I’m now on the Fediverse
I had given up on mainstream social media. As a Millennial, who knew the analog world before it became digital, I can survive without it if necessary. Even before AI and commercial content creators have disrupted the scene, I was already barely using my Facebook account. I had tried several other platforms over the years (LinkedIn is much better than Facebook), but social media isn’t really in my blood. I’m a deep, private person who prefers honesty and genuine human interaction. And social media isn’t that.
But I recognize that I have to be on some kind of social network, even if only for the sake of FreedomWriter.net. I cannot write into the void; I need to find the people who will care about the things I say.
Enter the Fediverse… Cue the music. …a decentralized collection of social networking platforms that can communicate with each other using a common protocol. As an avid user of free software, I too subscribe to the ideals that the Fediverse champions, like freedom, privacy, and control of personal data. It is actually pretty exciting!
I’ve known about the Fediverse for years. And I’d also tried a few of the platforms: Mastodon. Diaspora. Hubzilla. But there were problems in the servers I signed up to, and like I said, social media isn’t really in my blood, and I wasn’t yet ready to commit the time… until now.
Years have passed, and I’ve learned some web development skills — enough to setup my own private Hubzilla server. And that is exactly what I have done! And it’s something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. Check out my brand-new channel:
hub.freedomwriter.net/channel/arjayarana
Why Hubzilla? And why self-hosted? Well, I like Hubzilla. It has many features that I can use. It is also a PHP web app, like WordPress, and so it is relatively easy to install. And I chose to self-host my own private hub because the Hubzilla server I signed up to last time had just disappeared. Don’t want that to happen again.
Truly, there’s still so much to do to get FreedomWriter.net off the ground, but having my own personal space in the Fediverse is a very important step in that direction. Next stop: Newsletter.
For your comments, just send me an email. You can also connect with me in the Fediverse (Hubzilla) and react on my posts.