We are very close to reaching 100k followers on @Mastodon.
Can you help us get there?
fediverse
Hold up, hold up. @owncast has had a mascot all this time, and it's a cat?!
AND IT IS NAMED Owncat?!!
And you can buy a coffee mug with the mascot on it, with proceeds going to Owncast development?!!askldfjaksldf!!?$#@!!!!
Edited 24d ago
Meine Datenschutz und Privatsphäre Übersicht 2025, für Jedermann 🔐
Teilen erbeten ! 
als PDF Datei:
https://cryptpad.digitalcourage.de/file/#/2/file/kRgZ+fsPATHElnUKYE8ziTgT/
#DSGVO #TDDDG ( #unplugtrump )
#Datenschutz #Privatsphäre #sicherheit #Verschlüsselung
#encryption #WEtell #SoloKey #NitroKey #Email #Cybersecurity #Pixelfed #Massenűberwachung #Leta
#Google #Metadaten #WhatsApp #Threema #Cryptpad #Signal
#Hateaid #Cyberstalking #Messenger #Browser #Youtube #NewPipe #Chatkontrolle #nichtszuverbergen #ÜberwachungsKapitalismus #Microsoft #Apple #Windows10 #Linux #Matrix #Mastodon #Friendica #Fediverse #Mastodir #Loops #2FA #Ransomware #Foss #VeraCrypt #HateAid #Coreboot #Volksverpetzer #Netzpolitik #OpenAndroidInstaller
#Digitalisierung #FragdenStaat #Shiftphone #OpenSource #GrapheneOS #CCC #Mail #Mullvad #PGP #GnuPG #DNS #Gaming #linuxgaming #Lutris #Protondb #eOS #Enshittification
#Bloatware #TPM #Murena #LiberaPay #GnuTaler #Taler #PreppingforFuture
#FediLZ #BlueLZ #InstaLZ #ThreatModel
#FLOSS #UEFI #Medienkompetenz
New: Taking Control of Your Timeline - in Different Ways
#Fediverse platforms as well as #Bluesky offer to give the user control of their timeline - in contrast with the control that Big Tech Platforms have with their algorithmic timelines.
But the approach is surprisingly different: fediverse platforms like Mastodon give you control over *how* you see the content you follow, whereas Bluesky gives you control over *what* content you see
https://fediversereport.com/taking-control-of-your-timeline-in-different-ways/
I'm trying to convince the last friends I have left on Facebook, X, Threads, or BlueSky to join the Fediverse. Some have tried but felt a sense of loneliness. Nowadays, many people are so used to doing what algorithms suggest that they can no longer make independent choices.
My timeline here, on the other hand, is beautiful.
I see what I want, I follow people who post what I like, and no one tells me what I should do. Freedom may come with a "cost," but whatever it is, it's worth the effort. Always.
#Fediverse #Mastodon #SocialNetworks
My timeline here, on the other hand, is beautiful.
I see what I want, I follow people who post what I like, and no one tells me what I should do. Freedom may come with a "cost," but whatever it is, it's worth the effort. Always.
#Fediverse #Mastodon #SocialNetworks
Have you seen a 
rainbow pentagon thing on here and wondered what it means?
It's the logo of the Fediverse, the overall network which contains Mastodon, PeerTube, Pixelfed, BookWyrm, OwnCast and many other platforms that talk to each other using a common standard.
You can download a high quality version of the logo at:
➡️ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fediverse_logo_proposal.svg
Technically there can be no official logo on a decentralised network, but this is the most commonly-used logo.
Getting started with ActivityPub on WordPress just got a lot easier. A new guided onboarding experience is now part of the plugin, designed to help you configure key settings and understand how your site connects to the Fediverse—from the moment you activate it.
Whether you're new to ActivityPub or just setting things up again, the onboarding flow helps you make informed choices around visibility, content formatting, and profile setup. It’s built to give you confidence that your […]
So the #FOSS #Fediverse non-profit I manage @fedihosting_foundation needs some help.
We're at the point where we need more moderators for @LemmyWorld due to the growth of our communities (a good thing!).
We have a very kind and inclusive team from all over the world! Likewise, we also try to respect everyone's work-life balance and are flexible with scheduling (EST & CEST timezones).
