Tim Chambers https://www.timothychambers.net/ en Tue, 13 Feb 2024 16:40:29 -0500 Indieweb.Social and the Upcoming #BlueSkyBridge https://www.timothychambers.net/2024/02/13/indiewebsocial-and-the.html Tue, 13 Feb 2024 16:40:29 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2024/02/13/indiewebsocial-and-the.html <p><b>This is a brief announcement announcing Indieweb.social&rsquo;s future software bridge work by BridgyFed - <a href="https://fed.brid.gy">fed.brid.gy</a> - will enable interoperability between ActivityPub networks and AT Protocol/BlueSky users.</b></p> <p>Read the announcement at <a href="https://snarfed.org/2024-02-12_52106.">snarfed.org/2024-02-1&hellip;</a></p> <p>As a server, Indieweb.social will <b>NOT</b> fediblock this effort; rather, to the contrary, we will assist users in understanding how to engage with BlueSky users if they choose to do so via this new offering.</p> <p>This is akin to our server&rsquo;s position on Threads federation as well. With both, we will moderate with extreme care and will ensure that our user&rsquo;s safety is our first and utmost priority. And with both, we will adjust our position if facts require it.</p> <p>At the same time, we will also assist our users who choose to opt-out by explaining how they can block particular BlueSky users or block the entire bridge and opt out by DM&rsquo;ing Ryan Barnett at or entering #nobridge in their profile bio.</p> <p>As the administrator of indieweb.social, I enthusiastically endorse this #BlueSkyBridge work, and I believe that individuals concerned about being &ldquo;opt-out&rdquo; forget that the Fediverse&rsquo;s core is established on this sort of bridging and Federating as a conscious design. As @beaware rightly put it, there can be legit reasons to block this bridge for those who wish to, <b>&ldquo;but don&rsquo;t disguise it as some sort &lsquo;opt-in only stance&rsquo; because if you&rsquo;re a legit Fediverse admin, you know the Fediverse as a whole is opt-out by design.&quot;</b> <a href="https://indieweb.social/@tchambers/111926106180386024">indieweb.social/@tchamber&hellip;</a></p> <p>And at the same time built into the core principles of the Fedi is that it offers you all the tools to curate your own experience and block and filter at will.</p> <p><b>One last personal note:</b></p> <p>I also know Ryan Barlett well and have engaged with him during this project.</p> <p>This is a good-faith developer who loves the open web, respects and cares about the ethos of the Fediverse, deeply values #indieweb principles. He has put countless hours into this project as a labor of love for the open social web. He has also gone well out of his way to be transparent and a good actor at every step of this work.</p> <p>He deserves all of our respect and I hope that the vast majority of Fediverse voices offer him that - even those who do not wish to take part in the bridge or who disagree with the &ldquo;opt-out&rdquo; nature of it.</p> <p>The Fedivere needs more developers like Ryan and the vitriol from a minority of the few is not a good look. To his credit Ryan is listening even to the more shrill voices and willing to iterate while keeping to Fediverse and open web principles. <a href="%5Bfed.brid.gy%5D(https://fed.brid.gy)/r/https://snarfed.org/2024-02-13_52223">fed.brid.gy/r/https:/&hellip;</a></p> <p>I hope other voices of support - even those who disagree - reach out and make their voices heard over the more rancorous ones. <b>The Fediverse needs to be a place of respect and community.</b></p> <p>I&rsquo;m honored that he set up a support account here on this server - <a href="https://indieweb.social/@snarfed">indieweb.social/@snarfed</a> - and look forward to helping support this effort as it evolves.</p> 2024 Fediverse Predictions https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/12/29/fediverse-predictions.html Fri, 29 Dec 2023 19:45:17 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2023/12/29/fediverse-predictions.html <p>These are fun and like seeing the tech predictions starting to pop up in a lot of other places. Figure I should add mine about the Fediverse.</p> <p>All of these predictions are based on how FediDB will measure them in the next year:</p> <p>▶️ The overall Fediverse as measured by FediDB will cross 25 million registered users, and by year&rsquo;s end over 3 to 5 million monthly active users. The Fediverse will cross over 35,000 servers in 2024.</p> <p>▶️ Flipboard and WordPress will both move to be at least in the top 10 Fediverse software providers by monthly active users by the end of 2024.</p> <p>▶️ There will continue to be waves of users migrating to emerging social media platforms in 2024 and they will primarily be going to Threads, Mastodon, and BlueSky, roughly in that order. No new alternative social platforms emerge with any substance in 2024.</p> <p>▶️ Disinformation that originates on the Fediverse will for the first time - have a role in the 2024 US Election, spreading into other centralized platforms.</p> <p>▶️ BlueSky will federate out to other Bluesky servers for the first time in 2024, but users will remain primarily at the initial flagship server and others will struggle to gain adoption that year. At least one robust AT to ActivityPub bridge sees wide reach in 2024 on both sides of the BlueSky to ActiivtyPub worlds.</p> <p>▶️ Threads will federate into all its users who opt-in, <em>at least</em> in &ldquo;read-only&rdquo; mode akin to what the early test users see today. This will move Threads to functionally be the second largest Federated server software in 2024, next to Mastodon.</p> <p>▶️ There will be continued controversy and discussion inside the Fediverse as the Threads interoperability launches &hellip;but throughout 2024, the Fediverse works it out, and moderators will without major incidents be able to manage their servers in this new environment - and the Fediverse as a whole navigates this without any major schism forming.</p> <p>▶️ There will be at least one other medium-to-large new social media platform in 2024 that will formally announce it is adopting ActivityPub and actively building out support for it&hellip;.and it will not be Tumblr. Tumblr will continue experimenting in ActivtyPub, offering it to users who buy Tumblr subscription ad-free versions.</p> <p>▶️ Lemmy &amp; Kbin Fediverse servers continue to evolve their features and UX and integrate more closely with the Fediverse and will grow to 1.5 million registered users, and over 200K monthly active users in 2024.</p> <p>▶️ One whole new category of software will grow to a solid foothold in the Fedivese - beyond the existing microblogging, peer-tube-like videos, longer-form blogging, and Lemmy/Kbin-style social news aggregation. I have no idea what that would be - federated storefronts? federated podcasts? Other? - but it will grow to see over 50,000 registered users.</p> <p>▶️ At least one other continent becomes relevant for the Fediverse in 2024 - beyond its current concentration in North America, Europe and Asia. Expect growth in Africa and South America and elsewhere but at least one will emerge as an important new growth area for the Fediverse by the end of the year.