Hello World!
I just spoke with a #US #Senator office about the #fediverse . They're asking for more information to help spread around #Capital #Hill in small bite sized easy to understand pieces. I'm obviously going to give them @elena beautiful #movie on the #fedi (with some light editing which she's agreed to).
I'll of course show them https://fediverse.info/ and https://fedi.tips/ which are great websites. I figured I'd give them examples of amazing #AP projects such as #mastodon , #pixelfed , #peertube , #bandwagon , and #bonfire ; even things like @admin .
I'd love to know from folks any EASY to understand projects that best encompass the Fediverse and explanations of it.
What are some projects you'd hand to your friends and family that would explain and display to them what we are?
I'll say this isn't going to happen over night. There's lot of questions around regulations, trust & safety, etc. But I feel it's pertinent to at least get the conversation going, especially considering the current state of disdain for big social media and the impending legislation around these things.
I'll finally state if there's anyone in this list that does NOT want to be involved with this, that's totally fine and I understand and I can exclude you from the materials I give to them.
#boost #boostplease #government #laws #activityPub
@benpate @peertube @bonfire
@stefano @dansup @Mastodon
activitypub
Week in Fediverse 2025-06-20
Servers
- PeerTube v7.2.1
- Manyfold v0.114.0
- Mitra v4.5.0
- Misskey v2025.6.1
- Sharkey v2025.4.3
- NodeBB v4.4.4
- Surfacing discussions (Ghost)
- New Look, Faster Blocks in ActivityPub 6.0.0 (ActivityPub for WordPress)
- BadgeFed @ FediForum June 2025: Unconferences, Demos, and Community Feedback (BadgeFed)
- BDServer: Server software for making blogs and other similar websites
- Shoot: Instant messenger for the fediverse
Clients
- Moshidon v110
- Aria v1.2.2
- Thunder v0.7.1
- Voyager v2.36.0
- Pixelfed (React Native) v1.4.0.1
- xymopen/CuckooPlus: A GooglePlus-like third-party web client for Mastodon
Tools and Plugins
- PeerTube livechat plugin v14.0.0
- FIRES Server v0.2.0
- Event Bridge for ActivityPub v1.1.1 (WordPress plugin)
For developers
- Fedify v1.6.2
- Fedialgo v0.74.0
Protocol
- Messaging Layer Security over ActivityPub
- FEP-844e: Capability discovery
- FEP-521a: Representing actor's public keys (Finalized)
Articles
- Threads is adding fediverse content to your social feeds
- ORCID and the Fediverse: What Can We Do with Public Information?
- The Seven Deadly UX Sins of the Fediverse Web Experience (To Fix)
- Fediverse Report – #121
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#WeekInFediverse #Fediverse #ActivityPub
Previous edition: https://mitra.social/objects/01976ad6-6dbf-3ce4-c032-b3717e766ace
@newyorktimes's veteran tech reporter @Markoff interviewed some of #TeamFediverse including @Gargron, @reckless1280 and our CEO @mike for a feature on the rise of decentralized social media. “It goes back to the original principles where the internet started out as decentralized,” Eugen Rochko told Markoff. Here's the full story [may be paywalled].
We're so excited to develop these conversations further at SXSW this weekend — check out the itinerary and sign up to join us at #FediverseHouse at the second link.
#Fediverse #ActivityPub #Federation #OpenSocialWeb #SXSW #JohnMarkoff #EugenRochko #MikeMcCue #SXSW2025
wanderer, a self hosted trail logging app, has added federation via ActivityPub. You can now follow, like and comment on trails shared from other instances.
New NLNet Projects were recently announced, with a solid collection of ActivityPub related ones:
* Mastodon adding new features for institutional instances
* ActivityPub Polls for Wordpress
* Funkwhale Federation Improvements
* Making Events more interoperable between Fediverse Platforms
* Context Discovery in NodeBB
* Icosa 3-D Model Sharing with ActivityPub
Did I miss any?
https://nlnet.nl/news/2025/20250624-announcement-grants-CommonsFund.html
Tonight, this repo was discussed in a thread and I am so glad I clicked on it. Among free fediverse sticker designs you can print yourself and other artwork, there are also fediverse mascot paper toys! Really cute. Now if I only had a color printer...
https://codeberg.org/fediverse/distributopia/src/branch/main/papertoys
We're pleased to announce that #Node.js support has been merged and will be available in #BotKit 0.3.0.
