cross-posted from: https://toast.ooo/post/14012800

https://canvas.fediverse.events/

July 18th (4am UTC) to July 20th (also 4am UTC)

Canvas 2026 is in roughly 60 days!

Canvas is an annual event hosted for the Fediverse, allowing everyone to contribute to a pixel canvas, one pixel at a time

Check out the website for a live countdown, login testing, chat room (matrix/discord), and what last year's Canvas was!

If you are a developer, check out the source, and if you're a Fediverse app dev check the docs to add Canvas functionality to your app 👀

cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/c/yepowertrippinbastards/p/904933/rimu-mass-bans-users

Which mods/admins were being Power Tripping Bastards?

@rimu@piefed.social

What sanction did they impose (e.g. community ban, instance ban, removed comment)?

Mass instance bans

Provide a screenshot of the relevant modlog entry (don’t de-obfuscate mod names).

Done

Provide a screenshot and explanation of the cause of the sanction (e.g. the post/comment that was removed, or got you banned).

Explain why you think its unfair and how you would like the situation to be remedied.

He has abused the modlog to claim 'harassment', which I have never engaged in. I have not even interacted with Rimu in any way for days prior to getting kicked from the PieFed developer Matrix channels.

He has decided to mass ban 20 users because they have spoken out against his erratic and hostile behaviour as of late.

This morning while checking if Quokk.au's new instance logo was federated out, I discovered that overnight we had been shadowbanned from the PieFed.Social Instance Chooser (This is a tool to help spread out users across the platform and help avoid funnelling users into the largest.)

Knowing that Rimu was happy to explain, I just asked for some clarification as we were visible on every other PieFed instance except his.

Apparently for ' obvious reasons ', of which I can only assume is our left leaning anarchist/pro-trans stance we were chosen not be advertised on the PieFed flagship instance and first point of contact for many potential new users. Seeing as a large portion of our new users found us via this method, it will have a tangible effect on a small instance such as ours.

This was a pretty sad sight to see, and reflects the sort of petty drama that is emanating from the PieFed project lately. It's now the third such move to discredit and harm left leaning instances by PieFed's lead developer. This also shows a trend towards autocratic unilateral decision-making on Piefed.social, of which is starting to be run as a personal fiefdom without consulting the team or users.

I must commend Lemmy.ml for remaining neutral and not letting its own political leanings influence join-lemmy.org, while simultaneously condemn PieFed.social for this immature move that is harmful to the health of the Fediverse.

Following this exchange, Rimu announced a new update to PieFed allowing for some rather concerning things.

• Modlog: Reason for the action is only shown from trusted instances, so abusive mods won't have an audience. Admins can still see the reason though. Which instances are trusted is set in the admin UI.

This feature means problematic users can now go undetected, and will harm moderators ability to view their past moderation history. For example PieFed.social runs a 'trusted' list of only 34 instances, meaning any mod action taken by any of the hundreds of instances outside of this will not show up. So for example if Quokk.au was to ban a user for transphobia (our most common ban), this will not be reflected for piefed.social users potentially leading towards more hate speech on the Fediverse.

• Instance silencing similar to Mastodon. A silenced instance is not defederated from but their posts do not show in the Popular or All feeds and their communities are not shown in Starter packs aka Topics. Their communities can still be found in the communities list and joined in the normal way. Once joined, posts in there show up in the subscribed feed as usual.

This is another way to shadowban instances and not 'advertise' them. Surely if an instance is problematic enough that a defederation would be in order rather than this reddit-like move.

PieFed has done it once again, this time adding 'warning' labels for opposing ideological perspectives, well at least one; Can't find any warnings for fascism or capitalism 🤔

This can be demonstrated here: https://piefed.social/c/globalnews/p/1697164/sudan-civil-war-spills-over-into-neighboring-chad-peoples-dispatch

cross-posted from: https://jlai.lu/post/37035115

Hey people,

Thank you again for coming together and submitting songs to Lemmyvision, it's heartwarming to see different communities of the fediverse participate in sharing their musical interest.

