Notices by Eli Pariser (elipariser@mastodon.social)

More info on the project here:

https://freeourfeeds.com/

If we want to do this right, and build a foundation that will last and grow, as well as relay infrastructure for tens of millions of users, it’s going to take serious capital. As far as the various line-items and dollar amounts — that info is coming.

6/6

I know some folks see the company Bluesky alongside the dominant platforms with billions of users. I just don’t see it that way.

It’s one possible outcome, sure, but if we step in now and do this work, we can break the cycle and build something really exciting.

4/

And I wanted to say a little more about what the money is actually for:

Just to be clear, it’s not for us – it’s to build an ecosystem. This is a large project, and we’re not quite at the stage where we are sharing budgets and timelines.

This effort will require a lot of engineering and technical expertise, in addition to complex institutional planning and organization-building.

5/

There’s no doubt in my mind that Mastodon benefits from a stronger, more independent AT Protocol, even as Bluesky also benefits in the process.

Big picture, from my perspective, Mastodon and Bluesky (and AT and AP) should be on the same team.

3/

But there’s also so much energy and momentum on Bluesky, and now is the moment to leverage it. We want to help secure the AT Protocol’s future, make it truly decentralized and interoperable, and follow in Mastodon’s example.

To be clear: Free Our Feeds is not about picking winners between “competitors.” This is not zero-sum. Both protocols, and indeed both platforms, can flourish and succeed together.

2/

I appreciate the questions about #FreeOurFeeds, so let me lay out my thinking a bit. We may disagree, but here’s where I’m coming from:

To say we’re impressed with Mastodon would be an understatement: Mastodon and ActivityPub lit a fire that is still growing. And it’s awesome that they are heading towards becoming a non-profit.

1/

@mastodonmigration @richardgrant hi folks, i got the flu the last few days and haven’t been able to keep up, but catching up and will have thoughts soon

@pluralistic on the dangers of ideological purity and why he’s supporting the #FreeOurFeeds project in federating Bluesky:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/14/contesting-popularity/#everybody-samba

This new piece in @niemanlab is a great showcase of our work and what we’re trying to do at @wearenew_public

https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/07/could-social-media-support-healthy-online-conversations-new_public-is-working-on-it/

20k attendees and growing fast since yesterday, Pete Buttegieg to speak—let’s go!

Fascinating and disturbing finding on how AI co-writing can influence opinion from Maurice Jakesh thesis research (h/t @natematias ). Jakesh had people write short essays using an AI tool like Google Autocomplete on whether social media was good or bad. When the tool pre-generated language supportive of social media (top bar), people were more likely to write essays with that opinion and vice versa (bottom bar).

@evan @vanderwal Thanks for taking the time to spell this out -- makes a lot of sense and I like the philosophical premise.

@shoq This is great, but I'm more talking about some of the technical/structural scalability problems... e.g. if every post interaction has to be pushed to every server, how does that hold up in a world where there are tens of thousands of servers and posts with tens of thousands of interactions?

@evan @vanderwal Yeah. Definitely thinking about the latter. The question I was thinking about is... if the cost to host a server goes up dramatically/exponentially as the network scales, what does that mean for decentralization?

@evan @vanderwal To be honest I haven't been deep in the debate and thinking (as I know you have). But the discussion in this piece definitely got me thinking. https://softwaremill.com/the-architecture-of-mastodon/

Ok continuing up the fediverse learning curve… what’s the best read on the debate around scalability questions for ActivityPub and federated systems?

Thread on Twitter alternatives and democracy:

As the fragmentation of social spaces continues, let’s think about two axises: How similar the people in a space are, and how well-managed or well-governed the space is. Make a 2x2 and it looks like this:

Hello Mastodonners! The org I co-run, New_ Public, is organizing a learning session for folks new to Mastodon and the fediverse this coming Tuesday at 12pm ET. We'll be joined by the brilliant @cfiesler @wilf and @jeffjarvis -- and you are welcome too.

Noobs (like me) who want to learn and long-timers are all welcome. Sign up here, and boost if you're willing to help find other interested folks. https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIvc--uqzIrGd3viRbTltC0dXmDkaidAJc-?_x_zm_rtaid=we6EIiy7SVC4ko6U7Unicw.1668089335856.e548e65efba05ec79cde9656bf3f20a1&_x_zm_rhtaid=249