We added ActivityPub support to Micro.blog in 2018. In the years since, we’ve improved it a lot. And we’ve seen how people actually use it.
Mastodon and other popular fediverse software have had a huge impact on the open web. There is a lot to like. By focusing on tens of thousands of smaller communities, the whole system is insulated from a single rogue CEO, and it’s more manageable for admins to stay on top of community issues. This is a really good step forward compared to massive silos.
Many of the problems with social networks remain in Mastodon, though. Chasing follower counts and likes. Scanning headlines instead of reading. Piling on with quick replies. Algorithms to surface popular stories that are being boosted. The infrastructure changed, but human behavior did not, and the platform features are still nearly identical to Twitter.
There is a new problem too that didn’t exist before. Smaller communities can become insular bubbles. Admins and users with many followers on a server have power to shape opinion and direct frustration at other users. The local timeline provides both connection to fellow members of the community and isolation from broader viewpoints outside the community.
I’m not suggesting that everyone is unhappy with Mastodon, Threads, or even Bluesky. Some people don’t see the same problems that I see, and that’s fine. But I’m not happy. And increasingly, I want to unplug from these networks and focus on my blog and the Micro.blog community, even though I believe in APIs and connecting many different platforms on the open web.
I occasionally hear the same thing from other users. They want to participate in the larger social web, but on their own terms, with their blog as the most important part of their online presence.
Today we’re launching new settings in Micro.blog to take control of how your account federates with everyone else. For the first time, this allows you to dial back your participation in the fediverse without actually deleting your fediverse profile. Your account still exists on the fediverse. It’s just a little quieter.
Here is a screenshot for what’s available under Account → View Fediverse Details:
By selecting the second option, users on Mastodon won’t see your blog posts in their timeline. You can still get replies and reply to other Mastodon users, but you will likely get drastically fewer replies, because there won’t be much for Mastodon users to reply to.
As you can see in the screenshot, there is also a new option for muting. For a while you’ve been able to mute people or servers. For example, some users wanted to mute Threads. Now you can mute the entire fediverse. With this selected, replies to you from the fediverse will still arrive at Micro.blog, but you won’t see them in your timeline.
This is for people who want a quieter space on the web. A space focused more on writing and less on reacting to other people.
Of course all of this is optional. If you like the way it already works, no need to change anything. I’m imagining these settings are something that people will enable or disable from time to time, not keep permanently set.
The social web is growing quickly and Micro.blog will adapt along with it. We’ll always stay true to our founding ideals and IndieWeb principles, trying to find the balance between blogging and the social web that’s right for our platform.
