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Connected Places

Two rozettes with flowers of Draba verna

Analysis

Detail of the city Luik

‘Blueskyism’, Political Violence, and Open Social Networks Under Authoritarianism

After Kirk's murder, calls for censorship and the crackdown on political places started to include Bluesky. Open social networks must now fight political suppression as well as platform monopolies.
Detail of the current in a small water

On discourse and decentralisation

protecting apple trees

SocialHub and the Substrate of Decentralised Networks

SocialHub, one of the primary forums to talk about the fediverse and ActivityPub, has been struggling how to continue the operation. Decentralised networks need a coordination layer, but how to build this in a decentralised manner?
Detail of building in Amsterdam-North

Funding Update and Summer Schedule

detail of a building in Brugge Belgium

Age Verification Laws: Are the New Social Networks Different, Or Not At All?

Bluesky and Mastodon have drastically different perception on Age Verification Laws: either just as the Big Tech platforms, or so different to be out of scope for the laws.
detail of a building in Brugge Belgium

Growth narratives on the new social networks

The narratives that networks like the fediverse and Bluesky have about themselves how their network grows are a snapshot of a specific moments in time. How do these narratives evolve as the circumstances change again?
Lot of mushrooms on a tree trunk

Welcome to Connected Places

Fediverse Report has relaunched as Connected Places!
a path on the Duth heather landscape

Bounce, and how the Open Social Web is continually changing

The Open Social Web is an ongoing debate about what open social networks should look like. New tools like Bounce change how we think about this space.
Reflections of tree trunks

Decentralisation as a mental framework

In the Fediverse and Bluesky decentralisation is a very relevant shared mental framework. Communities take on a shared mental framework to understand a technology. This essay shares some thoughts on this shared framework
Frozen green moss

Taking Control of Your Timeline – in Different Ways

Examining the different approaches taken by platforms in the fediverse and ATmosphere shows that both networks take quite different approaches. Moreover, these approaches seem compatible with each other, and it's been surprising to me that no platform has really tried to unify these yet.
Detail of building in Amsterdam-North

Bluesky without Bluesky PBC

The ATProto protocol takes the software that runs a social networking app, and splits that up into separate components. We are now seeing the first results of this.
The barren field

The open social web – a quick intro

Connected Places is about understanding the vague group of social networks. The protocols are open and they interact with each other, and are not centralize owned and governed.
Detail of the city of Gouda

Why I care about social networks

I care so much about social networks is because I view social networks as collective sense-making tools. And different social networks have different views
protecting apple trees

What are Connected Places?

Two rozettes with flowers of Draba verna

Glossary of social networks

mud and water on a foot path

User agency and governance

Detail of the city of Gouda

Fediverse Report – #106

IFTAS shutting down most of its services following a lack of funding. Fediverse tumblr-like platform Wafrn has a native Bluesky integration.
Detail of the city of Gouda

Fediverse Report’s deep research on Deep Research’s fediverse report

ChatGPT released a new mode, called Deep Research. Tech writer Casey Newton asked Deep Research to write a report about the fediverse. But how good is the quality of the report that ChatGPT puts out? Fediverse Report does some deep research on Deep Research's fediverse report.
Lot of mushrooms on a tree trunk

ATProto Explained – Lexicons and video

A deep dive into how Lexicons work on ATProto, and how it impacts the different ways people are building video apps on the network.