I’ve been using fediverse stuff (Mastodon and, most recently, Calckey – I’m just going to use “Mastodon” as shorthand here, purists can bite me) for over a year now, a…
Point blank, a mass Fediblock isn't going to work with #Meta.
The cold truth is that people will use #Barcelona whether it federates or not. Even if it fails, Barcelona will probably have more users out of the gate than almost every project save Mastodon. Hell, it will probably eclipse #Bluesky too.
And even if you convince every server to defederate -- which you won't -- this will not be a PR coup for the Fediverse. Newspaper headlines won't blare "Fediverse successfully resists Meta." Instead, they will probably follow @gruber take with "Open source zealots complain that an open protocol is open."
Again, as I've said countless times, I'm not saying you should federate with Barcelona or any Meta-owned property. If you want, defederate. The joy of the Fediverse is freedom of association.
But a mass Fediblock doesn't solve a few important problems with Meta, and perhaps makes them worse.
The most critical problem is that Meta users need to migrate away from Meta-owned social networks. Until now, a migration path has simply been unfeasible to most. But when Barcelona gets launched, it is possible that many of them will become aware of a greater Fediverse.
How to build that awareness? By interacting with them through services beyond Barcelona.
This approach works. I've interacted with many Mastodon users through services beyond Mastodon, and this has resulted in adoption of other Fediverse software. #Calckey is a case in point.
However, there's a bigger problem concerning Meta: Fediverse replacements for Meta-owned social networks aren't getting mass adoption. And it's not because these apps aren't good.
#Pixelfed is an #Instagram replacement. It is also one of the slickest apps on the Fediverse. Yet, Pixelfed only has 150,000 registered accounts.
#Friendica is a #Facebook replacement. It's been around since 2010. It is a mature product that does many things very well, but Friendica only has 17,000 registered accounts.
The software is great but we are failing to effectively market the Fediverse beyond Mastodon. Now I'm trying my darnedest to change this, and so are many people. But facts are facts. Fediverse alternatives to Meta are a blip on the radar.
Refusing to federate with Barcelona won't change this. How do I know?
Because we don't federate now, and the status quo remains intact.
Meanwhile, Meta is practically gifting Pixelfed and Friendica an opportunity for federation, and it would be foolish to not consider broader implications.
How is it that more people aren't considering this opportunity?
Dare I say that most people -- including devs -- suffer from myopia concerning what the Fediverse is. The Fediverse is not Mastodon, and it is wrong to view the Fediverse solely through the eyes of Mastodon.
And I'll go further: by focusing Barcelona on text, I suspect that Meta is likewise making the same mistake of viewing the Fediverse as a "Twitter killer".
What they may not be considering is that the Fediverse might be a "Meta killer" too. And connecting Barcelona to the Fediverse is opening a can of worms Meta hasn't entirely considered yet.
If Barcelona is indeed text-based, what will happen when a Barcelona user encounters Pixelfed and asks, "Why does this post show reels? And why can't I do the same?"
Believe me, this is the kind of content that triggers migration.
We need to think bigger than Fediblock. Yes, for your own mental health and safety, you may not want to federate with Barcelona. However, there needs to also be a means for Barcelona users to encounter content outside Barcelona.
Perhaps there needs to be "lobby" servers that help Barcelona users enter the greater Fediverse -- helping them make the switch beyond Meta.
They go on to imagine some wonderful or awful scenario where the floodgates are open and #Threads becomes another #ActivityPub app like #CalcKey or #Plemora.
Maybe.... but what you are envisioning is really very unlikely. Threads is entirely algorithm driven. How's that going to work? Plus they have no interest in letting their captured users escape.
Yet another question people are asking me: "How can I, a common person, help hasten the demise of #Meta through #ActivityPub?"
Again, I want to re-emphasize this. #Fediblock is not an all-purpose tool. It's useful as a hammer. But in this scenario, we don't just need a hammer. We need drills, pliers, saws, and blowtorches.
That said, we must protect communities that choose to defederate from Meta. Which means that if those servers don't want to receive messages from any Meta-owned services, we must not only be respectful of that, we should make damn sure that those servers are quarantined from Meta. So much of the success of fighting Meta will require safe spaces from Meta.
