The Social Web Foundation launched today. This non-profit is dedicated to making connections between social platforms with ActivityPub, and was co-founded by @evan@cosocial.ca @mallory@techpolicy.social and @tomcoates@me.dm.
The foundation’s focus is educating the public and policy makers about the social web, enhancing and extending the ActivityPub protocol, and building tools and plumbing to make the social web easier to use. “With this program, The Social Web Foundation can catalyze more growth on the Fediverse while improving user experience and safety,” says Prodromou. “Our goal is to unblock users, developers and communities so they can get the most out of their social web experience.”
We are proud to support the work of the foundation. Read more about the it here:
https://socialwebfoundation.org/
#ActivityPub #Federation #Fediverse #OpenSocialWeb #SocialWebFoundation #SpreadMastodon
@Flipboard@flipboard.social @evan@cosocial.ca @mallory@techpolicy.social @tomcoates@me.dm neat project, but that website is atrocious. Half of the page content is images and it doesn’t even link to their own “deliverables”.
@Neblib@mastodo.neoliber.al @Flipboard@flipboard.social @mallory@techpolicy.social @tomcoates@me.dm It took me a while to figure out what you meant here.
The projects are just starting because the organisation just launched. We’ll show the deliverables on those pages when they’re done.
@evan@cosocial.ca @Flipboard@flipboard.social @mallory@techpolicy.social @tomcoates@me.dm I think my confusion was that they are labeled “recent projects” (implying projects by founding members donated to the new foundation) not “currently working on” or similar. Since they are in progress, why not list next steps and current progress? e.g. for e2ee you could link to the SWCG AP-E2EE TF https://github.com/swicg/activitypub-e2ee, today’s meeting https://www.w3.org/events/meetings/4eb80e63-556e-482e-9354-de7a3535a786/, discuss what was learned in the SoP24 (assuming completion of 31 Aug per the website), etc.
@Neblib@mastodo.neoliber.al @Flipboard@flipboard.social @mallory@techpolicy.social @tomcoates@me.dm thanks. That’s a fair critique. I’ll see what I can do to get the full status of the project onto those pages.
@evan@cosocial.ca @Flipboard@flipboard.social @mallory@techpolicy.social @tomcoates@me.dm thanks for taking the time to discuss that critique. I really think your foundation has a great mission, and I’m really excited by its launch.
@Neblib@mastodo.neoliber.al @Flipboard@flipboard.social @mallory@techpolicy.social @tomcoates@me.dm Us too!
@Flipboard@flipboard.social @evan@cosocial.ca @mallory@techpolicy.social @tomcoates@me.dm
The foundation’s “mission” only makes me think of injecting adverrising and trackers. Hard to be excited@AngelicAura@pol.social @Flipboard@flipboard.social @mallory@techpolicy.social @tomcoates@me.dm why? That’s not what we’re working on at all. What made you think the point is advertising and trackers?
@evan@cosocial.ca @AngelicAura@pol.social @Flipboard@flipboard.social @mallory@techpolicy.social @tomcoates@me.dm Facebook & Automattic, both companies well known for doing exactly that, which have excitedly done exactly that when getting their hands on something before, are part of SWF. Even if that is not SWF’s intentions, Facebook or Automattic are likely to abuse their position to make it happen. I’ve heard concerns about IFTAS too, but I don’t know enough about them to tell, so I’ll trust people that know more about them than me.
@jackemled@furry.engineer @AngelicAura@pol.social @Flipboard@flipboard.social @mallory@techpolicy.social @tomcoates@me.dm IFTAS is awesome.
@evan@cosocial.ca Isn’t IFTAS in strong support of using blocklists to silence or hide the existence of LGBT people without the knowledge of the people using those blocklists though? That does not sound awesome. Or do they not understand the harm that has been caused by the blocklisting project they’re supporting? Maybe they don’t realize the evil it’s being used for? I completely understand if they didn’t know, the person running it is one of those super charismatic people that are good at hiding abuse.
@evan@cosocial.ca @Flipboard@flipboard.social @mallory@techpolicy.social @tomcoates@me.dm
Well, if meta’s involvement isn’t a strong enough reason to be suspicious, the foundation’s mission statement literally mentions making the whole thing “financially viable”@AngelicAura@pol.social @Flipboard@flipboard.social @mallory@techpolicy.social @tomcoates@me.dm yes, we think that moderators and admins shouldn’t have to go broke and quit and shut down their servers.
We’d like to help figure out ways to keep them going – I prefer the coop model, like the CoSocial server I use, but that’s not for everyone.
