GNU Social
GNU Social is typically referred to as a microblogging system, although with a maximum post length much longer than Twitter it's really a sort of federated community blog with a stream-based appearance which also supports markdown formatting.
You can host your own GNU Social instance and then "remote follow" other users who may also be doing the same. With a federated structure this type of system is hard to censor or ban. Unlike Twitter, there are no bribed adverts pushed into your stream, and any trends happening are likely to be real rather than being manipulated by some opaque algorithm.
You should regard anything posted to GNU Social as being public communication visible to anyone on the internet. There is a direct messaging capability between users but it's not particularly secure, so for one-to-one messages stick to better methods, such as XMPP with OTR/OMEMO or Tox.
Installation
Log into your system with:
ssh myusername@mydomain -p 2222
Using cursor keys, space bar and Enter key select Administrator controls and type in your password.
Select Add/Remove Apps then gnusocial. You will then be asked for a domain name and if you are using FreeDNS also the code for the domain which can be found under Dynamic DNS on the FreeDNS site (the random string from "quick cron example" which appears after update.php? and before >>). For more details on obtaining a domain and making it accessible via dynamic DNS see the FAQ. You can also add a welcome message and background picture URL if you wish, although those things are optional. Typically the domain name you use will be a subdomain, such as gnusocial.mydomainname.net. It will need to be a domain which you have bought somewhere and own and not one of the FreeDNS subdomains, otherwise you won't be able to get a SSL/TLS certificate for it.
After the install has completed go to Security settings and select Create a new Let's Encrypt certificate and enter the domain name that you are using for GNU Social. If you're using the "onion only" version of the system then you don't need to do this. If the certificate is obtained successfully then you will see a congratulations message.
Initial setup
If you have just obtained a Lets Encrypt certificate as above then go to About on the administrator control panel and you should see your GNU Social domain listed there along with an onion address. You can then navigate to your site in a browser.
If you installed the system using a disk image then you can log in using the username and password which was originally shown when you installed the system. If you didn't install from a disk image then a new random password will be generated for each site and stored within a readme file. If you need to view that file then exit to the user control panel, select Exit to the command line and then run:
editor README
Once you have logged in to GNU Social you may then want to select Admin and check or change the details. You may also wish to change the license for the site to be either Creative Commons or private.
GNU Social has a clutter-free mobile user interface which can be accessed via a Tor compatible browser (make sure to add a NoScript exception). Unlike similar proprietary sites there are no bribed posts.
Using with Emacs
If you are an Emacs user it's also possible to set up GNU Social mode as follows:
mkdir ~/elisp git clone git://git.savannah.nongnu.org/gnu-social-mode ~/elisp/gnu-social-mode sed -i 's|"http"|"https"|g' ~/elisp/gnu-social-mode/gnu-social-mode.el sed -i 's|http:|https:|g' ~/elisp/gnu-social-mode/gnu-social-mode.el sed -i 's|http?|https?|g' ~/elisp/gnu-social-mode/gnu-social-mode.el echo "(add-to-list 'load-path \"~/elisp/gnu-social-mode\")" >> ~/.emacs echo "(require 'gnu-social-mode)" >> ~/.emacs echo "(setq gnu-social-server-textlimit 2000" >> ~/.emacs echo " gnu-social-server \"yourgnusocialdomain\"" >> ~/.emacs echo " gnu-social-username \"yourusername\"" >> ~/.emacs echo " gnu-social-password \"gnusocialpassword\")" >> ~/.emacs
And as a quick reference the main keys are:
| Key | Function |
|---|---|
| i | Show icons |
| CTRL-c CTRL-s | Post status update |
| r | Repeat |
| F | Favourite |
| R | Reply to user |
| CTRL-c CTRL-h | Highlight |
| CTRL-c CTRL-r | Show replies |
| CTRL-c CTRL-f | Friends timeline |
Sharing things
If you have the GNU Social microblogging system installed then it's also possible to share things or services between groups or with particular users. This can be useful for sharing items within a family, club or in a local sharing economy. Sharing things freely, without money, reveals the social basis at the root of all economics which money normally conceals or obscures.
Click on "share" or "my catalog" and this will switch to a screen which allows you to enter details for things to be shared or wanted.
The "catalog" button then allows you to search for shared things within the federated network.
