semperpeppe

Idk, she's black?

?

I always wonder to whom this gets reported to

I believe the debate around whether the Fediverse is an alternative to Twitter/X/Facebook/Instagram is still much open. I believe there are misconceptions in this regard, as we Fediverse users are not always active on other platforms. I personally have an Instagram account registered a few years ago, but I stopped using it a couple of years ago in favor of Reddit. Then, since I have discovered the Fediverse, I completely ditched that one as well. I resort to YouTube from time to time for the amazing content one can find there. I know I am an outlier though. Most people (especially outside of the Fediverse) are not as concerned with privacy as I am. Also, most people do not really care about using Big Tech social media. They only want the benefits of getting in touch with others. Although I totally agree, I also believe there are abuses we can not overlook, as these companies hold a power that is just not comparable to anything we had in global history so far.

Also, most Fediverse users I personally interact with keep saying that the Fediverse is not meant to compete with other mainstream platforms, but the reality is that the attention/time one has to use a social media is limited. Moreover, currently if you get to the Fediverse is most likely because you are skeptical of Big Tech, you are concerned with privacy, and somebody introduced you to the unfamiliar technical concepts underlying this alternative social media. This means that, although in theory not competing, the Fediverse and mainstream social are indeed competing.

Most of these people are not really engaged in the Fediverse and do not really know what is going on. In Europe, we are experiencing public administrations and governments resorting to the Fediverse because something is changing. The general attitude towards Big Tech is changing. Even if its original philosophy is almost irrelevant in this case, we are experiencing a a positive attitude towards Free and Open Source Software due to increase threats to privacy. One thing that gets portrayed on the public discourse in Europe is that nobody is against Big Tech, rather but they are against dependency from them. European Governments and administrations are understanding that there are all the instruments to create alternatives, but they are currently using it so far to engage only with a small audience and are not sure on how to get a larger outreach. The point is that if you are interested in alternatives, you are already competing. If they don't see it like this, certainly it does not mean that Meta and Twitter/X think the same.

More here:

• https://about.fb.com/news/2023/10/facebook-and-instagram-to-offer-subscription-for-no-ads-in-europe/
• https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-owner-faces-eu-ban-targeted-advertising-norway-says-2023-11-01/

The degree with which we could understand user's needs, integrate them in applications/protocols, and make available the Fediverse to everyone worldwide is still unknown. Instances are mostly run by enthusiasts with their own money or through donations, with little to no governance mechanism in place. Leaders, politicians, entrepreneurs, and common users, all are worried that this might lead to poor stability as well as lack of moderation, possibly giving all the power on a specific individual.

Still, the point you raise about "the expectation that someone else will create alternatives" is crucial. My perception is that the general public still has to understand what the Fediverse is, how one organization could run an instance and why they might want to. In my opinion, the biggest challenges are still there, like instance administration (scaling, backups, compliance to data regulations, user management, security), financing (cost models of the organizations running the instance, crowdfunding), reasons for running the instance, UX (interoperability with other instances running other applications, mobile apps, UI, customization for local markets).

I fear that keeping the market in the equation is the only thing we know for making online spaces sustainable. There are experiences online/offline that might provide a certain degree of financial sustainability to social spaces (if we think of social media as projects with a social impact). Some get inherited, some others get donated, and so on. But the thing is that on the Internet, organizations run into much higher Operational Expenditure (OpEx) than just Capital Expediture (CapEx) (especially those that run on cloud services).

Are we secretely envisioning a world where social media is only run by volunteers and NGOs? Is this is the case, we need to understand how to make it sustainable. Again, most people out there are skeptical of the Fediverse because they believe in the market and its power to make things sustainable. I have been active in many many social project for the past ten years, and all of them rely on (not a MECE - Mutually Exclusive Completely Exhaustive list):

• members are rich
• they get donated a building a long time ago and they just kept it forever
• some other organizations illegally occupy a building and they defend it with force
• they constantly raise funds from people outside through things that do not imply selling products, like fundraising campaigns, events, parties, dinners, and so on
• they apply to grants from private foundations, states, or public administrations

Without breaking the law, financial sustainability in this case is based on keeping good relationships with your allies (be those individuals or other organizations) and lowering costs as much as possible (through reducing investment in new equipment/upgrading services).

Lastly, on the role of the IGF. I believe that spaces like the IGF play an important role in terms of inclusion and allow normally misrepresented stakeholder groups to get a voice, increasing the outreach of local projects that aim to empower and protect. Even though you might not have experienced it in this particular talk, there are shut-outs to all sort of initiatives that are very local. There is a connection between global/local. Moreover, just consider that, out of dozens of panels, this was the only talk briefly discussing about Mastodon vs Twitter in the African context, not even about the whole Fediverse, and was only 30 mins long. Plus, there are all the things I have exposed in this post in terms of fundamental skepticism and (probably) big trust in the market. Please, do not create an opinion on the IGF and on the amazing people there are just based on this podcast.

Ti ringrazio. In sostanza, mi conviene cercare direttamente nella documentazione dei vari progetti e vedere che salta fuori. L'idea è avere almeno un'idea di quanta roba non sarebbe trovabile da un utente iscritto ad una determinata istanza che ne blocca altre. Sulla base di questi blocchi potrei sentirmi più o meno interessato a consigliare una determinata istanza ad una persona che vuole un nuovo account sul fediverso. Ad esempio, se mi aspetto un cifro di contenuto, ma anche essere su un'istanza piccolina, significa che non devo aver bloccato altre istanze

This is exactly what I am looking for. I am interested also in how other federated applications do it. I had a look at Pixelfed's documentation, but they don't seem to have an API for that... Do you know anything about other services?

This is good, thank you! How about Pixelfed, Pleroma, Misskey, kbin?

This is very helpful. Unfortunately the source code is not available... How did you find this service? Maybe you can point me to some other resource

This is super useful! Thank you!

This is sexist :(

Tbh, I can relate to some degree. Sometimes I really love watching TV commercials. My favorite is teleshopping