Evan Prodromou Launches The Social Web Foundation To Build Out the Fediverse

Evan Prodromou, co-author of the ActivityPub protocol, has launched The Social Web Foundation to address the challenges of the ActivityPub ecosystem and foster the growth of the Fediverse. The foundation aims to support developers, organizations, and governments through advocacy, educational materials, and infrastructure, while maintaining a decentralized approach to improving the social web. We Distribute reports: "I wish I would've started it five years ago," Evan explains in a call, "We're seeing growth of ActivityPub in the commercial sector, we want to help guide that work, especially for devs that don't know how to engage with the Fediverse, or the work that happens in private spaces. As we're seeing a lot of growth, it's important to help push that growth forward, we're really filling in the crack no other organization is doing." The foundation launches with a dedicated team of three: Evan Prodromou is the Research Director, Mallory Knodel serves as the Executive Director, and Tom Coates acts as Product Director. The trio brings a wealth of knowledge regarding protocol development, open source development, technology policy, and product development for the Web.

In terms of fulfilling its goals, the organization has a few specific areas of focus: People, Policy, Protocol, and Plumbing. The SWF has deemed these areas as critical to their mission statement, and will start with these core focuses. [...] At launch, The Social Web Foundation has announced 12 partner organizations, who serve as a pool of knowledge, resources, and stakeholders. The majority of these entities are either building for the Fediverse directly, or providing infrastructure and services indirectly. Aside from Meta being an early supporter, one surprise is the inclusion of The Ford Foundation, a social justice organization dedicated to supporting next-generation solutions for the social good. At time of launch, the SWF will have access to more than 20 dedicated advisors, who will guide the organization on current problem areas their own efforts are facing, and provide insights on how to move forward and make progress. "The Fediverse is too big and too diverse for anyone to claim to speak for the Fediverse. That's not what we want to do or who we want to be," Evan says, "We may do things that people on the network disagree with, like encouraging media organizations to join the network, but what we want to do is help the mission of growing and improving the Fediverse over time."

Is ActivityPub getting features of bluesky's

[presidenteloco]

bluesky's AT protocol?

Bluesky has a very useful feature permitting multiple user choosable filterings/prioritizations of content, and as I understand it, simpler search of a whole multi-server network.

Can ActivityPub be evolved to support similar?

Re:

[themusicgod1]

'Multi-server but all under control by an unaccountable central point of failure' you mean

Search is way easier in centralized systems, obviously.
As far as algorithmic filtering of content, you can do that already on the fediverse, you just have to do it manually on your own database of posts. The UI isn't quite there yet on servers like pleroma, but it will get there if it's seen to be a useful feature.

The "media" has no interest in the Fediverse

[Seven Spirals]

Since media organizations would it more difficult to exploit the Fediverse to spread partisan misinformation—whether aligned with blue or red factions—they might not find it particularly appealing. Although I'm not deeply versed in the intricacies of the Fediverse and Mastodon, I understand that these platforms are designed to uphold free speech to a significant degree. Individual server instances have the autonomy to make their own moderation decisions, but they cannot alter or delete posts originating from other nodes; they can only choose to filter or moderate external content within their own servers. This level of control may be insufficient for most news organizations that likely desire complete command over the narrative. For example, a media outlet might want the ability to remove or suppress stories that contradict their reporting, but the decentralized nature of the Fediverse prevents them from controlling content beyond their own instance. I'd put governments in this same category. I think they would only see it as a threat if it ever got big enough to really get attention.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

The Fediverse isn't about free speech. Each server operate that federates is free to choose what content they allow and don't allow. It's about giving the user control over who and what they want to interact with, and forming communities.

Data is also portable too, so you can switch server if you have some sort of issue with the one you are on.

Media orgs can set up their own servers if they want to, and publish whatever they like. The only real issues are that they can't force people to see their stuff like

Re:

[themusicgod1]

wrote up a comment but it was deleted. tl;dr free speech exists on the fediverse, and if you choose to value it you can have it. whether or not the fediverse is "about" free speech is almost irrelevant. The parts of the fediverse that have free speech are "about" it and there will be those of us who connect the rest of the network to freedom whether or not the prudes and the censors want to try to wall themselves off.

Re:

[Seven Spirals]

It's comments like yours that make me more interested, not the "We can censor as we please and we love it." (which may be true, but shows the author is a censorious dickwad or an apologist for the same).

Is love to see a foundation...

[jddj]

That rather than try and improve social media, instead exists to end it.

My opinion (and I don't mistake that for data) is that on balance, it's done more harm than good to my kids and friends.

I'd like the real world back, please.

Re:

[MpVpRb]

Disagree
Social media has done a LOT of good
Experts share their knowledge freely, including graduate level physics and math lectures
People suffering from diseases share their experiences and knowledge, and sometimes even become more expert on their condition than a doctor who must be a generalist and doesn't have the time to study one condition in detail
I manufacture machines for glasswork. Social media is my free, global ad campaign
It's inspirational to see the work of artists and makes me want to practice

Re:

[themusicgod1]

Delete your slashdot account and put your phone down and never pick it up.

The real world includes the world of human social interaction, and that has always been mediated as long as we've been communicating with groups outside of our little hamlets and demes

Re: Is love to see a foundation...

[jddj]

I don't mean I'd like a world free of social interaction or communication; in fact what I'd like is to see those things happen in the real world again.

I'm also not calling /. a part of social media per se. Yeah, I guess web boards were something like social media v0.9. But no, I mean things like Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, that deliver content algorithmically, amplify people's biases, insulate them from countervailing narratives, keep them in bubbles, make them nastier every year, spread false rumors at the

Fediverse opened and no one showed up....

[bsdetector101]

Fediverse opened and no one showed up.... The only people that care are the ones still pushing it. Thought it died.

Re:

[themusicgod1]

With Threads we're now pushing a hundred million users. As big as twitter during arab spring.