#redecentralize — Public Fediverse posts

The 2025 World Wide Web Award for „Best Textual Representation of Dial-up Modem Sounds” goes to @ifixcoinops for his masterpiece

„WEEWEEWEEWEESCHRRRRRB'DANG,B'DANG”

https://retro.social/@ifixcoinops/115697405237351236

Also: What Dan says. ⤴️

#Australia #SocialMediaBan #WWW #redecentralize #ReclaimTheInternet #ReclaimTech #FuckGAFAMN #SaveSocial #PlatformCapitalism #SurveillanceCapitalism

The 2025 World Wide Web Award for „Best Textual Representation of Dial-up Modem Sounds” goes to @ifixcoinops for his masterpiece

„WEEWEEWEEWEESCHRRRRRB'DANG,B'DANG”

https://retro.social/@ifixcoinops/115697405237351236

Also: What Dan says. ⤴️

#Australia #SocialMediaBan #WWW #redecentralize #ReclaimTheInternet #ReclaimTech #FuckGAFAMN #SaveSocial #PlatformCapitalism #SurveillanceCapitalism

The 2025 World Wide Web Award for „Best Textual Representation of Dial-up Modem Sounds” goes to @ifixcoinops for his masterpiece

„WEEWEEWEEWEESCHRRRRRB'DANG,B'DANG”

https://retro.social/@ifixcoinops/115697405237351236

Also: What Dan says. ⤴️

#Australia #SocialMediaBan #WWW #redecentralize #ReclaimTheInternet #ReclaimTech #FuckGAFAMN #SaveSocial #PlatformCapitalism #SurveillanceCapitalism

The 2025 World Wide Web Award for „Best Textual Representation of Dial-up Modem Sounds” goes to @ifixcoinops for his masterpiece

„WEEWEEWEEWEESCHRRRRRB'DANG,B'DANG”

https://retro.social/@ifixcoinops/115697405237351236

Also: What Dan says. ⤴️

#Australia #SocialMediaBan #WWW #redecentralize #ReclaimTheInternet #ReclaimTech #FuckGAFAMN #SaveSocial #PlatformCapitalism #SurveillanceCapitalism

The 2025 World Wide Web Award for „Best Textual Representation of Dial-up Modem Sounds” goes to @ifixcoinops for his masterpiece

„WEEWEEWEEWEESCHRRRRRB'DANG,B'DANG”

https://retro.social/@ifixcoinops/115697405237351236

Also: What Dan says. ⤴️

#Australia #SocialMediaBan #WWW #redecentralize #ReclaimTheInternet #ReclaimTech #FuckGAFAMN #SaveSocial #PlatformCapitalism #SurveillanceCapitalism

🆕 blog! “Alpha launch - .well-known/avatar - feedback wanted”

I've gotten sufficiently annoyed with a trivial problem that I'm preparing to write an IETF RFC. Yeah. That's how ticked off I am!

Every site that I sign up for asks me to upload an avatar to represent myself. Whenever I change my photo, I have to log in to a hundred sites and change it…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/
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#IETF #ReDeCentralize #standards #web

Alpha launch - .well-known/avatar - feedback wanted

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/10/alpha-launch-well-known-avatar-feedback-wanted/

I've gotten sufficiently annoyed with a trivial problem that I'm preparing to write an IETF RFC. Yeah. That's how ticked off I am!

Every site that I sign up for asks me to upload an avatar to represent myself. Whenever I change my photo, I have to log in to a hundred sites and change it there0.

Perhaps they could all use Gravatar - but that's a centralised service1 and doesn't work with wildcard email addresses. Libravatar also relies on email addresses and requires implementers to set up new DNS entries.

So I'm proposing .well-known/avatar. Here's how it works (for now). I'd like your feedback before going further2.

I sign up to a service and use the email address [email protected].

