Updates from the Mastodon team
How to make friends and verify requests
In the previous tutorial we have learned how to send a reply to another ActivityPub server, and we have used mostly static parts to do it. Now it’s time to talk about how to subscribe to other people and receive messages. The inbox Primarily this means having a publicly accessible inbox and validating HTTP signatures. Once that works, everything else is just semantics. Let’s use a Sinatra web server to implement the inbox.
Eugen Rochko
CEO / Founder
Why ActivityPub is the future
We often tout things like “Mastodon is based on open web protocols” as one of its advantages. I want to elaborate why exactly that’s a good thing.
Eugen Rochko
CEO / Founder
Why we must oppose the new copyright directive
A committee of members of the European Parliament have voted to approve Article 11 and Article 13, which pose a risk to the decentralization of the web and freedom of creative expression.
Eugen Rochko
CEO / Founder
How to become a successful artist on Mastodon
I follow many talented artists on Mastodon, and over my 2 years of being on the platform I have noticed some common patterns that may help a newcomer find their audience on here, too.
Eugen Rochko
CEO / Founder
How to implement a basic ActivityPub server
Today we’ll be looking at how to connect the protocols powering Mastodon in the simplest way possible to enter the federated network. We will use static files, standard command-line tools, and some simple Ruby scripting, although the functionality should be easily adaptable to other programming languages. First, what’s the end goal of this exercise? We want to send a Mastodon user a message from our own, non-Mastodon server. So what are the ingredients required? The message itself will be formatted with ActivityPub, and it must be attributed to an ActivityPub actor. The actor must be discoverable via Webfinger, and the delivery itself must be cryptographically signed by the actor.
Eugen Rochko
CEO / Founder
If you could edit tweets
A fresh new release of the federated social network software is here, and while the primary focus of it has been on fixing bugs and improving performance, it brings a couple of notable new features to the board. Delete & Redraft There are legitimate reasons why social media platforms rarely, if ever, have an editing function. In an environment where content spreads like wildfire in a matter of minutes, you could easily conceive of nefarious misuses such as creating a post about something agreeable and positive, and, once it reaches critical mass, changing the content to something malicious.
Eugen Rochko
CEO / Founder
#DeleteFacebook
Deep down you always knew it. On the edge of your perception, you always heard the people who talked about the erosion of privacy, that there was no such thing as free cheese, that if you don’t pay — then you’re the product. Now you know that it’s true. Cambridge Analytica has sucked the data so kindly and diligently collected by Facebook and used that data to influence the US elections (and who knows what else).
Eugen Rochko
CEO / Founder
The Mastodon Spring Creator’s Release
The development of the next version of Mastodon coincided with the reveal of Vero, yet another commercial social network silo backed by millionaires with a shady past. Vero has struck a chord, at least until people caught on to its background, and it wasn’t just because of its unlimited marketing budget. It has struck a chord because it promised an alternative to Instagram, which started getting progressively worse for creators after being acquired by Facebook. The algorithmic timelines have led to a reality where your post could either get lucky and be seen by all of Instagram, or never be seen by your own followers.
Eugen Rochko
CEO / Founder
Replacing the Pillars of the Internet
This article assumes you’ve read my previous two blog posts, here and here. Why not give them a quick read if you haven’t already? To balance out the doom and gloom of an internet wholly under the thrall of corporate interests and fed through single channels devoid of competition, it’s worth being aware of just how pervasive and powerful an idea decentralization is in the 21st century. The structure of things now are remnants of the way things have always been done: we trust in a singular authority to manage everything behind the scenes so that our experience on this side remains seamless. ISPs, once a central requirement, are increasingly becoming outmoded, antiquated, and unnecessary. Do we need a middleman managing what is, for all intents and purposes, access to a utility?
Tremaine Friske
Guest