Relevant Overviews
- Content Strategy
- Online Strategy
- Online Community Management
- Social Media Strategy
- Content Creation & Marketing
- Online Architecture
- Digital Transformation
- Thinking tools
- Zettelkasten
- Fediverse
- Blockchain, Crypto, NFTs etc
- Innovation Strategy
- Surveillance Capitalism, Social media and Polarisation (Overview)
- Communications Tactics
- Productivity
- Social Web
- Media
- Politics
- Communications Strategy
- Science&Technology
- Business
Overview: Fediverse
This topic emerged from the 5th in a series of newsletters focused on #US2020 #disinformation. A major update in late 2022 followed my #twittermigration to Mastodon, and a smaller one a year later with the sudden deletion of my Mastodon server, followed by the arrival of Threads.
What?
Fediverse: collection of interoperable social networks built on Open Web standards. ActivityPub standard, for example, is used by (inter alia) Twitter-lookalike Mastodon and YouTube-lookalike PeerTube, and sometime in 2024 newcomers Bluesky and Threads (tbc!).
Unlike Twitter and YouTube, however:
- Mastodon/PeerTube are not owned and controlled by corporations. Anyone can launch and operate a Mastodon or PeerTube server, just like anyone can set up an email server and exchange emails with others using the email standard.
- The person who creates a server sets its rules (privacy, hate speech, etc).
- Users on any Mastodon/PeerTube server can not only interact with users on other Mastodon/PeerTube servers, they can interact across Fediverse platforms. For example:
- if Mastodon user A follows PeerTube user B, B’s PeerTube videos will appear in A’s Mastodon feed,
- user A can even comment on the video from within Mastodon, without visiting PeerTube or having a PeerTube account.
This would be like if my Twitter account followed someone's Facebook page, yet we could still interact seamlessly from our platform of preference. That’s impossible as Twitter & Facebook are walled gardens. Fediverse platforms like Mastodon and PeerTube are not – this is the Open Web on social.
See also: Tim Berners-Lee’s Solid, providing social media users with control over their data through personal knowledge graphs.
So what? New possibilities for new social platforms
While each Fediverse server is a community with its own rules, they're not walled gardens. This helps solve the vicious circle problem facing new platforms (why join a network where there are so few people on it? Hence noone joins it, so numbers stay low. So noone joins it): people don’t need to join the same social network, they just have to join any Fediverse network.
Reality check: Servers must be bidirectionally linked manually? Mastodon apparently suffers from "the singleton problem... [as it's] difficult to convince ... a major server to [federate] ... with a minor one... three Mastodon servers contain almost 60% of the known Mastodon population" - Peer-to-Peer Network Models and their Implications.
See also: adversarial interoperability - another part of the solution to this problem.
Let's do better
If progressives decamp, they should decamp to Fediverse alternatives.
The EU Institutions could help: by simply joining and posting to Fediverse platforms in addition to Facebook/Twitter, they could:
- encourage the emergence of alternatives to today’s toxic US platforms,
- add a new dimension to the EU's strategy towards them.
Return of the Splinternet?
Nevertheless, wide Fediverse adoption still requires a 'mass decamp'. There have already been a couple of false dawns.
US2020
Cue the US2020 elections, following which "US conservative leaders may have triggered the sort an en masse decamp that Facebook/Twitter alternatives require to take off".
However they're not moving to Fediverse platforms, so this may simply return us to the #splinternet (pre-platform social media), but with even more political polarisation.
2022 update: Elon Musk and the #TwitterMigration
Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter triggered a huge uptick of interest in Mastodon, leading me to finally take the plunge after 2 years of faffing about. I was optimistic (my first post was literally Welcome to the Fediverse, starry-eyed noob), but within a few months I'd discovered an unhappy truth: the current infrasructure simply doesn't deliver content properly reliably.
