mastodon.ar.al is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
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Aral Balkan

Introducing Streamiverse… a simple Mastodon-compatible streaming API of curated posts from the fediverse.

streamiverse.small-web.org

Consume the public API curated/hosted by Small Technology Foundation (for non-commercial and educational use) or host your own.

Mastodon had a public streaming API but it was locked down this year. This gives you back that useful feature (for demos, teaching, etc.) plus you know exactly what you’re getting.

Streamiverse is written in Kitten and you can follow the “htmx, the htmx WebSocket extension, and socket routes” tutorial to create a Kitten app that consumes the API:

kitten.small-web.org/tutorials

To get started with Kitten, see:

kitten.small-web.org

(Could be a fun little thing to play with this weekend.)

:kitten:💕

@javielico Thanks! Hope you find it useful :) 💕

@aral oh, that's cool!

Seems like it loops the same ~20 posts over and over, is it meant to work that way?

@lnkr Yep. It loops however many you’ve curated. Took me long enough to curate the (currently 24). I’ll likely add more to it going forward.

Basically, it’s so you have a streaming datasource if you want to demonstrate how to build a fediverse app or consume a WebSocket or a GET route. Useful for presentations, teaching, etc. I use it in a Kitten tutorial, for example.

@aral @catileptic do you know why we locked it down? Because that's an important part here

@thisismissem - not sure why i am tagged, i don't work on either the mastodon code base nor on Kitten-related code :)) wish i could help but i effectvely have no idea about these decisions
@aral - awesome work! the growing array of apps and tools you create & maintain are firmly in the "hope for humanity regained" category

@catileptic @aral probably because you boosted it, that question was more aimed at Aral though.

@catileptic Thanks so much for your kind words, appreciate it 💕

@aral @catileptic specifically it was being used as a side-channel to access content post defederation or post blocking.

@thisismissem @aral

Wasn't this always going to happen? Granted I just have a sysad background and not coding but isn't everything on fedi in the open? I never expected any privacy here.

To me, blocking means "I can't see X". Not "X can't see me". Am I off base?

@plasma4045 @aral yes, you're off base here. People do have an expectation of safety features working. The unsecured streaming endpoints were being used for mass non-consensual data gathering, tools to circumvent blocks and defederations, and just generally didn't align with the API policies in place.

Whilst you don't have any expectation of privacy, others have an expectation of safety (which involves privacy and controlling reach of their posts)

@thisismissem @aral

I feel that participation in a public forum such as this is basically acknowledging that this data will be collected by someone, somewhere.

If your safety depends on you controlling how far your posts on a public forum go, I'm not sure you should be on a public forum at all without utilizing a pseudonym.

This isn't a value judgement. Just a reality of posting in public.

^ All said in polite discussion - not meant as confrontation. And I don't feel I'm owed a response.

@plasma4045 @aral right, but you do still have the ability to decide not to talk with someone or to move away from someone trying to listen in on your conversation to harass or bully you.

Our main APIs already required authentication for accessing lots of data, streaming was just inexplicably left open.

But also consuming from a proprietary API is not participating in a conversation, since that'd require being on activitypub. Please do read up on consent, it's really important