Now you can build your #ActivityPub bots with both #Deno and Node.js, giving you more flexibility in choosing your preferred runtime environment.
Stay tuned for BotKit 0.3.0!
🚀 New on #TheFutureIsFederated 👩🚀
#PeerTube: the Fediverse’s decentralized video platform (part 1: first impressions)
mentioning @Framasoft @peertube @fedihost @fedihost@video.fedihost.co @paige @veronicaexplains @ewen @docpop @hikingdude
P.S.: this is the 20th article for The Future is Federated 🤗
#tech #Fediverse #activism #BigTech #SocialMedia #FOSS #blog #ActivityPub #video
Week in Fediverse 2025-03-14
Servers
- Mitra v3.19.0
- Mastodon v4.3.6
- GoToSocial v0.18.2
- Pleroma v2.9.1
- tootik v0.15.4
- Misskey v2025.3.1
- Gancio v1.24.4
- NeoDB v0.11.5.1
- kmyblue v17.3
- NodeBB v4.1.1
- Vernissage Server v1.4.0
- Trunk & Tidbits, February 2025 (Mastodon)
- Actually, I take that back (Ghost)
- Gush! - A federated social media platform for sharing the things you love
- Forte: Nomadic fediverse server
- Merp Relay: Lightweight Fediverse message relay
Clients
- SubwayTooter v5.549
- Fedilab v3.30.1
- Mastodon for Android v2.9.5
- Impressia v3.1.0
- Voyager v2.25.0
- Phanpy changelog
Tools and Plugins
- PeerTube livechat plugin v12.0.3
For developers
- ActivityPods v2.1.0
- Granary v8.1
- Roboherd: A framework for building Fediverse bots
Protocol
- Activity Streams/Primer/Tombstone type
Articles
- Why Content Creators should consider the Fediverse
- Mastodon to GoToSocial Migration
- Fediverse Report #107
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#WeekInFediverse #Fediverse #ActivityPub
Previous edition: https://mitra.social/objects/01957251-017a-d6e9-a72a-7e34ac1e1a86
Shoutout to #FediMeteo @admin and @stefano for the #RSS and #ActivityPub #federated #weather service. Finally, a reliable weather tool across platforms.
A week or so ago I reached out and they added my community. Every time the new weather report post or RSS feed comes through, I appreciate it so much.
Thanks again! #WX #Fediverse
We're pleased to share that Encyclia has joined our success stories.
@encyclia bridges academic research to the #fediverse by making #ORCID researcher profiles and publications discoverable through #ActivityPub—built with #Fedify for seamless interoperability across Mastodon and other fediverse platforms.
This demonstrates Fedify's versatility beyond traditional social networking, helping specialized domains connect to the federated web.
We're also grateful for #Encyclia's sponsorship support, which helps make Fedify's development possible.
Learn more about Encyclia at https://encyclia.pub/. 📚
We are pleased to announce the release of #Fedify 1.7.0. This release was expedited at the request of the Ghost team, who are actively using Fedify for their #ActivityPub implementation. As a result, several features originally planned for this version have been moved to Fedify 1.8.0 to ensure timely delivery of the most critical improvements.
This release focuses on enhancing message queue functionality and improving compatibility with ActivityPub servers through refined HTTP signature handling.
Native retry mechanism support
This release introduces support for native retry mechanisms in message queue backends. The new MessageQueue.nativeRetrial property allows queue implementations to indicate whether they provide built-in retry functionality, enabling Fedify to optimize its retry behavior accordingly.
When nativeRetrial is set to true, Fedify will delegate retry handling to the queue backend rather than implementing its own retry logic. This approach reduces overhead and leverages the proven retry mechanisms of established queue systems.
Current implementations with native retry support include:
DenoKvMessageQueue — utilizes Deno KV's automatic retry with exponential backoff
WorkersMessageQueue — leverages Cloudflare Queues' automatic retry and dead-letter queue features
AmqpMessageQueue — can now be configured to use AMQP broker's native retry mechanisms
The InProcessMessageQueue continues to use Fedify's internal retry mechanism, while ParallelMessageQueue inherits the retry behavior from its wrapped queue.
