42 lines
2.2 KiB
Markdown
42 lines
2.2 KiB
Markdown
# What is GNU social
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GNU social is a social network platform for communities. It enables you to publish
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short notes including URLs and pictures. If you're interested in what someone has
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to say you can subscribe them. When you log in to your account you see a feed
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containing all the notes from people, groups and tags you subscribed.
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You can have a conversation with another person by replying to each other's notes.
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You may have seen this sort of thing before. GNU social is special for three main
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reasons:
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* **Accessible**: It follows [A11Y](https://www.a11yproject.com/),
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[AnyBrowser](https://anybrowser.org/campaign/), and provides a complete [i18n interface
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for easy l10n](https://blog.mozilla.org/l10n/2011/12/14/i18n-vs-l10n-whats-the-diff/).
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* **Customizable**: Every community running GNU social has the power to provide a
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unique experience to its members.
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* **Privacy focused**: GNU social is part of the GNU project, it's 100% free software,
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with no malicious features or spyware.
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# The Free Network
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GNU social allows you to connect to a decentralised network named The Free Network,
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part of the IndieWeb. Being decentralised means that there is no single server that
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controls The Free Network. Instead, many servers are run by different people around
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the world. These servers communicate with each other to form a federation. You can
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create an account on any one of them. Although the servers sometimes look different,
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ultimately it doesn't matter which one you choose - you're still part of the same
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network as everyone else.
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If one server suffers an outage it's inconvenient for the people who have an
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account on that particular server. The rest of the network continues to operate as
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normal. This makes the fediverse highly resilient. Censorship is difficult as servers
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can be located anywhere in the world.
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Because GNU social is free software it's here to stay. A corporate social network
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might disappear or start running advertisements when the venture capital runs out.
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The GNU social code is available to everybody and there are many servers where it's
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free to create an account (the support tends to be done by means of donations).
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This is a social network that does what's best for the people who use it - not what
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makes the most money.
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