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Connected Places

@fediversereport.com

855 followers 4 following 246 posts

Connected Places gives you an in-depth overview of the world of decentralised social networks. I write a weekly newsletter about the ATmosphere, a […] 🌉 bridged from mastodon.social/@fediversereport on the fediverse by fed.brid.gy

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Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 6h

working through the proposed EU Kids Act for the next article and my feelings range between “im gonna jump into the fucking canal” and crying

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 28/09/2026

want to know what cool updates have been happening to fediverse software in the last 3 months? I've got you covered! connectedplaces.online/fediverse-ne…

connectedplaces.online

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 21/09/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@fediversereport/11… shoutout to a German court for getting the facts about Bluesky wrong but the interpretation right, in a new ruling that for once actually has positive implications for open social networks […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 19/09/2026

writing about european platform governance is so fucking cursed

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 19/09/2026

lol

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 19/09/2026

RE: eupolicy.social/@ilumium/1172975587… aaaaaahhhhh connectedplaces.online/the-algorith…

Apollo's Gift Of Prophecy Dodgeball meme

For now, the practical outcome of this ruling that this is a soft precedent, where the Grand Chamber sent the case back to the national courts, and the first national rulings will draw the lines that everyone else follows. Whether a court sees a decomposed network as a set of components or as one integrated service is going to be decided, in practice, by whoever explains the architecture to the court first, and a court left to improvise will improvise from the platform default, because the platform is the only shape that it knows. The people building open networks have a window to write their own architecture down, clearly, in the places lawyers actually read, before somebody else’s account of it hardens into doctrine. On current evidence, the lawyers are not going to figure out the difference between a PDS and an appview on their own.

Meta cannot do so with reference to the so-called. Digital Services Act thus relieves that it has had no knowledge of the fake advertising. In a recent judgment (“Webgroup and Coyote”), the ECJ ruled that a service provider would be liable if it exercised control of the content. The judges stated: “The defendant decides on the order of precedence and the timing of advertisements in the context of an automated auction procedure. (...) And the defendant controls the display of user content in the feeds of the users by algorithms.” Unlike purely chronological user feeds such as Mastodon or BlueSky, Meta exerts control over the displayed advertising content.

Reposted by Connected Places

Jan Penfrat @ilumium.eupolicy.social.ap.brid.gy · 19/09/2026

Based on @Curia's infamous #Coyote ruling, the courts continue to chip away at the #DSA's conditional intermediary liability exemption. This latest judgement from the #Frankfurt court in #Germany has a particularity though: AFAIK it's the first court ruling that explicitly mentions #Mastodon & […]

eupolicy.social

Original post on eupolicy.social

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Bonfire @bonfire.bonfire.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 19/09/2026

Originally published on Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy blog, this article by @s0hw@hci.social and @andresmh@hci.social reflects on a semester of collaboration with Bonfire. Together, we explored how Governance Cards could help communities describe how they organise and […]

Original post on bonfire.cafe

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 16/09/2026

new from me: AI Watermarking runs into issues with decentralisation and governance, in a way that resembles the challenges of open social networks connectedplaces.online/ai-watermark…

connectedplaces.online

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 07/07/2026

I read the new EU Court ruling on algorithms and social platforms so you don't have to. Turns out to be the most consequential thing a European court has said about recommendation algorithms, and also it just breaks when you apply it to the atmosphere […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Reposted by Connected Places

Mastodon @mastodon.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 29/06/2026

The annual #SocialWeb Operations Survey from @iftas is open! With over 8,000 active installs, we want the #Mastodon community's voice to be heard. Whether you're running a single-person server or a larger community hub, your feedback directly shapes the […] [Original post on mastodon.social]

Graphic promoting the 2026 Social Web Operations Survey, that features a colourful design with icons representing various platforms. The text reads, "2026 Social Web Operations Survey (formerly known as the Moderator Needs Assessment). Now Open: moderators, admins, community managers... your voice matters. Any platform, any protocol."

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 26/06/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@fediversereport/11… the eYou people, a closedsource european twitterclone that is now using didplc for identity, seem to be reading my posts and have figured out the fairly horrifying implications of it

Jasseem Allybokus
Jasseem Allybokus
• 2e Co-founder & CEO @eYou — The social media you can trust.
Mijn website bezoeken
2 d • Bewerkt •

A lot of you have been asking us the same question.

"Why isn't eYou built on the AT Protocol?"

I owe you a real answer. And today, I'll give you two.

Because we've also just shipped something: you can now sign in to eYou with your Bluesky identity. It's live. People are using it.

Let me explain both.

First. Why we didn't build on AT Protocol.

AT Protocol is impressive engineering. Real respect for the team behind it.

But look closely at how it works, and at what European law requires of us.

1. The firehose. The moment you post, relays crawl your PDS and store full copies of your data. A public stream called the firehose broadcasts every post, like, and follow. It requires no authentication. Anyone can subscribe, capture, archive, and republish. Forever.

