fediverse

<div class="article-body"> <p>Hey, all. One thing that’s different this year about the <a href="https://socialwebfoundation.org/2025/10/31/fosdem-2026-social-web-devroom-call-for-participation/" rel="nofollow">Social Web Devroom at FOSDEM 2026</a> is that we’re going to include talks about the organizational and social aspects of rolling out Open Source Fediverse software for individuals and communities. Last year, we focused pretty heavily on technical talks from the principle developers of FLOSS packages. This year, we want to make sure the other aspects of Fediverse growth and improvement are covered, too.</p><p>Consequently, <a href="https://socialwebfoundation.org/2024/11/27/how-to-make-a-great-social-web-devroom-presentation/" rel="nofollow">the guidance for last year’s event</a>, which was focused on how to make a great technical presentation, might seem a little outdated. But on reviewing it, I’ve found that it still has good advice for social and organizational talks. Just like software developers, community builders see problems and construct solutions for them. The solutions aren’t just about writing code, though; more often they involve bringing people together, assembling off-the-shelf tools, and making processes and rules for interaction.</p><p>Talks about Open Source software to implement ActivityPub and build the social web are still welcome, of course. We’re just expanding a bit to cover the human aspects of the Fediverse as well.</p><p>I’m looking forward to having the interesting discussions about bringing people together to make the Social Web. If you haven’t already, please consider submitting a talk to <a href="https://pretalx.fosdem.org/fosdem-2026/cfp" rel="nofollow" class="ellipsis" title="pretalx.fosdem.org/fosdem-2026/cfp"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">pretalx.fosdem.org/fosdem-2026</span><span class="invisible">/cfp</span></a>. Select “Social Web” from the “Track” dropdown, and include the length of your talk (8/25/50) in the submission notes. The deadline is December 1, 2025, so get them in as soon as possible!</p> </div>

<div class="article-body"> </p><p>Nos dias atuais é comum que se aponte as mídias sociais como fonte de males diversos da sociedade moderna. São bem menos frequentes os debates sobre alternativas possíveis, especialmente no âmbito da política pública. Parece ser mais fácil imaginar o fim do mundo do que pensar alternativas para o estado de dependência da cultura moderna em relação às plataformas de redes sociais centralizadas, dominadas por um pequeno grupo de empresários bilionários proprietários das big-techs.</p>1º WebSocialBR – Forum do Fediverso Brasileiro<br>03/12 em Brasília<p>Por isso saudamos a realização do 1º WebSocialBR, o Fórum do Fediverso Brasileiro, que acontecerá em Brasília no dia 03/12, no auditório do MCTI. Realizado pelo Instituto Alquimídia, com apoio do Comitê Gestor da Internet e do Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação, e também do Ibram-Museus, o evento pretende jogar luz sobre o universo das redes sociais descentralizadas, conhecida também como Web Social Aberta, ou Fediverso.</p><p>O evento irá apresentar experiências do governo brasileiro no âmbito do Fediverso, com exemplos como o Labjor da Unicamp, a iniciativa Uirapuru no Ibict, e também os experimentos do Ibram-Museus com a instância “social.museus.gov.br” e a Brasiliana Museus. Temos interesse em explorar o potencial das redes sociais descentralizadas no processo de transformação digital de museus brasileiros, e o Tainacan — aplicação de repositório digital em software livre (plugin WordPress) oferecida pelo Ibram — se mostra como uma ferramenta apropriada para facilitar este processo.</p><p>Será importante apresentar o que já formulamos (<a href="https://brasiliana.museus.gov.br/fediverso-um-experimento-com-redes-sociais-descentralizadas-e-museus/" rel="nofollow">Fediverso: um experimento com redes sociais descentralizadas e museus</a>, <a href="https://brasiliana.museus.gov.br/decolonizacao-digital-de-acervos-inovacao-amplia-o-raio-de-acao-de-museus/" rel="nofollow">Decolonização digital de acervos: inovação amplia o raio de ação de museus</a>), o que estamos experimentando (<a href="https://brasiliana.museus.gov.br/construindo-pontes-dos-museus-para-o-fediverso/" rel="nofollow">Construíndo pontes, dos museus para o Fediverso</a>), e algumas indicações do que pensamos para o futuro (Uma rede social para museus?). Queremos tornar possível, para museus que atraem audiências online, preservarem a memória da interação digital desse público com os itens de suas coleções, como extensão de seu acervo digital e para pesquisa.