I'd point you to the mid-2022 toot where I pointed this out, but (as if to illustrate my point) it's gone: in November my server simply disappeared, taking all my content and connections with it, without warning. I managed to dig out a screenshot of that toot from my phone and include it in All my toots gone.
As can be seen from that post, by then I'd created a Bluesky account and was promptly followed by Satan. I haven't bothered since.
Also in 2022: just as I was writing a Fediverse strategy report for another EC department, the EU's Data Protection Supervisor and the EC's IT department launched social.network.europa.eu, the EU's own Mastodon server. The result was underwhelming to say the least, with accounts limited to the institutions, rather than the people working in them. Someone clearly never read Euan Semple's "Organisations don't tweet, people do", missing a huge opportunity that news organisations started embracing in 2022: setting up a Fediverse server for their journalists to prove that they are their journalists, not an imposter.
Soon afterwards the EU Bubble's own server - https://eupolicy.social/ - was launched. As I pointed out at the time, this had real potential:
it should be very easy for eupolicy.social to avoid creating a Brussels Bubble within the Fediverse. In the past I spent a lot of time exploring how us denizens of the Brussels Bubble could outreach to national conversations online. In the Fediverse, that’s upside down: rather than building bridges outwards, we can pull national conversations into the Bubble, simply by following the right people.
-Am I on the right Mastodon instance? (November 2022)
Back then they had 720 active accounts. 13 months later that had shrunk to 330. The EU's social.network.europa.eu has 18. It wasn't a good year.
Threads, Bluesky, and more
Literally one month after my Mastodon server disappeared, Instagram's "Twitter-killer" Threads arrived in Europe, announcing their intention - like Bluesky - to join the Fediverse, so I dug out my never-used Instagram account to kick the tyres.
As discussed during a ZNLive chat one week before, this should make 2024 at least potentially interesting:
- so far they should all use the same slogan: "We're like Twitter, but with none of your friends", so it's difficult to see people and organisations who rely on reaching an audience abandoning the incumbents anytime soon
- the hope is that their openness (if it happens) stimulates innovation in the wider Fediverse, so we get new forms of social media rather than more Twitter clones: there are already plenty of other ActivityPub-compatible networks, as well as alternative protocols like Nostr.
- all this could have huge implications for our own websites, where it might become both easier and more valuable to develop local communities of interest, networked into the wider Fediverse of decentralised social media, particularly with AI support.
---
Highlighted Resources tagged OR(#fediverse, #open web, #bluesky, #mastodon, #threads, #nostr) follow below:
Relevant resources
joanwestenberg.com
"The indiscriminate proliferation of AI-generated content will not empower the underrepresented or democratise knowledge creation... [but] dilute and fragment the authenticity and reliability of information ... the discerning judgment of human curators is the only defence against misinformation and mediocrity".Why? Human curators :"…
Like
ai,
curation,
open source,
rss,
disinformation,
posse,
fediverse,
signal2noise,
joan westenberg
nostr.com
"A simple, open protocol that enables a truly censorship-resistant and global social network."They're clearly gunning for ActivityPub, with a secondary page entitled Why isn't Mastodon good enough? The key point made is that while Mastodon was OK when "server owners could be trusted to be cooperative, but it doesn't r…
www.linkedin.com
One of the snippets from a ZNLive interview I did in December 2023: "emerging social media platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky face a humorous yet real challenge - they're like "Twitter, but without your friends."With the European launch of Threads, the question arises: Can it offer a unique appeal to draw users? Will [they]...…
mathewlowry.medium.com
Exactly one year after publishing Am I on the right Mastodon instance?, I discover that I wasn't. At least I got a good image out of ChatGPT for the occasion, for a change.