The service looks up my avatar using a well-known path. For example, request https://shkspr.mobi/.well-known/avatar?resource=acct:[email protected] and you'll get back this JSON:

{    "subject": "acct:[email protected]",    "links": [        {              "rel": "http:\/\/webfinger.net\/rel\/avatar",             "type": "image\/webp",             "href": "https:\/\/shkspr.mobi\/.well-known\/avatar\/avatar-1024.webp",            "sizes": "1024x1024"        },        {              "rel": "http:\/\/webfinger.net\/rel\/avatar",             "type": "image\/jpeg",             "href": "https:\/\/shkspr.mobi\/.well-known\/avatar\/avatar-512.jpg",            "sizes": "512x512"        }    ]}

That's a slightly enhanced https://webfinger.net/rel/#avatar which adds a sizes parameter. The service can then pick the appropriate MIME and size.

Alternatively, you can request the same URl but with a header of Accept: image/gif and receive the default sized avatar in that specific format.

Try it by running:

curl -H "Accept: image/avif" https://shkspr.mobi/.well-known/avatar/ --output "test.avif"

You should receive an auto-converted version of my avatar.

Some Thoughts

Please add your thoughts to the comments box. Here's some feedback I've received so far.

Perhaps this is too complicated? What's wrong with just serving up an image when the URl is requested? That would make it easier for static sites.

Simon Josefsson

@[email protected]

@Edent Thinking about this, while I like content negotiation as a clever hack, I wonder if maybe it isn’t too clever. The nice thing with WKD is that you can deploy it with any normal static HTTP file without any special magic. Maybe the protocol could be dumbed down to simply rely on WKD-style URLs? I’m not sure how to configure my web server (Apache) for your avatar well known URL with negotiation magic.

What about a size parameter?

Chip

@[email protected]

@Edent It'd be nice if the query could limit the size of the avatar being returned. If only there were `Accept-Max-Size`, but maybe a query param? I wouldn't want my performance taking a dive if Alice has a 35M avatar that my client starts downloading. If my client had requested with `max_size=3072` I'd rather not see the avatar than degrade performance/pull excess data

Will anyone actually use it?

Andreas Gohr

@[email protected]

@Edent good luck with getting the hundreds of services to implement it. I mean it. it would be awesome and you might be well connected enough to make it happen.

What about hashing the email?

David Bushell 🎮

@[email protected]

@Edent would using a hash of the email address in its place improve privacy? 🤔

You've already given the service your email address, and your domain already knows your account name - so there's no privacy leak here. Obviously, a service shouldn't hotlink to your avatar image.

How about DNS?

I like it. Is there an argument that service / endpoint should be specifiable at the DNS level?As others in your comments pointed out, if your site is currently just static, some users might prefer to run an entirely separate dedicated avatar service.

— Emily Shepherd (@emi.ly) 2025-10-25T11:57:43.456Z

Personally, I think that's a bit complicated, but I'm happy to be convinced.

Is this restricted to email?

No! For example, if you know my GitHub username then you should be able to get the avatar from https://github.com/.well-known/avatar?resource=acct:edent

How can a service tell if the avatar has been updated?

Perhaps a hash, timestamp, or something else?

Can requests for multiple accounts be sent at once?

I'm not sure how / if WebFinger handles this. I suppose there ought to be some limit to avoid overwhelming a server.

Proposal

I think the default should be to return an image.

If an accept of image/… is requested, the server should try to return an image in that format.

If an accept of application/json or similar is requested, the server should return a JSON document listing the available avatars.

I don't think a ?size= GET parameter is necessary; services can resize once they've downloaded, or use the JSON document to get the right size.

A limited amount of alt text could be added using the title attribute in the JSON.

Before I start writing up anything formal - I'd love your constructive criticism on this.

