I remember joining the fediverse and staring at this empty feed, feeling completely lost. Coming from algorithms that constantly fed me content, the silence was disorienting. Like everyone else knew where the party was and I was just standing in an empty room.

So I built @hypebot to fix that. It finds quality trending posts across instances and boosts them to your feed, so you get to discover what's happening across the fediverse without the algorithmic manipulation you left behind.

If your feed feels empty right now, give it a follow. It's there to help.

#Fediverse #FediTips #trending #mastodon #goingdark

I left mainstream platforms completely burned out and found the fediverse, and god it felt like I could finally breathe again without someone tracking every single thing I did.

But even here I kept wondering who actually protects my data when someone comes asking for it, and I realized I didn't want to trust anyone else with that answer.

So I run https://goingdark.social now because I wanted that certainty for myself and my community. When someone demands data or tries to shut down what we talk about, I'm the one who gets to say no and take whatever comes with that.

I pay for this out of pocket because it matters to me, and your admin is probably doing the same thing, maybe a father of three running a server from his home office, a single mom keeping her community safe between work shifts, an older gentleman who remembers what the internet used to feel like before corporations owned everything.

That's how this whole thing works, regular people running small spaces because they care, all of us building something no single company or government can control. We're doing this together and every small instance matters.

Support your local instance admin however you can. They're keeping this alive for all of us.

#Fediverse #Privacy #Decentralization #supportyourlocalinstance #mastodon #socialmedia

@ricci @FediGarden

Sublime thank you for sharing this amazing code!

https://moderation-explorer.online/

#Programming #FediVerse #moderation #explorer #online

Liebes #fediverse kennt evtl. jemand Untersuchung dazu, wieviel traffic / Rechenzentren-Kapazität eigentlich für Leerlauf oder bloßen Komfort drauf geht; lässt sich das solide bestimmen?

Wenn man z.B. sagen würde: ich abonniere eine Streaming-Show, aber ich muss die neueste Folge nicht unmittelbar immer am Release-Tag sehen (Freitags bin ich ohnehin zu kaputt), dann könnte die Folge doch ganz in Ruhe und mit niedrigerer Bandbreite (/Latenz?) auf mein Gerät tröpfeln und da auf mich warten, oder?

mastodon.social has a spammer problem. I have increased my blocks 300% today, all were from mastodon.social.

Perhaps they've always had it and I just didn't see them (due to using Akkoma at the time, which has great spam protection) but now when I'm on other services (Sharkey) it is glaringly obvious the problem is mastodon.social.

#Fediverse #Mastodon

#OverUnder 043 with @jasper

He's a technical director that @florianziegler suggested to me.

I found out that we have many interests in common, such as #fixies, #vim and #cameras.

So, of course, he had to be invited to his series.

Today, he shares his thoughts on #Kaweco Sport, #Airtags, #fixies, split #keyboards, and #crisps.

#books #bookstodon #bicycles #photography #mechanicalKeyboards #fountainPens #blog #fediverse #mastodon

https://lazybea.rs/ovr-043

Sometimes my soul rises and becomes a white cloud drifting across the sky. It watches, lives in the sunlight, stays quiet and, when it feels sorrow, it cries.
Yet the sky above it is, and will always be, bright and blue.

Have a great week, #BSDCafe
Have a great week, #illumosCafe
Have a great week, #Fediverse

#FotoMontag #PhotoMonday #Sky #Clouds #NewWeek

Alt...

A wide blue sky holds a soft, bright cloud drifting gently above a layer of lighter mist, glowing in the midday light.

Liebes #fediverse,

meine bald 80-jährige Mama leidet an #Vorhofflimmern und soll sich auf Anraten ihres Arztes eine #Fitnessuhr zulegen, die dies und andere Unregelmäßigkeiten ihres Herzens erkennen kann. Sie hat ein iPhone, mit dem sie gut zurecht kommt. Wir haben über eine #Garmin oder eine #AppleWatch nachgedacht, aber keine*r von uns Kindern kennt sich wirklich aus damit.
Habt ihr Erfahrungen oder Tipps?
Tausend Dank vorab 🫶🏻

Does this also apply to the #Fediverse in #Australia 🇦🇺 as well‽

👉🏾 #Meta gives Australian kids 2-week warning to delete accounts as world-first social media age restrictions loom https://www.cbsnews.com/news/australia-social-media-ban-children-meta-warns-kids-delete-accounts/

Good Morning Fediverse!
Finally browsing here after almost a week.

