When I talk about the importance of going all in on the Fediverse, I speak based on experience.

At Opera we built a massive user community. When I quit, we had something like 35 million registered users and 35 million monthly visitors.

The new Opera management did not see the value of that. They believed it was cheaper and better to just use Facebook and that investing in your own community was a waste of money. So they closed down MyOpera and built a following on Facebook and Twitter instead. Then they got caught by the bait and switch when Facebook changed and you would no longer reach your audience, without paying. Later on Twitter changed as well.

This is important to explain to companies and institutions as they go shopping for social media sites to invest in. The best investment is clearly in your own site, being part of the Fediverse. It is not even all that expensive to do. It may take longer to build, but at least it is your own.

Not saying you cannot build a following on those other sites, but your long term strategy should be the Fediverse with your own server.

We try to lead the way here and thus we build Vivaldi Social. Not just for our selves, but to make a point and support the Fediverse.

#fediverse #Mastodon #Twitter #Threads #BlueSky #Vivaldi

Rolled out #Elasticsearch on Earth.Law today. If you're looking for a home on the #fediverse with robust #search capabilities, you can now search through post content, bookmarks, and historical discussions here with better accuracy and speed.

A small #Mastodon Instance focused on #EnvironmentalLaw, #ClimatePolicy, and related discourse.

#MastoAdmin #FediAdmin #SysAdmin #DevOps #SelfHosted #FOSS #Linux #Debian #FediNews #ActivityPub

Earth.law

for 🌎 Earth, 🦎 Earthlings, and their ⚖️ Advocates.

^{Mastodon hosted on earth.law}

This is a powerful statement from UK journalists and we agree.

X is no longer neutral and no longer a home for journalists.

We are ready to support any and all journalists who make the move to open social networks, now and in the New Social future.

Please, feel free to send journalists or publications our way if they have any questions. Or, if you're a journalist yourself, feel free to reach out.

docs.google.com/document/d/1dF…

#SocialMedia #X #Journalism #News #OpenSocial #Mastodon #Fediverse

Moving Off X: An Open Letter from UK Journalists

Moving Off X: An Open Letter from UK Journalists As UK journalists, we have used Twitter – now X – for many years. It has been a resource for story-gathering, network-building, and a megaphone for getting public-interest stories to a wider audience.

^{Google Docs}

One of the worst misfeatures of #Mastodon from a safety angle: If you get an abusive reply to your post, you can't remove it even by blocking the person. Even after blocking, your server still shows the abusive reply to everyone else.

There has been a patch ready to fix this for 2 years, 6 months, and 1 day. @Gargron has not approved it, and has provided *zero* explanation for why he will not allow it to be merged.

github.com/mastodon/mastodon/p…

Hide subthreads by blocked users when looking at a post's descendants by ClearlyClaire · Pull Request #18468 · mastodon/mastodon

This is about the server not returning known subthreads started by people blocked by the post's author, not the viewer. e.g., if we have A → B → C → D → E, where a → b means “b replies to a”, a...

^GitHub

"Decentralised social media is more than just a technical shift; it's a step toward restoring autonomy and trust in our digital lives, empowering individuals and communities to connect without compromising their values or privacy."

A study by the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford finds that decentralised social media leads to citizen empowerment.

oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/news/dec…

#SocialMedia #Fediverse #Decentralised #Decentralized #Mastodon #Bluesky #Threads #X #Empowerment

Decentralised social media ‘increases citizen empowerment’, says Oxford study

Researchers from the Oxford Martin School find decentralised social media such as Mastodon offer potential for increased citizen empowerment

^{Oxford Martin School}

Senator @Paulatics Paula Simons rose today in Question Period in Canada’s Senate to ask the government why (the hell! - my words lol) Government is still using that platform of hate, misogyny and Russian misinformation called X!?

Boost to support the Senator!! And ask your MP, MLA, or other government representative wherever you are to do the same!!

#Mastodon #Fediverse #Twitter #X #Government #twitterMigration
youtu.be/y1D7PlvSFTE?si=73DThK…

QUESTION: Sen. Simons questions the government's continued commitment to Elon Musk's X

When Twitter became a widely-used social media platform, many government departments used it to share important information with Canadians. Now Twitter has t...

^YouTube

Mastodon Follow Pack Directory - Nov 20, 2024

Follow entire groups of accounts listed below or simply click on accounts to view their profile page and follow them from there.

This directory includes notices, instructions and follow pack directory listings.

Longform available on Mastodon Migration FediBlog >>> @mastodonmigration.wordpress.com

1/many

#FollowPack #StarterPack #MastodonMigration #MastoTips #Help #Directory #Guides #Mastodon #Fediverse #FediBlog

Opened two new Mastodon issues with ideas that could improve moderation processes, would be interested in hearing what people think:

- github.com/mastodon/mastodon/i…
- github.com/mastodon/mastodon/i…

I've also been working more on other admin/moderation pages more too, and work is hopefully able to move forwards and land soon-ish.