AMQP message queue improvements
Alongside Fedify 1.7.0, we have also released @fedify/amqp 0.3.0. This release adds the nativeRetrial option to AmqpMessageQueueOptions, enabling you to leverage your AMQP broker's built-in retry mechanisms. When enabled, this option allows the AMQP broker to handle message retries according to its configured policies, rather than relying on Fedify's internal retry logic.
Configurable double-knocking
The new FederationOptions.firstKnock option provides control over the HTTP Signatures specification used for the initial signature attempt when communicating with previously unknown servers.
Previously, the first knock for newly encountered servers always used RFC 9421 (HTTP Message Signatures), falling back to draft-cavage-http-signatures-12 if needed. With this release, you can now configure which specification to use for the first knock when communicating with unknown servers, with RFC 9421 remaining the default.
Summary
This release maintains Fedify's commitment to reliability and compatibility while laying the groundwork for more efficient message processing. The native retry mechanism support will particularly benefit applications using queue backends with sophisticated retry capabilities, while the double-knocking mechanism addresses real-world compatibility challenges in the ActivityPub ecosystem.
For detailed technical information about these changes, please refer to the changelog in the repository.
🎉 Development for Mastodon compatible #ActivityPub polls in #WordPress is starting. This project is receiving funding from the latest round of the NGI Zero Commons Fund. #ngi0 #NLnet
Ω🪬Ω
new release of #Fedialgo, the customizable timeline algorithm / filtering system for your Mastodon feed, counts the number of times each hashtag appears in your timeline even if people don't use a "#" character to give you a better sense of what people are talking about in the Fediverse.
there's a little bit of art vs. science here because some strings are disqualified from this kind of counting (e.g. a word like "the" should not be counted even if some maniac decided to make it a hashtag) so let me know if you see any weirdly high counts.
* Link: https://michelcrypt4d4mus.github.io/fedialgo_demo_app_foryoufeed/
* Code: https://github.com/michelcrypt4d4mus/fedialgo_demo_app_foryoufeed
* Video of FediAlgo in action: https://universeodon.com/@cryptadamist/114395249311910522
#activitypub #algorithm #algorithmicFeed #algorithmicTimeline #Fedi #FediTips #FediTools #Fediverse #Feed #FOSS #Masto #MastoAdmin #Mastodon #mastohelp #MastoJS #nodejs #node #opensource #SocialWeb #timeline #TL #webdev #hashtag #typescript #hashtags
Takahe is one platform I never got to try. Similar to GtS in that the focus was on small to medium sized instances.
I am creating a #ActivityPub minimalistic implementation of a badge system similar to Credly, built using #dotnet and leveraging the #Fediverse
I have issued a first badge, the idea is to decentralize the verification systems, and allow organizations to self-certify. It is incredible that organizations like Microsoft or Non-Profits pay thousands of dollars to companies like Pearson to just provide "verified" badges. Similar to mastodons installed in social-dot-something, thinkg of badges<dot> mozilla<dot>com , certifications<dot>myschooldistrict<dot>com. Or even a podcast emitting a badge for its guests, with the verification in the domain.
ActivityPub already offers a secure way to sign artifacts and interact between actors. The fediverse already have people with profiles, a social graph as @mike says, ready to use. Think of how LetsEncrypt disrupted that market of few actors selling certificates for websites.
I have a functional poc,
@fediverse is not a mastodon, pledora or blog, it is an actor in a badge system, but you can follow it in Mastodon. Its badges will show in #mastodon but they are not notes or articles. If you want to learn more, follow me, I will be sharing the progress here. Or follow the github project here: https://github.com/tryvocalcat/activitypub-badges
Who wants a badge of early adopter?
My #ActivityPub developer guide moved to another repository: https://codeberg.org/silverpill/ap-next/src/branch/main/guide.md
It started as a FEP, but has evolved into something bigger.
About the repository:
As stated in the readme, ActivityPub Next is a project dedicated to evolving the ActivityPub protocol.
Currently it only contains the developer guide, but I think that more content will be added over time.
Excited to share that I've joined #OSSCA (Open Source Software Contribution Academy) as a mentor for the @fedify project!
OSSCA is a national program run by South Korea's NIPA (National IT Industry Promotion Agency) through their Open Source Software Support Center, aimed at fostering the next generation of open source contributors.
We're currently in the process of selecting around 20 mentees who will start contributing to #Fedify once the selection is complete. I've been busy preparing good first issues to help them get started on their open source journey.