commonplace.doubleloop.net
"the distributed/federated digital garden approach is the way to go for knowledge commoning... cribbing from ActivityPub's local, global, and 'those-you-follow' timelines... you could have local, 'those-you-follow', and global gardens... [with] some kind of liquid democracy", and interest-based groups, perhaps s…
Like
curation,
liquid democracy,
decentralised,
myhub,
fediverse,
activitypub,
agora,
flancian,
digital garden
mathewlowry.medium.com
The second in my 1/1/2023 bundle of 5 posts exploring collective intelligence looks at the role of decentralised social networks: "A personalised, decentralised Social Knowledge Graph for each user multiplies the knowledge available to them via a trusted network of Followers and Friends, and creating collaborative possibilities more akin to w…
mathewlowry.medium.com
The "executive summary" of my 5-part bundle of 1/1/2023, which "provide a snapshot of my current thinking into how a decentralised collective intelligence ecosystem could be bootstrapped into existence."
www.manton.org
"Micro.blog can now cross-post to a Mastodon user account... Your custom domain on Micro.blog can now be ActivityPub-compatible, so that you can follow and reply to Mastodon users directly on Micro.blog ... someone can follow your blog posts".As a result "you can consolidate your identity and posts back to your own blog at your ow…
fasiha.github.io
Yoyogi "breaks from the timeline... elevates the author and centers the thread".Pick a Fediverse account (Mastodon for now, Pleroma and Misskey next) that you’re following and see just their threads, in a columnar interface.You need to login and give it permission: the accounts you follow are presented at left, allowing you to select one…
mathewlowry.medium.com
My second post following my personal #twittermigration: "the other users on your instance create its collective intelligence — the nearest thing you have to a content discovery algorithm".Not that I like algorithms, but "Apart from hashtags, ,,, your server’s Local and Federated timelines [are your] primary discovery channels when y…
docs.google.com
"Welcome To Mastodon Welcome to Mastodon, and The Fediverse! This is a living document with some tips and Frequently Asked Questions about Mastodon and the Fediverse..."Pretty complete-looking
doctorow.medium.com
Those who've read Doctorow's books and blogs on the collective action problem stopping people leave the established social media walled gardens may not find anything new, except for the quite brilliant link he makes with "the 1971 film adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof ... the Anatevkans can’t just pack up and leave: they are being …
Like
social media,
regulation,
facebook,
eu,
twitter,
surveillance,
interoperability,
fediverse,
cory doctorow
blog.joinmastodon.org
The story on Gab and Mastodon:"After crowdfunding millions of dollars... Gab abandoned its own code and switched to ... Mastodon software in early 2019 as a way of circumventing Google’s and Apple’s ban..."Mastodon's AGPLv3 opensource license allows this, of course, but there are conditions, which Gab then broke until JoinMastodon &…
axbom.com
how "Mastodon fits into the much larger concept of the Fediverse... visualisation ... many different use-cases and benefits of different services".Good intro to the Fediverse as a whole, plus the visualisation in png & pdf, and some Q&As covering multiple accounts ("a user preference"), Nextcloud (adding ActivityPub end…
medium.com
JJ "explore some of the opportunities afforded by the likes of Bluesky, Scuttlebutt, the Fediverse, and Indieweb — not to mention good, old, reliable RSS".Most of the mastodon tips I knew, except: "enable the advanced web interface (it’s like Tweetdeck)" - I didn't know that existed so moved to Tusky and spent my first wee…
Like
algorithm,
twitter,
moderation,
mastodon,
indieweb,
fediverse,
planetary,
scuttlebutt,
bluesky,
twitter migration,
jeff jarvis
mathewlowry.medium.com
I discovered the Fediverse as I kicked MyHub.ai’s shiny new tyres in early 2020, and I’m kicking myself now for not diving in then.
mathewlowry.medium.com
Writing a chapter for a book on Personal Knowledge Graphs made me rethink MyHub.ai, and led to a new collective intelligence pilot project with the founders of massive.wiki.