</p> A Year End List of Fediverse Development I'm Hopeful for in 2024 https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/12/06/a-year-end.html Wed, 06 Dec 2023 17:20:53 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2023/12/06/a-year-end.html <p>As the year ends, thought this would be a good time to list some of the projects and group efforts relating to the Fediverse I’m very jazzed about. Some I&rsquo;ve helped advise, some I&rsquo;ve just applauded them from a distance.</p> <p>I think there has been more innovation that benefits user experience inside the larger Fediverse in the last year or so, than in some of the giant closed silos of Social Media in ten years.</p> <p>Some key ones that I&rsquo;m involved in helping move downfield as a formal or informal advisor:</p> <ul> <li> <p><strong>ActivtyPub Test Suite</strong>: crucially important as big players enter the Fediverse to have a toolset to define what “ActivityPub compliant” means and doesn’t. <a href="https://nlnet.nl/project/FediverseTestsuite/">nlnet.nl/project/F&hellip;</a></p> </li> <li> <p><strong>BlueSky/AT and Mastodon/ActivityPub Bridge</strong> - am giving some recommendations and will be testing its important project linking these two protocols of the open social web. Watch this space lots happening there soon.</p> </li> <li> <p><strong>IFTAS - Distributed Trust and Safety Effort</strong>- am advising this critically important group. Helping fortify and up the distributed moderation of the 20,000+ Fediverse servers. Few efforts for maturing the Fediverse are more important than this one: <a href="https://about.iftas.org/">about.iftas.org</a></p> </li> <li> <p><strong>Mammoth Browser</strong> - latest release with Smart lists - a mix of curated lists and basic algorithms to surface the best of them. I&rsquo;m curating some smart lists for this, very worth checking out. <a href="https://getmammoth.app/">getmammoth.app</a></p> </li> </ul> <p>Projects I&rsquo;m applauding from a distance:</p> <ul> <li> <p>All the efforts innovating at Fediverse UI/UX: this includes <strong>MastodonBirdUI</strong> - which we have implemented on our server at Indieweb.social, <strong>Tangerine UI, Elk,</strong> and <strong>Phanpy.</strong> All are great, and Phanpy I think actually may be my favorite social UX of ANY social service, decentralized or any of the siloed commercial services. <a href="https://phanpy.social/">phanpy.social</a></p> </li> <li> <p>New server communities: Fascinated at all the efforts at creating new servers and services: Obviously including <Stong>Flipboard</strong> ( <a href="http://Flipboard.social">Flipboard.social</a>) <strong>Medium</strong> (<a href="http://me.dm">http://me.dm</a>) and fascinating to watch <strong>Mozila</strong> what they are quietly building at the very bespoke version of their Mastodon server at <a href="http://mozilla.social">mozilla.social</a></p> </li> <li> <p>The deep commitment of <strong>WordPress</strong> into the ActivityPub space is inspiring to watch Matthias and the team’s work building out a whole new blogging and web publishing space integrating into the Fediverse. Will be doing all I can to help organize efforts to move that into a canonical plugin status.</p> </li> <li> <p>Another key Open Web Platform - Wikipedia (@wikipedia@wikis.world) and Wikimedia (@mediawiki@wikis.world) - embraced the Open Social Web and the Fediverse this year. Bringing with them lots of different Wikipedia accounts, but also launching a whole server devoted to Wiki creators of all types. (<a href="https://wikis.world/about">https://wikis.world/about</a>)</p> </li> </ul> <p>What I wish for all of these projects, may they thrive and may their gene pool increase.</p> <ul> <li>And of course, looking forward I now do predict we see Threads Federating</li> </ul> <p>I say this as I’ve seen breadcrumbs of code surfacing in the apps, and early features such as rel=me support in Threads, and that at every chance they have had to reaffirm their commitment to joining the open social web, they have voiced that commitment and not watered it down.</p> <p>We will see. It’s still almost all talk until they deliver. But am hopeful now, and also remain on the same strategy as I voiced before on this blog.</p> More from Meta on Threads Launch and Future ActivityPub Support https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/09/08/more-from-meta.html Fri, 08 Sep 2023 11:46:37 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2023/09/08/more-from-meta.html <p>Jesse Chen (engineering manager on Threads) and Zahan Malkani (server engineer lead on the Threads app) from the Instagram dev team discuss their launch - growing from a small incubation team to one of the central efforts from inside Meta - and importantly they reaffirm the upcoming support for ActivityPub, in this interview:</p> <p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m excited for our team to keep shipping features that will improve people&rsquo;s experience on Threads.</p> <p>I’m also excited about our commitment to join the Fediverse and support the ActivityPub protocol. At our scale, it’s an incredibly exciting technical and regulatory challenge. Joining the Fediverse and building interoperability with other networks to create a more diverse and thriving public conversation ecosystem is something we remain committed to working towards.&rdquo;</p> <p><a href="https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/building-the-threads-app">newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/buildin&hellip;</a></p> Important Exchange from Casey Newton and Joshua Toplosky on Threads & the Fediverse https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/07/14/important-exchange-from.html Fri, 14 Jul 2023 09:51:53 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2023/07/14/important-exchange-from.html <p>And this from this episode with Casey Newton and Joshua Toplosky:</p> <p>Josh: &ldquo;I understand the whole Fediverse and the Mastodon thing, and that is cool, and if they can make it work well, I&rsquo;m totally into it and will keep posting there&hellip;</p> <p>&hellip;But I think we all acknowledge, that whether it&rsquo;s Jack Dorsey, or Elon Musk&hellip; one of these are going to run the social network&hellip;.Do if in this case [of Threads] if it&rsquo;s owned by Mark Zuckerberg versus Elon Musk?&rdquo;</p> <p><b>Casey:</b> &ldquo;But we haven&rsquo;t even discussed that it&rsquo;s decentralized. Which is the actual answer to this question. You are going to be able to set up your own [Activitypub] server, &amp; your posts are going to be able to appear on Threads even though Meta doesn&rsquo;t operate it&hellip;&rdquo;</p> <p><b>Josh:</b> &ldquo;&hellip;.There is a common belief that they are doing that partially because if they basically make it part of the fediverse, they can get basically away with doing whatever moderation they want [on their site] and say [to those outside their site] &lsquo;Hey, you can own your own server, and you can post whatever you want, and set up your own [server] rules&hellip;and they don&rsquo;t have to be the arbiters of free speech on their own owned-and-operated&hellip;&rdquo;</p> <p><b>Casey:</b> &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good answer to that problem&hellip;&rdquo;</p> <p><b>Josh:</b> &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the answer we are all looking for I think.