On this page you see examples of websites you can host yourself. I'll use Mastodon as an example since I've used it. I know about hubzilla slightly but have not used it.
Mastodon is a platform you can run on your own server. That server you're running is called an instance. You can also register on an instance someone else is running.
Think of a single Mastodon instance as a clone of Twitter. One nice thing is: Your server, your rules.
Then, you can also allow your Mastodon instance and its users and their posts to be discoverable by other instances.
I think it's said to be federated because no one entity controls the content that is being shared. the information is passed around from instance to instance by rules that are defined on a per-instance basis.
I was looking at this page the other day, since I've been interested in hosting something like a Mastodon instance for friends. But, I'm not sure what my responsibilities as a host and admin would be under some of the new U.S. legislation (like the CLOUD Act.) Those laws seem to directly contend with my desire to protect user's privacy and data.
This doesn’t really tell me anything about each network. There’s just a paragraph of free association about them as a physical place, usually with a bunch of misspellings. Presumably you’ve read through the info of each network; synopsize them and tell us what existing corporate site each one is most trying to work like?
All the clever positioning breaks down on the iPad mini I’m sitting in bed reading this on. I just get two columns of circular images, with captions nearer to the next image than the one they’re supposed to be for. It seems to work properly if I turn to landscape but...
You’re missing Secure Scuttlebutt. And the decentralized video sharing network whose name I can’t remember.
> And the decentralized video sharing network whose name I can’t remember.
Most decentralized video sharing services I've seen are built on blockchain which this site explicitly denounces in regards to social media. The only federated video sharing alternative I'm aware of is PeerTube: https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube
The main determinant of the stickiness of a social network is the network size, and having to click each icon to find this out is stupid when there are oceans of space that could present this information on the main page.
That said, this is a sad commentary on open source social networks. The largest would appear to be Mastodon at ~1M 'accounts'. Facebook is what, ~2 billion active? if you want to believe their numbers.
I expect Mastodon's numbers to sharply increase over the next few months, and I wouldn't be surprised if this month was by far their sharpest increase in users. The 'big' social medias have had over a decade head start, and by being centralized are more user-friendly. I've known about Mastodon for a while, but always wrote it off as "that weird Twitter clone". I've recently decided to try it again and turned my opinion around about it.
Facebook has a decade on these projects as well though. Also larger financial backing. These projects protocol (forget which ones) are based on an official w3c spec as well. So unlike Facebook these types of networks will be an official part of the web. Facebook can disappear one day but these sites will not go anywhere.
Mastodon is pretty underrated, I tried it a couple years ago and was unimpressed. I just tried it again today after all of the news about facebook and feel very differently.
Now they have a nice web UI (nicer than most IMO, which I didn't think they'd be able to pull off with it being federated) and some really nice desktop clients (I really like madonctl with ansi colors enabled, I just added it to my .fvwmrc.)
I like Mastodon as well but I really wish it was more than just twitteresque content. I want to be able to have photo albums and such on there as well.
I don't understand what this site does. It appears to be a list of federated social networks (if a very "heavy" and overdone one, but cool), but on the "Fediverse" page (which I guess is the "About" page?) there's a buried and unlinked "Join Fediverse!" call to action with no details about what that might mean. Can anyone provide insight about who this is for and what problem(s) it's supposed to solve?
Seems to be missing SSB/Patchwork. Technically it is not federated because you can use it without servers at all, but I think the most practical case is to use "pub" servers, which act as federated hubs.
I'm curious what the differentiation is between some of these projects. "Written in Rust" or "Written in Go" don't really tell me anything as a user.
This is a really cool idea. I never really understood what "the social web" was really about in the mid-aughts. The Internet was always a social tool before Facebook and Flickr and all that happened. It's nice to see it come back around to being distributed again. I hope protocols take over again.
Sandstorm[1] has not been in news lately ever since they decided to stop their for-profit offerings. But it seems like a good base layer for people to host these apps.
How much safer is my data on these networks compared to Facebook? E.g. is my friends list safe from people outside my network? And also from people running federated servers?
So long as you trust your server’s admin, your data should be safe from them and non-federated servers. However once your server is linked to another, the whole map of connected servers can see your outward-facing info. If you are DMing users outside your network, you can also consider those messages non-private, as your server, the destination server, and possibly intermediatry servers will have seen it.
Services like this would do well to integrate the Signal protocol, although I don’t know how well it scales with federated servers, I can’t recall any actual tests of that functionality yet.
What’s up with scrolling on that site? I’m on iOS safari, and when I click through to one of the pages (say Mastsdon) and do a quick “throw scroll” (you know, when you move your thumb quickly across the page and lift up and the page keeps scrolling by inertia), the page stops immediately after my thumb leaves. (See any HN page for a working counter example.)
Why does this happen? Why is someone overriding scroll events? Why not just leave stuff alone and allow a consistent experience? Why? Why? Why?
Every time I see a Facebook, privacy or a social network topic on HN and then read about alternatives such as tent.io, mastodon and others I ask myself why the open source world is so bent on reproducing it. Half of those topics dwell on privacy issues (might be fixable), half deals with the effects on the mind and on society. That won't be solved by the open-source software stack.
Well, people clearly like this kind of social network thing. It makes sense that the open source community would try to replicate the experience without the tracking.