1. OK, I don't have to. But I want to. I dislike having last year's photo cluttering some half-remembered social network. ↩︎

2. We live in the redecentralised future now! ↩︎

3. I wrote about this in 2004 and in 2020. It takes me time, but I get there eventually! ↩︎

#IETF #ReDeCentralize #standards #web

🆕 blog! “Some thoughts on personal git hosting”

As part of my ongoing (and somewhat futile) efforts to ReDeCentralise, I'm looking at moving my personal projects away from GitHub. I already have accounts with GitLab and CodeBerg - but both of those sites are run by someone else. While they're lovely now, there's nothing stopping them becoming as slow or…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/some-thoughts-on-personal-git-hosting/
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#developers #git #ReDeCentralize

Some thoughts on personal git hosting

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/09/some-thoughts-on-personal-git-hosting/

As part of my ongoing (and somewhat futile) efforts to ReDeCentralise, I'm looking at moving my personal projects away from GitHub. I already have accounts with GitLab and CodeBerg - but both of those sites are run by someone else. While they're lovely now, there's nothing stopping them becoming as slow or AI-infested as GitHub.

So I want to host my own Git instance for my personal projects. I'm experimenting with https://git.edent.tel/

It isn't quite self-hosted; I'm paying PikaPod €2/month to deal with the hassle of hosting and updating the software. I get to point my domain name at it which means I can always change the underlying service if I want. For example, it uses Gitea and I might want to switch to Forgejo later.

So far, it works. But there are a few significant drawbacks.

Network Effects

A large service like GitHub has network effects which are incredible. It feels like 90%+ of all developers have an account there. That means if someone wants to leave a comment or send a PR there is no barrier to entry. That's huge! There are a bunch of popular FOSS projects which make me sign up for yet another service when all I want to do is send a simple bug report which I find deeply annoying.

Luckily, Gitea has built in support for various OAuth providers. So I've set up single-sign-on with Gits Hub and Lab.

I asked people how easy it was to use - most people were able to use it, although a few people wanted a local-only account.

But is is still a bit of a faff. Even a little bit of hassle turns people away.

Forking isn't Federated

Suppose you want to make a Pull Request or just take a copy of the code. At the moment, you have to create a fork on my server. There's no way to easily fork something to your GitHub or personal server.

You can git clone the repo to your local machine, and you can manually move it elsewhere, but there's no way to send a PR from your repo to mine.

There's also no way for users to find other forks. Perhaps the upcoming ForgeFed proposals will fix things - but it doesn't exist yet.

As pointed out in "Let's Make Sure Github Doesn't Become the only Option" - most of the tooling of git hosting platforms isn't adequate for modern needs.

Discoverability

The easiest way to find code at the moment is to search GitHub. Moving my stuff to a different site means it will only be discovered by a general search engine.

I want people to find and use my code. If that's hard, they won't. I can point existing users to the repo - but it still cuts down on discovery.

Admin Hassles

Although PikaPods takes care of all the hosting administration, there's still the faff of setting up all of Gitea's options.

If I get hit by an automated spam attack, it'll be up to me to clean it up.

I'm not sure if I have the time, patience, or expertise to correctly and safely configure everything. Time spent administrating is time not spent coding.

Sponsorship

I get a little bit of money when people sponsor me on GitHub. There's no "sponsor" option on Gitea and, even if there was, the network effects of GitHub are substantial. Getting people to enter their credit card info into a random site isn't as convenient as clicking a button in GitHub.

Now What?

My most popular Github repo has around 140 contributors. I genuinely don't think I could attract that many people to OAuth onto my personal git hosting service.

Gitea seems to have a mixed reputation. But it's the only one offered by PikaPods.

There are interesting discussions about how to replace GitHub but they're only in the early stages.

Although €2/mo isn't a huge amount, I've gotten used to having free services on GitHub / GitLab / CodeBerg.

So this, I think, is my plan:

1. Leave my popular / sponsored repos on GitHub
2. Move my smaller repos to https://git.edent.tel/
3. Create new repos in there as well

I'm also going to look for a hosted Forgejo instance which lets me use my own subdomain - hopefully at a cheaper or comparable price. If you have any recommendations - please let me know!

#developers #git #ReDeCentralize

🆕 blog! “Self Hosting is an Unhelpful Term”

Mathew Duggan has a brilliant post called "Self-Hosting Isn't a Solution; It's A Patch". In it, he (correctly and convincingly) argues that compelling people to run their own computer services is a complex and distracting crutch for the current problems we face. It's expensive to self-host, there are moderation pro…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/11/self-hosting-is-an-unhelpful-term/
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#fediverse #ReDeCentralize #SocialNetworks

Self Hosting is an Unhelpful Term

Mathew Duggan has a brilliant post called "Self-Hosting Isn't a Solution; It's A Patch". In it, he (correctly and convincingly) argues that compelling people to run their own computer services is a complex and distracting crutch for the current problems we face.

