There has been a convergence of late, Reddit’s fateful decision (and the wider trend of corporate enshittification) coupled with a growing interest in the Fediverse has triggered an emergence of Reddit-esque, thread-driven, link-aggregation/discussion-board sites. The Threadiverse, as it has been coined (and now tracked) specifically refers to the bloom of Lemmy and Kbin instances (more on these later) that have spawned and are now serving as places where former Reddit-dwellers are fleeing.

I don’t intend on thoroughly covering what happened (and is continuing to happen - also this kinda thing now) with Reddit nor do I want to try to explain the Fediverse and its many virtues, but I do want to share my feelings (ramble a bit) on what the instability and uncertain future of Reddit (and other large platforms), paired with the promising future of the Threadiverse means for those of us looking to find and build meaningful and lasting communities elsewhere across the web.

I think we as denizens of the Internet have become rather lazy, thanks in large part to the trend of content/activity centralization within the behemoth platforms like Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, etc… We have become too comfortable relying solely on these companies to serve us news, articles of interest and updates from our connections, friends and family. As such, we have conceded control of these feeds (and thus our minds and perspectives) to aggressive ad-injection and the corporate algorithms designed to enrage us and maximize (toxic) engagement, all to boost profitability for these companies. For an age, we have settled for this breed of news and content because of the benefits big-social and big-tech bring, but a new age is upon us, one of accelerating enshittification. So what happens when these platforms finally sour to the enshittification point? What happens to the communities we’ve built? The connections we’ve made? The real, useful content stranded within? Where do we go?

Enter the Fediverse and the IndieWeb at large. It is here that content can once again be “ours”, connectivity made more resilient and control recaptured. Here, we are far less vulnerable to the dangers and whims of the corporate weblords hellbent on extracting every last dollar from us at the expense of our privacy. Will it be easy to reclaim the web, our content and our connections? No, but thanks to a confluence of events, i.e. the growing set of (Fediversal) tools, a more motivated / awoken general populace, and an ever-incresasing portfolio of enshittified platforms, we may at last have the aggregate energy to overthrow then reclaim the web. 5

Enough of that, let’s get into what the options are beyond Reddit, how to use them and why it’s a good idea…

Threadiverse & Beyond

So the Reddit exodus has begun, but where are people going? Similar communities and experiences have emerged within apps/instances of the “Threadiverse” as well as some other non-decentralized services. This guide focuses mostly on Fediverse-compatible, decentralized discussion platforms (i.e. the Threadiverse) but these other platforms are mentioned for the sake of moving away from Reddit. The list below summarizes where people are migrating…

  • Lemmy: Fediverse-compatible social link aggregation and discussion platform
  • Kbin: Open source reddit-like content aggregator and microblogging platform for the Fediverse
  • PieFed: A link aggregator, a forum, a hub of social interaction and information, built for the fediverse
  • Mbin: Decentralized content aggregator, voting, discussion, and microblogging platform running on the fediverse
  • NodeBB: Traditional forum platform that has recently added Fediverse support
  • Discourse: Open source discussion platform (which has some Fediverse connectivity options)
  • Tildes - non-profit community site driven by its users’ interests
  • Squabblr - “combines the best parts of Twitter, with the best parts of Reddit”
  • Raddle - reddit alternative
  • Lobsters - computing-focused community centered around link aggregation and discussion
  • Hacker News
  • Azorius - social link aggregator and comment forum which federates with other instances via ActivityPub
  • Fark
Lemmy vs Kbin

So, threadiversally speaking, what’s better, Lemmy or Kbin? Let’s start with how they are similar. Lemmy and Kbin are both link aggregators/discussion platforms centered around communities (in Kbin speak, they are called “magazines”). They both have upvotes/downvotes (e.g. mostly for post popularity rather than “karma”), sorting (e.g. “hot”, “top”, newest, “active”, etc…), thread-based posts where you can comment/reply, community subscribe, user following and are both compatible with ActivityPub and thus each other. So how do they differ? Not much really from what I can tell so far. The few notable differences are Kbin supports Mastodon/Twitter-esque microblogging as well as native “Boosting”, Kbin is a newer project (circa 2021) written in PHP versus rust-based Lemmy (circa 2019), and of course the projects are backed by different development teams *. Pick one and let’s go! 1

* NOTE: Some within the community have expressed concerns related to Lemmy dev’s political views.

