Notices by Fediverse Report (fediversereport@mastodon.social)

New: Last Week in #Fediverse - ep 53

This week's news:
- a closer look at the upcoming project @bonfire
- Threads adds quote posting to their ActivityPub implementation
- @sublinks is a new link aggregating platform that recently started development

As well as a whole lot more! Read at:
https://fediversereport.com/last-week-in-fediverse-episode-53/

New: Last Week in #fediverse - ep 69
It's this weeks news, with:
Celebrating the 16th birthday of the fediverse
European Commission sets up their own Mastodon server after the previous fediverse pilot by the EDPS has ended.

Read at: https://fediversereport.com/last-week-in-fediverse-ep-69/

New: Last Week in #Fediverse - ep 66

This week's news:
- The EU Voice pilot that hosted Mastodon and Peertube instance for the EU over the last 2 years will come to an end. The @EU_Commission account will continue to be active and grow their Mastodon presence.
- Ghost announces a major push for fediverse support, adding #Activitypub to their posts and building an ActivityPub powered news reader app.
- Mastodon starts a US-based nonprofit.

Read at: https://fediversereport.com/last-week-in-fediverse-ep-66/

New: Last Month in #Bluesky - March 24

- Stackable moderation is live, and people can subscribe now to third-party labelers
- Blogging comes to the ATmosphere with WhiteWind, allowing anyone with a Bsky account to blog
- More information on how Bluesky plans to make money

Read at: https://fediversereport.com/last-month-in-bluesky-march-24/

#Bluesky is ready to open the network.

Starting today, Bluesky will not require invite codes anymore and anyone can join the network. Later this month, the team will roll out an "experimental early version of federation", allowing other people to run their own 'Personal Data Server' (PDS).

https://bsky.social/about/blog/02-06-2024-join-bluesky

Last Week in #fediverse - ep 42

- Pebble shuts down, with some interesting reflections on building social networks. There's also a new Mastodon server for Pebble users as an experiment
- Mastodon gives some updates towards the next update, as well as a timeline on quote posts (expect it in first half of 2024)
- #fediversary reflections.

Read at: https://fediversereport.com/last-week-in-fediverse-ep-42/

Last Week in Fediverse - episode 39

- WordPress.com sites can now connect to the fediverse!
- The journa.host server transfers ownership, and with it, come some interesting questions about the responsibilities of managing a server
- IFTAS releases their report on the assessment of the needs of fediverse moderators

Read at: https://fediversereport.com/last-week-in-fediverse-episode-39/

Mark Zuckerberg gave an interview with The Verge this week, talking about a wide variety of topics. He made some interesting comments on #Threads and #ActivityPub, touting the advantages of interoperability, and told us that he has "always believed in this stuff".

In this article I take a deeper, critical look at the arguments that Mark Zuckerberg presents, and the implications for the rest of the #fediverse.

Read at: https://fediversereport.com/zuckerberg-on-threads-and-activitypub/

Mark Zuckerberg: "the more that there’s interoperability between different services and the more content can flow, the better all the services can be"

The Verge just released an interview with Mark Zuckerberg about a wide variety of topics, including Threads and ActivityPub.

You can read the entire interview here, with some of the most relevant parts for the fediverse down below:

https://www.theverge.com/23889057/mark-zuckerberg-meta-ai-elon-musk-threads-quest-interview-decoder

Here, Zuckerberg's view is that interoperability improves the value of all products. He's positioning Threads here to compete with other products based on the quality of the product and not on exclusivity of content.

Zuckerberg says that he has always believed in decentralized social media protocols, but that it's too complicated to implement it in Facebook. He says that the opportunity cost of transitioning an existing platform is too big. Threads is different, because they are starting from scratch.

This thread is just to highlight some of the things that Mark Zuckerberg has said that relate to the fediverse in some way. In next Sunday's episode of Fediverse Report I'll dive deeper into this interview. You can find it at fediversereport.com

The interview was done by the excellent @alexeheath

On agency: "So, in a way, I actually think people will feel better about using our products if they know that they have the choice to leave."

We now have the following national governments with a Mastodon server:

- Germany: https://social.bund.de
- The Netherlands: https://social.overheid.nl
- Switzerland: https://social.admin.ch

As well as the EU with
- https://social.network.europa.eu

Let's hope that other countries will follow this design pattern, and all launch a fediverse server at social.[governmentwebsite].[TLD]. Following this pattern makes it immediately clear to people they are communicating with an official government account.

The Swiss Government has officially launched their Mastodon server at https://social.admin.ch/

In their official press release the Government confirms it is a trial for one year. They state that "Mastodon has several characteristics that make it fundamentally attractive for government communications", such as being beyond the control of others, as well as it being privacy friendly.

Official press release: https://www.admin.ch/gov/de/start/dokumentation/medienmitteilungen.msg-id-97696.html

Speaker of the Swiss Government: @gov

One of the requirements of the DMA is that "the gatekeeper shall provide end users [...] with effective portability of data [...] and including by the provision of continuous and real-time access to such data." (article 6(9)).

Personally, I think that the requirements that the access to data portability needs to be continuous and real-time is a potential explanation of why Threads promises to add ActivityPub.

Keep in mind I'm not a lawyer however, and feedback is much appreciated!

In the many discussions about #threads promise to add #activitypub support, regulations such as the #DMA and the #DSA, as well as the Canadian Online News Act have come up.

In this piece I dive deep into the specific articles of the Acts to see if they might impact Meta's decision making.

Read it at
https://fediversereport.com/making-sense-of-threads-and-regulation/

The @EU_Commission has been supporting the fediverse for a while via @EC_NGI. This picture gives an idea of all the projects that have gotten funding via NGI.

A group of over 40 European organisations have recently released a statement calling for the EU to set up a European Public Digital Infrastructure Fund.

They call for this fund to support Digital Public Spaces, that are, among other things, based in FOSS, and ensure privacy by design. The statement gives three examples: #Mastodon, #PeerTube and #ActivityPub, stating that they would benefit from such a fund to further flourish.

Entire statement: https://shared-digital.eu/statement/

Introducing Fediverse 201, a new series in which I take a deeper dive in all the other cool products and services on the fediverse that go beyond microblogging, and talk to the creators about their product.

In this first edition: Owncast!

#owncast is a free and open source live video streaming server, that can also connect to the rest of the #fediverse in a variety of ways.

Read more at https://fediversereport.com/fediverse-201-owncast/