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Ghost Joins the Fediverse with Its First Federated Newsletter

08 July 2024

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Zaker Adham

Summary

Earlier this year, newsletter platform and Substack competitor Ghost announced its plans to join the fediverse, the decentralized network of interconnected servers that includes apps like Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, Flipboard, and more recently, Instagram Threads. Now, Ghost has made good on that promise by federating its own newsletter, marking a significant milestone.

In the past few days, Ghost achieved two major milestones in its journey towards federation. Most notably, it has federated its own newsletter, making it the first federated Ghost instance available online. Users can follow the newsletter through their preferred federated app at @index@activitypub.ghost.org. However, Ghost advises that there may be bugs and issues as the platform continues to integrate with ActivityPub, the protocol that powers Mastodon and other federated apps.

“Having multiple Ghost instances in production successfully running ActivityPub is a huge milestone for us,” the company shared in its announcement. “It means that for the first time, we’re interacting with the wider fediverse, not just through local implementations and tests, but within the real-world social web.”

Additionally, Ghost’s ActivityPub GitHub repository is now fully open-source. This allows interested parties to track Ghost’s progress toward federation in real time, and anyone can learn from, modify, distribute, or contribute to its code. Developers are invited to collaborate with Ghost following this move.

Earlier, Ghost had detailed the benefits of integrating ActivityPub as an alternative to closed platforms like Substack. With a federated version of the newsletter, readers have more choices on how to subscribe. Besides following via email or the web, they can now use RSS or ActivityPub-powered apps like Mastodon.

Ghost also plans to develop a method for sites with paid subscribers to manage access via ActivityPub, though this functionality hasn’t rolled out yet.

ActivityPub integration is becoming more common in the media industry as publishers grapple with reduced traffic from sources like Google and Facebook, while AI technology summarizes their work through various means. Several sites, including The Verge, MacRumors, and MacStories, have adopted features that add reporters’ bylines to news articles when they appear in the fediverse. TechCrunch is also expected to follow suit soon.

Ghost has attracted several high-profile users to its platform, often due to Substack’s lax moderation policies, which have led to concerns over hate speech. For instance, Casey Newton, formerly of The Verge, left Substack this year due to moderation concerns and migrated to Ghost. The popular newsletter Garbage Day also left Substack for similar reasons. Other notable Ghost-powered publishers include 404 Media, Buffer, Kickstarter, David Sirota’s The Lever, and Tangle.