Chris Trottier

Thank you to @Flipboard and @mike for having me as a guest on your podcast!

I’m loving the word that #Flipboard is doing, and their @surf (currently in beta) is one of my favourite apps. Not just social media app, but my favourite app.

https://about.flipboard.com/fediverse/chris-trottier/

On the #Fediverse, more and more grifters are exploiting the tragedy of #Gaza to scam well-meaning people out of their money.

Now how do I know this person is a grifter? Here’s the clues:

1. No verification of identity on her profile
2. The exact same message from this account has been posted to multiple accounts on Twitter – all claiming to be from “Esha Rluyth”. (🔗Proof).
3. Rluyth isn’t even an Arabic surname, and it’s unlikely to be Palestinian.
4. The profile photo has been scraped from Badoo, a dating site – and first appeared in 2017 targetting Morocco. (🔗Proof).
5. The same #spam message is being spammed again and again to multiple recipients within seconds.

I have already blocked and reported this person but everyone should know that grifters are exploiting Palestinian trauma for their own financial gain.

Now I know a few people will get angry with me saying this because they believe that we should give all requests of mutual aid the benefit of the doubt. But grifters lie, and they know they can take your money because of “the benefit of the doubt”.

More to the point, money should actually go to people in Gaza who have experienced harm.

These grifters should feel shame but they have absolutely no shame. They are absolute scum.

(Medien: 1)

This is a unique experiment in the Fediverse.

To explain what’s happening with my account:

I’ve created a new art form.

I don’t mean this in a pretentious “guy in a turtleneck sniffing his own farts” way. I mean, literally, I’ve invented a form of art that hasn’t been done before. And to understand it, you first need to understand what’s happening.

A long time ago, I organized photos into categories and themes for an ARG (alternate reality game) centered around r/Sizz. But then Reddit went and enshittified itself, forcing me to abandon the original plan.

From that, I learned a crucial lesson:

• Never depend on an external platform to host my work.
• Always build redundancies so the work can survive.

Keep that in mind—it’s key to what happens next.

I tried migrating the ARG to my personal server, atomicpoet.org, but I hit a wall:

The Fediverse makes it really hard to build an art community, and by extension, an ARG. The platform favors certain topics—politics and tech do well, but art? Not so much.

At first, I was frustrated. But then I had an idea:

What if the same content could look completely different depending on where you view it?

Mastodon and Lemmy attract different audiences, which means people interpret the same post in completely different ways. What if I leaned into that?

That’s when I discovered Piefed.

• Its moderation tools gave me exactly what I needed.
• Its masonry-style layout prioritized images over text—perfect for what I was building.

On Mastodon, my posts look like scattered poetry, fiction, and chaotic personal musings:
🔗 Example

But on Piefed, those same posts take on an aesthetically unified theme:
🔗 Example

Two completely different experiences—from the exact same content. The way each platform processes posts creates a divergent reality.

Think of it like this:

• My personal account = a light beam
• ActivityPub = a prism
• Piefed communities = different “colors” refracting from that prism

Each community on Piefed has its own theme and patterns:
🔗 Lumoura
🔗 Blue
🔗 Dustbloom
🔗 Sizz

Look closely, and you’ll see that these patterns form a larger story—one I’ll eventually compile into multiple books.

Instead of making you guess the “game,” I’m telling you upfront: this is how it works.

And none of it would be possible without ActivityPub and the way different platforms interpret content.

@fediverse

The Verge just interviewed Evan Prodroumou. That is, @evan, Research Director at @swf, and co-author of #ActivityPub. And he shares some big news:

• The W3C is working on end to end encryption for ActivityPub
• The W3C is also working on group standards that have interoperability across the #Fediverse
• Evan predicts a big 100M+ user network joining the Fediverse, and it’s not Threads

https://www.theverge.com/the-vergecast/618904/electric-cars-robotaxis-activitypub-fediverse-vergecast

@fediversenews

Mutual aid spam is becoming a problem on the Fediverse.

And to be sure, I’m not against mutual aid. What I am against is spam.

This person has not verified who she is – or even if the profile picture is hers. Additional research on her name states she is a scammer with a record of grifting. I am therefore skeptical that any donations will help anyone in need.

Folks, please be cautious with mutual aid requests. Yes, people sometimes need help. But people also lie.

@fediverse

(Medien: 1)

Hashtags do not replace groups.

No one moderates them. They’re easy to hijack and spam. And there’s simply no permanence to them.

Which is why, if you actually want to discuss something, it’s better to tag a group. For example, if you want to be part of an actual PC gaming community on the Fediverse, it’s better to tag @pcgaming@lemmy.ca than #pcgaming.

This needs to be common knowledge because people new to the Fediverse do not know about groups. Hell, I’d say people who have had Mastodon accounts for years still don’t know. And that’s a shame.

@fediverse

Yep, you can post from a #Pixelfed account to a #Piefed community!

This is a big bloody deal to me, and I have lots of use cases for that ability!

Basically, this means my #Pixelfed account doesn’t have to be devoted to a single topic anymore! I can put all my images on one account and sort them according to community—which can also be used by others!

Here’s the original Pixelfed post:

https://pixelfed.social/p/atomicpoet/798415830074783205

Here’s how it exists on Piefed:

https://lemmy.world/post/25860736

And the screenshot is how it appears in the #Lemmy app @voyagerapp.

@fediversenews

(Medien: 1)

Just discovered Emissary. It’s a social web toolkit that’s “designed for end users, app creators, and hosting admins”. It’s a highly customizable and scalable ActivityPub-enabled server software with few dependencies.

Only two known servers currently use #Emissary, but one of them is highly prominent: bandwagon.fm.

This has lots of potential if you want to build federated social web software with a specific use case scenario in mind.

Here’s the website:

https://emissary.dev/

Here’s their Git repo:

https://github.com/EmissarySocial/emissary

And here’s their kanban board:

https://trello.com/b/Ir9dDTdu/emissary-dev

@fediversenews

NeoDB now has five active servers!

All of them allow new sign-ups. The newest server, neodb.kevga.de, is aimed at #German speakers.

If you’re unfamiliar with #NeoDB, it is a media database and social platform that allows users to review art and media. It is similar to #GoodReads, #RateYourMusic, and #LetterBoxd. #Bookwyrm does something similar, but its specifically made for books.

NeoDB has a public user count of 20,713 with 1,980 MAUs.

https://neodb.net/servers/

@fediversenews

A Pixelfed non-profit is coming soon!

@dansup, the creator of #Pixelfed, has announced progress with the formation of the Pixelfed Foundation.

He’s already set up a website for it.

https://pixelfed.foundation/

@fediversenews