</p>O “Guia de Entrada para o Fediverso” será lançado pelo Ibram por ocasião de evento, em 03/12<p>Como resultado desta reflexão interna do Ibram-Museus, e em apoio à realização do 1º WebSocialBR, o Fórum do Fediverso Brasileiro, na próxima semana vamos lançar o “Guia de Entrada para o Fediverso” (aqui ainda em versão demo, para comentários e sugestões). Trata-se de um livreto digital com a informação básica para todos que tenham interesse em experimentar o universo das redes sociais descentralizadas. Queremos assim, convidar você a conhecer esta alternativa à captura promovida pelas plataformas centralizadas e seus algoritmos — faça o download do Guia (será lançado na quarta-feira 03/12, dia do evento) e dê os seus primeiros passos no Fediverso. <a href="https://navajowhite-woodcock-584436.hostingersite.com/inscricoes/" rel="nofollow">Inscrições aqui!</a></p> </div>

<p>Reddit is officially on my hit list, and honestly, I’m just tired. I was banned for literally saying “I’m trans.” That’s it. No arguments, no insults, no rule breaking just existing as myself. What is actually going on with the internet right now?<br><br>On top of that, I also got banned from my favorite anime subreddit for sharing my thoughts about One Punch Man Season 3 specifically the episode with the Monster Garou encounter and saying it looked AI-generated. I wasn’t attacking anyone, I wasn’t being hostile, I was just trying to have a discussion.<br><br>Right now, Reddit feels really bad to be on. Moderation feels inconsistent and overly harsh, and it honestly feels like you can get punished just for speaking openly or having an opinion. I’m not even trying to fully drag Reddit anymore because I’m exhausted from constantly calling out platforms but this crossed a line.<br><br>I’m just frustrated. Being trans shouldn’t be controversial, and having a discussion about media shouldn’t get you kicked out of a community you enjoy. At this point, it feels like being honest online is treated like a problem, and I’m really over it.<br><br><a href="/tags/fediverse/" rel="tag">#fediverse</a> <a href="/tags/reddit/" rel="tag">#reddit</a> <a href="/tags/community/" rel="tag">#community</a></p>

<div class="article-body"> <p>As the year winds down, we’ve wrapped up a release that brings better moderation tools, a new way to display reactions, and a small surprise, just in time for the holidays.</p><p>Stronger Tools for Moderation</p><p>Moderation can be hard work, especially on the Fediverse, where conversations flow in from all directions. This release introduces new tools that help you stay in control with less manual effort.</p><p>You can now subscribe to shared blocklists and let the plugin keep them up to date automatically. Subscribed lists are synced on a weekly cadence, so changes made upstream are reflected on your site without you having to lift a finger.</p><p>On top of that, we’ve added a bulk domain blocklist importer. You can upload a CSV or plain text file, including Mastodon-style exports, and quickly add large numbers of domains at once. To make it even easier to get started, the importer includes a one-click option for the popular community-maintained <a href="https://about.iftas.org/library/iftas-dni-list/" rel="nofollow">IFTAS DNI list</a> (<span class="h-card"><a href="https://about.iftas.org" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>about.iftas.org</span></a></span>).</p><p>Together, these features make moderation more scalable and less stressful, so you can spend more time engaging and less time firefighting.</p><p>Reactions, Your Way</p><p>Reactions are a big part of how conversations feel alive on the Fediverse, and now you have more control over how they appear on your site.