#social-networking — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #social-networking, aggregated by home.social.
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The faces behind the feeds: Gen Z’s private lives and public posts – in pictures
By Gabrielle SchwarzFor the first digital natives, there are two places to express yourself: in the comfort of your own room and online. Photographer Niccolò Rastrelli set out to find out how the identities compare
#Photography #Artanddesign #Culture #Socialmedia #Instagram #Facebook #Digitalmedia #Socialnetworking #TheGuardian #GabrielleSchwarz
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The faces behind the feeds: Gen Z’s private lives and public posts – in pictures
By Gabrielle SchwarzFor the first digital natives, there are two places to express yourself: in the comfort of your own room and online. Photographer Niccolò Rastrelli set out to find out how the identities compare
#Photography #Artanddesign #Culture #Socialmedia #Instagram #Facebook #Digitalmedia #Socialnetworking #TheGuardian #GabrielleSchwarz
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The faces behind the feeds: Gen Z’s private lives and public posts – in pictures
By Gabrielle SchwarzFor the first digital natives, there are two places to express yourself: in the comfort of your own room and online. Photographer Niccolò Rastrelli set out to find out how the identities compare
#Photography #Artanddesign #Culture #Socialmedia #Instagram #Facebook #Digitalmedia #Socialnetworking #TheGuardian #GabrielleSchwarz
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Hot or Not Built the Internet We’re Still Swiping Through
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Hot or Not Built the Internet We’re Still Swiping Through
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Hot or Not Built the Internet We’re Still Swiping Through
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Hot or Not Built the Internet We’re Still Swiping Through
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Hot or Not Built the Internet We’re Still Swiping Through
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Reel-ing it in: Meta is paying influencers to promote teen accounts
By Johana BhuiyanTech Transparency Project’s report shows whenever governments mull platform regulations, company recruits influencers to promote its safety features
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/18/meta-pays-influencers-teen-social-media-ban
#Meta #Children #Childrenshealth #Instagram #Mentalhealth #Health #Facebook #Media #Technology #Society #Socialnetworking #TheGuardian #JohanaBhuiyan
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Reel-ing it in: Meta is paying influencers to promote teen accounts
By Johana BhuiyanTech Transparency Project’s report shows whenever governments mull platform regulations, company recruits influencers to promote its safety features
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/18/meta-pays-influencers-teen-social-media-ban
#Meta #Children #Childrenshealth #Instagram #Mentalhealth #Health #Facebook #Media #Technology #Society #Socialnetworking #TheGuardian #JohanaBhuiyan
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Reel-ing it in: Meta is paying influencers to promote teen accounts
By Johana BhuiyanTech Transparency Project’s report shows whenever governments mull platform regulations, company recruits influencers to promote its safety features
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/18/meta-pays-influencers-teen-social-media-ban
#Meta #Children #Childrenshealth #Instagram #Mentalhealth #Health #Facebook #Media #Technology #Society #Socialnetworking #TheGuardian #JohanaBhuiyan
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Reel-ing it in: Meta is paying influencers to promote teen accounts
By Johana BhuiyanTech Transparency Project’s report shows whenever governments mull platform regulations, company recruits influencers to promote its safety features
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/18/meta-pays-influencers-teen-social-media-ban
#Meta #Children #Childrenshealth #Instagram #Mentalhealth #Health #Facebook #Media #Technology #Society #Socialnetworking #TheGuardian #JohanaBhuiyan
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Reel-ing it in: Meta is paying influencers to promote teen accounts
By Johana BhuiyanTech Transparency Project’s report shows whenever governments mull platform regulations, company recruits influencers to promote its safety features
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/18/meta-pays-influencers-teen-social-media-ban
#Meta #Children #Childrenshealth #Instagram #Mentalhealth #Health #Facebook #Media #Technology #Society #Socialnetworking #TheGuardian #JohanaBhuiyan
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Reel-ing it in: Meta is paying influencers to promote teen accounts https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/18/meta-pays-influencers-teen-social-media-ban #Meta #Children #ChildrensHealth #Instagram #MentalHealth #Health #Facebook #Media #Technology #Society #SocialNetworking
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Reel-ing it in: Meta is paying influencers to promote teen accounts https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/18/meta-pays-influencers-teen-social-media-ban #Meta #Children #ChildrensHealth #Instagram #MentalHealth #Health #Facebook #Media #Technology #Society #SocialNetworking
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Reel-ing it in: Meta is paying influencers to promote teen accounts https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/18/meta-pays-influencers-teen-social-media-ban #Meta #Children #ChildrensHealth #Instagram #MentalHealth #Health #Facebook #Media #Technology #Society #SocialNetworking
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Reel-ing it in: Meta is paying influencers to promote teen accounts https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/18/meta-pays-influencers-teen-social-media-ban #Meta #Children #ChildrensHealth #Instagram #MentalHealth #Health #Facebook #Media #Technology #Society #SocialNetworking
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Reel-ing it in: Meta is paying influencers to promote teen accounts https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/18/meta-pays-influencers-teen-social-media-ban #Meta #Children #ChildrensHealth #Instagram #MentalHealth #Health #Facebook #Media #Technology #Society #SocialNetworking
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One thing about every time bsky shits itself and I have to login again is that I'm reminded once again that they've managed to fuck up their login page so that it's incompatible with Firefox's password management, something that feel like it takes a special brand of incompetence to pull off.
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One thing about every time bsky shits itself and I have to login again is that I'm reminded once again that they've managed to fuck up their login page so that it's incompatible with Firefox's password management, something that feel like it takes a special brand of incompetence to pull off.
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One thing about every time bsky shits itself and I have to login again is that I'm reminded once again that they've managed to fuck up their login page so that it's incompatible with Firefox's password management, something that feel like it takes a special brand of incompetence to pull off.
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One thing about every time bsky shits itself and I have to login again is that I'm reminded once again that they've managed to fuck up their login page so that it's incompatible with Firefox's password management, something that feel like it takes a special brand of incompetence to pull off.
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One thing about every time bsky shits itself and I have to login again is that I'm reminded once again that they've managed to fuck up their login page so that it's incompatible with Firefox's password management, something that feel like it takes a special brand of incompetence to pull off.
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Over 180 projects have decided not to use AI moving forward: https://noailist.org/ - projects include video games, non-profit orgs and tools, and lots of software projects.
#noai #antiai #withoutai #tech #software #games #programming #developers #videogames #nonprofit #tools #technology #llm #socialmedia #networking #socialnetworking #messaging
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Over 180 projects have decided not to use AI moving forward: https://noailist.org/ - projects include video games, non-profit orgs and tools, and lots of software projects.
#noai #antiai #withoutai #tech #software #games #programming #developers #videogames #nonprofit #tools #technology #llm #socialmedia #networking #socialnetworking #messaging
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Over 180 projects have decided not to use AI moving forward: https://noailist.org/ - projects include video games, non-profit orgs and tools, and lots of software projects.
#noai #antiai #withoutai #tech #software #games #programming #developers #videogames #nonprofit #tools #technology #llm #socialmedia #networking #socialnetworking #messaging
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Over 180 projects have decided not to use AI moving forward: https://noailist.org/ - projects include video games, non-profit orgs and tools, and lots of software projects.
#noai #antiai #withoutai #tech #software #games #programming #developers #videogames #nonprofit #tools #technology #llm #socialmedia #networking #socialnetworking #messaging
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Over 180 projects have decided not to use AI moving forward: https://noailist.org/ - projects include video games, non-profit orgs and tools, and lots of software projects.
