Evan Prodromou

He/him. Board member at CoSocial.ca.

Research Director, Social Web Foundation.

Author of "ActivityPub: Programming for the Social Web" from O'Reilly Media.

Founder of Wikitravel, StatusNet, identi.ca, Fuzzy.ai.

Creator of pump.io. Co-creator of GNU social.

Former co-chair of the Social Web Working Group at W3C. Co-author of Activity Streams 2.0. Co-author of ActivityPub. Co-author of OStatus.

Grad student in CS at Georgia Tech.

Greek, Arab, Palestinian, American, Canadian, Montréalais.

Personal: https://prodromou.pub/@evan
Blog: https://evanp.me/
Social Web Foundation: https://socialwebfoundation.org/author/evanprodromou/
Ghost: https://ghost.evanp.me/

Public Key

npub176495h5jd2deymed6taalm3mwgcg9k9qf6z03vac2wp84htwvzvs66nuj0

NIP-05 Address

evan_at_cosocial.ca@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs0d2j6t6fx4xujduka977lacahyvyzmzsyap8ckwu98qn6m4hxpxgpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsv7jj27

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub176495h5jd2deymed6taalm3mwgcg9k9qf6z03vac2wp84htwvzvs66nuj0

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Last Notes

2026-05-25 00:37:45 UTC

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When you sign up for a Mastodon account, you get dumped into a home page with 0 followers and 0 following. Unless you can figure out next steps -- finding friends or family or colleagues or creators or topics you're interested in -- you're going to stay at 0 followers and 0 following.

2026-05-25 00:35:49 UTC

I wonder how big the largest connected component (LCC) of the Fediverse social graph is, where each node is a person and each edge is a follow relationship.
FediIndex shows 18,400+ user accounts. My guess is maybe 10% of them are unreachable through the follow graph.
It'd be interesting to find out!
#Fediverse #data #statistics #NetworkScience
https://fedi.wrm.sr/

2026-03-29 12:49:07 UTC

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the followback account? I've had a couple of notes on that. Can you add more info here?
https://github.com/social-web-foundation/tags.pub/issues/9

2026-03-24 01:43:37 UTC

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¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'm less opposed to DAOs than you are. If they can figure out ways to work together and make progress, I say great.

2026-03-24 01:23:42 UTC

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yeah, I'm not related to this now. I'm always happy to see new orgs working on the Fediverse in new ways.

2026-03-21 16:39:38 UTC

How many times per day do you brush your teeth?
#EvanPoll #poll

2026-03-21 02:18:51 UTC

Are you allowed to protest the war on Iran at #NoKings / #NoTyrants ?

2026-03-19 13:54:41 UTC

Would you rather be lucky or good?
#EvanPoll #poll

2026-03-17 14:56:01 UTC

How many pairs of shoes do you own?
#EvanPoll #poll

2026-03-17 02:49:08 UTC

WE DON'T WANT TO KNOW BANKSY'S IDENTITY
STOP INVESTIGATING BANKSY FFS
INVESTIGATE LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE

2026-03-15 23:28:30 UTC

Which of these continents have you visited?
#EvanPoll #poll

2026-03-15 19:34:19 UTC

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absolutely. Also, using best practices for estimation,*and* using the same estimation techniques yoy so you are comparing apples to apples.

2026-03-14 16:12:49 UTC

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I did not know this!

2026-03-14 00:22:57 UTC

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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-homicide-vancouver-9.7127357

2026-03-14 00:19:00 UTC

The man who runs our corner store (dépanneur) was murdered Thursday morning. There was a candlelight vigil tonight with a couple of hundred of our neighbors. I don't have much to say except that every life touches so many others. #montreal
https://m.f-h.co/cosocial-ca/media_attachments/files/116/224/657/921/131/421/original/48236bbd8b19a27e.jpg

2026-03-13 20:40:54 UTC

Have you ever read a greenhouse gas inventory?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_inventory
#EvanPoll #poll

2026-03-13 17:20:04 UTC

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my previous job was building greenhouse gas inventories.
Data centres are responsible for about 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions. AI is responsible for about 15% of the data centre emissions, or about 0.15% of global emissions.
People who talk about AI burning up the planet don't spend a lot of time thinking about what's really burning up the planet: fossil fuels for transportation and heating, deforestation, and cattle.

