#privacygroups — Public Fediverse posts

@Jörgi It does work Fediverse-wide, i.e. as a Hubzilla user, I can send posts and other content specifically to those in a certain privacy group (= Mastodon list on coke and 'roids from before there was even Mastodon), regardless of where they are. They could be on Hubzilla, on Friendica, on Mastodon, on Misskey, on Pixelfed, doesn't matter.

But there is one limitation.

Most Fediverse server software out there will understand anything coming from Hubzilla with limited permissions as a one-on-one DM. This means that in a thread with limited permissions, e.g. Mastodon users will only be able to discuss with the thread starter, but not with the others who were granted permission to receive the start post.

If I have a privacy group with Alice and Bob in it, and both are on Mastodon, and I send a post to only this privacy group, Alice and Bob will both receive the post as a DM. They will only be able to have a conversation with me. Alice won't know that Bob got the post, Bob won't know that Alice got the post, and Alice and Bob will not be able to converse with each other within this conversation thread.

It's only Hubzilla and its still existing descendants, (streams) and Forte, that fully understand this special permission setting because they have a permission system that's very similar to Hubzilla's whereas Mastodon & Co. don't have any permission system to begin with.

So if Alice is on Hubzilla, and Bob is on (streams), and one of them replies to me, the other one can and will see that reply and will be able to interact with that reply. Like, Alice can reply to me, Bob can reply to Alice, and absolutely nobody else in the Fediverse will see my post or Alice's reply or Bob's reply.

By the way: (streams) and Forte literally have "privacy by default". While privacy groups are an optional, off-by-default feature on Hubzilla, access lists (practically the same) are part of the core on (streams) and Forte. And all your posts go to an access list named "Friends" by default unless you go and configure your channel to post in public by default. Conveniently, all your new connections are automatically added to the "Friends" access list by default.

Is it part of the protocol? That's where it should be defined

For the longest time, namely until last August, it wasn't available on ActivityPub-based software at all. For Hubzilla itself is not based on ActivityPub.

It was first implemented in an early "pre-cursor" version of Hubzilla from 2012 that was built on a protocol specifically designed by Hubzilla's creator for a) privacy by design and, especially, b) resilience against server shutdown. That was five years before ActivityPub was first shown and six years before it became a standard. The protocol was (originally) named Zot, and Hubzilla is still based on Zot6 with ActivityPub being supported via an optional add-on that's on by default for servers, but off by default for new channels. (By the way, Hubzilla was the first software to ever implement ActivityPub.)

There's also (streams) from October, 2021, a fork of a fork of three forks of a fork (of a fork?) of Hubzilla by Hubzilla's own creator which is based on what's actually a newer version of Zot, but which has advanced so much that it's incompatible with Hubzilla's Zot6, so it's named Nomad now. (streams) has Nomad as its base protocol, it also supports Zot6, and it optionally supports ActivityPub, only that ActivityPub is built into the core now and always on by default.

ActivityPub-based software with this permission system did not exist until August, 2024 when the self-same creator forked the streams repository into something new named Forte, ripped out any and all support for protocols that aren't ActivityPub and ported all of (streams)' features to ActivityPub.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Permission #Permissions #PrivacyGroups #AccessLists #Privacy #PrivacyByDesign #PrivacyByDefault

@prex Sit down, get a snack and a drink, for this will be long.

I wish someone made the federated G+

"The federated G+" was literally made before Google+ itself.

diaspora*

Have you ever heard of diaspora*?

If not, let me take you back to 2010. Back then, it first came out that Facebook was spying on its users and selling their private data. In spring, four students asked for $12,000 of crowdfunding for an ambitious project: a free, open-source, non-commercial, non-corporate, decentralised alternative to Facebook named diaspora*.

The word spread like wild fire. Tech media jumped upon it. Non-tech mass media jumped upon it. These four guys were about to develop a Facebook killer! Of the requested $12,000, they got over $200,000.