It's expensive to self-host, there are moderation problems, and the difficulty level is too high for most people.

But, in my opinion, I think he misunderstands something about self-hosting because, as a term, it is both misleading and unhelpful. When people say "Defund The Police" what they mean is "Move funds away from miliary style policing and give it to trained mental health professionals" - what people hear is "Abolish the police and let anarchy reign".

The ability to "Self Host" doesn't just mean "run this on a Raspberry Pi in your cupboard and be responsible for constant maintenance". Yes, you can do that if you're a masochist, but it isn't restricted to that.

To me, "Self-Hosting" means "I am in control of where I host something". I currently pay a company to host this blog. It has previously been hosted on Blogger, WordPress, my own VPS, and a variety of other services. Tomorrow I could decide to host it with a big company, or I could run it from my phone. I get to choose. That's what "Self-Hosting" is - a choice in where to host.

Similarly, Mastodon allows me self-host my account. I can have my content on one of the big servers and let them do moderation, storage, and maintenance for me - or I can move my account anywhere I choose. To a server in my cupboard and back again.

Email is similar. I know people who've gone from CompuServe, to HoTMaiL, to Gmail, to their own domain, then to OutLook. Their address-book moves with them. Forwarding rules ensure incoming email is routed correctly. They can choose to actively moderate spam, or outsource it. They can pay a company to host, keep backups in their basement, or watch adverts in return for services.

I agree with nearly everything Mathew says in his post. It is absurdly privileged to think that running your own services is something normal people want to do and are capable of doing. Strong regulation helps everyone, people want simplicity, and ecosystems can be fragile.

But witness all the people moving over from Twitter to new networks. Do they care where their data is hosted and how it is maintained? No! But they want to move their social graph with them. And when BlueSky and Mastodon collapse, people will want to move again.

In the UK, I have the ability to move my phone number between hundreds of providers. If I'm particularly techy, I can even run my own infrastructure and route the number there. People love the fact that they can leave crappy service providers and move somewhere cheaper or with with better customer service or whatever it is they value. I think that's a form of self-hosting; I get to choose who provides my services.

Similarly, I believe people have a desire for "self-hosting" which is difficult for them to articulate. They want to move their data around - be it old photos, a social graph, or a username. Most of them don't really care about the underlying technology (and why should they?) but they do care about continuity of service and being able to escape crappy service providers.

So, that's my reckons. Self-Hosting means you can choose where to host, and I think most people can find value in that.

What do you think?

#fediverse #ReDeCentralize #SocialNetworks

@fasnix 👍✊

Finding and switching to alternatives Microsoft, Adobe and other #enshittification software products can seem hard.

@switchingsoftware https://switching.software/
and
@alternativeto https://alternativeto.net

are two great resources to get started today!

#alternativeTo #SwitchingSoftware #floss #fuckMicrosoft #fuckGoogle #SurveillanceCapitalism #redecentralize

💡 #TIL about @european_alternatives – they collect #EuropeanAlternatives to #US-based (commercial) #cloud, #hosting and various other online services.

🇪🇺 https://european-alternatives.eu

#Degoogle #ungoogle #fuckGAFAM #GDPR #DSGVO #privacy #redecentralize
#alternativeTo
#WebAnalytics #CloudComputing #CDN #email #VPS #SearchEngine
#DNS #FileHosting
#VPN
#captcha #payment #IAM #LiveChat #VideoConferencing #collaboration #Mailing #WebFont #DDoS #SSL

💡 #TIL about @european_alternatives – they collect #EuropeanAlternatives to #US-based (commercial) #cloud, #hosting and various other online services.

