fediverse

New: Last Week in #Fediverse - ep 66

This week's news:
- The EU Voice pilot that hosted Mastodon and Peertube instance for the EU over the last 2 years will come to an end. The @EU_Commission account will continue to be active and grow their Mastodon presence.
- Ghost announces a major push for fediverse support, adding #Activitypub to their posts and building an ActivityPub powered news reader app.
- Mastodon starts a US-based nonprofit.

Read at: https://fediversereport.com/last-week-in-fediverse-ep-66/

🚀 The Future is Federated - issue no.14 👩‍🚀

“A new way to describe the Fediverse and its opposition to Big Tech”

https://blog.elenarossini.com/a-new-way-to-describe-the-fediverse-and-its-opposition-to-big-tech/

I think I may have finally found a way to explain the Fediverse and make it appealing to people not familiar with it - a very Italian, highly accessible way to frame it, via an analogy that anyone could understand.

#TheFutureIsFederated #tech #Fediverse #activism #BigTech #BigFood #SocialMedia #FOSS #blog #NeilPostman #healthylifestyle

Can I block or hide an entire instance? I don't think I have the receipts to argue this instance block them entirely, but a specific server full of degenerates is making my corner of the #Fediverse less good. @FediTips

Fediverse Report – #104

Mastodon has announced it will add quote posts to the platform, and some more news.

The News

Mastodon has announced it is adding quote posts to the platform, a long-awaited feature. Mastodon got a grant by NLnet in 2024 to add quote posts, and they are now sharing an update on their work. Mastodon is adding a variety of features to quote posts, such as giving people the ability to opt out of being quote posted. They will publish the technical work to support quote posts as Fediverse Enhancement Proposals, and Mastodon is currently in the process of writing these proposals. The organisation does not say when quote posts will be added, only noting that it ‘will still take more time to develop.’

For a long time, Mastodon had not implemented quote posts because CEO Eugen Rochko saw them as bad. His main concern is that quote posts lead to ‘dunking’ and toxic behaviour. Dunking refers to the behaviour where people use quote posts to ‘dunk’ on other people’s post, often with the intent that this mocking will lead to their followers to also mock and harass the original poster. Dunking was a visible part of Twitter’s culture, and in popular belief dunking and toxicity became linked together. Research showed a more complicated picture. Hilda Bastian analysed over 30 studies on quote tweeting, and concludes: “There’s conflicting evidence on whether QTs [quote Tweets] increase or decrease incivility, and whatever effect there is, it doesn’t seem to be major.“

In 2023 Mastodon changed their opinion, and first started saying that the organisation was open to implementing quote posts. Still, toxic behaviour via dunking continued to be a main concern. This is visible in the accompanying design research that Mastodon has done in their work on quote posts. Mastodon’s view seems to be that quote posts are toxic at it’s core, saying that “the team started out with a shared view that Quote Posts can be misused.”

Mastodon takes a technical approach to dealing to the purported problem of toxicity of quote posts, and the blog posts lists three features to mitigate it: people can choose if their posts are able to be quoted, people get notified if they are quoted, and there will be the ability to withdraw your post from the quoted context. Bluesky also has these features for quote posts, and they’re generally received well. What I find missing here is a take by Mastodon on the effect of these features on Bluesky. Mastodon sees quote posts as being dangerous, and that is why they will implement some features to mitigate the risk. But do they think that quote posts are being used well on Bluesky? Is Bluesky’s behaviour and culture around quote posts something that Mastodon is striving towards? I’m not clear to me what Mastodon’s answer is here.

Mastodon’s design research also says that they will display quotes in a different way to ‘steer away from dunk culture”‘, a feature not mentioned in Mastodon’s announcement blog post. Mastodon is planning to display a quote post by first showing the quote, and showing the reply below it. This is similar to how Tumblr does quote posts. But it differs from how all other platforms that interoperate with Mastodon display quote posts: fediverse native platforms like Misskey, Akkoma and Streams, as well as connected networks like Bluesky and Threads, all display quote posts by showing the reply at the top, and the quoted post below.