#noai #antiai #withoutai #tech #software #games #programming #developers #videogames #nonprofit #tools #technology #llm #socialmedia #networking #socialnetworking #messaging
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‘If we don’t fight back, we don’t have a future’: the journalist taking on the ‘tech fascists’ of Silicon Valley https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/aug/05/journalist-taking-on-tech-fascists-silicon-valley #LifeAndStyle #DonaldTrump #TheSuperrich #FarRightUs #TheFarRight #ElonMusk #AiArtificialIntelligence #Palantir #SiliconValley #Openai #PeterThiel #SocialNetworking #Technology
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‘If we don’t fight back, we don’t have a future’: the journalist taking on the ‘tech fascists’ of Silicon Valley https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/aug/05/journalist-taking-on-tech-fascists-silicon-valley #LifeAndStyle #DonaldTrump #TheSuperrich #FarRightUs #TheFarRight #ElonMusk #AiArtificialIntelligence #Palantir #SiliconValley #Openai #PeterThiel #SocialNetworking #Technology
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‘If we don’t fight back, we don’t have a future’: the journalist taking on the ‘tech fascists’ of Silicon Valley https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/aug/05/journalist-taking-on-tech-fascists-silicon-valley #LifeAndStyle #DonaldTrump #TheSuperrich #FarRightUs #TheFarRight #ElonMusk #AiArtificialIntelligence #Palantir #SiliconValley #Openai #PeterThiel #SocialNetworking #Technology
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‘If we don’t fight back, we don’t have a future’: the journalist taking on the ‘tech fascists’ of Silicon Valley https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/aug/05/journalist-taking-on-tech-fascists-silicon-valley #LifeAndStyle #DonaldTrump #TheSuperrich #FarRightUs #TheFarRight #ElonMusk #AiArtificialIntelligence #Palantir #SiliconValley #Openai #PeterThiel #SocialNetworking #Technology
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‘If we don’t fight back, we don’t have a future’: the journalist taking on the ‘tech fascists’ of Silicon Valley https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/aug/05/journalist-taking-on-tech-fascists-silicon-valley #LifeAndStyle #DonaldTrump #TheSuperrich #FarRightUs #TheFarRight #ElonMusk #AiArtificialIntelligence #Palantir #SiliconValley #Openai #PeterThiel #SocialNetworking #Technology
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‘If we don’t fight back, we don’t have a future’: the journalist taking on the ‘tech fascists’ of Silicon Valley
By Steve RoseAs Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and their peers have grown richer and more influential, Gil Durán argues they have all but abandoned democracy – and found the perfect government to enable them
#Lifeandstyle #DonaldTrump #Thesuperrich #FarrightUS #Thefarright #ElonMusk #AIartificialintelligence #Palantir #SiliconValley #OpenAI #PeterThiel #Socialnetworking #Technology #TheGuardian #SteveRose
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‘If we don’t fight back, we don’t have a future’: the journalist taking on the ‘tech fascists’ of Silicon Valley
By Steve RoseAs Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and their peers have grown richer and more influential, Gil Durán argues they have all but abandoned democracy – and found the perfect government to enable them
#Lifeandstyle #DonaldTrump #Thesuperrich #FarrightUS #Thefarright #ElonMusk #AIartificialintelligence #Palantir #SiliconValley #OpenAI #PeterThiel #Socialnetworking #Technology #TheGuardian #SteveRose
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‘If we don’t fight back, we don’t have a future’: the journalist taking on the ‘tech fascists’ of Silicon Valley
By Steve RoseAs Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and their peers have grown richer and more influential, Gil Durán argues they have all but abandoned democracy – and found the perfect government to enable them
#Lifeandstyle #DonaldTrump #Thesuperrich #FarrightUS #Thefarright #ElonMusk #AIartificialintelligence #Palantir #SiliconValley #OpenAI #PeterThiel #Socialnetworking #Technology #TheGuardian #SteveRose
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‘If we don’t fight back, we don’t have a future’: the journalist taking on the ‘tech fascists’ of Silicon Valley
By Steve RoseAs Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and their peers have grown richer and more influential, Gil Durán argues they have all but abandoned democracy – and found the perfect government to enable them
#Lifeandstyle #DonaldTrump #Thesuperrich #FarrightUS #Thefarright #ElonMusk #AIartificialintelligence #Palantir #SiliconValley #OpenAI #PeterThiel #Socialnetworking #Technology #TheGuardian #SteveRose
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‘If we don’t fight back, we don’t have a future’: the journalist taking on the ‘tech fascists’ of Silicon Valley
By Steve RoseAs Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and their peers have grown richer and more influential, Gil Durán argues they have all but abandoned democracy – and found the perfect government to enable them
#Lifeandstyle #DonaldTrump #Thesuperrich #FarrightUS #Thefarright #ElonMusk #AIartificialintelligence #Palantir #SiliconValley #OpenAI #PeterThiel #Socialnetworking #Technology #TheGuardian #SteveRose
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@william ⁂ maggos In this regard, Mastodon has only got one major advantage: It has an official app.
Phone users used to see Twitter as a phone app that they loaded from their app store. Mastodon is the only *blogging thing in the Fediverse that they can load from their app store.
This is one reason why just about all Mastodon newbies use the official app and why they're on mastodon.social (it's the default in the official app, and since they don't know what this setting does, they leave it on default).
Mastodon even gets away with an official app that's far from good, much less fully features. All the newbies don't have anything to compare with. If Mastodon is a phone app to them, then the official app's feature set is Mastodon's feature set. If a feature isn't implemented in the official app, then Mastodon doesn't have it. I dare say that well over 80% of all Mastodon users have never in their lives used Mastodon's Web UI.
If someone takes the step and moves from the official Mastodon app to Ivory or Mona or IceCubes or Tusky or Fedilab or something like this, it's almost always the first time in their lives that they use an online service through an app that has a different name than the online service. Many people couldn't even imagine doing that.
This means that if Friendica and Hubzilla want to be more successful, growing beyond Mike's old "if you build it, they'll come" credo and advertising more isn't sufficient. People must be able to load Friendica/Hubzilla onto their phones from their app store. This requires an official app named "Friendica"/"Hubzilla" with a native, up-to-date iOS UI in the Apple App Store and one with a native, up-to-date Android UI in the Google Play Store. The existence of an official phone app in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store is essential for being considered existent in the first place.
A commonplace attitude on Friendica and even more so on Hubzilla is that both can be installed as a PWA. But seriously, 99.9% of all phone users don't even know that PWAs exist. They don't know what that is. Not to mention that they expect and demand a native mobile UI in the style of their phone OS and not a generic Web UI.
Now, what would this app have to look like?
If the advantages of Friendica and Hubzilla over Mastodon are to be emphasised and underlined, and if this app is to become people's one and only daily driver UI, it will have to be fully featured. Minus the settings for the Web UI (e.g. the theme settings and the PDL editor on Hubzilla), minus stuff that you'll never need if you only ever use the phone app and never the server UI (e.g. Webpages on Hubzilla), but otherwise fully featured. This would also demonstrate just how vastly more powerful Friendica and Hubzilla are than Mastodon.
The obvious downside is that such an app would be a feature monster. Bigger and more feature-laden than any Android e-mail app or OpenStreetMap editor.
There has been some talk about building an official Hubzilla phone app. Some Hubzilla users have proposed an app that only offers the very basics. However, their idea behind this is not to make the app easier for newbies to use, but to make it easier for the developers to build. They're often still stuck in the early 2010s when phone apps for websites were considered gimmicks. They think that people will only use the app when they're out and about, and when they're back home, they'll sit down behind their computers and use the Web interface. Thus, phone apps only need the most basic features implemented.
But 2026 is not 2011. The huge majority of Mastodon users only use Mastodon through a phone app. Even when they're at home. As I've said: If the app doesn't have a feature, the whole product doesn't have the feature, regardless of whether or not the feature is implemented in the server backend and even in the Web frontend.
Besides, even Friendica's basic features that you'll need all the time are a lot. Hubzilla's basic features that you'll need all the time are even more numerous.
Shall people be limited to posting in public when they're on a phone because the phone app doesn't have any permission settings?
Shall people be limited to posting to their contacts when they're on a phone because someone decided that support for groups would make the phone app too complex?