Think
social media,
pilot,
collective intelligence,
decentralised,
myhub,
fediverse,
knowledge graph,
pkgbook,
fotl,
massive.wiki
medium.com
I've been invited to write a chapter for an upcoming book on Personal Knowledge Graphs (PKG). My chapter will encompass each user’s PKG, the Social Knowledge Graph created by networking them together via the Fediverse, Solid hosting, AI writing tools and Decentralised Autonomous Organisations.This post provides a first draft of its Introducti…
blog.datproject.org
An overview of three protocols - ActivityPub, Scuttlebutt and Dat - and their complementary roles in helping redistribute power from "large centralized corporate interests and back into the hands of individual people and small groups... No one protocol [is enough] ... each protocol has its strengths and weaknesses". We need "develo…
tinysubversions.com
Pretty good explanation of ActivityPub from Darius Kazemi: "ActivityPub describes ways for social network sites to talk to each other... [from] sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat... [to] New York Times ... Spotify. Basically any site where individual "users" create content and other people can subscribe to it could be A…
thenextweb.com
"it's a start... Musk argued that disclosing what amplifies or downranks tweets would reduce the risk of “behind the scenes manipulation.” [but] algorithms alone offer limited insights" because it's not just an algorithm that defines what you see: it's a huge dataset - "content that enters the platform, each user’s p…
Like
algorithm,
social media,
transparency,
twitter,
bias,
machine learning,
open source,
fediverse,
elon musk
hapgood.us
I suspect this will be a canonical text for me moving forward with myhub.ai.Mike Caulfield in 2015, when my first hub was only about 2 years old, had also "been experimenting with another form of social media called federated wiki... instead of blogging and tweeting your experience you wiki’d it. And over time the wiki became a representation…
Like
social media,
knowledge management,
garden,
curation,
stream,
wiki,
myhub,
2ndbrain,
zettelkasten,
fediverse,
memex,
fedwiki
crossposter.masto.donte.com.br
allows you to connect a Mastodon account and a Twitter account and enable cross-posting between them. You can choose some options, such as if you want to post boosts, unlisted toots or replies.
davidwolfpaw.com
re-reading some articles about Mastodon from early 2017 identifies some common misconceptions:It Isn’t “True” Federation": Mastodon instances ... can block other sites or control who has access, they aren’t truly federating" - a "free speech absolutism" argument "complaining that you want to say things and you want to forc…
forum.ghost.org
Thoughts on adding activitypub to ghose ' relevant also to myhub."There is rss-to-activitypub 11 i... the only thing Ghost would be federating is the posts themselves ... if you want to federate comments too, then this only address half the issue... I would propose is something in the middle that: pulls in content from Ghost and pushes i…
bettermarketing.pub
Interesting piece on the reverse side of the network effect: the more people leave, the faster the remainder leave. So what will make people leave?Gen Z want privacy, hate bullying/speech, don’t like ads and think "Facebook is for moms and grandparents""Millennials Are Ready to Ditch... too old to bicker with strangers... [and] stil…
commonspub.org
"ActivityPub gives applications a shared protocol and syntax that they can use to communicate with each other... [but] writing software that implements federation logic and data structues has been technically challenging"Bonfire provides developers "a kit that manages the data and federation out of the box... enable end users to dep…
publicinfrastructure.org
One of a great series of Reimagining the Internet podcasts. Guest: the Planetary.Social founder, discussing:the early days of Twitter: "Twitter's innovation ... happened all at the edges... users created everything... inline images and short links and retweets and the app, actual at and hashtags... the company... cultivated this garden w…
Relevant Overviews
- Content Strategy
- Online Strategy
- Online Community Management
- Social Media Strategy
- Content Creation & Marketing
- Online Architecture
- Digital Transformation
- Thinking tools
- Zettelkasten
- Fediverse
- Blockchain, Crypto, NFTs etc
- Innovation Strategy
- Surveillance Capitalism, Social media and Polarisation (Overview)
- Communications Tactics
- Productivity
- Social Web
- Media
- Politics
- Communications Strategy
- Science&Technology
- Business