Mastodon’s position is that quote posts are a risky feature invite misuse, and thus need a variety of safety features. But Mastodon is not an isolated platform, it is connected to various other platforms that all have their own ideas about quote posts. If displaying quote posts Tumblr-style (quote above, comment below) is preferred over displaying them Twitter-style (comment above, quote below), what is the expectation on how other platforms should interact with Mastodon quotes? Is Misskey expected to display Mastodon’s quote post differently? Meanwhile, Mastodon is planning to display quotes that originate from Misskey not in the way that Misskey does (Twitter-style), but in their own manner (Tumblr-style), saying that it has “very little impact on the semantics”.

I find these statements hard to square: on the one hand, Mastodon says it how quote posts are displayed has little impact on the semantics of a post, but at the same time it is assumed to have enough of an impact in that it can reduce “dunking culture”. But if the manner a quote post is displayed can impact people’s behaviour, it automatically follows that the manner a quote post is displayed impacts its semantics, as otherwise there would be no impact on people’s behaviour either. But if the semantics of a post are altered by using a different display method for quote posts, than it means that Mastodon is taking an active decision to alter the semantics of posts made on other networks like Misskey and Bluesky.

Mastodon’s choice to use a different way of displaying quote posts than the other platforms in their network opens up a new interesting avenue for federated diplomacy. We’ve seen both ways of displaying quote posts be successful, the way posts are quoted is a significant part of how conversations flow on Tumblr. But what is new here is Mastodon is part of a federated network, and that means that their decisions impact other players, and their decisions have impact on Mastodon as well. This interaction between different display types of quote posts is something we have not really seen before, leading to some interesting new types of negotiations: how Mastodon expect Misskey to display Mastodon quote posts on Misskey? How does Threads feel about having their quote posts being displayed differently on Mastodon? What is the expected behaviour of Bridgy Fed, the bridge that connects Bluesky with Mastodon? All those questions are still open, and I’m curious what the answer will turn out to be.

Tumblr is still planning to join the fediverse. I reported this recently, and now TechCrunch got a followup and a confirmation from Automattic, saying that ‘Automattic declined to share a time frame as to when the migration would be complete, given its scale, but a rep for the company called the progress so far “exciting.”’

The Social Web Foundation (SWF) has announced they are now a formal member of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The W3C tends to favour institutional membership, but the W3C Social Community Group that concerns itself with ActivityPub is open to everyone. The SWF is working on various improvements to ActivityPub, such as adding end-to-end encryption and supporting data portability.

Event Federation is a WordPress plugin that extends the ActivityPub support plugin for WordPress by adding support for WordPress events. The plugin is now officially released as a 1.0 version.

Hexbear is a controversial Lemmy server that let domain expire. The Hexbear domain is now for sale, and an avid bidding war has driven up the price for the domain to over 2300 dollar at time of writing.

ForgeFed is an ActivityPub extension that adds federation support to software forges such as Forgejo. It has gotten a new NLnet grant, with the project now focusing on user research and documentation.

A few weeks ago, Fedidb removed fediverse platfrom GoToSocial from the database after refusing to honor robots.txt, and the GoToSocial developer spoofed data as retaliation. Fedidb developer Daniel Supernault later decided to properly add support for robots.txt, but stopped crawling for the entire fediverse in the meantime while it was implemented. Supernault now confirms that Fedidb honors robots.txt and has added GoToSocial back to the data set.

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne has set up their own Mastodon server for all community members, including students.

