#join the fediverse

[boreal-sea]

You all of course know I’m a huge fan on the Fediverse and Mastodon and decentralization, so if you’re looking for an alternative to TikTok, I of course recommend getting in on the fediverse!

There is specifically Loops, an app designed to be short-form video. Right now sign ups are really high so there’s about a three day wait to get in but I’m signed up and I recommend you do too:

A lot of people are all also looking into leaving instagram and X and even tumblr too, so I have some general recommendations for that too!

Want an Instagram clone? Pixelfed is where you want to go:

Do you want something more like X/Twitter or Tumblr? Pick something on Mastodon!

[wanderestless]

ugh well since @staff has made weird hints about fucking up the chronological dash, hmu if you want to be in contact offsite, cause i'm done if that happens.

i don't think i'll be sharing the same points of contact with everyone, because i use various platforms extremely differently, but i'm happy to try to figure something out with people who reach out! related: everyone should check out mastodon and the fediverse in general.

the blaze function is already putting extremist material on my dash, this site has a huge problem with nazis and terfs, and there's no way i'm sticking around if this place goes the way of facebook/instagram lmao.

i'm going to miss this place but i can live without microblogging lmao

[mxactivist]

Support the BBC for having a trans character in recent episodes of 'Doctor Who'

Apparently the BBC (UK) has had 144 complaints about a recent episode of Doctor Who because it contained an openly trans character.

I've made a complaint to the BBC that there weren't enough transgender characters in Doctor Who. I would love if 144 other people did the same thing. Here's the link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints/make-a-complaint/#/Complaint

(For your easy reference: "The Star Beast" aired on 25/11/2023 on BBC One, and the trans character is called Rose.)

Please note that the complaint form asks for your UK postcode, so only UK folks can join in with this - but if you suspect you might have any UK-based followers, maybe give us a reblog to boost the signal?

Edit: I'm told that you can fill in the form even if you're outside of the UK, because the BBC provide service to many countries other than the UK, including the USA! Go for it. :D

Reply to confirm that you've done it, so I can keep a count!

Here's my complaint:

I recommend:

Avoid sarcasm or irony. Assume your post will be taken literally. If you are clearly joking or being mean you will be ignored or misunderstood.

Include some gratitude/appreciation. It's pretty great that they included a trans woman in a positive way, and they should know that they have explicit support for that.

~

Edit again: I'm seeing some concerns in the replies/reblogs that the BBC might not distinguish between "less trans people, please" complaints and "more trans people, please" complaints. Rest assured, this is nothing to worry about - the BBC publish fortnightly complaint reports, and they do pay enough attention to know when a complaint is in favour of or against trans inclusion. In fact, their 20 November – 3 December 2023 report is where the various news articles are getting the 144 complaints figure; that report says there were precisely 144 complaints that they have categorised as "Anti-male / inappropriate inclusion of transgender character".

That means the next complaints fortnight window is 4 December - 17 December. We have 8 more days to beat 144. By my count, over Tumblr, WhatsApp, the Fediverse and Telegram, we have 85 so far, which is well over halfway there.

Also, when you've done it, please reply to confirm you have done it, so that I can count us!

Thank you, everyone!

~

Edit, 2023-12-11, 1am UK time:

We did it! I've just been counting up responses, and it looks like sometime yesterday evening we hit 144 complaints/comments in favour of Rose Noble and more excellent trans characters in Doctor Who! (We're actually up to 157 now, fantastic.)

So, my next plan is to submit a Freedom of Information Act request to the BBC sometime in the next few days, asking for complaints and compliments figures. Then I'd ideally (energy and time permitting) like to put together a press release that I can send out to the publications that promoted the tiny "144 anti-trans complaints" figure, showing them that there has been far more feedback in favour of trans representation than against.

I'll keep you posted.

[yessikg]

I'm on one of the many MissKey forks (Hajkey) which is a little bit more like Tumblr than Mastodon (you can make/use custom themes and plugins and it has a very interesting Markdown Language), the good thing is that you can view all of the Mastodon content (yay fediverse!)

I'm also on Lemmy (which is the fediverse version of reddit) and I like it a lot, but I do not know how much Minecraft content is in Lemmy

Tumblr is becoming unusable for me

They've removed too many features that I actively used. There's too much transphobia on the staff's part. I don't wanna be here anymore. That dashboard unfucker script doesn't even work for me!