Operationalize Lemmy & Kbin

Functionally speaking, there’s not much difference between Lemmy and Kbin, so once you’ve decided which you want to start with, you can dive in and get sc-rollin’.

Getting Started

Getting started with Lemmy/Kbin is pretty easy!

  1. Find an instance. Which instance you choose shouldn’t matter much in the end. You will be able to see, subscribe and interact with communities from other instances regardless of your home instance. One way to find an instance is to simply find a community you are interested in and join the instance that community is a part of. Some considerations for instance choosing include…
    • Is this instance stable? Does it have a good admin/moderation team? Is it well-funded?
    • Is this instance at risk of defederation? This typically happens if it is hosting content that is bad. If so, it is at risk of being cut off from the wider network of Threadiverse instances. This should be the nuclear approach for instance admins, but there seems to be a fair bit of fedi-drama that could result in premature or poorly-reasoned defederation.
    • It’s worth noting that, unlike w/ Mastodon and other services where building a following is important, it is less so with the Threadiverse. Here, communities rule and if your instance goes belly-up for some reason, it’s very easy to create an entirely new account on a new instance and then simply re-subscribe to all your old communities. Yes, you may lose some “followers” and some post history but it shouldn’t matter as much in this context.
    • * Bottom line, yes, these are things to be aware of, but you shouldn’t need to worry or care about this so don’t let it trip you up in terms of getting started.

  2. *OPTIONAL*: If you enjoy browsing on the go, consider downloading a mobile app. I’ve enjoyed using Memmy so far.

  3. Find and subscribe to communities (and magazines) of interest! There are a few resources to aid in finding communities. The search functionality built directly within <instance>/communities (Lemmy) and <instance>/magazines (Kbin) can also be used to find communities, even across instances! Adding a specific community is as easy as typing !<community name>@<instance name> into the search bar.

  4. Start scrolling, reading, upvoting (or downvoting =/), replying, posting and enjoying!

  5. *OPTIONAL but Recommended*: Support your instance (financially - connect with your instance admin to learn how), volunteer (e.g. moderate), help grow the community!

Some other guides that I’ve seen pop up across the Threadiverse can be found in the References section.

Finding Communities

Finding communities/magazines across the Fediverse of networked Lemmy/Kbin instances is easy! You can use native search functionality or you can use any of the following! With the reddit migration in full-effect, there are a few separate efforts which map sub-reddits to their new homes in the Threadiverse.

Remember, you can interact with remote communities (communities on other instances) directly from your own. You don’t need accounts on multiple instances. Also, try not to worry about community fracturing (i.e. /c/techonology on multiple instances), you can simply follow all of them and then view them all in the aggregate “subscribed” feed. In time, I suspect these communities will coalesce or simply operate in harmony (with minimal redundant noise).

Interactivity w/ Mastodon

We refer to the network of Lemmy/Kbin instances as the “Threadiverse” because they are ActivityPub-compatible and thus part of the wider array of Fediverse applications. What does this mean beyond the Kbin <–> Lemmy interaction? Well it means there is some interactive capabilities w/ the most popular software of the Fediverse, Mastodon! I did some testing (thread 1, thread 2) not too long ago and made some observations…

NOTE: This testing was done at single point in time, using an isolated set of Lemmy/Kbin/Mastodon instances. Future updates or at-the-time configuration for any of these projects/instances could change observed behavior.

  • You can post to a Lemmy/Kbin community by using @<community>@<server> where the first line is the title of the post, followed by two returns and then the rest of the post is the body. This will post TO a community from your Mastodon handle. NOTE: At least for the instance I tried this on, I had issues responding to that Mastodon-originated post from my Lemmy account, but others with Lemmy accounts on other instances were able to respond, so it could be an isolated issue with my instance.

  • You can reply to Lemmy threads via Mastodon as well. This includes posts you originated from Mastodon, or by searching for a Lemmy post by URL within Mastodon and replying from there.

  • You can find Lemmy communities via Mastodon search, peruse posts and reply to them, even for communities that are otherwise locked down to just members of that community.

  • You can follow Lemmy/Kbin accounts from Mastodon. You can even follow communities from Mastodon!

