Growing distrust of social media has taken hold. The once unquestioned dominance of major platforms, perceived as essential to communication and content distribution, is now being called into question. Out of this climate of disillusionment emerged a desire for a more open and independent Internet that would above all meet the aspirations of its users. A vision carried by a "federated" Internet where traditional social networks give way to a vast ecosystem of interconnected platforms, capable of communicating freely with one another. While the principles of the fediverse are far from new and platforms that participate in it—like Mastodon—have existed for years, this concept has never been more timely. Yet it faces a problem. While its alternative and decentralized operation has already convinced some, convinced that a complete overhaul of the Internet is more necessary than ever, it can also put off more than a few through its somewhat nebulous terminology, methods, and uses. Can the fediverse claim to be the future if its operation and main advantages are understood by only a minority of Internet users?

Encouraged by those close to you, you may have joined Mastodon or Bluesky yourself without really understanding how it worked? You've heard about "communication protocols" or "instances" without really grasping what they meant? You don't know how to respond to that colleague trying to convince you to "toot"? This guide will help you understand a bit better.

What is the Fediverse?

The fediverse, a contraction of "federation" and "universe", refers to a network of interconnected platforms and servers that can communicate with each other. Currently, it is impossible for you to read tweets from a Facebook account or watch a YouTube video directly on Instagram. If these platforms were "federated", these interactions would be technically possible. To do this, they would need to use a "common language" that would allow them to exchange data with each other. In computing, we call this a "communication protocol". With this system, no more applications that exist in isolation—everyone participates in one large network. From the application of your choice, you can view and follow accounts hosted elsewhere on the fediverse. Today, for example, you can read messages posted on Threads from Mastodon. You can therefore switch social networks, whether because of moderation policies you no longer agree with or simply because you don't like the interface, without fear of losing access to the accounts you were following until now.

Until now, very few platforms had taken this on, judging the approach too cumbersome and pointless. Why would these social networks, bent on dominating the market with their own product and locking their users into their spaces, bother developing bridges between them? But in parallel, initiatives emerged here and there, and advocates of a federated and independent Internet set about developing tools and platforms that would lay the first foundations of the fediverse.

Still not sure what we're talking about?

If you've never heard of "communication protocols" until now, don't worry—that's completely normal. Yet they're everywhere in our daily lives, often without us even realizing it. Take your emails. You can exchange messages with people who have addresses hosted by Google, Yahoo, or Hotmail regardless of your own address or the company managing your email service. These companies can still offer different interfaces and features. They also control how your messages are presented and categorized, which is why emails end up in spam for some people but not for others. Despite these technical and aesthetic differences, our emails can easily travel from one service to another. This works thanks to these famous communication protocols, which are increasingly being used in the connected smart home sector. The open source protocol "Matter" for example lets you control connected devices from different brands and make them compatible with voice assistants from Apple, Samsung, Google, and so on. In short, communication protocols are generally championed for products that require frequent interactions between platforms, tools, or devices made by different companies and therefore need a certain amount of flexibility in terms of compatibility. Like your emails or smart lightbulbs, communication protocols have been designed to facilitate communication on the Internet, the best known probably being ActivityPub, used by Mastodon and Threads. There are other options though, such as AT Protocol or Nostr.

Technically, when talking about the fediverse, we're referring to platforms that specifically use ActivityPub. However, the term is sometimes used more broadly to refer to decentralized platforms, regardless of which protocol they use.

Why is this being discussed now?

For some time now, frustration — even rejection — of social media has become evident. When Elon Musk takes control of Twitter, users alarmed by his antisemitic and transphobic positions, his management of the company, and his support for Donald Trump, seek out alternatives. This event, in certain respects, marks a shift and renewed interest in alternative platforms and decentralised approaches. It also represents a kind of awakening. For years, these social networks have become embedded in our habits, in the way we communicate with those close to us and share information. In the media industry, they proved almost indispensable for distributing content, operating as digital newsstands without which it would be impossible to reach your audience. Elon Musk's sudden takeover demonstrated that these platforms don't belong to users or companies that rely on their features, and they could slip away overnight. Add to that the scandals surrounding Facebook and its data management, Instagram that no longer wants politics, the loss of trust in algorithms, the flood of AI-generated content… In the end, social networks are no longer anything like a newsstand, too bad for the media and its readers. Yet abruptly leaving a platform like X, on which media outlets have built their distribution strategy over years, is not easy to do. Unlike decentralised platforms, each community is specific to a single social network. Once you decide to leave it, it becomes de facto unreachable.

Why is this interesting for the press?

Reducing dependence on big platforms: an argument that had already led some media outlets to join Mastodon as early as 2017, before they abandoned the platform as enthusiasm somewhat waned. Mediapart announced its grand return to the platform a few years later, praising its decentralized and open source functioning: "A way to affirm our support for alternative digital spaces that, far from GAFA exploiting personal data for commercial purposes, give users back control".

More recently, these decentralized social networks have experienced a resurgence of interest as several newsrooms, exhausted by X and the excesses of its owner, sought out credible alternatives. Part of the press, for example, mobilized as part of the Hello Quit X movement to abandon Elon Musk's network and move to Mastodon and Bluesky. A transition that is nonetheless far from straightforward. It's difficult, for instance, for some independent media outlets to give up part of their audience on which their financial independence depends. And therein lies the crux of the problem: dominant platforms that establish monopolies by locking their users into closed systems. The decentralized architecture of Mastodon or Bluesky would help mitigate this risk, by developing communities independent of the interests of a single corporation, or even a single individual, and which could set their own rules and communicate with anyone.

