jk_na/content/article/the-fediverse/index.md

title	date	Blog	category	images	Type	draft
The Fediverse	2019-02-05T13:41:25Z	[Whitabootery]	[Social Media Fediverse Open Source Distributed Network Self-Hosted mastodon friendica hubzilla diaspora fediverse federation pleroma activitypub pixelfed peertube]	[/images/fediverse.png]	[article]	false

Back in April last year I posted a long update on facebook describing my rookie understanding of distributed and federated networks and my opinions on the options that I had tried at the time. Of course, chances are no-one actually saw the post due to Facebook's algorithms but there we are, the original post has been reproduced here.

Since then I've built and destroyed multiple instances of various flavours of federated social media:

• Diaspora x 2
• Friendica x 2
• Mastodon x 1
• Pleroma x 1 - still active.
• Plume x 2 - unfortunately the main devs are stepping down so moved blogs here.
• Pixelfed x 1 - well.. many iterations but still active.
• Peertube x 1
• Osada x 1
• Zap x 1
• Matrix x 2 - now lighter and more responsive, but still awaiting cross-signing before inviting folks on to it.
• Funkwhale x 1 - active

In addition I've built a nextcloud server and an xmpp server, as well as self-hosting all of my email accounts.

There are other types of federated services such as Prismo and GetTogether that I haven't even had a chance to properly explore and I am perpetually on the lookout for a federated photo album application which can replace my koken photo website (even briefly considered writing it myself!).

Why bother doing any of this, when most of the services are already provided by Google, Facebook or Twitter?

READ A NEWSPAPER!

I am done with being harvested for marketing data or for national election\referenda manipulation.. I don't want an algorithm to decide what content (that has been shared with me) I am or am not permitted to see.. I am sick and tired of opening an app on my phone and being presented with ads for products and services that the app should not know are suitable (or not) for me.. and I don't want my daughter and any future kids to be no more than a cog in a data machine, inadvertently being harvested by corrupt mega corporations for profit or indeed, worse.

As such, I've decided to provide alternative services for those of my family and close friends who wish to use them as privacy focussed, decentralised alternatives. It may well be that they have little to no interest and that's fine, but should they be curious or change their mind then I have their back - and if they don't trust me with their data more than they do Facebook then, I will happily help them set up their own self-hosted services.

So why have I chosen the services I am currently hosting?

1. They are privacy and security focused by default and being self-hosted, hardened where possible by myself.
2. They are federated services built on the ActivityPub protocol. This means that the different sites speak the same language and therefore can communicate with each other despite providing different services. So a pleroma user can follow a friendica user or a mastodon user, a pixelfed user or a writefreely user etc.
3. They are distributed services. Rather than being in one global corporations' data centre(s) the network is comprised of thousands of smaller, often self-hosted installations. This makes them less vulnerable to attacks, and much harder to censor.
4. They are open-source applications. The source code is available for anyone to verify it, report bugs/flaws and strengthen the application on a community basis.
5. They can be self-hosted, which means I am in complete control of my content.
6. They are free - though buying the developers, moderators, hosts and contributors a coffee would be appreciated.
7. There are no ads, no algorithms and complete transparency.

The services which I currently host

1. Pleroma - this is my main social media site, it is a micro-blogging site (think twitter) with several front end options. It is light enough to run on a raspberry pi on a home network (mine now runs on a RockPro64 from Pine64 alongside my matrix and xmpp servers). The devs are very approachable and are very active.
2. Pixelfed - an instagram replacement, it is still under development though basically functional, the next beta update (due very soon) should bring a lot more functionality and the following update will bring instagram & tumblr import functionality. I wrote a bit more about why I like pixelfed here.
3. Matrix - It can provide audio, video and text chat as well as conferencing.. rooms can be bridged to other services such as RSS feeds, IRC etc. It could be a replacement for WhatsApp, LINE and Telegram but has a little more work to do for multi-user encryption.
4. XMPP - A simple enough FB messenger replacement, a chat service with file sharing capabilities, fully end-to-end encrypted.
5. Nextcloud - this is a home cloud system with a huge amount of customisation and applications including text, audio, video chat, social media (via ActivityPub), distributed filesharing and collaboration, phone tracking, email client, phone backups, rss reader, calendar, audio player etc. This is just for us in our house but potentially in the future I may re-create a shared talk/social media nextcloud server with limited storage quotas.
6. Funkwhale - a music site soon to be podcast capable. I host my music collection here privately so that I can lien remotely (replaces spotify for me). It can be used to host and share creative commons music but I'm a novice in finding CC music (that I like) so I haven't yet explored this.

The website switching.software has a lot more information about different alternatives to centralised srvices, written in plain, non-techy language, however here are some of the main alternatives (disclaimer: in various states of active development)

Good Guys	Wank
pleroma, mastodon, zap, friendica, diaspora	facebook, twitter
pixelfed	instagram
peertube	youtube
writefreely, plume	medium, blogger
nextcloud	dropbox, google drive, onedrive, box
xmpp, matrix	messenger, whatsapp, LINE, telegram

I recently saw a post via pleroma:

Friend: Are you OK? You haven't posted on Instagram in ages

Me: I quit FB, Instagram, and Twitter.

Friend: Why'd you quit the internet?

Me: Actually I've rejoined the Internet.

This about sums it up for me, I've left the data harvesting silos but I've re-joined the internet.

One common observation of those on "the fediverse" is that everyone is much friendlier.. that's because we're not being manipulated, our timelines are not manufactured and we're able to have genuine discourse with humans free of corporate interference. There are still asshats and bots but you have the ability to curate your own timeline and have the support of an admin who cares about his instance who will assist if required.. and if you don't feel that your admin has your back.. then you can just move to another instance or make your own.

As a side note: I have also replaced Google's android on my phone with LineageOS without any google services and have deleted my google, facebook (including whatsapp & instagram) and twitter accounts. In April, I'll hopefully take delivery of a Purism Librem 5 phone which is built on a security and privacy focused linux distribution and not android at all.

Edited (February 5, 2020) to update currently hosted apps and mention I'm ill waiting for the fucking Librem 5 phone..

Edited (April 23, 2020) to update currently hosted apps and mention that Purism are on rocky ground, if I don't get some sort of update about my Librem 5 phone soon then I'll be requesting a refund and opting for a PinePhone.