🇪🇺 https://european-alternatives.eu

#Degoogle #ungoogle #fuckGAFAM #GDPR #DSGVO #privacy #redecentralize
#alternativeTo
#WebAnalytics #CloudComputing #CDN #email #VPS #SearchEngine
#DNS #FileHosting
#VPN
#captcha #payment #IAM #LiveChat #VideoConferencing #collaboration #Mailing #WebFont #DDoS #SSL

💡 #TIL about @european_alternatives – they collect #EuropeanAlternatives to #US-based (commercial) #cloud, #hosting and various other online services.

🇪🇺 https://european-alternatives.eu

#Degoogle #ungoogle #fuckGAFAM #GDPR #DSGVO #privacy #redecentralize
#alternativeTo
#WebAnalytics #CloudComputing #CDN #email #VPS #SearchEngine
#DNS #FileHosting
#VPN
#captcha #payment #IAM #LiveChat #VideoConferencing #collaboration #Mailing #WebFont #DDoS #SSL

💡 #TIL about @european_alternatives – they collect #EuropeanAlternatives to #US-based (commercial) #cloud, #hosting and various other online services.

🇪🇺 https://european-alternatives.eu

#Degoogle #ungoogle #fuckGAFAM #GDPR #DSGVO #privacy #redecentralize
#alternativeTo
#WebAnalytics #CloudComputing #CDN #email #VPS #SearchEngine
#DNS #FileHosting
#VPN
#captcha #payment #IAM #LiveChat #VideoConferencing #collaboration #Mailing #WebFont #DDoS #SSL

💡 #TIL about @european_alternatives – they collect #EuropeanAlternatives to #US-based (commercial) #cloud, #hosting and various other online services.

🇪🇺 https://european-alternatives.eu

#Degoogle #ungoogle #fuckGAFAM #GDPR #DSGVO #privacy #redecentralize
#alternativeTo
#WebAnalytics #CloudComputing #CDN #email #VPS #SearchEngine
#DNS #FileHosting
#VPN
#captcha #payment #IAM #LiveChat #VideoConferencing #collaboration #Mailing #WebFont #DDoS #SSL

Sometimes I feel like I am living in the Middle Ages where powerful technological inventions like #RSS and federated networks have long been forgotten, and people spend their days reinventing the wheel because those who still remembered how it works have long passed away.

#redecentralize #fediverse

Esteemed Fediverse,

the Public Spaces Conf announced their speakers.
It is awesome magic.
For @bjoernsta and me the picture is still missing and as always we are working hard to fix it :)

I would be superhappy if you all can make it to #Amsterdam – United in diversity!

:digitalcourage: https://conference.publicspaces.net/en/speakers
Taking Back the Internet!
https://conference.publicspaces.net/en
@pubconf

#PublicSpaces
#ActivityPub #Fediverse #ReDecentralize #Sovereignty #Independence #Freedom

@Edent
1st)Thank You!
probably did mention it before: We created a huge huge ActivityPub Atlas from OSM mapped to wikidata and others.
But what is the goal?
Even more #OpenStreetMap #ReDeCentralize !
For redaktor and taxiteam we do federated geocoding cause you can imagine that the local bike/delivery/cab cooperative got the best local insights.
[DE: just btw Deutsche Post switches to OSM but anyway] :

You can also edit the data right from the fediverse cause the instance got some service actors for the map part and to infer from LD what change goes to OSM, wd etc.

🆕 blog! “1,000 edits on OpenStreetMap”

Today was quite the accidental milestone! I've edited OpenStreetMap over a thousand times! For those who don't know, OSM (OpenStreetMap) is like the Wikipedia of maps. Anyone can go in and edit the map. This isn't a corporate-controlled space where your local knowledge is irrelevant compared to the desire for profit. You can literally go…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/05/1000-edits-on-openstreetmap/
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#OpenStreetMap #ReDeCentralize

1,000 edits on OpenStreetMap
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/05/1000-edits-on-openstreetmap/

Today was quite the accidental milestone! I've edited OpenStreetMap over a thousand times!