2. The right to erasure (GDPR Article 17). When you delete on AT Protocol, your PDS removes its copy. But the firehose has already broadcast it. Relays hold their own copies. Scrapers have indexed it. The protocol provides no mechanism to force them to delete. Erasure becomes a polite request, not a right.

3. The Russmedia ruling (CJEU, December 2025). This Grand Chamber decision (C-492/23) holds that platforms hosting user content qualify as joint data controllers under GDPR, with preventive obligations before publication. It also confirms that the Digital Services Act safe harbor does not displace GDPR. Applied to AT Protocol, where Relays and AppViews actively ingest and index user data, this creates a serious compliance problem. Preventing third-party copying of personal data is exactly what federation is designed not to do.

4. The did:plc identifier. AT Protocol's default identity method relies on a cryptographically chained, append-only operation log, operated as a central directory by a single US-based company. Erasing entries breaks the chain's integrity. Article 17 requires full erasure to be possible.

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 25/06/2026

ai bots are overwhelming the signup application process for fediverse servers. so how do you build community when you cannot distinguish between an LLM and a human anymore? connectedplaces.online/reports/fr16…

connectedplaces.online

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Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 23/06/2026

turns out, when elon musk posts "imprison the government," it doesn't matter much. but thousands of accounts repeating each other does so if permission for violence was never really coming from the owner, what happens on a network that has no owner at all? […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 23/06/2026

turns out, when elon musk posts "imprison the government," it doesn't matter much. but thousands of accounts repeating each other does so if permission for violence was never really coming from the owner, what happens on a network that has no owner at all? […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 18/06/2026

new in my series about @matrix: Where Rooms Go? In which I try the answer the question that kept intriguing me: Why did Matrix end up being deployed largely by European governments and militaries? connectedplaces.online/decrypting-m…

connectedplaces.online

Reposted by Connected Places

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 17/06/2026

new from me: on the European Social Stack declaration, and how decentralised networks without owners need to build their own systems for coordination connectedplaces.online/reports/fr16…

connectedplaces.online

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 17/06/2026

new from me: on the European Social Stack declaration, and how decentralised networks without owners need to build their own systems for coordination connectedplaces.online/reports/fr16…

connectedplaces.online

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 12/06/2026

New from me: After Musk helped create the permission structure for this weeks riots in Belfast, the UK government announced "no change" to its policy on X. This non-response is stranger than it looks: Weber defines the state by its exclusive right to use, threaten, and authorize force, and […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 03/06/2026

Fediverse news for May 2026 everything in fediverse needs that stood out to me from the last month, such as Lemmy gearing up for a 1.0 release, WordPress becoming a full open social web platform, and how a Russian botnet is active on the fediverse as well as a first look at the @EUCommission […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 28/05/2026

Catholic theology in a protocol blog, why not Pope Leo XIV published a new encyclical this week, and it contains surprisingly sharp observations on how to build the open social web connectedplaces.online/reports/fr16…

connectedplaces.online

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 20/05/2026

Various projects on the open social web are working towards private data, whether that's @Mastodon getting funding for adding E2EE, Lemmy's upcoming 1.0 release featuring private communities, or Bluesky's work on expanding atproto with permissioned data. Bounded communities with private data […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 13/05/2026

@darius the more i dive into the details of how the EU regulations regarding big tech are actually operating, the more im losing my mind lol its truly spectacularly bad

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Darius Kazemi @darius.friend.camp.ap.brid.gy · 13/05/2026

Lol. Lmao. From @fediversereport connectedplaces.online/reports/fr16…

Screenshot of text:

This makes it both incredibly funny and frustrating that the EC opens the report by saying that the DMA exists because “a small number of very large platforms were able to restrict competition including by imposing unfair conditions both on their business users and on end users”, only to then claim that this is now being addressed. According to the report, “alternative messaging services can now interoperate with WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, which has already led to new providers, including a European SME entering the market with innovative new functions”. The European SME that the EC proudly points to as evidence of a healthy interoperable market is a chatting app with a single rating on the Apple Store. Single rating, as in, one (1) individual person has bothered rating this app. This is the only app currently operating that allows for WhatsApp interoperability. Meanwhile, the report says nothing about why other apps like Matrix, with significantly larger userbases and real interoperability work behind them, are not actually interoperating with WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 13/05/2026

@EUCommission oh forgot that the @Curia also has an account on here. Shoo! I give you a solid thumbs down. You should be deeply ashamed of yourself for the Russmedia ruling

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 13/05/2026

RE: eupolicy.social/@hpod16/11653834471… @EUCommission I do appreciate the EC having an account on here, so I can at least tag them to say that the approach to vocally support open social networks, while the DMA misunderstands them, and the CJEU actively undermines them, is […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 13/05/2026