&rdquo;</p> <p><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thread-heat-with-casey-newton">podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas&hellip;</a></p> Threads and ActivtyPub - Key New Quotes from Adam Mosseri from Instagram https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/07/08/threads-and-activtypub.html Sat, 08 Jul 2023 10:23:30 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2023/07/08/threads-and-activtypub.html <p>Here are some very important quotes from the head of Instagram on their roll-out of ActivytPub support and how they plan to interact with the Fediverse: which he commits to being a &ldquo;fast follow&rdquo; feature to add now that they have launched, where he commits to decentralization to be a long term feature, and where he discusses how content moderation at IG Threads will work with Federation server content moderation:</p> <blockquote>And I do think that decentralization — but more specifically or more broadly, more open systems are where the industry is getting pulled and is going to grow over time. And for us, a new app offers us an opportunity to meaningfully participate in that space in the way it would be very difficult for us to support an incredibly large app like Instagram over. And so to lean into where the industry is going, to learn, it’s been very humbling speaking to a bunch of people in the community who look at us, unsurprisingly, with a lot of skepticism. But I do think it’s going to be fundamentally good. And I do think it’s going to translate into not philosophical, but meaningful things for creators over the long run. Like, you should be able to take your audience, if you build up an audience on Threads — and if you decide to leave Threads, take your audience with you. And theoretically, over time, we should be able to support use cases like that that really empower creators and, I think, lean into what creators are going to demand and expect over time.</blockquote> <p>And this:</p> <blockquote>There definitely are trade-offs. You’re giving up some control. But there are benefits. I do think, over time, it’s going to be a more compelling value proposition that other apps aren’t going to offer. And I think that should attract more creative talent over the long run. Obviously, I don’t think a large percentage of creators are interested in this, specifically decentralized technology, today. But more and more are. And they’re definitely interested in things like owning their audience. <p>We also get some benefits. If there are other apps that are really large that use the same protocol, you’ll be able to follow content from those servers in our app. And so it is a give and take. But yeah, you are giving up some control. It’s not absolute control. So for instance, you can build other things into the app that the ActivityPub protocol does not support. And they’ll just be limited to the app. So you don’t have to limit the things you build to things that the protocol has already designed for. But obviously, you won’t benefit from any of the decentralized opportunities if you do that. </blockquote></p> <p>And:</p> <blockquote> Kevin Roose: So do you think that the decentralization piece of this actually will result in a better user experience? Or is it just kind of like a bone to maybe throw the company’s critics people who say, I don’t want to use another app owned by Meta, I’m wary of what they’re going to do with my data, or I’m worried about some of the privacy considerations there? Is the decentralization piece actually going to move the needle for adoption on Threads? <p>Mosseri: I don’t think it’s going to move the adoption in the short term. But I do think it’s going to move the adoption in the long term. I sure hope so because it’s a ton of work. And if it doesn’t, then it certainly was time poorly spent. Supporting a decentralized protocol with all the different things that we do — reporting flows, classifying things, ranking content — is actually a ton of work. It’s one of the reasons why it’s taken much longer than I wanted to get this thing out the door. And we’re still not actually supporting ActivityPub protocol at launch. Hopefully, we’re fast-following with that. So yeah, I believe it will move the needle over the long run&hellip;.And to me, this is in the column of things that are, I think, going to be meaningful over the next two years, or three years, or four years. I don’t think it’s going to meaningfully change what usage of the app looks like over the next two or three months. </blockquote></p> <p>Also:</p> <blockquote> Kevin Roose: If eventually Threads is interoperable with Mastodon or something else that’s built on ActivityPub, maybe people are putting stuff there that you would never permit under the Instagram community guidelines. So I guess my two questions there — one is just, how is content moderated on Threads in general? Does it fall under Instagram’s guidelines? And then how is that going to evolve once you start plugging this thing into other apps? <p>Mosseri: So the community guidelines are the same for Threads as they are for Instagram. There’s an immense amount of benefit there because we can bring the systems that we’ve already built and extend them to a new app. And that allows us to keep a lot of people much safer much more easily than having to spin up a whole bunch of new policies and implementations and enforcement.</p> <p>It will also apply to content that you can pull in from other servers. But it’s important to note that the ActivityPub protocol leaves space for this. They are very clear, if you talk to the community, that different servers should have different policies and different guidelines. And they should be allowed to enforce those. And so yes, you can pull content from another server into your app. But then you can also decide not to show it or to block it in your app. If it violates your policies without blocking that content on the server from which it originated.</p> </blockquote> <p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/podcasts/special-episode-metas-twitter-rival-arrives-with-adam-mosseri.html?showTranscript=1">www.nytimes.com/2023/07/0&hellip;</a></p> Instagram Threads and the Fediverse (Part 5) https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/07/05/nstagram-threads-and.html Wed, 05 Jul 2023 08:31:49 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2023/07/05/nstagram-threads-and.html <p>I wrote before that we need humility, recognizing there is so much we don&rsquo;t know and could be wrong about.</p> <p>I would have sworn that Meta would not support full export of users' social graph to go join other servers. Many opposing federation with Meta did too. We were all wrong at least to what the head of Instagram just posted.