Shall people wait until they're home, and they've got some time to fire up a computer, open a Web browser and log onto the Web interface to accept connection requests because the phone app doesn't have any connection settings? What if they don't have a computer?
Let's face it, social networking itself is a complex thing. And I mean actual social networking. Not misusing glorified SMS as a social network. Real social networking. Facebook-level social networking. Google+-level social networking. MySpace-level social networking.
Thus, a social networking phone app with all features necessary for real social networking has to be complex. This isn't a Friendica/Hubzilla issue. Don't believe that the official Facebook apps are simple.
This is also why so many prefer 𝕏 over Facebook. Facebook is complex. Facebook isn't just register, follow, post. 𝕏 is much more simple. 𝕏 is glorified SMS. 𝕏 is literally just register, follow, tweet. Facebook is rocket science whereas 𝕏 is for dumb-dumbs.
And it's because Mastodon is so lacking that it's for dumb-dumbs by Fediverse standards. In fact, if you don't read those panicky "it's too complicated because you have to know what a server is" posts, if you just load the app and create an account, Mastodon, through the official app, is for dumb-dumbs by all standards.
However, those who actually are on Facebook are willing to put up with something more complex. They need something more complex than glorified SMS for dumb-dumbs. They need the extra features that Facebook has that 𝕏 doesn't, even if these are the very features that deny Facebook the "for dumb-dumbs" attribute.
Send them to Mastodon, and they'll be irritated and even repelled because this feature isn't there, and that feature isn't there, and that feature is cut down beyond recognition, and they can't find any interesting people (not because Mastodon is decentralised, and the interesting people are on other servers, but because Mastodon's directory sucks arse in comparison with Facebook's), and what's with that stupid character limit?
On Friendica and Hubzilla, this feature and that feature have been there for longer than Mastodon itself, that feature is even more powerful than on Facebook proper, interesting people are being shoved into their faces once they've filled out their profile, even more so once they've got some connections, and there is no character limit worth speaking of.
But as long as Friendica and Hubzilla don't have official, fully daily-driveable phone apps named "Friendica" and "Hubzilla" respectively, they simply don't exist.
Granted, there's another obstacle. Many Mastodon users say the Fediverse needs a Facebook alternative. If you tell them about Friendica and its descendants, some will be very thankful because they've genuinely never heard of any of these.
Others will tell you that they know Friendica and maybe even Hubzilla. But they also say that none of these are Facebook alternatives. For when they say, "alternative," what they really mean is, "1:1 clone, just with a different name and decentralised and with ActivityPub and without spying and without the recent enshittification and without the evil CEO, otherwise absolutely identical."
One big aspect of this is that, as they say, the Fediverse needs an alternative to Facebook Groups. Friendica groups are exactly that because they were designed to be exactly that. Hubzilla forums, (streams) groups, Forte groups, all just that. But according to these people, they don't count because they aren't handled in precisely the same way as Facebook groups. Facebook groups aren't separate accounts. And different equals bad.
What really has me shake my head is that those who want a 1:1 Facebook clone continue to use Mastodon as a Facebook alternative. Even though Friendica and its family are vastly closer to Facebook regardless. Even though Mastodon not only doesn't have groups at all, but it doesn't even have any support for external groups. Is shouting into the void with a bunch of hashtags and hoping the right people will hear you really that much better than a Friendica group or a Hubzilla forum or maybe a PieFed community?
By the way: Just how faithful a Twitter clone is Mastodon really, seeing as Misskey and the Forkeys have the odd Twitter feature that Mastodon still lacks, seeing as even Mastodon gradually becomes more complex than 𝕏, much more so than when-it-still-was-good Twitter?
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Misskey #Forkey #Forkeys #PieFed #Privacy #Permission #Permissions #Groups #FediverseGroups #FediGroups #App #PhoneApp #iPhoneApp #iOSApp #AndroidApp #SocialNetwork #SocialNetworking #Twitter #𝕏 #Facebook #FacebookGroups -
@william ⁂ maggos In this regard, Mastodon has only got one major advantage: It has an official app.
Phone users used to see Twitter as a phone app that they loaded from their app store. Mastodon is the only *blogging thing in the Fediverse that they can load from their app store.
This is one reason why just about all Mastodon newbies use the official app and why they're on mastodon.social (it's the default in the official app, and since they don't know what this setting does, they leave it on default).
Mastodon even gets away with an official app that's far from good, much less fully features. All the newbies don't have anything to compare with. If Mastodon is a phone app to them, then the official app's feature set is Mastodon's feature set. If a feature isn't implemented in the official app, then Mastodon doesn't have it. I dare say that well over 80% of all Mastodon users have never in their lives used Mastodon's Web UI.
If someone takes the step and moves from the official Mastodon app to Ivory or Mona or IceCubes or Tusky or Fedilab or something like this, it's almost always the first time in their lives that they use an online service through an app that has a different name than the online service. Many people couldn't even imagine doing that.
This means that if Friendica and Hubzilla want to be more successful, growing beyond Mike's old "if you build it, they'll come" credo and advertising more isn't sufficient. People must be able to load Friendica/Hubzilla onto their phones from their app store. This requires an official app named "Friendica"/"Hubzilla" with a native, up-to-date iOS UI in the Apple App Store and one with a native, up-to-date Android UI in the Google Play Store. The existence of an official phone app in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store is essential for being considered existent in the first place.
A commonplace attitude on Friendica and even more so on Hubzilla is that both can be installed as a PWA. But seriously, 99.9% of all phone users don't even know that PWAs exist. They don't know what that is. Not to mention that they expect and demand a native mobile UI in the style of their phone OS and not a generic Web UI.
Now, what would this app have to look like?
If the advantages of Friendica and Hubzilla over Mastodon are to be emphasised and underlined, and if this app is to become people's one and only daily driver UI, it will have to be fully featured. Minus the settings for the Web UI (e.g. the theme settings and the PDL editor on Hubzilla), minus stuff that you'll never need if you only ever use the phone app and never the server UI (e.g. Webpages on Hubzilla), but otherwise fully featured. This would also demonstrate just how vastly more powerful Friendica and Hubzilla are than Mastodon.
The obvious downside is that such an app would be a feature monster. Bigger and more feature-laden than any Android e-mail app or OpenStreetMap editor.
There has been some talk about building an official Hubzilla phone app. Some Hubzilla users have proposed an app that only offers the very basics. However, their idea behind this is not to make the app easier for newbies to use, but to make it easier for the developers to build. They're often still stuck in the early 2010s when phone apps for websites were considered gimmicks. They think that people will only use the app when they're out and about, and when they're back home, they'll sit down behind their computers and use the Web interface. Thus, phone apps only need the most basic features implemented.
But 2026 is not 2011. The huge majority of Mastodon users only use Mastodon through a phone app. Even when they're at home. As I've said: If the app doesn't have a feature, the whole product doesn't have the feature, regardless of whether or not the feature is implemented in the server backend and even in the Web frontend.
Besides, even Friendica's basic features that you'll need all the time are a lot. Hubzilla's basic features that you'll need all the time are even more numerous.
Shall people be limited to posting in public when they're on a phone because the phone app doesn't have any permission settings?
Shall people be limited to posting to their contacts when they're on a phone because someone decided that support for groups would make the phone app too complex?
Shall people wait until they're home, and they've got some time to fire up a computer, open a Web browser and log onto the Web interface to accept connection requests because the phone app doesn't have any connection settings? What if they don't have a computer?
Let's face it, social networking itself is a complex thing. And I mean actual social networking. Not misusing glorified SMS as a social network. Real social networking. Facebook-level social networking. Google+-level social networking. MySpace-level social networking.
Thus, a social networking phone app with all features necessary for real social networking has to be complex. This isn't a Friendica/Hubzilla issue. Don't believe that the official Facebook apps are simple.
