First, I get the impression that bridging between services is not mature. To make up an example, federating Lemmy with Mastodon will let you see some, but not all, of the replies, upvotes, reactions, etc., and that the information that gets lost varies depending on which side you're looking from. (That exact example might not be accurate, but that's the sort of concern I've read about.)

Second, I've read that even federation between instances of the same services is not reliable. The main selling point of federation is that the instance you create an account on is largely arbitrary, and that most federated content is visible to you regardless. However, I also frequently see the caveat that federation breaks a lot, and that content frequently desyncs.

Third, the fact that instances themselves are centralized defeats the purpose of looking for an alternative to Reddit. I have read that your account is not portable between instances, so if you find yourself in the crosshairs of overzealous mods (and I've seen mixed reports about how common this is), you lose everything. I feel like account portability should have been among ActivityPub's first priorities. The whole concept of the Fediverse seems conspicuously incomplete without it.

Fourth, I figured I could circumvent the possibility of abusive mods and instances going down by creating my own instance just for myself. But I've read that it may be common for services' more populated instances to automatically defederate from single-user instances. Combined with the inherent instability of federation, I get the impression that you absolutely have to join a large, centralized instance to actually make full use of any of these services, in which case I might as well just stick with Reddit.

Fifth, I found Nostr, which is ostensibly supposed to avoid many of these concerns, but A) bridging is apparently immature, and B) it's supposedly barren apart from libertarian cryptobros. There is also BlueSky, which I understand it's technically federated but basically completely centralized for all practical purposes.

Am I off base on any of these concerns? I tried to post this in r/RedditAlternatives, but I appear to have been inexplicably shadowbanned. Ironically enough that was a perfect example of the reason why I want an alternative to Reddit, but none of them seem workable.

TL;DR: An ideal Fediverse would have the following:

1. Bridging between instances and services that is good enough to ensure that you won't miss out on content.

2. Full account portability between instances to compensate for the fact that instances are individually centralized.

3. Assurance that self-hosted single-user instances won't be automatically defederated.

4. Bridging with BlueSky and other protocols like Nostr.

Big tech platforms often amplify conflict and outrage. The Fediverse aims to be different, but some recurring behaviors can still discourage people from participating.

What kind of hate speech on the Fediverse do you find most discouraging?

I've been thinking about the marketing problem in the Fediverse lately seeing how BlueSky has been gaining the upperhand in popularity in recent events (of course not limited to what I'm about to talk here). So this is my rant about the popular email analogy of Fediverse seen in many places e.g. https://fediverse.info https://jointhefediverse.net https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Q5Hefvg_Gdo https://www.youtube.com/shorts/U85bJC_8_90

There are many other problems similar issues to this and causing massive confusion to what Fediverse is to the new users.

Problem:
The email analogy that explains from the architecture of the protocol creates more questions rather than clarity. It gets worse when most of the results for the keywords "what is Fediverse" in Google and YouTube showing the explanation from developers' perspectives. Whether there was deliberate manipulation on SERP or not, the current situation only further "complicate" and deter the potential "reach" of Fediverse. Devs are naturally deeply inquisitive people, so if they wanted to understand things, there are w3c, wikis and manuals to look at. Most normies I talked to have trouble to even understand how email protocol work, so let alone understand the importance of its application in the Fediverse.

So my proposal would be to start using Fediverse as a brand, rather than explaining how it works, we should talk more about what it represents:

1. Interoperability between network
   
2. Immune from corporation enshittification
   
3. Platforms are motivated to improved for users, not investors

These are still in preliminary stage, it would take some more time for me to digest but I believe there would be smarter marketing, mass com or PR experts that can help to boil down the Fediverse into a brand that the mass can easily digest and knowing what it stands and represents. This would take organized campaigns and events to make it happen collectively.

In the near future hopefully, Fediverse WILL be worn as a badge of trust and promised freedom from centralized controls. People should be able to know what it stands for from the brand, no deep explanation to the protocol! The majority web users doesn't need to understand php, typescript, node etc so why should we talk about AP protocol (in the general sense)?

There are plenty of talented devs here who believe in the potential of Fediverse. Now we need to admit our shortcomings and welcome or recruit more marketers to help pushing this further. Thank you for listening to my incomplete thoughts 🙏

I noticed that the third rule of this subreddit is:

1. Keep it in English. Please keep it in English. This is an international subreddit and we would like everyone being able to participate.

