This blog is the second incarnation of a private “news” outlet. Blogs and information channels dealing with personal stuff have a different topic selection. There is no need to stay ahead of current events. Your hobby and your interests may or may not be interesting for others. If you don’t want to deep dive into long articles, fancy content management systems, or blog software, then there is microblogging. Just write a few sentences, add a picture, and you are done. People used Twitter this way before it turned into a cesspool of questionable accounts publishing hate speech. So what about alternatives? The Fediverse looks ok, right? Right, but there is a catch.

Centralised platforms have an agenda. They usually need to earn money, so there is a general purpose and direction for the distributed content. News is a fine product to put on your platform, but creating it is expensive. If you ask real journalists, then news is something no one else knows before it is published. Plus, it is true and checked for errors in advance. Ideally, it is neutral, but information takes sides. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a decentralised platform where making money is not the principal goal? The Fediverse looks like the place you should publish your microblogging texts. I have spent some time on Twitter, deleted my account, and moved my microblogging activity to the Fediverse. The atmosphere is different. There are fewer news channels available. This may change, but it depends on the culture of the local Fediverse server. There are discussions about what content to federate, how the toots should look like, how you should mark the content (sensitive or not), and lots of other nuances in opinion. Moderating content is difficult. Given the people who will abuse your platform, you probably need to check the toots sporadically. And so you are back to the problems of centralised microblogging platforms.

My main argument in favour of the Fediverse is the missing agenda. While no billionaire with mental illness can buy the platform and destroy it, the volunteers can run out of resources. Keep this in mind and think about donating to your local instance or to Free Software in general.