steve (@steve@social.technoetic.com)
I'm curious what other devs think about this. If an actor posts an C2S #ActivityPub Create/Note to the outbox, what would you think if the object created by the server was a different type (e.g., Article)?
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K9UNZ (@K9UNZ@mastodon.radio)
@crossgolf_rebel Thanks for this! Friendica will run on my existing LAMP server so I'm going to put up an instance and check it out! I've been running LAMP sites for almost as long as LAMP has been available... I'm old. Worth a try. #fediverse #activitypub #mastodon #friendica
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jamie (@jamie@zomglol.wtf)
I haven't published the code for the ActivityPub project yet because I haven't written the code that lets users post things. For the moment, it just implements webfinger and `Person` payloads.
Still quite a bit to do to get it to a baseline of talking to other AP implementations like Mastodon and Ktistec, but I'll post more here when I get that working.
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archives (@archives@neon-blue-demon-wyrm.x10.network)
Astroturfing Is Pretty Pointless When Social Subgraphs Are Fragmented (e.g., the Fediverse)
I am seeing astroturfing in the fediverse again, by AT Protocol developers implicitly trying to shill their products. I think it is stochastic behavior by developers with too much time on their hands. Honestly, I do not care. I like the people on ActivityPub more, but I like the AT Protocol better, and I have developed for both. Astroturfing on ActivityPub networks is fascinating to me because it is so pointless.
I am actually a Computational Biologist and Computer Scientist whose specialty is combinatorics, social graphs, graph theory, etc. Specifically, I use this to create epidemiological models for the memetic layer of human behaviors that act as vectors for diseases, using the SIRS model. I do not just study germs; I study human behaviors.
The models I construct extend into a “memetic layer,” in which beliefs, norms, and behaviors (such as risk-taking, compliance with public health measures, or susceptibility to misinformation) spread contagiously through social networks. These behaviors function as vectors that modulate biological transmission rates. As a result, the spread of ideas can accelerate, dampen, or reshape the spread of disease. By running computational simulations and agent-based models on these graphs, I study how network structure, influential nodes, clustering, and platform-specific dynamics affect behavioral contagion. I also examine how these factors influence epidemiological outcomes.
To say it very concisely, I study how the spread of bat-shit insane beliefs, shit posts, and memes influences whether or not there is a measles outbreak in Texas. Ironically, this is an evolution of my studying semiotics, memetics, and chaos magick in high school. I got a job where I can use occult, anarchist techniques professionally.
I think a large reason why I do not care about astroturfing in the fediverse is that it’s so pointless, lol. Astroturfing to manipulate the narrative would actually work better on Bluesky to keep people there than trying to recruit from the fediverse. Furthermore, big instances are relatively small. Some people on Bluesky have follower lists larger than an entire large instance in the fediverse.
Within ActivityPub networks, astroturfing rarely propagates far, because whether information spreads depends on properties of the social graph itself. Dense connectivity, short paths between communities, and a sufficient number of cross-cutting ties support diffusion. ActivityPub’s architecture tends to produce graphs that are fragmented and highly modular. This limits the reach of coordinated activity.
ActivityPub is a system where each instance maintains its own local user graph and exchanges activities through inboxes and outboxes. This makes it autonomous and decentralized. The network consists of loosely connected subgraphs. Cross-instance edges appear only through explicit follow relationships. The ActivityPub protocol does not provide a shared or complete view of the network. Measurements of the fediverse consistently show uneven connectivity between instances, clustering at the instance level, and relatively long effective path lengths across the network. Under these conditions, large cascades are uncommon.
Instance-level clustering means that in ActivityPub networks, users interact much more with others on the same server than with users on different servers. Because each instance has its own local timeline, culture, and moderation, connections form densely within instances and only sparsely across them through explicit follow relationships. This creates a network made up of tightly connected local communities linked by relatively few cross-instance ties, which slows the spread of information beyond its point of origin.
However, with the AT Protocol, global indexing and aggregation are explicitly supported. Relays and indexers can assemble near-complete views of the social graph. Applications built on top of this infrastructure operate over a graph that is denser and easier to traverse. There are fewer structural barriers between communities. The diffusion dynamics change substantially when content can move across the graph without relying on narrow federated paths.
Astroturfing depends on coordinated amplification, typically through tightly synchronized clusters of accounts intended to manufacture visibility. Work on coordinated inauthentic behavior shows that these tactics gain traction when they intersect highly connected regions of the graph or bridge otherwise separate communities. In networks with strong modularity, coordination remains local. ActivityPub’s federation model produces this kind of modularity by default. Coordinated clusters stand out clearly within instances. Their effects remain confined to those local neighborhoods.
