TheFediverse (commonly shortened toFedi)[3][4][5] is a collection ofsocial networking services that can communicate with each other (formally known asfederation) using a common protocol. Users of differentwebsites can send and receive status updates,multimediafiles and other data across thenetwork. The termFediverse is aportmanteau offederation anduniverse.[6]
The majority of Fediverse platforms are based onfree and open-source software, and create connections between servers using theActivityPub protocol. Some software still supports older federation protocols as well, such asOStatus, theDiaspora protocol and Zot. Diaspora* is the only actively developed software project classified under the original definition ofFediverse that does not support ActivityPub.[7][8]
While a traditional social networking service will host all its content on servers managed by the owner of the website, thedecentralized structure of the Fediverse allows any individual or organization to host a social platform using their own servers (referred to as an "instance").
Every instance is independent, and can set its own rules and expectations. Even so, much like how users of one email service such asGmail can still send emails to users of another service such asOutlook, users may still view content and interact with users on any other instance in the Fediverse. A user on oneMastodon instance, for example, may still view and interact with posts made by a user on a different Mastodon instance.[9]
Instances hosted by different social networking services may communicate with one another as well. A user on the microblogging platformMisskey, for example, may view and interact with posts made by users on Mastodon. Some Fediverse networks even allow users to interact with different social networking formats from the same platform. For example, a user on asocial news instance runningLemmy can interact with another post from an mbin instance, a similar service, as well as microblog statuses from Mastodon.[10][11]
Decentralized social networking platforms introduce new challenges and difficulties for usertrust and safety.[12][13] By nature of the Fediverse, operators of an instance are solely responsible for moderation of its content. As there is no form of centralized governance or moderation across the Fediverse, it is impossible for an instance to be "removed" from the Fediverse; it can only be defederated per an instance operator's choice, which makes that instance's content inaccessible from the operator's instance.[14] Individual instances are responsible for defining their own content policies, which may then be enforced by its staff. Moderation of a Fediverse instance differs significantly from that of traditional social media platforms, as moderators are responsible not only for content posted by users of that instance ("local users"), but also for content posted by users of other instances ("remote users").[13]
With toxic or abusive content being common in the Fediverse,[13] as well as available moderation tools and the legal or financial impetus to moderate content lacking in comparison to those of centralized social media platforms,[15] the Fediverse exhibits shortcomings inchild safety.[14] A 2023 study by theStanford Internet Observatory's Cyber Policy Center found that, out of approximately 325,000 Fediverse posts analyzed over a two-day period, 112 were detected as instances of knownchild sexual abuse material (CSAM); 554 were detected as containing sexually explicit media alongside keywords associated withchild sexual exploitation; 713 contained media alongside the top twenty CSAM-related hashtags on the Fediverse; and 1,217 contained text relating to distribution of CSAM orchild grooming. The study additionally noted that, during a test run of its analysis pipeline, detection of its first instance of known CSAM occurred within approximately five minutes of runtime. All detected instances of CSAM were reported to theNational Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) for triage.[14]
A 2024 paper observed that operators of Fediverse instances lack the ability to moderate content to the same standards as conventional social media, on both a logistical level and often also a technical level; however, they enjoy the same legal immunity under the United States'Section 230, "with none of the incentives to [moderate] anyway." The paper provides, as an example, instances whose purpose is specifically not moderating content, including "the second-largest Mastodon instance", which contains sexually explicit material of children.[15]
Various solutions for development of content moderation and child safety on the Fediverse have been proposed. The Stanford Internet Observatory proposes development of distributable blocklists similar to BlueSky's functionality; mechanisms for pluggable hash matching and content classification (the same technology used byPhotoDNA); moderator tools such as grayscaling and blurring for certain report categories, as well as basic user fingerprinting; support and administrative interfaces for PhotoDNA and NCMEC CyberTipLine APIs; and a system of federated attestation of media analysis.[14] Legal reform has also been proposed, most notably around Section 230 of theCommunications Decency Act, as well as proposed legal requirements for instance operators to engage in good-faith moderation of instance connections.[15]
The concept and the functionality of the Fediverse has existed before theActivityPub protocol and the term itself. One of the first projects that included support for a decentralized social networking service was Laconica, amicroblogging platform which implemented theOpenMicroBlogging protocol for communicating between different installations of the software. The software was later renamed to StatusNet in 2009,[16] before being merged into theGNU social project in 2013 along with Free Social, with the two latter servers being a fork of StatusNet.[17][18]
Over time, the limitations of the OpenMicroBlogging protocol became more apparent, being designed as a one-way text messaging system.[19] To replace the aging protocol,OStatus was devised as anopen standard for microblogging, combining various other technologies likeSalmon,Atom,WebSub andActivityStreams into a single protocol used for communicating between instances. StatusNet first implemented the OStatus protocol on March 3, 2010, with version 0.9.0, and OStatus quickly became the most popular federated protocol in usage.
Around the same time as OStatus was gaining popularity, thediaspora* social network was formed, using its own federated protocol. To illustrate the differences between the two protocols, the terms ofthe Fediverse andthe federation began to enter common usage, mainly after 2017. The term "the Fediverse" was used to describe the network formed by software using theOStatus protocol, such asGNU Social, Mastodon, andFriendica, in contrast to the competing diaspora* protocol under "the federation".[20]
In December 2012, the flagship StatusNet instance at the time,identi.ca, transitioned away to a new software namedpump.io, with a new federation protocol to replace OStatus. The new protocol was designed to be useful for generalactivity streams and not just status updates, and replaced many of OStatus' external dependencies withJSON-LD and aREST API for its messaging and inbox systems, as well as making more use of ActivityStreams. While not as utilized as its OStatus predecessor, it would end up becoming influential in the development of the ActivityPub standard.
