Open letter to Zuckerberg from Pixelfed creator Supernault
his post on mastodon is here:
mastodon.social/@pixelfed/1138…
Dear Mark,
I hope this finds you well. I noticed something interesting today - it seems Instagram is blocking links to my little open-source project. You know, the one that lets people share photos without harvesting their personal data or forcing algorithmic feeds on them.
I have to admit, I'm flattered. Who would've thought a small team of volunteers could build something that would catch your attention? We're just trying to give people a choice in how they share their memories online. No VCs, no surveillance capitalism, just code and community.
Remember when Facebook started? It was about connecting people, not maximizing engagement metrics. Our project might be tiny compared to Instagram, but we're staying true to that original spirit of social media - giving people control over their online presence without turning them into products.
You could've ignored us. Instead, by blocking our links, you've given us the best endorsement we could ask for. You've confirmed what we've been saying all along - that big tech is more interested in protecting their walled gardens than fostering genuine innovation.
Every time you block a link to our platform, you remind people why we built it in the first place. Your action tells them there are alternatives worth exploring, ones that respect their privacy and agency. So thank you, Mark. You've turned our little project into a symbol of resistance against digital monopolies.
Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg
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Decentralized Instagram alternative Pixelfed launches mobile apps
Decentralized Instagram alternative Pixelfed launches mobile apps | TechCrunch
Pixelfed, a decentralized alternative to Instagram, has launched its official mobile apps. The service today runs on the same ActivityPub protocol thatSarah Perez (TechCrunch)
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Keep your reels off Pixelfed please. Use loops.video instead.
Pixelfed is a photo sharing platform
If all the things in the work queue, you're balking on a COLOUR SCHEME?
That's like stopping the construction crew for using the wrong colour work boots, man!
No dark mode, no use.
BTW, work boot color is absolutely regulated depending on context. For example here in Germany, if you work in sterile or food-related industries then shoes are to be issued and used with a color that cannot inherently hide stains by the material you're working with, to prevent accidentally carrying contaminations into other clean zones.
So yes, you would stop the construction crew for using the wrong color work boots.
While you may be right about the boots thing that doesn’t stop me from thinking your obstinacy is a bit of a reach and looks embarrassing XD
Use display and text size preferences on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support
With iOS accessibility features for the display, you can enlarge your text, make it bold, increase contrast, apply color filters, use Smart Invert, control auto-brightness, and more.Apple Support
While my comment was certainly controversial, the number of up-votes from users in the Fediverse means it shouldn't be ignored, either.
Luckily embarrassment is controlled by the person feeling it, and I seem to have a severe lack of that gene 😆
Then it's a health-hazard
Thats nonsense
Literally spent 30 seconds on a Google before you start spewing lies like this.
There's a variety of reasons to prefer dark mode, but spreading fake health information isn't valid.
I spent reading books, before YOU started smearing a well-know fact as a lie
It's connected with causing myopia & eye-strains
Your precious google won't tell you that (Or maybe you simply clicked the first link that confirmed your bias)
Pick up an opthalmology book, find it yourself & ask your opthalmology specialist
Those are my sources & here's a website too (do you have the guts to touch grass ?)
I already mentioned it, it's the same reason why we use blue-light filters & why we use anti-glare screen protectors
But apparently a single "google-search" is enough for you
Is Dark Mode Better for Your Eyes?
Wondering if dark mode is better for your eyes? The experts at eyecarecenter have some insight. Learn more.eyecarecenter
You really should read pages you want to link. And I say this as a die-hard dark mode user. It's worrying that you so aggressively attack people get cannot even read the page you link far enough to notice that what you are saying about it is nonsense (like how it has "the same reason", which of course it doesn't, as made clear in the article).
Or you know, at least don't be such a dick. That's also help a lot!
People who say light-mode is not a hazard are the real dicks
Darker (& warmer) colours do not strain your eyes, why are we debating on this ?? This is well-known
You think I did not read the article ? There are more articles that I can link, but will you read it ?
(Also try using your intelligence & realize why I said "same reason")
This is one of the most laymen one I could find.
Again it doesn't really disprove my other point of light-mode being harmful.
Look, someone reported this as misinformation. Too bad me, the active mod here, gets pain in the eyes, sometimes flickering vision, and sometimes what I would describe as sea sickness from staring onto bright white screens. When I have no other choice because work, I invert all screen colors but sometimes correct colors are important.
So yeah, no proper dark mode means it's a crap app.
