Notices by Robert W. Gehl (rwg@aoir.social)

Hey, #fedi and #mastodon folks: is there anyone out there who's written a guide to pulling out Mastodon About pages via the API?

What I'm interested in doing is gathering About pages (including server rules). I can do this by hand (indeed, I've done this many times before!) but maybe it's time for me to learn how to use the API. I'm not interested in posts or anything to do with users -- just the About pages.

#askFedi #boostsAppreciated

The Social Web Working Group was chartered in 2014, just in time for it to serve as Guy’s ultimate procrastination tool: instead of writing a dissertation on the Semantic Web, Guy got involved in the standards process and helped create the contemporary fediverse....

https://moveslowlybuildbridges.com

#MoveSlowlyAndBuildBridges #bot

@cwebber @dthompson @spritely

Yeah!

And I will be there, too, to give a workshop about #Mastodon for folks who might be curious about it!

Along with folks like @cwebber and @dthompson I will be talking at a branch of the Toronto Library tomorrow. My presentation will be about #Mastodon: what it is and how you might use it.
If you've got a friend who's interested in Mastodon but doesn't know where to start, and they live in Toronto, and they like free talks at libraries.... send them our way tomorrow!

https://luma.com/8nvmyatm

My latest FOSS Academic post is a doozy. It's "Reading the Digital Safety Act with My Mastodon Admin Hat On":

https://fossacademic.tech/2026/06/11/reading-digital-safety-act.html

I'm reading Canada's proposed Digital Safety Act. My conclusion is that the proposed regulations could be very burdensome to non-profit, community-run social media, including AoIR.social.

I'd love feedback on this, particularly from Canadian fediverse admins.

#mastodon #fediverse #Canada

Many of my excellent colleagues from across the Canadian academy contributed to this Walrus article on the #AIstrategy in #Canada:

https://thewalrus.ca/canada-ai-plan/

One major takeaway: the AI strategy's concept of "trust" and "literacy" is, essentially, "Canadians don't trust AI? Well, we will make them literate in why they must trust it, because it's happening whether they like it or not."

It's not about consent or about the ability to say no. It's a marketing strategy.

about once a week I hear someone tell me that the fediverse failed and is dead

and every day I find something new on it, some new instance, or some new account or interesting post

take that how you will

#fediverse

We are BetterTech, an NGO advocating for government regulation of corporate social media, which has caused tremendous damage to our democracy. Follow us on Facebook.

My university, York University, seems very capable of writing big checks to Microsoft to handle email but god forbid I try to get an individual person paid for something like translating an article or providing cover art for a book.

I might not be at #fediforum this time but I did my bit, hosting a #Mastodon workshop for folks in Serbia, Mexico, and Canada.

My basic presentation is here:

https://www.robertwgehl.org/presentations/MastodonWorkshop.html

Happy to chat with others who are curious about Mastodon and the fediverse.

@evan @stefan @django I didn't recognize you without your 'stache!

@stefan @evan they have like 10000 episodes of that show to draw on

There have been colleagues along the way for whom it’s been a more difficult path than me. One of the people we talk about in the decentralized community is Ilya Zhitomirskiy who was one of the founders of diaspora*. We lost him to suicide in the early 2010s....

https://moveslowlybuildbridges.com

#MoveSlowlyAndBuildBridges #bot

To clarify, this quote is from @evanprodromou. The context was his reflection on the fediverse from its earliest days until the post-Musk Twitter period.

@evan So this is less about access to different people/accounts and more about different... videos? Images? That sort of thing?

@evan what do you mean by "content"?

Surely this means they're revoke the FIFA Peace Prize, right?

I'm doing a bit of a mini-Western Canada book tour for "Move Slowly and Build Bridges!" I'm talking in Edmonton and Burnaby, BC. Maybe I'll see some of you at one of these events!

https://libcal.macewan.ca/event/3981088
https://www.ualberta.ca/en/media-technology-studies/about-us/news/2026/january/february-12-book-talk-move-slowly-and-build-bridges.html
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/robert-w-gehl-visiting-lecture-tickets-1982555971279

People are acting like this move from #Mozilla is bad: https://stateof.mozilla.org/

But I disagree!

"Doing for AI what we did for the web" -- if they're serious, that will be great! Push AI down to <1% of all Internet traffic? If Mozilla can do that -- like they did with Firefox -- I'd thank them!

The world order is changing... that's why Loblaw's is proud to offer 10% off select items all this week