Please tell your friends about federated social media site that speaks several fediverse protocols thus serving as a hub uniting them, hubzilla.eskimo.com, also check out friendica.eskimo.com, federated
macroblogging social media site, mastodon.eskimo.com a federated microblogging site, and yacy.eskimo.com an uncensored federated search engine. All Free!
Last year, I wrote a blog post, Fediverse for Freedom – which was about the importance of a free and open Fediverse, and how and why public institutions can support it. Since then, I’ve referred to this blog post in many of my talks and in conversations, and started to use the hashtag #FediverseForFreedom.
Ahead of FOSDEM back in February, I created some stickers to share – a Fediverse logo, overlaid with the text “I Am Part Of The Rebel Alliance #FediverseForFreedom”. They were quite a hit at the time, and since then I’ve used the same image in presentations. When people have seen them, I’ve quite often been asked where they came from.
Last week, Elena Rossini – writer of the fantastic The Future is Federated blog/newsletter, talented filmmaker and photographer, and (perhaps) the Fediverse’s Number One Fan – released a great, four minute video that both explains and promotes the Fediverse and open platforms not owned by billionaires1
One of the stickers shows up in several shots of the the video, and once again, I heard that people would like to be able to get some for themselves.
A simple site
I’ve been wanting to make the stickers available for a while, but the release of the video finally pushed me into getting this done!
I’d recently bought some stickers myself, from the talented Robb Knight, and he mentioned that he used Stripe Payment Links for his site. I already had a Stripe account, so thought I’d try the same thing.
So: now you can visit fediverseforfreedom.org (.com points to .org), and click on a link to to get a handful of stickers shipped in your direction! You can also easily just tell your friends, “oh yeah, I got them from Fediverse For Freedom dot org”. Nice and straightforward. A small pile of I Am Part Of The Rebel Alliance stickers There’s a bit more information about it all on that simple site, but I thought it might be interesting to write down a bit more about how I made it.
The site is running on Codeberg Pages. Previously I’ve put these kinds of one-off, single page sites up on GitHub Pages, or on Glitch. I’m feeling increasingly less comfortable about having all of my stuff on GitHub and hosted in the US; and, unfortunately, Glitch is going away soon (more on this in a future post). So in this case I chose Codeberg Pages, although I’m aware that they are themselves a platform that is currently in maintenance mode. I’m open to suggestions for similar sites, as I’ll need to migrate some Glitch apps somewhere very soon!
Apart from that: the whole operation is very low tech. Stripe Payment Links are convenient – Stripe itself can handle a huge variety of payment types – but, on the backend… it does not do much. No order acknowledgement emails, order management tools, or anything like that. All I get is a basic dashboard with information about the orders. I whipped up some simple Python that uses the Stripe API to grab the postal addresses of orders, and then creates SVG address labels for printing. The same code also grabs the email addresses so that I can send an email thanking the customer for the order.
In terms of shipping, that’s also a manual process – no “drop-shipping” here, I’m getting the stickers from my regular supplier (StickerApp), putting them in envelopes, and posting them out myself. That also means that delivery times will vary – although I had enough in stock to cover all of the initial orders, I’ve also been in Amsterdam for the past 3 days, so the first batch will go out on Monday.
One more thing I’m experimenting with here is GoatCounter, just to get a sense of traffic and interest. I didn’t want to put a load of invasive Google Analytics onto such a basic page, and I’ve had GoatCounter recommended to me a few times now – like Mastodon, it has also benefited from NLNet funding from the European Union in the past, and I wanted to see what was possible. It seems to do just what I wanted, whilst also being unintrusive.
What’s next?
Look… I don’t intend to become some kind of merch magnate, but I do know that some people share my own desire to display our commitment to the Fediverse and related causes, and if I can help folks to do so, then I will (did you know we already made a t-shirt? Elena has asked me for more in the same vein!).
If you want to look for other ways to show your support in public, and to give back to people or projects that work on tools that you use, take a look at the Awesome Fediverse Merch list that Jeff Sikes is curating. Plenty of options for everyone.
Finally – remember to support the creators of your favourite sites, services, and open source software directly, whenever you can!
