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
#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!
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
@FediTips
You can't assume that when you mark a #post for #deletion that it will be #deleted across the #fediverse. Whether a post gets deleted on a remote #server is entirely up to that server.
I guarantee you there are organizations and individuals here on the Fediverse right now that are running their own #ActivityPub servers and are #archiving and #cataloging every post, and they are #ignoring any #Delete #requests.
Because when you mark a post for deletion, that's all you're doing. You're requesting the remote server to delete the post from its #database.
And nobody is required to do that.
(Though the vast majority of ActivityPub servers do.)
#FediTips
RE: https://social.growyourown.services/users/FediTips/statuses/113669267720362794
Did you sign up for the @surf beta? Our Dawn Patrol will get the opportunity to help shape the app. Let us know in this thread if you've added yourself to the waitlist, and we'll see you on the beach!
Week in Fediverse 2024-12-20
Servers
- Ibis v0.2.0
- PeerTube v7.0.0
- Mitra v3.12.0
- Pleroma v2.8.0
- ActivityPub for WordPress v4.6.0
- activity-pub-relay v0.7.0
- flohmarkt v0.6.1
- Manyfold v0.91.3
Clients
- Tuba v0.9.0
- PeerTube Mobile v0.5.2
- Relatica v0.14.0
- RaccoonForFriendica v0.3.2
Tools and Plugins
For developers
- FediTest v0.5
- fediverse-pasture-inputs v0.1.12
Articles
- The 2024 IFTAS Needs Assessment Report is Here!
- Integrating ActivityPub within Solid specs
- Sharkey: a Fediverse project that is beautiful inside & out
- Last Week in Fediverse – ep 97
-----
#WeekInFediverse #Fediverse #ActivityPub
Previous edition: https://mitra.social/objects/0193c19e-7bc6-495c-46e6-099a402b25e6
🚀 New on #TheFutureIsFederated 👩🚀
"Sharkey: a Fediverse project that is beautiful inside & out"
https://blog.elenarossini.com/sharkey-a-fediverse-project-that-is-beautiful-inside-out/
special thanks to @pancakes for his awesome post on Misskey forks 🙏
#blog #Fediverse #Misskey #Sharkey #Firefish #MFM #FOSS #FLOSS #SocialMedia #tech
Loops + NLnet
We are thrilled to announce that @nlnet and @loops have signed a MoU for a grant funded through the NGI0 Core Fund!
Protip:
There is no "Free Speech" in the #Fediverse
There is only what speech the admins and moderators of your specific instance find acceptable
Or unacceptable
You have been warned
Bon dia, fedinautes!
Avui és l’aniversari de la Fedi. Si us ve de gust, us convidem a fer el FediTest que van crear les companyes de Fediverse Party fa uns anys.
Que passeu un molt bon dia i llarga vida a la Fedi!
#Fedicat #Fedivers #Fediverse #Fedi17 #Fediverse17 #HappyFedi2U #FediQuiz
Do you want to help testing @badgefed and provision your local test instance?
Easy
docker pull ghcr.io/tryvocalcat/badgefed:latest &&
docker run -v `pwd`/data:/app/data \
-p 8080:8080 \
-e SQLITE_DB_FILENAME=/app/data/badges.db \
-e AdminAuthentication__AdminUsers__0__Id=your-mastodon-username \
-e AdminAuthentication__AdminUsers__0__Type=Mastodon \
-e MastodonConfig__ClientId=your-mastodon-client-id \
-e MastodonConfig__ClientSecret=your-mastodon-client-secret \
-e MastodonConfig__Server=your-mastodon-server \
ghcr.io/tryvocalcat/badgefed
And then open a browser and go to http://localhost:8080 or http://localhost:8080/admin
#docker #badgefed #openbadges #softwaredevelopment #testing #fediverse #activitypub
Happy 17th Year Anniversary #Fediverse social network!
