So, I created this little website https://cantfollowyou.kirk.at/ as something that you can send to people who don’t realize that they are on a closed network and what it means to others. A bit like Let me Google that for you but for the Fediverse. Here is the backstory, and some details around it:
I attended (German-spoken) FediCamp Graz 2025 last Saturday (see Heinz Wittenbrink’s summary in German) where we discussed a plethora of topics around the Fediverse, barcamp-style.
One question that we discussed and that has been bugging me for a long time, is why people are quite unwilling to switch to federated, open networks.
One reason is certainly is inertia. I guess it’s a human property to stick with what you know. Also change means work.
Another reason is ignorance. You know, like “bliss.” It can be comforting to focus on the good sides of your social consumption and not deal too much with the negative sides.
Following a train of thought, I realized that maybe many people don’t realize that they can’t be followed by people who are not on their network. And don’t realize that this is a lock-in by the platform that is not necessary.
To combat this, I created a little one-page website (source on Github, open to PRs!) that is meant as something that you can take and send this URL to a person you’d like to follow who is on a closed social network.
It contains a table of ActivityPub equivalents of social networks (see also my WordCamp Europe 2025 presentation What you’re missing if you don’t have your own WordPress; slides, video):
At the bottom of the page you can customize it:
Probably this is not going to change the needle significantly, but I see this as a little contribution to enable raising awareness about the problem. The decentralized fediverse surely has a steeper learning curve because you need to make a choice before you start. But I think it’s worth it.
@alex Your site seems to be overwhelmed by the requests …
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Indeed, doing some fine-tuning now :) hope it will now be better
@alex I don’t want to have Facebook^WMeta in my network, actually
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I am not arguing to get all of Facebook on the Fediverse :-) But there are people that I care about that unfortunately Facebook/Meta/Other-Network managed to get them in, and I believe they should rather be on a network that allows me to follow them. It is about explaining this to selected people.
@alex
Great tool. Thanks.
Was using it again today and noted the organisation I was sending to was using WordPress. Naturally, your ActivityPub plug-in would be a fantastic addition to recommend to them … plus it’s all in house for them.
Perhaps there could be a manual option of some sort to generate text that could effectively inform them of the benefits of adding ActivityPub to their current WP website?
Suspect WP sites adding ActivityPub would be even more beneficial to the Fediverse.
Thanks for your time. 🙂
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Hi @alex
I’m Emanuele and I recently discovered your website https://cantfollowyou.kirk.at/. I find it a very useful and interesting project to raise awareness about closed networks and the Fediverse.
I am Italian and I was wondering if it would be possible to add an Italian translation to the site. I think it could be useful to reach a wider audience and make the message accessible to more people.
Thanks for your time and for your work on this project!
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Oh, that would be fantastic! I don’t speak enough Italian to do it myself, would you be willing to contribute them to Github? These are the strings that need translation: https://github.com/akirk/cantfollowyou/blob/main/index.php#L2-L24