Forgive my ignorance, but are these neo religious movements not built on a foundation of consumerism? This would seem to be in contradiction with the material realities of federated, libre software ecosystems
this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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I think independent social media like the Fediverse has uses with any group who would appreciate local control and free expression. I think the witchy community would fit that bill. I am unaware of any projects about it. At a certain point of users it would be inevitable just need someone connected enough to get it started.
Unrelated but I figured at a some point sex workers would flock here. Locally controlled by sex workers for sex workers would be a huge sell because they can't be kicked off by arbitrary rules.
Frankly, I don't think the privacy model of the fediverse is workable at all and it doesn't seem to be developed and maintained by people who understand or care about safety. The centralized systems are much safer for users because you only have to trust the admins of the centralized servers.
Fediverse's Achilles heel is trust and all the convo and discussion about it is extremely dismissive and superficial about the realities of how the centralized systems became they way they are--much safer against stalking and mobs. Fediverse mostly gets away with this by being small and fringe.
The fundamental flaw is laid bare every time a site defederates another about because of safety issues. It's a tacit concession that the federation model and implementation is not safe. If you have to defederate everyone to ensure user safety, then why bother with the fediverse in the first place? This is the core problem with the fediverse as it exists today.
That's because most fediverse platforms have no privacy features. You'd have to use something like Hubzilla or Friendica if you want access control, privacy, and groups with limited membership. They also allow users to control what they see and don't see.
There are solutions in the fediverse out there. They're just not widely known.
If you have to defederate everyone to ensure user safety, then why bother with the fediverse in the first place?
It's rather the opposite: the federated models allows to choose which instances you want to connect with.
On centralized models, you can't escape, you are trapped with everyone else, Twitter being a good example.
No they allow admins to decide that. Users have no control. User activity is fully public and cannot be controlled for safety.
Instances usually vote for defederation https://sh.itjust.works/post/11308397
This is the sort of superficial dismissal I was referring to.
"There are no safety issues because you can plead your case publically and incite a mob!" isn't exactly as trust-inspiring as you seem to believe.
online spaces for witches and covens
Dare I ask what this means? Is it a LARP thing? Assuming you just want a social community tool then what's wrong with the existing options? If you want it private then something like revolt or matrix; and if you want it public then something like lemmy or mastodon, maybe with a defederate-by-default attitude so you're only connecting to other similarly-focused instances.
Wicca, witchcraft, and similar are generally are types of legitimate religions. I personally belong to a coven despite the fact that I'm atheist. These types of groups are generally focused more on community and connecting with the natural world than the supernatural or gods like modern monotheistic religions. Though many practice spells and other supernaturally rooted ceremonies similar to how many Christians prey, use rosaries, or take communion which are all types of supernatural ceremonies. And most have a huge amount of traditions from "pagan" religions to choose from to practice and have very little strict dogma forcing them to be prejudiced or exclusionary, so they tend to attract a wide variety of interesting people and thus have to be very welcoming of those who are less conformant like neurodivergent people, LGBTQ+ people, ethically non-monogamous people, etc. Many of whom are excluded from most modern monotheistic religious communities.
Huh. Seems a bit odd, but if you're having a good time and not hurting anyone then more power to you
As an atheist, it's no more odd than any other religion to me. And since it's more connected to nature, which I can see and touch, rather than fully supernatural like Christianity, it's more interesting to me.
Well yeah, all religion is a bit odd. It's great when it provides community, charity, or meaning to the lives of individuals, but it's very easy to slip into the bad stuff
I added links to the spaces.
But, basically, they're spaces for Pagans, Wiccans, Witches, etc.
Places where they can practice their beliefs/religions, sell items (i.e homemade clothing, soap, ritual items, herbs, jewlery, etc.), without abuse, harassment, people attempting to proslytize to them, etc.