Mastodawn

Tumblr has changed how interactions with posts work and people are PISSED.

https://www.tumblr.com/changes/811285635102130176/its-very-clear-that-you-all-have-strong-feelings

Basically, they've gone from a distinctive "everything is a chain and you see _all_ of the downstream activity from your post/reblog" approach to a Twitter/Bluesky/Mastodon-style "you reblog and the OP sees interactions (probably) or you quote-post and the OP sees nothing more".

Which… yeah, sure, great for Likes, because now you get to like _specific_ posts within the chain of half-a-dozen rather than having "you've liked one post in this chain therefore you liked the whole chain".

But it's DREADFUL for small creatives who get reblogged by a big account that adds a comment saying "You should check this out ☝" because that breaks the chain and the OP doesn't see future interactions including replies. Which is a bit shit on the "small creatives and niche fandoms" site 😐

(People can _choose_ to click the reply on the OP and reply directly… but that requires a change of behaviour, and how many users are ACTUALLY going to change behaviour like that?! 🙄)

#Tumblr #AlternativeSocialMedia

Reblog by @changes

💬 42131 🔁 118078 ❤️ 63063 · It’s very clear that you all have strong feelings about Tumblr and about this change. We hear you. The passion people have for how Tumblr works is one of the things th…

Tumblr

Robert W. Gehl Mar 10

I don't speak French, but I do speak "local, autonomous media that is not dominated by US big tech"

https://site.qlub.social/petition-gouvernement-du-quebec/

#Quebec #alternativeSocialMedia

Pétition-Gouvernement-du-Québec

Signez la pétition Nous demandons au Gouvernement du Québec de quitter les réseaux sociaux étrangers et d’adopter des solutions qui respectent notre culture et soutiennent nos médias locaux. …

Qlub – Le Réseau Social du Québec

ASM Researchers Mar 8

Our latest blogpost is "Blacksky: Exemplary Alternative Social Media":

https://www.socialmediaalternatives.org/2026/03/08/blacksky.html

A short note about #Blacksky as a social and technical achievement -- a fascinating form of alternative social media.

#alternativeSocialMedia

Blacksky: Exemplary Alternative Social Media

Blacksky is exemplary alternative social media. Blacksky is a community-run, independent implementation of ATProto technologies that not only is dedicated to Black social media but also runs infrastructure that is open to folks who want to join (so long as they abide by the community guidelines).

The Network of Alternative Social Media Researchers

Robert W. Gehl Feb 14

Sometimes, folks ask me why I've been advocating for #alternativeSocialMedia for over a decade now:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/technology/dhs-anti-ice-social-media.html

Homeland Security Demands Social Media Sites Reveal Names Behind Anti-ICE Posts

The department has sent Google, Meta and other companies hundreds of subpoenas for information on accounts that track or comment on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, officials and tech workers said.

The New York Times

ASM Researchers Feb 2

We just held another Alternative Social Media Reading Group meeting, this time discussing Hwang et al's fantastic paper, "Governing Together: Toward Infrastructure for Community-Run Social Media."

https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.19653

Looking forward to adding this to our library!

https://www.socialmediaalternatives.org/bib.html

#alternativeSocialMedia #governance #fediverse

Governing Together: Toward Infrastructure for Community-Run Social Media

Decentralizing the governance of social computing systems to communities promises to empower them to make independent decisions, with nuance and in accordance with their values. Yet, communities do not govern in isolation. Many problems communities face are common, or move across their boundaries. We therefore propose designing for "inter-community governance:" mechanisms that support relationships and interactions between communities to coordinate on governance issues. Drawing from workshops with 24 individuals on decentralized, community-run social media, we present six challenges in designing for inter-community governance surfaced through ideas proposed in workshops. Together, these ideas come together as an ecosystem of resources, infrastructures, and tools that highlight three key principles for designing for inter-community governance: modularity, forkability, and polycentricity. We end with a discussion of how the ideas proposed in workshops might be implemented in future work aiming to support community governance in social computing systems broadly.

arXiv.org

schuh Jan 25

Finally here, now reading: Move slowly and build bridges - Mastodon, the Fediverse, and the Struggle for Democratic Social Media by Robert W. Gehl @rwg

https://www.moveslowlybuildbridges.com/

#mastodon #fediverse #bookstodon #AlternativeSocialMedia #MoveSlowlyAndBuildBridges

ASM Researchers Jan 13

The first post of 2026 on the Alternative Social Media Researchers Blog is live! It's by @jjsylvia and it presents a syllabus of a course in social media ethics. The course uses a classroom instance of Mastodon to work through ethical issues in digital media.
https://www.socialmediaalternatives.org/2026/01/12/teaching-mastodon.html
Replies to this post will appear as comments on the blog.
#Mastodon #pedagogy #alternativeSocialMedia

Teaching Mastodon: Ethics, Moderation, and the Work of Participation

NB: This post is we hope the first of several which discusses the use of alternative social media in the classroom. In this post, ASM Research Network member JJ Sylvia IV discusses teaching Mastodon in a social media ethics course at Fitchburg State University.]

The Network of Alternative Social Media Researchers

Robert W. Gehl Jan 13

The first post of 2026 on the Alternative Social Media Researchers Blog is live! It's by @jjsylvia and it presents a syllabus of a course in social media ethics. The course uses a classroom instance of Mastodon to work through ethical issues in digital media.
https://www.socialmediaalternatives.org/2026/01/12/teaching-mastodon.html
Are you also teaching using Mastodon or other alternative social media? Reach out to us!

#alternativeSocialMedia #pedagogy