2026-03-12 21:55:58 UTC

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So, for example, if someone you know uses ChatGPT to look up the name of the drummer from Hüsker Dü, you won't be friends with them anymore?

2026-03-12 19:28:59 UTC

Is it OK to run software written with the help of AI/LLMs on the Fediverse?
#EvanPoll #poll

2026-03-12 00:58:58 UTC

What's the farthest you would go to see a concert?
#EvanPoll #poll

2026-03-10 20:21:47 UTC

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I don't agree with many of the arguments against LLMs I see on the Fediverse.
LLM usage is not a GHG-intensive activity, especially compared to other everyday activities.
It disturbs me when people imply that LLMs are primarily responsible for climate change. This is not remotely true, and it ignores our real responsibility for working on the climate emergency.
It hurts my heart that smart people I know and respect don't know the main sources of GHGs.
https://cosocial.ca/@evan/115580076628853324

2026-03-10 20:15:13 UTC

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I'd like to setup my own openwebui and ollama server at home sometime, but I haven't gotten around to it. I think it'd be nice to use open weight models instead of cloud services. But I'm doing ok otherwise.

2026-03-10 20:10:27 UTC

I use Claude and Thaura for search in my daily life.
I use Claude as a rubber duck for coding. On occasion, I'll let CoPilot or Claude add a few lines of code directly. I don't "vibe code".
I enjoy both uses. I don't feel guilty about either.

2026-03-08 23:24:45 UTC

Our country is partnering with an administration that has committed a genocide to murder civilians at random in another country.
We have to stop this war.

2026-03-07 05:36:22 UTC

Should Hacker News implement ActivityPub and federate?
#EvanPoll #poll

2026-03-05 21:38:13 UTC

If you are working on Fediverse software, I highly recommend applying for the NLNet Open Social fund. They have 480K euros to apply to ActivityPub software. The deadline is March 31st.
https://nlnet.nl/opensocial/

2026-03-05 20:40:09 UTC

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I listened to this incredible podcast episode with Ezra Klein, @npub1fdr…lvhs and Tim Wu.
One of the numbers that came up during the conversation was that, with algorithmic feeds, only SEVEN PERCENT (7%) of what people see on Instagram is from people they follow. Seven!
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-doctorow-wu.html

2026-03-05 05:35:34 UTC

Let's stop saying Fediverse is federated + universe and start saying it's federated + diverse

2026-03-04 19:14:38 UTC

Can we create and use social networking algorithms on the Fediverse that serve our own personal goals, such as more and deeper personal relationships, career advancement, and more participative citizenship?
#EvanPoll #poll

2026-03-04 17:38:33 UTC

So, how do we say "social web" in French?

2026-03-03 02:16:23 UTC

What would or did you airbrush on the side of your custom van?
#EvanPoll #poll

2026-02-28 18:13:42 UTC

A big round of congratulations and thanks to @npub14hk…5flf and @npub142g…kmy5 for the launch of the new Tŵt Wales app. Focusing on community is how we build the Fediverse.
#TootWales
https://croeso.toot.wales/en/a-present-for-wales-ein-cyfraniad-i-gymru/

2026-02-25 15:11:36 UTC

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IFTAS is Federated Trust And Safety. It is a non-profit dedicated to improving user safety in the Fediverse and supporting the work of Fediverse moderators. The "I" doesn't seem to stand for anything!
https://about.iftas.org/
DNI is the "do not interact" blocklist maintained by IFTAS. It's a "worst of the worst" list that prevents interaction with, among other things, dedicated instances for racist, transphobic and homophobic trolls.
https://about.iftas.org/library/iftas-dni-list/

2026-02-25 15:00:00 UTC

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you should start a project to maintain that blocklist!

2026-02-25 14:51:07 UTC

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it's not the beginning of anything and it is not tantamount to anything. It is common sense that protects vulnerable people from vicious attacks.

2026-02-25 14:38:05 UTC

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Blocklists are a powerful tool. Governance is important. I think the Fediverse community can work with IFTAS to maintain transparency and accountability in the DNI list.

2026-02-25 14:31:49 UTC

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And, sorry, "the hard way" being the terrorizing of one of your users by dozens of racist, misogynistic or homophobic trolls.