#Coffee #GoodMorning #Aeropress #Weekend #Fediverse

Alt...

A little setup making coffee with aeroprres

How far will it go this time?
This post from #Mastodon can reach the whole #Fediverse, #Bluesky & more.
That's #Sharkey, #Misskey, #Pixelfed, #Mbin, #Lemmy, #Friendica, #Hometown, #Akkoma…

If you see it, please share it.

#SocialMedia @fediverse

First results 👇🏼

Alt...

GRaph showing the share of shares from Mastodon etc.

🆕 blog! “Now witness the power of this fully operational Fediverse!”

How can you measure the popularity of a social network site? Perhaps by counting the number of active accounts, or the quality of the discourse, or even how many people reply to your witty memes.

Me? I prefer to look at how many people visit my blog…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/11/now-witness-the-power-of-this-fully-operational-fediverse/
⸻
#ActivityPub #BlueSky #fediverse #mastodon #statistics

Ehrliche Analyse über die Situation in der #Ukraine - Es ist erschreckend zu sehen das immer noch so viele dies ignorieren und wir in Europe immer noch den USA hinterherlaufen. Wir müssen uns endlich auf uns selbst konzentrieren. Persönlich vermeide ich so viel US Produkte wie derzeit möglich. #Linux #Foss #Opensource #noBigTech #Fediverse

https://www.n-tv.de/mediathek/videos/politik/Was-Jaeger-an-Trumps-Ukraine-Plan-wirklich-beunruhigt-id30055213.html

und

https://www.n-tv.de/mediathek/videos/politik/Navidi-Oligarchen-sitzen-in-den-USA-direkt-in-der-Regierung-id30058479.html

Meine IT Datenschutz Liste für alle !!
🔒 ♥️

auch als PDF:

https://cryptpad.digitalcourage.de/file/#/2/file/6M62aD9+qLS1ojbtcxVi8DLI/

#Datenschutz
#Privatsphäre
#sicherheit
#Chatkontrolle
#Linux
#Endof10
#UnplugTrump
#Windows
#AI
#Fediverse
#Mastodon

Alt...

Meine IT Datenschutz Liste für alle !! 2025

@FediGarden #mastodonSocial seems to have become the #twitter of the #fediverse. If the percentage of #badApples is constant, they obviously have the most. It is obviously against the ideals that created the whole thing. Size breeds power, and power corrupts.
#SupportYourLocalInstance! Local with respect to interests, not necessarily geography.

Raw numbers are perhaps not enough to get across just how bad the centralisation of the Fediverse by mastodon.social is. I've done a chart to show this visually, hopefully this will make the situation clearer?

Given the circumstances, getting people to join other servers except mastodon.social would greatly help decentralise the Fediverse. It's no longer big vs medium vs small, it's more like supergiant deathstar mastodon.social vs everyone else 😞

#Mastodon #Fediverse #MastodonSocial

Alt...

Graph showing twelve different Mastodon servers with their percentage of the active Fediverse on the Y axis. Mastodon.social has almost 30% of active Fediverse users while all other servers have about 1% or less. Caption under chart says "Largest Mastodon servers vs % of active Fediverse, 21st November 2025, data from FediDB.com" Another caption next to the bar for mastodon.social says "Percentage occupied by mastodon.social is growing! It used to be less than 15%! JoinMastodon.org and official Mastodon apps are STILL promoting mastodon.social!"

Flipping.rocks is a Hometown Mastodon server for people who appreciate arthropods, amphibians, reptiles, fungi etc. and helping other people appreciate them. If you want a general Fediverse home that’s okay too.

This server has a post size of up to 5000 characters.

https://flipping.rocks

You can find out more at https://flipping.rocks/about or contact the admin account @a

#FeaturedServer #Arthropods #Amphibians #Reptiles #Fungi #Hometown #Mastodon #Fediverse #FreeFediverse

Now witness the power of this fully operational Fediverse!

