Discussion of decentralised social media is frustrating sometimes. Certain kinds of people won't even consider the idea and their logic goes like this:
"Our dictator is so awful, if only we had a nice dictator instead."
"What about having multi-party elections?"
"Don't be ridiculous, only political nerds care about democracy. Ordinary people will be paralysed by choice if they have to choose a party, they can only cope with the concept of dictatorships."
Bluesky is rolling out age verification in the UK – No Way I Trust any Social Network with my ID
https://squeet.me/display/962c3e10-ea3dda23-f598c3f13314ab30
Bluesky is rolling out age verification in the UK – No Way I Trust any Social Network with my ID
I don’t live in the UK, but my point just is that I would never upload my government ID to any social network. I don’t even like having to upload it to government sites, as they have a tendency to get hacked.
Seeing I do have unlimited virtual ba ...continues
The received wisdom is that growth on Mastodon and Bluesky comes from big waves of new users who flee other networks when their owners say or do something particularly evil. But according to @laurenshof, that's no longer a given. "Musk managed to put himself up high on the list of people whose actions directly led for the largest number of deaths in the twenty-first century due to his involvement in the shutdown of USAID, but such evil did not meaningfully lead to people leaving Musk’s social network for other places," Hof writes for his Connected Places newsletter. Here, he takes a look at what's happening.
No more #telegram forever. I don't recommend it for anyone, cops and security companies are using it daily to fabricate, incriminate and discriminate everyday users. Whatsapp was just the tip of the iceberg recently.
"#Socialnetworks were built on short posts designed for #speed & #scale. But what if the next era of the web was built for something deeper?
Two of the #socialweb’s “#longformers”…John O’Nolan, CEO of #Ghost, and Matthias Pfefferle, developer of the #ActivityPubplugin for #WordPress, are integrating social features with blogs, newsletters, essays…
We talk about rediscovering the magic of the #blogosphere… and where writing belongs in the next chapter of the internet."
https://pca.st/episode/39d99baa-2047-4192-8353-16858684b1de
Just released my first Python library on PyPI!
`ig_degree_betweenness` is a Python implementation of the "Smith-Pittman" community detection algorithm.
This library brings the power the the {ig.degree.betweenness} R package to Python
Install from PyPI with: `pip install ig-degree-betweenness`
Link to GitHub + details in the comments.
"We analyse the migration of 300,000 academic users from Twitter/X to Bluesky between 2023 and early 2025, combining rich bibliometric data, longitudinal social-media activity, and a novel cross-platform identity-matching pipeline. We show that 18% of scholars in our sample transitioned, with transition rates varying sharply by discipline, political expression, and Twitter engagement but not by traditional academic metrics. Using time-varying Cox models and a matched-pairs design, we isolate genuine peer influence from homophily. We uncover a striking asymmetry whereby information sources drive migration far more powerfully than audience, with this influence decaying exponentially within a week. We further develop an ego-level contagion classifier, revealing that simple contagion drives two-thirds of all exits, shock-driven bursts account for 16%, and complex contagion plays a marginal role. Finally, we show that scholars who rebuild a higher fraction of their former Twitter networks on Bluesky remain significantly more active and engaged. Our findings provide new insights onto theories of network externalities, directional influence, and platform migration, highlighting information sources’ central role in overcoming switching costs."
X had its second outage in just over a week today. @Sarahp reports for @Techcrunch that the outage took place just after the platform rolled out its new DM feature. "It’s not clear if any of these changes impacted X’s stability, and the company no longer responds to press inquiries since Musk took ownership," she writes.
The number of followers of German scientific institutions in the #Fediverse surpassed the 160k mark 
last weekend, see 
https://mastodon-listen.playground.54gradsoftware.de/?liste=institute-de
Yes, it's true: we shouldn't get caught up in this nonsensical discussion about #reach of #socialmedia.
On the other hand, it’s a great success 
for initiatives such as #Unis4Mastodon, #Byebyeelon, #WissXit, #SaveSocial, @helloQuitX, @leavex and others that more than 150 research institutions in Germany are contributing to the expansion of the Fediverse.
To our friends in the #USA, we say that we are alarmed at how the new #USpolicy is attacking #science. We are trying to build decentralized and independent #socialnetworks to make our research institutions and democracy resilient to attacks from #autocrats and #hostilitytoscience.
And we think this transformation should happen in other countries, too, to strengthen #democracy.
There is work here, tough, but it doesn’t kill. https://www.byteseu.com/1041935/ #CubanEmigrants #CubanEmigration #CubanImmigrantsInSpain #CubanWorkers #CubansInSpain #galicia #international #SocialNetworks #Spain #SpainAndCuba #SpanishCitizens #Videos #ViralVideos
Official: Domènec Torrent named new Rayados manager https://www.byteseu.com/1033008/ #Domènec #MartínDemichelis #SocialNetworks #Sports
Two people were arrested earlier this month over a plan to attack a Lady Gaga concert on Copacabana Beach, Rio de Janeiro, which was attended by more than two million people. The plot was coordinated on digital platforms such as Discord, and authorities say the organizers were attempting to radicalize and recruit teenagers. Professors David Nemer and Arthur Coelho Bezerra write for @TheConversationUS about the rise of the right wing and how it's facilitated by platforms such as Discord, TikTok and Reddit. "These networks end up functioning as recruitment hubs, where young people — especially boys — are lured in by edgy memes, promises of belonging and identity games based on excluding others."
I continue to think about decentralized networks. And I'm wondering, among other things, if we need squares or courtyards, and why good metaphors play a role in wise decisions.
#mastodon #fediverse #activitypub #socialmedia #socialnetworks #selfhosted
A post from the archive 
:
Validate your identity on Bluesky with your GitHub account
https://www.poppastring.com/blog/validate-your-identity-on-bluesky-with-your-github-account
#socialnetworks #musings
Watch @mike give a live demo of Surf at SXSW. Learn what Surf is for, how it brings together content and communities across platforms, and how to make your own custom feed. Audience questions at the end are also 
.
https://flipboard.video/w/rFyohvCiuPMm5ad7MyHy6h
Want to join the waitlist? Sign up here with the referral code DEMO: https://waitlist.surf.social/
Scale and monoculture are out. Cozy corners and vibes are in.
The full “Building Communities Across the Social Web” panel is out now, featuring @andypiper, @rose.bsky.team and Leila Brillson discussing what it takes to create and sustain healthy online communities in 2025. Recorded live at the Fediverse House at SXSW in March.
Bluesky Is Rolling Out Official Verification
https://squeet.me/display/962c3e10-cb1bfbd5-bfe18bb72cf8a184
@homlett We've been working enthusiastically on the basis of a sharing culture since the 2000s, when #blogs and #wikis became a thing. Then #socialnetworks emerged.
That basic assumption doesn't work anymore. The social aspect of the #internet is being exploited for various purposes.
What was once a grassroots initiative is now being used against us. It is our own content that is being sold back to us in the form of #ai services.
But if we stop sharing, it'll just cause more problems.
CNBC: OpenAI considering its own social network to compete with Elon Musk’s X. “OpenAI is considering building a social network to compete with Elon Musk’s X and Meta’s Instagram, a source familiar with the plans confirmed to CNBC. The project is still in its early stages, said the person, who asked not to be named due to confidentiality. It’s based on the popularity of OpenAI’s […]