I'm considering pillowfort or cohost for my new home, but if there's some other good place, like one of the fedi platforms, I would consider that as well.

I'm looking mainly for Generation Loss, Ranboo, and Slimecicle fan community, as well as otherkin and Minecraft community. If anyone knows of any site besides twitter, tumblr, reddit, etc. that's good for those things please let me know about it.

tagging all my mutuals in case anyone wants to talk about coming with me (hope no-one minds 🤞)

@kinfriday @fang-nightclaw @beastlybardou @starrbeast @waterinyourears @timetokrill @ratslawyer @tomscryingcorner @dreams-your-smp @hoooooooooot @combexperience

[nights-at-crystarium]

As a twitter/tumblr user since 2010-2011, I believe I have sufficient grounds to say that currently we as a community are living through the scariest, shittiest time yet. This post isn’t trying to fearmonger, no I’m not leaving tumblr until it literally keels over, but I suggest that we don’t put all our eggs in one basket.

If twitter/tumblr stay usable, great! In the worse scenario, you’d have kept posting on a new platform and stayed ahead of the curve.

This post shares my personal experience with three potential “new”* fandom places, and is aimed to help fellow content creators. I’m an artist fully depending on internet to survive, my reasoning may not apply to you if you’re a hobbyist. Do your own research, it’s always healthy. * Pillowfort and mastodon have been around for 5+ years, bluesky is ~2 years old.

Discovering new people to follow kinda sucks on all three platforms, twitter and tumblr are eons ahead, but, given the recent chaos and uncertainty, I’m willing to be patient, keep posting on those, and feel safer than I would’ve otherwise been. More baskets good, one basket bad.

All three have poor visual customization, don’t expect custom tumblr themes.

This list starts with the least popular, but most human and easy to join, and what I personally trust the most. All three allow nsfw if labeled properly.

✦ Pillowfort is a barebones tumblr. Intuitive, cozy, but currently very, very small. Be patient with its clunkiness or lack of some features, it’s made by an AO3-like team. I’d personally love if the fandom crowd managed to redirect its attention to it instead of the sus bluesky.

Joining: is free, invite-only, but the waitlist is nearly instant.

Lurk around on their official tumblr: @/pillowfort-social

✦ Mastodon, for me personally, is impossible to explain directly. I’ll use several comparisons.

- Discord but all servers can interact. You’re still on a server curated by some human(s) that might tell you what you can and can’t post, BUT, if you don’t like that server’s policy, you can move to a new one while keeping your followers. - Email, users A and B may be registered on different domains, still they can talk. It’s a weird comparison, but fediverse (please I’m not explaining THAT but it’s a good thing) in general looks like another email story: unlike big sites that come and go, it might stand the test of time. - Someone compared mastodon’s structure to xiv’s dc and servers, if you look at its domain names that way, it might be easier to understand.

Depending on user, mastodon may feel gatekeepy/snowflakey. I haven’t spent enough time on there to form a proper opinion yet, but a warning’s due.

An actually good and hopeful thing about mastodon AND tumblr: the two might start interacting in future. Ever lamented that your fav asian artists don’t use tumblr? If they use misskey, or any other place on the fediverse, it might be possible to follow them directly from tumblr in future, and vice versa.

Joining: is free, however some servers close for new members sometimes, and have human moderators reviewing your request.

✦ Bluesky is a twitter without Musk: today’s average internet user reads this, drops everything and already looks to register there. It’s still sus, but people flock to it like crazy. Most likely to become the next big fandom place in my eyes, even if I’m not happy about that.

I personally have no good feelings about bluesky. Same as twitter, which I hated even before the 2018 tumblr exodus, yet the crowd decided to make it The New Fandom Place, and, grudgingly, I had to give up and also join them in 2022. During the year I haven’t stopped despising twitter, yet, I can’t deny that it helped me survive. I estimate half of my patrons, and, hell, even tumblr audience, comes from twitter. So, if bluesky ends up being the next hot shit, I’ll have to keep up because internet pays for my living.

Joining: is free but hell, invite-only, the waitlist is a lie, your best chance to join is a direct invite.

This’s all I’ve got to say for now. If you have a correction or an addition, replies/reblogs are welcome!

Screenshots of the current interfaces under the cut, you may spy on my profiles o/

Pillowfort

Mastodon.art

Bluesky

[fujostore]

FujoVerse Holiday Special

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And of course there are the much beloved FujoBoards, which (especially when paired with your favorite snacks) are sure to be the star of any décor. Choose your favorite cheese paddle, from YAOI to BLORBO and beyond!

