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Scroll vīgintī septem
sourceWelcome to volume twenty-seven of Scrolls, a newsletter for sharing cool stuff from the IndieWeb, Fediverse & Cybersecurity realms. This week we ponder a better, although imperfect web, we encourage everyone to join the Fediverse movement, and sigh… AI continues to make us sad.
But ya know what doesn’t make me sad? This dope bird mage. 🐦 🧙
IndieWeb
The “old web” wasn’t perfect, but it’s hard to look at what the web has become and not wonder how it was lost. Those that remember have sought to build a once-again “open web”, but things are never that simple. Problems abound in this quest to be sure, but for every obstacle, there are ways to mitigate and build a better, more open, more cooperative, more human web—it doesn’t need to be perfect.
The lifeblood of this better web is the classic personal website. If you don’t already have one, what better time than now to do so! There are so many ways to get one up and running. There are a lot of reasons to have your own website and do some blogging there too! And no, simply having a social media presence is no substitute for an actual website that you own. Personally, I like having both a website and a standard (Fedi) social media presence. But there are options for making your website/blog plenty social if you’d like.
In fact, when it’s your site, it can be whatever you want it to be. You own it, so you can tinker with it to your hearts content, no obligations. You can update and change whatever you want, whenever you want. If you’re worried about the technical aspects of creating and managing a website, don’t! There’s plenty of no code or low-code options available. Does your website have to be good? Does it need to look like other people’s sites? No! In fact, I’d encourage you to make it unique. Make it you. Hell, make it purposefully worse than other sites you see. Honestly that’s the beauty of the personal, IndieWeb. Doin’ whatever you like.
Fediverse
Who would you rather trust to safeguard your online communities, your digital relationships, and your personal presence/identity on the web? Elon Musk? Mark Zuckerberg? Some other billionaire or privacy annihilating big tech entity? Or would you trust your actual community? This isn’t fantasy. There are real options to build, maintain and join online communities no longer reliant on the traditional tectonics of “big social”. Your first step? Simply sign-up. Congratulations, you are now a hero.
Perhaps you’re concerned that the “Fediverse”, or the “Social Web” is simply too fledgling for you to entrust something this important to—to invest this much time into. Well, I’d still argue that given the alternative, it’s worth it regardless. But if it allays any fears you might have, take some time to do some research and see all the work that is being put into making this big-tech-free web a reality. There’s so much innovation to be found! We’ve got E2E encryption coming courtesy of the Public Key Directory, LinkedIn will soon be a thing of the past, we’re bridging networks and eradicating mansplaining while we’re at it. Come join us!
Cybersecurity
AI isn’t secure. AI can’t be trusted. But AI lives on. Patch yo shit.
Thanks for reading Scrolls! Time to go goblin mode…