#Mastodon #MastoAdmin

Provide a way for moderators to publicly acknowledge that a post has been reported · Issue #32962 · mastodon/mastodon

Pitch Currently when moderators moderate, their actions are not always publicly visible, sometimes this can lead to situations getting inflamed. Whilst it would be possible for a "moderator account...

^GitHub

The Guardian has joined #Mastodon.

@guardian

#TwitterMigration #journalism

Channel.org is a service for organisations, built to help them own their social media presence.

It's still early days, but we're calling on people who work for, or have connections to, for-good organisations. We want you to spread a little decentralised chaos and push for your org on decentralised social media.

If you think you can help, please, get in touch!

#Decentralised #SocialMedia #Fediverse #Mastodon #CallToAction #Charity #News #Academia #Disrupt

Forget Threads. Forget Bluesky. Forget Space Karen's dumpster fire formerly known as Twitter. Tonight was an excellent reminder that #Mastodon is undefeated on Gameday.

@nfl@a.gup.pe @nfl@nfl.community

#NFL #CINvsLAC #SNF

As another exodus from the site formally known as Twitter gets under way, and again journos mostly only see BlueSky or Threads as the viable alternatives, the wonderful world of Mastodon continues to slowly gain users....

The Q. is: do we want an accelerated up-take by social media refugees, or are we happy being slowly discovered by those who are sympathetic to the Fediverse's values & practices.

For me the latter, not least of all as that's the Fediverse way!

#Mastodon #SocialMedia

#Fediverse is roughly analogous to how mutual aid groups organize. We should look to meatspace and figure out how to translate it.

So, instead of telling new #Mastodon users to “just follow some hashtags and people you find interesting”, we need to rebuild people’s community-building skills and translate those into the digital realm.

#Twitter, #Bluesky, #Threads, #instagram, etc are all about mass culture delivery. Let’s figure out how to do distributed cultural development.

We’re getting it wrong when we tell folks that #Mastodon is just like “Old #Twitter”. If you want that, that’s #Bluesky. Mastodon is a different kind of place.

This is a more intimate community that discourages “influencing” because there’s no profit motive for eyeballs. The microblogging approach may look similar to Twitter but the way the communities form and conversations evolve is fundamentally different.

It’s no uptopia; we’ve got a shitload of work to do to make it safer.

#Fediverse

For really no reason at all 😇 here's why I find the user experience on #Mastodon better than in that Nazi Chatroom when it was still called "Twitter":

- 500+ characters
- post editing
- follow hashtags
- better s/n ratio
- no ads

Plus, quintsns.pianeta.uno/ does a pretty good job at replacing paper.li

So I wouldn't go back, even if someone resurrected Twitter. Now, FriendFeed on the other hand... 😆

@pluralistic says it best, why #BlueSky is no alternative:

pluralistic.net/2024/11/02/uly…

Cory Doctorow @pluralistic ofrece este enlace de la Universidad de Minnesota sobre los beneficios y desventajas del Fediverso, con hincapié en el problema de la moderación de contenidos. Me parece relevante. Es descargable.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

La 1ª parte describe el Fediverso y cómo funciona.

La 2ª parte examina la moderación de contenido en Mastodon.

La 3ª parte considera cómo los legisladores pueden fomentar el Fediverso.

#Fediverso #Mastodon

Beginning to believe that @Gargron doesn't want me contributing to #mastodon — he's now partially recreated three of my pull requests that I've worked on.

My PRs didn't ship because I needed feedback from the team who were busy.

Like, I'm happy to spend the time and money to contribute to Mastodon, but it's horrifically rude to just redo someone's work when they've put a tonne of work into doing something.

He's also done this to me in the past in 2018 with the report management tools.

The week is over, here are some charts:
For two weeks in a row, #Mastodon brought more #traffic than #X / #Twitter to heise.de.
But I forgot, that's not just via @heiseonline, but also @heisec, @ct_Magazin, @heiseautos, @iX_Magazin etc. (but for Twitter its the same).

#Bluesky is way behind, #Threads even more. Only Twitter is clearly falling.

(🧵 1/3)

#SocialMedia
#TwitterExodus
#TwitterMigration
#MastodonMigration
#Fediverse

1/ After #ElonMusk has started to heavily promote #Trump in the past months, #Bluesky has seen a large surge of new users while #Mastodon has not. Yet I am more convinced than ever that focusing my social media efforts on the latter was the right choice. Why?

Because Bluesky is not Trump-proof.

New blog post: “My Mastodon Starter Pack”

blog.kizu.dev/my-mastodon-star…

Sometimes, I invite someone to join #Mastodon, and I end up sharing the same links and information repeatedly.

Following the “manual until it hurts” #IndieWeb practice, after repeating the same things a few times, it is time to “automate” it. Well, in this case, just put everything into one blog post, I guess.

Are social media platforms that utilize algorithmic feeds inherently anti-free-speech?

In normal discourse, we all have a voice and we all have the choice whether to listen. In the algorithmic space, formulas are used to decide which voices to amplify and also which voices to de-amplify.

Here on Vivaldi Social (Mastodon), I see posts that people I follow post, including posts they choose to boost. No formulas needed. This is, IMHO, the closest to free-speech you can find, although there are some hate speech rules, which is IMHO a good thing. Basically the same as in normal, social discourse.

On Facebook I see posts Facebook thinks I want to see (and boy do they get it wrong), as well as a lot of AI generated nonsense. There are some posts in there that I am interested in, but most are not.

Twitter has turned into amplification of what Elon wants to amplify, mostly hate speech and misinformation. There are still interesting voices in there, but they are harder and harder to find.

What do you think?

#Facebook #Twitter #Mastodon #fediverse #SocialMedia

• Agree (84%, 70 votes)
• Disagree (15%, 13 votes)

Exactly two years ago, we started to post links on #Mastodon via our account @heiseonline 👇

mastodon.social/@heiseonline/1…

It took longer, than I expected, but here we are: it seems like this account now brings continuously more #traffic to heise.de than #X (#Twitter) in its entirety, although it only has ¼ of the follower number (and many of them don't seem to be active anymore).
I'll prepare some graphs after the weekend.

#SocialMedia
#TwitterExodus
#MastodonMigration
#TwitterMigration
#Fediverse

Has anyone done a thing like Tweetback but for #Mastodon? It’d be cool to have a static archive of my old server, at least the toots, rather than the whole thing disappearing? #MastoAdmin #11ty

github.com/tweetback/tweetback

GitHub - tweetback/tweetback: Take ownership of your Twitter data and get your tweets back

Take ownership of your Twitter data and get your tweets back - tweetback/tweetback

^GitHub

The University of Groningen Library are researching Academic Staff Engagement on Mastodon.

This is a really interesting bit of research from a team who have supported and made a home over here on decentralised social media.

If you're an academic, they'd love to hear your opinion to help conduct their research!

You can see more details on the original post here: social.edu.nl/@Bibliothecaris/…

@Bibliothecaris

#AcademicMastodon #Academics #AcademicChatter #Research #Research #Fediverse #Mastodon

Do you regularly use Mastodon's translation feature to read posts written in a language you do not understand (if it is accessible to you)?

#Mastodon

• I use the translation feature all the time! (49%, 64 votes)
• I don't really use it (26%, 35 votes)
• What is that? 👀 (21%, 28 votes)
• I speak all languages already 😎 (2%, 3 votes)

I was watching a YouTube video the other day. It was talking about the history of modern social media and how they rely heavily on algorithms designed to drive engagement above all else. The reason is obvious - more people engaged, more advertising gets seen. They went on to point out that the kind of content that got the most engagement was divisive and controversial. Hateful bigotry and divisive politics is the most successful content according to the algorithms of the big social media giants. Cat pictures and funny memes get a look in, but they don’t compare in the level of engagement according to the algorithms.

I now better understand why my content has never been popular anywhere else. I’m so thankful there’s a place like #Mastodon to make my online home.

On the two year anniversary of joining #Mastodon I'm super proud to share:

🚀 The Future is Federated - issue no.13 👩‍🚀

"The #Fediverse has empowered me to take back control from Big Tech. Now I want to help others do the same."

blog.elenarossini.com/the-fedi…

with mentions of @forgeandcraft (who made this awesome Fediverse t-shirt) @phanpy @ivory @Tusky @nimi @Roneyb @davidoclubb

#FOSS #FLOSS #Matrix #TheFutureIsFederated #blog #tech #activism #BigTech #socialmedia #education

The Fediverse has empowered me to take back control from Big Tech. Now I want to help others do the same.

The Fediverse has helped me regain control from the behavior modification empires of Big Tech. Now I want to help other people do the same.

^{Elena Rossini}

You can edit your posts on Mastodon by clicking ⋯ and "Edit".

When you edit a post, everyone who has boosted your post will be notified about it, every single time. The reason for this is to prevent abuse of the edit feature with "bait & switch" tactics, where someone might do a harmless post, wait for people to boost it and then edit it into something offensive.

So, if you do edit, keep in mind that each edit will send everyone who boosted your post a notification.

#FediTips #Mastodon

The way things are going, we're going to end up with #Mastodon as the only social media platform left standing that not only isn't controlled by billionaires, but by its very nature cannot be effectively controlled by billionaires. In this respect we've come full circle to the days before widespread public access to the Internet, when individual sites used the public telephone network and low speed modems to create ad hoc data networks for email and public discussions.

Everything old is new again.