2026-02-25 14:30:24 UTC

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I am putting this on the potential projects list for SWF.

2026-02-25 14:28:39 UTC

So, one thing I said at #FediMTL yesterday is that Fediverse software should ship with the IFTAS DNI list as the default, minimum blocklist. Ideally, the list should periodically auto-update.
If you *want* to see gore, racist harassment, or transphobia, you can consciously remove those sites from your blocklist. If you want to subscribe to a different blocklist, you should get to do that, too.
Fediverse admins shouldn't have to learn how to find the DNI list and install it the hard way.

2026-02-23 01:58:30 UTC

Do you keep a glass, cup or bottle of water by your bed when you sleep?
#EvanPoll #poll

2026-02-20 19:16:07 UTC

@npub1zj7…lc9y so, now it's time for *me* to put *you* on the spot.
As is probably clear from the last 12 hours of active conversation on the thread you started, you've got an audience and a network that really brings people together.
I wonder, how comfortable you are using that convening power more often? As in, when are we having the WeDistribute conference? 😉

2026-02-20 01:48:14 UTC

Which of these new kinds of food would you want named after you?
#EvanPoll #poll

2026-02-19 03:49:54 UTC

The Fediverse is part of how we get through all this. It's worth fighting for.

2026-02-18 21:44:17 UTC

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you've been doing great work.
I don't think @npub1xse…lgk3 meant the original post to be a bummer for the Fediverse, but a wake-up call for engaging developers.
I agree that client-first development in ATProto is extremely exciting. We need to do better on the Fediverse side. Fortunately, our social API is great; we just need to start implementing it and using it.

2026-02-18 21:33:25 UTC

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Are you guys even on the same Fediverse as I am?
- Dozens of FEPs under development
- 10+ task forces in the CG
- New work like quote posts from Mastodon
- Ghost.org went live in 2025
- E2EE from Emissary and Bonfire this year
- New Working Group to revise ActivityPub
There is a tonne going on. We just had a FOSDEM Social Web Devroom with 20+ presenters. FediMTL.ca is next week. Fediforum is the week after that.

2026-02-18 16:40:21 UTC

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We're trying to get this going in the SocialCG:
https://github.com/swicg/activitypub-api
I think @npub1a93…63za has done great work to evaluate all the different servers. It would be cool to get to a reference server that developers could use.

2026-02-18 16:22:19 UTC

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I absolutely agree. I think the client-first development environment for ATProto makes this kind of work extremely emergent.
As @npub1lfs…adh4 said at FOSDEM in the Social Web Devroom, the ActivityPub social API ("C2S") is our equivalent to this programming interface. We need to get it kickstarted so we can build interesting social networking applications without having to build the server side, delivery, queuing, etc.

2026-02-17 20:59:45 UTC

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That is an awesome question. I'm not sure!
There's a good landing page here with a lot of links to explore.
https://bmannconsulting.com/notes/atprotocol/
@npub1smw…7lhy @npub1xsv…q6he @npub1zzy…9edy

2026-02-17 18:02:24 UTC

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I think Anuj's point is that there is a growing ecosystem around ATProto that is not owned or controlled by Bluesky LLC. There are a lot of people in that ecosystem that are just as concerned about decentralization and distribution of control as we are. Many people in the LLC even support that decentralization. It is a serious bummer that it's splitting the social web, but at least we have bridges and multistack services to connect us.

2026-02-17 17:49:36 UTC

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Pushing a separate protocol has undoubtedly hurt the entire distributed social networking movement. It was done intentionally.
It shouldn't have worked. ActivityPub should have been more widespread by the time that ATProto launched, so that a competing protocol would have no chance to split the network.
But we weren't, and it did. It's at least partially our fault that a house-brand protocol has been such a serious threat.

2026-02-17 17:48:39 UTC

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Anuj, this is unfair.
There is a significant difference in intent and governance between ActivityPub and ATProto.
It's perfectly reasonable to point out those differences, just like the atproto.com site points out technical differences.

2026-02-16 16:41:02 UTC

I'm going to use ingress-nginx until the heat death of the universe you bastards

2026-02-10 23:54:28 UTC

When did you last experience a Shakespeare piece?
#EvanPoll #poll

2026-02-07 22:33:12 UTC

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cool, thanks for your input. I'm not proposing anything, I just think your expectations are really bad for conversations.