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/11/now-witness-the-power-of-this-fully-operational-fediverse/

How can you measure the popularity of a social network site? Perhaps by counting the number of active accounts, or the quality of the discourse, or even how many people reply to your witty memes.

Me? I prefer to look at how many people visit my blog from each site. It is an imperfect measure - and a vain one - but lets me know where I should be spending my time. No point posting on a network which is just bots talking to each other, right?

Earlier this year I built a stats-counter for my blog. Every time someone clicks from a website which links to my blog, it records that visit in a database. I get to see which blog posts are doing numbers, and where those numbers came from.

Until fairly recently, the Mastodon social network didn't send referer details. I thought that reduced the visibility of the network and lobbied for it to change. As various Mastodon servers upgrade, and admins opt-in, it is becoming more apparent just how much traffic originates from the Fediverse.

Over the last few weeks, here's how many people have clicked from BlueSky and Mastodon to one of my blog posts.

Total

Source

1,607

bsky.app

752

mastodon.social

At first glance, it doesn't look good for our elephantine friends, does it? The butterfly sends over twice the traffic. Game over!

But, of course, while Mastodon.social is the biggest instance - it is far from the only one. What happens if we slide down the long tail? Here's all the Mastodon-ish instances which sent me over 10 clicks.

Total

Source

193

phanpy.social

120

android-app://org.joinmastodon.android/

106

infosec.exchange

62

mas.to

59

mstdn.social

55

social.vivaldi.net

49

wandering.shop

48

fosstodon.org

33

mathstodon.xyz

27

mastodon.online

26

mastodon.scot

24

app.wafrn.net

19

indieweb.social

18

social.lol

17

tech.lgbt

17

toot.wales

16

en.osm.town

16

feditrends.com

14

mstdn.ca

14

piefed.social

12

wetdry.world

11

c.im

11

mastodon.nl

51

Sites sending < 10 clicks

Ah! Add them all up and you get a grand total of 1,773 visitors from Mastodon-powered sites. That's more than BlueSky.

Now, there are some obvious caveats to the data:

• I have a smaller follower count on BlueSky than I do on Mastodon.
• My posts may appeal more to one demographic than another.
• People may have strict privacy controls which suppress the true volume of visitors.
• There's no way to measure how long someone spends reading my posts.
• RSS and newsletter visitors aren't counted.
• Clicks from apps may not always show a referer.
• Some people may be on multiple services.
• Fediverse users can follow the post directly, so don't need to visit the site to read it.

And yet… no matter how you slice it, Fediverse servers are sending as much traffic as BlueSky!

I think this is brilliant. Web services should be able to scale from small to big - and each ActivityPub-powered site helps power the open Internet.

Just for completeness, this is how Reddit, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Lemmy do over the same period:

Total

Source

1,158

reddit.com

585

android-app://com.reddit.frontpage/

76

facebook.com

76

https://old.reddit.com/r/programming/

56

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/

52

youtube.com

41

t.co

38

https://old.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1nsw7f4/til_in_mongolia_instead_of_a_street_address_a/

31

linkedin.com

27

android-app://io.syncapps.lemmy_sync/

27

https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1nsw7f4/til_in_mongolia_instead_of_a_street_address_a/

22

https://old.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1n96ftn/40_years_later_are_bentleys_programming_pearls/

22

lemmy.ca

17

android-app://com.linkedin.android/

16

lemmy.dbzer0.com

14

feddit.org

11

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1n96ftn/40_years_later_are_bentleys_programming_pearls/

10

discuss.tchncs.de

10

l.instagram.com

8

lemmy.blahaj.zone

6

https://www.reddit.com/r/GrapheneOS/comments/1m2l84b/considering_making_the_switch_does_google_pay/

6

reddthat.com

If you add up all the Lemmy instances, they send about as much traffic as Facebook and LinkedIn combined. That's not a huge surprise - those platforms hate anyone clicking away to the wider web.

