Fediverse Report is now Connected Places!
As the open social web grows, my writing has expanded to cover the large variety of places within this connected network of platforms. Fundamentally I think the open social web are Connected Places. The platforms, instances and communities we're building are digital places, connected via open protocols.
This name changes better reflects what my writing is all about. To read more: https://connectedplaces.online/welcome-to-connected-places/
The weekly Fediverse Report doesnt disappear though, its just on a different domain name. In fact, Fediverse Report #122 is right here!
This week's news:
- @Mastodon announces and retracts a new ToS for their instances
- Threads moves their fediverse integration to a separate feed
- Wanderer is a new fediverse platform for sharing your hiking and biking trails
https://connectedplaces.online/reports/fediverse-report-122/
In terms of Threads account portability, @davidimel's excellent question, and @pcottle's response: Mosseri was very candid about the goal here in his original quote in July 2023:
“I think we might be a more compelling platform for creators, particularly for the newer creators who are more and more savvy, if we are a place where you don’t have to feel like you have to trust us forever.”
And his Mosseri's December 2023 quote is similar:
"Eventually, it should also be possible to enable creators to leave Threads and take their followers with them to another app/server") is along the same lines."
As I said in Embrace, Extend, and Exploit: Meta's plan for ActivityPub, Mastodon and the Fediverse
Hmm, "eventually" is doing a lot of work there. How long will it take, and real will the story turn out to be? It's hard to know. For one thing, Mosseri has said that Threads' current plan is to "explicitly opt in to your content being available on other servers"; while that's good from a privacy and safety perspective, if they follow through it would also mean that creators to leaving won't be able to take all their followers with them. [If somebody's following you on Threads but hasn't opted in to federation, then when you move to an instance in the real fediverse they won't be following you any more.] And until "eventually" happens, creators can't actually move any of their followers to the fediverse. So we shall see.
But from Meta's perspective, so what? As Mosseri says, the goal here is to make people feel like they don't have to trust Meta forever. It's a good story, and that by itself has a lot of value at this point. It's getting favorable coverage in the tech press, too."
Some more practical stuff:
- The publishing schedule stays exactly the same. Tuesdays is Fediverse Report, Thursday is Bluesky/ATmosphere Report, Friday is an essay and personal takes for email subscribes.
- Because you all love RSS: https://connectedplaces.online/feed/
- You can follow the blog via activitypub: @laurenshof@connectedplaces.online
- Ill cross post to fediversereport.com for a while still, still figuring out the moving account on wordpress stuff
I didnt set the caching plugin properly on the new website and immediately ddosed myself with the classic mastodon ddos
rip lol
This is a small personal instance of Bonfire in the Fediverse.