</p> <p><a href="https://indieweb.social/@fediversereport@mastodon.social/110661443544823158">indieweb.social/@fedivers&hellip;</a></p> <p>We should wait, verify and not take him at his word, but that is hugely good news if true, and surprising to all of us. This reminds me of this scene from the film Lincoln between abolitionists opponents of Lincoln and the speaker of the House Thadeus Stevens, played by Tommy Lee Jones:</p> <blockquote>ASA VINTNER LITTON: You know he isn't to be trusted. <p>THADDEUS STEVENS: Trust? I&rsquo;m sorry, I was under the misapprehension your chosen profession was politics. I&rsquo;ve never trusted the President. I never trust anyone. But&hellip; Hasn&rsquo;t he surprised you?</p> <p>ASA VINTNER LITTON No, Mr. Stevens, he hasn&rsquo;t.</p> <p>THADDEUS STEVENS Nothing surprises you, Asa, therefore nothing about you is surprising. Perhaps that is why your constituents did not re-elect you to the coming term.</p> <p>(collecting his cane and STANDING:) It&rsquo;s late, I&rsquo;m old, I&rsquo;m going home.</p> <p>Stevens limps to the door, opens it, and turns.</p> <p>THADDEUS STEVENS (CONT&rsquo;D) Lincoln the inveterate dawdler, Lincoln the Southerner, Lincoln the capitulating compromiser, our adversary - and leader of the godforsaken Republican Party, our party - Abraham Lincoln has asked us to work with him to accomplish the death of slavery in America.</p> <p>(BEAT:)</p> <p>Retain, even in opposition, your capacity for astonishment. </blockquote></p> Instagram Threads and the Fediverse (Part 4) https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/07/03/instagram-threads-and.html Mon, 03 Jul 2023 20:18:25 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2023/07/03/instagram-threads-and.html <p>As Meta&rsquo;s new App - now officially confirmed as &ldquo;Threads&rdquo; - has a near-term launch date of July 6th, wanted to restate that Indieweb.social will be taking the same position as almost all mid-sized and large-sized servers and will be &ldquo;Watching Like a Hawk, with our Fingers Over the Block Button.&rdquo; We will NOT be pre-emptively taking a &ldquo;Fediblock as a Frist Strike&rdquo; position.</p> <p>For reasons I listed here: <a href="https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/06/23/project-and-the.html">www.timothychambers.net/2023/06/2&hellip;</a></p> <p>➡️ And as I listed in that article, I firmly believe that this position is a smarter and better way to keep our people safe AND be in a stronger position to defend the open social web. Far better than a first- strike that would not accomplish its goals, and actually put us in a worse position defensively.</p> <p>I have also been helping coordinate efforts at building out Fediverse test suites to ensure that all new actors (like Threads) that claim ActivityPub compliance have to prove their claims or be shown where they are lacking. That is the one real defense against &ldquo;Embrace, Extend, Extinguish&rdquo; plays by any large actor. To join in and help with this, follow this Mastodon-compatible Frendica group here: <a href="https://venera.social/profile/activitypubtestsuite/conversations">venera.social/profile/a&hellip;</a></p> <p>This ActivityPub Test Suite needs to happen ASAP, so any dev support is welcome! DM me if you want to know more.</p> <p>➡️ Next, as we approach the Threads launch date, it does now appear - as previously reported, that Threads will be launching WITHOUT Federation turned on at first, and that this will be turned on at some point after launch. Some reporters said it could be 2 or 3 months after. That, if true, is a responsible act from them that both gives them time to judge the size of the new userbase before Federating AND it gives those of us in the Fediverse time to see in reality what we are dealing with prior to Federation beginning.</p> <p>I think we are ready for what is about to come this week.</p> <p>With this weekend&rsquo;s &ldquo;Twitter Migration 3&rdquo; likely sending 300,000 new users in 48 hours, not to mention the hundreds of thousands that joined the Fedi via the #RedditMigration, we have shown as a Fediverse that we can handle large-scale loads of new users, and if IndieWeb.social is any guide, and what I have seen from other admins, our tools and our moderation of this new influx of Twitter users went well. And the overall servers were ready to handle the load well. Far better than in the first wave of the Twitter Migration. We&rsquo;ve built some resilience into every aspect of the Fediverse since then.</p> <p><b>It all gives me great hope for what is about to come as admins do final preparations getting ready for what will come. </b></p> <p>➡️ Next: I expect that with the imminent Threads launch that the &ldquo;Block First&rdquo; versus &ldquo;Watch Like a Hawk&rdquo; camps will likely get more intense. I hope we don&rsquo;t return to admins getting threats of violence against them.</p> <p>➡️ I point folks to this article I wrote calling out the need for people on both camps to try to embrace &ldquo;humility, empathy, and community&rdquo; as a key ethos in how we treat each other and suss things out. Which we will. I will do my best to be a voice of de-escalation within the Fedi family and to amplify other such voices. <a href="https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/06/30/meta-and-the.html">www.timothychambers.net/2023/06/3&hellip;</a></p> <p>➡️ And on this note: no matter your admin&rsquo;s choice, be kind and support your admin. This next few weeks will likely be testing a lot of them. Donate to them if you haven&rsquo;t. Put in a kind word along with it.</p> <p>But that said, this is what we all signed up for. To ride these waves and try to help create a new kind of open social that can disrupt and change the status quo. Many of us are doing this for exactly weekends like this Twitter wave, and for whatever opportunities and threats will come from Threads.</p> <p>➡️ A path for those who wish it: I respect the subset of Fedi admins in the other camp that choose to Fediblock First, although I disagree with their choice. I think sites like NotMeta.social (<a href="https://notmeta.social/">https://notmeta.social/</a>) serve a purpose for those who specifically want that. If any members of this server do not want to remain due to our policy of not preemptively blocking, I recommend Chris&rsquo;s site and can assist with migration.</p> <p>➡️ Avoid the nuclear option of defederation inside the family: I would ask that those admins that choose a first-strike nuclear option on Threads, do not choose to do &ldquo;two degrees of separation&rdquo; and defederate all the servers that do not defederate Threads. If they feel they need to do more, I hope they instead choose to &ldquo;limit/silence&rdquo; them instead. I hope they do not take the nuclear option against other fellow Fedi neighbors and their users.</p> <p>➡️ My last note: we will update our users here on things as they go. We will be fully transparent as to our choices as new data comes in. And as we work to watch like a hawk, but also migrate new Threads users over to the Fediverse, we invite you to use tools like my team built here: <a href="http://www.spreadmastodon.org">www.spreadmastodon.org</a></p> <p>We have gone through huge twists and turns in the Fedi before. This very weekend was one big one. We will handle Threads well, and as a Fediverse, we will suss it out. Onward.