Interested? DM me or apply online via
https://fedihosting.foundation/positions/#-site-moderator
New: Why is Meta adding fediverse interoperability to Threads?
Threads' most recent update allows people on Threads to follow people on the #fediverse, albeit with some significant caveats.
But one simple question has bugging me for a long while: Why? Why is Meta adding interoperability to their platform?
https://fediversereport.com/why-is-meta-adding-fediverse-interoperability-to-threads/
We at Vivaldi are the only browser company with a Mastodon server. We have chosen to support the Fediverse in every way we can. We will continue to do so as we need options away from Big Tech.
Reminder that "sometime not long after December 15th", the botsin.space server, a home to many of your favorite creative bots, will be entering a read-only mode, before its planned shutdown.
(The server will run until at least March 2025.)
https://botwiki.org/blog/botsin-space-server-closing-down/
Hope most of you bot admins managed to migrate by now!
Quite some tech journalists and "influencers" out there keep on telling us that #Mastodon (and the whole #fediverse, because they typically don't know that there is more than just one service ;) is losing users after the last wave of newcomers.
Weird thing is: I keep on getting more followers and my timeline is getting better and more diverse with a lot of inspiring content and respectful discussions.
So, I guess, smaller is better :) Thank you all for being awesome!
Edited 171d ago
Mastodon Now Sends Referer Headers! Hurrah!
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/12/mastodon-now-sends-referer-headers-hurrah/
Back in 2022, I wrote this rather grumpy post on Mastodon, the federated social media platform.
@Edent@mastodon.socialTerence Eden
Mastodon enforces a "noreferrer" on all external links.
I have mixed feelings about that.
As a blogger, I want to see *where* visitors are coming from. I also like to see (and sometimes join in) with the conversations they're having.
But, I get that people want privacy and don't want to "leak" where they're visiting from.
Is it such a bad thing to tell a website "I was referred from this specific server"?
❤️ 61💬 16🔁 2907:09 - Fri 11 November 2022When you click on this link - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news - your browser says "Hey! BBC! Please can I have your /news page? BTW, I was referred here by shkspr.mobi. THANKS!" This is called the "Referer" and, yes, it is mispelt.
One the one hand, sending the referer is good; it lets the linked-to server know who is linking to it. That allows them to see where traffic is coming from. On the other hand, this could be bad for much the same reason.
If you run a server anarcho_terrorists.biz, you probably don't want the FBI knowing that your members are sharing links to their pages. If you run a small personal server, you may not want anyone knowing that you personally linked to them. If you run a server for a marginalised community, you may not want a hate-site to know your members are linking to you.
But if you're a large-ish, general purpose, non-private site - like Mastodon.social - where's the harm in allowing referer headers?
Anyway, for historic reasons, Mastodon blocked the referer header. This, I believe, was sensible for smaller servers but a miss-step for larger servers. As I pointed out last week:
@Edent@mastodon.socialTerence Eden
Two years later.
Want to know one of the major reasons Mastodon didn't catch on with journalists and large website owners?
It is *invisible* in referrer statistics.
Here's my blog from the last month.
BlueSky now sends me more traffic than Bing.
How much traffic does Mastodon send? It is impossible to know due to the "noreferrer" header in all links.
(I'm not saying your privacy isn't important. But you can't grow a community if no-one knows you exist.)
❤️ 305💬 57🔁 24812:48 - Sat 07 December 2024I'm not the only one to make this point - it has been a popular complaint for some time.
A few days ago, Mastodon changed to allow this to be configurable.
This is excellent news. Website owners will be able to (somewhat) accurately see how much traffic Mastodon sends them. That way they can determine if there is a suitably large audience to engage with on the Fediverse.
It is, of course, slightly more complicated than that!
Instance owners can opt-in to allowing Referer headers (it is off by default).
The policy means that only the domain name is sent; not the full page.
Mastodon is federated and there are thousands of sites. Even if they all opted-in, their statistics will be fragmented.
Apps can set their own Referer header - leading to more fragmentation.
Even if they do opt-in, users can set their browsers not to send Referer headers.
