So, what's the update on #Flickr and #Tumblr joining the #Fediverse network? I haven't heard anything from them, while other services are starting to test their #ActivityPub implementations.
Micro transactions for certain feature articles are ok but not the ehole shebang. And in 2024, I refuse to deal with anything that isn’t potentially using ActivityPub or can otherwise be federated and followed by my main accounts.
It is with a heavy heart that I share this sad news with you. Despite how much we’ve accomplished together, we will be shutting down Post News within the next few weeks. We have done many great things…](https://post.news/@/noam/2fJw4PYRFjya343RpiToiyEQr0x)
@starrwulfe@evan Yep. #PostNews had potential, & I believe that if they would have allowed custom domains for a fee & activated #ActivityPub, they would have been as successful as #MicroBlog.
Throw in #Tumblr importing & it would have thrived.
Post News, which sought to be a Twitter alternative, is shutting down. I have 5.8k followers there but rarely use it. I decided I’ve bandwidth for only two platforms after putting my Twitter accounts in suspended animation — Threads is one of them and Mastodon is the other. https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/19/24135011/twitter-alternative-post-news-shutdown
@w7voa I tried #PostNews but it felt like a refined version of #Tumblr, just for news geeks. I remember them promising #Fediverse support, but that never arrived.
#Threads gets a lot of blowback for making federation opt-in on their service.
But from an admin perspective, thank God they're doing that because if 120 million accounts suddenly joined the #Fediverse, this could kill many servers.
Meta might have the resources send messages from that many accounts, but many Fediverse servers don't have the resources to receive all of them.
This is why resource efficiency is such an important concern for the Fediverse at large. Hence why I'm interested in building a community of #Akkomane enthusiasts.
I think one reason #Tumblr has yet to join the #Fediverse is precisely because they're worried about the effect all those Tumblr accounts could have on the current Fediverse.
This isn't a matter of just turning on a switch and -- BAM! -- welcome to the Fediverse!
It's something that takes a lot of planning and diligent preparation.
"Of Kythereia, born in Kypros, I will sing. She gives kindly gifts to men: smiles are ever on her lovely face, and lovely is the brightness that plays over it. Hail, goddess, queen of well-built Salamis and sea-girt Kypros; grant me a cheerful song. And now I will remember you and another song also."
…I noticed that they gave shoutouts to #Mastodon & #WordPress (#Tumblr was strangely ignored) as well as credited #Misskey for their quote implementation (even #Firefish received an honorable mention).
I do wonder how many Threads users have activated ActivityPub on their account‽
You want to use hashtags a lot. You can put them anywhere but if you put them at the bottom they get sorted out in a good way. You can also follow hashtags which is really helpful.
Getting started here can be kind of daunting? But it's pretty rewarding once you start to get the hang of it ^_^
The latest drama is that Automattic is about to sign a deal with OpenAI to train AI on WordPress.com and Tumblr content.
Everyone’s got very angry about it. Everyone also conveniently forgot to even mention that OpenAI probably already had crawled most if not all of WP and Tumbler.
Automattic also allows users to opt out and that fueled the Opt Out/Consent discussion that started a bit earlier. I’ll get to it later.
Just the day before (or it feels like it) Google signed a deal with Reddit to get all the data to train their AI.
Everyone’s got very angry about it. Everyone also conveniently forgot to even mention that Google of all corps probably already had crawled most if not all of Reddit. The $60M Google paid is a convenience fee to get a nice db bump instead of having to scrap and clean up all that text.
Reddit doesn't let user to Opt Out.
Last week (or it feels like it) one guy wanted to bridge public toots from Mastodon to bluesky.
Everyone’s got very angry about it. Everyone also conveniently forgot to even mention that people could read those toots just using a different client or a browser. All the bridge did was bring toots to a different audience and allowed them to engage with those toots.
The bride also allows people to opt out and that rekindled the Opt Out/Consent discussion that started a bit earlier. I’ll get to it later.
Some time last year a guy built a Fediverse search engine because discovery between instances is terrible.
Everyone’s got very angry about it. Everyone also conveniently forgot to even mention that most toots are indexed by big search engines anyway but because they rank low they just rarely surface in the results.
The search engine also allowed people to opt out and that kinda started the Opt Out/Consent discussion. I’ll get to it in a bit.
Some time later a completely unrelated thing happened. Discord decided that they won’t let people hotlink images uploaded to Discord.
Everyone’s got very angry about it. But also this time people didn’t forget to mention that you shouldn’t use discord for anything you don’t want to lose. Thing like lore, documentation and basically anything that can be useful 5 minutes after it was said better be somewhere else. The reason is Discord servers are private in the sense that you have to use a specific piece of software with an account to access it. Anything posted there is not accessible outside, including through a search engine.
While all this was going on quite a few people in seemingly unrelated fashion were expressing dissatisfaction with interactions they were having on Mastodon. Specifically they were angry about certain types of replies they were getting. The replies were not threatening or insulting but they were not welcome in a way that I’m having trouble articulating. The most common case I saw is someone would post something open-ended or state a problem they have and they would get a bunch of suggestions how to possibly solve it or people sharing their experience either affirming the problem or otherwise.
Some people got very angry about this. They also conveniently forgot to even notice that this is a non-standard arrangement and they want to Opt Out of the more common case provided by the platform.
So finally we’re at the Opt Out. There’s a lot of different takes but the main thrust is that things should be Opt In instead of the other way around. And I agree. Where I don’t agree is that you all Opt In when you post stuff publicly on the internet. Once you do you set your thing free into the world. You resign control over it. You do not expect to opt in to every single read on your blog. If you want to control who access what you write you don’t post it on the internet in public, you send it in private. Consequently you do not retroactively revoke access. You all know that internet never forgets. You can’t unpublished things on the internet. It was already copied, screenshotted, and archived. And you didn’t know what happens to it unless you’re told.
I'm really hoping for more #Fediverse alternatives to both #Tumblr and #Pinterest as two examples in particular. I'm aware of a few things in the works but nothing concrete as yet?
When Stewards Go Astray: A pair of recent controversies around the tech-publishing giant Automattic raise an important question in my mind: Do we have to worry about the future of WordPress?
After sitting on it for a while, I've decided I'll cut all three of my self-hosted WordPress blogs' connections to WordPress[dot]com over the weekend. That means getting rid of Jackpack and disconnecting my accounts from WordPress[dot]com and Gravatar.
On the Tumblr side, I've opted out of sharing my data. And I mostly used the blog for promoting my WordPress blog and reblogging cool stuff from others.
I looked at my abandoned #tumblr settings and that “do not share with AI” settings was toggled on. I don’t remember doing that but I usually set all my settings everywhere to “do not share“. So, this is just MY case but if that’s a new setting it was ON by default
more importantly: from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free #freepalestine