Threads now has a Supplemental Privacy Policy (https://help.instagram.com/515230437301944) regarding "Third Party Services" like Mastodon. Should Threads interconnect with Mastodon via #ActivityPub, this addresses what they will do with our data.
Note that they will collect information from anyone "allowing Threads users to follow you or interact with your content". The information they collect will include your profile, your content, and your interactions.
ActivityPub for WordPress released version 1.0.0 thanks to @pfefferle 🥳
Enter the fediverse with ActivityPub, broadcasting your blog to a wider audience! Attract followers, deliver updates, and receive comments from a diverse user base of ActivityPub-compliant platforms.
I know #ActivityPub does not exactly have an official holiday, but on January 23rd (2018) the WC3 gave their official recommendation of ActivityPub, which I believe helped it gain popularity amongst numerous social platforms.
So if you can, raise a glass of gratitude to the five founders of the Fediverse (listed in the link), as without them the masses would lack credible alternatives to the major social networks that exist today.
🆕 blog! “Rebuilding FourSquare for ActivityPub using OpenStreetMap”
I used to like the original FourSquare. The "mayor" stuff was a bit silly, and my friends never left that many reviews, but I loved being able to signal to my friends "I am at this cool museum" or "We're at this pub if you want to meet" or "Spendi…
In December, we started to federate the accounts of some Flipboard publishers and in February, we introduced Magazines to the fediverse. Now, we’re taking two important steps: federating the accounts of 400 creators and expert curators; and enabling two-way communication so that new followers and fediverse activity are visible and actionable in the Flipboard app.
To learn more about this, take a look at our blogpost:
Thanks so much to everyone who has given feedback on what we’ve done so far. We welcome your thoughts and comments as we continue on our journey to fully federate Flipboard.
https://loops.video is a very promising ActivityPub platform for short form video, and could use your financial support to help fund and sustain this initiative!
This is so cool! WordPress is absolutely crushing it!
"The WordPress ActivityPub plugin has been updated to version 2.0. The major feature of the release is better comment federation... “When you respond to comments from the fediverse on your blog, they will now be federated. This allows you to finally engage in (threaded) communication back and forth directly from the comment section of your blog!”
We've got @devnull working on it. I'm hoping we don't miss the boat by the time it can be rolled out, but we want to do right by the #fediverse and come out swinging with a highly interoperable frontend to the fediverse-at-large.
Stay tuned here for more info as the story (and branch) develops!
Fascinating look at how #ActivityPub is being used by the SFO art museum to help encourage revisiting its cultural objects. Still early days, but you can see the potential here -> “The reason I am telling you all of this is that SFO Museum has written it's own limited ActivityPub server implementation and we have, in fact, created an ActivityPub account – a social media, account – for every object in our collection.” https://orthis.social/@thisisaaronland/112339899293624779
Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, posted a message on #Threads explaining why Meta is committed to adding #ActivityPub support. The reason he lists is the ability to take your social graph to another server.
Many people are asking me, "How will #ActivityPub ultimately be #Meta's own undoing?"
Meta's current business model is not built for an open protocol like ActivityPub. It's very much dependent on them owning and controlling the network effect of services like Facebook and Instagram.
Not only does Meta want to collect all your personal data -- they want to control it too. They enforce this control through proprietary APIs. In this sense, they're not different from Twitter and Reddit.
The point of ActivityPub is that services, such as #Mastodon, #Kbin, and #Calckey, can depend on an open protocol instead of a proprietary API.
What if I, the admin of calckey.social, don't like what a dev is doing? Well, too bad. The protocol is open. I might be able to twiddle with my own server, but I can't do jack with anyone else's.
And what if I'm a greedy asshole who wants to monetize the user data on my server? Too bad for me, everyone on my server can migrate elsewhere.
This is not how Meta does business. In almost all ways, ActivityPub is counter to their business. Yet, here they are -- wanting to join the Fediverse.
The tech industry is awash in stories of big corporations that own proprietary tech that become undone by open standards.
Remember IBM's dominance of PCs? It was undone by the EISA standard.
Remember Novell's dominance of networking? It was undone by the bundling of TCP/IP in operating systems.
Remember AOL's dominance of online services? It was undone by the World Wide Web.
ActivityPub is yet another standard that pierces the opaque walled gardens that largely depend on proprietary technology owned by one company. And Meta happens to be one company that owns an opaque walled garden.
If history is to be repeated -- and usually it's worth learning from history -- then Meta opening the door to ActivityPub is company suicide. It's the first domino to fall before everything else in their catalogue of walled gardens also falls. Contrary to popular opinion, creating an ActivityPub enabled social network does not "kill" ActivityPub -- it validates it.
As it happens, I've known quite a few people who work at Meta. I have a little insight into what they're thinking.
Most folks at Meta know very well that Facebook will eventually die. But not just Facebook, Instagram too. Social networks, by their nature, are generational and transient. They have a shelf life.
Meta very much wants to build the app that kills Facebook and Instagram.
They have to build it because they can't acquire competition. That will raise the ire of regulators.
Likewise, Meta have already tried to leverage their own proprietary APIs to build compelling platforms. We've already seen this with the likes of Portal and Oculus.
What's apparent is that, even for a Big Social company like Meta, it is extremely hard to build a network effect from scratch. Sure, billions of people use Facebook and Instagram, but it was a whole lot of work for Meta to do that themselves.
And what was the end result of building Facebook and Instagram's network effect? More regulation by governments.
Thus, ActivityPub gives Meta two things it craves: the ability to piggyback on the network effect of an open protocol, and the ability to head off regulators by saying, "Hey, we don't own this protocol -- we're no different from Mastodon and Calckey."
Again, open protocols usually mean the demise of big corporations who leverage success through proprietary APIs. And ActivityPub will be no different.
Meta joining the Fediverse means that Automattic was right to build ActivityPub plugin for WordPress. It also means competitors, such as Apple and Microsoft, should probably start investing in ActivityPub.
What else does it mean? That small developers should start building apps that appeal to people who use Meta services. They should build these apps based on garden-variety ActivityPub -- because Meta can't own or control ActivityPub.
A group of over 40 European organisations have recently released a statement calling for the EU to set up a European Public Digital Infrastructure Fund.
They call for this fund to support Digital Public Spaces, that are, among other things, based in FOSS, and ensure privacy by design. The statement gives three examples: #Mastodon, #PeerTube and #ActivityPub, stating that they would benefit from such a fund to further flourish.
Calckey is a Fediverse server type which includes lots of features that Mastodon doesn't yet have, such as emoji reactions, markdown, customisable interfaces, widgets and lots more.
To see for yourself, have a look on the official website at:
Very happy to announce that @tomcoates and I have been given a #SummerOfProtocols grant to develop an end-to-end encryption (E2EE) protocol for #ActivityPub DMs, including a reference implementation and a report to submit to the W3C SocialCG.