Will the results of the US 2026 mid-term elections help or hurt the Fediverse?
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The first effect I can think of is reversing DOGE cuts such that Fediverse software development or other work is better funded by the US government. I guess that's possible, but we haven't had a lot of US government funding to begin with. So, I'd say minor if any benefit here.
The second is antitrust. Congress does not run the FCC or the FTC, but it can hold hearings and investigations. I guess there's a path to having more Big Tech investigations for antitrust. Sometimes tech companies comply in advance, by implementing interoperability before they're forced to. I'm not sure this is high on the Democrats' agenda, so I'd give it a minor effect, again.
Another effect might be new regulations, like age verification, that put an undue burden on Fediverse admins. I think this might be more likely; we might be able to work with allies to set boundaries on this kind of regulation. Could be major. We are seeing this other places, too.
Will the election affect the number of participants here? I don't know. The 2024 election saw a huge exodus from X to BlueSky. That meant a lot of new people visible to us through the bridge, but less relative mindshare for ActivityPub. Does the 2026 election mean more people on "liberal" social media? Or a move back to X? I'm not sure. BlueSky apparently had its biggest night ever on election night.
So, two questions there: does a strong BlueSky help or hurt the Fediverse? And did the election results help or hurt BlueSky?
@evan Kinda missing the "won't make a difference" option here...
@grumpydad that's ok. If you don't want to think about it, you can skip the poll.
@evan Well, I did think about it. Which is why I was missing the option.
But it's your poll, so you decide if you want that option or not.
@grumpydad tell me about your thought process!
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@valhalla @david_megginson you think the only effect of the Trump administration on the Fediverse was A/I?
@evan asked
you think the only effect of the Trump administration on the Fediverse was A/I?
They've generated a lot of doom-posting and doom-scrolling, which has probably cost fedi node operators many millions in extra hosting and storage costs, but that's not going to change when the new Congress gets sworn in.
@evan Otherwise, I suspect that Elon Musk's acquisition of TwitterX had a bigger impact on the fedi (by driving people here) than anything that's happened inside the Beltway.
U.S. politics do obviously matter to the world, but much less than many Americans think. Mostly, we're leads in our own stories, not supporting actors in theirs, and when the U.S. gets too weird we just write them out of the script.
my read of fedi is that most of us here still want it to be the small place to complain about corporate fashy platforms and the vast numbers who are still there, but not be welcoming to the majority of people over there who are nice but less progressive than ourselves.
so no effect I guess. we're not worth their time.
and I get the perspective expressed below. my assumption is they understand how bailing on this fight over how the masses get propagandized is bad, but have decided not to think about it.
@evan I couldn't pick an option. Neither brand Blue or brand Red in the U.S. has much to do with an international distributed social network.
For Canadians like you and me, it's nice to know that our close neighbour (and our fellow fedizens in the U.S.) will have an only slightly-evil party in control of both federal legislatures in 2027 after enduring a profoundly-evil party for 2 years, but otherwise, it doesn't really touch my own day-to-day life.
@david_megginson did the 2024 US elections have any effects on the Fediverse?
@evan@cosocial.ca they ran on holding big tech accountable. I fear the fediverse will be the innocent bystander hit by stray bullets, if you'll forgive my Americanism. It will be difficult to convince representatives that any increased liability should be proportional to the admin resources of a social network. They will see that as going easy on crime, because everything else aside, dems will always protect the state over individual liberties.
There's also the issue of hosting costs. The mere proposal of regulation on big tech and AI could send capital markets tumbling. With silicon factories continuing today to turn more production toward gigawatt datacentes, an AI crash will necessitate huge amounts of capital for them to undo, right when it's least available. Compute resources would become even more scarce than today, which would increase hosting costs worldwide for some time.
It's necessary to pop the bubble of course, and regulation is good and holding powerful people accountable is good too! But the idea that things get better the next day after doing that is a daydream. It's going to be a painful recovery, or transition, and instances in general will need more resources, moderation and financial, to get through I predict.
@amy @evan I agree with Amy here -- as the US, Canada, and others seek to regulate big tech (and they should!), they won't have the imagination to write laws that exempt or even encourage the growth of community-run social media. Big Tech also has strong enough lobbying that they may well end up crafting regulation that makes it harder for small systems to flourish. Democrats ran against Big Tech, for good reason, but their regulations may do harm to the fediverse.
@evan will it effect the fediverse at all? how so?
@qkslvrwolf What a great question. What do you think?
@qkslvrwolf One way to frame it is, how did the 2024 election results affect the Fediverse? And how will the 2026 election results change those effects, if at all?
@evan Iβm actually not sure itβll have any impact at all, but I went with the optimistic help more than hurt. :)
@chris Interesting. Do you think the 2024 US elections affected the Fediverse?
@evan it will definitely affect the trout population!
@marty I don't understand what you mean.
@evan https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/this-will-affect-the-economy-trout-population
i don't really see the connection between US midterms and fedi, it just reminded me of this meme.
@marty was there any connection between the 2024 elections and the Fediverse?
Thanks to everyone who responded. I'll try to give my thoughts here on how the election may affect the Fediverse, and whether I think those effects will be net positive or negative.