Latest news with #openweb
Gizmodo
12-06-2025
- Gizmodo
Wikipedia Tries to Calm Fury Over New AI-Generated Summaries Proposal
The denizens of the open web don't want anything to do with AI. The Wikimedia Foundation, the organization behind Wikipedia, made the unfortunate decision to announce the trial of a new AI-fueled article generator this week. The backlash from the site's editors was so swift and so vengeful that the organization quickly walked back its idea, announcing a temporary 'pause' of the new feature. A spokesperson on behalf of the Foundation—which is largely separate from the decentralized community of editors that populate the site with articles—explained last week that, in an effort to make wikis 'more accessible to readers globally through different projects around content discovery,' the organization planned to trial 'machine-generated, but editor moderated, simple summaries for readers.' Like many other organizations that have been plagued by new automated features, Wikipedia's rank and file were quick to anger over the experimental new tool. The responses, which are posted to the open web, are truly something to behold. 'What the hell? No, absolutely not,' said one editor. 'Not in any form or shape. Not on any device. Not on any version. I don't even know where to begin with everything that is wrong with this mindless PR hype stunt.' 'This will destroy whatever reputation for accuracy we currently have,' another editor said. 'People aren't going to read past the AI fluff to see what we really meant.' Yet another editor was even more vehement: 'Keep AI out of Wikipedia. That is all. WMF staffers looking to pad their resumes with AI-related projects need to be looking for new employers.' 'A truly ghastly idea,' said another. 'Since all WMF proposals steamroller on despite what the actual community says, I hope I will at least see the survey and that—unlike some WMF surveys—it includes one or more options to answer 'NO'.' 'Are y'all (by that, I mean WMF) trying to kill Wikipedia? Because this is a good step in that way,' another editor said. 'We're trying to keep AI out of Wikipedia, not have the powers that be force it on us and tell us we like it.' The forum is littered with countless other negative responses from editors who expressed a categorical rejection of the tool. Not long afterward, the organization paused the feature, 404 Media reported. 'The Wikimedia Foundation has been exploring ways to make Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects more accessible to readers globally,' a Wikimedia Foundation spokesperson told 404 Media. 'This two-week, opt-in experiment was focused on making complex Wikipedia articles more accessible to people with different reading levels. For the purposes of this experiment, the summaries were generated by an open-weight Aya model by Cohere. It was meant to gauge interest in a feature like this, and to help us think about the right kind of community moderation systems to ensure humans remain central to deciding what information is shown on Wikipedia.'
The Verge
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Ghost's official ActivityPub integration is set to launch with Ghost 6.0, which is coming in the next month,
Federated Ghost. Ghost says: We're excited, but nervous. You never get everything done that you hope to, before launching a first version, but launch you must. This launch, though, feels bigger than most, because ActivityPub is more than a protocol or a fancy feature; it's a statement that the open web still matters.'
The Verge
05-06-2025
- Business
- The Verge
Here are three new apps building out the open social web
For the past couple of years, the virtual FediForum conference has offered a glimpse at what's new in the open social web, with last year's big news being Threads' foray into the fediverse. This year's presentation was no different, with several developers showing off new apps that will help to expand the ecosystem of decentralized social networks. Bonfire Social, one of the new apps, is meant to serve as a framework for creating digital communities, each with their own governance and style. During FediForum, Bonfire announced that they're releasing Bonfire Social 1.0 as the first 'flavor' of the platform. Bonfire Social comes with a 'a pre-configured bundle of Bonfire extensions that defines which features are included,' like custom feeds, profiles, and threaded discussions, along with the ability to share posts and follow other users. The makers of Bonfire are working on other 'flavors' of the platform, including Bonfire Community, which is geared toward private groups and organizations, as well as Open Science, a platform designed for collaboration between academic communities. Bonfire Social federates with Mastodon, Peertube, Mobilizon, and others. You can install Bonfire Social now or check out the demo. Another new service announced at FediForum is which is designed to help you curate the content you see across the open social web. Users can tailor their feed by tracking specific hashtags and users, including bridged Bluesky accounts and RSS parrots. Other users can follow the channels you create, which are distributed across the Fediverse, Bluesky, and over RSS. You can filter out certain keywords and mute accounts not related to the topics you want to follow, and there are also built-in filters that block NSFW content and hate speech. is built on a customized Mastodon server run by the Newsmast Foundation, a fediverse-focused charity based in the UK, and it sounds like a neat way to create an ultra-curated social feed. The service is currently available in an invite-only beta, but you can sign up for the waitlist to receive updates. You can check out some examples of channels from website. One of the other notable services highlighted today was Bounce, an app that allows you to move your Bluesky account to Mastodon, all without losing any of your followers. The app is built by A New Social, the creators of the Bridgy Fed tool that Bounce uses to connect your Bluesky account to Mastodon. Once your account is bridged, Bounce can then transfer personal data servers using the 'move' capability offered by ActivityPub and the AT Protocol, letting you retain your Bluesky followers — and the people you follow — when heading to Mastodon.
