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Decentralised Networks as a Tool for Fighting Disinformation and Censorship: The Fediverse and Free, Collaborative and Open Networks

(LIMITED ACCESS CONTENT)

Analysis of the opportunities and limits of decentralized networks as a resource to overcome the problems of traditional social networks and the resilience of these networks as a tool to fight disinformation and censorship

@fediverse

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-63153-5\_2

Welcome to Kagi, the paid search engine full of surprises, which today opened an account in the Fediverse! ==========

@fediverse

@kagihq is the very interesting project for a paid search engine, without tracers and with an accuracy in identifying results such as to exclude all Google spam.

Those who believe that #Kagi's costs are too high, should reflect on a small detail: if Google lets all those searches be done "for free", who pays those costs? The answer might seem simple: "advertisers".

Yet this would be an incomplete answer: like saying that rain is caused by clouds!

In reality, those costs are paid by users, by being milked and letting Google extract their "value", a bit like in the human farm in Matrix...

We first heard about Kagi on the @lealternative website (unfortunately, since then the prices have increased a lot, raising many doubts about the sustainability of the project) and recently Cory Doctorow also talked about it on @pluralistic

In any case, we are really happy that a service like Kagi's, effective and respectful of users' privacy, has landed here in the #Fediverse.

mastodon.social/@kagihq/113074…

If you'e been wondering how to monetize your fediverse posting ... https://sub.club has good news for you!

> > > "If you post quality content and you've developed a loyal audience, you should be able to ask your most passionate followers to support you with a premium subscription. > > > > That's a promise not available on the Fediverse ...until now." > >

@dimillian has a short threa announcing availabiilty in @IceCubesApp and sub.club advisor @quillmatiq has more info here.

sub.club's a project of The BLVD, Inc, the makers of @mammoth. I know there was a lot of skepticism when Marc Benioff, Mozilla, Long Ventures et al, funded Mammoth ... with so many good apps out there, how are they expecting to get VC-level returns on their investment? But if sub.club can tap into the creator economy, there's clearly money to be made!

\#fediverse @fediverse

Warning: we advise lemmy.world administrators to wait to update to 0.19.5 due to an incompatibility with the latest Mastodon releases ==========

@fediverse

As it emerged in this thread, messages from the latest versions of mastodon are not interpreted correctly by the latest Lemmy releases

mastodon.uno/@informapirata/11…

A post to traverse the Fediverse & beyond :fedi:

Third time's a charm: This post can be seen with #Mastodon, #Bluesky, #Sharkey, #Mbin, #Lemmy, #Friendica, #Hubzilla, #Hometown, #Akkoma & more.

Please share it wherever you see it in the #Fediverse

\#SocialMedia #BridgyFed

@fediverse

So, before beginning my 4 months of parental leave in June, I wrote an article for @heiseonline describing, why one on #Threads should activate federation with the #Fediverse. I did this in anticipation, that this option would become availabla in the EU while I'm gone.

After almost two months, it's still not here. Seems like preparing the article wasn't necessary. Will it come before christmas maybe? 🙄

\#Mastodon #SocialMedia #Meta @fediverse

The update for #Mastodon patching the bug in the preview is near, so it's time for a last look at #traffic sources for @heiseonline: \#Twitter keeps decreasing and is already overtaken by Mastodon (thx also to problems with our bot for #X, when it works, X brings more people). \#Flipboard and #Facebook are growing again, #Bluesky and #Threads are far behind. But Threads brings already more traffic than Bluesky, although we can't autopost (every link) there.

@fediverse [email protected]

Federation issues between the sociale.network instance and newsie.social

@fediverse

HI @TheAdmin I noticed that there are problems between the instance sociale.network and our instance.

When someone on a social network sends me a message I don't receive it and I can't search for messages even using the message handle

We did some tests with @informapirata who also has @pirati 's account and in fact nothing works

It doesn't seem to me that the two instances are mutually blocked or muted

Apas: ActivityPub via email

https://apubtest2.srcbeat.com/apas.html

The overarching goal is an experimental system to make ActivityPub federation stuff clearer for devs, sysadmins and advanced users.