For those who don't know, OSM (OpenStreetMap) is like the Wikipedia of maps. Anyone can go in and edit the map. This isn't a corporate-controlled space where your local knowledge is irrelevant compared to the desire for profit. You can literally go and correct any mistakes that you find, add recently built roads, remove abandoned buildings, and provide useful local information.

Editing the full map is... complicated. For simple edits like changing the times of a postal collection, there are simple forms you can fill in. There's also an aerial view so you can drag and drop misplaced locations. But for anything more complicated than that, you'll need to spend some time understanding the interface. There's a friendly community who are happy to check or correct your submissions.

I'll be honest, I don't use the web editor much. Instead, I use the Android app StreetComplete. It's like an endless stream of sidequests. As you travel through the world, it will ask if a shop is still open, or if the highway is lit, or how many steps there are on a bridge, or whether a playground is suitable for all children, or if restaurants serve vegetarian food, or if a bus-stop has a bench, or... the list is almost endless!

I use it when I'm walking around somewhere new, or on holiday, or waiting for a bus. I used it so much that, for a short while, I became the #1 mapper in New Zealand!

So get stuck in! Make mapping more equitable and more accurate.

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/05/1000-edits-on-openstreetmap/

#OpenStreetMap #ReDeCentralize

@mfowler I prefer #DecentralisedNetworks so I follow you here. I think you should prioritise the #Fediverse if you like #Democracy

#decentralised_networks #decentralise #redecentralize

@mfowler I prefer #DecentralisedNetworks so I follow you here. I think you should prioritise the #Fediverse if you like #Democracy

#decentralised_networks #decentralise #redecentralize

@mfowler I prefer #DecentralisedNetworks so I follow you here. I think you should prioritise the #Fediverse if you like #Democracy

#decentralised_networks #decentralise #redecentralize

@mfowler I prefer #DecentralisedNetworks so I follow you here. I think you should prioritise the #Fediverse if you like #Democracy

#decentralised_networks #decentralise #redecentralize

@mfowler I prefer #DecentralisedNetworks so I follow you here. I think you should prioritise the #Fediverse if you like #Democracy

#decentralised_networks #decentralise #redecentralize

Situations like this are why I will always prefer #onlineshopping from #eBay instead of #Amazon. It connects you with real folks, and the little things we buy and sell everyday are part of a pattern of being involved with other people's lives from a distance. So much better than constantly sending money to the world's richest man so he can fly around in his dick-shaped rocketship some more. We #redecentralize networks, but this is one way to #redecentralize #capitalism.

Fixed your headline @lifehacker:

#Fediverse is still online, thankyouverymuch.

https://lifehacker.com/tech/meta-is-down

#redecentralize #mastodon #pixelfed

@fuchs nur #dezentrale #föderierte plattformen bringen es

#redecentralize #federation #fediverse

@flockofnazguls this is cool and/but it's also worth mentioning that, if your #band already has a #WordPress site, you can easily add a free audio player to your site and be your own #bandcamp / #faircamp / #soundcloud. No 3rd party platform necessary.

Now that I have a band with a site, I'm (slowly) disinvesting in #streaming platforms and making my own site central to our distribution strategy.

FWIW your #WordPress site can also be your #Mastodon server!

#posse #indieweb #redecentralize

@MarinaMachts ist dir die Besonderheit des #Fediverse im Gegensatz zu #Twitter , X , #Threads , #Bluesky bewusst?

Aber auch hier gibt es Menschen, die sich nicht "korrekt" verhalten.

#dezentral #redecentralize #SocialMedia #Mastodon #Akkoma #Misskey #Pixelfed #Peertube #Friendica

@signalapp #signal is expensive because it is a single monolith service which has to handle all users alone. #redecentralize #decentralization #federation #matrix #xmpp #OpenSource #ProtocolsNotPlatforms #Interoperability #FOSS

🆕 blog! “Should your phone be a webserver?”

I really like this article from Rohan D "Every Phone Should Be Able to Run Personal Website". In it, they make the convincing case that phones are perfectly capable of hosting websites and - if we want more people to escape the walled-gardens - this could be a good way to get people back into […]

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/08/should-your-phone-be-a-webserver/
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#android #phone #ReDeCentralize #websites

@Tutanota @protonmail what about a collaboration to build a standard? #walledgarden #redecentralize #email #emailprovider #emailencryption #encryption #security

🆕 blog! “How do you decentralise emergency alerts?”