Nevertheless, I'm delighted with this change. Hopefully it will allow the Fediverse to grow and attract more users.
Since #NeoDB also has a "social" feature, it's awesome that we can login in #Fediverse apps. For users who prefer to use their NeoDB account beyond just a shelf/tracking/library can do so.
For example, this post was made via the #Fedilab #Android app.
Bad UX is keeping the majority of people away from Lemmy
🚀 Mastogram Update! 🎉
Here’s what’s new in our latest release:
🔧 Improved overall stability
🐞 Fixed bugs with links posted on the fediverse
🤝 Mastogram now supports Misskey/Sharkey
🎥 Resolved video reposting issues from fediverse to Telegram
🔗 Made connecting your fediverse accounts to Mastogram easier
🛠️ Fixed tag ignoring for #notg and #nofw from Telegram
If you're looking for a modern bridge between your fediverse profiles, Telegram, and even Bluesky 🌌, sign up now 👉 https://mastogr.am
Encountering issues? Don’t hesitate to reach out at @mastogram or @henry ❤️
Now that the #BotsInSpace server is officially in a read-only mode, which still allows account migration, I am curious how things are looking now.
Previous poll: https://mastodon.social/@botwiki/113516513822722706
#fediverse #CreativeBots #bots #BotAlly
Options: (choose one)
Exquisite.social is a delightful and innocuous generic Glitch Mastodon server, with a slight focus on technology, privacy and *BSD. We are here to play and make friends in a supportive atmosphere:
You can find out more at https://exquisite.social/about or contact the admin @exquisite
#FeaturedServer #GlitchMastodon #Glitch #Technology #Tech #Privacy #InfoSec #BSD #Mastodon #Fediverse #FreeFediverse
Edited 172d ago
Finally out a little #tutorial about running your own #fediverse instance on cheap shared hostings with @grunfink's #snac.
https://www.tesio.it/2024/12/18/how-to-run-your-own-social-network.html
#permacomputing #retrocomputing #hacking #cgi
https://www.tesio.it/2024/12/18/how-to-run-your-own-social-network.html
#permacomputing #retrocomputing #hacking #cgi
Some interesting insights from the 2024 @iftas Fediverse Trust & Safety Needs Assessment Report.
- most communities operate on donations
- very few moderators receiving compensation
- roughly 1 moderator for every 1,200 active accounts
- only 16% of communities have 24–hour moderator coverage
- nearly 1/2 of moderator teams lack formal guidance
- 1 in 5 moderators report experiencing trauma or burnout this year
https://about.iftas.org/2024/12/17/the-2024-iftas-needs-assessment-report-is-here/
📚 Mastodon History
Back in February 23rd, 2016 — Mastodon first described itself as:
“Mastodon is a federated microblogging engine. An alternative implementation of the GNU Social project.”
The history of Mastodon is tied to GNU Social.
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/fa33750105389110a3395ca19167f789d21a149e/README.md
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/tree/fa33750105389110a3395ca19167f789d21a149e
#DeSo #Fediverse #FediverseHIstory #GNUSocial #Mastodon #MastodonHistory
Edited 170d ago
#Introduction Hi #fediverse ! We’re the European Southern Observatory, and we design, build and operate ground-based telescopes.
One of them is our Extremely Large Telescope, currently under construction in #Chile. It will have a 39 m mirror, and its rotating enclosure will weigh 6100 tonnes, or about 700 mastodons!
We’re looking forward to chatting with all of you about #astronomy
📷 ESO/G. Vecchia
New: Last Week in #fediverse - ep 97
This week's news:
- A New Social is a new non-profit for bridging platforms and protocols, and will take on the governance of Bridgy Fed
- @peertube released #PeerTube v7, their yearly update with a complete redesign
- The organisation behind #Mastodon app Mammoth and @subclub shuts down due to a lack of funding, as Mozilla has shut down their fediverse investment
Read at: https://fediversereport.com/last-week-in-fediverse-ep-97/
Last Week in Fediverse – ep 97
A new non-profit for governance of Bridgy Fed, PeerTube releases their yearly update with a complete redesign, and the organisation behind Mammoth and sub.club winds down due to a lack of funding.
