Why Haven’t Friendica and Diaspora Been Forked like Mastodon has?

Posted on by Robin

We have seen Mastodon software forked or adapted for use on platforms like Parler and Truth Social. Their software is based on the free and open-source Mastodon software. Everyone seems to be okay with it. Even Zuckerberg’s Meta (Facebook, Instagram) uses it in their newest venture, Threads. So Zuck has made intrusions into the Fediverse by adapting some Fediverse software.

Having recently been kicked off a Friendica server for daring to express my conservative views, I wonder why some other great Fediverse software (Diaspora, Friendica, Hubzilla, etc) hasn’t been copied, adapted, or forked in the same way that Mastodon software was.

If I was a coder who could do it, I would adapt Diaspora software so that it wasn’t necessary to federate with any other servers, and run it on a huge central megaserver like Fakebook does. Probably with ads and the ability to opt out of ads with a paid membership. You can already do that with Friendica, as there isn’t any requirement to federate with other Friendica instances. You can run your own private, invitation-only social media instance without the requirement to federate with stupid Friendica nodes like the one that kicked me to the curb for my politically incorrect posts.

Social Media

Posted on by Robin

When we decided to get back into doing Living History again after all these years, it seems like almost every organization from the huge regional ones to the company-level units no longer bother with their own web sites or even email listservs anymore – they’re all on Facebook!

Why host on Facebook?

No expense and trouble with having their own domain name (dot com, dot org, dot whatever).
No need for running your own server
No big fuss over page designs and links
A place to host files, pictures, videos, stories, news, and events.

But at what cost?

Ads. Lots and lots of ads.
Loss of rights to your own content.
Loss of privacy for you and your visitors.
Getting inexplicably restricted for whatever “community standards” Facebook chooses.

Why lock yourself, your organization, and your site visitors into a single vendor who insists that all your visitors create an account on their platform to access it or contribute to it? Why ask your “customers,” members, and contributors to give up their privacy and intellectual property rights in order to participate? That’s not only unethical, it’s downright stupid. You give up so much and depend for everything on someone else’ terms of service! Remember how Amazon destroyed so many businesses who depended on their servers when Amazon decided those companies weren’t “woke” enough? It wasn’t that long ago, y’know.

Obviously hosting your own domain on your own server is the best solution as far as retaining your rights and respecting your users’ and contributors’ privacy and dignity. A small number of the reenacting groups I found do this, at least partially. But most just rely on Facebook in the same way Parler relied on Amazon. Not very smart.

There are perfectly sane and sensible alternatives to Facebook for cry’n out loud! 

How about any one of the platforms offered in the Fediverse? These are all free (as in beer), but also free (as in freedom!) Rights respected, privacy preserved, open-source software-driven, maintained by volunteers who may solicit donations to defray their expenses. Anyone can host their own, the software is free if you want to run your own instance of one or more of the federated – or distributed – networks: Mastodon (microblogging, like Twitter), for example, or Friendica (very busy social network with a steep learning curve), or the simple, intuitive Diaspora network – the oldest and probably still the largest of the macro-blogging social networks (like facebook, only easier).

Centralized networks like MeWe do what Facebook and some others do, but again – you’re locked into a single vendor and hosted on a single megaserver and you don’t retain control of your own data.

In my next post, I’ll describe the one federated network that is in my opinion the easiest to learn and to use. Here’s a hint: diaspora*

Corporate Media is the Problem

Posted on by Robin

In a free society where a free press is there, among other things, to keep watch on the government and inform the People about government overreach, abuse, and corruption, what happens when the press comes to promote a political ideology? It’s no longer free, but becomes a propaganda tool of that ideology and the politicians that promote it. This is what seems to have happened to America’s corporate media and “Big Tech” platforms like Amazon, Google, Twitter, and Facebook. There’s money and power in propaganda, much more than in reporting the news and playing the role of “watchdog” as was the case for most of US history.

Politicians could not have gotten away with the incredible abuses of 2020 (lockdowns, ridiculous restrictions on businesses, churches, etc), the vast overspending of tax dollars, the social engineering, the theft of elections, the unconstitutional theft of power from the States to the national government, the surrender of our borders to human smugglers and drug cartels, the indoctrination of children in government schools, and so much more. The government could not possibly have gotten away with these abuses if we had a free press informing the people and exposing this corruption.