2026-02-07 22:03:08 UTC

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I don't think it breaks expectations.
It's also the way most social networks work. If the OP posts privately, all the comments and replies to comments are visible to *all* the OP's followers.
This is how Facebook, Instagram, and X all work.
They let you have private conversations with people that matter to you. It's one of the best parts of those platforms.

2026-02-07 21:56:12 UTC

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*or* you give Bob an option to reply to Alice's followers.

2026-02-07 21:42:35 UTC

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so as the conversation continues, fewer and fewer people can see what's being said?

2026-02-07 17:28:42 UTC

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The Devil Wears Prada 2: The Legend of Nigel's Gold

2026-02-07 17:25:05 UTC

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The Devil Wears Prada 2: Devilectric Pradaloo

2026-02-07 17:24:23 UTC

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The Devil Wears Prada 2: Devil Pradarrer

2026-02-07 17:23:57 UTC

The Devil Wears Prada 2: The Devil Still Wears Prada

2026-02-07 14:35:45 UTC

If Alice makes a followers-only post, and Bob replies to it, to whom should Bob's reply be visible?
#EvanPoll #poll

2026-02-06 06:40:18 UTC

US voters only: have you started thinking about the 2026 midterm primary elections?
#EvanPoll #poll

2026-02-05 18:03:25 UTC

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I didn't ask for your permission on how I reply.
It sounds like you get blocked a lot. Maybe you should think about why that is.
Good luck on the Fediverse!

2026-02-05 13:36:03 UTC

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for sustainability, I don't think that moderation is the only pressure on instance operators, but it's one.
I don't know where you got the idea that SWF has talked about centralising moderation.
As for IFTAS, they are awesome. What's your beef with them? They do great work.

2026-02-05 13:08:29 UTC

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so, for me, the social web is about choice. If you don't want to see creator content, you shouldn't have to.
I do think that the idea of someone deciding what content is or isn't allowed on the Fediverse is antithetical to that. If you don't want to follow @npub1qqm…v4e4 or @npub1d6t…9r7s or whoever, don't.
But you also don't get to decide whether *I* follow them.

2026-02-05 09:12:02 UTC

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3. Cooperatives. social.coop, cosocial.ca and data.coop are all great examples of coops on the fediverse. Does this democratic and participative corporate structure provide an advantage for the Fediverse?
4. Web Monetization. Many Fediverse projects have implemented this API. We'll be identifying two more multimedia projects and helping them use the protocol.

2026-02-05 09:10:04 UTC

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The grant is for four subprojects:
1. Fediverse sustainability. What are the economic, psychological and emotional pressures on instance operators and other infrastructure providers? How can we support them?
2. Creator economy. What social, organizational, and technical infrastructure do content creators depend on? What are we missing on the Fediverse?

2026-02-05 09:08:03 UTC

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hey, thanks for sharing the link!
Interledger Foundation is also a W3C member, and can join the Working Group directly. They don't need to make this grant to participate in ActivityPub standards.

2026-02-04 23:07:30 UTC

I'm irritated that I caught up with [@kevinmarks.com](https://bsky.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/kevinmarks.com ) tonight and got personal updates from 2017. I need to check in with interesting people more often than once per decade!

2026-02-04 20:19:14 UTC

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I'm really disappointed in this. I understand that you want to protect yourself and your followers but this is an important conversation to have. I'd like to see if we can figure it out at the protocol and technology level.

2026-02-04 17:04:46 UTC

I made it to London for #ProtocolsForPublishers . If you're here too, let me know.

2026-02-04 04:23:55 UTC

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I don't understand what "selective" here means. These are invitations you're sending to someone you know and want to be connected to.