So yeah, these people who reported are people who think their opinions & google-searches are superior to common knowledge
Hold on, are you confusing something being hurting (as in, causing pain and/or pathological damage) with something being exhausting (as in, strains your eyes) with something being annoying?
Because if the three words are used interchangeably in your vocabulary that'd explain a lot of your seemingly random posts in the comments here. They're not the same (at all) to most people and especially not on a medical level (like that article you yourself provided, there is no medical evidence for non-extreme light sources making a difference in eye health).
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And I don't use them, either. I'm a contributor to multiple Fediverse projects, including Lemmy-based apps and full identity management with ActivityPub. We do not deserve to get held to lower standards if we want the Fediverse to grow, especially when it comes to features that are about things like eye comfort, which can be a mild accessibility issue for some.
Dark mode is a basic necessity in apps today. It's not a convenience, but a necessity for adoption. There are many people who are going to open the app, then never use it again because of something that's bog-standard in the libraries and should only take a few hours to work in, which should have been done before an announcement.
So yes, I speak up, because I want this to succeed.
Edit: And yes, I'm very excited to see the growth achieved in the other post. Fantastic news.
@corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca, @'ing you so I'm not responding in two places 😉 I appreciate the work of the team, but it doesnt change the fact that to many, this is a showstopper and I'm pretty surprised it wasn't considered as a basic UX requirement pre-launch (see other comments in response to you).
oce 🐆
Unknown parent • • •like this
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SupraMario
Unknown parent • • •randompasta
Unknown parent • • •JaggedRobotPubes
Unknown parent • • •JaggedRobotPubes
in reply to gi1242 • • •jagged_circle
in reply to gi1242 • • •FYI, put two spaces and two newlines after the end of a paragraph to put whitespace between (and any platform that uses markdown).
Please edit the post
drspod
in reply to SupraMario • • •like this
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jagged_circle
in reply to oce 🐆 • • •I dont think it was ranking, no.
But it was for getting their PII. Like photos, location, relationship status, and phone number. Helped a lot of college kids get laid, myself included.
Does pixelfed work for this too?
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jagged_circle
Unknown parent • • •like this
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GoofSchmoofer
Unknown parent • • •well the the learning curve for new users is flat and adoption of the app will be more acceptable to more people.
I think it's a smart idea - they can always make changes to the UI in time as the platform gets more people.
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onlinepersona
Unknown parent • • •Does threads finally support reading responses from the fediverse? Or seeing posts from the fediverse? Because if it does, trying to get pixelfed and other alternatives trending might be a way to get some attention.
Anti Commercial-AI license
Deed - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International - Creative Commons
creativecommons.orgonlinepersona
in reply to jagged_circle • • •Will it? I doubt CNN, Faux News, WaPo, or any big news org will even know Pixelfed exists, much less that the creator wrote a snarky message to Zucc.
Anti Commercial-AI license
Deed - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International - Creative Commons
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ieatpwns
Unknown parent • • •onlinepersona
in reply to gi1242 • • •Will @zuck@threads.net ever read this though? Does he even use that account?
Anti Commercial-AI license
Deed - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International - Creative Commons
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Cătă
in reply to onlinepersona • • •Mammothmothman
in reply to gi1242 • • •like this
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HootinNHollerin
in reply to Mammothmothman • • •Android app on google play store
iPhone app on apple app store
Pixelfed page about apps including 3rd party ones available
Pixelfed page on how to join
Pixelfed - Apps on Google Play
play.google.comlike this
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homoludens
in reply to oce 🐆 • • •Everything to know about Facemash, the site Zuckerberg created in college to rank ‘hot’ women
Metro (Metro US)like this
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zephorah
Unknown parent • • •That’s just it. Zuck could sell off and close shop and live large for the rest of his life. And yet he chooses to fuck around with people instead.
It’s weird.
There’s creating. And then there’s harvesting content and creations of others. The former is the only one that makes you interesting.
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Ben Hur Horse Race
in reply to GoofSchmoofer • • •don't like this
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veee
Unknown parent • • •Clinicallydepressedpoochie
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Clinicallydepressedpoochie
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Clinicallydepressedpoochie
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Clinicallydepressedpoochie
in reply to zephorah • • •pythonoob
in reply to JaggedRobotPubes • • •ikidd
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jagged_circle
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HootinNHollerin
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snooggums
in reply to Clinicallydepressedpoochie • • •like this
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snooggums
Unknown parent • • •Which makes sense because they are just regular people who are, unsurprisingly, mostly idiots.
onlinepersona
in reply to jagged_circle • • •What's "media" to you?
