From an imploding Twitter to a profusion of federated and self-hosted platforms, including this blog.
A few years ago I started the work to reclaim my digital and online footprint, to bring more of it within my own control using open source software and privacy-minded services. At the time that meant trading Gmail for Fastmail and Drive for Nextcloud.
Twitter being sabotaged by its new oligarch owner has been a useful kick in the butt. It’s lead me to reclaim my social presence.
I was already in the process of setting up shop with Matrix, the communications protocol, so I thought, “Hey, why not Mastodon, too?” Then I set up Mastodon, a microblogging platform that somewhat resembles Twitter.
Of course, then I discovered Pixelfed, a federated replacement for Instagram, and BookWyrm, for replacing Goodreads.
Lastly came the itch for something I’ve been putting off for years: starting this blog, which happens to be running on WordPress with the ActivityPub plug-in.
I’ve been needing a venue for sharing deeper thinking, so here we are. We’ll see how it goes.
Altogether, these new digital homes will be my primary residence online. I’ve already left Twitter, and while I remain active on Facebook and Instagram, I will be treating the open source, federated tools as first class. Everything flows from there.
I’ll note for my friends, family, and colleagues that, as I make this change, I’ve updated my canonical email address as I consolidate domain names. You can find me at josh@josh.tel.
Here’s where you can find me on the Fediverse:
- Matrix: @josh:josh.tel
- Mastodon: @josh@josh.tel
- Pixelfed: @josh@pix.josh.tel
- BookWyrm: @josh@books.josh.tel
- WordPress: @josh@blog.josh.tel
And, of course, my primary website online remains joshsimmons.com.
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