iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Johannes Ernst @j12t.org · 30/09/2026

Always nice to see your code working, even if it is a trivial gimmick: the hourglass countdown to next week's FediForum now has most of the sand in the bottom glass. Live: fediforum.org

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Johannes Ernst @j12t.org · 23/07/2026

My (single) slide from the panel at the EU office in San Francisco yesterday. It must have resonated because the other panelists also kept referring to it in their remarks!

Graphic. Left column: "From: centralized, autocratically governed, global-scale social media platforms" showing a prototypical but unnamed commercial social media platform with lots of users. 1 platform for the world, 1 approach to T&S, 1 leader in charge, 1 economic model (ads.
Right column: "Towards: locally run and governed, connected communities on the Open Social Web.." showing a federation with nodes with some random Fediverse and ATmosphere logos, with local communities around each of them. Thousands, millions of communities, T&S / governance / economic models by and as appropriate for the community. List of some key enables, and some term definitions.
And if you read it this far, I'm glad I took the time :-)

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Johannes Ernst @j12t.org · 29/06/2026

Today’s additional job title: castle tower builder. Well, castle tower build machine overseer.

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Johannes Ernst @j12t.org · 07/06/2026

This is a better photo.

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Johannes Ernst @j12t.org · 05/06/2026

From today's Open Social Awards ceremony.

Photo of the award stage with moderator and members of the jury. Audrey Tang and I joined by video.

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Johannes Ernst @j12t.org · 31/05/2026

This is, I think, the "melting pot" at its best. Somebody went out of their way to research and making voting as welcoming to immigrated citizens as they could. In the outrage that much of the US is committing all the time these days, this is heartening.

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Johannes Ernst @j12t.org · 23/05/2026

I am at loss for words. From the SpaceX S1 filing. Can anybody even remotely believe this?

Chart with claimed total addressable market.

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Johannes Ernst @j12t.org · 12/05/2026

I'm kinda flabbergasted that all of a sudden, a very prominent "Fediverse" item has shown up in a prime location in the #Threads UI. It leads to all the posts of accounts outside of Threads that I'm following from within Threads via ActivityPub.

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Johannes Ernst @j12t.org · 27/10/2025

One thing I love about elections in California is how many options there are to cast your ballot. I chose to vote in person more than a week ahead of voting day. A certain sign of how much a party or governments supports democracy is whether they make it easier or harder to vote.

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Johannes Ernst @j12t.org · 26/08/2025

So if it is true, as I posted yesterday, that it costs about $1-$2 per user per month to run a social network at scale ... ... and if we wanted a big part of humanity to be able to escape the walled gardens ... we need just a bit of money. And donations. And volunteer hours. Totalling a mere ...

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Johannes Ernst @j12t.org · 25/08/2025

What would it cost to run the #fediverse at scale? With billions instead of millions of users? What does it cost to run a social network anyway? According to the annual reports of two companies that should know, the comparable seems to be about $1-$2 per user per month. And .. 1/2

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Johannes Ernst @j12t.org · 22/08/2025

The world we have -- in social media, and more broadly in tech -- vs the world we want. Does this look about right?

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Johannes Ernst @j12t.org · 21/08/2025

7% of people already are getting their news from AI, and it's not even something the AI companies are pushing. Given this incredible quote from Elon, and the blend of AI and social media he and others are working on, how long until the "news" that arrives with people is entirely fictional? 1/3

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Johannes Ernst @j12t.org · 20/08/2025

Social media has become the most used source of news. Commercial social media that is -- the one that has an opaque algorithm between you and the news that optimizes for the business benefit of the platform, not you getting unbiased news. What could possibly go wrong? 1/2

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Johannes Ernst @j12t.org · 19/08/2025

How big is the open social web, the #fediverse, #bluesky etc compared to the big commercial platforms? It's a bit sobering. From my recent talk "From millions to billions -- a plausible narrative for how to grow the open social web."

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Johannes Ernst @j12t.org · 16/05/2025

My neck of the woods is trying to get 7000 people out into the streets at the same time Trump has his Soviet-style, dictator-style, imperialist-style birthday military parade on June 14. Sounds ambitious? Yes. Important? Yes. Consider finding / creating a similar event in your neck of the woods.

Flyer: No kings. 7x7k. 7 miles of resistance, 7000 resisters. From Tesla Palo Alto to Tesla Sunnyvale.

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Johannes Ernst @j12t.org · 24/12/2024

CNN: “Putin considers Russia expansion. If he’s serious, a territorial expansion into Ukrainian, Georgia and Moldova would rival the Louisiana Purchase.” Oops, I must have gotten the imperialist wrong here. @cnn.com, are you out of your mind?

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