Dot Social

Unlike traditional social media, the fediverse operates without a central authority. This creates a unique set of challenges and opportunities for how it’s governed.  Luckily, there are thoughtful stewards who want to see decentralized social media succeed in the most human — and humane — fashion. Two of the most prominent are Erin Kissane, a writer and researcher working on new networks, and Darius Kazemi, a senior engineer at the Applied Social Media Lab at Harvard University.  Earlier in 2024, the pair researched and wrote a 40,000-word report on governance in the fediverse [https://fediverse-governance.github.io/]. Now they are deep in other projects designed to move the fediverse forward, including Erin’s new studio [https://www.wrecka.ge/] devoted to network work and Darius’ Fediverse Schema Observatory [https://asml.cyber.harvard.edu/fediverseobservatory/] (software built to enhance the ecosystem’s interoperability while being sensitive to user data). You’ll hear about these projects and more in the latest episode of our Dot Social podcast. Highlights of the conversation include: * The impact of the 2024 U.S. Presidential election on this work * Thoughts on the migration to Bluesky * A model for how to socialize software in the fediverse * What needs to be done next: a prioritized list * The nutritional label analogy * Funding and sustainability * Bridging protocols and avoiding fragmentation Mentioned in this episode: * How to buy shoes in the fediverse [https://www.wrecka.ge/fediverse-shoes/] * Findings report: governance on fediverse microblogging servers [https://fediverse-governance.github.io/] * Applied Social Media Lab [https://asml.cyber.harvard.edu/] at Harvard University * IFTAS [https://about.iftas.org/] * Blacksky [https://bsky.app/profile/rudyfraser.com/feed/blacksky] * Fedify [https://fedify.dev/] * Bonfire Networks [https://bonfirenetworks.org/] 🔎 You can find Erin at wreckage/salvage [https://www.wrecka.ge/] or learn more about her [https://erinkissane.com/about] via her personal site. She’s also posting on Mastodon [https://mas.to/@kissane] and Bluesky [https://bsky.app/profile/kissane.bsky.social].  🔎 Darius’s home on the Internet is at Tiny Subversions [https://tinysubversions.com/]. He works at the Applied Social Media Lab [https://asml.cyber.harvard.edu/] at Harvard University and he posts on Mastodon [https://friend.camp/@darius].   ✚ You can follow Mike at @mike@flipboard.social [mike@flipboard.social] and @mike@flipboard.com [mike@flipboard.com] 💡 To learn more about what Flipboard's doing in the fediverse, sign up here [http://about.flipboard.com/a-new-wave]: http://about.flipboard.com/a-new-wave [http://about.flipboard.com/a-new-wave]

It’s tough being a media outlet these days. Audiences are fractured, referrals from search engines are dropping, and publishers are at the mercy of algorithms they don’t control. Savvy journalists at forward-thinking newsrooms are not letting this happen to them. Instead, they’re doing the work that arguably has been most critical all along: building direct connections with their audiences. It’s common to do this through email lists and subscription models, but the open social web offers a new, more equitable ecosystem for quality journalism to thrive.   Two people on the frontlines of this movement are Jason Koebler, a journalist and co-founder at 404 Media, and Ben Werdmuller, the senior director of technology at ProPublica. In this episode of Dot Social, the two talk about their fediverse experiences so far and why they’re hopeful for publishing in the future. • Addressing online media’s biggest challenge  • Solving problems around discovery  • Core selling points of decentralized social media • Will Threads become the whale in this pond? • Ghost vs Substack • The threat of AI-generated content and how it plays algorithmically  Mentioned in this episode: * “What We Learned in Our First Year of 404 Media” [https://www.404media.co/what-we-learned-in-our-first-year-of-404-media/] * “Wherever you get your podcasts” is a radical statement [https://www.anildash.com//2024/02/06/wherever-you-get-podcasts/] * John O’Nolan’s Dot Social episode [https://flipboard.video/w/sQCNmXx332xi3Y3dVVjd37] * Threads announcement from 8/28 [https://www.threads.net/@threads/post/C_OEkXfO4eO?hl=en] * “Protocol Wars - The Fediverse Explained! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R9CWq5CBlk]”(WVFRM podcast) 🔎 You can find  Ben at https://werd.io/ [https://werd.io/] and @ben@werd.social [ben@werd.social]. You can find Jason @jasonkoebler@mastodon.social [jasonkoebler@mastodon.social] and 404 Media at @404media@flipboard.com  ✚ You can follow Mike at @mike@flipboard.social [mike@flipboard.social] and @mike@flipboard.com [mike@flipboard.com] 💡 To learn more about what Flipboard's doing in the fediverse, sign up here:  https://about.flipboard.com/a-new-wave/ [https://about.flipboard.com/a-new-wave/]