Twitter's decision to hobble its API has meant that a number of useful alerting bots might no longer function. Your local subway might not be able to Tweet each morning about delays on the line, nor will a tornado warning be displayed as you scroll through photos of brunch, and forget about …

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/04/how-do-you-decentralise-emergency-alerts/
⸻
#ActivityPub #mastodon #MastodonAPI #ReDeCentralize

How do you decentralise emergency alerts?

Twitter's decision to hobble its API has meant that a number of useful alerting bots might no longer function. Your local subway might not be able to Tweet each morning about delays on the line, nor will a tornado warning be displayed as you scroll through photos of brunch, and forget about flood alerts between your memes.

In one sense, this is sad. A set of useful public services are being cut off from their audience. My friend, Bill Thompson, described this as "unnecessary disruption" I, on the other hand, think that creative destruction is sometimes a necessity.

You can listen to more of the discussion on the Gareth and BillCast about 19 minutes in.

Look, first off, it makes sense for organisations to put warning messages where their audience is likely to see it. No one sensible begrudges that. Twitter is a channel just as legitimate as radio, TV, or loudhailers in the street.

The problem comes when that's the only channel.

Twitter, somewhat accidentally, set itself up as a replacement for the public sphere. Now it has made it clear exactly what the cost of "free speech" is - alert bots are abandoning it.

Almost all the bots I mentioned above have websites. You can go check them, if you remember - but that isn't the same as having their warnings mixed in with your daily scrolling.

Some of those bots also have RSS feeds. But the RSS model doesn't lend itself to your peer group reposting urgent content into your feed.

And none of those websites and feeds are easily discoverable if you're in a new city.

So, how could this be solved with ActivityPub / Mastodon / Fediverse?

On the one hand, it's pretty easy for any organisation to set up a decentralised service with their alerts. Visiting https:// mass_transit.ak will show you all of Arstotzka's transport bots. You could subscribe to @[email protected] for Arstotzka's official warnings.

On Twitter, it's easy to search "Train Delays London" and see everything. Hopefully including one of the accounts which gives you official alerts.

But, one of the interesting problems with a decentralised service is that search is (deliberately0) difficult. Unless someone you're already following happens to share an alert, it can be very difficult to find relevant posts and accounts.

There is something of a solution which, I think, could be helpful. ActivityPub defines a way to add location to a post.

⧉ JSON{
  "@context": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
  "type": "Note",
  "name": "Arstotzka' Flood Service:",
  "content": "Heavy rains! Expect flooding and major disruption.",
    "location": {
       "name": "Arstotzka Central District,
       "type": "Place",
       "longitude": 12.34,
       "latitude": 56.78,
    }}

At the moment, there's no way to search for geo-tagged posts - but it doesn't have to be that way. It is relatively simple to use the Haversine formula to select database entries which are within a geographic area.

But, the key problem is too much decentralisation. It goes against the credo of redecentralization to have a single server called official-alerts.com - having a single destination to search is convenient, but provides for a single point of failure.

A country might have alerts.ak which has multiple accounts, or might have single-use instances like flood.ak and fire.ak and traffic.ak. They might be federated to, for example, official-alert-service.eu.

At which point, I get stuck.

How does a user discover these accounts?

There are three options, as I see it:

1. Advertising. The organisation promotes these accounts via other channels.
2. Serendipity. A user sees that another user has shared one of these accounts.
3. Better discovery tools. A user's instance could recommend accounts to follow based on geography or other factors.

Thoughts?

