Fediverse
13 Jun 2025The Fediverse (commonly shortened to fedi) is a collection of social networking services that can communicate with each other (formally known as federation) using a common protocol. Users of different websites can send and receive status updates, multimedia, files and other data across the network. The term Fediverse is a portmanteau of federation and universe.
Thank you, Wikipedia. I recommend these two videos bellow to know more about the Fediverse (they are short, I promise).
Introducing the Fediverse, by Elena Rossini
After this quick introduction, I want to focus on what are the main advantages in my optics. A lot of people got exposed to the Fediverse via Mastodon, when Musk bought Twitter, because Mastodon is a microblogging service similar to Twitter safe from hostile takeovers (unlike Threads or Bluesky, other similar services).
The reason why Mastodon is safe from such scenarios is that unlike the closed platforms of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Threads, Bluesky, Instagram or TikTok, the content and the users on Mastodon are not held by a centralized service provider (Meta, Twitter, Google, TikTok, …). Instead, Mastodon is a federated service, ran by multiple distributed instances. Each instance owner moderates its content according to their preferences. So when you join, you need to choose which instance you want to belong to.
But also because Mastodon (and other services on the Fediverse) supports ActivityPub this means that you can choose to see (or block) content from other instances. This decentralizes the content ownership, and that’s why it is called a decentralized solution (do not confuse with cryptocurrencies just because they share this property).
Each instance owner can enact their own rules and chose which other instances (or federation members) to allow or block. So if the rules change (like it happened with Twitter, were suddenly hate speech started to appear) you can move, and you can block instances poorly moderated (or moderated against your beliefs). So you can have state-sponsored instances (which practice different censorship laws) and NGO-sponsored instances and individual or community-ran instances. Instances can allow for new members, or to be invite-only, or closed to new members.
Finally, unlike Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and others, Mastodon does not track you, does not try to sell you adds, or mess with your feed using obscure algorithms. It is tech that you can trust.
Beyond Mastodon
The fediverse is more than just Mastodon. What is common to all of them is that they support the ActivePub protocol. They are all social platforms that all have users, content and followers, and they compose the Fediverse.
Usually these services are Free and open-source software (FOSS). Being FOSS allows anyone to run their instance and also allow for auditing of the code, so the users can trust the technology they are using (one of the Digital Vegan action items that I mentioned on my last post).
Examples of other software on the Fediverse:
- FediTube (alternative to YouTube)
- PixelFed (alternative to Instagram)
- BookWyrm (alternative to Goodreads)
- Mobilizon, for event planning
Bluesky, a commercial operator, has built their version of ActivityPub, the AT protocol. While Bluesky does not support ActivityPub, since 2024 users on both platforms can communicate because these protocols are interoperable using BridgyFed. Another commercial operator open to the Fediverse is WordPress, via plugin.
FediForum Conference
This month the FediForum conference took place. It brings together people building the new Open Social Web, and it states “Open protocols, not closed platforms”.
One of the news is that the makers of Bridgy Fed created Bounce, a tool that allows you to move your following between Bluesky and Mastodon.
Conclusion
All of this is possible because people are choosing solutions that support open protocols over closed platforms.
If you want to dig deeper into alternative internet and decentralized solutions for domains other than social networks, check the alternative internet repo.
Ready to join the Fediverse? Go to https://jointhefediverse.net/ to start! And follow me on Mastodon @dzarmo@nerdculture.de (notice the second @? That’s the instance where my account lives).