ActivityPub

ActivityPub is an open, decentralised protocol for social networks published in 2018 and managed by the W3C. It provides a client-to-server API for creating, uploading and deleting content as well as a server-to-server API for decentralised communication.

ActivityPub is a standard for the Fediverse. The protocol used to be called ‘ActivityPump’, but the current name was chosen to emphasise the decentralised aspect of the protocol. It has some similarities with predecessor protocols such as OStatus. In January 2018, the W3C released the ActivityPub standard and has since recommended it for decentralised content sharing.

To enable Hubzilla to interact with instances (and therefore users) that work with ActivityPub, the ActivityPub protocol still needs to be activated. This is done via the app menu. Here you call up the menu item ‘+ Apps’ at the very end.

There are two entries in the left sidebar:

• Installed apps
• Available apps

Under the available apps you will find all apps that are available on your own instance, under the installed apps, all those that you have installed as a user from the ‘Available apps’ pool.

If the ‘ActivityPub protocol’ app has not yet been installed on a newly created channel, it will not appear under the installed apps. You must first install the app under ‘Available apps’ by clicking on the ‘Install’ button.

Then go to ‘Installed apps’ and click on the asterisk on the right next to ActivityPub protocol. It turns yellow and the app is then available in the app menu.

Clicking on it in the app menu takes you to the settings. Nothing needs to be changed here for normal use.