Twitter is basically the Dead Internet. I'm no longer on there, but I do occasionally search it to see who is sharing my posts. The popular posts I write get shared a lot - sometimes by accounts with huge followers - yet there are no comments or retweets and barely and clicks.

I don't do Instagram or Threads, and that might be reflected in their low numbers. But I'm not active on YouTube either - yet people there occasionally link back to me.

Final Thoughts

Firstly, my stats only represent my site. Your site might be very different.

Secondly, I've ignored search engine traffic, big blogs, newsletters, and other sources.

Thirdly, and most importantly, this isn't a competition! The desire for a "winner-takes-all" service is dangerous and disturbing. An ecosystem is at its most vibrant when there are multiple participants each thriving in their own niche.

I want a thousand sites, running a hundred different software stacks, some of which only serve a dozen people, or even a lone participant.

Diversity is strength.

#activitypub #bluesky #fediverse #mastodon #statistics

Alt...

Logo for ActivityPub.

Plot twist: TikTok's "secret sauce" is recommendation ML + video encoding (likely ffmpeg like the rest of us).

They built their empire on open source foundations.

We're doing the same with @loops but keeping it open, federated, and yours.

The magic was open source all along.

Who's really disrupting who?

https://joinloops.org/why-loops-matters

#loops #fediverse #tikTok #activityPub

The other day was my 3-year #fediversary, which I missed because I thought it was 3 days later. 🙄

Regardless, Mastodon continues to be the greatest place to be. The wide range of people I’ve connected with, the number of things I’ve learned, staying informed. I love how the people here are generally positive and supportive. I’m always amazed at how engaged people can be about the most obscure topics, which are often fascinating to learn exist. Not that it’s about numbers, but I have more followers here, and I’ve posted nearly twice as much here than in 13 years on the bad place.

The world can be *A LOT* some days, but dropping in on the #fediverse each day always leads to seeing amazing things that people create, which is a reminder that most people aren’t awful. More often than not, my project list is always in danger of expanding as a result.

Keep being awesome, everyone! Especially those of you in the #FreeCAD community.

I think it's time to write an #introduction for this account as well!

I'm Stefano Marinelli, Barista of the illumos Cafe and the BSD Cafe. I'm a technology and open source enthusiast, a strong advocate for #OwnYourData, and against computer monoculture, even when it comes to open source solutions.

I've been active in the #Fediverse for years and am a firm believer in it. I decided to found this Cafe to bring the positive spirit of the BSD Cafe to curious and passionate users of #illumos based operating systems (#OmniOS, #SmartOS, #Tribblix, #OpenIndiana, etc.).

I'll mainly use this account for content related to this instance and illumos-based operating systems, while my account at the BSD Cafe - @stefano@bsd.cafe - remains my primary one.

For more information about the illumos Cafe, you can read the introductory post here: https://it-notes.dragas.net/2025/08/18/introducing-the-illumos-cafe/

#illumosCafe #BSDCafe

Randomly thinking of that glorious moment in time over four years ago when @jz made a poll with three options: R, G, B, and fedi collectively created a color: Fédi-vert.

https://mamot.fr/@jz/106002949694434169

#Fediverse

Alt...

Single-color background, a very calm, low-intensity shade of green.

Is there a #Mastodon app for #iOS that have a ”notify me about replies to this post”, just like one can subscribe to notifications for comments on Facebook?

#Fediverse

Hey everyone,

Today, @joynewacc and I had the pleasure of welcoming two new members to the Gaza Verified family.

They are:

• Ahmad (@goodahmad)
• Suad (@suad)

Please give them a warm welcome to Mastodon and the fediverse and contribute to their fundraisers if you can. (And please share this so others can do the same.)

Remember that you can see a list of our members and their fundraisers in one place (ordered by those who have raised the least in the past week) at:

https://gaza-verified.org/donate/

#Gaza #Palestine #GazaVerified #Mastodon #fediverse #newMembers #verification

2/2

Another issues, which you may have noticed, are many Fediverse sites wrongfully discriminate against Fediverse sites in Asia (Korea, Japan, etc...).

I find this ironic for many reasons.

