Some Fediverse alternatives to "big tech" social media:
Twitter ➡️ @Mastodon
Instagram ➡️ @pixelfed
YouTube ➡️ @peertube
Twitch ➡️ @owncast
Goodreads ➡️ @bookwyrm
Facebook Groups ➡️ @mobilizon
Medium ➡️ @writefreely
You don't need an account on all of these in order to interact with them.
Because they all use the ActivityPub open protocol, you can (for example) use a Mastodon account to follow someone on PixelFed or vice versa. That's why they are collectively known as the Fediverse, because they federate together at a technical level.
Also, this is an incomplete list, there are many other Fedi projects out there such as @funkwhale or @inventaire that are not direct alternatives but are their own thing.
It's the new issue of Never Mind the Dice Rolls today on drivethru and itch. Reviews of Thousand Year Old Vampire, Vaesen and The Fall of Delta Green, Scenario for Liminal: Still Operating. The start of a new column on the history of D&D and more. I did a brief article on Gumshoe, comparing the first system to the latest ( Esoterrorists vs Swords of the Serpentine), it's part of a much bigger write up to come on Gumshoe history. Pay what you want and enjoy! https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/394580
Any reason to join the #fediverse is a good one. For microblogging, join #mastodon. Video creator? Join #peertube! Into pictures? Join #pixelfed! Into books? Join #bookwyrm! Do you organise events? Join #Mobilizon!
You can subscribe to all of those services from one account. It's like following Instagram (Zuck), YouTube (Brin and Page) and Goodreads (Bezos) accounts from Twitter (Musk)!
Publish-subscribe at its finest, brought to you by the #openstandard #activitypub: https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/.
If you're coming from Twitter, you might not recognize the "post privacy" option.
Basically, each post you send on Mastodon can have 1 of 4 privacy settings: Public, Unlisted, Followers-only, or Direct.
Basically, Public goes far and wide, Followers-only is nice for more personal stuff (and can't be boosted -- retweeted), and Direct means it's like a Direct Message to any and all users you mention (tag) in your post.
On the difference between Mastodon and Fediverse!
Mastodon is an open source social media platform that anyone can install and run on their own server to host their own communities like .art.
Fediverse is a contraction of Federated Universe. This is used as a catch-all term to include sites running software that can federate (communicate). They usually all run a thing called ActivityPub, which is the magic that lets them talk to each other.
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