This is also why so many prefer 𝕏 over Facebook. Facebook is complex. Facebook isn't just register, follow, post. 𝕏 is much more simple. 𝕏 is glorified SMS. 𝕏 is literally just register, follow, tweet. Facebook is rocket science whereas 𝕏 is for dumb-dumbs.
And it's because Mastodon is so lacking that it's for dumb-dumbs by Fediverse standards. In fact, if you don't read those panicky "it's too complicated because you have to know what a server is" posts, if you just load the app and create an account, Mastodon, through the official app, is for dumb-dumbs by all standards.
However, those who actually are on Facebook are willing to put up with something more complex. They need something more complex than glorified SMS for dumb-dumbs. They need the extra features that Facebook has that 𝕏 doesn't, even if these are the very features that deny Facebook the "for dumb-dumbs" attribute.
Send them to Mastodon, and they'll be irritated and even repelled because this feature isn't there, and that feature isn't there, and that feature is cut down beyond recognition, and they can't find any interesting people (not because Mastodon is decentralised, and the interesting people are on other servers, but because Mastodon's directory sucks arse in comparison with Facebook's), and what's with that stupid character limit?
On Friendica and Hubzilla, this feature and that feature have been there for longer than Mastodon itself, that feature is even more powerful than on Facebook proper, interesting people are being shoved into their faces once they've filled out their profile, even more so once they've got some connections, and there is no character limit worth speaking of.
But as long as Friendica and Hubzilla don't have official, fully daily-driveable phone apps named "Friendica" and "Hubzilla" respectively, they simply don't exist.
Granted, there's another obstacle. Many Mastodon users say the Fediverse needs a Facebook alternative. If you tell them about Friendica and its descendants, some will be very thankful because they've genuinely never heard of any of these.
Others will tell you that they know Friendica and maybe even Hubzilla. But they also say that none of these are Facebook alternatives. For when they say, "alternative," what they really mean is, "1:1 clone, just with a different name and decentralised and with ActivityPub and without spying and without the recent enshittification and without the evil CEO, otherwise absolutely identical."
One big aspect of this is that, as they say, the Fediverse needs an alternative to Facebook Groups. Friendica groups are exactly that because they were designed to be exactly that. Hubzilla forums, (streams) groups, Forte groups, all just that. But according to these people, they don't count because they aren't handled in precisely the same way as Facebook groups. Facebook groups aren't separate accounts. And different equals bad.
What really has me shake my head is that those who want a 1:1 Facebook clone continue to use Mastodon as a Facebook alternative. Even though Friendica and its family are vastly closer to Facebook regardless. Even though Mastodon not only doesn't have groups at all, but it doesn't even have any support for external groups. Is shouting into the void with a bunch of hashtags and hoping the right people will hear you really that much better than a Friendica group or a Hubzilla forum or maybe a PieFed community?
By the way: Just how faithful a Twitter clone is Mastodon really, seeing as Misskey and the Forkeys have the odd Twitter feature that Mastodon still lacks, seeing as even Mastodon gradually becomes more complex than 𝕏, much more so than when-it-still-was-good Twitter?
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Misskey #Forkey #Forkeys #PieFed #Privacy #Permission #Permissions #Groups #FediverseGroups #FediGroups #App #PhoneApp #iPhoneApp #iOSApp #AndroidApp #SocialNetwork #SocialNetworking #Twitter #𝕏 #Facebook #FacebookGroups -
@william ⁂ maggos In this regard, Mastodon has only got one major advantage: It has an official app.
Phone users used to see Twitter as a phone app that they loaded from their app store. Mastodon is the only *blogging thing in the Fediverse that they can load from their app store.
This is one reason why just about all Mastodon newbies use the official app and why they're on mastodon.social (it's the default in the official app, and since they don't know what this setting does, they leave it on default).
Mastodon even gets away with an official app that's far from good, much less fully features. All the newbies don't have anything to compare with. If Mastodon is a phone app to them, then the official app's feature set is Mastodon's feature set. If a feature isn't implemented in the official app, then Mastodon doesn't have it. I dare say that well over 80% of all Mastodon users have never in their lives used Mastodon's Web UI.
If someone takes the step and moves from the official Mastodon app to Ivory or Mona or IceCubes or Tusky or Fedilab or something like this, it's almost always the first time in their lives that they use an online service through an app that has a different name than the online service. Many people couldn't even imagine doing that.
This means that if Friendica and Hubzilla want to be more successful, growing beyond Mike's old "if you build it, they'll come" credo and advertising more isn't sufficient. People must be able to load Friendica/Hubzilla onto their phones from their app store. This requires an official app named "Friendica"/"Hubzilla" with a native, up-to-date iOS UI in the Apple App Store and one with a native, up-to-date Android UI in the Google Play Store. The existence of an official phone app in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store is essential for being considered existent in the first place.
A commonplace attitude on Friendica and even more so on Hubzilla is that both can be installed as a PWA. But seriously, 99.9% of all phone users don't even know that PWAs exist. They don't know what that is. Not to mention that they expect and demand a native mobile UI in the style of their phone OS and not a generic Web UI.
Now, what would this app have to look like?
If the advantages of Friendica and Hubzilla over Mastodon are to be emphasised and underlined, and if this app is to become people's one and only daily driver UI, it will have to be fully featured. Minus the settings for the Web UI (e.g. the theme settings and the PDL editor on Hubzilla), minus stuff that you'll never need if you only ever use the phone app and never the server UI (e.g. Webpages on Hubzilla), but otherwise fully featured. This would also demonstrate just how vastly more powerful Friendica and Hubzilla are than Mastodon.
The obvious downside is that such an app would be a feature monster. Bigger and more feature-laden than any Android e-mail app or OpenStreetMap editor.
There has been some talk about building an official Hubzilla phone app. Some Hubzilla users have proposed an app that only offers the very basics. However, their idea behind this is not to make the app easier for newbies to use, but to make it easier for the developers to build. They're often still stuck in the early 2010s when phone apps for websites were considered gimmicks. They think that people will only use the app when they're out and about, and when they're back home, they'll sit down behind their computers and use the Web interface. Thus, phone apps only need the most basic features implemented.
But 2026 is not 2011. The huge majority of Mastodon users only use Mastodon through a phone app. Even when they're at home. As I've said: If the app doesn't have a feature, the whole product doesn't have the feature, regardless of whether or not the feature is implemented in the server backend and even in the Web frontend.
Besides, even Friendica's basic features that you'll need all the time are a lot. Hubzilla's basic features that you'll need all the time are even more numerous.
Shall people be limited to posting in public when they're on a phone because the phone app doesn't have any permission settings?
Shall people be limited to posting to their contacts when they're on a phone because someone decided that support for groups would make the phone app too complex?
Shall people wait until they're home, and they've got some time to fire up a computer, open a Web browser and log onto the Web interface to accept connection requests because the phone app doesn't have any connection settings? What if they don't have a computer?
Let's face it, social networking itself is a complex thing. And I mean actual social networking. Not misusing glorified SMS as a social network. Real social networking. Facebook-level social networking. Google+-level social networking. MySpace-level social networking.
Thus, a social networking phone app with all features necessary for real social networking has to be complex. This isn't a Friendica/Hubzilla issue. Don't believe that the official Facebook apps are simple.
This is also why so many prefer 𝕏 over Facebook. Facebook is complex. Facebook isn't just register, follow, post. 𝕏 is much more simple. 𝕏 is glorified SMS. 𝕏 is literally just register, follow, tweet. Facebook is rocket science whereas 𝕏 is for dumb-dumbs.
And it's because Mastodon is so lacking that it's for dumb-dumbs by Fediverse standards. In fact, if you don't read those panicky "it's too complicated because you have to know what a server is" posts, if you just load the app and create an account, Mastodon, through the official app, is for dumb-dumbs by all standards.
However, those who actually are on Facebook are willing to put up with something more complex. They need something more complex than glorified SMS for dumb-dumbs. They need the extra features that Facebook has that 𝕏 doesn't, even if these are the very features that deny Facebook the "for dumb-dumbs" attribute.
