Now that for-profit tech companies are beginning to implement #ActivityPub, I think it's important to establish what we want with the #fediverse and whether federation with #Threads, #Flipboard, Tumblr, and the like bring us closer to or further from those goals.
With that in mind, I've come up with a few statements (in no particular order) that describe what I think is an "ideal fediverse" — a fediverse that's not necessarily realistic but that we should aim for:
No actor controls a large portion of visible activity.
Users can move between instances without penalty.
Creating and running an instance requires minimal effort.
People on or entering the fediverse understand the variety of available options.
There is no downside to using free and open-source platforms over proprietary ones.
These definitely aren't comprehensive, and if you have anything you'd add, let's discuss that! They're currently helping me reassess my stance on Threads now that Flipboard is also entering the stage, and I hope they're helpful for others as well.
I'll elaborate on these five statements in the comments.
"If we do this correctly — if the next phase of how we congregate and communicate online is built for humans and not advertisers — there won’t be a new titanic company to rival Meta or a platform with eye-poppingly huge numbers like Facebook
"What we’ll get instead is something much bigger: an entirely new infrastructure for our online lives that no company or platform controls”
SPays Wikl atly puiiil dLLUUiL i s TREAIVEL S The First 25 to Federate I this first phase we are partnering with 25 publishers and creators to help them federate their Flipboard accounts and gather feedback from people across the Fediverse. This includes a range of publishers covering global news, tech, music, gaming, travel and science as well as a few content creators like Erin Brockovich and Jefferson Graham. We are also federating several non-profits dedicated to advancing non-partisan journalism and combating misinformation. These include The News Literacy Project, The 74 and The Conversation. Finally, we are federating Medium’s account on Flipboard where they regularly feature great stories from their best writers. Here's the full list: BSEE P'STGMPANY SEMAFOR IR s . %% | @8 Medium DIGIDAY scienceatert: ®Polygon Frommers ® MENTAL FLOSS Pitchfork Rerinery2s THEIROOT <
New blog post: Understanding ActivityPub - Part 4: Threads
A first detailed look into how Threads implements ActivityPub. Learn about the data that is shared (or not), an interesting implementation of HTTP signatures, and Threads' take on quote posts in ActivityPub.
No one is using many of these objects in the same way, though sometimes they sort of kind of work together anyways.
No one I've looked at so far implements parts of the spec that I'd consider "interesting but unusual." Things like following non-actors. I suspect the vast majority of them would break if you tried
Mastodon's made several decisions that are between odd (using summaries for CWs) and outright ignoring parts of the spec
Well this would make #ActivityPub support on #Threads pretty pointless. It’ll mean the vast majority of their users will be defederated by default and have to opt into the #Fediverse. Defeats the point @mosseri.
Uff @linos kann es sein, dass ich noch etwas nicht verstehe? Offensichtlich haben Menschen an meinen letzten #activitypub Post kommentiert und die Kommentare sind auch am WordPress Beitrag https://www.videospielgeschichten.de/welche-konsole-ist-die-schoenste/ gelandet. Leider finde / sehe ich diese aber nicht im Fediverse am Post; was mache ich falsch?
Just blocked #threadsnet and you should, too! Don't let #facebook do an "embrace, extend, extinguish" on #activitypub and the #fediverse - search for "threads.net", select an account and do this.
@stux This is the way. I think people are overreacting about threads, ActivityPub is an open protocol, no one owns the network and anyone can join. You don't want to interact with them? Join an instance that is not federated with them or block the domain, the protocol allows you to. Let people enjoy things, many will love to follow their friends or favorite creators without having to go to threads.net directly or any other centralize service, and this open the possibility to even follow an account through #RSS on threads more easily. The truth is, people don't care about centralization, ads, algorithms, they love them.
We are less than 1% of meta user base, it is not like they are hungry for a few millions of user in the fediverse as fedi users are making it seems to be, when they have billions across their services, and #threads alone have more than the whole #fediverse in a couple of months.
If they later decide to eliminate #ActivityPub from their services, the fediverse will remain the same as it is right now, used for people who are considered techie.
A project has started to build a #Fediverse#testsuite, so it becomes possible to systematically test interoperability between applications in the fediverse.
It is going to need some virtualization, to run "substantial" server-side applications for testing. So we'd like to know what development and virtualization platforms #ActivityPub developers develop and test on.
If you are a Fediverse developer, could you spend 5min and answer our survey?
The proliferation of #ActivityPub is exciting. But don't dismiss those that want to defederate with corporate socials. The #fediverse was built by individuals escaping the harassment they faced on those platforms.
If you don't agree with your server admin's decision to federate with a specific domain, you can block it on your own. You have the power!
This seems preferable to an admin making the decision for all users.
With yesterday's announcement that Meta is starting to test Threads and ActivityPub integration, I see the #Fediverse is at an all time high again of whining and crying and being butthurt over it all.
I get stating your opinion about not wanting them here or whatever, but come on people, don't sound like a little 2 year old who lost their pacifier. It gets old, quick.
Just mute/block and move on and be done with it all. It's really that damn simple.
The network effect for #ActivityPub is gaining some serious momentum right now. As more services adopt the protocol, more people, more communities and more content are added to the network making it increasingly more valuable for everyone. This will only accelerate in the coming months as Threads, Wordpress, Tumblr, Flipboard and others federate.
We're still in early innings but there's no way to put this genie back in the bottle. The open social Web / the #Fediverse is going to be huge.
At the State of the Word address this week, Matt Mullenweg was asked about support for the plugin, and he commented that less than 5,000 sites had installed it. So he wasn't sure how interested people are in it.
So... if you have a WP site, let's start installing that plugin and making more sites available via ActivityPub! 😀
what do we have to do to make the #ActivityPub plugin attractive to more #WordPress users? We are currently at 4000+ active users on WordPress.org + the WordPress.com users.
bto, bcc to not exist or be broadly disabled in AP (edit, to clarify: I want to and cc to take the meaning of bto and bcc in general; the functionality is useful, but in a social network it should be the default behavior and we have other mechanisms to tag people in)
@nw@mike that’s a great question. I would also like to know if you can read #flipboard magazines and comments on Flipboard directly here on #mastodon. I know you can post directly from Flipboard to the #fediverse. Engagement would be much better if we can interact directly from both platforms. :flipboard: #Community#activitypub