The voting form is available here: https://tally.so/r/GxY0ze

Everyone is welcome to vote, even if your instance or community did not participate! This is a great opportunity to discover new music, and cultures.

@Ategon@programming.dev took the time to create a playlist over at https://d2jam.com/c/lemmyvision-3 feel free to check it out!

Here's the full list of submitted songs:

• Vita - Merz Leck Eier
• Ecca Vandal - Bleach
• Boy Golden - Suffer
• Angine de Poitrine - Fabienk
• Elisapie - Uummati Attanarsimat (Heart of Glass) [Hologramme Remix]
• Igorrr - Limbo
• Signes à L'Œil - Quand on arrive en ville (D. Balavoine, N. Workman)
• Hyphen - This Might Be It
• Cris03sora - Markhamia Castle
• Swerve Strickland - Hit Different
• Jamie Paige - Birdbrain (w/ OK Glass) feat. Kasane Teto
• HAYASii - Hunting Soul
• Mudrat - Bars

The form will be available until around the 11th of May, I will then collect the results and publish them shortly after. I hope you’ll have a lot of fun listening to the 13 songs submitted for this edition. Don’t hesitate if you have any question!

https://smol.stream/
@lefractal@mstdn.social

https://framagit.org/owncast-things/owncast-emojiwall/
smol overlays
Chat overlay and emoji wall for Owncast streamers.
Add animated emoji and custom emote reactions, and stylish chat messages to your stream: no account needed, no download, no tracking, no lock-in. Paste a couple of URLs and go! Built for the best opensource stream systems: Owncast and OBS studio.

https://codeberg.org/smolstream/owncast-live-badge
Low config, CORS proof, embeddable web component that shows whether an Owncast stream is live.

Odysee has announced something interesting: they're building the ability to watch YouTube videos directly within their platform. Their reasoning is sound—it gives users frustrated with YouTube a better interface while still letting them access the content they want.

https://piunikaweb.com/2026/02/20/odysee-youtube-video-playback-feature/

https://www.tech2geek.net/odysee-to-let-users-watch-youtube-videos-directly-on-its-platform-a-major-shift-in-online-video-streaming/

This got me thinking: could PeerTube learn from this approach?

The Odysee Move: Strategic Context

Odysee's announcement frames this as a "game changer for everyone that's fed up with YT"—and creators' YouTube earnings won't be affected. The move essentially positions Odysee as a parallel interface to YouTube: you get better UX, less bloat, and potentially more privacy, but you're still accessing the same content.

It's pragmatic. Instead of competing head-to-head with YouTube's massive content library, they're saying: "Use our platform as your gateway instead."

Why This Could potentially Work for PeerTube

PeerTube's biggest weakness right now is the content problem. It's a fantastic platform for creators, but users looking for variety still have to go to YouTube for the bulk of video content. This creates friction and limits adoption.

A YouTube integration could solve this by:

1. Reducing friction for new users People could migrate to PeerTube gradually, discovering local content while still having access to their favorite YouTube creators.

2. **Increasing user engagement** More time spent on the platform = more discovery of federated content.

3. Privacy benefits Users watching YouTube through PeerTube (with privacy-respecting integrations) means they're not directly feeding YouTube's tracking apparatus.

4. Network effects More users means more potential creators, which attracts more viewers, which attracts more creators.

The Elephant in the Room: Privacy

Here's where PeerTube could actually do better than Odysee.

Instead of relying on YouTube embeds or direct scraping, PeerTube could potentially partner with, or integrate, privacy-respecting YouTube frontends like:

NewPipe - Open source, no account needed, ad-free

Invidious - Lightweight, privacy-focused alternative frontend

LibreTube - Modern, FOSS YouTube client

Piped - Another excellent privacy-respecting option

etc.

The advantage of this approach:

Users get YouTube access *without Google tracking them*

PeerTube positions itself as the privacy-conscious choice

It's a genuine value-add over native YouTube usage

These projects are already solving the technical challenges

The Counterargument: Mission Creep?