Send them to Mastodon, and they'll be irritated and even repelled because this feature isn't there, and that feature isn't there, and that feature is cut down beyond recognition, and they can't find any interesting people (not because Mastodon is decentralised, and the interesting people are on other servers, but because Mastodon's directory sucks arse in comparison with Facebook's), and what's with that stupid character limit?
On Friendica and Hubzilla, this feature and that feature have been there for longer than Mastodon itself, that feature is even more powerful than on Facebook proper, interesting people are being shoved into their faces once they've filled out their profile, even more so once they've got some connections, and there is no character limit worth speaking of.
But as long as Friendica and Hubzilla don't have official, fully daily-driveable phone apps named "Friendica" and "Hubzilla" respectively, they simply don't exist.
Granted, there's another obstacle. Many Mastodon users say the Fediverse needs a Facebook alternative. If you tell them about Friendica and its descendants, some will be very thankful because they've genuinely never heard of any of these.
Others will tell you that they know Friendica and maybe even Hubzilla. But they also say that none of these are Facebook alternatives. For when they say, "alternative," what they really mean is, "1:1 clone, just with a different name and decentralised and with ActivityPub and without spying and without the recent enshittification and without the evil CEO, otherwise absolutely identical."
One big aspect of this is that, as they say, the Fediverse needs an alternative to Facebook Groups. Friendica groups are exactly that because they were designed to be exactly that. Hubzilla forums, (streams) groups, Forte groups, all just that. But according to these people, they don't count because they aren't handled in precisely the same way as Facebook groups. Facebook groups aren't separate accounts. And different equals bad.
What really has me shake my head is that those who want a 1:1 Facebook clone continue to use Mastodon as a Facebook alternative. Even though Friendica and its family are vastly closer to Facebook regardless. Even though Mastodon not only doesn't have groups at all, but it doesn't even have any support for external groups. Is shouting into the void with a bunch of hashtags and hoping the right people will hear you really that much better than a Friendica group or a Hubzilla forum or maybe a PieFed community?
By the way: Just how faithful a Twitter clone is Mastodon really, seeing as Misskey and the Forkeys have the odd Twitter feature that Mastodon still lacks, seeing as even Mastodon gradually becomes more complex than 𝕏, much more so than when-it-still-was-good Twitter?
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Misskey #Forkey #Forkeys #PieFed #Privacy #Permission #Permissions #Groups #FediverseGroups #FediGroups #App #PhoneApp #iPhoneApp #iOSApp #AndroidApp #SocialNetwork #SocialNetworking #Twitter #𝕏 #Facebook #FacebookGroups -
@william ⁂ maggos In this regard, Mastodon has only got one major advantage: It has an official app.
Phone users used to see Twitter as a phone app that they loaded from their app store. Mastodon is the only *blogging thing in the Fediverse that they can load from their app store.
This is one reason why just about all Mastodon newbies use the official app and why they're on mastodon.social (it's the default in the official app, and since they don't know what this setting does, they leave it on default).
Mastodon even gets away with an official app that's far from good, much less fully features. All the newbies don't have anything to compare with. If Mastodon is a phone app to them, then the official app's feature set is Mastodon's feature set. If a feature isn't implemented in the official app, then Mastodon doesn't have it. I dare say that well over 80% of all Mastodon users have never in their lives used Mastodon's Web UI.
If someone takes the step and moves from the official Mastodon app to Ivory or Mona or IceCubes or Tusky or Fedilab or something like this, it's almost always the first time in their lives that they use an online service through an app that has a different name than the online service. Many people couldn't even imagine doing that.
This means that if Friendica and Hubzilla want to be more successful, growing beyond Mike's old "if you build it, they'll come" credo and advertising more isn't sufficient. People must be able to load Friendica/Hubzilla onto their phones from their app store. This requires an official app named "Friendica"/"Hubzilla" with a native, up-to-date iOS UI in the Apple App Store and one with a native, up-to-date Android UI in the Google Play Store. The existence of an official phone app in the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store is essential for being considered existent in the first place.
A commonplace attitude on Friendica and even more so on Hubzilla is that both can be installed as a PWA. But seriously, 99.9% of all phone users don't even know that PWAs exist. They don't know what that is. Not to mention that they expect and demand a native mobile UI in the style of their phone OS and not a generic Web UI.
Now, what would this app have to look like?
If the advantages of Friendica and Hubzilla over Mastodon are to be emphasised and underlined, and if this app is to become people's one and only daily driver UI, it will have to be fully featured. Minus the settings for the Web UI (e.g. the theme settings and the PDL editor on Hubzilla), minus stuff that you'll never need if you only ever use the phone app and never the server UI (e.g. Webpages on Hubzilla), but otherwise fully featured. This would also demonstrate just how vastly more powerful Friendica and Hubzilla are than Mastodon.
The obvious downside is that such an app would be a feature monster. Bigger and more feature-laden than any Android e-mail app or OpenStreetMap editor.
There has been some talk about building an official Hubzilla phone app. Some Hubzilla users have proposed an app that only offers the very basics. However, their idea behind this is not to make the app easier for newbies to use, but to make it easier for the developers to build. They're often still stuck in the early 2010s when phone apps for websites were considered gimmicks. They think that people will only use the app when they're out and about, and when they're back home, they'll sit down behind their computers and use the Web interface. Thus, phone apps only need the most basic features implemented.
But 2026 is not 2011. The huge majority of Mastodon users only use Mastodon through a phone app. Even when they're at home. As I've said: If the app doesn't have a feature, the whole product doesn't have the feature, regardless of whether or not the feature is implemented in the server backend and even in the Web frontend.
Besides, even Friendica's basic features that you'll need all the time are a lot. Hubzilla's basic features that you'll need all the time are even more numerous.
Shall people be limited to posting in public when they're on a phone because the phone app doesn't have any permission settings?
Shall people be limited to posting to their contacts when they're on a phone because someone decided that support for groups would make the phone app too complex?
Shall people wait until they're home, and they've got some time to fire up a computer, open a Web browser and log onto the Web interface to accept connection requests because the phone app doesn't have any connection settings? What if they don't have a computer?
Let's face it, social networking itself is a complex thing. And I mean actual social networking. Not misusing glorified SMS as a social network. Real social networking. Facebook-level social networking. Google+-level social networking. MySpace-level social networking.
Thus, a social networking phone app with all features necessary for real social networking has to be complex. This isn't a Friendica/Hubzilla issue. Don't believe that the official Facebook apps are simple.
This is also why so many prefer 𝕏 over Facebook. Facebook is complex. Facebook isn't just register, follow, post. 𝕏 is much more simple. 𝕏 is glorified SMS. 𝕏 is literally just register, follow, tweet. Facebook is rocket science whereas 𝕏 is for dumb-dumbs.
And it's because Mastodon is so lacking that it's for dumb-dumbs by Fediverse standards. In fact, if you don't read those panicky "it's too complicated because you have to know what a server is" posts, if you just load the app and create an account, Mastodon, through the official app, is for dumb-dumbs by all standards.
However, those who actually are on Facebook are willing to put up with something more complex. They need something more complex than glorified SMS for dumb-dumbs. They need the extra features that Facebook has that 𝕏 doesn't, even if these are the very features that deny Facebook the "for dumb-dumbs" attribute.
Send them to Mastodon, and they'll be irritated and even repelled because this feature isn't there, and that feature isn't there, and that feature is cut down beyond recognition, and they can't find any interesting people (not because Mastodon is decentralised, and the interesting people are on other servers, but because Mastodon's directory sucks arse in comparison with Facebook's), and what's with that stupid character limit?
On Friendica and Hubzilla, this feature and that feature have been there for longer than Mastodon itself, that feature is even more powerful than on Facebook proper, interesting people are being shoved into their faces once they've filled out their profile, even more so once they've got some connections, and there is no character limit worth speaking of.
