Now that for-profit tech companies are beginning to implement #ActivityPub, I think it's important to establish what we want with the #fediverse and whether federation with #Threads, #Flipboard, Tumblr, and the like bring us closer to or further from those goals.
With that in mind, I've come up with a few statements (in no particular order) that describe what I think is an "ideal fediverse" — a fediverse that's not necessarily realistic but that we should aim for:
No actor controls a large portion of visible activity.
Users can move between instances without penalty.
Creating and running an instance requires minimal effort.
People on or entering the fediverse understand the variety of available options.
There is no downside to using free and open-source platforms over proprietary ones.
These definitely aren't comprehensive, and if you have anything you'd add, let's discuss that! They're currently helping me reassess my stance on Threads now that Flipboard is also entering the stage, and I hope they're helpful for others as well.
I'll elaborate on these five statements in the comments.
The whole point of the fediverse in general is that there is no single “we”. There are those ActivityPub servers that one federates with and those ActivityPub servers that one does not federate with. Lack of consensus is built into the technology by design.
but I think it’s still important that everyone at least thinks about what they want the fediverse to grow into
To have wants about the social constructs that sit atop the technology is to misunderstand the technology. The technology enables your enemies/people you don’t like/etc. to communicate and benefit in all the ways you do. By design. You cannot exclude from the fediverse, you can only exclude from your server. If you have wants about excluding then you’ve misunderstood the technology.
@rah Maybe I'm not being clear. When I say that "we" means "the fediverse in general", I don't mean that everyone should gather 'round and come to a consensus on what values they should uphold and who should be excluded. This is obviously something that should occur on an instance or individual level, as (A) there are a large variety of different people and instances on the fediverse with different priorities and (B) as you stated, anyone can implement ActivityPub and tap into the fediverse if they want to, regardless of what anyone else thinks.
What I mean is that people should be thinking about what they think instance owners should aim for and form their opinions on the current situation based on that. My goal with this post is to show what I think an "ideal fediverse" looks like and have others share their thoughts. Having thoughts about what's healthy for people on the fediverse and having wants based on that isn't misunderstanding the technology — it's simply expressing preferences.
"If we do this correctly — if the next phase of how we congregate and communicate online is built for humans and not advertisers — there won’t be a new titanic company to rival Meta or a platform with eye-poppingly huge numbers like Facebook
"What we’ll get instead is something much bigger: an entirely new infrastructure for our online lives that no company or platform controls”
New blog post: Understanding ActivityPub - Part 4: Threads
A first detailed look into how Threads implements ActivityPub. Learn about the data that is shared (or not), an interesting implementation of HTTP signatures, and Threads' take on quote posts in ActivityPub.
@crepels Nice article! In particular, this is the best explanation I've seen yet of the "infinite signature recursion" problem, and the way around it.
I haven't tried to talk to Threads from my own toy implementation yet. I have a suspicion that the "instance actor" requirement is going to give me a headache.
For me it was me looking up alternative social media platforms on Google, as I never had any liking towards the mainstream social media platforms in any way.
Then I chance upon this "Mastodon" and am intrigued by it.
I sign up for it....
I have been here 2 years and counting! :blobcatgiggle:
@frankie
I actually didn't use any of Facebook/Instagram or Twitter at all before coming here.
I might have heard of fedi via Reddit, I have interest in FOSS, decentralization and privacy, so it might have been from there.
Happy birthday to the accidental typo, John Mastodon! Started when a writer misread the Mastodon account that was banned from Twitter as "John Mastodon" instead of "Join Mastodon", John Mastodon may not be real but thanks for the memes and everything else. Let's celebrate John Mastodon's birthday by tooting about what you love most about the #fediverse. #JohnMastodon#Mastodon
Uff @linos kann es sein, dass ich noch etwas nicht verstehe? Offensichtlich haben Menschen an meinen letzten #activitypub Post kommentiert und die Kommentare sind auch am WordPress Beitrag https://www.videospielgeschichten.de/welche-konsole-ist-die-schoenste/ gelandet. Leider finde / sehe ich diese aber nicht im Fediverse am Post; was mache ich falsch?
@vsg_DE Was meinst du mit "Fediverse", auf deiner Mastodon-Instanz, während du eingeloggt bist? Es ist so wie immer: du siehst nur jene Kommentare, die auf deiner Instanz landen. Das tun sie nur, wenn jemand auf deiner Instanz den kommentierenden Account bereits folgt.
Handmade.social welcomes all handmade artisans to join the Fediverse community. Create an account for your business or shop and showcase your unique creations to a broader audience. If promoting handcrafted items is your goal, consider making handmade.social the home for your artisanal brand.
While I am an active critic of distributed privatisation (i.e., #Fediverse as we know it), I will still choose that over corporate privatisation if public service internet is just not a thing yet. Why?
• Corporations under capitalism have but one guiding tenet: the profit motive.
• Social media corporations profit from advertisement operations — especially data harvesting.
• It is their objective, therefore, to maximise profits by maximising data exploitation in every possible way.
Glad to see the entire #fediverse roadmap for Threads laid out. Mastodon and other Fediverse users will be able to follow Threads users and vice versa. You will also be able to see comments from Fediverse users on your federated posts in Threads.
The long term goal is to allow people to take their followers with them from Threads to other Fediverse apps. The last one is huge and wasn’t on my radar. 🤯
what I'd love to see is #funkwhale also support basic posts ala #mastodon. I bet we could get a pretty cool pod going at ccmusic.social if this was the case. #ccmusic
