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2025-01-12 02:41:19

James M.

jamesmarshall@sfba.social

So, a whole lot of people want to leave meta right now, and we should be providing good alternatives. What is the current best decentralized solution for private posts, i.e. to friends only? How about for private groups? Are there any tools on the fediverse that support these? I want to recommend a solution to meta refugees, and I think these two features of FB are holding a lot of people back from switching.

Potential solutions include:

- Mastodon, when requiring approval for followers and then posting only to followers;

- Matrix rooms, where each person creates a room that includes all their friends;

- Friendica? Other apps?

I haven't tried these myself. If you have, would you say they work well for private posting, using roughly the same paradigm as FB? (Part of that is bilateral "friendships" rather than unilateral "follows".)

Do you know of other solutions?

Thanks for any ideas! 😊

#meta #facebook #facebookMigration #mastodon #fediverse #matrix #friendica #privatePosting #privacy

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2025-01-12 08:39:58

James M.

jamesmarshall@sfba.social

@jupiter_rowland thanks, this is great information! It sounds like Friendica or Hubzilla would be the best to recommend. To clarify, can a user post to only their friends (or a subset)? Does either one use e2ee?

2025-01-12 09:16:49

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@James M. It has been a while since I've last used Friendica; I'm mostly on Hubzilla now plus a bit on (streams).

But AFAIK, all three let you post to certain connections, including to a specific circle (Friendica)/privacy group (Hubzilla)/access list ((streams)), basically something similar to Mastodon's lists. In either case, these posts and the whole threads are flagged not public, and especially Hubzilla and (streams) don't allow changing access permissions within a thread. Mastodon understands these limited-access posts as PMs.

In theory, it's possible to post "followers only" like on Mastodon: Create a circle/privacy group/access list, add all your contacts to it and send a post to this circle/privacy group/access list.

In addition, all three support something similar to Facebook groups which is a) moderated and b) optionally private, as in nobody can look inside from outside. On Friendica, a group is a user account which you have to register separately. Likewise, on Hubzilla and (streams), a forum or group is a channel with special settings, but instead of having to register a new account, you can create a new channel on your existing account next to your existing channel.

As for E2EE, neither supports any standard E2EE technology. Hubzilla and (streams) allow for conversations to be optionally encrypted. But: Only the transmission is encrypted. Encryption uses a passphrase rather than a private/public key pair. Both sides must have the encryption add-on activated, and it isn't even necessarily available on all server instances. Encryption may only work within Hubzilla and within (streams), but not between them. And, obviously, encryption does not work to the outside, e.g. Friendica or Mastodon.

Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams) can replace Facebook, but not WhatsApp. That's what Matrix and XMPP are for.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #FacebookAlternative #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Groups #PrivateGroups

2025-01-12 09:34:18

James M.

jamesmarshall@sfba.social

@jupiter_rowland excellent, thanks for the answers.