Imagining alternative social media platforms with ActivityPub Protocol

The last decade has seen a growing number of attempts at creating alternatives to centralized social networks. GNUSocial, ActivityPub, Scuttlebutt, Bluesky, Nostr are some such attempts to name a few. The ecosystem of projects, frameworks and libraries has grown each year. A lot of traditionally centralized social networks have begun supporting or interoperating with these protocols.

The first wave of projects in this space mimicked existing centralized social networks. As this space has matured and limitations of centralized social media like Meta, Twitter have become glaring, users are increasingly demanding alternate features, configurations, moderation rules, governance structure etc.

This talk introduces the ActivityPub protocol and shares my experience forking and tweaking Pleroma to host a bespoke social network for my team and friends. My talk will :

- Offer a primer on how ActivityPub works and why it matters
- Explain federation and interoperability in accessible terms
- Showcase lesser-known fediverse projects to demonstrate platform diversity
- Invite participants to imagine new kinds of social media platforms
- Discuss challenges of trust and safety, user on-boarding and content discovery

This talk is intended for people with varying interests - software developers, UX designers, researchers, community organizers, public policy professionals - anyone interested in imagining alternatives to social media, digital infrastructure and platform governance. Prior technical expertise is not assumed. The goal it to not just inform but encourage participants to think beyond current platform paradigms and consider how they might use protocols like ActivityPub to prototype and run digital spaces for their communities.

1. Understand the core concepts behind ActivityPub protocol and the Fediverse

2. Gain exposure to a range of existing decentralized platforms and what makes them unique

3. Be inspired to imagine and perhaps build a new social media platform aligned with community needs and values

4. Reflect on how infrastructure, governance and design co-shape online social life