They started working in May, 2010. In October, they presented a first very early alpha version of diaspora* that could only run on Macs as servers. It would take the likely suicide of the project founder, the replacement of the whole development team and several years to even release a first beta. To this day, diaspora* did not have a 1.0 stable release.

In general, diaspora* did not become the huge, super-popular Facebook killer. It always remained obscure.

Google+

Then came Google. They saw that people wanted to move away from Facebook, but they thought they had nowhere to go. And Google wanted to exploit the self-same source of income as Facebook. So they launched Google+.

Google+ was a blatant, full-on, all-out rip-off of diaspora*. The circles that almost everyone "knows" were invented by Google? diaspora*'s aspects, stolen by Google. Google's entire new corporate UI design with the black navigation bar at the top? diaspora*'s design.

Like, cirlces? So ahead of its times!

Again: diaspora* had Google+'s circles before Google+ had circles. diaspora* has aspects, and Google stole them and named them circles.

Google got away with it easily. Nobody knew diaspora*. Nobody knew what diaspora* looks like. And diaspora* itself had other things to take care of than a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit against a power-mongering Silicon Valley teracorporation or even a C&D against Google.

The slow death of diaspora*

But seriously, diaspora* isn't worth looking at nowadays. It may have released a 0.9 beta last year, skipping 0.8 altogether. But it's withering away.

Shortly before New Year's Eve 2024, three major diaspora* pods shut down. According to one statistics website, diaspora* lost more than half its user accounts within three days. For April 1st, 2025, the shutdown of diasp.org, one of the biggest and most important pods, has been announced. JoinDiaspora, the old lighthouse pod, has been gone for quite a while now.

But diaspora*'s issues lie not only in its slow development, but also in its design decisions. It's beautiful, but it's minimalist to the point of being lack-lustre. Also, diaspora* does not support ActivityPub and never will. It only supports its own protocol. The developers have explicitly decided against supporting ActivityPub because Fediverse projects don't "implement ActivityPub", they "implement Mastodon". This, however, also means that diaspora* cannot connect to most of the Fediverse by far.

Friendica

But: There's even better than diaspora* and Google+ that's free, open-source, decentralised and federated. And it was there before Google+. I'm not kidding.

Remember, it took four students, $200,000 of crowd-funding and five months (May to October, 2010) to create a first, very unfinished preview of diaspora*.

But the same year, it took one developer and protocol designer with some three decades of experience (@Mike Macgirvin 🖥️), zero crowd-funding and only four months (March to July, 2010) to create a first, very fleshed-out and useable release of something initially called Mistpark.

At this point, when the four diaspora* creators were still tinkering, Mistpark was already more powerful than both diaspora* and Mastodon are today. It already had everything a social network needs. It had diaspora*'s aspects before diaspora* had aspects and long before Google+ had circles; only it called them lists. And Mistpark's lists were diaspora*'s aspects and Google+'s circles on coke.

Since early 2012, Mistpark has been known as Friendica (official website). Since mid-January, 2025, it is the primary go-to alternative to Facebook in the Fediverse. And it has continuously been fully federated with Mastodon for as long as Mastodon has been around. Since January, 2016. Again, I'm not kidding.

Friendica's descendants

But Mike didn't stop there. He went on and improved the same concept further and further by forking his own creations and advancing them technologically.

In 2011, he invented the concept of nomadic identity (something that Bluesky claims to have invented much later, but has yet to prove to be functional) to make identites more resilient against server shutdown, and he created another all-new communication protocol named Zot (today known as Nomad) for that purpose.

In 2012, he handed Friendica over to the community and forked it into something called Red, later the Red Matrix. It was the first not only decentralised, but nomadic social server application in the world. In 2015, it was redesigned, vastly expanded in features and renamed Hubzilla (official website).

To this day, Hubzilla is the one most powerful and feature-rich Fediverse server application. It is not a vague concept or in early development; instead, it has been a rock-solid multi-purpose daily driver for longer than Mastodon has been around.