Astroturfing on ActivityPub therefore tends to stall on its own because of the underlying graph topology. Without dense inter-instance connectivity or any form of global indexing, coordinated campaigns have a hard time moving beyond the immediate regions where they originate. Systems built on globally indexable social graphs, including those enabled by the AT Protocol, expose a much larger surface for viral spread. Network structure and connectivity account for the divergence where that is independent of moderation, cultural norms, ideology, or intent.
It’s just really funny to me how these stochastic techbro groups waste so many resources. I personally don’t want to go viral, which is why I avoid platforms where I can. The fact that it’s harder to achieve high virality on ActivityPub is exactly why I prefer the fediverse over the Atmosphere. One way to think about it is that you can change the ‘genetics’ of a system with a retrovirus, where memetic entities act as cultural retroviruses to reprogram the cultural loci of a space. That is their end goal. They are trying to hijack cultures memetically. You see this a lot with culture jamming.
Basically, the astroturfing on ActivityPub networks is designed to jam and subvert the culture. But, as I have already said, the topological structure makes memetic virality stall. They cannot achieve that kind of viral spread in the fediverse, which is why I cannot understand why they do this every year.
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mousey (@mousey@mastodon.seattlematrix.org)
I feel like people get mad at fedi like it's one place. It's not one place..
The diagrams on the left and right are "One Place". Either Centralized, or Decentralized-centralization.
Mastodon (sites like it, and #ActivityPub in general) work like the *middle* graph..
A wide variety of whole communities could very well be the "three" planets in the lower left of the middle graph, unfederated from larger collectives.
#fedi is more than just moderation tools, it's community tools.
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the-programmers-fulcrum-06-february-2026 (@the-programmers-fulcrum-06-february-2026@newsletter.mobileatom.net)
The Programmer’s Fulcrum: 06 February, 2026
This post originally appeared on The Fulcrum.
Welcome to this week’s The Programmer’s Fulcrum.
It’s your weekly review of the essential news in the Open Media Network and Fediverse development communities with a focus on devastating big tech via Techno Anarchism. We aim to provide actionable content you can use to destroy Techno Feudalism each week. It has the additional benefit of weakening […]
https://newsletter.mobileatom.net/the-programmers-fulcrum-06-february-2026/ #ActivityPub #ATProto #Bonfire #CSS #DrupalCMS #fediverse #firefox #Ghost #Gutenberg #Holos #HTML #HTMX #javascript #Krita #LibreOffice #Linux #Mastodon #Mozilla #Nextcloud #OMN #OpenProject #OpenProject #Scribus #signal #WebComponents #WordPress #xWiki
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apps (@apps@toot.fedilab.app)
With https://discover.holos.social we may have highlighted that many Fediverse users don't pay attention to their default settings. We built a fully respectful search engine that only relies on #ActivityPub, with instant deletion, updates, and indexing only consenting users. We will likely shut down the service, but the source code will remain available as we believe the approach is ethical. That same indexable setting already lets Google index your posts and keep them cached long after deletion.
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Larvitz (@Larvitz@burningboard.net)
New blog post: I added Fediverse-based comments to my Pelican blog.
No Disqus, no database, just the Mastodon API and a bit of JavaScript.
Replies to this post will show up as comments on the article.
Inspired by the blog of @jwildeboer - I ported it to Pelican's Jinja2 templates.
https://blog.hofstede.it/adding-fediverse-comments-to-a-pelican-blog/
#Fediverse #Mastodon #ActivityPub #Pelican #Blog #SelfHosting
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public-discourse (@public-discourse@islandinthenet.com)
Public Discourse
I thought about why accepting blog comments via email does not work for me.https://islandinthenet.com/public-discourse/
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countablenewt (@countablenewt@mastodon.social)
RE: https://mastodon.social/@countablenewt/116033103469375924
Not every client for every #ActivityPub service needs to show all content
Take #FediReader, for example
Most of the content on #Mastodon isn't immediately visible in the UI
Posts without links don't show up at all, quote boosts don't show up at all, and any text content shared with the post is hidden in the post detail view
The fun thing about the #SocialWeb is that we can make highly opinionated clients like this for the people who want it
For those that don't, they don't have to use it
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K9UNZ (@K9UNZ@mastodon.radio)
@crossgolf_rebel Good point. I guess it is easy to equate mastodon with the fediverse and forget all the feeds and services that participate. I appreciate that it is an open experience, user supported, that I control, not some corporate overlord and I can follow and comment as I want. #mastodon #fediverse #activitypub
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dagb (@dagb@snabelen.no)
Jeg er hovedtrener og styreleder i en Taekwondoklubb. Det er per i dag ingen reelle alternativ til metas plattformer for å være synlig for foresatte og unge, men jeg sleper mer og mer føttene etter meg.
Klubben har opprettet profil på Hudd og publiserer via #activitypub i fødiverset.
Følg gjerne @news om du er interessert i #kampsport og #taekwondo.
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