</p> <img src="https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/1789/2023/threads.png" width="277" height="600" alt=""> Meta and the Fediverse ("First Time, Part 3) https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/06/30/meta-and-the.html Fri, 30 Jun 2023 10:21:32 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2023/06/30/meta-and-the.html <p>The strum and drang of the conversation of Meta joining the Fediverse continue at it&rsquo;s wild and intense pace: See this: <a href="https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2023/06/30/the-horns-of-a-dilemma/">netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2023/06/3&hellip;</a></p> <p>And to me, for the most part, that is a good thing, this is a big deal and we as a fediverse family should suss it out. We have had big turns in the road before - and we sussed it out over time. We will again when the next bigtech go adopts ActivtyPub.</p> <p>But the recent intense and &ldquo;almost religious overtones&rdquo; to the debate, and even worse, the death threats and vitriol from a fringe - I think call for <b>three additional traits from us from each camp</b>, all of which may be in short supply when the emotional temperature rises and the amygdala part of our brains frequently assumes control.</p> <p>But think it&rsquo;s time for all of the Fediverse to do the whole &ldquo;look to the better angels&rdquo; thing and get one notch better at internal conflict resolution at how we grapple with this.</p> <p>Background: I&rsquo;ve previously stated that I believe the division of thought from the two camps of &ldquo;Fediblock First&rdquo; and the &ldquo;Watch Like a Hawk with the Finger over the Block Button&rdquo; groups come in part from this: From two different cultures that migrated to the Fediverse in separate timeframes with different contexts. <a href="https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/06/25/project-the-fediverse.html">www.timothychambers.net/2023/06/2&hellip;</a></p> <p>Given that, I think these three traits (if we can pull them off) would be of great help during the next few weeks and months:</p> <p>➡️ Humility: All sides should admit we don&rsquo;t know far more than we do know right now.</p> <p>As people see this potential change in the Fediverse, it is crucial to approach this time with humility. I <b>think I see what will happen</b>, I firmly believe that we have all the tools we need to moderate and protect our users now - without the need for a Fediblock first strike. I am deeply confident that we can manage the new users and protect our own without becoming overwhelmed. I also strongly believe that a premptive-ban on Meta is shortsighted and self-defeating. See here: <a href="https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/06/23/project-and-the.html">www.timothychambers.net/2023/06/2&hellip;</a></p> <p><b>But I admit: I could be wrong. Really wrong.</b></p> <p>Others predicting the worst outcomes from Meta joining the Fediverse may be correct, but THEY also may be wrong.</p> <p>Things will likely be very fluid, and mercurial once they join, and everyone should be willing to say, &ldquo;Reality gets a vote,&rdquo; and readdress their positions as new data comes in.</p> <p>By setting aside our egos and embracing a humble mindset, we can create an environment where diverse perspectives are valued and respected. And it will be easier for us all to pivot once things really do occur and we all see what we are dealing with in terms of our new &ldquo;Threads&rdquo; neighbors.</p> <p>➡️ Empathy: By actively listening to one another and seeking to understand each other&rsquo;s concerns, we can build bridges of empathy that promote constructive dialogue rather than divisive arguments. I&rsquo;m all for constructive, reasoned arguments. But empathy should be the base under them all.</p> <p>The Venn Diagram of the ethos, values, and priorities of &ldquo;Team Fediblock First&rdquo; and &ldquo;Team Watch Like A Hawk&rdquo; has approximately 99 percent overlap. By and large: one camp isn&rsquo;t dead set on crippling the Fediverse &ndash; and the other isn&rsquo;t bound and determined to blindly trust Meta and allow great harm to come to our people - with marginalized communities likely to bear the worst.</p> <p>Overall: Both I believe want to protect our people as a first priority, and both I believe want the benefits they found at the Fediverse to be safely available to the widest number of people possible. The fringe who don&rsquo;t - on both sides - are just that, a sliver of a sliver.</p> <p>Let&rsquo;s not demonize each other and let&rsquo;s see where each other shares the other side&rsquo;s values. 99 percent overlap in my view.</p> <p>➡️ Community: we need to treat this like one albeit multi-cultural - community.</p> <p>Some think: Maybe there are just two schisms now &ldquo;an open Fediverse and a gated one,&rdquo; some say. Others are saying &ldquo;two camps&rdquo; exist and that the time has passed that the who can unite priorities: <a href="https://heat-shield.space/mastodon_two_camps.html">https://heat-shield.space/mastodon_two_camps.html</a></p> <p>There will be a tiny maximalist set of users that both defed out Meta and then defed out anyone else who doesn&rsquo;t. That sub-group was likely virtually out the door anyway.</p> <p>The rest of us will figure this out. We did before at big turns in the road like when Gab tried to infiltrate when Twitter got bought sending six million folks into our shores when new corporate actors like Medium, Flipboard, and others joined in and proved themselves to be allies.</p> <p>This isn&rsquo;t our first time at this, and there will be more decisions like this after Meta, too.</p> #Project92, the Fediverse: (First Time? Part 2) https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/06/25/project-the-fediverse.html Sun, 25 Jun 2023 11:37:29 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2023/06/25/project-the-fediverse.html <p>One more post about how things are going inside the Fediverse now that #Project92 has joined the Fediverse.</p> <p>I have two ideas:</p> <p>One is that the Fediverse has ALWAYS had to make hard choices about things like this, but we&rsquo;ve always found a way. We&rsquo;ll do it again. The sky isn&rsquo;t going to fall, and there probably won&rsquo;t be a &ldquo;Great Schism.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s a mess, but we get through it. I think that a small part of the Fediverse will take a preemptive maximalist stance and try to defederate Meta before they even launch, even though we&rsquo;ll still have 3 months after they launch to find out what their policies are. Even fewer of them will choose &ldquo;2 degrees of separation,&rdquo; which means that they will defederate anyone who doesn&rsquo;t defederate Meta first. I don&rsquo;t think a well-moderated instance needs to defederate, but I respect those who aren&rsquo;t convinced and think it&rsquo;s fine for them to join servers like Chris Trottier&rsquo;s <a href="http://notmeta.social">notmeta.social</a> that are set up for that reason. I hope that not many people do this &ldquo;two degrees of separation&rdquo; thing and that some of the people who feel they need to do this, choose to &ldquo;limit' other such servers instead. (The Fediverse will be fractured much less if they do.)