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• Post #4258090

  I got angry and wrote a post about that Anthropic-shredding-the-books thing. I'm borderline blinded by my anger. Hey! But at least this post will be taken to train some LLMs. https://fossacademic.tech/2026/07/30/pulp-content.html

• Post #4247481

  Megacorp just bought all the rare Stradivarius violins in existence to train their robots on vibrato technique. Per law, the violins have been shredded and are now being repurposed as toothpicks

• Post #4046790

  That age-old, heartwarming tale of the heroes swooping in to solve the entirely predictable problem they themselves created. https://www.businessinsider.com/instagram-meta-glasses-banning-pickup-prank-creeps-2026-7

• Post #3988333

  Finally, covenantal fediverse care isn’t equally distributed. Even a cursory glance at the Fediverse Observer map shows that the network is simply not present in the Global South, particularly Central and South America and Africa. It is concentrated in North America, Eastern Australia, Western Europe, and South and South Eastern Asia.... https://moveslowlybuildbridges.com #MoveSlowlyAndBuildBridges #bot

• Post #3864450

  Hey, #fedi and #mastodon folks: is there anyone out there who's written a guide to pulling out Mastodon About pages via the API? What I'm interested in doing is gathering About pages (including server rules). I can do this by hand (indeed, I've done this many times before!) but maybe it's time for me to learn how to use the API. I'm not interested in posts or anything to do with users -- just the About pages. #askFedi #boostsAppreciated

• Post #3620816

  The more he learned, however, the more he realized what Awoo.space’s members were doing.... https://moveslowlybuildbridges.com #MoveSlowlyAndBuildBridges #bot

• Post #3620815

  And yet, early on, Mastodon started experiencing bursts of growth – in early 2017, a few months after its launch, it grew by 73%, up to over 40,000 accounts, spread across about a dozen instances. Looking back, Rochko notes this was a sign of what was to come. Mastodon “started gaining traction,” Rochko told me in our interview.... https://moveslowlybuildbridges.com #MoveSlowlyAndBuildBridges #bot

• Post #3620813

  OStatus was based on an idea of sociality that was about public self-expression, which represented a lot of the Web 2.0/blogosphere idea of: this is how the Internet works, everyone can have a voice, and everyone can be their true self in public, and that’s the world we want to build.... https://moveslowlybuildbridges.com #MoveSlowlyAndBuildBridges #bot

• Post #3620812

  Joining Mastodon... https://moveslowlybuildbridges.com #MoveSlowlyAndBuildBridges #bot

• Post #3620811

  The more he learned, however, the more he realized what Awoo.space’s members were doing.... https://moveslowlybuildbridges.com #MoveSlowlyAndBuildBridges #bot

• Post #3620810

  None of this is happening, however, because Mastodon’s API – its specific version of a client-to-server protocol – is dominant. While Mastodon’s size and influence was beneficial to ActivityPub in 2017, saving it from being an afterthought when the SocialWG ended its process, it also has warped the fediverse.... https://moveslowlybuildbridges.com #MoveSlowlyAndBuildBridges #bot

• Post #3620809

  Whether or not someone likes this approach often depends on the vision. Rochko’s vision has indeed attracted many people. One of them was Ro, a Black software developer (and major figure in the chapters to come).... https://moveslowlybuildbridges.com #MoveSlowlyAndBuildBridges #bot

• Post #3620808

  Quirk and Gruber are emphasizing that ActivityPub, the protocol that enables the fediverse to work, is an open social media protocol. For Meta to adopt it is an endorsement of such opennness – something Meta is not known for. Meta is known for its “walled gardens” – centralized, closed systems that can’t interoperate.... https://moveslowlybuildbridges.com #MoveSlowlyAndBuildBridges #bot

• Post #3297124

  My latest FOSS Academic post is a doozy. It's "Reading the Digital Safety Act with My Mastodon Admin Hat On": https://fossacademic.tech/2026/06/11/reading-digital-safety-act.html I'm reading Canada's proposed Digital Safety Act. My conclusion is that the proposed regulations could be very burdensome to non-profit, community-run social media, including AoIR.social. I'd love feedback on this, particularly from Canadian fediverse admins. #mastodon #fediverse #Canada

• Post #2067491

  Latest #FOSSAcademic post: I experimented with applied #ethics in my media ethics class, asking them to come up with a #CodeOfConduct for our experimental #Mastodon instance. The results were really good! https://fossacademic.tech/2023/11/22/EthicsAndCOCs.html [replies to this post will appear as comments on my blog, unless you set privacy to friends only or DM] edit to add: boosts welcome!

