I buy the take that a goal of buying Twitter was to stop progressive movements that were organizing there.
These movements were and are changing the world for the better.
The fediverse needs to be built to be their forever home: a place to join together across borders to make the world better for everyone, with equal opportunities for all.
I still, despite everything, after all this time, believe this is the promise of the internet.
This post went absolutely bananas. So, uh, check out my SoundCloud*: https://werd.io
* my SoundCloud is my website. You can subscribe by email or RSS. It's not terrible. Thanks for taking a look!
RSS never died.
But BigTech tried to turn RSS into a social feed.
Cheap idea for the day:
Mastodon as RSS reader, comment on a post you've read and be joined to a thread of your friends who have commented on the same post.
I feel that would require an alternative "center" for the fediverse than mainline mastodon. A space that more or less embraces "the public town square", and the features necessary for it, for those that want to visit it.
Mastodon forks and willing admins would probably be required. Some defederations would also probably happen, but I think that's healthy.
Collaborating/integrating with the lemmy/kbin space could also prove fruitful.
Also, search, QTs, feed sorting or transparent algos
It seems like a reasonable direction to go IMO where people have an account "in the square" and one outside of it, especially given how many fedi accounts some are happily tolerating (I'm up to 6, contemplating a 7th, not including moving instance), and even moreso with apps that handle multiple accounts well.
With meta's Threads seemingly being uninterested in news (??), it feels like there's a real gap/opportunity here. Any corp instance's game? Mozilla? Flipboard? Medium?
et al.
βequal opportunities for allβ technically means
- generic servers
for
- using diverse ActivityPub Clients [Client-To-Server]
and
- using ActivityPub multilanguage aspects
Let's prevent new monopolies.
I want to see a fediverse server that handles Events well. Facebook did events very well, and I don't think anybody else has even tried. This might take some extensions to ActivityPub, but I think an events implementation needs:
* All the vcalendar semantics
* Invites
* RSVPs
* RSVPing to an event adds it to your calendar, which can be accessed as an ical feed.
* All events put out by a single source can be accessed as an ical feed.
This would really help groups organize!
Also, an event announcement would be different from an invite. The announcement is a neutral announcement that an event is happening, whereas an invite is directed at a person.
Anyone can send an invite to any event. So if you see one announced, you can be like "Hey, buddy, I saw this event you'd like. I won't be in town then, but maybe you'd like to go".
You should be able to send an invite with a note. You should be able to send invites to a bunch of people all at once.
That's a good question. I like the idea of having options. I guess the full set of options should be:
* Host decides if the guest list is public or private.
* Guest decides if they want to silently add the event to their calendar ("subscribe") or to share their choice with the host ("rsvp").
* If the guest decides to rsvp to the host, they select if it's ok for the host to share their rsvp publicly, with other guests, or not at all.
Host and guests can set defaults.
To set defaults as a guest, it'd be in your software's preferences, and you'd be like "When I rsvp to an event, do it with these privacy settings..."
When a host sets a default for an event, I think it means that guests can't set a setting that's more public than what the host said. So if the host said the guest list is entirely private, then a guest can't choose to rsvp publicly.
Although I haven't had a chance to try it out, the events & groups tool for the Fediverse is currently Mobilizon. https://joinmobilizon.org/en/
It would be nice if Masto and Mobilizon were integrated together. Maybe they already are?
@MegaMichelle @ben I can't vouch for them since I haven't used them, but you might want to check out these #events projects I've seen mentioned on the Fediverse:
- @gancio
- @mobilizon
- @GetTogetherComm
- gath.io https://friend.camp/@darius/103398661253205349
- https://openengiadina.net/en/
Attached: 1 video I've been building a Facebook Events style event organizing system for the Fediverse. It's based on the simple, open source, privacy-respecting event organizing tool https://gath.io The attached video is a work-in-progress preview and shows compatibility with Mastodon. My hope is to get it working with lots of software, including stuff like Friendica that supports events and calendars. Check out more at my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/organizing-on-32729070
In my neck of the woods, Meetup was the go-to event organizing app for us for years until they changed how they monetized the platform 5/6 years ago and basically just killed it overnight.
I'm a lefty but we have to stop thinking we're the good guys, making conservatives the bad guys. what the #fediverse enables is not just progressives, but all people democratically. no algorithms or ads which give the wealthy greater say to determine what ideas, art and information goes viral. that's why it matters, but we will only be singing to the choir, and go nowhere if we're too precious about this. encourage everyone, but also explain intentional harassment is a form of censorship.
@ben We now have all the tools in place to create a social media not beholden to the very forces that activists organize against.
As long as we can keep Zuck from making it go Meta.
(I think there's an unintended pun there.)
@ben That makes sense, but it is at odds with commonly stated sentiment that the Fediverse should be architected in a way that discourages "broadcast".
Nonprofits, NGOs, and "movement" organizations need a platform to reach large audiences just as much as journalists, authors, artists, and educators do - or for that matter just as much as self-promoting influencers, brands, corporations, and politicians do.
A high-friction, low-virality Fediverse is limiting for all of the above.
@ben I'm all with you except with the part that "the Fediverse has to". No, the Fediverse never has to do anything.
"It would be nice if we could make the Fediverse into" is the way to go. And then go and lead by example. The Fediverse can make it happen, but you can't delegate the task. Either you are the change or it won't happen.
PS: The Fediverse can't be a forever home. It'll be replaced with something at some point and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
@ben yes!
However, we're also still on 
, - since Elon took over, ~14K people started following us here on Mastodon, BUT it's still mostly people from Europe and North America here.
On , we have a truly global network of #ClimateJustice activists, - we still hope for more people from #GlobalSouth to join the Fediverse.
Well, @oneloveoneplanet the emoji is for "birdsite", - well #X, as it's called now... #TwitterX
@ben But twitter was problematic before Musk came. The goal of FB and Twitter has always been to profit of being the social media hubs, and the means to do so, is to step down alternatives, even better ones.
social movements must go off platforms that are owned by corporations, even if they initially seem like "good guys", because they never are.
@ben I agree, but we have to acknowledge that The Internet(tm) does not and fundamentally cannot distinguish between "progressive movements" organizing online and "racist, fascist authoritarians" organizing online.
The Internet connects people with fringe interests so they feel less fringe. That applies equally to trans activists and trans-haters. Arab Spring, and MAGA.
We cannot be blinded to the "neutrality" of the tool.
@ben
Progressivism is best when pragmatic. Sticking the blame to those responsible.
I became critical of wealthy people and landowners when I was progressive, now I'm a somewhat-disaffected socialist.
Capitalism is the worst system as it needs infinite resources in a finite world. It is futile in the end. I recognize that it can being prosperity, but that's a common attribute that shouldn't be surprising anymore.
Markets: money, but suicide.
The wealthy are counterattacking. We must fight.
@ben I think it was in order to buy the users so X wouldn't be a complete failure. But now everybody is leaving so it's not worked so well, but still, some people will stay.
Thats why he spent $44 billion on it despite probably being able to build a twitter clone for less money.
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