Laurens
I care about an ethical internet. I write about Bluesky and the ATmosphere at connectedplaces.online 🇳🇱
FR#157 – Social Software Distribution
Open social protocols are expanding beyond social media into the infrastructure developers use to build, distribute, and discover software. Three recent launches show what that looks like in practice.
FR#156 – Share Where?
On Mastodon's new Share button, and protocol ownership.
FR#155 – Where Does Community Live – updates
A big grab bag of news, that ties into the question of 'Where Does Community Live?'
FR#154 – Search and Community
Fediverse search engine Holos Discover shut down this week, showing structural issues how to distinguish between individual and community consent.
Where Does Community Live?
ActivityPub and ATProto both promise to rebuild social life online, but they answer the question of where community actually forms in fundamentally different ways. Protocol design is institutional design, and right now those institutions are being built.
FR#153 – What does a Discord replacement look like?
Discord has announced plans to age-verify all users globally next month, as age verification laws around the globe are taking root. As many people understand the open social web in a form of contrast with Big Tech platforms, seeing it as a refuge from enshittification, this led to another round of conversations on what alternatives there actually are for Discord.
FR#153 – What does a Discord replacement look like?
With Discord announcing age verification globally, people are searching for alternatives. But a Discord alternative on the open social web might just look structurally quite different.
FR#152 – The DSA Needs Big Tech
On the tension in the DSA, that needs Big Tech platforms to exist so it can regulate them, while the fediverse does away with large platforms altogether.
FR#151 – TikTok Won’t Be Another Twitter
The conditions that made 'leaving Twitter' a meaningful part of the open social web's identity don't exist for TikTok. What happens when people can't see each other leave?
FR#150 – On ICE, Verification, and Presence As Harm
Bluesky built a verification system designed to distribute trust, and then didn't use it when it mattered.
Fediverse Report – #149 – On Protocol Governance
On the complexities of protocol governance.
X Is a Power Problem, Not a Platform Problem
Fediverse Report #148: X is not a just platform problem anymore, it's a power problem, and why you cannot compete as platforms with power.
Fediverse Report -#147
Threads' fediverse integration is on maintenance mode, signalling the end to a tumultuous story and period for the fediverse.
Fediverse Report – #146
PeerTube releases their new annual software version update, and more on Bonfire.
The Digital Services Act and Theories of Power
The European Commission put a 120M EUR fine on X for DSA violations. But as the European politicians cannot get themselves to leave the platform, it shows the issues with how they understand how power works on social platforms.
Fediverse Report – #145
Holos is a new project to run an ActivityPub server on your mobile phone, more on Thread's user statistics, and an interview with Mastodon's creator Eugen Rochko.
Fediverse Report – #144
Newsmast launches news app that combines local news with fediverse integration, and the first Brazilian fediverse conference with WebSocialBR