The documentation is incomplete and the code is really not OK! But they always say it's better to get stuff out the door for others to look at sooner. Maybe it inspires others to think about the Fediverse/ActivityPub in weird new ways!

PS thanks @emersion for your SMTP work!

@fediverse #fediverse #smtp

Why are all the #peertube instances defederated from each other?

@fediverse

Has there been drama over there or something?

@fediverse Fediverse user growth jumped to \~50'000'000 users. What happened ? The FediDB \Fediverse User Growth\ graph shows a significant jump in user count in February. Software distribution is also 81% \other\, and the biggest server is fediverse.hanbitgaram.com with 39 million users ! What happened ? https://fedidb.org/

Queens hit song ‘We Are the Champions’ in my eyes is about early adopters of anarchist technologies.

I’m talking about us🥇

We have no time for fascist losers like Spez, Musk, or Zuck, because WE are the champions.

OUR Fediverse lives vibrantly in defiance, as a glimmer for hope in a dying world.

Liberating our speech from corporate control is necessary for a healthy revolution.

Thank you, champion, for traveling with us on this quest for liberty.

@fediverse

\#Fediverse #Mastodon #Anarchism

Mildly notable social media moment for me watching a Dr Becky video on YT.

In listing her "socials" she's got #TikTok , #Instagram and #Threads (and of course #youtube ).

link below

Is this the new central axis of social media?

Which is funny cuz I've never really been to \any\ of those. No accounts and only visited IG a few times because something else linked there for some information.

Also, I didn't really notice Threads was succeeding.

https://youtu.be/3NeKR7bqolY?si=SJWzXyhk\_S5jNdml&t=53

@fediverse

cross-posted from: https://hachyderm.io/users/maegul/statuses/111820598712013429

> Is decentralised federated social media over engineered? > > Can't get this brain fart out of my head. > > What would the simplest, FOSS, alternative look like and would it be worth it? > > Quick thoughts: > > \* FOSS platforms intended to be big single servers, but dedicated to ... > \* Shared/Single Sign On > \* Easy cross posting > \* Enabling and building universal Multi-platform clients. > \* Unlike email, supporting small servers > > No duplication/federation/protocol required, just software. > > \#fediverse > @fediverse

Accessing Mastodon and the fediverse via email: https://www.olowe.co/tmp/fedimail.mp4 An experimental #IMAP and #SMTP interface. I feel like #NNTP #Usenet interface would be more appropriate. But gotta start somewhere! Threading and replies work ok too (so far!).

@fediverse

@fediverse Is this a title ?

So... Theoretically this should be visible from Lemmy. Hi Lemmy users ! Greeting from Mastodon ! (Im never leaving the fediverse if this works)

Strategies for the free fediverses

https://privacy.thenexus.today/strategies-for-the-free-fediverses/

The fediverse is evolving into different regions

\- "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

\- Organize!

\#fediverse #freefediverse #threads @fediverse @fediversenews

Mastodon has the responsibility to promote diversity in the Fediverse

I love the Threadiverse. Compared to the microblogging Fediverse’s sea of random thoughts, Lemmy and kbin are so much easier to navigate with the options to sort posts by subscribed, from local instances or everything federated. You can also sort by individual community, and then there are the countless ways to order the posts and comments (which are stored neatly under the main post, by the way). That people can more easily find the right discussions and see where they can contribute also means that the discussions tend to be more focused and productive than elsewhere. Decentralisation also makes a lot of sense, since it is built around different communities. All that’s needed is users.

Things were going quite well for a while when Reddit killed third-party apps, prompting many to leave and find the Threadiverse. However, it is quite difficult to entertain a crowd that has grown accustomed to a constant bombardment of dopamine-inducing or interesting content by tens of millions of users, if you only have a couple hundred thousand people. This is causing some to leave, which of course increases this effect. The active users have more than halved since July, according to FediDB. The mood is also becoming more tense. Maybe the lack of engagement drives some to cause it through hostility, I’m not quite sure. Either way, the Threadiverse becoming a less enjoyable place to be, which is quite sad considering how promising it is.

