Siddharth Shah @siddharth05h4h@librem.one

idea of federation evolved over time and today the fediverse ecosystem is thriving with more softwares.

Pixelfed as an federated alternative to Instagram. Writefreely as an federated alternative to Medium. Peertube as an federated alternative to Youtube, etc.

To understand the ecosystem of fediverse take a look at the following two links.

1. https://fediverse.network
2. https://the-federation.info - 2/2

A brief history about #Fediverse. Mastodon is popular software in the fediverse today but it was not the first software. The first one to my knowledge was a software called Identica and then GNU Social somewhere around 2010 as an alternative to Twitter and then came Diaspora attempted as an alternative to Facebook. I have been in GNU Social and Diaspora as well.

Today we use a protocol named ActivityPub back then and even to a certain extent today it was Ostatus. That's how the - 1/2

Good morning

Two #Twitter employees have been charged with spying for #SaudiArabia, they are accused of exploiting their access to Twitter’s systems: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2019-11-06/saudi-arabia-recruited-twitter-workers-to-spy-on-users-us-says

That's why we need zero-knowledge applications with built-in encryption. Employees must not read your data. #Tutanota #Mastodon

@Gargron who's thi imposter!

here's my girl

This is a long long read. But if you complete reading it, you will get a very good perspective on how to deal with our digital life online.

https://0xadada.pub/2018/05/01/against-facebook/

I heard Mastodon is becoming popular in India now, that is great news. Welcome everyone

Scientists declare climate emergency, establish global indicators for effective action
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191105104422.htm #climatechange #climatecrisis

Like Mastodon (or) Pleroma, Twitter and Facebook is also a software. But the fundamental difference is that, both Facebook and Twitter are closed source software. i.e the code for Twitter/Facebook is not available to the general public like how Mastodon or Pleroma's code is available.

This makes all the difference. Other than Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc. no one can run another instance of Twitter or Facebook therefore we are at the mercy of those corporations. Their operating principles and policies change as they wish and we have no say in it.

While the scene here in #fediverse is different. We have many instances and many admins. There is no single operating principle (or) policy that applies to all servers. Each server has it's own policy and it is up to the admin (or) moderators of those servers.

I see most of you have your account on mastodon.social or mstdn.social instances. First lets look at what mastodon is?

Mastodon, in first place is a software. Not just any software, but Free and Open Source Software. It means, the code for this software is readily available to everyone, so that anyone can get a copy of it and use it for their own purposes.

People around the world took this code and installed it on servers and Tada, we have many websites running this software. mastodon.social, mstdn.social are just two such websites among hundreds of websites running mastodon. When I say the word instance it refers to a particular website that is running mastodon or similar software.

Similar software? Yes. Mastodon is not alone. There are other such projects too. Like what I am using right here in connect.fshm.in is powered by a software called #Pleroma. Both are two different software but they both know how to talk to each other. Thanks to a common language (i.e protocol) called ActivityPub.

This network of multiple instances able to talk to each other, therefore people on instances can talk to each other is what we call Fediverse, like a universe with so many planets, stars, black holes, etc.,

Fediverse is not free of Hate Speech, Harassment, Trolls or Abuses. Even today, I came across a new user who mentioned that their trolls came along here from Twitter and started harassing them here as well.

Even reading those replies brings me lot of stress, I can understand what mental problems it could cause to the target, that is the primary reason they do it.

I have been here at Fediverse for nearly 2 years and luckily I haven’t been a target of any trolls or hate speech or abuses here. May be because I am not hyper active on social networks.

Fediverse was very welcoming when I came here, because people who were already here were not echoing (or) discussing issues of other platforms, but they were all discussing about the world they want to build.

Many were discussing about building alternatives to Capitalism, post-capitalism, environment conservation, sustainable living, etc., All the posts were constructive in nature. I felt so good to be here and I wish we carry forward the same.

But this issue of hate speech, trolls and harassment in fediverse are discussed here.

If you are on mastodon, make sure you Lock your account in your account settings. This means you can control who can follow you and also limits your post’s visibility to your followers. Followers can be from different instances also. This is the first level of shield we have today.

You can change your post’s visibility before posting the content. It can be posted to public timeline (meaning even those who don’t follow you can also read it somehow), to your followers only or to only those whose handles are mentioned. So use it effectively.

Even though there are account verification mechanisms, it is not easy for everyone to do so here. Therefore beware anyone can impersonate anyone, these are some of the issues with decentralized identity.

All the products from Silicon Valley (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, etc.,) have tuned us for information addiction with never ending feeds. This brings in a lot of information overload, noise and mental stress and makes our lives so congested.

https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=C74amJRp730

I primarily oppose this. I have wasted a lot of time scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. What I ought to say here is that, any alternative to exploitative platforms like Facebook and Twitter should be more humane and less noisy and less distractive.

To all new people here. Fediverse is not going anywhere. It is here to stay. We will have this alternative network. So slow down. Feel free to follow or unfollow anyone based on your interest.

We shall collectively progress.

Ah. Finally back to home from work. What to do? I am a Code coolie, in other words a person who writes code for wages.

I am not a smartphone type person, but out of excitement somehow I managed to reply and write posts from my phone today here in #Fediverse.

So here I am in front of my computer, sitting comfortably to write posts to explain some terminologies and share my fediverse experience for a while.

Follow the thread. #FediverseAMA

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Software as a Duty (SaaD)

Software as an Offer You Can't Refuse (SaaOYCR)

Software as That Which Eternal Lies and With Strange Eons Even Death May Die (SaTWELaWSEEDMD)

Want to show your love for #FreeSoftware? Looking for a new profile #cover picture? Check out the nice #IloveFS #artwork by @fossasap:
https://fosstodon.org/@fossasap/103087238264858013

And don't forget to equip yourself with our nice stickers, posters and balloons:
https://fsfe.org/contribute/spreadtheword#ilovefs : )

#FreeSoftware❤️you

いりこだしを感知したひと
#びわ子
#食魔人びわ太郎

Last week, users asked us that hitting enter should accept an entered 2FA code. Shortly after, this improvement was done. We try to listen to you as much as possible, thanks for the constant stream of feedback! 😍
https://www.reddit.com/r/tutanota/comments/dpb2s8/minor_usability_enhancement_request_hitting_enter/

Did you know, you can narrow down the suggestions from the firefox address bar using the following characters :

^ to search for matches in your browsing history.
* to search for matches in your bookmarks.
+ to search for matches in pages you’ve tagged.
% to search for matches in your currently open tabs.
# to search for matches in page titles.
$ to search for matches in web addresses (URLs).
? to search for matches in suggestions.

Cat located