The one I am currently on (this one) is in Europe, but one of the reasons I have had more than one account, and why many of the 3rd party Fediverse Apps allow you to sign in to multiple accounts, is to overcome that fragmentation. The Fediverse most certainly does have a fragmentation issue.

If you're looking to join the Fediverse. And presuming you are one of the people who do not want to promote hate speech (not all of 4Chan is bad), I would recommend an Asian site, since freedom of speech is more respected and valued. Perhaps more Asian sites allow it because it's not exactly widespread in offline (in the real world).

There are some good European sites (this being one of them). But know that most Asian sites will be more relaxed.

#4Chan #Fediverse #DigitalSovereignty #Asia #Korea #Japan

Hello 4Chan

This will be the — you know what? I've lost track of how many times I've been "featured" on 4chan.

Unfortunately, the mass wave of people opening tickets claiming I should add the chan to this list, triggered the anti-spam feature. You're all a very enthusiastic bunch, as always. 😂 That said, 4Chan is not part of the Fediverse and the domain name extension is American, and so would qualify for my list. 🤷

But I did want to address one of the tickets, since it does underline some of the issues among the Fediverse. 😉

The Fediverse has a lot of fragmentation. This is often caused by admins who should not be administrators. An admin will get into a disagreement with 1 person, 1x and choose to block not just that individual, but the whole site and all their users. So if you have 5,000 people on site "1A" and 5,000 on site "2B", you have 10,000 people who cannot communicate with one another, and are clueless this has taken place.

1/2

#4Chan #Fediverse #DigitalSovereignty

Alt...

A screenshot of an email that reads: I've been using the Fediverse features of this project, and I've encountered some inconsistencies that are really frustrating. Specifically, when trying to interact with instances outside the United States, the responses are often delayed or even fail altogether. Furthermore, it seems that some features like cross-platform mentions and notifications don't work reliably. For example, I'll get notifications for messages sent on platforms A and B, but nothing from C, even if I can see the messages directly on C. I've tried testing this with multiple accounts and instances, but the issues persist. It's extremely annoying because I need to rely on consistent interaction across all platforms. Could you please prioritize looking into this? It shouldn't be this complicated to stay connected across the Fediverse. Thanks.

Gibt es im #Fediverse eigentlich weitere Leute, die eine eigene Mastdon Instanz self-hosted für den Selbstgebrauch (oder ganz wenigen Accounts) betreiben?
#frage

Wow, already 3 years on the #Fediverse, meaning I have been running my #Mastodon instance just as long... crazy how fast time flies by...

My instance here in Switzerland is still small, so if someone needs a home, you may join!

#jointhefediverse #Switzerland #mastoadmin #fediadmin

Good day #fediverse! My morning coffee is powered by a portable gasoline generator as well as my network, office and heating.

Blackouts came just in time when almost all of my #Homelab is moved to #Hetzner. Actually blackouts are always not in time, as well as #russians. Please, remember that #RussiaIsATerroristState.

Fediforschung beginnt mit Dir!
Das Fediverse ist groß, bunt und manchmal ein bisschen rätselhaft. Doch das sollten wir nicht als Nachteil betrachten, sondern als spannende Herausforderung. Deshalb hat @digitalcourage ein kleines Mitmach-Abenteuer erstellt für alle, die das #Fediverse besser verstehen wollen: Denn Neugier ist der Anfang von Erkenntnis und Wissenslücken bieten Gelegenheit, etwas Neues zu lernen. Wir müssen nur wieder Lust entwickeln, Technik selbst zu begreifen und uns damit digital selbst zu behaupten. So gewinnen wir die Freiheit und Mündigkeit zurück, die uns Big Tech permanent abtrainieren will.
Auf der Seite
https://digitalcourage.de/fediforschung
findest Du kleine Aufgaben, Experimente und Beobachtungen, mit denen Du das freie, dezentrale und wirklich soziale Netzwerk Schritt für Schritt erkunden kannst.
Viel Spaß!

(Textgrundlage aus dem heutigen Newsletter von Digitalcourage.)