No time to wait? Whether you gift a RobinBoob ship certificate to a friend or buy your own OTP to treat yourself, you’ll receive it in your inbox right away!

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Bluesky

Fediverse (blorbo.social)

Twitter

or right here on Tumblr dot com, @fujostore

Please help us boost this post (like to charge, reblog to cast) 💘 Thank you!

[futurebird]

This entomologist does not exist.

I decided to find out if any progress had been made on the science behind why some ants are attracted to electrical fields. After filtering out exterminators (it's so demoralizing to search for information on creatures you love and find nothing but people who know nothing about them boasting about how they will kill them all) I found what looked like a blog. But, who the heck is "James Brown"? Never heard of the dude. Maybe he could be my new friend if he likes ants enough to blog about them!

As far as I can tell, these people are phantoms. That's cruel on multiple levels. If I was not familiar with this SEO (Search Engine Optimization) trick I'd spend time looking for them both (to politely tell them about the errors in their blog... which I would assume they would care about since they love insects.)

But, I know what this is now. It's probably the exterminators behind all of this. To get their page ranks up they need "legitimate" pages such as personal blogs to link to them. So they make fake versions of the blogs.

They are pretending to be *ME*

We are expected to take this kind of BS as "harmless gaming of the system." but I find it incredibly distrustful and hurtful. It's making it harder for people to find each other by putting all these fake people in the way. It's LIES the pages are full of half-true nonsense. It's making people know less and filling their heads with false facts.

And this kind of page is what you find FIRST in nearly all search engines. You won't find Alex Wild or the formiculture forum.

You find these mendacious SEO ghosts.

These fake pages ought to be blacklisted to oblivion. But, I don't see any search engines taking this seriously at all.

Not really in their interest to do that, is it? We need to make more noise about just how terrible these pages are. Fake experts? Fake people? Fake images? Fake facts?

Information pollution & fragmentation of natural networks of human learning. A rot on the body of human knowledge: any search engine that puts such pages at the top should be ashamed.

We had a very lively conversation about this on the fediverse (join us if you've been looking for a better kind of social media.)

[nullitope]

Come join Offkey.cat: a place to sing your song, no matter how out of tune you are.

Offkey is a pro-fiction art-centered website hosted on the fediverse that aims to be a safe and welcoming environment for artists who feel excluded on other sites for being true to who they are. In particular, we cater to radqueers, paraphiles and their allies. Offkey does not endorse real life abuse, but we do endorse freedom of expression, and we also endorse paraphiles living open, healthy, honest lives rather than ones of shame and repression.

Offkey is a site for sharing art and building community, not heated debates. Users are discouraged from engaging in "contact discourse," regardless of what stance it's in favor of.

[unpretty]

I think I missed something and can't find anything searching - what's sharkey?

if you add 'fediverse' your searches will probably be more fruitful, it's a federated microblogging platform

fediverse is uuuuh a lot of different things that can all talk to each other. you have possibly heard of mastodon? mastodon is on the fediverse. tumblr claimed it was going to join the fediverse but, lol, lmao. threads is theoretically on the fediverse but users have to enable letting people follow them from off threads. bluesky is also allegedly going to join the fediverse at some point but right now you have to use bridgy fed.

anyway. i'm already on the fediverse through unpretty@fandom.ink but it's a small instance and mastodon is just too close to twitter for me in functionality. like. i stopped using twitter in favor of tumblr in like 2012. i quit twitter completely in 2016. mastodon is Fine but i would rather have a larger wordcount and more fun things.

sharkey is the thing i've seen that most appeals to me. it would let me follow everyone i'm currently following on mastodon, plus with my own instance i don't have to worry about whether the mods have blocked threads or bluesky (a lot of instances do this for security reasons but i wanna follow people lol)

some sharkey instances i am aware of are shonk.social, blahaj.zone, and easymode.im.

[jointhefediverse]

...This is why it's my belief that as designed today, social media is out of balance. It is far easier to escalate than it is to de-escalate, and this is a major problem that companies like Twitter and Facebook need to address...

[boreal-sea]

The difference between BlueSky and the Fediverse, and why I prefer the Fediverse:

🦋 BlueSky is designed to give corporations and wealthy people full control of the network. All of its traffic has to flow through expensive-to-run corporate relays.

