RE: https://mastodon.social/@anewsocial/115339394542781414 We're launching Mastodon to Bluesky/Blacksky/etc migrations next week! If you're interested in trying it before the rollout, reach out - we're looking for testers.

We're building community spaces far away from the divisive algorithms of Big Tech. We want to help bring people together. People who believe in the same causes, live in the same area, or support the same movements. Our work has already begun and we can't […] [Original post on newsmast.social]

It's that time again 🕔 We're logging off now for the weekend. It's been a really really busy week for us here but we can't wait to get back into it next week.

Fediverse Report 137 - this week's #fediverse news - @altstore joins the fediverse, and you can interact with apps on the alternative iOS app store now via your fediverse accounts. Altstore also made a 500k USD donation to various fediverse platforms - @Mastodon#fediverseis getting Starter Packs, with […]

We’re thrilled to be bringing you a upcoming feature to help you find your people on Mastodon: Packs. (Or something… we’re still figuring out the name.) As always, we want to build this important feature for the community WITH the community. Read this blog post about our approach and let us know […]

October is Black History Month in the UK 🤎 🖤 Black history is woven into the identity of the UK. The theme this year is 'Standing Firm in Power and Pride', focusing on the power of individuals in history who exercised courage, vision, and agency. You can […] [Original post on newsmast.social]

FediForum begins later today! We're so excited to see all the cool things happening in the Fediverse and the wider Social Web. If you're going to be showing off what you're working on, we wish you the best of luck. If not, we hope you have fun 🕺 #fediforum #fediverse #socialweb #mastodon

In this week's Web Technology News, I unveil a new and improved format. I've added a "WTN Note" to many of the news items, so that this becomes more of a business and strategy briefing than just a list of interesting links. The 3 categories are now: 1. Web Platform Opportunities 2. Open Social […]

It's the first Friday of spooky season 🧙‍♀️ We'll be back on Monday after we've dusted off our spell books.

🔥 Bonfire now supports post imports when migrating instances. You can bring your posts (+ optionally replies) with you when moving to a Bonfire instance from another instance or platform. Imported posts keep their original dates and URIs. Threads are preserved, as are like/boost counts. It […]

Fediverse Report 136 - This week's #fediverse news - @newsmast#fediversetakes a new direction with a white-label app for news organisations that also offers fediverse integration - a paper by @inquiline on targeted harassment on Mastodon - #activitypub Fuzzer is a new tool that helps devs with […]

Your profile on the Open Social Web looks the same as your profile on Big Tech social platforms, but there's a big difference. Your profile is no longer a profile on a platform, but an address across a web. You can use it to signal far and wide, across […] [Original post on newsmast.social]

Today we're wishing our friends a meaningful Yom Kippur. The Day of Atonement is a Jewish holy day, in which practising Jews ask for forgiveness. It may be intended for children, but this explanation of Yom Kippur by BBC Bitesize is the best we can find! 👇 […] [Original post on newsmast.social]

Things are coming together at @newsmast. Here’s the big idea we’re working on: What if every community could have their own early-Twitter, driven by an own-branded mobile app, as easy to build as Facebook Groups? #fediverse #socialmedia #community […]

"Where the social connection for a Facebook Group is the Meta walled garden, our community apps connect through to the open social web, on the Fediverse, and, across the bridge, Bluesky." @michael on the Newsmast Foundation and everything we're up to at the moment […]

Some new users give up on the Open Social Web after only a few days of trying. So, how do we help people who manage to make an account stay engaged in the Open Social Web? Show them people and posts they like, on topics they love. That's why we built 62 topical Newsmast Channels and then […]

We're sad to see that IFTAS Connect has begun the process of shutting down. We, like many other server admins, often found advice and help from the community there. We hope that by preserving the 'Connect' news feed with Channel.org tech we can give back to the community. Thank you for the […]

It's the weekend! Have a great time and we'll see you on Monday at 9am here in the UK 🦆

📢 Join us for the next News Club Live! 🗓️ Tuesday 30th September ⏰ 17:00 (BST) Come together to explore the week’s news, share perspectives, and dig deeper into the stories that shape our world. 🌍📰

Pay or consent advertising is coming the UK 👎 At the Newsmast Foundation we oppose this binary choice approach to advertising which will, without doubt, affect the most marginalised communities. We hope that the UK will follow the example of the EU and block Meta from actioning this change […]

What are you a fan of? 🎸 🏀 Whether it's sports, music, TV, or something else. It's human nature to be a fan. But here on the Social Web, it can sometimes be hard to find fan content, leading to many hanging around platforms like X for their fan content […] [Original post on newsmast.social]

🍎 The Forbidden Fruit Social media is designed to keep you there, giving you everything you think you need, from AI-trained algorithms that know your favourite dog breed, to adverts and shops which will throw the next-best-thing in your face. But, you don't have to stay confined within the […]

From tomorrow, our team are meeting up for a long weekend to brainstorm, collaborate, and improve what we do here at the Newsmast Foundation so please be aware we may not be as responsive as usual!

The investigative newsroom I work for, @ProPublica, is raising money right now. This is the last few days of our pledge drive. We report on abuses of power in the public interest. We reported on who works for DOGE and revealed Clarence Thomas’s conflicts of interest. It was the first outlet to […]

We asked you if you'd go back to X if it had new ownership. Of the 812 people who responded, 67% said no. The future of social media IS the Open Social Web 🔒 #socialmedia #socialweb #fediverse #mastodon #poll #x #twitter #musk #leavex

It’s more important than ever to support independent media free from corporate caving to autocracy and wherever possible on the open social web and on direct open media. https://journa.host/@w7voa/115222129277589068

Good morning! If you’re on mastodon.social (or another server running nightly builds) you can begin quoting posts in your posts (quooting?) starting today. Remember, you control whether you can be quoted, and call always retract your post from a specific quote. And you can quote me on that!