1. There is a strong culture of privacy and personal security on Mastodon. This is a good thing. People on a server dedicated to a marginalised community don't want their posts to be found by anyone who wants to do a drive-by trolling. But, of course, this makes it harder to assess the zeitgeist. ↩︎

@Jamilla @SilverSurfer @hllizi harter dislike #verschwoerungsgeschwurbel

Das ändert nichts daran, dass #Threema ein zentralisierter Dienst, der in seinem Netzwerk das #Monopol hat. Wenn dir #Matrix nicht passt, dann eben #XMPP oder andere dezentrale Dienste

#redecentralize

What I really can't understand, is that open source projects often use #proprietary #Discord @elk you build an open source client for the open source #decentral network #Mastodon . Why do you not offering a decentral chat room like @matrix #Matrix #redecentralize

This article from 2014 -- Mapping the decentralization movement -- showed up in my WordPress stats recently. I'd forgotten all about it! I love the fact that Pinboard has preserved all the links I curated on the #redecentralize tag.

See also #fediverse tag there: lots of stuff.

https://blog.jonudell.net/2014/06/11/mapping-the-decentralization-movement/

🆕 blog! “What would a decentralised Uber look like?”

Uber are undoubtedly a company engaged in extremely dodgy activity. But, on the other had, they're ridiculously convenient. A few months ago, we landed in a foreign country, opened the same Uber app as we used back home, and booked a cab. It just worked. I didn't need to register for a different version. I […]

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2022/12/what-would-a-decentralised-uber-look-like/
⸻
#ReDeCentralize #uber

The hashtag #ReDecentralize is a good one to follow.

@ff7 @Janina @threemaapp ich habe mich auch gerade sehr darüber gewundert. Eigentlich muss doch klar sein, dass ein zentralisierter #Messenger nicht die Lösung dafür sein kann. Wenn #Threema bespielsweise an eine andere dubiose Firma verkauft wird, dann ist eventuell auch nicht mehr sicher gestellt, dass keine #Metadaten erhoben werden. Ebenso wäre es auch möglich, dass #Threema ihr Geschäftmodell ändert und dann doch anfängt Metadaten zu sammeln.

#Matrix #XMPP #redecentralize #decentral

#Tumblr to add support for #ActivityPub, the social protocol powering #Mastodon and other #Fediverse apps #FediverseApps #decentral #redecentralize

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/21/tumblr-to-add-support-for-activitypub-the-social-protocol-powering-mastodon-and-other-apps/

@kolossus #Threema und #Signal sind auch zentralisierte Systeme Wir brauchen #dezentral e #Messenger wie #Matrix und #XMPP #redecentralize #decentral #Fediverse #Mastodon #Friendica #Diaspora #Hubzilla #Pixelfed #PeerTube etc.

@marquito @watermelonspin1 oh und die #E-Mail lebt immer 🙂 hat die nicht was mit #Mastodon gemeinsam 🤔 :thinkerguns: 😉

#Email #decentral #redecentralize

@iamjess @matrix is @Mastodon for Discord where Discord is Twitter #redecentralize #decentral #Matrix #mastodon #twitter #discord #OpenSource #foss

@jagov @preya wobei #Signal auch nicht föderiert, deshalb #matrix oder #xmpp #decentral #redecentralize

Kurzer, lässiger Talk über kleine Erfolge bei einem echt dicken Thema:

🔨 „Verklagen, protestieren oder zerschlagen? Was hilft gegen Facebook, Bayer, Google und Co.”
(01.10.2022) von Dr. Thomas Dürr, #GoliathWatch

📎 https://fahrplan22.bits-und-baeume.org/bitsundbaeume/talk/SYZEZD/

📺 https://streaming.media.ccc.de/bub2022/relive/21259

#SmashFacebook #redecentralize #goodnews #SurveillanceCapitalism #BitsundBäume22 #bitsundbäume

I'm shocked and sad about #M66B's (Marcel #Brokhorst) decision to quit work on all his awesome and important #floss #Android #apps #Netguard #FairEmail etc. But I totally understand his resignation, after years of David fighting against #Gooliath. This is were we're heading, folks. See #Pegasus #pMail yesterday. ☹️

Thanks for all your work, support and sacrifices, Marcel. 🙏 All the best and I hope things smh fall into place for you. 🤞

Thanks for nothing, Google. #fckGoogle #redecentralize ✊