Editors note: I’ll be on holiday break for the next two weeks. The next edition of Last Week in Fediverse will be out on January 7th. Thank you for reading and supporting me in 2024!
The News
A New Social
A New Social is a new non-profit that launched today. The goal of A New Social is to build cross-protocol tools and services for the open social web. The organisation consists of Anuj Ahooja (CEO) and Ryan Barrett (CTO). The main project that they will be focused on is Bridgy Fed, the service that lets people connect their social accounts across a variety of networks and protocols.
Barrett wrote in early November about the possible futures for Bridgy Fed. Up until now, Bridgy Fed was his personal one-man side project. Conversations with other organisations like Flipboard and Meta gave Barrett a sense of urgency that the project was quickly trending towards becoming critical infrastructure for the open social web. Heated conversations earlier this year about how people should interact with the bridge (opt-in versus opt-out) also made it clear that such a tool should have cohesive governance, where Barrett writes: “it is about who makes those decisions, and how they should be made.”
Ahooja has come in as the new leader, to help build a structural organisations that can deal with the conversations around governance and decision making. Ahooja describes his vision as that of the ‘last network effect‘, which is worth reading in its entirety. In his view, the current state of the open social web is that of the exploratory phase, where neither ActivityPub nor ATProto have yet fully proven themselves at mass scale yet. Protocol bridges such as Bridgy Fed can bridge the gap: not only allows it for compatibility between platforms, it also bridges the gap in time. It allows us to commit to a platform now, without knowing for certain it the protocol that platform uses will be an important protocol in the future. This is possible because with bridged platforms and networks, you can take your own social graph with you.
In a conversation with Ahooja and Barrett, they say that people have rallied around A New Social very quickly, and that people have been very supportive of the organisation. The organisation has the support of Mastodon, Meta, Bluesky, IFTAS, SWF and Flipboard. It shows that there is a broader awareness that the open social web needs more organisations that are concerned with governance. The ATProto project of lexicon.community (not affiliated with A New Social) is another such example of people starting to work towards governance of internet infrastructure.
A New Social is looking to recruit a Board of Directors, as well as reaching out to developers to collaborate on tools and services that are needed for cross-protocol platforms. For development work, the main focus is on making the bridge more accessible and easier to understand: Barrett and Ahooja will be working on making the bridge easier to user with a cleaner UX, as well as on awareness and education what Bridgy Fed actually does. Ahooja is also clear on separating a protocol network from the platforms that make up a network. Each platform has its own culture and policies, and A New Social will be working with each individual platform on what approach to bridging fits their specific platform best.
Personally I think the fediverse has struggled for a while to make a clearer distinction between the fediverse as a single place and the fediverse as a network of different platforms. For me, the value of the fediverse is in the ability to build connecting platforms that each have their own culture, governance, moderation, and sense of place. A New Social is aware and mindful of this, and their approach of treating each platform as its own space can help further the fediverse towards a true super-network of interconnected digital places.
PeerTube v7
PeerTube v7 has officially been released, and the update brings a major redesign. Framasoft has been working on two major projects this year for PeerTube: mobile apps for Android and iOS (released last week), and a complete remodeling of the PeerTube interface. Framasoft has worked with designers for a thorough UX research, with tests and user interviews. Based on this the interface of PeerTube has been redesigned from the ground up. Framasoft has prioritised accessibility, they completed a full accessibility audit and used the findings to create the improvements and changes to the interface. Menus and pages have also been remodeled and simplified, to counteract some of the organic growth of all the options that has been build up over the years. The interface also looks a lot cleaner and calmer, with a more modern look.
As a sidenote: Framasoft says that they now refer to PeerTube servers as platforms, not instances. They give inclusion as a reason, saying that this term is easier to understand for people who are less well-versed in technology and the fediverse. I think this is a great change, and something that other fediverse software should consider as well. Platforms better communicates that each fediverse server is its own social network, that can have its own culture and governance. The value of the fediverse is that each platform can be its own separate digital space, and I find that the term platform communicates this better than instance does.