I can hear the pushback: "PeerTube's mission is to be a decentralized YouTube alternative, not a YouTube wrapper."

Fair point. But there's a difference between:

Being a platform for YouTube alternatives (feeding the centralized beast)

Being a platform that happens to also host YouTube access (while building something decentralized alongside it)

The second seems like a stronger position—you're not abandoning the mission of building federated video infrastructure; you're just acknowledging the world we actually live in.

What Would This Look Like?

Hypothetical scenario:

1. PeerTube instances could optionally enable a "YouTube Integration" feature

2. This would use privacy-respecting frontends (Piped, Invidious, LibreTube, etc.) as backends

3. Users see YouTube videos in the standard PeerTube interface, with full privacy proxying

4. The integration is federated friendly—it's just another content type the ActivityPub ecosystem can reference

## Questions for Discussion

Is this a slippery slope toward becoming "just" a YouTube wrapper?

What are the legal implications of integrating with privacy frontends? (vs. embedding YouTube directly)

How would this affect server load and moderation practices?

Does this dilute PeerTube's identity as an alternative, or strengthen it by making migration easier?

Are there other federated platforms that could benefit from this kind of hybrid approach?

I'm genuinely curious what the community thinks.

Edit:

Invidious might be the best route, if Peertube did up doing this, considering that Invidious also uses instances, as well

This is a follow-up to Tim Chambers' "The Seven Deadly UX Sins", in which we collaboratively review where and how the network has improved over the past six months, with a lot of different initiatives to show for it!

The recent actions by administrators of the Lemmy.world instance have revealed a troubling pattern of censorship and ideological enforcement that undermines the very principles of open discourse. By banning multiple users, blocking entire communities, and defederating from instances based on their anti-Zionist stance, Lemmy.world’s leadership has demonstrated that it will not tolerate legitimate dissent regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This article examines the evidence of this crackdown, exploring what these actions mean for the future of free speech in the fediverse.

A Pattern of Censorship and Ideological Overreach

The Heavy Hand of MrKaplan

At the center of this controversy stands @MrKaplan, an administrator for Lemmy.world. Over a few days in April 2026, MrKaplan launched a sweeping series of actions:

• Banned multiple users for being anti-Zionist
• Blocked entire communities and communications
• Defederated from the entire Anarchist.Nexus instance over its anti-Zionist stance

A post characterizing these events states this extreme overreaction and power-tripping behavior stems from Lemmy.world's history of pro-Zionist views and that MrKaplan is seeking out the flimsiest pretext to enact his own personal vendetta.

Another user described MrKaplan's actions by stating he is a corrupt baby and that Lemmy.world is a toxic shithole. They called for everyone to mass instance block Lemmy.world, noting it would be a waste to defederate one of the biggest instances because of one idiot, but the idiot is the head admin who can just unilaterally decide what to do.

The administrator of that instance was even more explicit, stating they are a corrupt baby and that Lemmy.world is a toxic shithole, while calling for everyone to mass instance block them.

Bans for Anti-Zionist Stances

The bans did not target hate speech or genuine threats but rather legitimate political discourse:

• A user was banned for having "Murder All Zionists" in their username, with the admin citing "calling for murder in their username"
• The same user was additionally banned for accusing FHF team members of being Zionists while simultaneously calling for Zionists to be murdered

This demonstrates a fundamental confusion on the part of Lemmy.world administrators between critiquing a political ideology (Zionism) and inciting violence against people. Zionism is a political ideology, not an ethnicity or race. Criticizing or even calling for the end of Zionism as a political project is not the same as calling for violence against Jewish people.

Defederation and Community Removal

Perhaps most egregiously, MrKaplan removed entire communities from Anarchist.Nexus after defederating the entire instance:

• Removed Community Peek-a-boo's corner@anarchist.nexus
• Removed Community Disengage, Disconnect, Block, Filter@anarchist.nexus
• Removed Community Chill Videos To Relax To@anarchist.nexus
• Removed Community vegan@anarchist.nexus

All were removed with the sole reason stated as "defederated instance".