But as long as Friendica and Hubzilla don't have official, fully daily-driveable phone apps named "Friendica" and "Hubzilla" respectively, they simply don't exist.
Granted, there's another obstacle. Many Mastodon users say the Fediverse needs a Facebook alternative. If you tell them about Friendica and its descendants, some will be very thankful because they've genuinely never heard of any of these.
Others will tell you that they know Friendica and maybe even Hubzilla. But they also say that none of these are Facebook alternatives. For when they say, "alternative," what they really mean is, "1:1 clone, just with a different name and decentralised and with ActivityPub and without spying and without the recent enshittification and without the evil CEO, otherwise absolutely identical."
One big aspect of this is that, as they say, the Fediverse needs an alternative to Facebook Groups. Friendica groups are exactly that because they were designed to be exactly that. Hubzilla forums, (streams) groups, Forte groups, all just that. But according to these people, they don't count because they aren't handled in precisely the same way as Facebook groups. Facebook groups aren't separate accounts. And different equals bad.
What really has me shake my head is that those who want a 1:1 Facebook clone continue to use Mastodon as a Facebook alternative. Even though Friendica and its family are vastly closer to Facebook regardless. Even though Mastodon not only doesn't have groups at all, but it doesn't even have any support for external groups. Is shouting into the void with a bunch of hashtags and hoping the right people will hear you really that much better than a Friendica group or a Hubzilla forum or maybe a PieFed community?
By the way: Just how faithful a Twitter clone is Mastodon really, seeing as Misskey and the Forkeys have the odd Twitter feature that Mastodon still lacks, seeing as even Mastodon gradually becomes more complex than 𝕏, much more so than when-it-still-was-good Twitter?
#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #CharacterLimit #CharacterLimits #CharacterLimitMeta #CWCharacterLimitMeta #Fediverse #Mastodon #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Misskey #Forkey #Forkeys #PieFed #Privacy #Permission #Permissions #Groups #FediverseGroups #FediGroups #App #PhoneApp #iPhoneApp #iOSApp #AndroidApp #SocialNetwork #SocialNetworking #Twitter #𝕏 #Facebook #FacebookGroups -
Want an update on the Weekend at Bernie’s clown show that is W Social? No? Me neither, but here we are…
So before we start, let’s recount the whole dystopian raison d’être of these Davosian clowns: to be a EU®opean “alternative to X” that – cue the 1984 theme tune – verifies your identity to ensure that only “real people” are on it (real is what your government says it is).
Now, let’s fast forward to last week, when TikTok set up an account on W Social.
That’s nice, isn’t it? One surveillance capitalist lending their support to another? Kumbaya and all that. The only problem? (spoiler alert), it wasn’t TikTok. (Shocking, I know.)
The account, Identity Verified™ by EU X – sorry, W Social, was a spam account and immediately labelled as such by BlueSky moderators. (Don’t you love a “decentralised” system where a post on an EU server, accessed from another EU server, is moderated by our benevolent Big Brother in Trumpland, by the way? I know it just warms the cockles of my heart. So much sovereignty! But I digress…)
So @_elena calls them out (someone has to while @EUCommission is busy preparing for their honeymoon after expressing their undying devotion to W Social recently on every social platform¹):
https://mu.social/profile/elenarossini.com/post/3mqob7shxks2t
Anna Zeiter – W CEO, Stanford’s own, and ex-eBay executive (such sovereignty) – replies with this absolute zinger:
> “We are just verifying if some [sic] is a human and at least 18 years old. Users are then free to choose their own user name. This (human) user apparently chose the name TikTok.“ (https://mu.social/profile/anna.wsocial.eu/post/3mqoepm7m2k2z)
Read that as many times as you like until it really sinks in.
These incompetent clowns (dangerous competent clowns but incompetent clowns nevertheless) make people go through a ridiculous 13-step identity verification stage² and then… umm… you get to choose whatever identity you want.
🤡🤡🤡
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re incompetent. It would be worse if they were competent, given they’re a closed-source venture-capital-funded startup determined to prove your identity.
> “Yes we have a business model, it’s not a philanthropy, we are not a B corp, we actually want to make money.” – Anna Zeiter³
But, what I want to know is this: Why has @EUCommission embraced a proprietary, closed-source, corporate ghost town with 14,300 accounts, 90% of which have not posted even once (in other words, with only 1,259 accounts that have ever posted)⁴ when there is a thriving non-corporate fediverse with millions of active people on it.
Could it have anything to do with identity verification, surveillance, and control?
And if so, why can’t they even get that right?
Looking forward to seeing how long @EUCommission can drag the corpse of W Social around before people realise it’s dead.
Oh, and how does this make the whole “European alternatives” thing look? Not good. Not because there aren’t excellent European alternatives but because the folks at the commission are either too clueless or too corrupt to recognise and support them.
So, yeah, how’s your Monday going?
¹ e.g., https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/116770333053823108, etc.
² https://aseachange.com/@elena/statuses/01KVD55YBYVM3B46ACQTECDMT2
³ https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-untold-story-about-w-social-unconventional-beginnings-strategic-pitches-conflicting-signals/ (from the YouTube video that they since deleted. Nice transparency there, clowns.)
⁴ Run this script in Node 18+ to reproduce the numbers from their PDS yourself: https://codeberg.org/aral/gists/src/branch/main/wsocial-pds-stats.js Also see https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-a-broken-ghost-town/ and https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-fictional-metrics-and-the-beauty-of-open-data/
#WSocial #EU #sovereignty #socialMedia #socialNetworking #mastodon #fediverse #activityPub #ATProto #startups #EUCommission
-
Want an update on the Weekend at Bernie’s clown show that is W Social? No? Me neither, but here we are…
So before we start, let’s recount the whole dystopian raison d’être of these Davosian clowns: to be a EU®opean “alternative to X” that – cue the 1984 theme tune – verifies your identity to ensure that only “real people” are on it (real is what your government says it is).
Now, let’s fast forward to last week, when TikTok set up an account on W Social.
That’s nice, isn’t it? One surveillance capitalist lending their support to another? Kumbaya and all that. The only problem? (spoiler alert), it wasn’t TikTok. (Shocking, I know.)
The account, Identity Verified™ by EU X – sorry, W Social, was a spam account and immediately labelled as such by BlueSky moderators. (Don’t you love a “decentralised” system where a post on an EU server, accessed from another EU server, is moderated by our benevolent Big Brother in Trumpland, by the way? I know it just warms the cockles of my heart. So much sovereignty! But I digress…)
So @_elena calls them out (someone has to while @EUCommission is busy preparing for their honeymoon after expressing their undying devotion to W Social recently on every social platform¹):
https://mu.social/profile/elenarossini.com/post/3mqob7shxks2t
Anna Zeiter – W CEO, Stanford’s own, and ex-eBay executive (such sovereignty) – replies with this absolute zinger:
> “We are just verifying if some [sic] is a human and at least 18 years old. Users are then free to choose their own user name. This (human) user apparently chose the name TikTok.“ (https://mu.social/profile/anna.wsocial.eu/post/3mqoepm7m2k2z)
Read that as many times as you like until it really sinks in.
These incompetent clowns (dangerous competent clowns but incompetent clowns nevertheless) make people go through a ridiculous 13-step identity verification stage² and then… umm… you get to choose whatever identity you want.
🤡🤡🤡
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re incompetent. It would be worse if they were competent, given they’re a closed-source venture-capital-funded startup determined to prove your identity.
> “Yes we have a business model, it’s not a philanthropy, we are not a B corp, we actually want to make money.” – Anna Zeiter³
But, what I want to know is this: Why has @EUCommission embraced a proprietary, closed-source, corporate ghost town with 14,300 accounts, 90% of which have not posted even once (in other words, with only 1,259 accounts that have ever posted)⁴ when there is a thriving non-corporate fediverse with millions of active people on it.
