[Opinion] Traditional vs alternative or decentralized social networks.

Let's face the reality. The changes in social politics in United States has caused that social networks adopt guidelines that further seek to affect the rights of vulnerable people, like women, people of color, migrants in USA, and LGBTIQPA+ people. And that's why a lot of people search alternatives in other networks. But what are our options? Well, I'll share some of my experience.

Contents

  1. A little bit of background
  2. How do alternative networks work
  3. Troubles in the paradise: Not everything is so perfect
  4. Blocking the big corporations
  5. Personal comments: What are my plans?
  6. Final comments: What can I suggest you to do?

A little bit of background

It's not that everything went downhill overnight. In fact, one of the first times I saw a migration from a social network was when Elon Musk bought what used to be Twitter back then in the now distant year of 2022, and a lot of people decided to look for alternatives. The ones that resonated the most were Tumblr and Mastodon.

And now, recently, in mid-January 2025, Meta (owners of Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp) changed their moderation guidelines “in favor of a greater freedom of speech”, but that now they allow certain dehumanization to the vulnerable groups mentioned above, distorting the rules of such speech. And this time, several movements have organized to migrate to these alternative networks, such #VámonosJuntas and #GlobalSwitchDay to migrate to Mastodon. But not everyone is aware of this platform, or others like BlueSky, Pixelfed, Friendica or the ones you can think about.

But these networks have something special that separates them from networks managed by corporations like Meta, X corp, Microsoft and others. Most of them are managed by individuals like you and me. But how do they do it?

How do alternative networks work

Now, the good stuff on this matter. The interesting point is that most of the networks mentioned on this post is that they don't rely only on one server, but on several servers speaking the same language, interconnected between them, located in several places all around the world. This is known as decentralization. Because, unlike these networks, traditional networks have their servers on one central location, and they depend on only one organization.

And platforms like Mastodon, Pixelfed, or even BlueSky don't rely only on a single person. Anyone with the knowledge and will can create a server to extend the platform of their preference, or register on the server of anyone else. There are several ways to make the decentralized networks grow.

The first one that I knew was based on this principle was Diaspora, and this one uses its own protocol, called Diaspora protocol (yeah, they didn't want to think too much with this) to communicate with all of the servers of this network.

BlueSky also uses its own protocol, this time called Authenticated Transfer Protocol. This one basically does the same thing as the Diaspora one, but this seems to be exclusive (at the moment) for BlueSky. Although I don't doubt that it will soon be available to interact with the apps they will create.

And Mastodon, Pixelfed and WriteFreely, among others, use the ActivityPub protocol to interact between them. This protocol was created by the W3C, or the consortium that defines the used standards around all of the internet back then in 2018, however, the concept of Fediverse was created, as they say, in 2016. Which is based, as the name says, in the federation between servers.

What do I mean with federation? Simple. Each server, or instance, can decide to federate (or share and receive content) with another instance. For example, let's say that Emily, Rain and Chiaki are good friends, and they all chat between them. Chiaki also befriends Nagisa and Theo. Eventually, Theo befriends Emily and Rain, too. At some point, Emily decides she doesn't want to be friends with Theo, but still wants to talk to Chiaki and Nagisa, and Theo still talks to Nagisa, Chiaki and Rain. Theo cannot communicate with Emily anymore.

Illustrated, it would be more or less like this, with the colored lines indicating who can communicate with who.

This was the first rough example that I could think of, but I hope it can serve as an illustrative point of what the federation is.

Going back to the topic of servers, we can see that each person here acts as an instance of one of these platforms.

And all of these networks are part of this magical world of The Fediverse. I'll leave this illustration of some of the platforms that are part of it.

As you can see, there are platforms speaking more than one protocol, and that's why even networks not speaking the ActivityPub protocol do form part of the Fediverse. As a person that you may know that speaks two or even three languages (yours truly, for example, also has the Spanish version of this blog, but that's not the point :P).

Speaking a little bit more in depth about instances, there are obviously all kinds of instances. Both for general purposes like the ones we're used to, and for specific purposes or for certain communities. For example, my current Mastodon profile is in an geek-themed instance, more focused in videogames, comics and tech (and it's a coincidence that I fill the profile, although I also share my personal drama), my Pixelfed profile is in a general purpose instance, but with preference for the Spanish language, and obviously my WriteFreely instance is completely closed to, well, basically being a monument to my ego. Also, there are instances dedicated to Train fans, or to be feminist transinclusive spaces, or why not? Furry communities for the Fediverse.

