I (like many people) have been paying more and more attention to distributed social networks over the past several weeks. For the uninitiated, these networks (hereafter referred to as “the Fediverse”) are individual instances running software which communicate with each other over standard protocols (mostly ActivityPub). A user on one instance can follow and interact with users on other instances in a mostly-transparent way, somewhat similarly to e-mail. The general philosophy, I think, seems sound: by decentralizing things, you reduce the influence — and potential damage — of any one entity.

I’m new to fediverse. For a long time I assumed it would be possible to have a single identity separate from the ActivityPub instance I’m using and tried to figure out what am I missing. Recently, I figured out that it was not the case. People generally have multiple accounts for interacting with different aspects of fediverse. It still bothers me a bit. So I did a search and found this note from 2018 that summarizes my thoughts very well.

I’m wondering if there are others thinking about this, or having multiple accounts has been accepted as the “correct” way of interacting with fediverse?

I think separating identity from the instances would really be a step forward, but as I said, I’m new to this and maybe there are things I don’t understand?

  • @shrugalEnglish
    1•1 year ago

    If it’s easy to migrate an account then it would be possible for an admin of a rogue instance or even just a rogue admin of a perfectly fine instance to take your account.

    This is the case right now. Admins of your instance have full control over your account. They can remove it or lock you out at any point if they want to.

    • @[email protected]English
      1•1 year ago

      Remove yes but not transition it to a new instance. But this is one of the reasons I’m using a temp email and unique username and password for each account that isn’t tied anywhere else. More things are easy to gather together knowledge wise compared to say reddit.

      • @shrugalEnglish
        2•1 year ago

        Remove yes but not transition it to a new instance

        I don’t see how this is worse than completely removing or taking over your account.

        • @[email protected]English
          1•1 year ago

          I guess its really not in the big scheme. Idk just makes me nervous counting on so many people to store and manage my password in a smart way but I don’t know a lot about Lemmy or activitypub so maybe that’s all handles outside of instance admin control.

          • @shrugalEnglish
            1•1 year ago

            Remember that this is how every service you sign up for works. What’s special about Fediverse services is that they synchronize posts between the instances, other than that they work like any other website or app.

            • @[email protected]English
              1•1 year ago

              Yeah that’s true. Just feels different when it’s a company and not potentially some random person in their basement.

              • @shrugalEnglish
                2•1 year ago

                That’s why picking the right instances is important, to make sure it’s not some random person in their basement. Read the about pages of the instances, see what they publish about their operations. The people behind the .world instances regularly blog about what they are doing, spending and earning for example. Some are even run by non-profits. I personally feel much better with those kinds of people running a service I rely on, instead of a company that talks to me only through their marketing department and first and foremost wants to maximize profits.

                But that’s also exactly my point. You should be able to transfer your account to another instance, so you’re not stuck if the one you picked turns out to be bad or has to be shut down.