:Fediverse: The Fediverse is designed to give ordinary people control of the network. All of its traffic flows directly from one cheap-to-run server to another.

[misosthrope]

(ADV THIS AGAIN SINCE NOBODY SAW IT) are you sick and tired of antis constantly clogging up regular social platforms? are you tired of being harrassed? then proship.cc is the way to go! https://proship.cc/ proship.cc is a fediverse (specifically sharkey, a misskey fork) instance for those who are anti harrassment for ships (proshippers) or darkshippers, its a space that requires you to give a reason to register, but we wont always know!! if you see an anti, please report them. the community is small rn but we are looking to grow! join here

[andmaybegayer]

Anyway should mention this here:

I fell in with the Website League, an island of federated social media websites that's mainly spun off old cohosters, run partially by consensus committee of various stakeholders and intended to be a relatively sustainable form of non-commercial social media.

If you like what you see, you can sign up to one of the open-access nodes.

Official launch is today, since it's the last day of cohost, but this has been in the works for a few weeks.

The Website League is based on ActivityPub software, mainly GoToSocial and Akkoma, running in allowlist mode, so we only federate with other League members. This keeps moderation load lower and simplifies management.

We're explicitly not federating with the broader fediverse, which among other things should allow us to experiment with patched versions of the software to support more advanced and interesting post formats, e.g. actual interleaved text and images as a first class citizen, cohost-style CSS fuckery.

If you're interested you can join the (ugh) discord or just try and join an instance. I'm hosting weague.awful.cloud.

It's early days so things are likely to change fast, but hey.

[latinotiktok]

A tip for people in Venezuela who want Privacy to chat in times like this: Use Matrix as a chat platform, there are many clients and it's safe. Join a Fediverse (Not Mastodon.social or Threads) instance because the instances are decentralized therefore it's hard to track your information, there's no ads on it, they can't know.

!!!!

[tempural]

hello. it might be an odd question or maybe, you've got it before. you prob did. but how did you find like-minded folks? as someone with specific tastes, i wonder if simply posting stuff is enough. and it's not even that i want friends. i just want to see different kinds of content and takes on things. which is why i tend to visit your blog from time to time. we don't even share ships, but you have your own vision and i respect that.

Hiya! Not odd at alll, trying to find artists, friends, and acquaintances is one of the big questions of social media. Especially if you're into very niche stuff (old man butthole).

Thanks for hanging out even if you don't have the exact same interests 😃 I find that's who I tend to follow... I like other people's passion in their interests! Whereas I'm usually one out of two people who have the same ship (the other one lives with me) haha.

Much yapping under the cut.

Honestly I mostly just post stuff. I don't browse social media much anymore ever since the tumblr nsfw ban 😭

The only place I actively look for artists now is the fediverse, especially cuz the server i'm on is explicitly kink and lgbtq friendly. So I almost never see like "freaks dni" sorta people on my timeline, which gives me massive diarheaa on every other socmed. Downside is of course the small size makes it so there's less posts to browse through, but sometimes staying small is nice.. you can talk to what people made the effort to post even if no one else is :)

Before the NSFW ban, I actually made my closest friend just by posting stuff! Way back in the DeviantArt days, I was the only one in the [band yaoi] tag, and another person happened to be browsing that niche tag with one thing in it. We started talking.. and now we are pregnant with 5 kids. So even if there's literally no one else in the tag but you, you can still find other people in that niche!

Makes me think of that story where those tumblr people got married cuz they were both in some niche self-ship tag...

A lot of the people I talk to now are from just posting stuff too. Not even just art, but even just yapping about random shit like dogs or ships or farming. I always wait for the other person to start a convo LMAO but other people seem to find connections by being proactive!

I also met some other like-minded people by joining art and fandom events, and hosting them! Some events are run better than others, some have a nicer crowd, and you might vibe with different people depending on the niches (i almost never do broad events with no subject, I do a lot better if you give me a subject like "chinese food" or "evil lesbians". I found a lot of cool artists that make OCs by hosting artcade, i found a lot of chill creative TF2 fans by hosting the Gore Zine and Gorl Scouts Zine.

Yeah it's scary to put yourself out there, cuz there's always hordes of unwashed basement dwellers waiting to jump on you for liking art of necromance or whatever. But it should be worth it to build up a lil net of art and writing to enjoy, and knowing that there's other people with similar interests out there...

Hope that gives you something to spring off of?