The Links

An experiment with social media handles– Doctor Popular
Micro Social is a new third-party app for Micro.Blog
A podcast by The Conversation about how decentralised social media platforms work, interviewing Robert Gehl
Five Confusing Fediverse Things – FediHost Podcast
ActivityPods shared their presentation from FOSDEM, about how the project compares to ATProto and their work with NextGraph.
Another FOSDEM presentation that was uploaded recently was by Davide Eynard, about ‘Building your own Timeline Algorithm’.
This week’s fediverse software updates.
WordPress as a Self-Hosting Platform – Alex Kirk

#fediverse

https://fediversereport.com/fediverse-report-104/

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AURE FREE PRESS
"News Happens Here First"

Largest Fediverse News Site
No Pay Walls
600+ Sources
Global Audience
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Independent World News For You, By You!

FOLLOW:
Aure Free Press on Mastodon:
https://mstdn.social/@Free_Press

Follow, Hit 🔔 to Receive New Notifications

FREE PATREON SUBSCRIPTION:
Aure Free Press Extra:
In-depth, exclusive reporting, interviews, etc.
https://patreon.com/@Free_Press_Forever

#AureFreePress #news #BreakingNews #Breaking #headline #socialmedia #Fediverse #trending

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Veganism Social is a Mastodon server for vegans to make friends and interact with the wider Fediverse:

https://veganism.social

This server has a post size limit of 10,000 characters.

You can find out more at https://veganism.social/about or contact the admin @nm

#FeaturedServer #Vegan #Vegans #Veganism #VeganFood #FoodAndDrink #Mastodon #Fediverse #FreeFediverse

•ᴗ• ☞ ⁂ ≠ 𝕏

#fediverse #asciiart #xittter #ascii #utf8 #smile #socialmedia #FediverseSymbol

This place isn't perfect. It has its problems, flaws, and limitations. It's not immune to hatred or those who spread negativity.
Yet, here I've encountered incredible people, a marvelous community committed to bringing constructive engagement, dialogue, and social interaction back to the network.
Thank you, Fediverse.
Thank you, friends of the Fediverse.

#Fediverse #Community #Gratitude #SocialNetwork #ThankYouTuesday

Flipboard curators have seen over 100,000 boosts, likes and replies from people across the fediverse since April 11. Given this positive signal from the community, today we're federating another 100 accounts representing more than 2,500 Magazines about everything from climate to culture. Read more here:

https://flipboard.medium.com/over-100-000-social-interactions-from-the-fediverse-to-flipboard-f76465dee4f8

If you’re an active Flipboard curator and you would like to federate your account, let us know by applying here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PB69W6L

And if you’re still getting up to speed on what the fediverse is and does, please check out our Fedi Curious Magazine:

https://flipboard.com/@mia/fedi-curious-fdg527fez

#Flipboard #Federation #Fediverse #ActivityPub #Mastodon #FediCurious

We’re very proud to announce that we’ve worked with @tchambers & team to build a new membership-only group on the Fediverse!

@KamalaHarrisWin is a group dedicated to organising and discussing Harris’s 2024 campaign. With better moderation controls the people there can focus on what matters, like protecting democracy, rather than having to fight through trolls and bots.

We hope the members are enjoying it! 🥥🌴

#USPolitics #Harris #Harris2024 #Fediverse

Meine Datenschutz und Privatsphäre Übersicht 2025, für die Allgemeinheit 🕵️‍♂️

Teilen er­be­ten ‼️

#DSGVO #TDDDG #Datenschutz #Privatsphäre #sicherheit #Verschlüsselung
#encryption #WEtell #Email #Cybersecurity #Pixelfed #Massenűberwachung
#Google #Metadaten #WhatsApp #Threema #Cryptpad #Signal
#Hateaid #Cyberstalking #Messenger #Browser #Youtube #NewPipe #Chatkontrolle #nichtszuverbergen #ÜberwachungsKapitalismus #Microsoft #Appel #Windows #Linux #Matrix #Mastodon #Friendica #Fediverse #Mastodir #Loops #2FA #Ransomware #Foss #VeraCrypt #HateAid #Coreboot #Volksverpetzer #Netzpolitik #Digitalisierung #FragdenStaat #Shiftphone  #OpenSource #GrapheneOS #CCC #Mail #Mullvad #PGP #GnuPG #DNS #Gaming #linuxgaming #Lutris #Protondb #eOS #Enshittification #Bloatware #TPM #Murena  #Shiftphone
#LiberaPay #GnuTaler #Taler #PreppingforFuture #FediLZ #BlueLZ #InstaLZ #ThreatModel
#FLOSS #UEFI #Medienkompetenz