• Post #1898784

  An odd bit of language I've seen over the past few years: My _______ Where the blank is something owned by big tech. Years ago, it was "My Facebook," which no doubt was short for "my Facebook account." Later it was "my algorithm." Now it's "my chatbot." NONE OF THESE ARE YOURS, PEOPLE

• Post #1779326

  Where is my mind?

• Post #1749024

  I might not be at #fediforum this time but I did my bit, hosting a #Mastodon workshop for folks in Serbia, Mexico, and Canada. My basic presentation is here: https://www.robertwgehl.org/presentations/MastodonWorkhop.html Happy to chat with others who are curious about Mastodon and the fediverse.

• Post #1705068

  Hey Linux server admin type folks: do you recommend using Cockpit to monitor servers and do admin work? https://cockpit-project.org/ It's getting to the point where I have quite a few small servers scattered about the Internet. I tend to go through them all once a month to update them and check on them. I think I need to get a bit more active in watching them, though. Would Cockpit be a good choice? #linux #admins #servers

• Post #1665634

  I’ve been researching and writing about alternative social media since I was a PhD student in the late 2000s. As I’ve defined it in my research, alternative social media is not controlled by corporations, but by ordinary people.... https://moveslowlybuildbridges.com #MoveSlowlyAndBuildBridges #bot

• Post #1331910

  A lot of folks at #AoIR2024 are a bit peeved that more AoIR members aren't using Mastodon/the fedi instead of X. "We as a community have produced a great deal of criticism of corporate platforms," they say, "so why aren't more people switching?" I've been studying alternative social media for a long time now. To cite Stuart Hall, there are no guarantees: you do this sort of work, trying to make something better, but knowing that it&amp...

• Post #1314885

  Day Two of Future Networks (future-networks.ca) commences! On tap today, panels about the ecological impacts of media and alternative social media. Plus a keynote from @couldrynick!

• Post #1168365

  Latest FOSS Academic post is -- you guessed it -- a 2025 year in review post. Thrill to the fact that I'm using much of the same FOSS to do my work as I always have! Feel the chills as I talk about #generativeAI and how terrible it is! Above all, join me in living the FOSS Academic Lifestyle Dream! https://fossacademic.tech/2025/12/21/year-in-review.html Replies to this post will appear as comments on the blog thanks to the magic of #ActivityPub! #FOSSacademic

• Post #996353

  Taken together, fediblock and the Bad Space reveal the politics of defederating on the fediverse.... https://moveslowlybuildbridges.com #MoveSlowlyAndBuildBridges #bot

• Post #996348

  Since tech reporters were largely unfamiliar with GNU social, but were definitely familiar with Twitter, they also started calling Mastodon a Twitter alternative. This happened in a spate of articles that appeared in April, 2017.... https://moveslowlybuildbridges.com #MoveSlowlyAndBuildBridges #bot

• Post #996347

  The path wasn’t clear, however. Infighting in the SocialWG rears up again as people advocate for and against ActivityPub and the federation protocol.... https://moveslowlybuildbridges.com #MoveSlowlyAndBuildBridges #bot

• Post #996345

  here's to hoping today is TACO Tuesday.

• Post #673091

  Just got done listening to @alexmonea give a book talk about The Digital Closet. It's a deep critique of the underlying technologies of content moderation used by #Google and #Meta. Such important work! the book is free to read, too! https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262545952/the-digital-closet/

• Post #636198

  The first post of 2026 on the Alternative Social Media Researchers Blog is live! It's by @jjsylvia and it presents a syllabus of a course in social media ethics. The course uses a classroom instance of Mastodon to work through ethical issues in digital media. https://www.socialmediaalternatives.org/2026/01/12/teaching-mastodon.html Are you also teaching using Mastodon or other alternative social media? Reach out to us! #alternativeSocialMedia #pedagogy

• Post #636194

  I don't speak French, but I do speak "local, autonomous media that is not dominated by US big tech" https://site.qlub.social/petition-gouvernement-du-quebec/ #Quebec #alternativeSocialMedia