Always strong! 🎊🎉🎂🍻🎆🥳🤹🏽
( #FediverseDay #SNS #SocMed #SocialMedia #SocialWeb #OpenMicroBlogging #OStatus #ActivityPub #Laconica #Identica #Web3 )
Today, we're beginning to federate publisher accounts in Italy, France and Spain, and expanding in Brazil, Germany and the U.K.
You can now follow even more of your favorite news, lifestyle, tech and sports sources from Flipboard on the open social web. Read more about it here. See the spreadsheet at the second link for the full list of federated profiles.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/1/d/1iUFTo6rPvhqzCReLaM1c6-xUKRuBVqlZVStZl9Al-EU/edit
#Federation #Flipboard #Fediverse #OpenSocial #OpenSocialWeb #Germany #Deutschland #France #Spain #España #Italy #Italie #Brazil #Brasil #News #Media #Journalism #Publishers
Wir haben spannende Neuigkeiten! Heute starten wir mit der Föderation von Publisher-Accounts in Italien, Frankreich und Spanien – und weiten sie in Deutschland, Brasilien, Kanada & UK weiter aus.
Ab sofort kannst du noch mehr deiner Lieblingspublisher aus Bereichen wie Nachrichten, Technik und Sport über Flipboard im offenen Social Web folgen.
Mehr Infos im Blog:
🔗 https://de-de.about.flipboard.com/flipboard-deutschland/flipboard-bringt-qualitaetsjournalismus-ins-fediverse/
🔗 Liste aller föderierten Profile: https://flip.it/-eErSj
#Föderation #Flipboard #Fediverse #Journalismus #Publisher #Verlage #Nachrichten #Deutschland #Frankreich #Spanien #Italien #Brasilien
📢 Wir haben Neuigkeiten! Flipboard erweitert die Föderation in Deutschland: 21 neue Publisher sind jetzt im Fediverse.
Diesen Publishern kannst du ab sofort direkt folgen:
AZMuenchen, @AZMuenchen
BASICthinking, @BASICthinking
Business Punk, @BusinessPunk
BUNTE, @BUNTE_DE
CURVED, @curved
DER SPIEGEL, @DerSpiegel
DerStandard, @DERSTANDARD
Filmstarts, @Filmstarts
FitForFun, @FitForFun
Futurezone, @Futurezone_de
GIGA, @Gigade
Gruenderszene, @Gruenderszene
Harvard Business Manager, @harvardbusiness
Kino.de, @kinode
Men’s Health, @MensHealth_de
Metal Hammer, @metalhammer_de
n-tv, @ntv2019
Photografix, @Photografix
Premium Quarterly, @PremiumQuarter
SZ, @SZ_de
Ze.tt, @Zett
Mehr dazu in unserem Blog: https://flip.it/cxfY1U
#Fediverse #Flipboard #Publisher #ActivityPub #Federation #Föderation #SocialMedia #Nachrichten #Politik #Unterhaltung #Journalismus #Digital #Tech #Wissenschaft #Wirtschaft #Klima #Musik
Happy 17th Year Anniversary #Fediverse social network!
Always strong! 🎊🎉🎂🍻🎆🥳🤹🏽
( #FediverseDay #SNS #SocMed #SocialMedia #SocialWeb #OpenMicroBlogging #OStatus #ActivityPub #Laconica #Identica #Web3 )
Happy 17th Year Anniversary #Fediverse social network!
Always strong! 🎊🎉🎂🍻🎆🥳🤹🏽
( #FediverseDay #SNS #SocMed #SocialMedia #SocialWeb #OpenMicroBlogging #OStatus #ActivityPub #Laconica #Identica #Web3 )
Happy 17th Year Anniversary #Fediverse social network!
Always strong! 🎊🎉🎂🍻🎆🥳🤹🏽
( #FediverseDay #SNS #SocMed #SocialMedia #SocialWeb #OpenMicroBlogging #OStatus #ActivityPub #Laconica #Identica #Web3 )
A new release of TootSDK - 14.0.0 📣
https://github.com/TootSDK/TootSDK/releases/tag/14.0.0
What's changed:
- Add reason parameter to TootSDKError.invalidParameter @finestructure
Community contributions are greatly appreciated 🙌
