A few days ago, I expressed concern over Meta’s new fact-checking and content moderation policies. When Thread announced its move to the Fediverse over a year ago, we chose not to take preemptive action. Instead, we saw that we had all the tools needed for proportional responses to potential threats to keep our folks safe. And as we stated then, we would treat Threads.net like any other Fediverse server. For details on Meta’s new content policies see here: https://opentermsarchive. Continue reading →

2025 Open Social Web Predictions I just finished looking over my 2024 predictions, and now onto 2025. I try to make these as quantifiable, verifiable and crisp as I can. OK - here goes - in no particular order: ▶️ The ActivityPub based Fediverse as measured by FediDB will grow by 1 million users in 2025 crossing over 12 million users. The BlueSky registered userbase will grow from its current number of 25 million registered users to over 50 million. Continue reading →

Looking over my 2024 predictions before I make some 2025 predictions, to soberly say which ones I got right, wrong and way wrong. ▶️ For starters got this one WAY, WAY wrong: " The overall Fediverse as measured by FediDB will cross 25 million registered users, and by year’s end over 3 to 5 million monthly active users. The Fediverse will cross over 35,000 servers in 2024." The open social web did grow to about this big, but did so on BlueSky, while Mastodon and fediverse based social grew too, but by less…about 1 million registered users or so this year. Continue reading →

So given the post-election swell of BlueSky and Threads…and a far more modest but existent swell of new users to the Fediverse, it feels like the battle to be a non-X/Twitter microblogging solution is coming into view. Threads and BlueSky, each seeing a recent momentum of over 1 milliion users per day are the clear top two. Notable that both Theads and Bluesky are built with the open social web, and decentralized open tech features are either inherently part of both, or soon will be. Continue reading →

Cool, just testing out the new **Micro.blog editor.**​ I think a good improvement overall.​ And it does make formatting, adding links, and images - while still in markdown -a good deal easier. Thanks @manton!

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I keep wishing this peace process for a #CeaseFire in Gaza well. Keep building up hope for each one, knowing that he odds are long, but maybe this time. www.npr.org/2024/07/0…

As we see Apple, Meta, and Google deeply integrate their AI systems deeply into their platforms, browsers, and operating systems, I think one of the competitive advantages of the Fediverse will be that it is place where USERS are in control of how they consume, share, and interact with AI generated content. This advantage to users relating to AI, I think, will rival the advantage that the Fediverse already sees in terms of being free from and in control of algorithmic manipulation, free from centralized control, free from micro-targeted ads, and free from and free from data mining. Continue reading →

Good data here on #podcating usage: www.westwoodone.com/blog/2024…

OK Internet hive mind: working thru a half-formed idea. I like that BluesSky and Nostr and ActivityPub all learn off of each other's good ideas. And I do think that BlueSky's claims of more seamless migration of accounts is a plus, but one that #ActivityPub folks have line of site on how to improve. The other claim of innovation of BlueSky folks is that since they are not server dependent, but rather semi-centralized (if theoretically swappabley so) that if your local server dies or crashes the user is not stuck. Continue reading →

So everybody, good job. We made it through day one.  We can all take a deep breath. First day down. I believe both the fediverse and Threads fared well on the first day of their merger. The sky did not fall on either side, and the admins and server owners of Mastodon and other Fediverse servers were not overwhelmed by swarms of traffic, despite a surge in new usage and users. Continue reading →

This year’s #Fediforum has been outstanding.  Still digging into day 2. 

This is a brief announcement announcing Indieweb.social’s future software bridge work by BridgyFed - fed.brid.gy - will enable interoperability between ActivityPub networks and AT Protocol/BlueSky users. Read the announcement at snarfed.org/2024-02-1… As a server, Indieweb.social will NOT fediblock this effort; rather, to the contrary, we will assist users in understanding how to engage with BlueSky users if they choose to do so via this new offering. This is akin to our server’s position on Threads federation as well. Continue reading →

These are fun and like seeing the tech predictions starting to pop up in a lot of other places. Figure I should add mine about the Fediverse. All of these predictions are based on how FediDB will measure them in the next year: ▶️ The overall Fediverse as measured by FediDB will cross 25 million registered users, and by year’s end over 3 to 5 million monthly active users. The Fediverse will cross over 35,000 servers in 2024. Continue reading →

As the year ends, thought this would be a good time to list some of the projects and group efforts relating to the Fediverse I’m very jazzed about. Some I’ve helped advise, some I’ve just applauded them from a distance. I think there has been more innovation that benefits user experience inside the larger Fediverse in the last year or so, than in some of the giant closed silos of Social Media in ten years. Continue reading →

Jesse Chen (engineering manager on Threads) and Zahan Malkani (server engineer lead on the Threads app) from the Instagram dev team discuss their launch - growing from a small incubation team to one of the central efforts from inside Meta - and importantly they reaffirm the upcoming support for ActivityPub, in this interview: “I’m excited for our team to keep shipping features that will improve people’s experience on Threads. I’m also excited about our commitment to join the Fediverse and support the ActivityPub protocol. Continue reading →

And this from this episode with Casey Newton and Joshua Toplosky: Josh: “I understand the whole Fediverse and the Mastodon thing, and that is cool, and if they can make it work well, I’m totally into it and will keep posting there… …But I think we all acknowledge, that whether it’s Jack Dorsey, or Elon Musk… one of these are going to run the social network….Do if in this case [of Threads] if it’s owned by Mark Zuckerberg versus Elon Musk? Continue reading →

Here are some very important quotes from the head of Instagram on their roll-out of ActivytPub support and how they plan to interact with the Fediverse: which he commits to being a “fast follow” feature to add now that they have launched, where he commits to decentralization to be a long term feature, and where he discusses how content moderation at IG Threads will work with Federation server content moderation: Continue reading →

I wrote before that we need humility, recognizing there is so much we don’t know and could be wrong about. I would have sworn that Meta would not support full export of users' social graph to go join other servers. Many opposing federation with Meta did too. We were all wrong at least to what the head of Instagram just posted. indieweb.social/@fedivers… We should wait, verify and not take him at his word, but that is hugely good news if true, and surprising to all of us. Continue reading →

As Meta’s new App - now officially confirmed as “Threads” - has a near-term launch date of July 6th, wanted to restate that Indieweb.social will be taking the same position as almost all mid-sized and large-sized servers and will be “Watching Like a Hawk, with our Fingers Over the Block Button.” We will NOT be pre-emptively taking a “Fediblock as a Frist Strike” position. For reasons I listed here: www.timothychambers.net/2023/06/2… Continue reading →

The strum and drang of the conversation of Meta joining the Fediverse continue at it’s wild and intense pace: See this: netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2023/06/3… And to me, for the most part, that is a good thing, this is a big deal and we as a fediverse family should suss it out. We have had big turns in the road before - and we sussed it out over time. We will again when the next bigtech go adopts ActivtyPub. Continue reading →