Shutdown of Mammoth and sub.club
The BLVD, the organisation behind three fediverse projects, has announced that they are shutting down due to a lack of funding. The BLVD has created the Mastodon iOS app Mammoth, fediverse creator payment platform sub.club, and the moth.social Mastodon server. All three projects will be shut down at the end of January 2025. The BLVD depended on Mozilla for their funding, and Mozilla announced in September that they are shutting down their fediverse projects. In November the organisation already said that they were now operating without any funding. Any community member that is interested in taking over the maintainance of one of the projects can get in touch. Bart Decrem, the founder of BLVD, said to The Verge that sub.club had more than 150 creators on the platform.
Nomadic Identity
Nomadic Identity is a mechanism that allows people to have their fediverse identity to be separate from the fediverse platform that they are using, which results them in being able to seamlessly switch their fediverse account to a different platform. The mechanism has been available in fediverse software Streams for multiple years, but it uses the fediverse protocol Nomad. The Nomad protocol has undergone some renaming (orginally Zot) over the years. Recently a new documentation website was launched for the Nomad protocol, which gives some more background information. The site also published an article explaining the concepts of Nomadic Identity.
There has been a Fediverse Enhancement Proposal for bringing Nomadic Identity to ActivityPub, and that proposal is now seeing it’s first implementation: fediverse software Mitra and Streams recently announced the first form of communications between them using the new nomadic implementation of ActivityPub. Account portability is a feature that is regularly used as an example of the valuable features that an open protocol such as ActivityPub enables, but using the actual implementation currently comes with frictions. Early adopters like the new product Weird are already thinking about offering Mitra as their fediverse platform of choice due to the new abilities that Nomadic Identity bring.
IFTAS needs assesment
IFTAS just published their Needs Assesments report, that gives a detailed overview of the state of moderation on the fediverse. They published this report just before I send out this article, but I want to include it because I think it’s important. So here are the key findings, in IFTAS’ own words:
Resource gaps – only 16% of communities have 24-hour moderator coverage, and nearly half of moderator teams lack formal guidance. That said, we see roughly one moderator for every 1,200 active accounts.
Top ranked priorities – moderators need tools for CSAM detection, spam prevention, and legal guidance for compliance with regulations like GDPR.
Burnout is a persistent issue – one in five moderators report experiencing trauma or burnout this year, underlining the need for wellness and resilience resources.
Financial struggles – most communities operate on donations, and overall our survey participants are not generating enough money to cover costs. Very few moderators are receiving any compensation for their labour.
The Links
Trunk & Tidbits for November 2024, Mastodon’s monthly engineering update.
Sharkey: a Fediverse project that is beautiful inside & out – Elena Rossini
How to Make Your First Loops Video – WeDistribute.
what people in the global majority need from networks – wreckage/salvage
A proposal for a working group for Integrating ActivityPub within Solid specs.
Event Bridge for ActivityPub: Upcoming 1.0 Release.
IFTAS December update.
Why Flipboard Looks to the Fediverse for Its Next Big Evolution – thelettertwo
Mastodon now gives server admins the possibility to opt-in to adding referrers to links. This allows other websites to see the traffic that a Mastodon server is sending.
Weekly fediverse software updates.
Alt Text Health Check image accessibility report #2.
Creating a generic “Log-in with Mastodon” service.
ActivityPub in Minecraft.
Loops ‘Unwrapped’ with some statistics about how Loops has been growing since launch.
Ghost’s weekly development update shares more about the reader client as well as their database design.
That’s all for this week, thanks for reading!
Edited 171d ago
The fediverse has no central authority — which brings both challenges and opportunities for how it's governed. For Dot Social, @mike spoke with @kissane and @darius, two of the smartest people working on this, about the impact of the 2024 U.S. Presidential election on fediverse work, the "Xodus," what needs to be done next, and how to fund and sustain better networks for humans.
Read more about it in this blogpost.
https://about.flipboard.com/fediverse/erin-kissane-and-darius-kazemi/
Listen to the conversation on https://flipboard.video/c/dot_social/videos or wherever you get your podcasts.
#DotSocial #Podcast #Fediverse #Flipboard #OpenSocialWeb #SocialMedia #Tech #SocialWeb #Governance #Federation #Bluesky #ActivityPub #ATProtocol #SocialNetworks