… I think it’s important to draw organisations’ attention to the Fediverse—especially organisations with a specific social purpose, such as WeMove, Avaaz or EKO. And organisations like Greenpeace would also do well to be a little less dependent on American big tech.
Sample letter
To help others write such letters to organisations that could set a better example in this regard, I’m sharing below what I’ve already jotted down.
I am sharing this text under the CC0 licence (Public Domain). This means that I have waived all copyright. Feel free to reuse the letter, adapt it, set it to music… Whatever you like.
Cited from: bammerlaan.nl/posts/Voorbeeldbrief-Fedi...
Dear fellow activists,
I was reading this call you forwarded and I’m a big fan of what you do. However, I noticed that for social media, you rely exclusively on platforms run by big tech companies (X, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, etc.).
I’d like to draw your attention to the Fediverse, a network of independent social media platforms such as Mastodon and Pixelfed.
(this is a template letter. don't think I wrote all this, but it's a good explanation :-)
The core of the Fediverse is decentralisation: individuals or organisations can run it themselves on servers of all sizes, meaning the network can never fall into the hands of a single large company. The video on this website explains it well: https://fediverse.info . More information about the Fediverse can also be found there.
The great thing is that all platforms within the Fediverse (Mastodon, Pixelfed and Peertube are the best known) are interconnected. For example, a Mastodon user can view posts from a Peertube user and respond to them. In my view, this is the only truly ethical alternative to the major well-known companies that currently control social media (and thus the flow of information for a large part of the world’s population!).
They control the algorithm that determines what users see on their websites. And given that a large part of Europe gets its news from social media, that influence is quite significant (source: https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/3592 ).
I understand that only a small percentage of the worldwide population is on the Fediverse and that, as a result, it is likely a lower priority for you. However, due to growing concerns about Big Tech, there is a significant group of potential users—such as myself—who refuse to use those platforms any longer and who will be sympathetic towards organisations that join the Fediverse. Your organization does serve as something of a role model, so I think it would be quite helpful if you treated Mastodon (or another Fediverse platform) as a fully-fledged alternative. (In fact, the best alternative!). Change has to start somewhere, after all... I imagine you know all about that.
Besides, it’s a small effort: whatever you share on ‘mainstream’ social media can also be shared on Mastodon. There are even paid services available for this, such as https://publer.com/ and https://buffer.com/mastodon .
Hopefully, you’ll consider taking this step to make the world’s information supply a little less dependent on big tech companies with a questionable moral compass!
Warm regards,