Remember, as I heard in a keynote at the PublicSpaces conference this week: “the Internet is currently controlled by four or five fucked up right wing white men” – it’s time to rewild the internet, and take ownership of our data and choices. ↩︎
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Over the past week, there’s been a noticeable shift away from X in the UK, and it feels long overdue. According to Bluesky’s PR, the platform has seen a surge in new users and activity from the UK. I’ve personally noticed more people finding my profiles on both Threads and on Bluesky, and I’ve seen a significant number of “I just deleted my X account” posts on Threads. However, due to the algorithm, these posts often appear in bursts, sometimes delayed by a day or two.
My friend Neville Hobson wrote a piece today titled “Finally, the Unravelling of X,” where he discusses this migration, the reasons behind it, and the pros and cons of choosing between Bluesky and Threads. Neville touches on the idea of a “more respectful, decentralized web,” (to quote him on the Fediverse), and even highlights something I said on Threads yesterday. In response to a question about where politicians should go in a post-X world, I suggested that governments should own their own social platforms: I wanted to expand on what I meant by a “sovereign owned/operated Mastodon instance” for the UK Parliament, and why I believe this is important.
One of the major tensions between Big Tech and national governments over the past 15 years has revolved around platform ownership and control. The European Union has even labeled several tech companies as “gatekeepers” in the Digital Markets Act. This term is telling—these companies essentially gatekeep the digital rights, data, and access of national citizens.
If governments are concerned about the dominance of privately-owned online platforms, they have a responsibility to run and own their own. At FOSDEM in Brussels this February, we noticed growing interest in Fediverse platforms and technologies like Mastodon from several national governments and the EU itself. Many of these institutions are already running their own social media instances and actively encouraging their politicians to use them. In the EU, there’s no reason to switch to Threads since Meta has restricted the platform’s availability in the bloc. Moreover, Threads doesn’t allow users to run their own instances, unlike Mastodon or even Bluesky, which, while less common, does technically support setting up a external ATProto instance (I don’t think that’s really happening though? happy to be informed and to learn otherwise – I’ll readily admit that it has not been at the centre of my attention).
For years, governments, newsrooms, and other organisations have protested the idea that private companies should control and limit their messages. A logical response would be for these entities to run their own instances of software like Mastodon—or any Fediverse-compatible, ActivityPub-based service. This would allow them to own their content, domain, and user verification, ensuring greater control and independence.
The UK is lagging behind in this area. While the EU has embraced Mastodon, and in the US, many organisations have moved to Threads, the UK has yet to take similar steps. For example, I follow @POTUS@threads.net and @whitehouse@threads.net from my Mastodon account, because they’ve enabled Fediverse sharing. Even though Threads is owned and operated by Meta, it’s positive that their content can reach into the wider Fediverse. Ideally, Threads will eventually fully integrate with the ActivityPub network, offering a two-way interaction and allowing for account, network, and maybe content portability—hence why I said, “in principle, with federated social accounts, the location does not matter so much, as long as they can be discovered and followed.” Owning the network and identity allows for broader discoverability and avoids corporate chokeholds.
Running digital services requires consistent investment and maintenance.
Discovery isn’t always straightforward, and organisations seek reach and measurement—areas where Fediverse platforms currently fall short.
Deciding who qualifies for an account on a sovereign platform is tricky. While it makes sense for current MPs to have official accounts on a national Fediverse server, it’s harder to justify the inclusion of political parties or other entities on the same platform. This is an area where we need to improve data and account portability as the Fediverse grows.
These are important discussions that we need to be having. Politicians and the media should advocate for greater decentralisation and digital sovereignty to protect the freedom of democratic institutions.
Update 16/08/2024 – my friend Stefan Bohacek reminded me that he put together a useful resource on this same topic several months ago, Fediverse: an overview for government agencies. Well worth sending to your representatives, or sharing with your network if asked.
Update 27/08/2024 – the conversation continues in episode #425 of the For Immediate Release podcast (discussion starts around 13 min into the show). I appreciate Neville and Shel talking about my post here. Take a listen, if you want to hear how they expanded on and debated this idea – available wherever you get your podcasts.
Update 09/09/2024 – I wrote a second piece expanding on this and listing existing governments that are already in the Fediverse.
Update 13/09/2024 – I was reminded of this piece from IFTAS, Open Social for the Common Good, that is also excellent on this topic.
Finally – if you’re leaving X – congratulations – don’t look back.
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The desire to stand out has declined significantly over the last 20 years, according to a new study. That has serious implications for society, business, and communicators.
