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.
To see the login password for your site go to Passwords on the Administrator control panel and select the appropriate username and app. The passwords will be different for each user and may not be the same as the password which you used to originally ssh into the system.
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.
Switching user interfaces
A few web based user interfaces are available for GNU SOcial. They are selectable by going to the Administrator control panel and choosing App settings then gnusocial.
- Qvitter: Looks similar to Twitter during its golden era, before the ads and other antifeatures arrived
- Pleroma: A modern and lightweight user interface
- Classic: Like the original StatusNet UI. Minimal Javascript and has good support for threaded conversations.
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 https://github.com/bashrc/gnu-social-mode ~/elisp/gnu-social-mode
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:
M-x gnu-social
The basics:
| i | Show icons |
| CTRL-c CTRL-s | Post status update |
| r | Repeat |
| F | Favourite |
| CTRL-c CTRL-h | Highlight |
| R | Reply to user |
| CTRL-c CTRL-r | Show replies |
| CTRL-c CTRL-f | Friends timeline |
| CTRL-c CTRL-v | View user profile |
Navigation:
| j | Next |
| k | Previous |
Showing timelines:
| g | Current timeline |
| CTRL-c CTRL-a | Public timeline |
| CTRL-c CTRL-g | Group timeline |
| CTRL-c CTRL-t | Tag timeline |
| CTRL-c CTRL-k | Stop |
| CTRL-c CTRL-u | User timeline |
| CTRL-c CTRL-c | Conversation timeline |
| CTRL-c CTRL-o | Remote user timeline |
| CTRL-c CTRL-d | Post direct Message |
Blocking controls
The biggest hazard with GNU Social is that it's part of a public federated communications system. This means that conversations and replies from other servers may end up in your "whole known network" stream. The internet being what it is, some of these could be undesirable. You can block individual users or entire domains by going to the Administrator control panel and selecting Domain or User Blocking, then adding or removing entries. This blocks domains at the firewall level and also at the level of database and file storage.
If you want to block a particular user then select Block a domain or user and enter the user in the format username@domaintoblock (similar to an email address).