Johannes Ernst

Technologist, founder, organizer.

Let's put people back in control of their technology. The Fediverse is a good start. Also wondering aloud where we are taking this planet.

Check out my home page for more info and links.

He/him. tfr

Home page with more info and links: https://j12t.org
FediForum, the unconference for the fediverse next Sept 12-14: https://fediforum.org
Dazzle Labs Inc.: https://dazzlelabs.net
Pronouns: He/him/any

Public Key

npub1vg8u2w2dj8k6xss8ufescfer40sjn3hntwfh33lvlhkvtzaswj3sz9rrql

NIP-05 Address

j12t_at_social.coop@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsxyr7989xermdrggr7yucvyu36hcffcme4hymcclk0mmx93wc8fgcpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds37yw97

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub1vg8u2w2dj8k6xss8ufescfer40sjn3hntwfh33lvlhkvtzaswj3sz9rrql

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Last Notes

2024-07-30 16:54:58

For those people who consider #AI a major helper when #programming, I don't know ...
Today's experience, caused by me being too lazy to look up the APIs myself:
Me: How do I do X?
Chatgpt: yadda yadda max_redirect(0).
Me: It doesn't have a max_redirect().
Chatgpt: Sorry, yes, it doesn't have it, use requests_redirectable() instead.
Me: It doesn't have a requests_redirectable() either.
Chatgpt: Sorry, you are right, it doesn't have that either.
Should I go on?

2024-07-29 17:14:42

@npub158d…9kvp says "The Fediverse is an alliance of websites". Oh, I like that a lot.
From the first episode of "The Fediverse Files" he produced for WordPress/Automattic.
Go watch! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzYozbNneVc

2024-07-28 00:35:26

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So on balance, I believe the Fediverse is better. I think most people here agree (otherwise why would you be here?). Even if some parts are bad. Maybe even realllly bad.
Do we have work to do? Ohhh yesssss ... on reducing harassment and many other things. Let's focus our energies on that, and -- note this advantage of the Fediverse: we can actually do the work we think needs doing, unlike with commercial social media where we just can complain and generally get ignored -- let's go!
(end)

2024-07-28 00:34:09

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Except, of course, we can compare and we do compare systems with many features all the time. We trade off good and bad against each other, and we can do the same thing for the Fediverse and commercial social media platforms.
The result is necessarily subjective, but I for one am perfectly willing to go through some extra hoops to understand comments on other servers, if that means I'm not commercially surveilled. Your tradeoffs may be different.

2024-07-28 00:32:44

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So ... is the Fediverse better or worse than commercial social media platforms? Well, clearly, it is better in some ways and worse in some others.
Our friends in the math department will tell us: you are trying to compare two things that cannot be compared, neither is better than the other, just like you can't compare vectors or complex numbers directly, you cannot compare systems that have more than one feature directly!
(cont'd)

2024-07-28 00:31:28

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More good things:
* The freedom to innovate! Anybody can write some code and connect it to the Fediverse, and we have already seen an incredible explosion of creativity that all the billions invested in the commercial social media are not matching.
* Many users also report that they have felt more accepted, less harassed, and more at home in the fediverse than they ever have anywhere else online. I have no reason to doubt them.
(cont'd)

2024-07-28 00:30:50

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However, the Fediverse also has some really major positive features, again picking some from a long list, randomly:
* No ads! No surveillance! That's a major plus in my book compared to the commercial platforms.
(cont'd)

2024-07-28 00:30:03

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Continued bad things:
* Not even the comment trees or Likes are consistent across instances. You might think nobody commented on a post, but there might be 100 comments on that post on some other instance that simply haven't been forwarded. Not good in my view.
(cont'd)

2024-07-28 00:29:25

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Continued bad things:
* On the Fediverse, moderation is uneven in a very major way. Each instance is different, most moderators have little training or experience, many instances are understaffed, and some instances are intentionally racist etc. etc. Not true for commercial systems.
(cont'd)