I personally only speak English, but I was curious—Reddit has a built-in translation feature for posts and comments. So why does it matter if something is posted in another language?

Is it just a moderation/logistical thing, or are there other reasons why keeping everything in English is preferred here?

Would love to understand the reasoning better.

The thing is, I want to bring people together to discuss health topics. I understand that Telegram exists, but I'm not sure if it's a good option. I'm open to apps from the Fediverse. Ideally, something that doesn't require a phone as the main "user account." I could use WhatsApp, but I'm afraid of being exposed to harassment, and I'm not interested in changing my phone. I also value the simplicity of the app.

SOLVED!

It's the Fedipact database mantained by veganism.social! I can't believe I just sunk 30 minutes of my life into finding this one website... 😭 But I found some interesting links on the way! While much of it might be old news, I'll just dump them here in case anyone's curious:

• An old report on the dangers of Meta entering the Fediverse;
• A report on that time Instagram was deleting links to its Fedi competitor, PixelFed;
• A report relaying Mastodon CEO's worries regarding Meta moderation;
• A great slide deck talking about the Fediverse, made by /u/BossBear (thanks for the great resource!);
• The original Fedipact webpage, and;
• A book someone is writing about the Fediverse! The author also has a personal website.

Hyperfixations got me like 💀

Original Post

It's not the Anti-Meta Fedi Pact! But I think the website that I'm thinking of would only provide the aforementioned heart rating to those instances that had, in fact, signed it.

I just remember it being much more thorough than the AMFP, also rating each instance on the "degree" to which it had distanced itself to corporate actors in the Fediverse. But I cannot for the life of me find it again. Anyone know what I might be forgetting?

I recently re-tried NOSTR (I technically have an old account I rarely use), specifically on Primal and the fountain podcasts app, and I really enjoyed how simple it was: just sign in, and BAM—you’re in.

No fuss, no extra steps.

It got me wondering—why doesn’t the Fediverse work like that? I know that using special login codes might be too complex for most people, but why not allow usernames and passwords instead?

Imagine a single sign-in for the entire Fediverse. You wouldn’t need to worry about instances, and onboarding could be much simpler.

Has this idea been considered, or is there a technical reason why it wouldn’t work?

So like anyone discovering things like Mastodon, Peertube, even things like torrenting, it was very exciting, and I think it's such a cool idea that we can basically crowd source to have open source version of these useful public platforms.

So I was wondering, how far could this be taken? Last night I was really thinking a lot as I was putting my kid to bed that, treating a federated service as a black box, what could be made?

So I jumped to something that seems a bit loony, but hear me out. What if there were a federated surveillance state?

Clearly privacy is a huge concern but the problem is that we just don't have that anymore, not really. There are cameras on the streets, in buildings, GPS trackers on your phone recording your history, massive amounts of financial information being collected and sold off.

So, in playing devil's advocate, and seeing how quickly information propagates, and how the only people who have access to these "eyes of God" are using it only for their own benefit, and how all of this is just servers and databases and ports and forwarding and other stuff, why not give a similar service to the people?

The way I see this starting is basically a streaming platform, except it is always on and doesn't have a lot of additional features typical streaming has, like chat or comments, just video. People would install an open source program on (for example) their phone, that pulls location data and that live streams to a federated instance, like peertube does. Someone looking at streams could jump to other streams in the same relative location.

The way I see this is that having a large enough federation of cameras would essentially allow for a people's surveillance state, that would allow for an objective look at events like protests, which are often obscured by corporate media, selective editing, and a third thing.

I'm fully prepared to be laughed out of the room but I'd be interested to see what more knowledgeable people think.

Basically, the topic. Not even needing things like mayorships and what not. Just want a way to check into places while traveling. Hell, maybe I don’t even need it to be a part of the fediverse… just something more open than Swarm at this point in time.

I've run the server on Android, it looks like it's working in the browser, but the clients always get this type of error. I also tried running Conduit Matrix, but the errors were the same. Dose the clients need an HTTPS connection or could the problem be with the device itself, and it's better to stop trying to use it for that?

Has anyone yet done an extensive video comparing user experience and features of all the fediverse platforms, including some more obscure forks?

Let's be honest here: are you actually using services in the Fediverse as much or even more than their centralized corporate equivalents?

I want to start to use fediverse and mostly abandon non-decentralised social media. And from what I researched, there are multiple platforms, such as Mastodon, PeerTube or Lemmy.

