AUC FediScreen

What?

The AUC FediScreen is a project by OpenTech(AUC), that checks for recent posts by a specified set of accounts on the Fediverse, and presents these posts in a specially curated fashion in a browser.

The current version of our FediScreen is available under this link.

Why?

The logic is to break the "chicken and egg" problem of new media platforms. Right now, many content producers are hesitant to invest their time and efforts in new media platforms because their audience is not there, while their audience is hesitant to join new media platforms because the content producers are not there.

The goal is to show the FediScreen at some high-visibility spot in our university, so that content producers have an incentive to post to the Fediverse, even when their audience is not there yet.

How?

Right now the "allow list" is maintained by OpenTech(AUC) and the AUC Student Council.

At this point only formal student committees and OpenTech(AUC) are allowed to use the screen.

Depending on our experience with this pilot, and further discussions within our community about moderation, we might open up access the FediScreen to students and staff more generally.

Your own FediScreen

Since the FediScreen is one simple .html file, it is easy to adjust it and run it somewhere in your own organization.

Just search and replace "AUC" with the name of your own organization.

Since the project uses an allow list of "accounts tracked", we can all use the "FediScreen" hashtag without interfering with each other's FediScreen.

Additional variables to adjust

• FEDISCREEN_ACCOUNTS = accounts that are tracked
• FEDISCREEN_DAYS = posts are pulled of the last # days
• FEDISCREEN_REFRESH_MS = refresh interval in miniseconds (ms) 1 minute is 60,000 ms.
• FEDISCREEN_HASHTAG = hashtag that is searched for