The diversity of network and UX types across the fediverse/social web that my little Friendica server sees is astounding. This is just Diaspora and ActivityPub federated content since Bluesky is integrated through a client API not AT. #fediverse#SocialWeb#ActivityPub#diaspora#Bluesky#friendica
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.
The Expulsion of the Moriscos (Al-Andalus y la Historia, 2024-03-20)
by Mercedes García-Arenal & Gerard Wiegers
"Between 1609 and 1614 about 300,000 #Moriscos were forcibly expelled from Spain, chiefly through the Mediterranean ports, and sent to North Africa. This mass deportation was accomplished with the help of galleys and ships of the royal navy, and was strictly organized by the bureacracy of the Crown. With it the monarchy hoped to end more than a century of what was called “the Morisco question.” In this article we will analyze the positions of the political and religious authorities, and the factors that led to the solution that was finally found: the forced displacement of an entire religious and social group"
Just trying to understand things (maybe someone can help).
Summary of long post:
The Friendica, Hubzilla, Streams, and Socialhome, approach is:
A group of people in the room having a discussion in their own languages. Only people who understand more than one language can understand other people.
The Threads approach is:
They provide their own translator who interprets between two languages.
The Bridge approach is:
There are two translators.
1st Translator: knows Filipino Sign Language (FSL) and English.
2nd Translator: knows Japanese Sign Language (JSL) and English.
a. A Filipino communicated in FSL.
b. Translator A translates FSL into English.
c. Translator B translates English into JSL.
There is a bridge between the FSL and JSL speakers.
How I understand it:
In #Friendica#Hubzilla#Streams and #Socialhome, if users comment on your post from #diaspora and #ActivityPub, users without the other protocol will not see those replies. Only accounts with both protocols can see the comments from both networks.
There is no “opt-in” or “opt-out”, it just is.
I'm no expert in this, but if I understood it correctly, the reason is the mentioned software are not acting as a bridge or translation between protocols. A comment/post from diaspora remains as diaspora, it is not remade into ActivityPub; and vice versa.
In a bridge, there is a translation going on. An ActivityPub comment/post is remade into a Bluesky comment/post and vice versa.
Again, IF I understood it correctly.
#Threads is testing their AP feature, and as it currently stands, a #Fediverse user commenting on a Threads post, that comment is only visible to Threads accounts with AP enabled. At the same time, Threads comments are only visible in the Fediverse if that Threads account who made the comment have AP enabled.
(Based on limited testing when I left comments on AP enabled Threads posts.)
In Threads approach, it appears that they do some translation between Threads-protocol and AP. Or, maybe, they do some filter, if an account enables AP, a Threads-proto post/comment is encapsulated as an AP so AP-supporting sites can recognise it.
Admins should probably discuss with their communities whether or not they want their instances opted-in by default. I think it's unfortunate that he built it to be opt-out rather than opt-in, but Ryan does, at least, seem open to working toward mutually agreeable solutions.
@lrhodes Just trying to understand where you are coming from.
Is the issue about “because it's Bluesky” and not the bridge itself?
Let's change the scenario.
Let's say Bluesky also implemented ActivityPub side-by-side with ATproto (just like how #Socialhome implemented #diaspora side-by-side with #ActivityPub; or #Friendica / #Hubzilla / #Streams have their own protocols side-by-side with AP).
Is there still going to be an issue about it? Or, will it turn into “let's #fediblock Bluesky!”
If it is about “because it's Bluesky”, then the issue is similar to how some people don't want company X and company Y and company Z from implementing the W3C standard ActivityPub, otherwise, they'll fediblock them, correct?
In the case of bridges then, if someone creates a bridge between ActivityPub and, for example, LinkedIn, it should be “opt-in” by default because some users don't want to see their posts/replies within the LinkedIn network. And if LinkedIn later decides to implement ActivityPub, they will be fediblocked?
Thanks to great work by @weepingclown we have finally updated diaspora-installer package in #debian unstable and it is ready for bookworm-backports once it migrates to testing.
