The Website League is here!
A year in the works to a public launch and it's cooking
Wait what is this
As cohost.org was coming to an end in 2024, a group of people proposed a wild idea:
If cohost was 'like a website in here', and the cost of running one of those at the scale of cohost was astronomical with very little return, and mastodon / federated technology exists already just not QUITE in the way that would allow for a 'continuation' of the cohost style social media - what if people made modifications to that software and created say, a series of smaller websites 'nodes' that acted as more robust social media platforms akin to cohost and these nodes would talk to each other like mastodon instances do?
What if they were all governed by a philosophy of no metrics and shared antifascist community guidelines?
What if people built something different and potentially sustainable instead of just going back to a threads or twitter or bluesky or tumblr?
This is massively underselling it but behold - The Website League which just officially (re)launched to the public this week.
You can go sign up right now! Pick a 'node' that fits your needs (I'm on coolstation.space but they all talk to each other) and then get to...posting? wlosting? I don't exactly know what it's going to be called.
Here are some of my takeaways so far:
(These may be exclusive to either coolstation, the node I'm on - or other nodes using the Akkoma backend. I have not used a GoToSocial node yet)
No ads and no risk of your personal data being sold
This is probably a given but if you are reading this and had never spent any time on Cohost or mastodon it's worth reiterating. Nodes are volunteer-run by individuals or groups and have to adhere to the guidelines or risk being expunged from the League.
It's also worth noting that the League is inherently NSFW / sex worker friendly in a way that increasingly other platforms are not.
The goddamn Post editor rules
There's a lot to dig in to right off the bat but the post editor supports multiple formatting languages, content warnings, audience / privacy settings, preview features and polls:
For the markdown sickos, it's got you covered
For the html sickos it's got your back, though no CSS crimes (yet)
The preview function is super helpful but even divorced from the post editor, links preview pretty goddamn well just by pasting a URL, no formatting needed. This may seem like a no brainer but it makes me personally really happy.
Inter-node communication
I joined the node that felt right for me, and immediately I found people that I know elsewhere online OR haven't seen since Cohost closed and we were able to follow each other and interact with each other's posts - despite being on different nodes.
When posting, you have the option to post to only your followers, only your node, or the public feed. The vibes are good!
Customization
How the platform displays for you is fully in your hands. Think of it almost like a reverse myspace where instead of you dressing up your page with colors and fonts, you're deciding how the whole goddamn experience looks for you.
I'm using a built-in Cohost color theme because obviously I am but there's a lot of presets to chose from or you can just roll your own
The Mastodon in the room
If you're intimately familiar with using mastodon, a lot of how Website League nodes work will feel familiar or maybe not that special - what sets it apart is the code of conduct for all nodes and the emphasis on lack of metrics. Under the hood, Akkoma and GoToSocial are also powering the fediverse but the goal of the league has been to modify these platforms to create something different.
I'm only a day in but I haven't been this excited about a social platform in a long time. Moving to Mastodon was "Ugh twitter's shitting the bed I gotta find something else" and heading to Bluesky was always a "every day on here will be worse than the last one" poisoned pill.
Moderation in Practice
We'll have to see how this all pans out in terms of moderation and keeping things in line; a common throughline criticism about Cohost was about the overwhelming presence of white people and lack of moderation of rampant racism - but since Alyaza (the author of the Cohost so white post that shined a goddamn searchlight on that problem) is one of the founding members of the Website League, I'm encouraged we won't see a repeat.
Or we will, and it'll be one hell of a learning experience. I'm happy to give it a shot either way. Being told repeatedly 'a better world is not possible' by the owners of social media platforms is really disheartening and it's nice to see people just fucking doing the thing.
Also you should follow me there once you sign up.
Here's an end of blog post cat photo:
