There are a number of weird right wing platforms (I'd guess most are pay-for-use) and at least one weird left wing platform that are also receiving relatively large numbers of Twitter refugees. It isn't just the #Fediverse.
RP @simsa04: My 9 yo nephew got a Raspberry Pi for Christmas and I'm tasked by my sis – thank you for that, moron! – to give him deeper insight into the machine and what can be done with it.
I don't know why he needed one nor why his parents chose that as a gift as my nephew already writes his little Scratch programs on his laptop, but here we are. So, dear #fediverse people, please point me to guides that explain what the machine does, what kids can do with it taht makes some fun and how to do that. And also how to present the output of the thing on the display of my newphe's laptop.
#Medium link; don't be surprised if it does weird things before showing you the article.
"Mastodon brought a protocol to a product fight"
> Yes, yes, the network is under immense strain as people flee the Elon strain infecting Twitter. But come on, there are folks who really believe this is going to replace, or even stand alongside Twitter, as a massively scaled social network? I call bullshit. While it’s impressive that millions of users have apparently given Mastodon a try, the product is far too slapdash and clunky to keep folks engaged. A lump of coal.
No, it isn't meant to be a #Twitter replacement. Keep your Twitter account until you no longer want it--or the company closes and the site shuts down--you can use Mastodon alongside Twitter.
And the #Fediverse networks are much more than just #Mastodon. Don't think you have experienced the network and all it has to offer if all you've done is briefly tried to use Mastodon, because you haven't experienced it.
> I’ve somehow avoided signing up for the service up until now. Largely because signing up was and is so comically obtuse — pick your server everyone, hope you choose wisely!
Have you not used e-mail? It works the same way. You pick a server, such as Gmail or Outlook dot com, and sign up. Please tell me you realize that the people you communicate with are not all on the same e-mail service that you use.
> But, but, it’s not a product, it’s a protocol. Yeah, that’s a nice thing to say. And to believe in. But I truly believe the ship has sadly sailed for such idealism in this space. Jack Dorsey can talk about how this should have been what Twitter was from the get go until he’s bluesky in the face. It’s just not going to happen. And he’s more to blame for that than most everyone else. As is he for the Elon element of this current equation. But that’s a different story.
Okay, so how about this story: Twitter has only been profitable two or three years of its entire history. Since it started, it has existed by burning through investors' funds. Eventually, with or without Elon Musk's ownership, that runs out. Without such funding, their corporate-centralized ( #corpocentric ) model cannot exist very long. And same for their centralized competitors, such as Post.news, Gab, Parler, and so on. What is left is either #federated or #peer-to-peer approaches, where no single entity is responsible for funding and managing the entire network. So whether it is the #Fediverse ( with #ActivityPub and #OStatus and their successors ) & the Federation ( with #Diaspora ) or #Bluesky, or #Twister, or #NOSTR, the eventual future of #socnets is #decentralized, if not entirely peer-to-peer unless a national government takes over Facebook and Twitter in order to provide effectively unlimited resources. It is the protocol that makes it possible for thousands or millions of instances to displace and replace one big centralized instance.
One thing about this surge of people migrating from #Twitter to the #Fediverse is that people who gave up on #federated #socnets years ago and solely used #corpocentric platforms are now coming back.
Thus, I get announcements about people I knew from #Tent (thanks to fellow former Tentler @bthall) along with news about people from #Identi.ca and other #StatusNet and #Pump.io instances returning.
Tim Bray discusses the ethics of moving to #Mastodon (and probably the #Fediverse in general), considering the views of groups such as #BlackTwitter whose norms and needs differ from those of most Mastodon users.
He concludes (correctly, I might add) that it is ethical to leave #Twitter and move to Mastodon and the Fediverse.
Also, #Vivaldi now has its own #Mastodon instance. I think #Brave Browser had an unofficial instance at one time, and #Mozilla intends to open theirs early in 2023.
I'm still not "there" yet, but I am doing some #PHP stuff. Maybe I'll be able to help make !GNUsocial and #Friendica competitive candidates for $ORGANIZATION deploying their own #Fediverse presence.
@cgervasi I hear you. I've seen lots of "fake news" in newspapers and TV long before social media. But it's quite clear to me that me that "the old world of gatekeepers" include the bigtech companies.
The thing happening in the #Fediverse right now (well, it has been for some years, but now we are more people), although not perfect (and possibly will never be) seems to me the path to follow: self-regulating communities. And of course: sure, a more democratic way of moderation is desirable, and most of the big instances will have a bad time sooner or later because of the high number of people.
... And right now I'm not sure if we are talking about the same thing. Sorry, really big issues in discussion here, and it's harder to express them in english for me 😅
@cgervasi I don't think we are there yet, but #Fediverse is meant to be a space for everyone. Billionaires have the money, contacts, etc to have their own platforms, let us have at least one nice thing, please :)
Anyway, Paul Graham (@paulg@twitter.com) had his #Twitter account suspended over a link to his #Fediverse #Mastodon account. Last I checked, the suspension seems to have been reverted.
> BREAKING NEWS: Gargron is no longer the most followed person on mastodon. This is great news (no offence to
@gargron ) as it signifies the network is growing to be more independent of its most famous developer.
> The new most followed person is @georgetakei@universeodon.com
So let me tell you why this is NOT a good thing. George Takei is a celebrity actor. That people are crawling after actors and other celebs means that the #Twitter migration is bringing their culture (with all its flaws) here. Again, as they did this before during #Mastodon's early growth. Much Masto culture is merely Twitter and Tumblr culture, sometimes reflected in a mirror and sometimes adopted wholesale.
Thankfully, the #Fediverse is more than just Mastodon.
Since the #Twitter siege against journalists and alternative #socnet platforms began a few hours ago, the number of new #Mastodon accounts started surging again.
> +3,992 in the last hour > +29,495 in the last day
This doesn't count GS, Friendica, Pleroma, Misskey, Epicyon, PixelFed, or any other #Fediverse platform.
@geniusmusing I guess that means that any journalist that uses #Twitter should be opening one or more backup accounts in the #Fediverse and using it enough to be familiar and ready ... and giving their current audience enough heads up so they know where to find their chosen news sources.
@evan@prodromou.pub @evan@identi.ca ( and formerly @evan@e14n.com ) has said this a few times, but here it is again.
"Every time you post on Twitter, you produce value for the advertisers.
You tell everyone in your network there that it's OK to stay. That you're all helpless to leave.
You tell the people who've lost their jobs, the people who are being hounded and harassed, that they are not important to you.
You know you're going to be ashamed of it later.
Just stop posting.
Do it here, not there. Connect here, not there.
Don't reply, don't like, don't retweet.
Stop feeding your life into the machine."
This was true before Elon #Musk bought #Twitter, but I guess it wasn't as important before.
I don't fully agree, simply because there may be some advantages to many people who continue to use Twitter instead of moving to the #Fediverse (e.g., #GNU_Social, #Mastodon, #Pleroma, #Misskey, #PixelFed, #Lenny / #Lemmy, etc) or they would have moved over already.
Also, because unless one self-hosts one's own presence, an angry instance admin is all it takes to lose all posts and connections and have to start over. Or, if one has contacts on a different instance, then irate instance admins participating in #blockwars (including #fediblock) can separate the person from some portion of their contacts.
So remember, everything that Twitter is or can do to you, your Fediverse instance can also do. Most instances will never do most of those things, but pretending that one is safe here could result in disappointment in the future.
The monthly active users figures for #Mastodon seem to have peaked and started heading downward, even as new accounts continue to be opened.
I wish they'd use a tracker that doesn't filter out everything that is not Mastodon. As I recall, when the number of accounts for Mastodon hit 5,000,000 the number for the #Fediverse as a whole was over 11,000,000 ... but those numbers will always be larger than MAU, so I'd also like to see those numbers Fediverse-wide.
Tagging this thread with #Fediverse #Security ... whomever made the script obviously read some protocol docs and some source code. With just a little #JavaScript, they were able to knock some #Misskey and #Mastodon instances to their knees.
This isn't the first, and it won't be the last. Remember when someone posted a humongous image and locked up any #GNUSocial instance that tried to download the image? Remember when someone's instance was replaced by some sort of cryptocurrency site and PuSH es from your site to theirs would crash your site because of their site's response? (I'll bet I still have that domain blocked at the firewall.)
We have to stop being naive about the intentions of those in the current migration. The overwhelming majority will have benign, if not good, intentions. But a select few will have bad intentions. Among those intentions is to colonize the Fediverse with #Twitter's culture, to come here and impose that culture of anger and disrespect upon the inhabitants here ... which already happened once with the first wave of people joining #Mastodon instance, except it was Twitter and #Tumblr at that time.
There are already people angry about the European Union setting up its instance, and people angry about a US Government agency opening an account on infosec.exchange.
In both cases, they are dead wrong, just like the #blockwars / \#fediblock people are. The #Fediverse is for everyone. Right or left wing or no wing at all. Government agencies, corporations, churches, non-profit organizations, individuals, groups, families, small businesses. Everyone.
The network derives its utility from the ability of people on instance A to interact with people on instance B, so indiscriminate instance-to-instance blocking and mobs chasing people away only makes the network less useful for everyone.