Nick @internic@social.cleverlibre.org

My tip for newly-arrived #Twitter expats: ignore the accounts whose entire brand is doling out advice about the Fediverse. This place really isn't as difficult to navigate as those folks would have you believe.

If all you want is a place to exchange ideas, follow experts, and get breaking news, then all you need to know is how to log in/out of your Mastodon account and where the "Follow" button is. If that's all you want, this place really is just like any other online social network.

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The crazy part about this is, that Meta didn't HAVE to subvert the protocol or find ways to bribe instance admins into showing their ads.

All they had to do was **announce **they'd be supporting a supplementary protocol some time in the future, and part of the Fediverse start acting exactly counter to the ideal of an open protocol, thus starting the almost inevitable downfall of a network that worked extremely well, in some incarnations, for more than ten years.

Imagine Mail or SMS starting to fracture into cells of smaller networks, because Mail Provider A does not think their users should be able to email users from B and C, while C doesn't talk to D and D won't let you receive mail from A. Imagine not being able to send a SMS to T-Mobile number, because Sprint doesn't think you should be able to, and Telefonica blocking Cyta, because Vodafone is blocking PrimeTel...

Yeah, let's do that. Zuckerberg hasn't even entered the ring, and you already threw the towel.

I just had a look at #Meta's recent press release about #Threads, and something caught my attention right away.

For the very first time, they're acknowledging another #Fediverse platform alongside #Mastodon. Specifically, they're highlighting that #WordPress can now connect through #ActivityPub.

Now, you know Meta's PR department doesn't say things by accident. So here's why this is a big deal. Last time I checked, WordPress powers a whopping 43% of the Internet. Yeah, you heard that right! If you visit a website, there's a good chance it's using WordPress as its CMS.

Now, if even a fraction of those WordPress sites start federating, it could have a huge impact on the network effect of the Fediverse. Of course, Meta isn't oblivious to this. I've been talking about the potential of WordPress and ActivityPub for quite some time now.

But if you're particularly observant, you might also notice that they mention #Tumblr. We've known for a while that Tumblr is likely to integrate ActivityPub into their platform.

But here's an interesting tidbit: Did you know that one company, Automattic, not only owns Tumblr but is also the driving force behind WordPress?

I don't want to jump to conclusions, but once again, PR departments don't just drop hints randomly. I have a strong feeling that Meta has been having some high-level discussions with Automattic about the future of ActivityPub. It wouldn't surprise me if Meta has some insights into Automattic's upcoming plans for the Fediverse.

https://about.fb.com/news/2023/07/introducing-threads-new-app-text-sharing/

@fediversenews@venera.social

Right wing influencers are convinced the Instagram Threads logo is the mark of the devil

A major German newspaper asked me to write an opinion piece on the Supreme Court - then refused to publish it because they regard my argument that the rightwing majority stands in direct opposition to multiracial, pluralistic democracy and the modern state as too extreme. 🤷

CNN & FOX News have done to our parents exactly what they thought Marylin Manson and violent video games would do to us.

Via @ashedryden: Mississippi has banned minors under 18 from accessing e-books through public libraries in order to prevent kids accessing "obscene" materials unless vendors can ensure that _everything_ they offer meets the state's definition of obscenity (which predictably includes anything to do with queerness or sex education): https://bookriot.com/hoopla-overdrive-libby-now-banned-for-those-under-18-in-mississippi/

My new social media app is called Grouse. You can only post criticism of the 3,000 other new social media apps.

Posts are called “Gripes.” No likes or reposts—just one button to “Commiserate.” If a Gripe receives enough Commiseration it’s elevated by the algorithm into a “Complaint.”

Also there’s an academic version called “Faculty Meeting.”

I’m gonna be at a yard sale some weekend next year and find Twitter just sitting there behind a salad bowl for like $20.

The more I look at Threads, the more I appreciate the fediverse.

As @DrPsyBuffy explains, this (HOA types and reply guys) is why we can't have nice things. Specifically, more users on the Fediverse.

https://mstdn.social/@DrPsyBuffy/110672579519159798

Mastodon went from 1.2M active users last week to 1.8M active users this week. That's not 70M users overnight, but it's something! 🙂

@MigueLeesPaul @DrPsyBuffy

The fediverses founding communities were some overlap of free software people, queer people, and furries so yeah lots of Linux users around these networks.

I would personally like to argue one of the big advantages to federation is that we don't all have to agree on how we should behave.

There are different communities with different goals and needs and that means people will want different settings.

Some people want locked down accounts that are hard to find and that's OK.

There are other people advertising their work and they want to be findable.

In my opinion people should find the the servers that meet their needs best and chill out about everyone else needing to fediverse the same way.

Mastodon can be so weird. My feeds are filled with lots of posts complaining about how and why people are doing mastodon wrong, how they should post, why they should change their server, shaming people for forgetting to add text to an image, calling people who haven’t deleted their twitter accounts Nazis, now followed by posts ripping on people trying Threads….all followed by posts wondering why people don’t seem to enjoy Mastodon as much as they think they should. I just can’t imagine why 🙄

ICYMI, Bea Wolf got some pretty darn good reviews. Please tell your local librarian:

Next time, I will replace some of the examples of heat engines by heat pumps. Counterclockwise in the pV plane will be the more relevant direction for the future.

God, I don't know. I've always believed artists have to go where the audience is, but I never felt like a trained sealed as much as I have this last year. I guess we're just going to leap into the artist-shaped hole Threads opened up, make ironic jokes as we do so, and then just keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller.

Thank God there are still people who buy books.

"The monstrous denizens of the intergalactic deep reveal themselves not through the light they emit, but by how they stir the space-time we share. When a gravitational wave moves through you, you are, for a moment, a different shape.” By me, in the Washington Post:
https://wapo.st/3PLNyoi

How it started, and how it’s going and going…