</p> <p>As I&rsquo;ve already said, I understand that maximalist choice, but I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s a good idea. We have the tools to protect our people, and we are stronger to &ldquo;Watch like a hawk, with our fingers over the block button.&rdquo; But some others will disagree. Back when I was helping to lead the movement to #Isolategab (which was not a preemptive strike and was stronger for it) even then there was a small group of sites that took the maximalist position in the opposite direction - and refused to defederate Gab.com because of maximalist free speech views.</p> <p>My point about this first thought is that the Fediverse as a whole won&rsquo;t decide on one moderation stance, but I do know one thing: we&rsquo;ll figure it out and be fine in time, and we&rsquo;ll also find good ways to include P92 users and move many of them to full Fediverse accounts. It will work out in the end, and we&rsquo;ll be fine in the long run. We&rsquo;ve done things like this before.</p> <p>Two: I do think that some of these changes are part of the Fediverse&rsquo;s culture, which has changed a lot in the last year.</p> <p>I see some users like this Fedi Admin, who are angry about what they see as a closed-off response to Meta, describing the state of things from their POV:</p> <blockquote> "It's not going to be Meta or Project 92 or whatever that kills Fedi. It's the fact that every time someone suggests a way for regular people to use it like they use social networks, the whole network shits the bed and starts screaming about keeping the outsiders out....Bluesky took Mastodon's lunch by not presenting itself as a "overly complex, user-unfriendly network full of hostile people who can cut you off from your friends because the admin of your server thinks the admin of their server thinks they're a poohead, on which the number one topic of discussion is fedi itself." [indieweb.social/@Bloonfac...](https://indieweb.social/@Bloonface@mastodon.social/110604991048562220) </blockquote> <p>I understand how they feel, but I don&rsquo;t agree with them when they say things like &ldquo;the whole network&rdquo; or &ldquo;it&rsquo;s full of hostile people who can cut you off.&rdquo; It is subset of the Fedi who want a preemptive strike. I think it will end up being a SMALL subset.</p> <p>From my point of view, the preemptive fediblock contingent is a mix of people from groups that have a long history of online harms against them and their allies, who have a legitimate fear of abuse from Meta policies, and who have a legitimate fear of Meta taking over and ruining the open standards we rely on. There are also some people who came to the Fediverse on purpose to stay as FAR, FAR, FAR away from big business as they could.</p> <p>I&rsquo;ve already written about what I think are better ways to deal with these real concerns, so I won&rsquo;t go over them again here. But I get it and empathize with these users.</p> <p>My second idea is about Fedi Culture. Or rather &ldquo;Cultures.&rdquo; I think we are seeing some of the differences between the &ldquo;Fediverse OG&rdquo; culture and the &ldquo;Fediverse Newbie&rdquo; culture, which is made up of the much larger group of people who moved in over the last year.</p> <p>People from the &ldquo;OG&rdquo; culture of the early Fediverse came here when things were even more new than they are now. They were looking for safe, independent, ad-free, bigtech-free, corporation-free places. Before Elon took over, the number of people who had signed up had grown to about 4 million. Seme came out of the #indieweb or #small web movements that preceded it.</p> <p>(I consider myself a member of the Fediverse OG culture btw, joining in about 2018)</p> <p>Then Elon came along. Then about 6 million new people moved in. All newbies. <a href="https://fediverse.observer/stats">fediverse.observer/stats</a></p> <p>And then another wave of several hundred thousand #RedditMigration users arrived and continue to arrive.</p> <p>All of these waves are newbies and are of a very different culture.</p> <p>Roughly speaking: The new culture is folks became convinced that the first waves were onto something. They see the power in open, indie networks, they see that the whole Fediverse thing survived and grew and may be worth a look. And they saw even more clearly with Elon that closed siloes spiral down. They are open to building something new but they aren&rsquo;t fully converts yet but are testing the waters and see it as better than the Twitter or Reddit hellholes. Whole new developer groups joined in these second waves, finding better places to grow and plug their services into. it includes more technologists and software folks who fought past battles against big tech #EEE efforts and won. The users in this wave of newbies is more open to ideas on how there are opportunities in &ldquo;adversarial interoperability&rdquo; to Meta as long as the tools we have to protect our own hold.</p> <p>Lastly thought: our culture is about to change AGAIN. Once Meta Project 92 launches expect that - even if the entire Fedi blocked them or doesn&rsquo;t - that within days/months they become the biggest Fediverse ActivtyPub host.</p> <p>That means the entire Fediverse will get over time a whole newer set of newbies to join the last wave. We are about to get far more female-identifying. Less techie. And younger. This would be a good demographic trend in my book if it occurs. <a href="https://indieweb.social/@tchambers/110601746331877801">indieweb.social/@tchamber&hellip;</a></p> <p>And as we have many times before, Fedivese culture will adjust and work it out. And keep our initial waves of people safe. The sky won&rsquo;t fall.</p> <p>And many of us will be working to welcome in new blood, and find ways to use it as an opportunity to #EEE Meta.</p> <img src="https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/1789/2023/5169ef98c8.png" width="600" height="323" alt=""> Threads and the Fediverse - A Smarter Battle Plan to Protect the Open Social Web https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/06/23/project-and-the.html Fri, 23 Jun 2023 11:33:08 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2023/06/23/project-and-the.html <p>With the #meta #Project92 or #Threads Fediverse offering, there has been a, well, <em>robust</em> discussion of how to avoid threats looming. Those advocating mass-preemptive defederation make three cases for it.</p> <p>➡️ To avoid data mining &hellip;</p> <p>However, defederation does virtually zero to avoid any big tech entity scraping all the Fediverse public social graph today - Want proof?</p> <p>See here: <a href="https://is.gd/q8U2pv">is.gd/q8U2pv</a></p> <p>But what if they merge that Fediverse data with their own internal data from IG isn&rsquo;t that worse than just scraped data? They can do this now. They already have a frightening amount of internal data from inside IG, and as we said, virtually all of the public fediverse is scrapeable, and syncing those to datasets is unstoppable - with or without defederation.</p> <p>The second argument:</p> <p>➡️ To defend against poorly moderated P92 users &amp; ad spam, which disproportionately impact marginalized communities.