Elena Rossini will be presenting at fediday this weekend: Reasons to be hopeful: success stories from the Fediverse this year :: FediDay 2026 :: pretalx. I really enjoyed losing myself in her blog where she writes engaging and accessible posts with practical guidance to self-hosting all the things while also making the case for it. AND generously giving credit to people who helped her along the way.
Elena also seems to be a perfect case study for posse - post own site syndicate everywhere. She truly owns her means of content production, hosting and distribution! Really looking forward to her session.
Example, from A newbie's guide to self-hosting: GoToSocial part 1 (installation and set-up) :
Why Now?
We are at a crucial moment in time: many governments around the world are introducing mandatory age verification for social media users. The reason (or rather “excuse”)? Protecting children from harmful online content. And yet privacy experts have been denouncing these initiatives as inadequate and dangerous and have been raising alarms as these efforts are tantamount to a Trojan horse bringing in the end of anonymity on the internet.
source: Tutanota
As an individual, I feel powerless opposing these forces. I am really concerned about the state of the fediverse - which does not have infrastructure in place to comply with these laws - and as an act of resistance and survival, I think it’s more important than ever to teach how to self-host your own social media instance. I feel that self-hosted federated instances would fall outside the scope of mandatory age verification (if those things are ever introduced, European Union-wide).