But what is really frustrating is that we could easily have that userbase. The entire Fediverse has over ten million users, and many Mastodonians clearly want to engage in group-based discussion, looking at Guppe groups. The focused discussions should also be quite attractive. Technically we are federated, so why do Mastodonians interact so little with the Threadiverse? The main reason is that Mastodon simply doesn’t federate post content. I really can’t see why the platform that federates entire Wordpress blogs refuses to federate thread content just because it has a title, and instead just replaces the body with a link to the post. Very unhelpful.

The same goes with PeerTube. There are plenty of videos on there that I am quite sure a lot of Mastodonians would appreciate, yet both views and likes there stay consistently in the tens. Yes, Mastodon’s web interface has a local video player, but in most clients it is the same link shenanigans, may may partly explain the small amount of engagement. This is also quite sad, because Google’s YouTube is one of the worst social network monopolies out there, if not the worst.

And I know some might say that Mastodon is a microblogging platform and that it makes sense only to have microblogging content, but the problem is that Mastodon is the dominant platform on the Fediverse, its users making up close to 80% of all Fedizens. It has gone so far that several Friendica and Hubzilla users have been complaining about complaints from Mastodonians that their posts do not live up to Mastodon customs, and of course, that people frequently use “Mastodon” to refer to the entire Fediverse. This, of course, goes entirely against the idea of the Fediverse, that many diverse platforms live in harmony with and awareness of each other.

The very least that Mastodon could do is to support the content of other platforms. Then I’d wish that they’d improve discoverability, by for instance adding a videos tab in the explore section, improving federation of favourites since it is the dominant sorting mechanism on many other platforms, and making a clear distinction between people (@person@instance) and groups (!group@instance), but I know that that is quite much to ask.

P.S. @feditips , @FediFollows , I know that you are reluctant to promote Lemmy and its communities because of the ideology of its founders, but the fact is firstly that it’s open source and there aren't any individual people who control the entire project, and that the software itself is very apolitical. In fact, most Lemmy users both oppose and are on instances that have rules against such beliefs, so I highly encourage you to at least help raise awareness on the communities. Then, of course, there’s kbin, which isn’t associated with any extremism at all. As a bonus, it has much better integration with the microblogging Fediverse, but it is a lot smaller and younger, and still very much under development.

Anyways, that was a ramble. Thanks for hearing me out.

@fediverse #fediverse #threadiverse #mastodon #lemmy #kbin

1973 #Ethernet as one of the defining information technologies in modern communication was developed at #PARC by Chuck Thackers for #Alto #Computer s. What Bob Metcalf, Butler Lampson, and Dave Boggs built for the #ARPAnet is connecting us all today— via the #Internet, & @fediverse.

So, in 2023 this one of the #IT #anniversaries and worth to look back into #Xerox PARC development with a #CHM tech video... https://youtu.be/T9On2L0-ObU The @art work is a #virtual tribute and part of the #retrocomputer #vector #POP series, made with @inkscape by #gfkDSGN

Federated wireguard network idea Any feedback welcome.

Let's keep things stupidly simple and simply hash the domain name to get a unique IPv6 ULA prefix.

Then we would need a stupidly simple backend application to automatically fetch pubkeys and endpoints from DNS and make a request to add each others as peers.

Et voilà, you got a worldwide federated wireguard network resolving private ULA addresses. Sort of an internet on top of the internet .

The DNS entries with the public IPv4 / IPv6 addresses could even be delegated to other domains / endpoints which would act as reverse proxy (either routing or nesting tunnels) for further privacy.

Maybe my approach is too naïve and there are flaws I haven't considered, so don't be afraid to comment.

Exact use cases? Idk, but it sounds nifty.

\#privacy #networking #VPN #wireguard #infosec

cc: @fediverse