</p> <p>This should concern everyone, especially for communities that have suffered great harm on bigtech platforms. <a href="https://www.newamerica.org/weekly/online-vulnerable-groups-only-become-more-vulnerable/">www.newamerica.org/weekly/on&hellip;</a></p> <p>But we have all the tools we need for that now - as users &amp; as admins and deal with exactly this from poorly moderated servers EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.</p> <p>And if we find ANY server not responsive THEN we block. Protecting our users is our 1st job but we have all we need - WITHOUT first strike defederation.</p> <p>And remember we only have to protect the 1.3 million monthly active users inside the Fediverse. And we do that now every day. Spammers and toxic accounts inside the P92 network we or our social graph don&rsquo;t follow is their problem. Our problem is protecting our people.</p> <p>And as new users migrate over the Fedivese we will scale to support them - which we need to build scalability of moderation out anyway.</p> <p>The 3rd argument for defederation:</p> <p>➡️ To defend against being &ldquo;Embraced, Extended, and Extinguished.&rdquo;</p> <p>This is a real risk, and others point to Google and Facebook and XMPP, or Google and RSS Google reader. Where a big entity takes over, then rug pulls or extends an open standard slowly into a non-standard, non-interoperable functionally siloed service.</p> <p>This is a real risk. But you don&rsquo;t - and can&rsquo;t - defend against this by defederation.</p> <p>Why not? Because even if the entire existing Fedi pre-blocked them. Instagram has 1.6 BILLION users. If they push this, in one day just on their own they will be the size of the current Fedi&rsquo;s monthly user base, and then grow from there.</p> <p>Virtually Instantly, they become the biggest ActivityPub entity on the planet. With or without a mass block.</p> <p><b>A Smarter Strategy Against &ldquo;EEE attacks&rdquo; than Premptive First Strike Defederation - that Still Protects Our People</b></p> <p>So if we can&rsquo;t stop the embrace, what can we do to combat the second &ldquo;E?&rdquo; How do you stop them from &ldquo;extending&rdquo; the AcitivyPub standard and twisting or crippling it?</p> <p>This isn&rsquo;t a new battle. Tons of efforts to use an EEE attack on open tech fail.</p> <p>As others put it well #OpenSourceSoftware space has fought and won this battle many times.<br> And as Dave Winer the godfather of RSS &amp; Podcasting said: &ldquo;Podcasting has withstood countless attacks like this, and has always been left standing as unsullied as ever.&rdquo;</p> <p>We know how to win this.</p> <p><b>➡️ First: Innovate and outcompete. </b></p> <p>Especially where you can do things giants can&rsquo;t. We can always outcompete Meta at being more private, ad-free, better moderated, and more open. We also need to compete on User Interface and User Experience.</p> <p>XMPP may have been hurt by FB and Google&rsquo;s rug pull - but my recollection was more like this user when asked why did XMPP die and SMPT thrived?</p> <blockquote> I was a weird XMPP nerd in high school and tried to switch friends from AIM. So here's my experience. <ul> <li> <p>Onboarding was difficult. There was no obvious choice of server or client to use.</p> </li> <li> <p>Adding friends was difficult. You needed to send a subscription request to a contact, and they needed to send one to you. If anything happened during this process, you couldn&rsquo;t chat. * Popular XMPP clients, like Pidgin, also supported the other chat services (AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, etc) so people just continued using those.</p> </li> <li> <p>Network effect. You need to convince a mass of people its better, otherwise, nobody&rsquo;s using it because no-one uses it.</p> </li> <li> <p>No obvious benefit to the user. It&rsquo;s decentralized sure, but there weren&rsquo;t many improvements over AIM that people actually used.</p> </li> <li> <p>A lack of good iPhone XMPP clients.</p> </li> </ul> <p>In 2005 Google added XMPP support to Google Talk/GMail Chat and they were federated, but nobody federated back and they closed off its successor (Hangouts).</p> </blockquote> <p>It&rsquo;s eerie how those complaints - onboarding, confusing UX, the discovery of friends - feel akin to some made of the current Fediverse. We need to up our game all those issues fast&hellip;and I see promising signs we are. Fedi client and server software will need to just be better - something #OSS devs have done for years. And we can too.</p> <p>OK, the next tactic we know works against #EEE attacks:</p> <p><b>➡️ Having a broad set of OTHER allies inside the tent of stakeholders. Growing the base of those who &ldquo;embrace&rdquo; it to even out the power dynamics. </b></p> <p>And btw, defederating developers PREMPTIVELY before they launch a single Meta Activtypub server, is the fastest way to make OTHER potential developers run for the hills. Actually to run to Bluesky.</p> <p>And my last major tactic for this post:</p> <p><b>➡️ Fediverse ActivityPub Standards Must Hold: We need to support our standards makers STAT. </b></p> <p>The best defense against &ldquo;extend&rdquo; is a clear line of what we are defending. ActivityPub has needed a robust &ldquo;test suite&rdquo; to test compliance for a while &amp; good efforts were unfinished. They need to be picked up at warp speed. To see an example of his working for other tech see: <a href="https://webmention.rocks/">webmention.rocks</a></p> <p>The creator of the Wordpress ActivtyPub plugin said that he <em>wished</em> he had this.</p> <p>Until we get a robust test suite for #ActivityPub the risk is Meta or others &ldquo;extend it&rdquo; or the converse, support &ldquo;almost all of it,&rdquo; but miss crucial bits.</p> <p>Dave Winer mentioned once that Google leaving bits of RSS support out of Google Reader hurt the effort for years. (But it recovered and #EEE failed over time)</p> <p>I&rsquo;m working with a number of stakeholders now to see if we can build out an alpha of just this. Is crucial work. Want to help? DM me at @techambers@indieweb.social on the Fedi.</p> <p>Wrapping up: This isn&rsquo;t a new fight. OSS devs have been here before. Many times. And won.</p> <p>We have all the tools, development energy &amp; moderation tech to protect our people we need - without first strikes.</p> <p>We have past #OSS &amp; open tech fights to learn off of &amp; as others have argued well: being open - if they are - is a first crack in #Meta&rsquo;s armor.</p> <p>We may get a window - if we both protect our people &amp; don&rsquo;t act insularly - to run an #EEE campaign reaching out to THEIR users.</p> <img src="https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/1789/2023/screenshot-2023-06-22-at-11.03.54-pm.png" width="600" height="323" alt=""> https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/06/08/more-on-metas.html Thu, 08 Jun 2023 14:55:46 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2023/06/08/more-on-metas.html <p>More on Meta&rsquo;s Instagram &ldquo;project 92&rdquo; Twitter-competitor just leaked including confirmation of #ActivityPub support: <a href="https://twitter.com/alexeheath/status/1666895838294208512">twitter.com/alexeheat&hellip;</a></p> https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/05/24/the-most-interesting.html Wed, 24 May 2023 16:17:09 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2023/05/24/the-most-interesting.html <p>&ldquo;The most interesting thing about Meta’s Twitter clone&hellip;If Meta pursues this idea at scale, it would be an incredible departure for the world’s largest social media company.