There were many challenges to get it working with ruby 3.1 in debian bookworm and sid, but he solved these issues patiently one after the other. This was the bug he fixed https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1006547
Cory Doctorow's (@pluralistic) book "The #Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation was a satisfying" read by reigning liberatory Internet/tech #GOAT. He advocates for #interoperability rights--for users to be able to leave shitty platforms and/or design new systems that can interact w/ those systems freely. Switching costs are prohibitive for most users, since leaving FB/X would mean abandoning family, friends, etc. who are unlikely to follow you to #Diaspora or #Mastodon. #Reading
"Meta's fediverses", federating with Meta to allow communications, potentially using services from Meta such as automated moderation or ad targeting, and potentially harvesting data on Meta's behalf.
"free fediverses" that reject Meta – and surveillance capitalism more generally
The free fediverses have a lot of advantages over Meta and Meta's fediverses, some of which will be very hard to counter, and clearly have enough critical mass that they'll be just fine.
Here's a set of strategies for the free fediverses to provide a viable alternative to surveillance capitalism. They build on the strengths of today's fediverse at its best – including natural advantages the free fediverses have that Threads and Meta's fediverses will having a very hard time countering – but also are hopefully candid about weaknesses that need to be addressed. It's a long list, so I'll be spreading out over multiple posts; this post currently goes into detail on the first two.
Opposition to Meta and surveillance capitalism is an appealing position. Highlight it!
Focus on consent (including consent-based federation), privacy, and safety
Emphasize "networked communities"
Support concentric federations of instances and communities
Consider "transitively defederating" Meta's fediverses (as well as defederating Threads)
Consider working with people and instances in Meta's fediverses (and Bluesky, Dreamwidth, and other social networks) whose goals and values align with the free fediverses'
Build a sustainable ecosystem
Prepare for Meta's (and their allies') attempts to paint the free fediverses in a bad light
Reduce the dependency on Mastodon
Prioritize accessibility, which is a huge opportunity
Commit to anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-colonial, and pro-LGBTQIA2S+ principles, policies, practices, and norms for the free fediverses
Thank you for the optimistic PoV on the entrance of others to the #DeSoc of the Fediverse. It is an optimism that I share - especially with Matthias' announcement just an hour ago that his team behind the development of the #WordPress ActivityPub plugin has just released version 2.0.0 - considering the enormous footprint of WordPress installations across the entire Internet belonging to both common, everyday individuals and companies alike, of every shape and size, this is HUGE news.
It instantly, overnight, positions common folks and businesses to leap into the freedoms afforded them by the existing, privacy respecting, #FOSS based Fediverse that hitherto was... well, a bit of a leap for them psychologically. But now they have a familiar platform with which to begin a journey through the minefields of the deprecated, privacy mining, monolithic silos; its proprietors programming their masses of #subjugated_chattel into livestock holding pens, where they are weighed, measured, packaged, placed into inventory, and sold.
That does raise the issue of an error in your assertions however. You mentioned, "instances in Meta's fediverses and on Bluesky".
The truth however, the reality, is that each are merely a single instance - One big monolithic silo, as described above, with the same incentives of monetization through privacy mining techniques that have made them the dreadnoughts that they are; at least in the case of #Meta (Threads).
Bluesky is of that vertically scaling market as well, but much smaller than the #Faceplant and #InstaSPAM engines operated by Meta, and now their new spearhead into the DeSoc space occupied by ActivityPub and other decentralized or federated protocol based, horizontally scaling instances.
#Bluesky hasn't actually shown their hand yet to the general public, but already, they've disenfranchised (fired) much of their talent; some, actually principal architects of their monolith who were frustrated and disillusioned with the direction Jay has been taking the company - moving further and further away from the disowned public community they spawned, organized, and abandoned following the initial trials and tests of the open source preview version of what became #ATP protocol (ATX).
Even Jack has moved on and embraced yet another horizontally scaling protocol in the DeSoc space, #nostr, and it's already bridged and interoperating flawlessly with the ActivityPub powered portion of the Fediverse, which in turn interoperates with instances running other protocols such as #Nomad, #OStatus, #Streams, #Diaspora, and #ZOT... all of them part of the Fediverse.
Many of the extant #ActivityPub powered instances in the Fediverse merely need to install these capabilities with a couple of clicks to enable this interoperability, while others bridge the divide through infrastructure developed and deployed over the past year or so.
What will be Meta's use case here for their business product?
