fediverse

fediverse, decentralized group of social media platforms in which each independent platform can interact freely with any other platform that is part of the group. Users from one platform can therefore accrue followers and connect with others who are using a different platform. The name fediverse is a portmanteau of federated and universe. In computing, the term federated refers to a set of independent entities united under an umbrella organization.

The predominant analogy for explaining the fediverse is email: Anyone with an email account can send an email to any other person with an email account on the Internet, regardless of the email application in use, whether it be Gmail, Outlook, or another such platform. Likewise, fediverse developers, many of whom are advocates and sympathizers of the free software movement, support the use of one type of social media account, whose supporting platform can interact freely with any other social media platform. The benefit of such interconnectivity is that users can select their social media applications entirely on the basis of the applications’ qualities, rather than on the basis of the number of their friends, family members, and other desired connections who also use the applications.

Since the fediverse is not regulated by large technology companies, fediverse supporters cite its increased flexibility and freedoms as reasons to migrate away from mainstream social media. If users stop using one fediverse-supported platform because they do not like the interface anymore, they can easily retain their followers and prior connections by joining a new platform on the fediverse. In order to join the fediverse, users can sign up to join a server through a reliable source, such as Mastodon or Fedi.Garden, and they can switch servers if they do not like their initial choice. Some commonly used platforms on the fediverse are Mastodon, used for microblogging; Peertube, used to share videos; and Pixelfed, used to share images. Mastodon is the most popular application on the fediverse, and, hence, it is often used to represent the fediverse. Unlike X (formerly Twitter) or Facebook, which remain in business by profiting from consumers’ personal information, the fediverse aims to give users privacy and an ad-free interface. Server administrators pay to have their servers remain active and may occasionally fundraise, such as by asking users for donations.

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For two social media applications to connect, they must share a protocol, or a set of rules that allows computer systems to communicate with one another. Fediverse developers create social media platforms based on free and open-source protocols. Any such platform is considered to be part of the fediverse. The dominant protocol used in the fediverse is ActivityPub, though others exist and can be bridged despite different protocols, since fediverse developers use open-source protocols.

The fediverse’s earliest manifestation was Identi.ca, a free and open-source version of the microblogging service Twitter. The platform was created in 2008 by Evan Prodromou and ran on the OpenMicroBlogging (OMB) protocol. OMB was later superseded by the OStatus protocol, which became the protocol of choice for a number of other microblogging sites. In 2012 a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) community group began to develop OStatus further, leading to speculation that it would become the open-source standard. In July 2014, however, the community group was replaced by W3C’s new Social Web Working Group, which focused instead on developing the ActivityPub protocol. ActivityPub became the W3C-recommended standard in January 2018.

In October 2022 American billionaire Elon Musk purchased Twitter. He dissolved the service’s content-moderation body and allowed many banned individuals back onto the platform. The resulting rise in hate speech and threats of violence on Twitter led many users to search for alternative applications. The fediverse was seen as a solution for many users, who disliked Twitter’s “black-box” algorithm and the fact that executives (such as Musk himself) had outsized influence on the platform. Moreover, the fediverse made it easy for users to find niche communities without the concern that their fediverse platform would suddenly supplant users or dramatically alter its site (as a result of changed ownership, for example). Consequently, the fediverse exploded in size; indeed, Mastodon gained more than two million users within two months.

In July 2023 the social media conglomerate Meta announced the launch of Threads as a microblogging application. In its statement, Meta said that it would be making Threads compatible with ActivityPub, which would have a significant impact on the fediverse. Indeed, by February 2024 Threads had an estimated 130 million active monthly users. The entire fediverse had roughly 1.6 million active monthly users that same month. Thus, compatibility between Threads and ActivityPub stood to greatly increase the number of fediverse users. In March, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced that Threads had begun testing fediverse integration and that users from certain countries, including the United States, could opt in to joining the fediverse. However, Threads users still cannot view replies or add new followers from the fediverse.

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