Could it have anything to do with identity verification, surveillance, and control?
And if so, why can’t they even get that right?
Looking forward to seeing how long @EUCommission can drag the corpse of W Social around before people realise it’s dead.
Oh, and how does this make the whole “European alternatives” thing look? Not good. Not because there aren’t excellent European alternatives but because the folks at the commission are either too clueless or too corrupt to recognise and support them.
So, yeah, how’s your Monday going?
¹ e.g., https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/116770333053823108, etc.
² https://aseachange.com/@elena/statuses/01KVD55YBYVM3B46ACQTECDMT2
³ https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-untold-story-about-w-social-unconventional-beginnings-strategic-pitches-conflicting-signals/ (from the YouTube video that they since deleted. Nice transparency there, clowns.)
⁴ Run this script in Node 18+ to reproduce the numbers from their PDS yourself: https://codeberg.org/aral/gists/src/branch/main/wsocial-pds-stats.js Also see https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-a-broken-ghost-town/ and https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-fictional-metrics-and-the-beauty-of-open-data/
#WSocial #EU #sovereignty #socialMedia #socialNetworking #mastodon #fediverse #activityPub #ATProto #startups #EUCommission
-
Want an update on the Weekend at Bernie’s clown show that is W Social? No? Me neither, but here we are…
So before we start, let’s recount the whole dystopian raison d’être of these Davosian clowns: to be a EU®opean “alternative to X” that – cue the 1984 theme tune – verifies your identity to ensure that only “real people” are on it (real is what your government says it is).
Now, let’s fast forward to last week, when TikTok set up an account on W Social.
That’s nice, isn’t it? One surveillance capitalist lending their support to another? Kumbaya and all that. The only problem? (spoiler alert), it wasn’t TikTok. (Shocking, I know.)
The account, Identity Verified™ by EU X – sorry, W Social, was a spam account and immediately labelled as such by BlueSky moderators. (Don’t you love a “decentralised” system where a post on an EU server, accessed from another EU server, is moderated by our benevolent Big Brother in Trumpland, by the way? I know it just warms the cockles of my heart. So much sovereignty! But I digress…)
So @_elena calls them out (someone has to while @EUCommission is busy preparing for their honeymoon after expressing their undying devotion to W Social recently on every social platform¹):
https://mu.social/profile/elenarossini.com/post/3mqob7shxks2t
Anna Zeiter – W CEO, Stanford’s own, and ex-eBay executive (such sovereignty) – replies with this absolute zinger:
> “We are just verifying if some [sic] is a human and at least 18 years old. Users are then free to choose their own user name. This (human) user apparently chose the name TikTok.“ (https://mu.social/profile/anna.wsocial.eu/post/3mqoepm7m2k2z)
Read that as many times as you like until it really sinks in.
These incompetent clowns (dangerous competent clowns but incompetent clowns nevertheless) make people go through a ridiculous 13-step identity verification stage² and then… umm… you get to choose whatever identity you want.
🤡🤡🤡
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re incompetent. It would be worse if they were competent, given they’re a closed-source venture-capital-funded startup determined to prove your identity.
> “Yes we have a business model, it’s not a philanthropy, we are not a B corp, we actually want to make money.” – Anna Zeiter³
But, what I want to know is this: Why has @EUCommission embraced a proprietary, closed-source, corporate ghost town with 14,300 accounts, 90% of which have not posted even once (in other words, with only 1,259 accounts that have ever posted)⁴ when there is a thriving non-corporate fediverse with millions of active people on it.
Could it have anything to do with identity verification, surveillance, and control?
And if so, why can’t they even get that right?
Looking forward to seeing how long @EUCommission can drag the corpse of W Social around before people realise it’s dead.
Oh, and how does this make the whole “European alternatives” thing look? Not good. Not because there aren’t excellent European alternatives but because the folks at the commission are either too clueless or too corrupt to recognise and support them.
So, yeah, how’s your Monday going?
¹ e.g., https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/116770333053823108, etc.
² https://aseachange.com/@elena/statuses/01KVD55YBYVM3B46ACQTECDMT2
³ https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-untold-story-about-w-social-unconventional-beginnings-strategic-pitches-conflicting-signals/ (from the YouTube video that they since deleted. Nice transparency there, clowns.)
⁴ Run this script in Node 18+ to reproduce the numbers from their PDS yourself: https://codeberg.org/aral/gists/src/branch/main/wsocial-pds-stats.js Also see https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-a-broken-ghost-town/ and https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-fictional-metrics-and-the-beauty-of-open-data/
#WSocial #EU #sovereignty #socialMedia #socialNetworking #mastodon #fediverse #activityPub #ATProto #startups #EUCommission
-
Want an update on the Weekend at Bernie’s clown show that is W Social? No? Me neither, but here we are…
So before we start, let’s recount the whole dystopian raison d’être of these Davosian clowns: to be a EU®opean “alternative to X” that – cue the 1984 theme tune – verifies your identity to ensure that only “real people” are on it (real is what your government says it is).
Now, let’s fast forward to last week, when TikTok set up an account on W Social.
That’s nice, isn’t it? One surveillance capitalist lending their support to another? Kumbaya and all that. The only problem? (spoiler alert), it wasn’t TikTok. (Shocking, I know.)
The account, Identity Verified™ by EU X – sorry, W Social, was a spam account and immediately labelled as such by BlueSky moderators. (Don’t you love a “decentralised” system where a post on an EU server, accessed from another EU server, is moderated by our benevolent Big Brother in Trumpland, by the way? I know it just warms the cockles of my heart. So much sovereignty! But I digress…)
So @_elena calls them out (someone has to while @EUCommission is busy preparing for their honeymoon after expressing their undying devotion to W Social recently on every social platform¹):
https://mu.social/profile/elenarossini.com/post/3mqob7shxks2t
Anna Zeiter – W CEO, Stanford’s own, and ex-eBay executive (such sovereignty) – replies with this absolute zinger:
> “We are just verifying if some [sic] is a human and at least 18 years old. Users are then free to choose their own user name. This (human) user apparently chose the name TikTok.“ (https://mu.social/profile/anna.wsocial.eu/post/3mqoepm7m2k2z)
Read that as many times as you like until it really sinks in.
These incompetent clowns (dangerous competent clowns but incompetent clowns nevertheless) make people go through a ridiculous 13-step identity verification stage² and then… umm… you get to choose whatever identity you want.
🤡🤡🤡
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re incompetent. It would be worse if they were competent, given they’re a closed-source venture-capital-funded startup determined to prove your identity.
> “Yes we have a business model, it’s not a philanthropy, we are not a B corp, we actually want to make money.” – Anna Zeiter³
But, what I want to know is this: Why has @EUCommission embraced a proprietary, closed-source, corporate ghost town with 14,300 accounts, 90% of which have not posted even once (in other words, with only 1,259 accounts that have ever posted)⁴ when there is a thriving non-corporate fediverse with millions of active people on it.
Could it have anything to do with identity verification, surveillance, and control?
And if so, why can’t they even get that right?
Looking forward to seeing how long @EUCommission can drag the corpse of W Social around before people realise it’s dead.
Oh, and how does this make the whole “European alternatives” thing look? Not good. Not because there aren’t excellent European alternatives but because the folks at the commission are either too clueless or too corrupt to recognise and support them.
So, yeah, how’s your Monday going?
¹ e.g., https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/116770333053823108, etc.
² https://aseachange.com/@elena/statuses/01KVD55YBYVM3B46ACQTECDMT2
³ https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-untold-story-about-w-social-unconventional-beginnings-strategic-pitches-conflicting-signals/ (from the YouTube video that they since deleted. Nice transparency there, clowns.)
