I keep thinking about a couple #Twitter threads criticizing #Mastodon (the #Fediverse, really) for being inherently different than closed commercial platforms using far-fetched hypotheticals and extraordinary occurrences; while I do not want to make a useless point-by-point response, instead I'll tell you what I like about federated social media and #Friendica in particular.
After #Facebook froze my account for using a pseudonym (a spottily enforced rule), I started hosting my own #Diaspora pod because I could.
I didn't know anyone so I initially made contacts with other podmins and progressively extended my circle through shared posts. This is how I learned about #Friendica, a platform that was compatible with both #Diaspora and #OStatus (#GNUSocial, #StatusNet ) because it could.
Written in #PHP, liked both the multi-protocol approach and that I could contribute code to it. So I started hosting my #Friendica node and I kept following the same Diaspora accounts, because I could.
When #Mastodon was first released based on OStatus, I started following several accounts on there because I could. When #ActivityPub was released and supported by Mastodon, we followed suite a few months later, because we could.
With popularity came the right-wing trolls and free speech extremists who organized their own federated instances, but they never bothered me much as I blocked their entire instance domains because I could.
None of these are currently possible with commercial platforms. Not all people will end up hosting their own node and it's fine, but the breadth of possibility is what makes federated social network attractive.
Some days I'm glad my instance of #GNUsocial doesn't support #ActivityPub and isolates me from the idiocy on Mastodon of which I already get plenty from #Birdsite.
The time may come for !gnusocial, #Friendica, #Mastodon, and other Fediverse software to move their #IRC channels to a different network. Hopefully, we can discuss and co-ordinate that move.
@vegos I agree. To most organizations, their primary concern is reach. So they congregate on big #corpocentric #socnets, even when the central corporation running things is actively hostile to their point of view.
Then they're butthurt when their accounts are shadowbanned.
Years ago, I tried to persuade some local Black churches and ethic-focused organizations to join !GNUsocial and #Diaspora, but was unsuccessful. I think they all joined #Facebook, where their posts are hidden by the algorithms.
Caution: this episode is over three hours long, so I have not listened (and will likely only listen to a fraction of it).
I wish @tio had also brought someone from #GNU_Social and someone from #Pleroma (and maybe @mike@loadaverage.org @mike@z.macgirvin.com to represent #Hubzilla and #Zap (and #Mistpark, #Redmatrix), and @dansup developer and project founder / leader of #PixelFed, and perhaps someone from #PeerTube, #Misskey, and so on). The other thing I wish had been done is to slice this far-too-long episode into four pieces, each an hour or less in length.
Sorry, Michael, I don't know whether you're officially the project leader, so I left that unsaid.
♲ @AlexVoss@fosstodon.org: Student of mine is conducting a survey on the barriers to uptake of alternative social media platforms. Your input would be much appreciated. Please boost.
Efforts to mount a rescue of #GSNO appear to have failed. If you’re a user of #gnusocial.no, you have about two weeks to grab your data and find a new #Fediverse home. You can see a list of some public !gnusocial instances at https://gnusocial.network/try/
I am conducting an anonymous survey for my MSc dissertation on the barriers to uptake of alternative social media platforms. If you're interested, please click the link below. Your input would be much appreciated!