Looking forward to working with these new contributors and seeing what amazing things we can build together!
wanderer - #Strava meets the #Fediverse. A self-hosted trail database built on #ActivityPub. "Save your adventures!"
There’s some really exciting stuff in the pipeline for the #WordPress #ActivityPub integration. A big one is proper following support directly from the integration itself.
I’m hopeful that maybe this means I won’t have to rely on the Friends plugin for handling following soon? Friends is by no means bad, but native functionality makes things so much easier to test.
https://github.com/Automattic/wordpress-activitypub/pull/1930
Concept for discussion: Replacing HTTP Signatures with Bearer Tokens for ActivityPub Federation
Curious what other people think about this idea. What if federation security was re-worked to use target-assigned bearer tokens to authenticate GET/POST requests? This would remove the need for complicated signing schemes and reduce system load under heavy traffic bursts (as no cryptography is required).
A basic implementation could look like this:
1. When instance A (a.example.com) first attempts to federate with instance B (b.example.com), a POST request is made to a dedicated registration endpoint. (for discussion, we'll say it's https://b.example.com/activity-pub/register-instance). This request includes fields necessary for verification, including the source domain name, target domain name, and a securely-generated verification token. Other metadata could be included to allow instance B to selectively allow/prohibit federation based on other criteria, but this is optional.
2. Instance B makes a POST request back to a dedicated verification endpoint on instance A (for discussion, we'll say it's https://a.example.com/activity-pub/verify-registration). This request must include the target domain name and verification token provided in step 2.
3. Instance A checks the verification token (and verify that it matches the target domain name) and return a successful value. The verification code must be invalidated after this call!
4. Instance B, after verifying instance A's request, returns a securely-generated federation key back to instance A. This federation key is a bearer token used to authenticate all requests from instance A to instance B. This key must be unique to instance A!
5. Instance A completes the original request with the Authorization header set to Bearer {federation_key}.
6. Instance B receives the request, detects the federation key, and checks it against the list of registered instances.
7. If the key does not exist or A has been defederated, then a 403 Forbidden error is returned.
8. If the key is expired or revoked, then 401 Unauthorized error is returned. Upon receiving a 401 error, instance A should start over from step 1 to re-authenticate and complete the request with a new token. This process should not be repeated for recursive failures!
9. If the key is approved, then a 200 OK response or 202 Accepted response is returned, and A can consider the request as successful.
Advantages versus HTTP Signatures:
- No cryptography requirements.
- Simple logic, no edge cases around HTTP query parameters or header order.
- Equally effective for all request types.
- Keys can be easily revoked or rotated.
- Supports authorized fetch and defederation use cases "by default".
Disadvantages versus HTTP Signatures:
- Breaks the actor model - instances are required as a first-class concept. (but really, the actor model is basically dead already. you can't even federate reliably without a WebFinger server, at minimum.)
- Requires multi-request "handshake" before communication. (but this is already required in practice, since a signature can't be validated without first requesting the signing actor.)
- Out-of-band protocol - communication can't happen over ActivityPub / ActivityStreams because this is a prerequisite to authenticate any request. (but again, we already require WebFinger and some software requires NodeInfo for full support.)
So, what are your thoughts? Good idea? Bad idea? Did I miss something? Please let me know, I welcome replies here!
#ActivityPub #AP #Federation
Week in Fediverse 2025-06-27
Servers
- PieFed v1.0.0
- Manyfold v0.115.0
- Mitra v4.5.1
- tootik v0.17.0
- Gancio v1.27.0
- Gush! v0.0.20
- Vernissage Server v1.17.0
- wanderer: A decentralized, self-hosted trail database
Clients
- Smither v3.6
- Thunder v0.7.3
- Blorp v1.8.1
- Aria v1.2.4
Tools and Plugins
For developers
- Fedify v1.7.0
- Fedialgo v0.78.0
Protocol
- FEP-b06c: ActivityPoll
- FEP-b2b8: Long-form Text (Final comments)
Articles
- Verified Media Accounts in the Fediverse
- The Seven Deadly Fediverse UX Sins Part 2: The Road To Redemption
- Mitigating the "7 Deadly Fediverse UX Sins"
- Friendica: the Swiss Army knife of the Fediverse
- Fediverse Report – #122
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#WeekInFediverse #Fediverse #ActivityPub
Previous edition: https://mitra.social/objects/01978f30-5295-cb5b-38cc-a151f08fd9f1