Tired of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Discord and the like? Feel that they're too centralized, powerful, handle too much of our communication online, harmful to privacy, disapprove of how they conduct themselves etc? Well, then we need alternatives!
Enter - The Fediverse! What's that you ask? Its a catch-all term for software that is social/communication related in some way, open source, and federated. For those not aware, federation means that multiple servers exist and users can run their own and/or create accounts on those of their choosing ; all interoperable with each other! Consider XMPP and Email itself for good examples of federation.
Many of the Fediverse protocols offer alternatives to the popular, monolithic social media software out there in terms of function, but add encryption and other features that would get in the way of the big names data gathering and advertising. Some examples of Fediverse protocols are...
Mastodon ( joinmastodon.org/ ) - Twitter-style microblogging, highly polished and one of the most popular Fediverse protocols powering many nodes/instances. Diaspora ( diasporafoundation.org/ ) and Friendica ( friendi.ca/ ) are comprehensive, Facebook style social networking platforms Pixelfed ( pixelfed.org/ ) offers Instagram style photo/media hosting and sharing PeerTube ( joinpeertube.org/en/ ) YouTube video streaming alternative, spreading out the burden both via multiple federated server hosts, but also the use of webtorrent among viewers of a particular piece of content when possible. Matrix ( matrix.org/ ) - rich presence chat/voice/video communication protocol similar in features to Discord or Slack. Riot.im is the most popular client.
These are just a few of the Fediverse projects - learn more about them, available servers and more at
social media was a mistake, nothing but trash. just use forum
Samuel Wright
This is the harm reduction. Most people who use and like the so called social media wont use forums and imageboards exclusively. Fediverse protocols are far better at facing the issues with social media than having them on the big names and making the problem worse.
It may be a little unimaginative, but it makes sense "federation " + "universe" . Unlike the majority of social media, with the Fediverse you have options for where/who is hosting, including yourself!
Grayson Green
Should i use Riot.im? It seems like the most feature-complete but i don't like that it dosen't have mutiacc.
Jackson Moore
>federated >durr is it hosted by nsa
William Edwards
This. Calling your shit federated is just bad.
It immediately invokes the feds, the federal government, federal reserve and not a single good association.
It's just a sullied world at this point.
Justin Russell
Riot is a spook with a identity component that's still centralized. Any self hosted centralized chat solution is better.
Cooper Carter
What should i install on my parents phones to get them from whatsapp?
Owen Morgan
if its real there is more reason not to use tranny twitter that supports "only" the speech they want to hear
Ian Gomez
Filled with trannies, commies and other niggerlicious faggots. Probably can't say nigger without getting banned yet they pretend it's free.
this. They banned Gab just because its right wing thing and still claim they support free speech.
Levi Anderson
Just create your own server. That's the whole point. Who "they"?
Julian Jones
Outside of a few imageboards whatnot the average person isn't going to think about OMG ITS TEH GUBBERMINT because the name has "fed" in it. Fediverse is not an official name anyway, more of an unofficial moniker among those who develop or use the open technologies within. Most people will know them more directly by the particular tech that's running on their instance (ie Mastodon etc). Still ,lets not forget that the open source community basically gets a pass for any crappy names as a given, from GIMP and beyond.
Riot is still in development of course. Not sure if you've used it since 1.0 when an entirely new UI and other features were implemented. I'm not sure about multiaccount but I assume if it isn't now it will be in the future. You are welcome to use other Matrix friendly apps but they may not fill your needs (ie there are some with good text function, but not voice or video as of yet). The greater the use base the faster all of them will develop.
You can use your own Matrix server if you wish, signing on anyone else's server has a certain amount of risk but ultimately using Riot's matrix instance (which is separate from the client) is of far less concern vs using most similar applications that are not open, federated etc.
What do they use Whatsapp for? If they need something to handle things generally linked to a mobile number anyway, then Signal is the best thing. Is open source, encrypted, and is a drop in replacement for most mobile messengers to the point of being able to fallback to sending SMS to those without Signal. Other apps like Wire and Matrix are also available, not to mention those based on XMPP or those more text focused (Briar). Ultimately though it depends what they need and are willing to learn/do.
Christopher Lee
microblogging fediverse is fucking cringe and everything else is dead
You're perfectly able to use Fediverse platforms to ssay whatever you want. The individual rules of each instance are up to its owner.
I'll never get the freakout pearl clutching that seems to arise over the idea that the owners of a site etc.. control the rules for it. Not being able to say "nigger" on some site is no different than not being able to post porn on this (blue) sub board.
Jonathan Hill
What the fuck are you on about? I'm assuming you mean "they" to be Mastodon, but that's not true. In fact, Gab is running on Mastodon code and is part of the Fediverse. Now, there are some instances that choose not to connect with Gab (you can "federate" with other entire instances and they go into a separate feed for your server's users. Its kinda like a server having its own friends list ) , but that doesn't mean its users can't talk to those on Gab if they wish etc, it simply isn't part of the those feeds.
XMPP+OMEMO could be a good solution, but only if they're primarily text focused. Matrix can support text and more media functions (video, voice etc), as can Wire, and Signal. If its his parents though, Signal is probably the easiest, first step of getting them off WhatsApp.
Most Fediverse stuff would fall under Decentralized primarily, with some Distributed bits here and there (ie PeerTube's use of webtorrent available)
Such triggering at a word I didn't even focus upon, not that diversity in protocols, ideas, various servers is a bad thing. The word just digs into pol-yps' brains and REEEES about minorities
