8 Takeaways From The Fediverse: What Policymakers Should Know
We’re excited about recent developments in federated social networks, sometimes referred to as the fediverse. Meta’s incorporation of ActivityPub into its Threads platform infused a lot of momentum into the concept of decentralized, federated apps allowing for a more user-centric social media experience. Recently Flipboard federated “11,000 magazines by 400 creators” on its Flipboard app. They join Wordpress who last year created fediverse plugins allowing blogs to broadcast to “ActivityPub-compliant” platforms.
Growth in the fediverse remains steady. Casey Newton is enthusiastic about the potential as well but admits it’s a “a long-term solution, and a partial one” at that (June 20, 2024 edition of Platformer). Nevertheless, with all this excitement about the fediverse and the possibilities it opens up, we thought we’d gather some experts to explain what this is all about and why policymakers should better understand what is happening with decentralized social media networks.
Earlier last month Georgetown Law’s Hillary Brill led a discussion with Mike Mansick (TechDirt), Ross Schulman (Electronic Frontier Foundation), and Amy James (Web3 Working Group) on “The Fediverse And The Future Of Social Media: What Policymakers Need To Know.” We put together eight takeaways from that event (with links to the video) where they discuss everything from privacy to content moderation to antitrust safe harbors to cryptocurrencies. Read on Medium.