  • Kbin posts, as seen from Mastodon look like this. (Fedia source)

  • Lemmy posts, as seen from Mastodon look like this. (infosec.pub source)

  • Some other Kbin <–> Mastodon stuff talked about here.

Instance Hosting & Community Management

I’m not an instance admin, nor have I ever self-hosted an instance so I won’t attempt to explain any of that, but I want to list out a few pointers related to community creation/management…

  • Creating a community/magazine is dead simple (as long as your instance supports open creation).

  • When creating a community, be mindful of the real possibility that the exact same community exists elsewhere. Not that you can’t create the same thing on a different instance, but it may make more sense for you to simply join/subscribe an existing community.

  • You should provide some thoughtful rules for appropriate conduct within your community. They should abide by/inherit the rules of the parent instance and be used to enforce moderation decisions.

  • Moderation is an extremely important property of a healthy online community. I’m no moderation expert, nor am I a particularly seasoned community manager, but I understand the importance of moderation and the difficulties that arise when attempting to perform it at scale. As the Threadiverse grows, its moderation capabilities must scale to meet demand. Rather than attempt to provide any meaningful analysis on the state of moderation capabilities within the Threadiverse, I’ll instead link to a few interesting resources/discussions I’ve come across…

  • Fediseer - FOSS service to help Fediverse instances detect and avoid suspicious instances. (Instructions for verification)

  • Set out to build and grow communities that are human-centric. Cast aside traditional desires of clout-chasing, aggressive growth and monetization. Be civil, be kind and have fun!

Infosec.Pub & Fedia Cybersecurity Community

This piece should be considered software/instance/community-agnostic, it is a guide for the larger Threadiverse. That said, there are two instances, and a community within both respective instances that I have created and am actively investing time into, specifically /c/cybersecurity on infosec.pub and /m/cybersecurity on Fedia. It is no secret that I am a cybersecurity professional and avid community-engager. Between this blog, my Discord, and overall Reddit history (purposefully not linking to my handle) in various infosec-related subs, I like to think of myself as a mentor and one who is very community-forward. To add to that collection (if you will), I have stood up these two communities as (unofficial) landing spots for infosec folks fleeing big-tech-run communities like those of Reddit (namely r/cybersecurity of which I was very active).

The future of the Threadiverse is somewhat uncertain, and by somewhat I am referring to its ability to capture meaningful mindshare and daily active users, not so much its general staying power (i.e. people have proclaimed Mastodon to be dead for years and yet it is still going, and by all counts, stronger than ever these days.) But Reddit doesn’t need to die for the Threadiverse to survive, an active community just needs to exist and I plan to help foster the cybersecurity/infosec community on these platforms as best I can. The instance admin for both infosec.pub and Fedia, the venerable Jerry has done an amazing job with the various Fediverse projects/instances he nearly single-handedly deploys, maintains and administers and in him I have faith for the continued function of the instance(s). (In fact, I highly recommend you support his work if you are able to!)

So how can you get involved, participate and grow the community? It’s easy! Follow the Getting Started guide to get up and running, then much as you always have (if you’re coming from Reddit), post interesting links, engage others in (civil) discussion, report posts/comments that violate community/instance rules and if there’s anything else feel free to reach out to me on Mastodon! To help get things moving, and to recapture some of the r/cybersecurity experience, I have started up some weekly discussion threads (listed below) that I hope everyone enjoys!

* To be clear, I am not in this for any sort of Internet or community-clout/reputation building. There are many other infosec communities both within the Threadiverse and outside that I am also a part of and would encourage you to join. What’s important to me is the long-term survival and healthy operation of this community I have enjoyed during my career and I believe it is at risk while it remains centralized on the platforms that have no interest in anything other than monetization of content. Hope to see you all out there!

Conclusion

I’ll leave the pontificating for the beginning of this article. Let me conclude by simply saying, I think now is the time to embrace the Fediverse, Threadiverse, IndieWeb, whatever you want to call it. It won’t be without challenges, and I know there are technical hurdles and mental overhead, but what we lose if we don’t try has become more evident now than ever. So speak up (#threadiverse, #redditmigration, etc…) and help others take back their feeds.

Appendices

Mobile Clients

A list of Lemmy/Kbin mobile app projects. Another great list of clients can be found here.

Interesting Instances/Communities

A curated list of Lemmy/Kbin instances and communities I find interesting/note-worthy.

Instances
Communities

References