Another one of its key features is what's the second-most advanced and fine-grained permissions system in the Fediverse, something that Mastodon doesn't have at all. Its privacy groups are diaspora*'s aspects or Google+'s circles on coke and 'roids because you can do things with them that are impossible even on Friendica, much less diaspora* or Google+, not to mention what Mastodon calls lists. They aren't called privacy groups for nothing.

In 2018, Mike handed the development of Hubzilla over to the community to concentrate on the further advancement of Zot. This led to:

• Osada (2018, discontinued in 2019)
• Zap (2018, discontinued in 2022)
• another Osada (2019, discontinued later in 2019)
• yet another Osada (2020, discontinued in 2022)
• Redmatrix 2020 (2020, discontinued in 2022)
• Mistpark 2020 a.k.a. Misty (2020, discontinued in 2022)
• Roadhouse (2021, discontinued in 2022)
• (streams) (code repository, 2021)
• Forte (code repository, 2024)

Except for the first Osada, all of them were or still are nomadic. Except for Zap until some point in 2019, all of them supported or still support ActivityPub. And they all had or still have an advanced permissions system which, at least on (streams) and Forte, even slightly surpasses Hubzilla's. Their access lists are at least on par with Hubzilla's privacy groups.

Finally

If you're looking for a decentralised Google+ drop-in replacement, that'd be diaspora*. But diaspora* is dying, and it will never federate with Mastodon.

If you're also interested in something that's even better than Google+, check Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams).

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Google+ #GooglePlus #diaspora* #Mistpark #Friendika #Friendica #RedMatrix #Hubzilla #Osada #Zap #Mistpark2020 #Misty #Redmatrix2020 #Roadhouse #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Lists #Aspects #Circles #PrivacyGroups #AccessLists

@prex Sit down, get a snack and a drink, for this will be long.

I wish someone made the federated G+

"The federated G+" was literally made before Google+ itself.

diaspora*

Have you ever heard of diaspora*?

If not, let me take you back to 2010. Back then, it first came out that Facebook was spying on its users and selling their private data. In spring, four students asked for $12,000 of crowdfunding for an ambitious project: a free, open-source, non-commercial, non-corporate, decentralised alternative to Facebook named diaspora*.

The word spread like wild fire. Tech media jumped upon it. Non-tech mass media jumped upon it. These four guys were about to develop a Facebook killer! Of the requested $12,000, they got over $200,000.

They started working in May, 2010. In October, they presented a first very early alpha version of diaspora* that could only run on Macs as servers. It would take the likely suicide of the project founder, the replacement of the whole development team and several years to even release a first beta. To this day, diaspora* did not have a 1.0 stable release.

In general, diaspora* did not become the huge, super-popular Facebook killer. It always remained obscure.

Google+

Then came Google. They saw that people wanted to move away from Facebook, but they thought they had nowhere to go. And Google wanted to exploit the self-same source of income as Facebook. So they launched Google+.

Google+ was a blatant, full-on, all-out rip-off of diaspora*. The circles that almost everyone "knows" were invented by Google? diaspora*'s aspects, stolen by Google. Google's entire new corporate UI design with the black navigation bar at the top? diaspora*'s design.

Like, cirlces? So ahead of its times!

Again: diaspora* had Google+'s circles before Google+ had circles. diaspora* has aspects, and Google stole them and named them circles.

Google got away with it easily. Nobody knew diaspora*. Nobody knew what diaspora* looks like. And diaspora* itself had other things to take care of than a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit against a power-mongering Silicon Valley teracorporation or even a C&D against Google.

The slow death of diaspora*

But seriously, diaspora* isn't worth looking at nowadays. It may have released a 0.9 beta last year, skipping 0.8 altogether. But it's withering away.

Shortly before New Year's Eve 2024, three major diaspora* pods shut down. According to one statistics website, diaspora* lost more than half its user accounts within three days. For April 1st, 2025, the shutdown of diasp.org, one of the biggest and most important pods, has been announced. JoinDiaspora, the old lighthouse pod, has been gone for quite a while now.