( Ich bitte euch außerdem um > #niewiedercdu #noAFD )

https://cryptpad.digitalcourage.de/file/#/2/file/GWE+abBaYvOcLWvTvavGX-wL/

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Ückück und das Fediverse: Was kommt nach der nächsten Welle?

Etwas verspätet, aber hier ist der neueste Beitrag aus meiner Kolumne bei @gnulinux

https://gnulinux.ch/was-kommt-nach-der-naechsten-welle

#Fediverse #Kolume #ÜckückUndDasFediverse

A new month has begun! ⚡ Thank you for being part of this amazing community

Just a quick reminder that most instances in the #Fediverse are run by volunteers like me♥️🐈

If you can, and want to help me out with the monthly costs you can do so via

https://paypal.me/stuxOS
https://patreon.com/mstdn
https://ko-fi.com/mstdn
https://liberapay.com/mstdn
https://opencollective.com/mstdn
https://bunq.me/stuxhost
https://stux.me/donate

If you like to support your server, checkout the /about page 💪🏻♥️

Drupal.community is a Mastodon server focused on Drupal, free and open source software and web development, but any content is welcome as long as it adheres to the Drupal Code of Conduct.

https://drupal.community

Find out more at https://drupal.community/about or contact the admin @pcambra

#FeaturedServer #Drupal #WebDev #WebDevelopment #CMS #FOSS #Mastodon #Fediverse #FreeFediverse

Fedify is looking for new partnership opportunities!

What is Fedify?

#Fedify is an #ActivityPub-based federated server framework that helps developers easily integrate their applications with the #fediverse, a decentralized social network. It simplifies the complex implementation of the ActivityPub protocol, significantly reducing development time. Fedify is an open-source project available under the MIT license.

💼 Projects using Fedify

Various projects are already leveraging Fedify:

Ghost: A professional publishing platform with millions of users, open source under MIT license, and a major sponsor and partner of Fedify.
Hollo: A lightweight microblogging platform for individual users (open source, AGPL-3.0)
Hackers' Pub: A fediverse blogging platform for software engineers (open source, AGPL-3.0)
Encyclia: A bridge service that makes ORCID academic records available via ActivityPub

🚀 Value provided by Fedify

80% development time reduction: Utilize a proven framework instead of complex ActivityPub implementation
Immediate fediverse compatibility: Instant compatibility with various fediverse services including Mastodon, Misskey, Pleroma, Pixelfed, PeerTube, etc.
Expert technical support: Direct support from ActivityPub and Federation protocol experts
Custom development: Tailored feature development to meet your specific requirements

🤝 Potential collaboration models

Custom consulting and integration support: Professional assistance for integrating Fedify into your platform
Custom feature development: Development and implementation of specific features needed for your platform
Long-term technical partnership: Long-term collaboration for continuous development and maintenance

🌟 Benefits of collaborating with Fedify

Technical advantage: Save time and resources compared to in-house implementation
Brand image: Enhance corporate image through support of the open-source ecosystem
Entry to decentralized social networks: Easily participate in the fediverse ecosystem
Competitive edge: Strengthen product competitiveness through social features

📩 Interested?

If you're considering implementing ActivityPub or wish to collaborate with the Fedify project, please get in touch:

Email: sponsor@fedify.dev
Fediverse: @fedify
GitHub: https://github.com/fedify-dev/fedify

We're excited to explore customized collaboration opportunities that align with your requirements and goals.