The next thing we need is lots and lots of nodes. Currently, we only have ~25,000 nodes on the Fediverse but we need more. Preferably, these nodes should be small, agile, and well-moderated. If you have the finances and/or skill to run a node, it's important that you do so. To compete with Meta, we need to build scale -- and the easiest way to build scale is by adding more nodes to the Fediverse.
What will also be key is lobby servers. These will be servers specifically set up for migrants from Meta-owned services to help onboard them towards the rest of the Fediverse. To run such a lobby server, they need to be welcoming, moderated well, and free of the elitists and gatekeepers that poison so much of the Fediverse currently.
How to get people from Meta to try out the rest of the Fediverse? We need people willing to be ambassadors on #P92 who are ready and willing to evangelize the rest of the Fediverse. Folks like @tchambers are very good at this on Twitter, and I have no doubt that we can do the same with P92. Except this time we'll have the benefit of federation already happening 😉
Now if there's one thing I've learned about the growth of the Fediverse it's that bad corporate decisions pay dividends. We've already experienced waves of migration from Tumblr, Twitter, and Reddit. And I have no doubt that it's only a matter of time before Meta makes another corporate mistake -- as they tend to do.
In which case, we need to strike fast. When another Cambridge Analytica happens, we need to remind everyone on Meta about the lobby servers that are on standby, and ready to take them on. Unlike previous migrations, let's not be unprepared for this. Let's be especially prepared since Meta plans to join the Fediverse.
Finally, we need more devs. Specifically, we need devs willing to build innovative server and client software that takes aim at Meta. And to do that, we need to support the devs that currently exist -- show evergreen devs pondering whether they should invest here that we, as a community, are appreciative of our current devs.
If you like #Mastodon, #Calckey, #Kbin, #Friendica, etc., it's important that you open up your hearts as well as your wallets and fund the next stage of Fediverse development.
This will take a lot of work. But if you want to fight Meta, challenge their dominance of social media, this is what must be done.
Personally, I'm hyped about the future of the Fediverse -- regardless of whether Meta eventually lives to tell the tale.
It is an existential threat to the very core of Meta’s social media monopoly. Surprisingly, if the goal is to fight against Meta’s hegemony, the most effective strategy may be to federate with them.
“But Chris,” some of you might state, “Even you agree that it might be better to defederate Meta – and you’ve even set up notmeta.social for expressly this purpose.”
Yes, because it’s not everyone’s objective to fight Meta, and there should be spaces where fighting Meta isn’t top of mind. Not everyone wants to be part and parcel of a fight, and that’s okay.
Let’s first acknowledge the technology through which federation happens. #ActivityPub is an open standard protocol that enables the decentralized social networking that powers the Fediverse. It allows different social media platforms (#Mastodon, #Calckey, #Kbin, etc.) to interoperate, meaning that users on one platform can communicate with users on another platform. Federation is the process by which these platforms connect and share content, forming a decentralized network.
The most important thing to understand about ActivityPub is that, more than a technology to merely send and receive messages, it’s also a common ruleset – a gentleman’s agreement that everyone will play nice when sending and receiving messages.
Now when Meta opts to use ActivityPub, they’re abiding by the agreement: to play by the same rules as everybody else. Should they renege on this agreement, they are no longer using ActivityPub. They’re using something else.
But let’s assume for a moment that Meta is abiding to use ActivityPub, and they indeed will play by the same rules. Knowing Meta, this is a tall order – but still, let’s assume.
ActivityPub means that whatever of Meta’s userbase that’s exposed to federation will diversify into other platforms. This is because, through ActivityPub, smaller platforms can connect with each other and offer a combined user base that competes with Meta’s centralized network. This diversification reduces the dependence of users on a single platform, giving them more choices and potentially drawing them away from Meta.
This creates an erosion of Meta’s network effects. Meta’s entire monopoly is based on ownership of their platforms’ network effects, where the value of the platform increases as more users join. Suddenly, by federating, Meta no longer own the network effect. This is because federation challenges this by breaking down barriers between platforms, allowing users to interact regardless of the platform they are on. This reduces the exclusivity and advantage Meta holds, as the network effects become distributed across multiple interconnected platforms.
Federation also gives Meta’s users power that they never previously had. Federation promotes decentralization by giving users greater control over their data and interactions. With ActivityPub, users have the freedom to choose which platform they prefer without sacrificing connectivity. This user empowerment threatens Meta’s control over user data and engagement, potentially leading to a loss of influence and advertising revenue.
