusNet "hosting", in 2008. @-lnxwalt was very active in posting different content on the different length instances back then.
To add to what you mentioned, another reason they hate #Threads is because they supposedly introduced something that isn't part of #Mastodon and #ActivityPub, dots in username.
But it has been around years before Instagram even thought about Threads (assuming they came up with the project during the #TwitterMigration ). You'll often see it from website-based AP implementations. @example.com@example.com
Also, the reasoning "not in ActivityPub" is well, Mastodon is as guilty of that since the discussions of AP started. Since Mastodon was successful in positioning itself at the proper place, everyone ended up / was forced to implement Mastodon-only stuff just so their software will be interoperable with it, even though it isn't part of ActivityPub.
Most "Mastodon purists", as well as, "ActivityPub gatekeepers" use reasons that can't stand; and their solution is fragmentation or contrary to what the Fediverse is, and what AP was made for. Basically, they want to go back to the way things are: "siloed networks" or "walled-gardens".
#BringDownTheWalls has been the goal of the Fediverse since 2008, and even before that when #SocialWeb discussions started (even in related conferences).
"#Mastodon is the most established decentralised #socialweb app to date. For anti-establishment Mastodonians, Dorsey’s involvement was strike one. Strike two came when #Bluesky decided to create its own protocol instead of using an existing one, like #ActivityPub. Now, the debate over #BridgyFed is something like a foul tip ahead of strike three."