I dunno, *can* we build #European alternatives to #Facebook and co?
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I assume you refer to how in communication references to "mastodon" are made?
There's indeed something problematic in that, about which I've been posting a lot and also blogged about: the app-centric nature of the current fediverse, and the re-centralization forces this sets in motion.
See e.g. https://coding.social/blog/grassroots-evolution/#challenges-of-standardization
Mastodon is a brand. A platform and product that targets the fediverse to offer Microblogging services. The way it is used puts it on a pedestal, makes it more prominent than other microblogging apps like #GoToSocial, #Pleroma, and many other alternatives. But it is the social network as a whole that counts, not individual service provider players.
The word #Mastodon is overused in too broad meaning, similar to how people say "I'll google it" when they want to do an internet search. It sells alternatives short, like DuckDuckGo or Kagi. Some people don't even know about fediverse and say "Join mastodon" when they mean "Join the decentralized web".
@smallcircles @hpod16 We were just just joking because her favorite color is purple!
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@smallcircles @hpod16 We were just just joking because her favorite color is purple!
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@hpod16 True! Thanks for the explanation, @smallcircles !
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Ha ha, me too. Now I know your favorite color.
Mine is likely orange, and its not because I'm Dutch. But purples comes a long way, perhaps second in line 
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I dunno, *can* we build #European alternatives to #Facebook and co?
The #EU community managers are at it again with promoting the EU instance on #Mastodon!PS: the community management team (that's my team) are up for an award. Any chance you'd give us a vote? Project 32 on this link: https://enonet.eu/survey/index.php/227332?lang=en
@hpod16 social.netdynamics.eu, based on the fediverse, compatible wit Mastodon, without its limitations, relying on the friendica platform, with a European mindset is THE alternative platform to Facebook.
Registrations open, you are welcome to join, we are waiting for you.
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Periodically people say '[abusive company with unethical business model] could only have originated in the USA, it could never have succeeded in Europe' and it takes me a minute to realise that they somehow meant this as an endorsement of the USA.
@david_chisnall @hpod16 Can a European Company generate billions of EUR with ads for financial scams? Can a European company provide unsupervised foreign language tools to propagandize for a genocide in a far away country?
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@hpod16 True! Thanks for the explanation, @smallcircles !
The (over)use of "mastodon" is understandable. Mastodon played a pioneering role in implementing microblogging use cases with the #ActivityPub protocol and is also the most mature product at this point in that 'business domain'. Establishing itself as a brand.
#Fediverse is not a very descriptive name to people unfamiliar with it and the idea that it provides access to many apps that integrate with on a single social network (ideally) interoperably is foreign. They are used to 'platform thinking'. Fediverse weaves a social fabric that allows you to be "social together with others" online.
The europa.eu website now has a #Mastodon icon in its social channel list, that hides all that.
Perhaps most communicative is the name #ActivityStreams (name of W3C standard vocabulary of social actions to support). Then a person would subscribe to EU's activity streams and receive Posts, Articles, Videos, Events, Policies, News. Every service the EU offers adds to the stream.
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I dunno, *can* we build #European alternatives to #Facebook and co?
The #EU community managers are at it again with promoting the EU instance on #Mastodon!PS: the community management team (that's my team) are up for an award. Any chance you'd give us a vote? Project 32 on this link: https://enonet.eu/survey/index.php/227332?lang=en
@hpod16 Can't you just self-host a Friendica instance in the EU? That would very much be a Euro FB replacement. -
@hpod16 Can't you just self-host a Friendica instance in the EU? That would very much be a Euro FB replacement.
@dfx4509b
On my part, it was a rhetorical question, the point being that our EU instance on Fediverse does exist. But I am learning a lot about European alternatives thanks to this thread, so that's nice.
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@hpod16 I would argue that it really depends on what "Facebook", "instagram" and "whatsapp" mean for this person.
I think we don't really have a valid alternative to the Marketplace for example.
Instagram is pretty much covered by Mastodon and Pixelfed, but would it work at scale? (with millions or billions of photos and videos to store and moderate)
Whatsapp is a lot harder. I don't think that Matrix is a good alternative and unfortunately Signal is under US influence too.
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Periodically people say '[abusive company with unethical business model] could only have originated in the USA, it could never have succeeded in Europe' and it takes me a minute to realise that they somehow meant this as an endorsement of the USA.