</p><p>The Fediverse Reactions block gained a new Summary display style. Instead of showing a facepile of avatars, this option presents reactions as clean, inline counters for comments, likes, boosts, and replies. It’s a great fit for minimal layouts, feeds, or sites where avatars are disabled.</p><p>You can switch between the classic facepile and the new summary style directly in the block settings. And if avatars are turned off in discussion settings, the block automatically falls back to the summary view.</p><p>A Sneak Peek at the Reader (Experimental)</p><p>One more thing, for the curious among you, there’s now an early preview of the ActivityPub Reader, hidden behind a feature flag in the Advanced settings tab. If you don’t see it yet, open Screen Options at the top right of the ActivityPub settings page, check “Advanced Settings,” and save. That reveals the Advanced tab where you can enable the Reader.</p><p>When enabled, this adds a new “Social Web” submenu to your Dashboard menu item. An place where you can read posts and shares from accounts you follow, turning your WordPress admin into a lightweight Fediverse reader.</p><p>Because this is still very much a work in progress, the Reader is disabled by default and clearly marked as experimental. The UI, behavior, and feature set will change significantly in future releases as we explore what a great native Fediverse reading experience inside WordPress could look like.</p><p>If you enjoy testing new ideas, we’d love to hear your feedback, whether it’s bug reports, rough edges you’ve noticed, or ideas about what this Reader should become. Early input helps shape where this goes next, so feel free to share your thoughts in whatever form works best for you.</p><p>Changelog</p><p>Added</p><p>Add blocklist subscriptions for automatic weekly synchronization of remote blocklists.<br>Add compact display style to Reactions block that hides avatars.<br>Add domain blocklist importer for bulk importing blocked domains.<br>Add image optimization for imported attachments (resize to 1200px max, convert to WebP).<br>Add local caching for remote actor avatars.<br>Add relay mode to forward public activities to all followers.<br>Add scheduled cleanup for remote posts, preserving posts with local user interactions.<br>Add site health check to warn when DISABLE_WP_CRON may impact ActivityPub functionality.<br>Add Social Web Reader for browsing ActivityPub content directly in WordPress admin.<br>Delete remote posts on plugin uninstall.<br>Mastodon importer now imports self-replies as comments, preserving thread structure.</p><p>Changed</p><p>Cache expensive operations in Post transformer to improve performance.<br>Improve performance and reliability of @-mention detection.<br>Reduce federated content size by removing unnecessary HTML attributes.<br>Skip downloading video and audio attachments, embedding remote URLs directly to avoid storage limits.<br>Use stable term_id-based IDs for Term transformer to ensure federation consistency.<br>Wrap blocked domains and keywords tables in collapsible details element.</p><p>Fixed</p><p>Respect WordPress “show avatars” setting for remote actor avatars. <br>Ensure NodeInfo accurately represents site administrators to the Fediverse.<br>Fediverse Followers block now works correctly when the “Hide Social Graph” privacy option is enabled.<br>Fix NodeInfo documents to comply with schema specification.<br>Follow Me block button-only style now respects width settings from the inner Button block.<br>Preserve whitespace inside preformatted elements when federating content.</p><p>Downloads</p><p>WordPress.org: <a href="https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/activitypub.7.8.0.zip" rel="nofollow">activitypub.7.8.0.zip</a><br>GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/Automattic/wordpress-activitypub/releases/tag/7.8.0" rel="nofollow">tag/7.8.0</a></p><p>Holiday Thanks</p><p>A special thank-you to everyone who joined us during the recent <a href="https://activitypub.blog/2025/11/25/join-us-for-office-hours-dec-1-5/" rel="nofollow">office hours</a> — for the questions, the thoughtful feedback, and the great conversations about where ActivityPub for WordPress should go next. Talking directly with you helps shape these releases more than any roadmap ever could.</p><p>See you in 2026 — and happy holidays!</p> </div>