That's the main question I think folks need to address - not punish the good people on the so-called evil side of the divide, the hitherto subjugated chattel that populate Marks so-called Metaverse or whatever he thinks he can compel people to adopt and endure. The point is, childish, domain level blocking by juvenile minds operating ActivityPub powered #Fediverse server instances only serves to paint themselves (and the users who have to date trusted those admins with being told what they can and cannot see and do) into a corner where they effectively cancel themselves, and find that their users have migrated to other spaces... maybe WordPress, where they truly control their own destiny in the DeSoc space and can now fully participate and engage with others - but on their own terms, not someone else's.
And that, I believe, is what the whole thing has always been about, going back as far as #AngelFire and #GeoCities :)
I do agree with you that we should indeed embrace these common, everyday individuals who, through their programmed ignorance, are mostly clueless as to exactly what the Fediverse is, and more importantly, has always promised for them. This is an opportunity, like Steve Austin, (the Six Million Dollar Man): "We can rebuild them, we have the technology, we can make them better, stronger, faster..."
One more thing I should correct you on, the Fediverse is an internetwork of networks, on the Internet - there are no fediverses, Fediverse is itself a plurality, but your intent wasn't lost on me.
Great article, I enjoyed the read and most of all, your optimistically tempered intent. Thanks for sharing and I hope to see much more from you in the future!
i think it's time for me to migrate away from mastodon.social, maybe even away from #mastodon . thank you for introducing me to the #fediverse (actually not exactly, i had a #diaspora account before that on mastodon), but it's obvious now we don't share the same central, community-forming ideals.
The #Mastodon software setting of #Spoutible is now a dropdown menu. Currently only for mastodon.social and mastodon.online.
Maybe it's temporary but if it's not, they'll have to add at least a hundred reputable and popular servers. Also, it's Mastodon software only. There are far more software, older and/or better than Mastodon which will probably not get support, at least as far as the approach I am seeing.
I think the idea is, you get people to sign-up at Spoutible since it can crosspost to the Fediverse (at least through social and online) and Bluesky.
But if course, at the same time, it's what you've said.
Only catch, if we reply through the Fediverse or Bluesky, they won't see it in Spoutible.
I agree, they should just federate. If they are willing to do this work, they might as well work on #ActivityPub and #ATproto federations. (Maybe add #Diaspora too.)
Hopefully, it is in their long-term goals. If they do that for both, they'll be another proof that federation is the future for #SNS. (And they'll generate a lot Buzz too, so win-win-win.)
"As conflation and confusion abound after 7 October, we need clear thinking about antisemitism"
by:
David Feldman, director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism,
Brendan McGeever, senior lecturer at the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism.
"The Campaign Against Antisemitism #CAA was formed in 2014, after a previous Israeli bombardment of Gaza. Its explicit founding purpose was to counter the antisemitism that arises in Britain when Israel pummels Palestinians and, implicitly, to defend Israel’s right to pummel. Chief executive Gideon Falter is also vice chairman of the Jewish National Fund #JNF UK, which is reported to have provided funding to the CAA in the past. The JNF enjoys charitable status and its existence predates the Balfour Declaration. For over a century, it has bought up land in historic Palestine, helped plan the Nakba, furthered exclusive Jewish settlement and transformed colonised land into parks and forests to erase what had been before."
🧵4/4 The #FarRight fearmongers who branded the #Armistice as something the #CeaseFireNow marchers did not respect, stormed the #Cenotaph themselves and would have attacked the marching families in Pimlico had the police not stopped them. The march ended with speeches. This #Palestinian speaker held the keys of his grand-mother’s house, from which she was displaced in the first #nakba in #1948. Keys have become a symbol to the #diaspora of #ExistResistReturn and the hope for a #FreePalestine.
#BlackFriday#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter#MusicFromTheMotherland#diaspora@blackmastodon
Here's the last of the recommendations from my Ethiopians friends. This is Tewodros Kassahun Germamo, known as "Teddy Afro." It isn't my usual chill kind of music, but I read that he often sings about political themes, so that's good enough for me. His online music is usually long mixes, but I did find this piece called Lambadina. Enjoy. https://youtu.be/tazS5K2Nr7k
Suppression of any coverage of #Israel in the US press that attempts to describe what Israel is actually doing to #Gaza and the #WestBank is so complete that we are forced to turn to less-recognized sources for #truth, but this causes people who consume only mainstream media to distrust the information, even when a preponderance of evidence suggests the likelihood of its veracity. Israel's spokespeople are given free reign, while others are denigrated and denied any voice, at all.