Hey everyone, we have some pretty big news to share. You might remember that we announced a big restructuring for the Mastodon team earlier this year. Today marks an important milestone in this transition.
socialweb
Recently, we were asked why we, a knowledge & community focused charity, were posting to celebrate cultural and religious holidays.
We believe that the Social Web has the potential to be the most diverse space on the entire web. But to get there, we have to start simple.
We aren't experts. We're learning each time we post (and we hope you are too). Our goal is to provide the very first stepping stones to that, diverse, Social Web we dream of.
The schedule for the Social Web Developer Room at FOSDEM 2026 is starting to be populated as the speakers confirm their availability. We had a tonne of great submissions for this year's track, and even with double the time from last year, we still had to leave some great talks on the cutting room floor. But we still managed to fit in 24 great talks, large and small. We're going to see some additional events happening as FOSDEM 2026 gets nearer. Watch the #SOCIALWEBFOSDEM hashtag for more news […]
Edited 72d ago
#Fandom isn't big in the open #SocialWeb and the current issue in siloed #SNS / #socialmedia is:- A black person #cosplay of a white elf- A #fanart of a white elf as blackThe consensus is:- Cosplay is fine- Fanart is not: it is "blackwashing" & "cultural appropriation"How about you?#Anime
#Fandom isn't big in the open #SocialWeb and the current issue in siloed #SNS / #socialmedia is:
- A black person #cosplay of a white elf
- A #fanart of a white elf as black
The consensus is:
- Cosplay is fine
- Fanart is not: it is "blackwashing" & "cultural appropriation"
How about you?
Friends, I will be speaking tomorrow at #WebSocialBR, the open social web event in Brasilia. I'm so honored to be part of this exciting movement in Brazil, a country that is leading the way in digital rights. My talk will be in English, with simultaneous translation into Portuguese. Please join! #fediverse #socialweb
Please educate newcomers on using bridgy fed to bridge their accounts to the #Fediverse this is an excellent tool for not needing an account on bsky and #Mastodon while strengthening the open social web. As simple as its instructions “ Got a fediverse account? Bridge it to #Bluesky by following @bsky.brid.gy@bsky.brid.gy”
“Got a Bluesky account? Bridge it to the fediverse by following @ap.brid.gy.”
https://fed.brid.gy/
https://fed.brid.gy/docs#dm-request
#SocialWeb #OpenSocialWeb #bridgyfed #atproto #Fediverses
“Got a Bluesky account? Bridge it to the fediverse by following @ap.brid.gy.”
https://fed.brid.gy/
https://fed.brid.gy/docs#dm-request
#SocialWeb #OpenSocialWeb #bridgyfed #atproto #Fediverses
Edited 1y ago
RE: https://socialwebfoundation.org/2025/12/19/implementing-encrypted-messaging-over-activitypub/
Big news for the #Fediverse! End-to-end encryption is coming to #ActivityPub.
@swf with support from @sovtechfund is coordinating two interoperable implementations.
Bonfire is proud to be one of these first two projects, alongside #Emissary by @benpate
We think #E2EE should simply be the default for any private communications, and we’re especially thrilled to bring private, trusted collaboration to the fediverse.
(o meme "this is fine"). Porém, não vão ficar sabendo disso.
, o mais comum na nossa querida Web Social federada, permanece sem deixar publicar Markdown, embora exiba o de terceiros. 
- 2010: first open Social Web instance for the Philippines was Friendika by college students from Visayas- 2011: second was Friendica by yours truly- 2014: third was Hubzilla also by me🧵 #Philippines #SocialWeb #Fediverse
It's a week already and I'm still waiting for a 2FA email to get sent. I can't login to #ATproto services because of this #bug.Lessons here:1. Do NOT use email-based 2FA2. App password login is crucial as backup login method#ATmosphere #SocialWeb
2010: first open Social Web instance for the Philippines was Friendika by college students from Visayas
2011: second was Friendica by yours truly
2014: third was Hubzilla also by me
🧵
#Philippines #SocialWeb #Fediverse
Edited 60d ago
Homeownership on the web is highly analogous to the physical world. Modern homeownership is mostly a story of home-rentership, not real ownership.
Incredibly, this matches the online experience, even though the World Wide Web has an infinite amount of real-estate!
You deserve a home on the web that’s built to keep you safe; a magical place for virtual living that‘s yours for life, existing in a sociable web.
https://blog.muni.town/digital-homeownership/
(Now stealth-releasing Weird v0.2 🥷)
Working full time on the Social Web
In January 2026, I will begin working full time in my role as Director at the Social Web Foundation. I am looking forward to the challenge of growing this young non-profit and fulfilling our mission to make a bigger, better Fediverse.
As a refresher: I have been working in the area of federated social networks since starting Identi.ca in 2008. Federated social networks are social platforms that let users on one platform connect to and interact with users on another platform. Linked up with open standard protocols, these platforms together form a Social Web that puts people first.