So what can we do about it? We can abandon corporate media and “big tech” in favor of free press outlets like Just the News, OAN, and Newsmax. And we can stop contributing to ideologically-driven corporate media by switching to privacy-respecting search engines like DuckDuckGo or Startpage, and free social sites like Diaspora and Hubzilla.

notonfacebook

Sorry if this ticks off my friends and family, but if you’re on Facebook and/or Twitter, you’re contributing to the very people who are driving this corruption and evil. Why is the Ayatollah allowed to publish “Death to America” on Twitter but a former President of the United States is banned? Do you think that’s “free media?” C’mon now. If you still believe in constitutionally restrained government accountable to the people; in financial sanity, in the Bill of Rights, then stop selling yourself to these propaganda arms. And make no mistake, that’s exactly what you’re doing. YOU ARE THE PRODUCT for sale on Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Twitter. Your “likes” and dislikes, search terms, opinions, and interests are gathered and SOLD to advertisers and marketers, both globally and locally. You literally sell yourself to them. I tell you in the name of sanity and decency, STOP IT. There are good alternatives to these corrupt “services,” or you can be really smart and go back to good old fashioned chatting across backyard fences, snail mail (or e-mail), phone calls, shared meals, get-togethers, and visits. Get out from behind the screen and participate in real life for cry’n out loud. Live as God intended, not in isolation with your head down and your mind immersed in virtual worlds it’s easy to live in. Please, while you still can.

Diaspora Update: What I’ve Learned So Far

Posted on by Robin

Why do we call it “the Fediverse?” A brief explanation can be found here. My favorite platform of the ones listed there is Diaspora  because of it’s short learning curve and simple, intuitive interface. In my opinion it’s the most ideal replacement for Farcebook with similar features, except for groups, but I’ll show you how I have created groups of my own on Diaspora.

Diaspora Takes Time to Become What You want it to Be. 
That’s because you “build your own” experience here. Unlike Farcebook, Diaspora will not suggest “people you may know” or “stuff you might like.” _You_ tell _it_ what you want to see and who you want to share with. If you are new to Diaspora, and especially if you don’t know anyone on Diaspora or elsewhere in the Fediverse, you can follow #hashtags about subjects that interest you, and looking there, you’ll probably find some people you want to share with. You may also find people you’d rather ignore. Both adding new people and ignoring trolls are easy to do with just a couple of clicks. I think it’s better to follow people more than hashtags.


Your friends, old and new, will help you.
For example, I might private message one of my friends to tip him or her off about a spammer, a bot, or a troll and advise my friend to use the Ignore feature to prevent them from commenting on your posts. Or I might suggest an awesome person to share with whose posts I think my friend will enjoy. Most importantly, since it takes time, give it time! You’re building it custom made, just for you.


Create your own Groups on Diaspora!
Some people do it simply by using hashtags. I do it using Aspects. From your personal page (reach it by clicking on your own picture if you’re viewing your Stream), look at your Aspects. You have a few to start with by default: Family, Friends, Work, and Acquaintances. But underneath that list you’ll find “+ Add an Aspect.” Give it whatever name you want. Dance Partners, Church friends, Trek Fans, Starwars fans, Alien Life Forms, whatever you like, as many as you like! You can put people you’re sharing with into one or more of those categories, then read and post to just that particular Aspect. That’s how I made my own groups. It works for me because I took the time to make it work. 


Most of all, have fun! Make it your own, and celebrate your liberation from “Big Media!”
Some material for this post, and the idea of having a greeting like this, was shamelessly stolen from @{robbie1@diasp.org}

Social Media and Mental Health

Posted on by Robin

So I got on Diaspora and dumped Facebook (and Google) because of all the paranoid geeky stuff about them manipulating news and spying on people and using all your stuff to take over the world.

I ran away from systemd on Linux because of all the paranoid geeky stuff I read on Diaspora about how Red Hat and Microsoft (and the NSA, FBI, Illuminati, and who knows, some alien race from the Eighth Dimension) are using systemd on Linux to take over the world and enslave Linux users.

As it turns out, in spite of Monstanto, GMOs, vaccines, the Left, the Right, Microsoft, Google, the Borg, Canonical, Red Hat, and systemd, my computer and my privacy are as safe as anyone who ever connects to the Internet on any device or platform can expect to be.

Who is manipulating who here? Who is really thriving on the fears of others here?

People told us to stop flying the American flag and stop showing our support for the military and first responders or else we could be targeted for violence, blacklisting, discrimination, etc. Did I take down my flag? Hell no. Let them come. I’ll gut them if they bring their threats beyond my front door.

And guess what else? I’ve got a systemd-equipped Linux distro running because it works better on my machine than the two systemd-free distros I tried. And y’know what else? I rejoined Facebook today. I’m using it with my eyes open and sensible precautions in place. I’ll keep my Diaspora but I’m making big changes there. All that paranoia and conspiracy stuff is not good for people who have ever been diagnosed with depression, whatever the cause.

All I can say now is,

I didn’t take my flag down. And I’m not avoiding systemd, Facebook, Google, or any other tool that serves me.

I’ll use the Internet wisely, my systemd-equipped Linux distro wisely, and Facebook wisely. Just like I do with my car, my firearms, my power tools, and anything else that requires a little thought and caution. I’m not throwing away all the perfectly good tools that make modern life so nice and so rich.

I’m through running away from phantoms. If and when the time comes to fight, against whoever the bad guys are, I’ll fight and die like a Klingon in glorious battle. In the meantime time, all you anti-vaccine, anti-Google, and anti-everything-that-isn’t-home-grown-or-home-made people can kiss my grits.

Hey, I just had a thought…. maybe my medicine is working now after all!