&rdquo; #Barcelona #Meta #Fediverse</p> <p><a href="https://qz.com/meta-instagram-twitter-decentralized-social-network-1850461027">qz.com/meta-inst&hellip;</a></p> https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/05/22/some-important-questions.html Mon, 22 May 2023 15:51:37 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2023/05/22/some-important-questions.html <p>Some important questions users of #BlueSky and other emerging social networks will have to face: <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/05/bluesky-social-twitter-content-moderation">www.vanityfair.com/news/2023&hellip;</a></p> https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/04/14/funny-and-a.html Fri, 14 Apr 2023 08:42:42 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2023/04/14/funny-and-a.html <p>Funny (and a sign of the times) to see &ldquo;billions of minutes viewed&rdquo; become functionally the new Neilsen ratings: <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/streaming-tv-rankings-march-6-12-2023-2-1235373784/">www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-new&hellip;</a></p> https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/04/14/well-if-they.html Fri, 14 Apr 2023 05:58:29 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2023/04/14/well-if-they.html <p>Well if they had virtual legs, they would be.</p> <p>&ldquo;Major retail players are walking back their metaverse strategies&hellip;&rdquo;</p> <p><a href="https://www.modernretail.co/technology/major-retail-players-are-walking-back-their-metaverse-strategies/">www.modernretail.co/technolog&hellip;</a></p> https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/04/09/because-of-course.html Sat, 08 Apr 2023 23:35:18 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2023/04/09/because-of-course.html <p>Because, of course, they are. And soon these #BlueCheck users will be the only ones upranking &amp; downranking the Twitter algorithm for everyone.</p> <p><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/2023/04/07/verified-misinformation-blue-check-twitter-accounts-are-flooding-platform-false-claims-1793237.html">www.newsweek.com/2023/04/0&hellip;</a></p> https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/04/02/happy-april-nd.html Sun, 02 Apr 2023 08:54:53 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2023/04/02/happy-april-nd.html <p>Happy April 2nd - International Fact-Checking Day - to all who celebrate. #FactsMatter <a href="https://twitter.com/factcheckdotorg/status/1642524340024385539">twitter.com/factcheck&hellip;</a></p> How to Verify your Twitter Account as Owned by You, Without Paying Twitter for #TwitterBlue or for a $12K a Month https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/03/28/how-to-verify.html Tue, 28 Mar 2023 22:09:35 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2023/03/28/how-to-verify.html <p>This solution for Twitter verification without paying Elon is easy to use, adheres to web standards, and works efficiently.</p> <p>First, include the following in your (or your organization&rsquo;s) Twitter bio:</p> <p><strong>This account can be verified at <a href="http://timothychambers.net/verified/">timothychambers.net/verified/</a></strong></p> <p>You can also (like I did) add the key or ID emoji to your bio. Twitter will not let you add the emoji for check marks.</p> <p>This URL must lead to a page you create on your own website or the official website for your organization. There, you should include the following language, which you can see on the image of my own website. It should read something akin to:</p> <p><strong>&ldquo;This is my official Twitter account that I maintain and verify that I am that owner: <a href="https://twitter.com/tchambers/">https://twitter.com/tchambers/</a>&quot;</strong></p> <p>Add the machine-readable and web-standard code <a href="https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Attributes/rel/me">&ldquo;rel=Me&rdquo;</a> to the HTML of that page to earn bonus points. This is not essential, however, it will be handy for utilizing this page to verify you on Mastodon and other services in the future.</p> <p>That&rsquo;s all! This establishes that your Twitter account is owned and confirmed by the same entity as your Official Website. Any fake Twitter impersonators that don&rsquo;t have this, aren&rsquo;t you.</p> <p>This is possible to do on any website, personal blog, the official bio page of any organization&rsquo;s website, or even any Gravatar profile, or similar pages.</p> <p>To view a live illustration of this, please visit my Twitter account at <a href="https://twitter.com/tchambers/.">twitter.com/tchambers&hellip;</a></p> <img src="https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/1789/2023/6722e1ac49.png" width="600" height="294" alt=""> https://www.timothychambers.net/2022/12/06/224601.html Tue, 06 Dec 2022 22:46:01 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2022/12/06/224601.html <p>No, it&rsquo;s just the #indieweb, #openweb, and #fediverse doing it&rsquo;s thing.</p> <img src="https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/1789/2022/44d7bafdfe.png" width="600" height="277" alt=""> https://www.timothychambers.net/2022/12/06/no-its-just.html Tue, 06 Dec 2022 22:43:59 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2022/12/06/no-its-just.html <p>No, it&rsquo;s just the #openweb, #indieweb, and #fediverse doing their thing.</p> https://www.timothychambers.net/2022/11/24/this-blackfriday-keep.html Thu, 24 Nov 2022 14:09:54 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2022/11/24/this-blackfriday-keep.html <p>This #blackFriday keep #privacy in mind in gift choices… <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/">foundation.mozilla.org/en/privac&hellip;</a></p> https://www.timothychambers.net/2022/11/24/ok-pretty-cool.html Thu, 24 Nov 2022 13:00:27 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2022/11/24/ok-pretty-cool.html <p>OK, pretty cool: Feedle - a new track of RSS feeds of blogs and podcasts&hellip;. <a href="https://feedle.world">feedle.world</a></p> https://www.timothychambers.net/2022/11/17/mozilla-issues-its.html Thu, 17 Nov 2022 11:03:26 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2022/11/17/mozilla-issues-its.html <p>#Mozilla issues its &ldquo;State of Mozilla 2021-2022 Report. The web is such a better place with them in it. They have many challenges but wishing them a bright next chapter: <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2021/">www.mozilla.org/en-US/fou&hellip;</a></p> https://www.timothychambers.net/2022/11/14/this-site-is.html Mon, 14 Nov 2022 17:49:37 -0500 http://tchambers.micro.blog/2022/11/14/this-site-is.html <p>This site is going to be very busy: <a href="https://twitterisgoinggreat.com/">twitterisgoinggreat.com</a> #Twitter</p>