This is not targeted moderation—it is ideological cleansing. Entire communities focused on completely apolitical topics like veganism, relaxation videos, and general chat were deleted simply for being hosted on an instance that holds pro-Palestinian views.

Community Censorship Enforced from the Top

The problem extends beyond bans and defederation. Inside Lemmy.world itself, moderators aggressively push narratives and ban anyone who objects:

• A moderator aggressively pushes a narrative and bans anyone who objects, which a user notes is not the only community where this happens and is a point of discussion among the .world team
• Another user explained they were directly censored and banned on a large and active Lemmy.world community for explaining why the US is involved with the Palestinian genocide
• A different user described Lemmy.world having the most Zionists on Lemmy as well as the most tolerance for Zionism and erasure of the US’ involvement in the genocide

The issue is so widespread that dedicated communities have formed to chronicle Lemmy.world's descent into complete Zionism, sharing modlogs of bans and evidence of their wrongdoing.

The Fediverse Context and Double Standards

The Israel-Palestine conflict has been a flashpoint across the fediverse, but Lemmy.world's approach stands out for its aggressive enforcement.

Other Instances Take a Different Approach

Other instances have grappled with similar challenges but have generally sought balanced approaches. For instance, one community moderator noted they banned a user for repeatedly calling for the murder of Zionists, which the mods didn't find appropriate, emphasizing a more targeted approach to actual threats rather than ideological purges.

Meanwhile, Lemmy.world has increasingly aligned with instances enforcing censorship. For example, Feddit.org announced they would ban criticism of Israel and pro-Palestinian posts, including:

• The slogan "From the river to the sea"
• Comparing Israel to the Nazis
• Calls to end Zionism
• Calls for the dissolution of Israel

While Feddit.org cited German law as justification (which criminalizes certain forms of anti-Zionist speech as antisemitism), Lemmy.world has no such legal constraints and is not bound by German law, yet it has voluntarily adopted similarly repressive policies.

The Hexbear Double Standard

The hypocrisy becomes glaring when examining how different instances are treated. Hexbear, known for its authoritarian moderation and open hostility to liberal democracy, remainsfederated while anti-Zionist instances are targeted. One user noted then ironic that Hexbear has large threads voting on who to defederate, but is not labeled as authoritarian.

This selective enforcement reveals that Lemmy.world's real concern is not protecting users from threats but enforcing a particular ideological line. Lemmy.world will tolerate authoritarian communists but actively purges anti-Zionists. This is not moderation—it's political persecution.

A History of Controversial Moderation

The recent crackdown is not an isolated incident but part of a pattern:

• A user was banned from Lemmy.world for reporting ToS-breaking comments, with the user concluding that Lemmy.world can no longer be trusted for any admin decision and that they are not being transparent with their decisions or even who their admins and those with admin abilities are
• A user was banned from Lemmy.world for a week after criticizing Israel
• A user was banned from Lemmy.world completely for reporting ToS-breaking comments
• A user banned from Lemmy.world for reporting rule-breaking content noted the lack of transparency about who admins are and what authority they hold

Another instance has a pinned post accusing .world of supporting the Zionist genocide of Palestinians. Users have described the platform as a Zionist cesspool, a ZioNazi instance, and trash.

Final Condemnation and Call to Action

Lemmy.world has revealed itself to be an openly partisan instance that uses its position as the largest Lemmy server to enforce ideological conformity rather than facilitate open discussion. By banning users and defederating entire instances solely for their anti-Zionist stance, its administrators have chosen political repression over the principles of free association.

This is not moderation—it is censorship. It is not about safety—it is about ideological control. And it is not just—it is political persecution.

To the fediverse community, the message is clear: migrate to instances that respect actual political pluralism. Consider sh.itjust.works, or lemmy.dbzer0.com—instances that have not demonstrated the same pattern of ideological overreach. For those already using Lemmy.world, move your communities, migrate your accounts, and take your content elsewhere. Platforms that ban dissent do not deserve your participation.