ActivityPub poses a tangible threat to Meta’s monopoly on social media. By choosing to federate, Meta might be opening Pandora’s box. The moment Meta’s users receive a message from a server not owned by Meta is the moment they’re exposed to something else beyond Meta’s control. Inevitably, this will create more diversity of ActivityPub-enabled platforms – not less. This will erode Meta’s network effects. For people who use Meta, the power of decentralization – giving them more freedom – will prove revelatory.
Of course, this is a fight. And just because Meta federates doesn’t mean it’s game over. In the next post, I will explore what Meta is hoping to gain by joining the #Fediverse.
Just read that #calckey.social defederated at least one major server (the biggest UK #Mastodon instance) preventing their users interacting and exchanging with each other. Not sure how this walled bubble approach fits in with the enthusiastic attempts to place calckey.social as some kind of mainstream alternative to #Mastodon, but the Calckey grandees may know... I am off for good, I like to make my own decisions on a server with mature and non-arbitrary admin policies. @fediversenews
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:
To the #calckey experts: what’s the expected time of arrival for version 14? I have spent 2 full days to get #selfhosted#Mastodon to accept my SMTP settings, with very little success … I am ready for trying something else ;). Is version 14 coming soon or should I go with the latest stable 13.x version? Want to avoid unnecessary update work… @fediversenews
I'm very sorry for all of the degraded performance lately on calckey.social. As you may or may not know, we've been testing changes with our codebase, database deployment, ims deployment, and a whole lot more. After a lot of testing and changes, I thought that we were good enough to start opening signups again. Turns out... we're not. As I continue to work on things and start team up with some very smart people who've worked in deployment and scaling systems, we're going to do our absolute best to make sure that we can handle things on all ends, and hopefully get extra hands on deck for day-to-day operations, so it's not all on my shoulders. I was sadly unable to attend to a lot of things yesterday due to being out of town for the holiday, and being in a no-service area for the majority of the day, so I didn't know that there were issues until it was too late. Thank you for your patience as we go through growing pains. A full write-up on what went wrong, the steps we took, and how it's fixed (once it's fixed!) will be made after all this is done. For real.
I did NOT expect this amount of support, interest, and coverage! Hitting 13k from 11k in a little over 2 days across all servers is still boggling my mind. And it's not just calckey.social -- so many other servers are getting new users, and even ~30 new servers cropped up! Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart. I'll make sure that I do my hardest to make sure you all have a great experience.
As promised, you all deserve a peak into what we've been working on in secret for months. More details to come tonight/tomorrow. Stay tuned. 😉
First off, @evan sees this from the perspective of someone who's co-authored #ActivityPub. It's his job to spur and enable adoption -- and that's something he's done exceptionally well for 20 years. Of course he wants to help Meta abide by open standards. Which, even if you dislike Meta, you would hope they would do.
My perspective is as one who is building products that compete with Meta. Ideally, I would like people who use Meta to migrate away from there and instead use #Calckey, #GreatApe, and the numerous options available on #SpaceHost.
But even from the perspective of a competitor, I want interoperability with #Barcelona. And even more, I want interoperability based on open standards.
Yes, yes, yes -- "embrace, extend, extinguish". At this point, that phrase is a broken record.
But every time that phrase comes up, I keep asking folks: when has the "extinguish" part of "embrace, extend, extinguish" ever worked?
People say #RSS, but RSS is still here and I use it every day. Hell, Calckey even has an RSS widget and it works like a charm. RSS is not extinguished.
People also say #XMPP, but I can run an XMPP server right now -- no problems. People say XMPP "died" because it's no longer as popular now, but is it because Meta and Google dropped support, or is it because Slack, Discord, Signal, WhatsApp, and even Matrix have come along to eclipse it in popularity? Regardless, even if XMPP is no longer so popular, it's not extinguished.
The most ludicrous example of "extinguish" people bring up is Gmail's dominance of email. But email is the most popular communications technology we have today, even though it's 50 years old. What's more, look at the raw stats. Gmail is only 18% of the email server market -- that's no monopoly. Go have a look at the stats for yourselves:
The pessimistic notion that we will "lose" by allowing Meta to interoperate with ActivityPub -- again, an open standard -- just doesn't convince me. In fact, if Meta is adopting standard ActivityPub, I think "losing" is impossible.