But beyond social media, certain outlets like Vox, The Verge, and 404 Media are seriously considering federating their own sites. Facing distribution challenges on platforms like X and Facebook, these newsrooms no longer want to depend on private actors to drive traffic and build communities. With the fediverse, these outlets could, in principle, publish their articles from their own sites and make them automatically accessible to all fediverse users. They could read, comment on, and share these contents from the platform of their choice. "Instead of spending time building a presence on other platforms for their benefit, a media outlet can do it on its own sites," explains Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief of The Verge, in an interview with Digiday. "We should stop being content suppliers and start promoting our own products." The fediverse allows outlets to maintain control over a unique, interconnected community accessible from different platforms, while freeing themselves from the opaque algorithms imposed by a handful of private companies.

How do I get started?

If you've made it this far, it's because the subject interests you and you want to get started. Didn't understand everything? No worries—you don't need to master a technology inside and out to use it. You've probably been using your email address for years without ever hearing about communication protocols, and that likely hasn't affected how you use this communication tool. We've listed a few platforms for you that will let you take your first steps confidently in this space.

• Bluesky The micro-blogging platform, available since late 2023, was developed… at Twitter. Its former boss, Jack Dorsey, wanted to develop a communication protocol for his social network. But following Elon Musk's takeover, the project evolved, breaking away from X to create its own platform, now a competitor to its "big sister." It uses its own communication protocol, AT Protocol, and claims over 10 million users.
• Threads Another competitor to X, Threads was launched in 2024 by Meta. The network is closely linked to Instagram in several ways, which makes it both an advantage and a disadvantage. While this symbiosis with a major social network with nearly 2 billion users greatly contributed to Threads' growth, it remains impossible to create a Threads account without having an Instagram account.
• Mastodon is a microblogging platform launched in 2016, based on ActivityPub, where each user chooses their server (called an "instance") based on their interests, such as the arts or journalism.
• PeerTube This video hosting platform, launched in 2018, describes itself as a
• Flipboard Specialized in distributing editorial content, Flipboard lets readers create digital magazines from multiple information sources. Since August 2004, it has enabled following accounts hosted on other fediverse servers and viewing content published from platforms like Threads.

Use crossposting tools

To broadcast everywhere at once, you'll need to find the right tools. « But isn't the whole point of decentralization being able to do everything from a single platform? » you might ask. And you're right. But as mentioned earlier, there are multiple communication protocols and that's where it gets a bit tricky: if everyone creates their own universal language, we're back to square one and that's kind of what's happening right now. For example, Bluesky uses its own communication protocol, the AT Protocol, which it's one of the only ones using. The ActivityPub protocol, which is older, has been adopted by more platforms (Threads, Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, etc). « If everyone uses the same communication protocol except Bluesky, where's the problem? » you might insist. Unfortunately, simply adopting a protocol isn't enough for everyone to suddenly be able to exchange with each other—that would be too easy. It's work that will take time. With Threads, you can for example post messages that will appear on Mastodon… but not the other way around (at least for now). To post everywhere at once, you can therefore resort to applications like Croissant, Fedica, Buffer… or good old copy-paste.

Federate your site

Few tools enable integrating a website into this network of decentralized platforms. WordPress, for example, introduced an ActivityPub plugin in October 2023 that would allow readers to follow sites and receive content published there directly from their platform of choice. " Moreover, they can engage in enriching conversations by replying to your articles, with their responses appearing as comments on your blog post, creating a synchronized and interactive experience ". In 2024, the CMS Ghost, which has positioned itself since its launch as an alternative to WordPress aiming to "democratize online publishing," announced that it would adopt the ActivityPub communication protocol. While it will allow, like WordPress, readers to interact with content published on these sites from their platform of choice, Ghost also intends to strengthen interaction between sites using its service. " This means that soon, Ghost users will be able to follow, like, and interact with each other in the same way as on a social network, but on their own website ".

The fediverse is not a magic formula

That said, it's worth clarifying one thing: the fediverse remains an ideal. Platforms still often operate within their own ecosystem. Moreover, some question the true motives of companies that have recently expressed interest in the fediverse. Meta, not known for championing a free and decentralized Internet, has suddenly become passionate about the subject. Does the company wish to participate in the movement or co-opt it for profit down the line? It's possible the firm is trying to improve its image after having faced multiple antitrust proceedings aimed at limiting large companies' economic concentration. Another theory: Mark Zuckerberg hates Elon Musk and, unable to face him in an octagon, he's doing his best to compete with X. In short, we must remain cautious, or we risk repeating the same mistakes by placing our full trust in companies and platforms that promise a better world and claim to act in our interests. Yet it remains undeniable that the idea of a new model for the Internet—one more open and serving its users—has never been more timely. While challenges remain numerous, the emergence of decentralized alternatives and the interest they spark reminds us it is within reach; the question now is whether it will manage to establish itself.

To go further

• How some media outlets are preparing to federate their websites.
• Leave or stay on Twitter? The journalists' dilemma.
• X, Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads: how are media outlets organizing themselves? Lessons learned from L'Informé, Jours and Ouest-France.