To the administrators of Lemmy.world, the message is equally clear: transparency, accountability, and respect for political plurality are not optional. Reverse these bans. Refederate with removed instances. Publicly commit to viewpoint-neutral moderation. Until then, your instance must be recognized for what it has become—a tool of political suppression.

To the wider fediverse, it is time for coordinated action. Encourage instance administrators to defederate from Lemmy.world not over the specifics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but over the broader principle that platforms engaging in coordinated ideological censorship and defederation should be isolated. The problem is not MrKaplan alone but a culture of ideological enforcement that has long been tolerated.

Standards must apply equally to all instances. If the fediverse is to survive as an alternative to corporate social media, it must actively reject attempts by any instance—even large ones—to impose political litmus tests. The alternative is a fediverse splintered into ideological silos, where the largest players enforce political conformity and the smallest are defederated into irrelevance.

Free speech for my enemies is free speech at all. Lemmy.world has failed this test—and the fediverse must treat it accordingly.

Christmas Eve? NOPE! Better!

FediForum Eve!

You don't know FediForum?

It's the Fediverse's premier online unconference!

TOMORROW!

https://fediforum.org/2026-04/

This is a service to help communities propagate to other instances and help with discovery of communities. So far tested and working with PieFed & Lemmy Instances - I suspect it should work with Mbin, but need to test it (Any Mbin Instance volunteers?)

Anyone is free to add their community to the list, but only admins can add their instance to receive communities.

This tool is designed to be simple to use, not requiring fiddling with your instances DNS unlike Lemmy-Federate. Verification for authority to register your instance is done via a message that checks to see if the person confirming is an admin account. It also back-propagates, so on joining your instance will subscribe to all previously added rather than only new ones going forward.

This is my first time launching a service like this, and as such it may not work flawlessly - please share any feedback or suggestions.

https://federation.quokk.au/

I was looking at the lists of instances and where they're hosted, weighing up migrating. Part of that was to figure out which servers might be best for connectivity issues with my region. But looking at the terms of service for some of the possibilities, I noticed that they often just say something like "This instance and your use is subject to the laws of ".

But lots of countries have unusual laws I couldn't know about. Some of them might affect data privacy, some of them might affect what can be said or shown in pictures, some might be seemingly random to a foreigner. Some of the laws might be beneficial to random people, others won't.

Obviously different instances decide how they choose to enforce their interpretations of those laws, rightly or questionably, but there's also the question of what happens if they receive a subpoena from their regional law enforcement.

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to post anything that I think would be illegal in any country. But, for all I know, there's a law somewhere that says I have to spin around three times and then stand on one leg while writing any comment.

So, what regional laws should a user know about before choosing an instance? Bonus points for the unusual ones that will take me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole. I offer you a non-digital unusual law in return: Since 1313 it's illegal to wear a suit of armour in the UK Houses of Parliament.

Ibis is a federated encyclopedia with numerous features. If you want to start a wiki for a TV series, a videogame, or an open source project then Ibis is for you! You can register on an existing instance or install it on your own server. Then you can start editing on the topic of your choice, and connect to other Ibis instances for different topics. Federation ensures that articles get mirrored across many servers, and can be read even if the original instance goes down. Ibis is written in Rust and Webassembly, fully open source to make enshittification impossible.

After a long hiatus here is finally a new release of Ibis. The user interface received some polishing, and can now be translated to different languages. You can help with translations via Weblate.

If you already have an account and want to fill it with more articles, use the new Wikipedia import! You can import individual articles by Url on the "Create Post" page. Or write a bulk import script with curl https://ibis.example/api/v1/article/import -d 'url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet' -H 'Cookie: auth=my_auth_cookie'.

Full changelog

If you are interested what a federated wiki can do, join and give it a try. You can register on ibis.wiki, open.ibis.wiki or other instances. You can also install Ibis on your own server. It is very lightweight and can easily run on an existing server alongside other software. This release includes an additional installation method using Docker. To discuss the project, report problems or get support use the following links:

Lemmy | Matrix | Github

Looking for people running streams repository or forte to get some support. I find the projects really cool but they don't seem to be very popular. I intend to run either of them (or some other fediverse implementation) on my Yunohost server. Mainly want to find out if they're compatible with mobile apps and how to do basic configuration.

Link to Subreddit Post

Post Text:

Hey everyone, I've been working on a native tvOS Peertube client, PeerTV. Here's the App Store link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/peertv/id6761736523

Sometimes I like to watch videos from my Peertube instance or a friend's instance on my apple tv, but I noticed a while ago that there weren't any tvOS Peertube clients available on the App Store. That is until now!

This application is open source on GitHub , so by all means, check it out and add requests for new features or bug fixes if you'd like.

Also, I recommend using it with my plug-in to add a randomized video tab to your Peertube instance. The PeerTV app has a setting that unlocks a special random video tab if you're using that plugin on the instance.

Disclaimer: I used a Claude model with cursor to help build out this project. If that is something important to you, then feel free to not use it or insult me in the comments. I mainly built this tool because | want it to exist. I have over 6+ years as a developer so I know what I'm doing for the most part. I did not just mindlessly tell the ai to build an application. There was a great effort on my part to ensure the app is secure, efficient, and functional.

Thanks!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/45484461

Only found them by coincidence ;)

1️⃣ In "/settings/preferences/appearance" under "Advanced settings" you can find the option to "Warn me before posting media without alt text"

You can see the error message I see whenever I forget alttext in the second image hehe

2️⃣ When you post an image with text in it, you can simply use the magic AI feature "Add text from image". It usually works very well!

Alt text: "Screenshot of the warning you get with the warning for missing alt enabled. "Add alt text? Your post contains media without alt text. Adding descriptions helps make your content accessible to more people." Below it are 3 buttons "Cancel" "Post anyway" and "Add alt text"

Alt text: "Screenshot of the alt text window, the option "Add text from image" is circled in red.

This is how that "AI" option described the text of the image I posted: "Describe this for people with visual impairments. 1500 Add text from image"

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/45437770

I've been thinking a lot about the Fediverse ALT issue.

Some people are annoyed by posts without Alttext, & others get reminded¹ to add it.

The core question is: How can we improve accessibility?

Proposal: ☑️ Add a user filter to hide media posts without AltTag ☑️ Reduced engagement on hidden posts would encourage adding Alt text ☑️ People who need accessibility wouldn't have to encounter unlabeled media

If this gets traction, I'll open a Mastodon GitHub issue (maybe on others too?).

¹ https://mastodon.social/@madeindex/113996311493021102

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/45299043

Publicly Run Social Media – A Solution for Europe?

TikTok, Instagram and YouTube are not neutral public spaces. Designed to maximise attention and engagement, these platforms play a major role in shaping public opinion in Europe. They amplify misinformation, polarisation and hate speech, while also encouraging patterns of use that harm mental health.

The EU has begun to respond through the Digital Services Act. Yet success up to now is limited.

Could Europe build a public-service social media model, inspired by public broadcasting – social media that protect democratic debate, strengthen Europe’s digital sovereignty and offer a healthier online environment?

This event will explore that question and introduce a European Citizens’ Initiative calling for a European public-service social media infrastructure.

With Lukáš Mikulecký, Co-Leader of the European Citizens’s Initiative “European Public Social Network”.

New! 1:1 Conversations! After our one-hour open discussion, we invite you to stay for another 30 minutes. You’ll be paired up randomly and answer four questions together in a one-on-one conversation.

The idea behind: meet new people from across Europe and exchange ideas in a more personal setting. The breakout rooms will stay open for as long as you like.

I think it would be better to have these public spaces be outside the control of foreign tech companies, but I'm also unsure whether it would be better to have one centralized EU social media network. I think that the Fediverse (such as Mastodon) could be relevant here. How do other people feel about this?