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  I have the impression the term "Open Social Web" for what we are all working on has won. Instead of "decentralized social" or other terms that have been floating around over the years. We've been leaning into it for some years now with #FediForum since I realized that some members of the press had been using it, instead of something more techie.

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  I'm attempting to figure out what exactly France is banning for minors. Facebook etc? Mastodon? Bluesky? Forums? ...? I found the legal text https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/dyn/17/textes/l17b3069_texte-adopte-commission but it references a bunch of definitions in other places which I've failed to find so far. Doesn't help I don't speak French. Help?

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  There are about 170 million registered voters in the US. Trump says they found 250,000 non citizens registered to vote. Even if these numbers were true — and given where they come from, I would not trust them — that’s about 0.15% and that sounds minimal. We should be so lucky as to measure anything with as complex a system as federal voting with a precision that’s better than that.

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  Apropos nothing, remember that: Nothing is as practical as a good theory.

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  @HolosSocial@mastodon.social Hear, hear!! I've been advocating that it should be possible to use the same identity on all websites for -- checking notes -- 22 years now. All users get it. Developers are often strangely reluctant, like in the Fediverse today. Would be nice if that became part of an ActivityPub 2.0. We could use more people speaking up about this in the W3C, consider joining the conversation there.

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  404 Media's @jasonkoebler and ProPublica's @ben are discussing how the #fediverse helps #publishers in the latest episode of @mike's #DotSocial podcast. Highly recommended. This struck me particularly: Ben is making the case that the Fediverse is the means by which publishers can re-take the initiative with technology instead of simply having to live with whatever the platforms decide. That is powerful stuff! https://about.flipboard.com/fediverse/jason-koebler-and-ben-...

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  If you are not an engineer, but would like a glimpse of what real engineering looks like in practice, here is a slightly mindboggling writeup on how they reduced operating cost of Bridgy Fed, which bridges #AtProto and #ActivityPub. By A New Social CTO @snarfed.org https://blog.anew.social/bridging-on-a-budget/?ref=a-new-social-newsletter

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  Did you know there is an award for cool open social web software coming up? With actual prize money of EUR 10,000? Deadline is May 1. I'm told 16 submissions are in so far. With great thanks to our friends at New Public to who have made this possible. (I'm on the jury.) https://newpublic.org/OSA

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  The EFF has a cool post about Bridgy Fed! https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/bridge-somewhere-how-link-your-mastodon-bluesky-or-other-federated-accounts #mastodon #blueksy #activitypub #atproto #eff

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  Riffing off @docsearls who said that about Linux! From: @reiver https://mastodon.social/@reiver/116494708267873504

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  Hey, computer science people. Is there an established CS term for "the shape of data" or "the gestalt of data" in the context of: I want to represent certain facts, and can do this in a variety of ways, like as relational tables, or as a tree, or normalized and not normalized and indexed every which way, but all of these are equivalent in terms of what facts they represent. How do I ask, for example: which of those ... is the best for my application?

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  Remember today. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/01/may-day-strong-economic-protests

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  Defederation. Not defenestration. Don't mix those up, people.

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  "I find it amusing how Alexis used the term "lured"... lured to the fediverse... how subversive" From a chat transcript of a FediForum session, @julian about @alexisbushnell

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  Another nugget from a FediForum discussion: "things are hard cause they are better :0" (by @wjmaggos)

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  Mastodon is inviting community stakeholders from within and beyond Mastodon to weigh in on the future of the product in a 5 day sprint! https://app.hi.events/event/7599/mastodon-discovery-week-2026

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  One can learn many things at #FediForum. For example, about Rebollita, a soup from Tuscany, which is apparently @ivan's favorite food. Does that recipe sound about right? https://www.themediterraneandish.com/ribollita-recipe/

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  I was blown away by the intensity and quality of the follow-up discussion on "Growing the Open Social Web" at a #FediForum session yesterday. And the sheer number of people who showed up! Somehow this must be an important topic to a lot of people!! 😜 We will continue this discussion probably more regularly than twice a year at the regular FediForum. #FediForumFriday

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  I am having a lot of fun in #FediForum sessions this time. That's because we now have a real community here, built over some years, people who now know each other, have good personal relationships so there is a lot of banter in the middle of all the high-bandwidth, high-competence discussion. It's a great combination.

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  My planned #FediForum session 3, which is a true unconference session in the sense that I am asking a question to which I do not have an answer. But I hope smart people will show up and we will constructively debate the problem and together progress our understanding. 1/3

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  My planned #FediForum session 2: FediForum Connect. You might have seen our beta at https://connect.fediforum.org, which is a curated product and services directory for the Open Social Web. We want feedback, and also answer questions on why and how, and how to get listed.

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  My planned #FediForum session 1: Intro to the Open Social Web. I don't have any slides or pre-defined content. Chances are you know the basics already, otherwise you would not be at FediForum :-) Instead, bring your questions. They can be technical, or on usability, or on social dynamics, on safety, on funding, how to convince your employer or school or ..., and more, all are welcome.... 1/2

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  @bnewbold and Dan Holmgren wrote a really nice document for the IETF describing how Bluesky / ATProto works at an architecture level. If you are curious, recommended! https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-newbold-at-architecture/

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  I want to applaud @rose.bsky.team and @mellifluousbox for appearing on stage together and expressing a desire to cooperate. As I've said for a long time, #Bluesky and #Mastodon, #ActivityPub and #ATProtocol should not be fighting each other. The real opposition are the oligarch-controlled, enshittified, manipulating major commercial platforms. We have no chance of making a dent into their dominance if the revolution fights itself instead.

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  Congratulations to the #mastodon team for getting a substantial grant from the #sovereigntechagency ! https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2026/04/sovereign-tech-agency-funding/

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  I think I should count the ways people mispronounce "digital souvereignty".

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  So happy to see that #Mastodon has become a member of the W3C and is now coming to the renewed #ActivityPub standardization activity. From today's notes: https://hackmd.io/PaXqEd7-T7CLULV9Y4nwcA?view

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  Wow. I don't think the US tech industry has quite grasped how big this is. https://www.techpolicy.press/almost-two-thirds-of-europeans-back-replacing-us-tech-poll-finds/

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  Accurate title. “Living in a Time of Lunatics and Monsters” https://davidrothkopf.substack.com/p/living-in-a-time-of-lunatics-and

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  Math literacy is the kind of thing that exists on other planets, maybe? “As the conflict with Iran intensifies, the world’s energy arteries are constricting to a point of “nonlinearity,” where every day the Strait of Hormuz remains closed doesn’t just double the economic pain — it multiplies it exponentially.” https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/09/business/oil-iran-strait-navy-economy