But diaspora*'s issues lie not only in its slow development, but also in its design decisions. It's beautiful, but it's minimalist to the point of being lack-lustre. Also, diaspora* does not support ActivityPub and never will. It only supports its own protocol. The developers have explicitly decided against supporting ActivityPub because Fediverse projects don't "implement ActivityPub", they "implement Mastodon". This, however, also means that diaspora* cannot connect to most of the Fediverse by far.

Friendica

But: There's even better than diaspora* and Google+ that's free, open-source, decentralised and federated. And it was there before Google+. I'm not kidding.

Remember, it took four students, $200,000 of crowd-funding and five months (May to October, 2010) to create a first, very unfinished preview of diaspora*.

But the same year, it took one developer and protocol designer with some three decades of experience (@Mike Macgirvin 🖥️), zero crowd-funding and only four months (March to July, 2010) to create a first, very fleshed-out and useable release of something initially called Mistpark.

At this point, when the four diaspora* creators were still tinkering, Mistpark was already more powerful than both diaspora* and Mastodon are today. It already had everything a social network needs. It had diaspora*'s aspects before diaspora* had aspects and long before Google+ had circles; only it called them lists. And Mistpark's lists were diaspora*'s aspects and Google+'s circles on coke.

Since early 2012, Mistpark has been known as Friendica (official website). Since mid-January, 2025, it is the primary go-to alternative to Facebook in the Fediverse. And it has continuously been fully federated with Mastodon for as long as Mastodon has been around. Since January, 2016. Again, I'm not kidding.

Friendica's descendants

But Mike didn't stop there. He went on and improved the same concept further and further by forking his own creations and advancing them technologically.

In 2011, he invented the concept of nomadic identity (something that Bluesky claims to have invented much later, but has yet to prove to be functional) to make identites more resilient against server shutdown, and he created another all-new communication protocol named Zot (today known as Nomad) for that purpose.

In 2012, he handed Friendica over to the community and forked it into something called Red, later the Red Matrix. It was the first not only decentralised, but nomadic social server application in the world. In 2015, it was redesigned, vastly expanded in features and renamed Hubzilla (official website).

To this day, Hubzilla is the one most powerful and feature-rich Fediverse server application. It is not a vague concept or in early development; instead, it has been a rock-solid multi-purpose daily driver for longer than Mastodon has been around.

Another one of its key features is what's the second-most advanced and fine-grained permissions system in the Fediverse, something that Mastodon doesn't have at all. Its privacy groups are diaspora*'s aspects or Google+'s circles on coke and 'roids because you can do things with them that are impossible even on Friendica, much less diaspora* or Google+, not to mention what Mastodon calls lists. They aren't called privacy groups for nothing.

In 2018, Mike handed the development of Hubzilla over to the community to concentrate on the further advancement of Zot. This led to:

• Osada (2018, discontinued in 2019)
• Zap (2018, discontinued in 2022)
• another Osada (2019, discontinued later in 2019)
• yet another Osada (2020, discontinued in 2022)
• Redmatrix 2020 (2020, discontinued in 2022)
• Mistpark 2020 a.k.a. Misty (2020, discontinued in 2022)
• Roadhouse (2021, discontinued in 2022)
• (streams) (code repository, 2021)
• Forte (code repository, 2024)

Except for the first Osada, all of them were or still are nomadic. Except for Zap until some point in 2019, all of them supported or still support ActivityPub. And they all had or still have an advanced permissions system which, at least on (streams) and Forte, even slightly surpasses Hubzilla's. Their access lists are at least on par with Hubzilla's privacy groups.

Finally

If you're looking for a decentralised Google+ drop-in replacement, that'd be diaspora*. But diaspora* is dying, and it will never federate with Mastodon.

If you're also interested in something that's even better than Google+, check Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams).

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Google+ #GooglePlus #diaspora* #Mistpark #Friendika #Friendica #RedMatrix #Hubzilla #Osada #Zap #Mistpark2020 #Misty #Redmatrix2020 #Roadhouse #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Lists #Aspects #Circles #PrivacyGroups #AccessLists