In January 2018, theW3C presented theActivityPub protocol as a recommended standard.[21] The standard aimed to improve the interoperability between different software packages running on a wide network of servers and to succeed both the OStatus protocol and Pump.io.[22] By 2019, almost all software that was using OStatus had added support for ActivityPub. While Mastodon began to remove OStatus support, other projects maintained it in their code, such asFriendica (which also maintained diaspora* support along with ActivityPub),[23][24] and the termFediverse has since come to mainly refer to the ActivityPub protocol and its supporting server software.[citation needed]
Users have been slow to embrace the Fediverse due to pooruser experience and excessivecomplexity.[25][26]
Following theacquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk in November 2022, certain major social networks, includingThreads,[27][28]Tumblr andFlipboard, expressed interest in supporting the ActivityPub protocol, as a large number of users began to migrate toMastodon, a server that supported the Fediverse and was also the most popular alternative to Twitter at the time.Flickr also expressed support in supporting ActivityPub. As of November 2022[update], no information had been released by the company after the initial tweets by the CEO, with support for ActivityPub suspected to be on hold or cancelled.[29][30]
In 2024, the local government of theStary Sącz municipality inPoland launched their ownPeerTube instance[31] in order tode facto abolish its presence onYouTube. According to the government, they stopped using YouTube for official communications "in order to adhere to the appropriate regulations".[32] In the same year, VIVERSE,HTC Vive'smetaverse platform, implemented support for ActivityPub in their chat feature, allowing users to send direct messages to other fediverse users.[33]
WordPress has an officially supported plugin that integrates WordPress blogs into the Fediverse, allowing for comments to be exchanged between the comment section of a blog post and a Fediverse instance's reply function. The plugin was acquired by Automattic in March 2023,[34] and became available for allWordPress.com users in October of that same year.[35][36]
Ghost, a blogging platform and content management system, announced in April 2024 that they would be implementing Fediverse support via ActivityPub.[37][38][39] The feature had been highly requested on its forums.[40] In July 2024, Ghost started federating its development newsletter for the feature.[41]
Automattic CEOMatt Mullenweg tweeted on November 22, 2022, that Tumblr was adding support for ActivityPub interoperability, in response to a user's complaints about Mastodon's complexity.[42] However, no further information was revealed for over a year, and was expected to be cancelled after a leaked reorganization that moved most of Tumblr's staff to other Automattic projects. However, following a question from a TechCrunch reporter during a questionnaire about the leaked memo, he revealed that the interoperability feature was not cancelled and that there was a small team working on studying the potential of implementing the protocol.[43] The plan was once again affirmed by Automattic in January 2025, with the ActivityPub plugin for WordPress most likely being the main method used for interoperability with the fediverse.[44]
The release ofThreads byMeta in July 2023 had included in its press release that it planned to support interoperability with the ActivityPub protocol.[45][46] In December 2023, select Meta employees began to federate with ActivityPub.[47] A roadmap was revealed in January 2024 that detailed the integration of ActivityPub in Threads.[48]
A faction of fediverse server admins, some of whom have listed their names under a pledge named "Fedipact", have expressed resistance to open federation with Threads over concerns that Meta would adopt an “embrace, extend, and extinguish" policy towards the network, or that Threads' moderation would fail to prevent the spread of abusive content targeted towards marginalized communities.[49][50][51]
In March 2024, Threads implemented a beta version of Fediverse support, allowing Threads users to view the number of Fediverse users that liked their post, and allowing Fediverse users to view posts from Threads on their own instances.[52][53][54] On April 2, the officialThreads account for PresidentJoe Biden enabled federation on its profile, making Biden the firstPresident of the United States to have a presence on the Fediverse.[55] The ability to view replies from the Fediverse within Threads was added in August.[56]
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) | This sectionneeds expansion with: Flipboard integration and Lemmy's growth during the Reddit API controversy. You can help byadding to it.(August 2024) |
In December 2023,Flipboard announced that it started federating selected profiles and magazines with the Fediverse. It had previously run its own Mastodon instance, flipboard.social, as a test of the Fediverse.[57]
While the Fediverse has traditionally been the network most commonly referred to and used as an example regarding the subject ofdecentralized social networks, alternatives to it and the accompanyingActivityPub have been developed and deployed. A major protocol in competition with the Fediverse is theAT Protocol, which powers theBluesky social network and has formed its own separate network dubbed by developers as the Atmosphere,[58] while smaller competitors such asNostr and Farcaster have become popular within thecryptocurrency community.[59] These protocols have used ActivityPub in comparisons to their own architecture, as these newer protocols use a different federation model based on publishing content to relays for distribution rather than ActivityPub's server-centric model.[60][61] Despite their differences, software exists that permit thebridging of user content between these protocols, including "double-bridges" that span multiple protocols for the purpose of distributing the same content.[62][63]
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ActivityPub is the most widely used protocol in the Fediverse and aW3C standard. Some popular Fediverse software includes:[64][65]
Our vision is that people using compatible apps will be able to follow and interact with people on Threads without having a Threads account, and vice versa, ushering in a new era of diverse and interconnected networks.