2026-02-03 18:36:48 UTC

Would you use a tool to invite your friends and family to join the Fediverse which would help them automatically follow you from their new account?
#EvanPoll #poll

2026-02-03 06:58:22 UTC

I just heard about Plant Baby Plant on the Plant People podcast. It's Robin Wall Kimmerer's project tying gardening to biodiversity activism. It looks great. #NativePlants
https://plantbabyplant.com/

2026-02-02 18:35:07 UTC

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It is pretty good.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/palm_springs_2020

2026-02-02 18:33:19 UTC

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Have you seen "Palm Springs" (2020)? It's a similar premise. One of the main characters teaches herself quantum physics to figure out how to escape the time vortex.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Springs_(2020_film)

2026-02-02 17:57:19 UTC

Would you like to relive this day, Feb 2 2026, over and over again?
#EvanPoll #poll #GroundhogDay

2026-02-02 16:52:16 UTC

Hey, Fediverse friends.
If you have been DMed by a random angry person asking you for favours related to me or the W3C the Social Web Foundation, please let me know by DM.
The same person is doing it to others in the Fediverse. I'd like to get it to stop.
I know that dealing with toxic behaviour is unpleasant but it's how we take care of each other.
Thanks.

2026-02-01 10:45:26 UTC

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I raised my hand and proposed this and everyone said yes so now I think we should just do it.

2026-02-01 06:54:37 UTC

There is a BOF session today on Fediverse events. I think it would make a lot of sense to have a Task Force of the Social Web Community Group focused on the Event schema in #ActivityPub.
https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/N98KEF-shaping_the_future_of_events_and_calendars_in_the_fediverse/

2026-01-31 22:17:00 UTC

This is what they took from us #activitypub #c2s
https://m.f-h.co/cosocial-ca/media_attachments/files/115/992/023/478/732/682/original/91bb4a901af8a3f1.png

2026-01-31 22:09:13 UTC

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hey, I didn't know you had another talk?!

2026-01-31 22:08:41 UTC

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I mean, that's when I received it by email.

2026-01-31 21:50:14 UTC

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you were great! Thank you so much for doing it.

2026-01-31 17:53:14 UTC

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I think it's fair to compare to the Internet or the Web. We want that scale.

2026-01-31 17:36:03 UTC

https://m.f-h.co/cosocial-ca/media_attachments/files/115/990/918/643/404/075/original/46f2d259f6e3e276.jpg

2026-01-31 16:20:56 UTC

Enshittifiability #fosdem2026
https://m.f-h.co/cosocial-ca/media_attachments/files/115/990/623/360/964/366/original/856d0a672f9bd3d6.jpg

2026-01-29 21:03:59 UTC

One of my favourite things is talking to people who are more ride or die for ActivityPub than I am.

2026-01-28 21:18:11 UTC

When you travel, how many meals per day do you usually eat out?
#EvanPoll #poll

2026-01-26 23:32:15 UTC

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Hmm. You didn't get a reply!

2026-01-26 23:28:25 UTC

@npub1nxf…66ns OK?

2026-01-25 23:35:27 UTC

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I used "moderates" instead. I don't think people who talk about the relative merits of stripping others of their rights really count as "liberal", anyway.

2026-01-25 22:33:35 UTC

So, the Fediverse is going to be chock full of updates from Brussels for FOSDEM and EU Open Source Week this week.
I know that can lead to some FOMO if you wish you could be there too. There will be live streaming and lots of updates on the related hashtags.
We have a lot of other events throughout the year, around the world. Fediforum does a great job tracking Fediverse-related events:
https://fediforum.org/events/

2026-01-24 23:24:13 UTC

Once again, Fediverse liberals are rehashing exactly whose lives and human rights should have been sacrificed to make Harris win the 2024 election.
There's only one right answer.
UPDATE: The right answer is "nobody". I'm really sorry to hear that this wasn't obvious to everyone.

2026-01-24 21:25:35 UTC

Should expatriate citizens of your country have the right to vote?
#EvanPoll #poll

2026-01-24 17:31:08 UTC

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except if you say "Get the hell off this platform" and honestly if you say it in too much of an entertaining way it might backfire even then

2026-01-22 14:37:49 UTC

Are Bluesky, the Fediverse, Nostr, Project Liberty and Farcaster part of a single movement?
#EvanPoll #poll

2026-01-18 16:40:33 UTC

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If someone tells you that your content is unwelcome, block them so they don't have to see your content again.

2026-01-18 16:39:09 UTC

One thing that's tough for people who just join the Fediverse, like most of the folks on #theforkiverse , is that there are self-appointed experts who reply to their public posts saying that "the Fediverse" doesn't like that kind of content.
This is untrue. They don't speak for all of us. Nobody does. You can't spell "Fediverse" without "diverse"; for good or ill, there are different viewpoints on almost any topic found here.