New from me, on the decision by the @EUCommission to not extend the DMA interoperability requirements to social media, and how this closes off a pathway for mass adoption of open social networks. connectedplaces.online/reports/fr16…

connectedplaces.online

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 06/05/2026

A writeup of two conferences about the fediverse this week, with @fediforum and the German 2MR.social conference from this week, and how they are both dealing with bridging work to both EU politics as well as atproto and the atmosphere […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 01/05/2026

New from me: Federation Has a European Legal Problem on what the recent Russmedia ruling means for open social protocols like #ActivityPub and #atproto warning: do not read if you value your sanity connectedplaces.online/federation-h…

connectedplaces.online

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Johannes Ernst @j12t.j12t.social.ap.brid.gy · 23/04/2026

Great top-level question from @LaurensHof in his newsletter "What will be the shape of the organisations that will actually build the future of the social internet?" Would make a great conversation at #FediForum next week […]

Original post on j12t.social

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 23/04/2026

@iftas thank you!!

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IFTAS @iftas.mastodon.iftas.org.ap.brid.gy · 23/04/2026

@fediversereport "...to figure out what the new institutions that are needed to build a better social internet actually look like. [...] And it seems that the main open question is: what will be the shape of the organisations that will actually build the future of the social internet?" As […]

mastodon.iftas.org

Original post on mastodon.iftas.org

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 23/04/2026

New from me: what makes social networks resilient? connectedplaces.online/reports/fr16…

connectedplaces.online

Reposted by Connected Places

Rose 🌹 @rose.bsky.team · 17/04/2026

Felix, CEO of Mastodon, and I hope to collaborate more. Mastodon has wide adoption in Europe and 8k communities (servers) running independently. The customization they give communities is inspiring to me. Public squares should be a gathering place for you to discover cozier corners/communities.

Panel with Bluesky and Mastodon at the International Journalism Festival

Reposted by Connected Places

Emelia 👸🏻 @thisismissem.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 15/04/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@fediversereport/11… A massive thanks to @laurenshof for actually attributing FediMod FIRES to me in his coverage. It means a lot to receive credit for my work!

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 15/04/2026

You can learn more about the Open Social Awards here! newpublic.org/OSA Note that Im a jury member. I know there are a ton of cool projects in this space, so go apply for it!

Open Social Awards | New_ Public

The awards aim to recognize and celebrate the breakthrough products of developers building on open protocols such as ATProtocol and ActivityPub.

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 15/04/2026

new from me: Fediverse Report #159, with the news: - The @sovtechfund funds @Mastodon with 600k to work on new features that allows servers to collaborate on things like blocklists and media storage - @surf has launched as a social webbrowser, with publications like The Verge and Wired already […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 10/04/2026

@jaz @julian i think also that in a more finetuned model, id represent the federation layer as more of a venn diagram of partially overlapping circles. however, my observation is that the cluster that was present in the Scott thread functions as one of the central clusters of which influence and […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

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Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 10/04/2026

@jaz @julian thanks for the great comments Jaz! A few thoughts: I think it bleeds through more than you (as also illustrated by that i dont really see any pro-ai collective communities on mastodon anywhere really, except maybe the terence tao cluster), but I think my main takeaway of the […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

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Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 09/04/2026

New from me: Fediverse Report #158 - What is Mastodon for? On the recent discourse about the Mastodon becoming an echo chamber and the community's anti-ai sentiment, and how the fundamental tension in that @Mastodon allows for people to create communities and 'place' on the instance level, but […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 03/04/2026

My reflections on the recent atproto atmosphereconf On how the atmosphere can be understood as a subculture, what the holdfast is, and what We Can Just Do Things means connectedplaces.online/reflections-…

connectedplaces.online

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Marci McCue @marci.flipboard.social.ap.brid.gy · 18/03/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@fediversereport/11… An excellent deep dive. I don't know how @laurenshof does it!

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 18/03/2026

new from me: What is the purpose of protocols? connectedplaces.online/the-purpose-…

connectedplaces.online

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 12/03/2026

FR#157 – Social Software Distribution on how @altstore, Tangled and npmx.dev are using open social networking protocols to build, distribute, and discover software, and how the most important part is not the code but the community building part […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 08/03/2026

@julian @silverpill @laurenshof its a big bummer tbh, i really wanted this to work. ive tried it for a long time, and i think its important as a writer about this ecosystem to dogfood the systems you write about, but it was simply not feasible anymore

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Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 08/03/2026

@julian @silverpill @laurenshof yeah, unfortunately I had to turn off federation for my wordpress blog. a persistent issue with how the cache interacts with ap makes the website show raw json when it gets popular. this has been a structural issue for a long time, and after it happened 4 times […]

mastodon.social

Original post on mastodon.social

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Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 05/03/2026

@stefan thanks!

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 05/03/2026

new from me: FR#156 - Share Where? on @Mastodon 's new Share button, the Mastodon API and protocol ownership connectedplaces.online/reports/fr15…

connectedplaces.online

Connected Places @fediversereport.com · 27/02/2026

RE: mastodon.social/@fediversereport/11… @stefan

mastodon.social

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