2024-07-28 00:28:34

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So while we are on the subject of things that are worse in the Fediverse than on today's major walled-garden commercial social media platforms, there are many other things that are worse, and if one made a list, it would not be short. Picking a few at random:
* on the Fediverse, sometimes -- too often -- instance operators simply kill off their servers, with no warning and no mitigation for their users. That's clearly bad and doesn't happen in that way in the commercial universe.
(cont'd)

2024-07-28 00:26:48

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Are there death threats in the Fediverse? I have not seen that. But I have seen people reporting that they received some, and I have no reason to doubt that. So yes, very likely.
Is that acceptable? Ahem. NO!
(cont'd)

2024-07-28 00:26:16

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Is there more frequent or more intense harassment on the Fediverse compared to, say, Twitter/X? I don't know. Has anybody researched that? (I'd love to see a pointer).
But: are there people who have shared their lived experience that they have been harrassed more often or more intensely in the Fediverse than elsewhere? I certainly have seen that, repeatedly. So for at least some, that seems to be true.
Is that acceptable? Of course not.
(cont'd)

2024-07-28 00:25:10

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Is there harassment in the Fediverse? Oh yes, I have seen it, many times, and no, I do not need more evidence.
Is there harassment of people of color in the Fediverse? Yes, I have seen it.
Is that okay? Obviously not! Here or elsewhere.
(cont'd)

2024-07-28 00:24:21

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Apparently I am a "relatively high-profile fediverse influencer". Not sure what exactly that is, but does that mean one has to answer questions whose answers are quite obvious? Maybe? (I hope not?) But let me try anyway ...
(cont'd)

2024-07-28 00:02:29

Back from a very nice hike in the not-so-hot hills today.
The Fediverse is missing that "Away" status that we used to have in instant messaging. Or more likely these days "out of coverage" or "taking a mental break"...
So ... catching up.

2024-07-25 17:17:05

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Actually ... you have to follow first! That's why I didn't see it. If you, like me, met somebody last night, and you look them up by search and want to add them to a list, the "add to list" does not show up before you click Follow. Not obvious.

2024-07-25 17:11:12

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Duh! I looked really hard and could not see that button!

2024-07-25 16:56:08

Is there a way to add people to a Mastodon list in the Web UI that does not take 6+ steps, including a search field that somehow uses a different algorithm than the main search field?

2024-07-19 05:54:26

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if you have numbers that show the fediverse is worse for some population / use case than other systems, that certainly would also be interesting.

2024-07-18 17:27:20

We say that the #Fediverse is better than centralized social media platforms. I obviously believe that as well.
But:
Can we prove it? In ways that are not just anecdotal personal experience or beliefs, but with objective data? I'm looking for pointers.
There are obviously many dimensions, from, say, higher "engagement" to reduced harassment and a thousand things in between. Who has good numbers on any of those? Would it be worthwhile to collect them somewhere?

2024-07-15 15:46:53

Who is doing the best work on cross-instance user experience in the Fediverse? Pointers appreciated.
Things like remote follow, share to fediverse, same account for multiple instances etc.

2024-07-14 16:58:10

The #Ghost people are doing excellent #ActivityPub marketing with their weekly newsletters, such as today’s. I don’t agree with some of the details of their points of view, but that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, they are doing a great service educating potential users beyond the niche of today’s typical Mastodon users. Recommended.
And you can get the newsletter by following @npub1lxn…wutr
https://activitypub.ghost.org/its-all-about-the-infrastructure/

2024-07-10 17:00:19

Federation as a feature that helps to compete. This is first I think in the #Fediverse.
That's how I read this #Techcrunch headline about #ghost 's work on #ActivityPub.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/08/substack-rival-ghost-federates-its-first-newsletter/
/cc @npub19g4…6a0t @npub1lxn…wutr

2024-06-03 19:09:57

Congratulations @npub1qal…csz4 https://www.heise.de/en/news/The-Fediverse-is-growing-After-Threads-Bluesky-can-also-be-linked-to-Mastodon-9745631.html

2024-05-28 18:12:10

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As adoption of the Fediverse hopefully grows from the current niche of a couple of million or so technology enthusiasts into the next phase, the language will and must change. It will change again if/when the Fediverse makes it across the chasm into the mainstream.
So IMHO it's all good.

2024-05-27 02:45:58

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the context of this post was that Threads is apparently used quite a bit for organizing in Taiwan. It’s not obvious to me that mastodon or other fediverse apps are any worse than Threads for that purpose, and may even be better?

2024-05-26 04:18:38

What would it take for #Mastodon to become that political organizing app instead of Twitter or Threads? Isn’t it a much more logical place?
Anybody trying to make it so? Any reasons that speak against?
https://restofworld.org/2024/instagram-threads-app-taiwan-protests/

2024-05-25 19:25:35

This may well turn out to be an extremely important article for adoption of the #fediverse beyond its current niches.
https://digiday.com/media/why-publishers-are-preparing-to-federate-their-sites/

2024-05-18 20:17:10

Anybody know what triggers a profile re-fetch in #mastodon ?
After an instance accessed a remote account for the first time, it fetches name, avatar, number of followers etc. When will it fetch it next to potentially update?

2024-05-17 20:19:46

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I've always thought that what you get via push delivery and what you see in the outbox should be 100% consistent, because then if you don't get a pushed update -- e.g. because of a temporary failure -- you can go back and fetch what you missed. But certainly AP doesn't require or even suggest that behavior.

2024-05-17 19:09:04

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what’s your reasoning there?

2024-05-17 16:34:53

Ghost has a (pretty funny) update on their #ActivityPub development.
https://activitypub.ghost.org/building-activitypub-day-1/

2024-05-11 02:50:55

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Where are you having that conversation?

2024-05-11 02:05:47

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Rachel: one of the challenges with the fediverse is: how do you figure out where your content went, and how can I follow that conversation that now exists on multiple different servers?
Wants all replies in the same spot. That helps feel people in control.
This is actually a really good point imho. It's not just confusing that reply trees aren't eventually consistent across the fediverse, but it creates uncertainty because I don't even know what people say in response.

2024-05-11 02:03:52

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Both Rachel and Peter suggest that some moderation functionality could/should become part of the protocol stack. #AtProto does composable moderation and that is really cool. Peter hopes that #ActivityPub may learn from it and evolve in this direction.

2024-05-11 02:02:26

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adds that in his view, the fediverse makes more sense for public conversations, as opposed to his example of his own Instagram profile that he has set to private.

2024-05-11 01:51:39

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Shout-out to @npub17fe…w0a6: he's asking #Meta all the good questions about federation and beyond on his dot.social podcast.
Now: do you see federation more broadly as it relates to (other parts of) Meta, like Instagram and other social products you have?
Nor surprisingly, he gets a bit of a non-answer: it's early days, we have a lot to learn, how are people reacting etc.

2024-05-10 21:05:54

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Mike: What are the main concerns?
Rachel: fair share of criticism. Trying to approach this as a good citizen.
Pulling the rug out of it now would also impact very negatively the overall story Meta has been trying to build about open source and how they engage with the community.

2024-05-10 21:02:44

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Mike commends Rachel and Peter and other Meta people reaching out to the community and listening to concerns and feedback, such as at #fediforum:
I would agree with that. It's unusual for a large company to do this kind of thing, but absolutely the right and necessary thing to do when engaging with the Fediverse.

2024-05-10 20:59:21

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Mike: what are the next steps?
Rachel: first milestone was the publish out from Threads.
2nd and next: get engagement from the fediverse back into threads ie comments and likes etc
3rd: follow people from the fediverse in Threads.

2024-05-10 20:55:24

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Peter: people have been asking creators on Threads to turn on Fediverse sharing (it's opt-in): it's so much easier to turn on fediverse sharing than to post to an entirely different social network.

2024-05-10 20:54:03

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Mike asks: how has the reaction been?
Rachel: people are excited to see that we are actually doing this! So far we are not actively promoting the Fediverse, but the adoption numbers have been good. We also still have some things to work through, like communicating tradeoffs.

2024-05-10 20:51:53

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Rachel: people have more choice [when their apps integrate with the #fediverse]. They get to go where the rules are that align most with their values, and they get to vote with their feet.
Also exciting from the product development perspective: if you don't have to build your own [social] graph, you get to spend more time on cool functionality.

2024-05-10 20:47:45

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asks: what about other federation protocols like #AtProto?
A: #ActivityPub is a W3C standard, that's important. It's also been battle-tested over the years.
[@pcottle](https://threads.net/@pcottle/ ) muses it would be interesting to "port over" some AtProto features to ActivityPub, like account portability.

2024-05-10 20:44:35

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asks: How foundational in the Fediverse to Threads? Or is it just a feature?
A: Fediverse was part of the planning from the very beginning. There are lot of new things to introduce users to, and also a lot of new things to understand when federating beyond what a typical app does. Like how can users control what happens, and understand what happens?

2024-05-10 20:33:52

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Rachel provides two key reasons (my phrasing):
1. #Threads wants to be the best place where people have relevant, public, real-time conversations, and the #fediverse is the means by which people can find the audiences that are best for those conversations, because not all of them will be on Threads.
2. The fediverse is a compelling way for creators to own their audiences in a way they aren't able to own on other apps today.

2024-05-10 20:33:03

Finally I'm getting around to listen to @npub17fe…w0a6 's Dot.Social episode with [@rklambo](https://threads.net/@rklambo/ ) and [@pcottle](https://threads.net/@pcottle/ ) from #meta, talking about #threads.
Mike asks the most important question first: "why are you [Meta] doing this [Fediverse integration]?"
[cont]

2024-05-10 03:32:16

Jack Dorsey interview post-#Bluesky. Whatever you think of him, his views on why he helped getting Bluesky started in the first place are interesting. I wonder which of those might apply to the Fediverse (which he doesn't mention at all).
https://www.piratewires.com/p/interview-with-jack-dorsey-mike-solana

2024-05-09 18:16:23

"Navigating User Privacy in the Decentralized Social Web".
Online webinar, sponsored by Meta.
Just fluttered into my inbox.
https://www.privacylaws.com/events-gateway/events/fediverse2024/
#privacy #meta #fediverse

2024-05-08 17:59:08

So #Bluesky is implementing an (unspecified) new protocol for direct messages. Because AtProto is really not suitable for anything that isn't 100% public.
I wonder whether they can do this now that Jack is off the board. But maintaining two separate protocols in the same app? Who knows, maybe #ActivityPub is next?
https://bsky.social/about/blog/05-07-2024-product-roadmap

2024-04-26 15:30:19

11 people on the data portability task force meeting for the #fediverse today.

2024-04-15 00:46:52

People don’t understand the fediverse.
Today’s exhibit: people on #Threads complain that it’s not good for news, example yesterday. We know that, because Meta has said over and over they de-emphasize news.
But that’s what the #fediverse is for! Somebody will build the worlds best news feed and you can subscribe right there from Threads (once they are done with their ActivityPub implementation) and any other fediverse application.

2024-04-14 18:54:59

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which point have you proven? Following your line of reasoning, the proven point would be that you are powerless even if you throw the largest armada at it ever?

2024-04-14 18:27:34

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The western press says it was supposed to de-escalate. Evidence: telegraphed up front, “concluded” statement before the missions even hit.
But: largest simultaneous drone/missile attack I have ever heard of. Not even the Russians do things like that in Ukraine I think.
So which one is it?

2024-04-14 18:25:40

I’m genuinely puzzled by Iran’s attack yesterday. In the mind of the Iranians, was this retaliation, with respect to the perceived wrong, supposed to be:

2024-03-26 05:00:24

On the question of “What’s the plan to make money?”, #bluesky CEO Jay Graeber says:
“We’ve been building marketplaces within the app, essentially. So, we’ve got information marketplaces, moderation marketplaces..”
How can that produce enough revenue to make the VCs happy? Just what kind of information marketplaces might she be thinking of that can produce those results?
https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/25/24108872/bluesky-ceo-graber-federation-social-media-decoder-interview