Aren't all of these a way too complex? All I want of a "social network" is to create a page to express my personality efficiently (by presenting whoever interested some pictures, music and quotes I like, publishing some thoughts of mine perhaps) and let them leave me a message (not to talk, just to leave a message, I will contact them by the contacts they may provide (e.g. WhatsApp/Telegram/email) if and when I want). Nothing else. The page is to be easy to find for everybody and free for me to have (requiring no maintenance nor a hosting subscription). What options match this the best?
There are Reddit and HN for crowd discussions, there are WhatsApp and Telegram to chat with friends, there is Twitter (with relaxed message length limit, finally!) to post your updates if you want and to contact people publicly. All we actually need "a facebook" for is to present ourselves.
However, if you want something that actually promotes social, it is NOT posting stuff about what happened in the past. What you read, saw, some news article about what happened. And then enlessly waste time contributing comments about it.
[+] [-] kovek|8 years ago|reply
On this page you see examples of websites you can host yourself. I'll use Mastodon as an example since I've used it. I know about hubzilla slightly but have not used it.
Mastodon is a platform you can run on your own server. That server you're running is called an instance. You can also register on an instance someone else is running.
Think of a single Mastodon instance as a clone of Twitter. One nice thing is: Your server, your rules.
Then, you can also allow your Mastodon instance and its users and their posts to be discoverable by other instances.
I think it's said to be federated because no one entity controls the content that is being shared. the information is passed around from instance to instance by rules that are defined on a per-instance basis.
[+] [-] atomicfiredoll|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tytytytytytytyt|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] egypturnash|8 years ago|reply
All the clever positioning breaks down on the iPad mini I’m sitting in bed reading this on. I just get two columns of circular images, with captions nearer to the next image than the one they’re supposed to be for. It seems to work properly if I turn to landscape but...
You’re missing Secure Scuttlebutt. And the decentralized video sharing network whose name I can’t remember.
[+] [-] gnodar|8 years ago|reply
Most decentralized video sharing services I've seen are built on blockchain which this site explicitly denounces in regards to social media. The only federated video sharing alternative I'm aware of is PeerTube: https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube
[+] [-] f2n|8 years ago|reply
perhaps https://d.tube ? it was on HN somewhat recently
[+] [-] programmarchy|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] captchasarehard|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] yborg|8 years ago|reply
That said, this is a sad commentary on open source social networks. The largest would appear to be Mastodon at ~1M 'accounts'. Facebook is what, ~2 billion active? if you want to believe their numbers.
[+] [-] aquova|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] giancarlostoro|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swerveonem|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] captchasarehard|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] swiley|8 years ago|reply
Now they have a nice web UI (nicer than most IMO, which I didn't think they'd be able to pull off with it being federated) and some really nice desktop clients (I really like madonctl with ansi colors enabled, I just added it to my .fvwmrc.)
[+] [-] fastball|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CharlesW|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] captchasarehard|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] evv|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agentultra|8 years ago|reply
This is a really cool idea. I never really understood what "the social web" was really about in the mid-aughts. The Internet was always a social tool before Facebook and Flickr and all that happened. It's nice to see it come back around to being distributed again. I hope protocols take over again.
[+] [-] captchasarehard|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] srikz|8 years ago|reply
[1]: https://www.sandstorm.io
[+] [-] amelius|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vermilingua|8 years ago|reply
Services like this would do well to integrate the Signal protocol, although I don’t know how well it scales with federated servers, I can’t recall any actual tests of that functionality yet.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] confounded|8 years ago|reply
Regardless, I enjoyed the summaries. One suggestion would be screenshots.
[+] [-] DpdC|8 years ago|reply
The average Facebook user needs a visible face to trust. Here there is nothing like it.
Tell Elon Musk. That would be a blow.
If you really want to win at Facebook, you need to play. with your owns weapons: advertising and people.
[+] [-] bovermyer|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ohtwenty|8 years ago|reply
I'd heard of most of these projects, but there's some I hadn't heard about so I'll be sure to check them out.
One issue I've got is that there's no real rhyme or reason to the layout, or why they're put where they are.
[+] [-] jonathankoren|8 years ago|reply
What’s up with scrolling on that site? I’m on iOS safari, and when I click through to one of the pages (say Mastsdon) and do a quick “throw scroll” (you know, when you move your thumb quickly across the page and lift up and the page keeps scrolling by inertia), the page stops immediately after my thumb leaves. (See any HN page for a working counter example.)
Why does this happen? Why is someone overriding scroll events? Why not just leave stuff alone and allow a consistent experience? Why? Why? Why?
[+] [-] johnchristopher|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s73v3r_|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] captchasarehard|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Shoothe|8 years ago|reply
[0]: https://movim.eu/
[+] [-] qwerty456127|8 years ago|reply
There are Reddit and HN for crowd discussions, there are WhatsApp and Telegram to chat with friends, there is Twitter (with relaxed message length limit, finally!) to post your updates if you want and to contact people publicly. All we actually need "a facebook" for is to present ourselves.
[+] [-] EGreg|8 years ago|reply
However, if you want something that actually promotes social, it is NOT posting stuff about what happened in the past. What you read, saw, some news article about what happened. And then enlessly waste time contributing comments about it.
No, it's this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ1O_gmPneI
[+] [-] zrb05293|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bhhaskin|8 years ago|reply