I'm generally well settled with my presence in the Fediverse, but of course there are not so pretty stuff in there. Allow me to explain myself.

Troubles in the paradise: Not everything is so perfect

By being an open space where every kind of people can enter, and all kinds of communities can exist, obviously there are undesirable communities. From far-right communities to entire instances dedicated to sharing adult content (sadly, not necessarily with adults. I don't want to explicitly say it, but you get me). And even decent communities can have troubles, more likely related with content moderation. For example, on really big instances, moderators can't handle too many people, and a lot of shady things end up seeing the light. And on really small instances, you can have issues with the people over there. In fact, a few days ago I migrated from a small Mastodon instance to a somewhat bigger but well administered one, due to personal issues I had with someone over there. I won't spill my personal life (that much xd), but I do say I don't feel like walking on eggshells anymore.

With that said, several people whom I have interacted with say they're really well in the Fediverse, and don't tend to find that kind of inappropriate content. However, we must thank moderators and administrators of the instances for that, who are in charge of overseeing the content and defederate (or stop communication) and blocking those kinds of instances. That's why it's important to go to an instance with a good moderation team that it's present and interacts with the instance.

Furthermore, there have been efforts by corporations, wanting to integrate with the Fediverse, like Meta with Threads and Automattic with Tumblr. Honestly, at first I thought it could be a good idea so more people could know this world. But as you may know, these corporations like to collect data and sell it to announcers, besides being able to be used for politic manipulation (as, some people say, it happened with X in the 2024 USA elections). That's why they represent big threats to the privacy of people in the Fediverse that precisely seek to escape those networks.

Blocking the big corporations

With this, there are some initiatives to stop communicating with the servers of these corporations. The most important ones, the FediPact for Meta, and the FediPact 2 for Automattic, both initiatives organized by Vanta Rainbow Black. These initiatives show a great feeling of anger and fighting against corporations so they don't contaminate these spaces with their toxicity. Or at least, that's how I see it.

These are initiatives that instance administrators sign to compromise to block these corporations, and accessing the links of these FediPacts, you can see the instances that have already signed them. Although I'll be honest. These sites are very fuck my eyes, so I recommend that, if you're able to, reduce your screen brightness before entering. ^^;

Fun fact: As creator of this space connected with the Fediverse, I also wanted to sign these pacts and block these servers. But it seems that, as WriteFreely doesn't have a federated timeline, I think the software developers didn't think of adding the option to defederate from WriteFreely, so, in the meantime, I have my hands tied.

With that said, there are sites like Fediverse Observer and Fedi Garden that can help you locate an instance of the type of platform of your preference, under certain parameters. Like language, location, size, platform, and topics. And in the particular case of Fedi Garden, it only shows instances that have signed the FediPact.

Personal comments: What are my plans?

Obviously I'm writing this post mentioning these alternative networks for a particular reason. As user of social media and free software enthusiast, my plan is to slowly move to these alternative networks. Actually, this process has already started. My main social network where I publish advances of my translations and interact with people is Mastodon, and my X profile has already been deleted since December 2024. Even my Instagram profile and my public Facebook page are being discontinued, and eventually I'm gonna end up deleting those profiles too, keeping only my personal Facebook profile only to keep communicating with my family and friends who don't want to switch to the Fediverse. Because it's also valid not wanting to do it. It's not an obligation, but a recommendation from the bottom of my heart

Final comments: What can I suggest you to do?

Short answer: Nothing xd.

This post is actually more informative to make known this digital world with more freedom. Although I'd personally like that more people were interested in this, I know it's not for everyone. And if you try some of the projects of the Fediverse, and decide it's not for you, it's okay. I'd simply like to see this as a way to expand people's horizons, and if this may sound too idealist, well, maybe I am. In the end, this is merely my personal opinion.

And if you decide to stay, well, please follow me on Mastodon and Pixelfed.

This post is kind of long on its own, and I haven't covered in detail the existing platforms. That's why, I have a second part, dedicated only and exclusively to mention in more detail the existing Fediverse platforms and their main features.

And if you got here, thanks a lot for reading. See ya! :D