{"id":38063,"date":"2023-01-05T15:59:55","date_gmt":"2023-01-05T20:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=38063"},"modified":"2023-07-13T11:51:42","modified_gmt":"2023-07-13T15:51:42","slug":"mastodon-and-federation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/01\/05\/mastodon-and-federation\/","title":{"rendered":"Mastodon and Federation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ben Klemens<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Lemmer-Webber drew a direct line from problems on other social networks to the development of a network where local controls are built in. “Queer people built the Fediverse,” she said, adding that four of the five authors of the ActivityPub standard identify as queer. As a result, protections against undesired interaction are built into ActivityPub and the various front ends. Systems for blocking entire instances with a culture of trolling can save users the exhausting process of blocking one troll at a time<\/a>. If a post includes a “summary” field, Mastodon uses that summary as a content warning.<\/p>

Other governance questions are more subtle, because features for greater privacy, almost by definition, limit the discovery and exploration we also look for in a social network. For example, the question<\/a> of whether Mastodon should allow instance-only posts that do not go out to the Fediverse at large has been especially contentious. The final decision leaned toward discoverability, so Kazemi forked Mastodon to create Hometown<\/a>, which includes this more-limited sharing option and various improvements.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

Fediverse.party<\/a> lists around a hundred ActivityPub-based systems, many going well beyond the traditional social network. There’s Pixelfed<\/a>, which provides a Fediverse instance with an images-forward front end (“It’s like Instagram, but…”). You can share video with PeerTube<\/a> or federate your music via a Funkwhale<\/a> instance, write collaboratively on Write freely<\/a> or dokieli<\/a>, review books and form your book club on BookWyrm<\/a>, or plan events using Kazemi’s gath.io<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kazemi is optimistic about coming full circle and using ActivityPub as the next RSS.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Mastodon<\/a> (via Bud Gibson<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\n

If you hide boosts from someone, you won’t see their boosts in your home feed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I’m probably going to start doing this because boosts seem a lot more intrusive and repetitive than retweets on Twitter.<\/p>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n