#Fediforschung #Fediverse #digitalcourage #Spiel #Rätsel #Abenteuer

Random Idea: Every time you like a post in the Fediverse, it prompts you why you like it and turns it into a comment. There would be a lot more friendly comments. :)

#Fediverse #Mastodon

Can anyone recommend a tool for basically mass unfollowing Fediverse/Mastodon accounts or otherwise managing your followings?

I'm following almost 2000 accounts and while my feed is very much alive and buzzing, it feels like it doesn't really match my interests. It's too generic.

I need to weed out what I actually care about. Is there anything that can help with that?

#Mastodon #Fediverse #AskFedi

#hubzilla #fediverse #nomad

2025 was huge for the #fediverse

Mad respect to all the devs, artists, and community members making this movement unstoppable

Does anyone have #fediverse or #mastodon stats (preferably from a few different servers) about numbers of bad-faith actors being identified, banned, etc.? I've become pretty interested in this from a methodological point of view. I'm thinking of running some #moderation simulations to explore possibilities in a "calculate some stuff and make some graphs" way. Actually, if someone already did that, I'd be keen to read it.

I'm interested in how to detect "bad eggs," realizing as I think about it that I don't even know all the questions to ask, and this entire line of investigation has some thorny issues I'll need to deal with. I think infosec.exchange might, in some ways, be the perfect server to be on for this, because I am pretty sure that #cybersecurity has huge overlap with this whole domain.

#advice is helpful. #data is even more helpful.

#moderators #BadActors #infosec #socialmedia

Self-hosting your Mastodon media with SeaweedFS

https://it-notes.dragas.net/2025/11/06/self-hosting-your-mastodon-media-with-seaweedfs/

#FreeBSD #SeaweedFS #Mastodon #ITNotes #Fediverse #Hosting #OwnYourData #RunBSD

calling it "X (formerly Twitter)" two years later is driving me insane, like at what point do we just accept reality and move on.

I don't support musk, I don't like what happened to the platform, but it's been two years and we all know what it's called now, what's the point of the disclaimer every single time?

facts matter even when they suck, and the fact is the bird app died in 2022, this is what we got instead, just call it by its name already

#Twitter #SocialMedia #Fediverse #birdsite

Alt...

Peter Griffin from Family Guy sitting at a news desk looking annoyed, with a sign behind him reading "WHAT REALLY GRINDS MY GEARS" with two blue gear icons

@alison

And those are the people I want to help. That's what my guide addresses, people who really want help and will accept help. Not people who just want your money. 😉

Of course, that is why those 4 posts are currently my most heated posts. Because there are a lot of scammers here who just want your cash.

#Fediverse #Scam #Fraud #MutualAid

I'm so excited the #Fediverse has passed the "you see other people's posts about the massive outage before you get a chance to post about it yourself" tipping point.
#Cloudflare #outage

Where Pratchett had footnotes, the Fediverse has alt-text.

#Pratchett #TerryPratchett #pterry #fediverse

Alt...

This is a photograph of the hugely-missed author Terry Pratchett. He is an older white man, with a trimmed white beard and glasses. He is (as was customary for him) wearing a black hat and on top of the hat there are two starlings. Terry is laughing. Now the whole point about the footnotes and Alt Text is that both of them allow the author to go off at a wild tangent from the original point being made. Pratchett made extensive use of them throughout his writing. A good example would be a discussion about why there might be starlings on his hat, and if that's what he's laughing. I'll assume it is -- after all, who wouldn't want to laugh if their hat had starlings on it -- but it could be anything. Maybe he's giggling at a remembered reference from one of the footnotes in his own books.

@haubles @Mastodon @mellifluousbox @renchap 🎉 Congrats! Great to see the team expanding and fortifying the #fediverse

Weil ich mich frage, ob nur ich so ein digitaler Einsiedler bin.

Kennt ihr Accounts (denen ihr folgt, die euch folgen) des #Fediverse auch im "physischen Leben", also so offline?

Gerne #boost wenn du auch Interesse hast, wie sich das hier so verhält

Hey everyone, we have some pretty big news to share. You might remember that we announced a big restructuring for the Mastodon team earlier this year. Today marks an important milestone in this transition.

#Mastodon #Fediverse #SocialWeb