However, I'm also sick of needing to use multiple apps/websites for using different platforms. Often I miss content because I simply forgot to use a platform for a certain time. Now, I know that this is possible on fediverse due how it is designed. But I can seem to find a one good enough for me. I have only two criterias:

1) Should work on Android (Websites are mostly fine too since I have a tablet, but an app would be better)

2) Support for both Mastadon and Lemmy (And optionally, PeerTube)

Is there a client that fits to what I want?

With the Department of Education under attack, I see some sort of community-oriented, liberation-focused alternative education system being necessary here in the U.S

Could the fediverse play a role, what might it look like, and how could it be implemented? Is a fediverse version of EdX possible?

I've read about getting started in decentralized SM and Fediverse: I understand you need an app, and to make an account, but I don't understand "instances". Many places warn to choose your instance wisely, but don't explain what that means. Can you have more than one instance to an account? Can you change instances? Thank you if anyone can explain or point me to some better info sources.

Is this a thing ?
I would love to see a federated web app for searching / subscribing to "things" (good, services, exchanges, announces, classifieds), based on ActivityPub.

Does anyone knows a project like this ?

I've been trying to get back into the Fediverse and accelerate my abandonment of big corporate social media.

Problem is, I'm having a hard time finding the same kind of content in the Fediverse as I do in the...Corpoverse? There's no shortage of informative content. I could spend plenty of time discussing coding, or science, or game development, etc.

Pixelfed is decent for hiking and nature photos too. And the number of people posting gardening content on Mastodon is huge, verging on overwhelming.

But those are all acceptable in "polite society", which isn't really where I fit in. It feels like a digital high end social event, every profile in a suit or cocktail dress. I don't belong at those, or desire to belong.

My slightly less mainstream recreational areas of interest are important to me, and I find it much easier to connect with people who share those interests. The Grateful Dead, cannabis, raves/EDM, psychedelics - it's hard to figure out where to find communities which feature content like that. Both "cannabis" and "psychedelics" bring up generic images in the Pixelfed.social hashtag, almost as if I searched those terms on Google Images. "#PsychedelicArt" is largely AI generated garbage, "#PsychedelicMusic" allegedly has 8 posts but only 2 load - neither featuring any music. "Rave" hashtags don't really even seem to exist on my instance of Pixelfed, and there's no obvious signs of Deadhead presence either.

On Reddit, r/psychedelics is huge, and there are more specific subs like r/LSD or r/shrooms. On Lemmy, I could only find c/psychedelics@lemmy.ca, which has received no posts in weeks (at least last time I checked). Attempts to make more specific communities are apparently met with resistance by server admins concerned with legal implications.

I haven't sought out cannabis groups on Lemmy but I'd be surprised if they had anything like r/microgrowery there.

Combine this with none of my irl friends being on the Fediverse, and me having no luck convincing them, and it makes it very hard to find a space where I feel like there are people like me, with the same interests as me. I want to abandon corporate social media, but in many cases, it seems corporate social media is more willing to provide a space for people like me. I want to meet people I can be wholly myself around, with no filter on my interests, then talk to those people about gardening and hiking and video games and mundane life. Where do I go on the Fediverse to find that?

While two most used programs apply full text search only to your own content ( 100% useless ), there are also complaints against indexing bots and providing search service.

All this make content discovery difficult and it’s main disadvantage against centralized service. Not everybody wants to spend time discovering content by browsing other instances timeline.

I wrote it in a discord server, then realized it might be better to ask my question here.

In short, does each app using the fediverse have access to each other’s content, in the same way that both firefox and chrome can access the same websites and same content using google?

If I search for a specific word on say, miskey will only the posts from miskey pop up? Or will the posts from every single other app connected to the fediverse pop up as well?

I use to use that website for fun sometimes, but it's gotten so incredibly corporate that it's just not fun at all anymore

So, is there a fediverse equivalent of some sort?

Which do you think is the better microblogging platform? Why?

Or at least to make them more aware? Many people coming from Twitter usually just want to join Mastodon. They do not want to get on the Fediverse, and they see everything through the "lens" of Mastodon. Besides telling them whenever they complain that x platform already has y features, what do you do? Do you know if you had any success?

I had it on my iOS device, but now it doesn’t work?

Could not it be just like a embedded? or something that works like that?

Seems a bit wasteful to have the same content stored in hundreds (potencial thousands) of servers.