With Meta adopting ActivityPub, we're not losing. We're winning. We're not conceding to Meta by adopting their proprietary APIs for interoperability. They're conceding to us by adopting ActivityPub.
Again, I'm not saying you should all federate with #Barcelona. I'm saying that Meta adopting an open standard that allows for interoperability is a win because, remember, they're adopting our standard. We're not adopting theirs.
Some also ask, "But what if Meta does a bait-and-switch and drops ActivityPub support?"
Well, there's kind of precedence for that.
Not enough people realize this, but Google once adopted the predecessor of ActivityPub. Specifically, they used OStatus for Google Buzz. Certainly, like many Google products, Google Buzz shuttered.
But the development for an open social media protocol lived on, and we all use what was developed right now.
No doubt, if Barcelona becomes Meta's Google Buzz, ActivityPub will live on. It will still be developed. We'll keep using it.
In the meantime, I'll consider ways to help Meta users migrate to platforms that I believe are better.
Ok, nice little social media experiment, how does the fediverse fare during an earthquake?
A midnight earthquake just hit my home city, which basically never gets earthquakes. Probably no damage at all from this one, but we all definitely felt it, which is unusual for us! (Prob ~4 on Richter scale)
Where did I go first to check if others felt it? NGL, the place I went last time there was a tremor … Twitter. And to be fair, on the top of my feed were posts from people I follow (who aren’t here) that live in my home city, tweeting about it, including links to official reports. This was very nice, as this time I was scared and thought my apartment building might be in trouble.
I quickly check #mastodon and #calckey. Nothing in timelines. Not surprising, I don’t really follow anyone or many that live in the same city as me.
Searching, mastodon’s hashtag search does ok, and surfaces a bot or two that also confirm the quake (@lastquake). But not many people, I’m not really finding a conversation. This is on an instance with ~50k users.
#Calckey’s full text search though (on calckey.social)?
Quicker. Just typed earthquake without worrying about hashtags.
And better results. More people were brought up, which is kinda what you’re after from social media during an event … reassurance. It was also surprising, as calckey has only ~2k users and therefore smaller visibility of the fediverse, but still gave me more connectivity just through search than my bigger mastodon instance.
Which is really an interesting demonstration of how hashtags can be problematic. Plenty of people were reaching out, asking “anyone feel that earthquake?”, they just forgot or didn’t think to use a hashtag, and so couldn’t find me through mastodon. And why would you in a (slightly) nervous situation like that. “Hmmm, is this the best hashtag, do you think people will search for it … I should probably check if it exists first?” … is not a thought goes through your mind.
I basically never visit Twitter since I left, but this was a nostalgic little episode. It was nice to see the fediverse wasn’t really behind big social. Though the lack of discovery facilities on mastodon really did show themselves here.
Blahaj zone (the Calckey instance) has been running for around 6 months now. We've had a slow but constant growth of new members, with a big spike when Calckey drew a lot of attention. And as a result, even though we're not a huge instance, we are one of the larger Calckey derived instances around.
lemmy.blahaj.zone on the other hand has seen crazy growth! In the last week, our lemmy instance has gone from almost no members, to nearly as many users as our Calckey instance. The mind blowing part though, is that the lemmy instance isn't even close to being one of the largest lemmy instances. We don't even appear on the first page of Fediverse Observer! And the sheer number of lemmy instances online now is huge compared to where it was a couple of weeks ago.
And that's before we even talk about kbin and the threadiverse as a whole, of which Lemmy is only a part
I can honestly say that this whole thing has shifted my view of just what the future of the fediverse might be. I assumed it would always be microblogging centric, but now, I question that...
A small group of people were offended by a joke that unintentionally came across transphobic, and as a result this persons account was blacklisted. Even after getting the account reinstated, there were lasting complications with the state of the account (these probably technical issues) and the account was basically lost for...
OC Why did the #TwitterMigration fail? (blog.bloonface.com)
I’ve been using fediverse stuff (Mastodon and, most recently, Calckey – I’m just going to use “Mastodon” as shorthand here, purists can bite me) for over a year now, a…
An interesting case of moderation in the fediverse (blog.ownlifeful.com)
A small group of people were offended by a joke that unintentionally came across transphobic, and as a result this persons account was blacklisted. Even after getting the account reinstated, there were lasting complications with the state of the account (these probably technical issues) and the account was basically lost for...