"At the end of the day, no matter how good and ethical something is, it has to feel right to the user. Unfortunately, for the majority of the Social Web, the vibe isn't good enough for new users to trust and try the tech. But, if we know that, we can work to change it." @saskia takes a look at […]

🍅 🍋 🥦 From a young age we're taught to eat healthy. But when it comes to social media, most adults aren't eating their greens. Addicted to the fast food algorithms of platforms like X, Facebook, and TikTok, many of us are missing out on the genuine human […] [Original post on newsmast.social]

⚠️ Today is the last chance for you to shape the future of the Fediverse! If you’re a: ✅ Mod ✅Admin ✅Community organiser Do yourself a favour and take 5-10 minutes⏱️to anonymously fill in the IFTAS needs assessment today! https://about.iftas.org/moderator-needs-assessment/

It's 5pm here which means we're signing off for the weekend. From Monday, Saskia will be back on the comms 🙌

Want a feeling of satisfaction this weekend? 💪 Complete out the IFTAS needs assessment! It’s an opportunity for admins, mods and community organisers to shape the future of the Fediverse in just 10 minutes⏱️ All responses are anonymous 🥸 https://about.iftas.org/moderator-needs-assessment/

📢📢📢📢 Calling all admins, mods & community organisers! Help yourself by helping IFTAS help you! ⏱️ 5-10 minutes 🥸 Anonymous responses 😊 Feel satisfied with a job well done Let’s make the Fediverse easier, safer & https://about.iftas.org/moderator-needs-assessment/

An estimated 5.56 billion people have access to the internet. Across social media there are 5.24 billion individual accounts. But there's only a handful of platform owners. Something isn't adding up. This gap leaves room for all sorts of dodgy dealing […] [Original post on newsmast.social]

We’re so sorry to hear that Guppe Groups have shut down. @FediTips/115164286964463451 Guppe was a really big influence on us when we first joined the Fediverse and served communities across the Fediverse. Fortunately, conversations and communities can […] [Original post on newsmast.social]

It's 5pm on a Friday so we're logging off! We'll be back on Monday

Help us reach our destination ⛰️ We like to aim high, but we don't think that's a bad thing. As the UK's leading Open Social Web charity, pushing the boundaries of social media for knowledge sharing, any support you can offer us will help us grow the Open […] [Original post on newsmast.social]

How do we break down barriers of entry to the Open Social Web? It's no secret that one of the biggest issues users find when joining the Open Social Web is that they don't know where to start. For organisations, the barriers are even higher. That's why we're working to simplify how […]

Can newsrooms become social platforms themselves? Should they? The future belongs to organizations that understand their communities, not just their analytics. In this post, I dig into a reader question that speaks to the future of social, newsrooms, and AI […]

Uh, it's nearly September 👀 Where has the time gone? In an effort to cling onto the summer, we're logging off for the weekend. We'll be back on Monday when Freddie will be taking over the socials whilst Saskia is on holiday. Be nice!

A new report by Amnesty International calls for the dismantling of concentrations of power to make way for rights-respecting digital ecosystems. You can read the full report here: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/POL30/0226/2025/en/ #BigTech […] [Original post on newsmast.social]

"The easy waves of migration from old social media are done. The pioneers who were happy to make the break have moved." @michael looks at how we build home on the Open Social Web https://www.blog-pat.ch/homes-from-home/ #socialweb #fediverse #socialmedia #blog #home #feditech #mastodon

Users today want instant immersion - but we don't have to make the individual the centre of everything to escape the timeline void, and offer welcoming Third Spaces. From Blacksky to a hometown Facebook Group, Anisota to the Provincetown Indie, feed readers to blogging newsletters, there are […]

We might be a small team but we're the right team. Using our past experiences, we're propelling the Newsmast Foundation forward, helping social media pioneers make the move away from Big Tech towards owning their community. #socialmedia #fediverse #newsmast #socialweb #mastodon #ourteam

It's a bank holiday weekend!!!! Have a great time and we'll see you on Tuesday at 9am BST 🦆

Keeping the Open Social Web running wouldn’t be possible without the server admins who sacrifice their time, money, and self to this online community. Coming from Big Tech, it's easy to take these things for granted; we're used to social media being […] [Original post on newsmast.social]

🎉😎🎉😎🎉TONIGHT!! 20th Aug Want to change the Media? Join the free News Club workshop -"like a book club but for news!" 18:00 - 19:00 - BST Zoom register: mediarevolution.org/news-clubs/ 👋 Meet other news clubs 🙋🏻Find out more 🤗 Get support setting up 🤝 Connect with others

Channel.org offers organisations an opportunity to stop renting from billionaires and start hosting their online community. We believe that, because of our charity status, we can help organisations escape the traps of for-profit social media and understand […] [Original post on newsmast.social]

It's that time again 🕔 We're logging off for the weekend. Have a good one and we'll see you back here on Monday at 9am BST

"What’s been hard for us to articulate, to ourselves and the outside world, is that we aren’t just building tech products, and we aren’t just curating content. The tech products, curation, content, education and support are all part of a bigger process of community onboarding, building and […]