Anti Commercial-AI license
Deed - Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International - Creative Commons
creativecommons.orgAphelion
in reply to ieatpwns • • •adarza
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shalafi
Unknown parent • • •shalafi
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A_Random_Idiot
in reply to shalafi • • •finitebanjo
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where_am_i
in reply to finitebanjo • • •Ben Hur Horse Race
in reply to HootinNHollerin • • •yeah that all makes sense.
i guess i just raised an eyebrow as the author of the letter was like "its just code and community" whilst absolutely copying their design down to the order of the items on the popup menu for posts
y0kai
in reply to snooggums • • •Agrivar
Unknown parent • • •You might want to do a bit more research, as it seems settled that Adrian Dittman is an actual real person and not Muskrat's sockpuppet. Maybe be less of a dick about it too.
techcrunch.com/2025/01/05/bad-…
rollingstone.com/culture/cultu…
'Adrian Dittmann': X Users Believe Prominent Account Is Elon Musk
Miles Klee (Rolling Stone)ZeroOne
in reply to gi1242 • • •jaybone
in reply to ZeroOne • • •kautau
Unknown parent • • •Yeah also facebook started as an evolution of men rating women on his campus. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_… It should be no surprise that zuck has recently started proclaiming that he wants a more masculine corporate identity, it's been that way from the beginning
madjo
in reply to gi1242 • • •PalmTreeIsBestTree
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aarRJaay
in reply to PalmTreeIsBestTree • • •VintageGenious
in reply to PalmTreeIsBestTree • • •PalmTreeIsBestTree
in reply to VintageGenious • • •suoko
in reply to PalmTreeIsBestTree • • •Multiprotocol apps helped keeping a variety of apps to communicate wherever we were.
Now it's WhatsApp in Europe and usa, telegram in Russian countries, Viber in Greece, wechat in China, line in Japan (?)
nonfuinoncuro
in reply to PalmTreeIsBestTree • • •مهما طال الليل
in reply to PalmTreeIsBestTree • • •DBosiers
in reply to madjo • • •jol
in reply to DBosiers • • •ThomasCrappersGhost
in reply to DBosiers • • •madjo
in reply to DBosiers • • •Sure, I'll be out of the loop regarding work related news and I'll just text all my coworkers individually. That's just not feasible!
I've tried several times over the course of a few years (every time Meta or Facebook or Whatsapp was negatively in the news) to move people away from that platform.
I've resigned to the fact that people are stubborn and don't want to move. I have a Signal account in case someone does move.
el_eh_chase
in reply to madjo • • •I just got set up on Simple X Chat. From my cursory research it seems to have the best security going in a chat app right now. I find the UI really slick too. It has all the features I use in a chat app anyway. The only thing to be aware of is that all the messages are saved locally, so backup/recovery needs to be handled by you. There's a couple videos an YouTube that go over the app.
All that being said, I still have WhatsApp on my phone. There's still the same problem of getting everyone in your life to download another app.
gi1242
in reply to madjo • • •lol. so I told my mom im deleting Whatsapp. if she wants to keep in touch with me she can install signal, or pay for international texts and calls.
she installed signal 😃
brrt
in reply to gi1242 • • •Seriously. There is no need to be patient with moms or anyone not „understanding“ Signal. It’s the same thing as WhatsApp just with a different coat of paint when it comes to using it.
I did exactly what you did. And lo and behold my mom is now using Signal to message me.
ieatpwns
in reply to Aphelion • • •Moineau
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AugustWest
in reply to Moineau • • •lunarul
in reply to AugustWest • • •MJKee9
in reply to lunarul • • •Leraje
in reply to lunarul • • •Itdidnttrickledown
in reply to Moineau • • •DBosiers
in reply to Moineau • • •FlashMobOfOne
in reply to Moineau • • •JaggedRobotPubes
in reply to Moineau • • •Oh no.
Please, for the love of god, think more tactically. This is a brilliant move on Daniel's part, and a fantastic example for the fediverse more broadly to follow.
sem
in reply to ikidd • • •like this
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sem
in reply to Ben Hur Horse Race • • •There's a theory that copyright can help artists make a living.