⁴ Run this script in Node 18+ to reproduce the numbers from their PDS yourself: https://codeberg.org/aral/gists/src/branch/main/wsocial-pds-stats.js Also see https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-a-broken-ghost-town/ and https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-fictional-metrics-and-the-beauty-of-open-data/
#WSocial #EU #sovereignty #socialMedia #socialNetworking #mastodon #fediverse #activityPub #ATProto #startups #EUCommission
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Want an update on the Weekend at Bernie’s clown show that is W Social? No? Me neither, but here we are…
So before we start, let’s recount the whole dystopian raison d’être of these Davosian clowns: to be a EU®opean “alternative to X” that – cue the 1984 theme tune – verifies your identity to ensure that only “real people” are on it (real is what your government says it is).
Now, let’s fast forward to last week, when TikTok set up an account on W Social.
That’s nice, isn’t it? One surveillance capitalist lending their support to another? Kumbaya and all that. The only problem? (spoiler alert), it wasn’t TikTok. (Shocking, I know.)
The account, Identity Verified™ by EU X – sorry, W Social, was a spam account and immediately labelled as such by BlueSky moderators. (Don’t you love a “decentralised” system where a post on an EU server, accessed from another EU server, is moderated by our benevolent Big Brother in Trumpland, by the way? I know it just warms the cockles of my heart. So much sovereignty! But I digress…)
So @_elena calls them out (someone has to while @EUCommission is busy preparing for their honeymoon after expressing their undying devotion to W Social recently on every social platform¹):
https://mu.social/profile/elenarossini.com/post/3mqob7shxks2t
Anna Zeiter – W CEO, Stanford’s own, and ex-eBay executive (such sovereignty) – replies with this absolute zinger:
> “We are just verifying if some [sic] is a human and at least 18 years old. Users are then free to choose their own user name. This (human) user apparently chose the name TikTok.“ (https://mu.social/profile/anna.wsocial.eu/post/3mqoepm7m2k2z)
Read that as many times as you like until it really sinks in.
These incompetent clowns (dangerous competent clowns but incompetent clowns nevertheless) make people go through a ridiculous 13-step identity verification stage² and then… umm… you get to choose whatever identity you want.
🤡🤡🤡
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad they’re incompetent. It would be worse if they were competent, given they’re a closed-source venture-capital-funded startup determined to prove your identity.
> “Yes we have a business model, it’s not a philanthropy, we are not a B corp, we actually want to make money.” – Anna Zeiter³
But, what I want to know is this: Why has @EUCommission embraced a proprietary, closed-source, corporate ghost town with 14,300 accounts, 90% of which have not posted even once (in other words, with only 1,259 accounts that have ever posted)⁴ when there is a thriving non-corporate fediverse with millions of active people on it.
Could it have anything to do with identity verification, surveillance, and control?
And if so, why can’t they even get that right?
Looking forward to seeing how long @EUCommission can drag the corpse of W Social around before people realise it’s dead.
Oh, and how does this make the whole “European alternatives” thing look? Not good. Not because there aren’t excellent European alternatives but because the folks at the commission are either too clueless or too corrupt to recognise and support them.
So, yeah, how’s your Monday going?
¹ e.g., https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/116770333053823108, etc.
² https://aseachange.com/@elena/statuses/01KVD55YBYVM3B46ACQTECDMT2
³ https://blog.elenarossini.com/the-untold-story-about-w-social-unconventional-beginnings-strategic-pitches-conflicting-signals/ (from the YouTube video that they since deleted. Nice transparency there, clowns.)
⁴ Run this script in Node 18+ to reproduce the numbers from their PDS yourself: https://codeberg.org/aral/gists/src/branch/main/wsocial-pds-stats.js Also see https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-a-broken-ghost-town/ and https://blog.elenarossini.com/w-social-fictional-metrics-and-the-beauty-of-open-data/
#WSocial #EU #sovereignty #socialMedia #socialNetworking #mastodon #fediverse #activityPub #ATProto #startups #EUCommission
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Meta trying to destroy whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, US senator says https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/17/meta-whistleblower-sarah-wynn-williams-us-senator-josh-hawley #Meta #Technology #Facebook #UsNews #Media #SocialNetworking #WorldNews #MarkZuckerberg
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Meta trying to destroy whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, US senator says https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/17/meta-whistleblower-sarah-wynn-williams-us-senator-josh-hawley #Meta #Technology #Facebook #UsNews #Media #SocialNetworking #WorldNews #MarkZuckerberg
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Meta trying to destroy whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, US senator says https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/17/meta-whistleblower-sarah-wynn-williams-us-senator-josh-hawley #Meta #Technology #Facebook #UsNews #Media #SocialNetworking #WorldNews #MarkZuckerberg
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Meta trying to destroy whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, US senator says https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/17/meta-whistleblower-sarah-wynn-williams-us-senator-josh-hawley #Meta #Technology #Facebook #UsNews #Media #SocialNetworking #WorldNews #MarkZuckerberg
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Meta trying to destroy whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, US senator says https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/17/meta-whistleblower-sarah-wynn-williams-us-senator-josh-hawley #Meta #Technology #Facebook #UsNews #Media #SocialNetworking #WorldNews #MarkZuckerberg
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Meta trying to destroy whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, US senator says
By Michael SavageRepublican Josh Hawley accuses Mark Zuckerberg’s firm of relentlessly pursuing and attempting to bankrupt her
#Meta #Technology #Facebook #USnews #Media #Socialnetworking #Worldnews #MarkZuckerberg #TheGuardian #MichaelSavage
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Meta trying to destroy whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, US senator says
By Michael SavageRepublican Josh Hawley accuses Mark Zuckerberg’s firm of relentlessly pursuing and attempting to bankrupt her
#Meta #Technology #Facebook #USnews #Media #Socialnetworking #Worldnews #MarkZuckerberg #TheGuardian #MichaelSavage
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Meta trying to destroy whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, US senator says
By Michael SavageRepublican Josh Hawley accuses Mark Zuckerberg’s firm of relentlessly pursuing and attempting to bankrupt her
#Meta #Technology #Facebook #USnews #Media #Socialnetworking #Worldnews #MarkZuckerberg #TheGuardian #MichaelSavage
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Meta trying to destroy whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, US senator says
By Michael SavageRepublican Josh Hawley accuses Mark Zuckerberg’s firm of relentlessly pursuing and attempting to bankrupt her
#Meta #Technology #Facebook #USnews #Media #Socialnetworking #Worldnews #MarkZuckerberg #TheGuardian #MichaelSavage
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Meta trying to destroy whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams, US senator says
By Michael SavageRepublican Josh Hawley accuses Mark Zuckerberg’s firm of relentlessly pursuing and attempting to bankrupt her
#Meta #Technology #Facebook #USnews #Media #Socialnetworking #Worldnews #MarkZuckerberg #TheGuardian #MichaelSavage
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EU accuses Meta of failing to tackle mental health risks of ‘addictive design’ https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/10/eu-accuses-meta-failing-tackle-mental-health-risks-addictive-design #Meta #EuropeanUnion #SocialMedia #Facebook #Instagram #SocialMediaBans #InternetSafety #DigitalMedia #Media #SocialNetworking #Technology #Children #UrsulaVonDerLeyen #Society #Europe #WorldNews
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EU accuses Meta of failing to tackle mental health risks of ‘addictive design’ https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/10/eu-accuses-meta-failing-tackle-mental-health-risks-addictive-design #Meta #EuropeanUnion #SocialMedia #Facebook #Instagram #SocialMediaBans #InternetSafety #DigitalMedia #Media #SocialNetworking #Technology #Children #UrsulaVonDerLeyen #Society #Europe #WorldNews
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EU accuses Meta of failing to tackle mental health risks of ‘addictive design’ https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/10/eu-accuses-meta-failing-tackle-mental-health-risks-addictive-design #Meta #EuropeanUnion #SocialMedia #Facebook #Instagram #SocialMediaBans #InternetSafety #DigitalMedia #Media #SocialNetworking #Technology #Children #UrsulaVonDerLeyen #Society #Europe #WorldNews