There’s a reason journalist and Bluesky board member Mike Masnick calls the platform “the most interesting experiment going in social media.” Originally launched as a project within Twitter in 2019, Bluesky has since become an independent company intent on making social more like the web.  What does that mean, exactly, and why does it matter? Bluesky founder and CEO Jay Graber says social media is stagnating because “we're in this trap where users are locked in and developers are locked out.” It’s time to open things up again, she states, like in the innovative early days of the internet.  Highlights of this conversation: • Bluesky’s origin story  • The case for decentralization — and Bluesky • Developer activity and other “wacky experimentation”  • Workings of identity online and DIDs (decentralized identifiers) • Bridging AT Protocol and ActivityPub •  Bluesky’s exciting cultural moments Mentioned in this episode: * Hard Fork podcast episode [https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/09/podcasts/hard-fork-bluesky-figma.html] featuring Jay Graber 🔎 You can find Jay at @jay.bsky.team ✚ You can connect with Mike McCue at @mmccue.bsky.social and at @mike@flipboard.social 💡 To learn more about what Flipboard's doing in the fediverse, sign up here:  https://about.flipboard.com/a-new-wave/ [https://about.flipboard.com/a-new-wave/]

The fediverse offers an opportunity to rethink how trust and safety works in social media. In a decentralized environment, creating safe and welcoming places relies on community moderation, transparent governance, and innovation in tooling. No longer is one company making — and enforcing — its own rules. It’s a collective responsibility. Samantha Lai, senior research analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Jaz-Michael King, the executive director of IFTAS, are here to explain how. Samantha co-authored a seminal paper, “Securing Federated Platforms: Collective Risks and Responses [https://www.tsjournal.org/index.php/jots/article/view/171],” along with Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth. Jaz runs IFTAS, which offers trust and safety support for volunteer content moderators, community managers, admins and more. The two often collaborate and bring perspectives from the policy and operational sides.  Highlights of this conversation: * Moderation approaches in the fediverse * Role of IFTAS * Is moderation better in the fediverse? * Collective intel and resources * Scaling with AI tools and tooling overall Mentioned in this episode: * IFTAS Connect - https://connect.iftas.org/ [https://connect.iftas.org/] * Samantha and Yoel Roth’s paper for Journal of Online Trust and Safety - https://www.tsjournal.org/index.php/jots/article/view/171 [https://www.tsjournal.org/index.php/jots/article/view/171] * Bluesky composable moderation https://bsky.social/about/blog/4-13-2023-moderation [https://bsky.social/about/blog/4-13-2023-moderation] 🔎 You can find Samantha at @samlai.bsky.social and Jaz at @jaz@mastodon.iftas.org  ✚ You can connect with Mike McCue on Mastodon at @mike@flipboard.social or via his Flipboard federated account, where you can see what he’s curating on Flipboard in the fediverse, at @mike@flipboard.com 💡 To learn more about what Flipboard's doing in the fediverse, sign up here:  https://about.flipboard.com/a-new-wave/ [https://about.flipboard.com/a-new-wave/]

John O’Nolan, the founder and CEO of Ghost, calls himself “the inverse Peter Thiel.” That’s because he wants to build a tech company that bucks the usual narratives, with as few monopolies as possible. His open-source publishing platform is structured as a nonprofit and is integrating with the ActivityPub protocol, giving creators digital sovereignty. No longer do writers have to perform for an algorithm to succeed or get stuck inside closed systems that monetize off their backs. Does this scenario seem too good to be true? As you’ll hear in this conversation with Flipboard CEO Mike McCue, John doesn’t think so. There’s still a lot to be figured out, but both entrepreneurs are here for whatever this next phase of the internet brings.  Highlights of this conversation: * Why John believes in ActivityPub * Ghost’s ActivityPub integration * Parallels with the early internet * Being at a grassroots stage * Decentralizing human connection * Impact of catering to algorithms * Micropayments and other models 🔎 You can find John at https://john.onolan.org/ ✚ You can connect with Mike McCue on Mastodon at @mike@flipboard.social or via his Flipboard federated account, where you can see what he’s curating on Flipboard in the fediverse, at @mike@flipboard.com 💡 To learn more about what Flipboard's doing in the fediverse, sign up here:  https://about.flipboard.com/a-new-wave/ [https://about.flipboard.com/a-new-wave/]