But copying a design from a corpo after they've already made oodles of money is more like liberating the design for use of everyone.
sem
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Nythos
in reply to JaggedRobotPubes • • •like this
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jagged_circle
in reply to onlinepersona • • •ikidd
in reply to sem • • •CosmicTurtle0
in reply to gi1242 • • •307 Temporary Redirect
with some short URI and start publishing it for people to use instead.afox
in reply to CosmicTurtle0 • • •LoudWaterHombre
in reply to afox • • •CosmicTurtle0
in reply to afox • • •Pixelfed - Decentralized social media
Pixelfedristoril_zip
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LoudWaterHombre
in reply to ristoril_zip • • •stoly
in reply to ristoril_zip • • •Taleya
in reply to gi1242 • • •LifeInMultipleChoice
in reply to Taleya • • •like this
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Agent641
in reply to gi1242 • • •Iapar
in reply to gi1242 • • •Cris
Unknown parent • • •I know folks hate reddit but I googled Adrian Dittman and holy fuck, dude is a complete fucking nutjob
reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitte…
Just spends his days publicly tweeting at himself, I don't even know what to say to something that painfully pathetic
BothsidesistFraud
in reply to gi1242 • • •LemUrun
in reply to BothsidesistFraud • • •MonkderVierte
in reply to gi1242 • • •Captain Aggravated
in reply to oce 🐆 • • •GoofSchmoofer
in reply to Ben Hur Horse Race • • •Yes I do.
If app A has an icon that when touched does a specific thing, and app B has the exact same icon that does the exact same thing there is nothing new to learn. The learning curve is flat.
If you are arguing about the ethical and legal aspect of one app using the exact same UI as another that is a different conversation and a good one to have.
ad_on_is
in reply to gi1242 • • •While I really wish for PixelFed to take off, like Mastodon and Lenmy did, the current situation, IMHO, is just confusing to say the least.
So, here are two pixelfed mobile apps, an older one which is just a wrapper of the web version, and a newer polished one.
I've the new "polished" one installed for a few months now, and it seemes as if it's development has stalled. The app just feels unfinished at this point.
Now, I get it, it's a volunteer project, and there are probably just a handful of people working on it. And this is totally fine, I'm not expecting them to deliver an Instagram clone anytime soon.
However, a few months ago, they announced "Loops", with pre-signups and some marketing yada yada... All this, while there's still an unfinished app for their core product. But, I went ahead and signed up, just to find out, it was just crickets for a few months.
Then, recently I logged in again (on the web), and saw an they have an App for Loops which seems to be in the works, and upon testing it, I came to the same conclusion, it's just an
... show moreWhile I really wish for PixelFed to take off, like Mastodon and Lenmy did, the current situation, IMHO, is just confusing to say the least.
So, here are two pixelfed mobile apps, an older one which is just a wrapper of the web version, and a newer polished one.
I've the new "polished" one installed for a few months now, and it seemes as if it's development has stalled. The app just feels unfinished at this point.
Now, I get it, it's a volunteer project, and there are probably just a handful of people working on it. And this is totally fine, I'm not expecting them to deliver an Instagram clone anytime soon.
However, a few months ago, they announced "Loops", with pre-signups and some marketing yada yada... All this, while there's still an unfinished app for their core product. But, I went ahead and signed up, just to find out, it was just crickets for a few months.
Then, recently I logged in again (on the web), and saw an they have an App for Loops which seems to be in the works, and upon testing it, I came to the same conclusion, it's just an unfinished barebones TikTok.
Again, I'm not ranting about PixelFed, but IMHO, if they want to get serious, they should focus on one thing, until time and resources allow them to explore other things.
I would love to see it succeed as an alternative.
Ben Hur Horse Race
in reply to GoofSchmoofer • • •werefreeatlast
in reply to gi1242 • • •That is one kick ass last name!
We got
Ault
Nault
Renault
And Supernault!
LandedGentry
in reply to gi1242 • • •thbb
in reply to gi1242 • • •Now I understand why I didn't care closing my Facebook account years ago: it was for cross posting this sort of information.
Even if my Facebook feed is a sad desert, I hope I can be censored by the guy who rejects fact checkers
IsThisAnAI
in reply to gi1242 • • •Cringy, inaccurate, and reeks of arrogance. 200k users. I bet it got blocked because some bot started spamming the platform.
At the end of the day, the critical mass of users will be based on 2 things. Ease of use or engagement and content. Content creators won't go to platforms that don't bring in money or get yelled at for trying to make money.
Xed
in reply to gi1242 • • •