In 2018, I was a co-author of the ActivityPub standard for social network interoperability. I currently maintain the spec for the W3C and develop extensions for it. In 2024, I wrote ActivityPub: Programming for the Social Web for O’Reilly Media. And I co-founded the Social Web Foundation to further encourage the use of ActivityPub in social networks.
For the last year, I’ve been working nights, lunchtimes and weekends on SWF while holding down my full-time role as Director of Open Technology at the Open Earth Foundation. I love working at OEF; the organization build Open Source software to help cities fight climate change. I have felt very fulfilled in my work there, and I’ve made really strong friendships with the team. It’s been a very special place to work that has changed how I think teams can be.
But over the last year, SWF has had some really amazing opportunities, and in 2026 we’ll be making some big steps forward for the Social Web. I can’t keep doing both jobs, and I feel like, after 4 years at OEF, I’ve done what I can to build up that organization, and I am ready to start on this next one.
It will feel good to have my full attention focused on the Social Web. I’m looking forward to seeing my Open Source friends at FOSDEM 2026 in Brussels at the end of January where I’m helping to organize the Social Web track. I’m speaking at Princeton mid-February, and I’ll be in the Bay Area at the beginning of March. All this time, I’ll be working hard to get the next version of ActivityPub released and to push out several software projects to make the Social Web more fun and interesting.
Thanks to everyone who’s put time, effort and help into the SWF. Thanks to my coworkers at OEF for encouraging me on my next steps in my career. Thanks to my wife and family for tolerating yet another leap into the void.
I hope you have as exciting a New Year as I will.
«Atmospheric Computing» by Paul Frazee
> the clouds are closed, and if the clouds are closed then they'll do everything well except interoperating with others.
> We need to bridge our clouds. It's as simple as that.
Sketch of my #SocialWeb vision.
In this picture hedonic peer production sets the "leverage the ecosystem" strategy in motion, which fosters spontaneous emergence and evolution, to activate people and align them to collectively practice social experience design and innovate the open social stack of the fediverse so we may enter the future social web and may craft us a peopleverse, where humane solutions satisfy people's needs.
There ya have it, all in one text blob. 😅
https://discuss.coding.social/t/proposal-start-a-fellowship-to-explore-the-social-web/571
‘#OpenSource And #Ethical’ #TikTok, #WhatsApp And #Instagram Alternatives Could Transform #SocialMedia
from #Forbes
By Esat Dedezade, Contributor.
Esat Dedezade is U.K.-based journalist who covers Big Tech for Forbes
Jan 25, 2025, 12:23pm EST
[a very well-written article with a favorable yet realistic angle on the #Fediverse]
"At the heart of these alternative apps lies the Fediverse platform — a portmanteau of "federated" and "universe" that represents a radical reimagining of how social media can work. Unlike traditional platforms where users are locked into isolated ecosystems, the Fediverse operates as an interconnected network of independent servers that communicate with each other through a standard protocol called #ActivityPub."
#Pixelfed #PeerTube #Mastodon #Loops #Sup #FreeSoftware #SocialWeb #technology #news #press
Edited 43d ago
Did you sign up for the @surf beta? Our Dawn Patrol will get the opportunity to help shape the app. Let us know in this thread if you've added yourself to the waitlist, and we'll see you on the beach!
Today the W3C standards organization announced a new working group to advance the ActivityPub and Activity Streams standards. The Social Web Foundation, as a W3C member organization, will be participating in the group. The working group's goal is to release a backwards-compatible iteration of each specification in Q3 of 2026.
Activity Streams was released in 2017, and ActivityPub was released in early 2018. Since that time, the experience of hundreds of implementers and millions of users has […]
Edited 40d ago
Fresh from «Sa Hangganan (사 항가난): Notes From the Borderlands»
⟨⟨Breaking Free From Walled Platforms⟩⟩
Community tools to help you reclaim your content from centralised services
Lots of new folks taken interest in to Mastodon, because of Meta. Let's welcome new people 
I just want to take a moment to call out one particularly great contributor to the Fediverse, @dansup (aka @dansup@mastodon.social) and just say that Pixelfed and Loops are just great. Thanks for doing what you do and being who you are!
If you want to know about Pixelfed (https://pixelfed.org) or Loops (https://loops.video) check out their respective websites and send your props to Dan!
#fediverse #pixelfed #loops #socialweb #socialmedia
Interested in the #Fediverse and #SocialWeb but can't be at #FOSDEM? All the talks are livestreaming at https://live.fosdem.org/watch/h2215, come watch!
Starting to feel like this 2025 Influx of users is much larger than 2022 Influx of users. New users come in huge waves. Many of them also seem to genuinely like Mastodon according to the feedback. In 2022 many tried, soon gave up and left to Bluesky or back to X. Today, many have even deleted their commercial accounts and settled here.
I like this new development of things. Seeing new faces and more cat photos bring me so much joy. Thanks for being here. Remember that you matter. 
#MastoAdmin #Mastodon #Fediverse #SocialMedia #SocialWeb #Meta
Edited 1y ago
Yeah, sure, #Bluesky is dying … but #DeerSocial and the #ATmosphere are not. 🤪 deer.social#SocialWeb
deer.social