@david_chisnall
if they made so much money that must mean God approves of their actions and blesses them, right?
@hpod16 -
@hpod16 Can't you just self-host a Friendica instance in the EU? That would very much be a Euro FB replacement.
@hpod16 European Network Dynamics is precisely answering that point
@DFX4509B You're absolutely right, and the good news is: it already exists!
European Network Dynamics runs Social. Netdynamics.eu, a Friendica-based instance, self-hosted in the EU, designed as a positive agora for European citizens to connect, share, and speak freely. It federates across the entire Fediverse while keeping your data under European jurisdiction. Registrations are free and open! Why not join us and bring this conversation there? 
Everyone in this thread is welcome, the more voices, the richer the community. 
Kind regards.
#netdynamics #netdynamics.eu #fediverse #friendica @dfx4509b
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I dunno, *can* we build #European alternatives to #Facebook and co?
The #EU community managers are at it again with promoting the EU instance on #Mastodon!PS: the community management team (that's my team) are up for an award. Any chance you'd give us a vote? Project 32 on this link: https://enonet.eu/survey/index.php/227332?lang=en
@hpod16 project 32 vote given. Cheers. -
Periodically people say '[abusive company with unethical business model] could only have originated in the USA, it could never have succeeded in Europe' and it takes me a minute to realise that they somehow meant this as an endorsement of the USA.
@david_chisnall @hpod16 Alas, they actually mean it. They think that big is good, so big companies are necessarily good.
It used to be "What's good for General Motors is good for America." That hasn't changed
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I dunno, *can* we build #European alternatives to #Facebook and co?
The #EU community managers are at it again with promoting the EU instance on #Mastodon!PS: the community management team (that's my team) are up for an award. Any chance you'd give us a vote? Project 32 on this link: https://enonet.eu/survey/index.php/227332?lang=en
@hpod16 i always put into question *do we want to*?
I don't want the leopard that eats peoples faces no matter where it's engineered
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@hpod16 i always put into question *do we want to*?
I don't want the leopard that eats peoples faces no matter where it's engineered
@hpod16 Let us reformulate this question like this : "do you want to join European Netdynamics ?"
Friendica has no defined nationality, it does not belong to a private techno-feodalist company. Friendica was orginally built by an american australian.
Friendica is totally open sourced.One of Friendica's team key members (Tobias Diekershoff) is German Berliner.European Netdynamics is self hosted in France, by an officially registered company (registration number on demand, by PM)
Registration, participation is free and open to anyone.
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@dfx4509b
On my part, it was a rhetorical question, the point being that our EU instance on Fediverse does exist. But I am learning a lot about European alternatives thanks to this thread, so that's nice.@hpod16 also remember that, if you have control of your Mastodon instance, you can upgrade to Mastodon Glitch-soc, a well-supported, friendly fork of Mastodon. The advantage is that you can write formatted posts with hyperlinks (of course, you can remove the 500-character limit). I installed it on poliversity.it to accommodate poliverso.org users who weren't comfortable with Friendica and preferred Mastodon. -
@matt That was in fact exactly how communites changed platforms in the past, and it always seemed to go well enough. So I don't know why it would be a problem now.
"Starting by [date], we'll be making official announcements primarily from [Masto acct], and much less over time on [corporate accts]. Join here."
@wesdym @matt If I may: I don't think it will work like in the past. In the 1st migration to Mastodon and Bluesky, there were reports that accounts on X with those handles in their profiles were shadow banned. But even if they're not, the majority will not change platforms because EC moved (change "EC"" by "a couple of friends", it's the same - network effects). I've seen too many people creating accounts elsewhere finding they didn't have the same stream of info/same contacts and went back.
On the other hand, there is no technical reason why someone on Mastodon cannot follow and talk with someone on X - even Facebook made a bot inside MySpace to make people move platforms easier (many years ago I used Friendfeed, and I followed and talked with my contacts on Facebook and Twitter, without having to go to Facebook or Twitter).
But there is a legal obstacle today: DRM law, which states no one can break DRM even for legal purposes. No company or community will create a platform like Friendfeed today because they would have to break DRM at some point and would be taken to court.
If the European Commission really wants to solve the big platforms problems, they need to get rid of article 6 from the 2001 Copyright Directive. Doctorow has a really insightful talk about how and why to do this: https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition
