Informapirata

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When the Open Social Web Hybridizes: Raccoon for Friendica is a new app... Mastodon. And it even has a little Lemmy in it! That's why the Free Software + Fediverse duo is such a valuable resource. (poliversity.it)
 

cross-posted from: https://poliversity.it/users/macfranc/statuses/116736605177662762

When the Open Social Web Hybridizes: Raccoon for Friendica is a new app... Mastodon. And it even has a little Lemmy in it! That's why the Free Software + Fediverse duo is such a valuable resource.

@fediverse

Raccoon 1.0 was finally released for Android in recent days, a rather innovative client originally created for #Friendica, but which has now become one of the most innovative apps for the user experience on #Mastodon. The app is available for Android (already on the Play Store and Izzidroid, and will soon be available on F-Droid), but a #Debian package has also been released. An iOS version remains to be seen for its success.

The app introduces some very important innovations to the federated app landscape.

1. Navigate the Fediverse from an app, even without creating an account

Raccoon is the only app that lets you browse the Fediverse even without an account. When you install it, you can select any Friendica or Mastodon instance and "leverage" its local public and federated timelines. This way, users can explore multiple instances before choosing which one to open an account on. Of course, even after adding an account (the app manages multiple accounts), you can browse the timelines of servers other than the one you signed up to.

2. "Browse through" messages: "swipe" navigation

Unlike all other social apps (both those for the Fediverse and those for commercial social networks), #RaccoonForFriendica lets you open a post in your timeline and continue browsing through previous and next posts by simply swiping left and right.
This is a truly interesting ergonomic innovation.

3. Finally a formatting bar in social apps

Since the app was created for Friendica, it features a built-in formatting toolbar reminiscent of Lemmy clients (in fact, the developer @janTeko first experimented with app development with a Lemmy app). The formatting toolbar can also be used for Mastodon instances running the Glitch-soc fork, such as infosec.exchange, tech.lgbt, and my poliversity.it instance, which was the one the developer experimented with.

In addition to being more immediate, writing formatted posts is also made easier by a "preview" function that helps avoid errors in Markdown or BBCode coding.

4. Finally, Mastodon users will be able to enjoy Fediverse groups too.

As you may know, Mastodon doesn't support the display of group posts. Even if you select a group, you'll still see a single timeline where top posts alternate with replies. Searching for a thread on Mastodon is therefore very complicated, but the #Raccoon developer has found a way to enable "topic" viewing across all accounts that are "activitypub groups," be they #Lemmy, #NodeBB, Piefed, Mbin, Peertube, Wordpress, Mobilizon, Flipboard, etc.
This idea also came about thanks to the fact that the developer had previously tried his hand at developing an app for Lemmy and was able to experiment with the formatting bars and display of Lemmy "communities," which are nothing other than "#activitypub groups."

5. Other interesting features

Among other features, you can

6. What's still missing?

The app features all the features found in most other Mastodon apps, except one: the correct handling of Mastodon posts that quote other posts. These are still displayed in a fairly primitive way. The developer is trying to decide whether to adapt to Mastodon specifications or reinterpret the feature in a more personalized way.
It must be said that, unfortunately, the implementation of quoted messages (already present in Friendica for ages) was implemented by Mastodon very late, only in recent months, and in a very "personal" way that many other software developers did not appreciate.

7. Raccoon is an app that will benefit users who already use Mastodon but also those who have never "tried" the Fediverse

This app has been under development for almost two years, and the beta version is just over a year old. However, version 1.0 has resolved all previously encountered issues.
Based on user feedback, the developer will evaluate whether to create an iOS version and even a Windows version.
Anyone who wishes to allow reporting of application errors can enable anonymous crash reports.

8. Links and Resources

This is the developer's profile:
https://androiddev.social/users/janTeko

This is the app repository: https://github.com/LiveFastEatTrashRaccoon/RaccoonForFriendica/

This is the Play Store link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.livefast.eattrash.raccoonforfriendica

This is the link on IzzyDroid (the app will be released on F-Droid soon, but is currently under review):
https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/com.livefast.eattrash.raccoonforfriendica

Here is the developer's blog:
https://livefasteattrashraccoon.github.io/blog/

Finally, from here you can download the .apk or .deb package without using the online stores. line:
https://github.com/LiveFastEatTrashRaccoon/RaccoonForFriendica/releases/latest/

One last recommendation

The public's response will be important to enable the further development of this app.
If you want to test it on Mastodon, I recommend using instances running the glitch-soc fork. Among these, I'd recommend the infosec.exchange instance, which is well managed by @jerry. And of course, but only if you communicate in Italian or Esperanto, I'd be happy to host you on my poliversity.it instance.
Regarding Friendica, I recommend two instances: friendica.world, managed by @ruud and featuring a rather lively timeline, and, of course, social.trom.tf, excellently managed by @tio.
If you communicate in Italian, I'd be happy to host you on my poliverso.org instance.

Greetings to all and let me know if you need further information, if you have tried the app and how you found it.
Francesco
You can also interact with me through the Mastodon account @informapirata and the Friendica account @notizie

lemmy activity volume in c/fediverse@lemmy.ml
[–] Informapirata@lemmy.ml 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Lemmy is a great piece of software and works well, although it has some limitations that will be partially improved with version 1.0.

Lemmy also has two major problems, one that isn't related to Lemmy and one that is.

  1. The first problem is that Lemmy doesn't handle Activitypub groups managed by Friendica and NodeBB well. It's unable to pick up NodeBB and Friendica posts in the wrong places, so you'll never see any NodeBB or Friendica posts in the community timeline. Fortunately, it handles Piefed communities correctly, because they work with the same logic.
  2. The second problem is related to Mastodon: this is effectively a design flaw in Mastodon. In fact, the top posts published by Lemmy are displayed as a message that only contains the title and the link to the message. This is a problem because Mastodon users will always see uninteresting posts and won't want to interact. At the same time, Mastodon users, unless they use apps like Raccoon, will never have clear visibility into Lemmy communities, which are actual Activitypub groups. Only the Raccoon app is able to show Mastodon users and Activitypub group posts as topics, while any other Mastodon application would display them as disaggregated posts within the same continuous stream of all other posts.

These two issues make Lemmy integration with the Fediverse problematic. For example, I'm trying to push the communities of my Lemmy instance feddit.it among the users of my Mastodon instance poliversity.it, and today I can say with some satisfaction that half of the posts published on my Lemmy instance come from Mastodon users who have thus learned to integrate with the Lemmiverse.

Unfortunately, however, almost no other Mastodon instance administrator shows this interest. And unfortunately, mastodon remains the largest community in the Fediverse, the only one that could help Lemmy achieve a greater "network effect"!

This is a shame because mastodon users themselves could benefit positively from the existence of Lemmy communities as Activitypub groups.

So let's hope something happens in the future.

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La prima bici Cannondale è molto diversa da come te la immagini (www.bikeitalia.it)
 

Quando pensiamo a Cannondale, l’immaginario corre veloce: telai oversize, alluminio prima e carbonio poi, bici da corsa aggressive e mountain bike che hanno fatto scuola. E invece no. La prima bici Cannondale non era una race machine né tantomeno una MTB. Era una bici da viaggio. Da cicloturismo. E questa, oggi più che mai, è una storia che vale la pena raccontare.

Leggi l'articolo completo...

0
Can Twitter X control journalists and politicians? The shocking revelation from Musk's Italian trustee gives pause for thought (claudiagiulia.substack.com)
 

cross-posted from: https://poliverso.org/objects/0477a01e-4267-e55d-042f-69d193263777

Can Twitter X control journalists and politicians? The shocking revelation from Musk's Italian trustee gives pause for thought

The story of Andrea #Stroppa who, as a shareholder of X, boasts of being able to read its private messages, is told by @claudiagiulia
The journalist noticed Stroppa's "gaffe" during a "space" live broadcast and reported it to the Italian Data Protection Authority

It’s Saturday, March 22, 2025. I’m getting ready to head out and take one last look at Twitter. At the top of the screen, I spot a Spaces session featuring Andrea Stroppa, a key figure in Elon Musk’s orbit, with a prominent role in Europe, especially Italy. I hesitate, but then I notice some journalists I admire - people I’ve connected with on the platform - among the listeners. Curiosity wins out, and I join. Nicola Porro is interviewing Stroppa: they’re talking about Twitter X, Musk, and Tesla. Then my connection drops, I have to leave, and I close the app. The next day, I return to the audio: it’s still there, recorded on the platform, now heard by thousands. I pick up where I left off. At the 32-minute mark, Stroppa says something that stops me cold. I rewind and listen again. I can’t believe it. In a fleeting moment - maybe a lapse - he drops a bombshell: thanks to his role as a shareholder, he can uncover the identity of any user on X, specifically mentioning anonymous accounts that criticize him. It’s a stark claim, impossible to brush off.

A revelation everyone ignores

claudiagiulia.substack.com/p/c…

@technology

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Raccoon for Friendica is finally available on the PlayStore too. And is compatible with Mastodon and Mastodon glitch-soc (play.google.com)
 

cross-posted from: https://poliverso.org/objects/0477a01e-1067-cb38-c32e-95b537168187

Raccoon for Friendica is finally available on the PlayStore too. And is compatible with Mastodon and Mastodon glitch-soc

Raccoon is a free and open source mobile-first client for Friendica and Mastodon.

-:-

Friendica is an outstanding social plaftorm, featuring powerful characteristics which make it unique in the federated world:
• rich text editing, long posts, support for titles and spoilers;
• native support for ActivityPub groups;
• direct messages;
• media gallery where you can manage photos and albums;
• possibility to organize your contacts in circles;
• ability to quote (cross-post) other people's posts;
• RSS feed import;
• integrated event calendar;
• of course, much more (see the official documentation)…

The web interface is great to access all of these features but on a mobile device there are different constraints for usability and readability, so it comes in handy to have an app to use the most important functions of the platform.

Main features:

• timeline view with ability to switch feed type (public, local, subscriptions, user-made lists);
• post detail, i.e. opening a conversation in its context and see the replies, number of re-shares and people who added it to favourites;
• user detail with ability to see posts, post and replies, pinned posts and media, subscribe for notifications from a user, follow/send a request or unfollow them, see following/followers;
• support for ActivityPub groups, with the ability to open threads in forum mode;
• see trending posts, hashtags, links and following recommendations;
• follow/unfollow an hashtag and view all the posts containing a given hashtag;
• post actions (re-share, favorite, bookmark) and – for own ones – edit, delete or pin to profile;
• global search hashtags, post and users containing some specific terms;
• customize the application appearance with color themes, font face and size, etc;
• login via OAuth2;
• view and edit one's own profile data;
• view incoming notifications and filter the list;
• manage one's own follow requests and accept/reject each one of them;
• view the list of one's own favorites, bookmarks and followed hashtags;
• create a post/reply with formatted text, image attachments (and alt text), spoiler and title;
• schedule a post (and change its schedule date) or save it to drafts;
• report posts/users to administrators for content moderation;
• mute/unmute, block/unblock users and manage the list of muted/blocked users;
• manage one's own circles (user-defined lists);
• see polls (read only);
• multi-account with easy ability to switch between accounts (and, in anonymous mode, switch instance);
• send direct messages to other users and see conversations;
• manage one's own photo gallery;
• view one's own event calendar (read only).

play.google.com/store/apps/det…