Hackers' Pub

Welcome back! We've been on a break for the past few months, but with the new year, we're doubling down on our efforts to keep the Fediverse informed on the latest developments of the space. We've got a lot of exciting things in store for you, so buckle up.

Fediverse

As always, there's a whirlwind of development happening around this space, even if it's not immediately obvious. Apps and platforms are being developed, organizations are renewing commitments to improve the network, and people are sharing all kinds of resources on how to get involved.

Apps and Updates

Loops, the open source, federated alternative to Tiktok, has now landed on the Apple App Store. Finally, the app is available to the general public on both iOS and Android. Check out the Community Roadmap to see where future development is heading!

Recently, PeerTube updated their mobile app to include publishing capabilities, so now mobile users can upload videos directly from their phones!

A New Social has announced a new feature for their Bridgy Fed project, which now makes it possible to block domain names across the bridge. This is a solid quality-of-life improvement, and we can't wait to see what A New Social does next!

Bonfire is already back with a 1.0.1 update, adding loads of new features like hashtag following, post scheduling, support for the Mastodon API, and lots of other things. This release has tons of features, fixes, and improvements, which you can read about in the changelog. Also, Bonfire's crowdfunding campaign is still open for late pledges.

Bandwagon is a music service for the Fediverse, and has been doing amazing work over the past 12 months. Ben Pate reflects on what has happened over the past year, and teases a preview roadmap of what's happening in 2026.

Protocol and Ecosystem

The Social Web Foundation has announced an official Social Web Working Group at the W3C. The group is chartered through January 31st, 2028, and will "...maintain the ActivityPub, WebSub, Activity Streams, Activity Vocabulary,
MicroPub, Linked Data Notifications, and Webmention specifications, as
well as related Notes."

Earlier this month, the Search Engine podcast announced a new Mastodon instance called "The Forkiverse". The effort is a collaboration with Hard Fork's Kevin Roose and Casey Newton. Since its initial announcement, instance has grown to 9,500 user accounts.

Jaz-Michael King from IFTAS has published a really nice overview of how he worked with the Newsmast Foundation to produce a special app for his instance, toot.wales. He also shares some of the tools he's been specifically building for his community to make users lives easier.

Arts and Music

Popular Fediverse radio streaming service The Indie Beat FM has opened up an MTV-like 24/7 live stream featuring original Fediverse content and programming. The service provides a variety of shows, including music videos, podcasts, and interviews.

Our friends over at NHAM are creating videos and media for The Indie Beat TV. Here, they reflect on their individual efforts and what they're making.

Lorenzo's Music Podcast sits down to interview Limebar about his involvement with the TheIndieBeatTV project. It's a great discussion, and goes to show how connected the music community is within the Fediverse right now.

From Around the Network

Laurens Hof from Connected Places wrote a really great piece analyzing the underlying problems that plague social networks like X and Facebook. The underlying issues highlighted involve power structures within the United States, and how they interact with X operationally.

Elena Rossini has published her third installment in her YunoHost series, which focuses on easy-to-use tools for self-hosting. This one focuses on Nextcloud, the open source federated cloud system. Check out Part 1 and Part 2 as well!

Stefan Bohacek put out a comprehensive guide for community organizers making the case for why the Fediverse is worth using for the purpose of building communities, and provides information to tools and moderation resources for first-time instance admins.

Here, IFTAS commends the EU on embracing open source technology as a key to digital independence from Silicon Valley, and sheds some insight into the growing pains networks such as the Fediverse has had, particularly when it comes to funding developers and bolstering community-based moderation.

Our friends over at Newsmast Foundation gave a great presentation at the South Tyrol Free Software Conference (SFSCON). Michael Foster and Saskia Welch talk about some of the challenges of running a nonprofit organization, doing advocacy for the Open Social Web, and some of the things their organization has been up to.

Bluesky

Bluesky is currently in hot water for verifying the official Immigration and Customs Enforcement government account on their network. The backlash has created several discussions about the role of a social networking company or organization has when it comes to government compliance and protecting users.

Blacksky Algorithms has announced an amazing new initiative to support mutual aid called BlackSky Cash. It's a thought-provoking effort with impressive goals, and it's exciting to see what's coming here.

Speaking about Blacksky for a minute, it's worth bringing up the fact that the project is running a full infrastructure stack at this point. Their efforts have allowed Blacksky to run independently from Bluesky, while remaining interoperable with it.

Roost has announced a 1.0 release of Osprey, an open source tool for managing spam, harassment, and illegal content. It's used by Bluesky, Matrix, and Discord for rapid response to all kinds of incidents, and provides tools for investigation and management.

That's all for this edition! Stay tuned in the comings weeks for more stories and updates from our newsletter, and our main site at wedistribute.org!

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Syntax	Description	Examples
`"` keyword `"`	Finds the string within quotes, including spaces. Case-insensitive. (Escape quotes inside with `\"`)	`"Hackers' Pub"`
`from:` handle	Finds content written by the specified user.	`from:hongminhee` `from:hongminhee@hollo.social`
`lang:` ISO 639-1	Finds content written in the specified language.	`lang:en`
`#` tag	Finds content with the specified tag. Case-insensitive.	`#HackersPub`
condition condition	Finds content that satisfies both conditions on either side of the space (logical AND).	`"Hackers' Pub" lang:en`
condition `OR` condition	Finds content that satisfies at least one of the conditions on either side of the OR operator (logical OR).	`#HackersPub OR "Hackers' Pub" lang:en`
`(` condition `)`	Combines the operators within the parentheses first.	`(#HackersPub OR "Hackers' Pub" OR "Hackers Pub") lang:en`