Egregoros

NOT THIS SHIT AGAIN

@taoeffect ran the IFTAS thread ( https://fsebugoutzone.org/objects/ad4d151b-a6a1-4694-94dd-f4e60461e7f7 ) through a clanker and the clanker suggested that a lot of the information was unverified by hedging all to hell.

So, let's dig up the citations: it turns out that IFTAS is big business! $1,408,877.86, in fact. Not bad for a side-hustle that isn't even your day job, right?

Bringing up the head, the Social Web Foundation, of which @evan is the head ( https://socialwebfoundation.org/team/ ), doesn't list their EIN on their website. But their donation page ( https://socialwebfoundation.org/donate/ ) says:

> The Social Web Foundation is a fiscally-sponsored project of Exchange Point Institute, a US 501(c)3 non-profit.

The Exchange Points Institute's EIN is 87-1028685. Their Form 990-N on IRS site says they have "Gross receipts not greater than: $50,000" for 2023; ProPublica says ( https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/871028685 ) that they got $527,410 in 2024, per their 990. Pretty fuckin' heavy! $120k of that was from the Ford Foundation⁰. Congrats, @evan ! If you like, you can also read Mallory Knodel's "Announcing the launch of Social Web Foundation" in the Association for Progressive Communications blog. The bold part from that blog post: "To fight inequality, participate in democracy, build an equitable society and economy, we can’t rely on a few corporate-owned, profit-driven spaces. The Social Web Foundation is our best chance to establish the conditions in which the new social media operates with zero harm." In the following paragraph, Eugen "John Mastodon" Gargamel-Rochko, is quoted as being proud to back the Social Web Foundation and their work.

Total (gross¹): $527,410

Next up, IFTAS itself, $384,375 in 2023, and then another $7,733 in 2024, but they spent $302,567 that year, per https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/932011167/202433169349303828/full . The ridiculously circuitous pathway for the money includes the National Endowment for Democracy () and the Open Society Foundation (Soros)². If you rolled your eyes when I said that the glowies were funding IFTAS, I invite you to come dislocate your jaw trying to fit my goddamn dick in your mouth. Looks like plenty of cash for just 40 hours a week, @jaz . Way to hustle!

Total (gross): $919,518

Two of the bigger instances in the "Fediverse Governance" glowop are social.coop and hachyderm.io. There were nine more³, I didn't check, presumably they're worth less money.

The budget for social.coop is, per https://opencollective.com/socialcoop#category-BUDGET ) £71,952.29 ($97,373.03), of which they have so far spent £42,306.86 ($57,253.87).

Total (gross): $1,016,891.03

hachyderm.io is a little more convoluted: they're owned, per their about page, by the Nivenly Foundation, EIN 92-2345439 (which you've gotta dig out of the IRS because they do not list that on their website). They've pulled in $17,697.88 and haven't touched any of it yet. Way to show some self-restraint, @nova !

Total (gross): $1,034,588.91

Now, this one's trickier! For an undisclosed sum, NewsMast purchased indieweb.social ( https://www.timothychambers.net/2025/03/27/the-next-stage-for-indiewebsocial.html ). They claim to have done no trading any of the years they've filed, but they bought indieweb.social in March 2025. They filed as dormant for 2025 and then borrowed £276,575 ($374,288.95 at time of writing), which is currently about . So, unless they've made any big purchases other than that, it looks like they've paid a quarter-million pounds sterling sixabong quidbob for indieweb.social. As noted in the prervious post, NewsMast paid Tim Chambers for this site and Tim Chambers is the...the Executive Director, per the NewsMast site ( https://about.iftas.org/2024/07/12/tim-chambers-joins-the-iftas-advisory-board/ ). Now, *that's* how you flip a $10 domain and like a few hundred in hosting costs, @tchambers !

Total (gross, including speculative valuation of indieweb.social): $1,408,877.86

So, you know, cram that in whoever's pipe next time @graf spends a handful of bennies on Crunchbits/Frantech boxes.

⁰ "CORE SUPPORT FOR THE SOCIAL WEB FOUNDATION TO INCREASE THE REACH AND SUSTAINABILITY OF OPEN SOURCE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS" was worth $70k to the Ford Foundation and "CORE SUPPORT TO SURVEY AND INTERVIEW GLOBAL INTERNET INFRASTRUCTURE MEMBERS OF THE INFRARED NETWORK THAT PROVIDE ALTERNATIVES TO MULTINATIONAL CORPORATE TECH PLATFORMS TO DEVELOP A LONG TERM AND SUSTAINABLE STRATEGIC PLAN FOR THE NETWORK" was worth $50k. So, that fediverse governance survey, that was a $50k survey! No big deal, though, the Ford Foundation (EIN 13-1684331) sneezes that on the hour; they control about $17.5B.

¹ I mean that I am totaling the amount of money they receive, but also: I am vomit. Not that making money is wrong, per se, but these are people getting foundation money to kill fedi.

² Real ugly goddamn URL, fuck's sake: https://datarepublican.com/expose/?custom_graph=131624046%2C042103594%2C430084%3B042103594%2C262048480%2C385000%3B262048480%2C205806345%2C837890%3B205806345%2C932011167%2C384375%3B521344831%2C133615533%2C166667%3B133615533%2C205806345%2C1710000%3B521943638%2C521338892%2C64298125%3B521338892%2C520846183%2C312658%3B520846183%2C951922279%2C810431%3B951922279%2C110303001%2C104696%3B110303001%2C205806345%2C90815505%3B943027961%2C522096845%2C146636%3B522096845%2C133191113%2C51000%3B133191113%2C205806345%2C295273%3B133586432%2C135598093%2C47661%3B135598093%2C630598743%2C651000%3B630598743%2C205806345%2C275000%3B132702768%2C521257057%2C953939%3B521257057%2C116107128%2C619108%3B116107128%2C205806345%2C30000%3B131656647%2C521847010%2C375000%3B521847010%2C133191113%2C12000&title=IFTAS%20INC&return_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdatarepublican.com%2Fofficers%2F%3Fnonprofit_kw%3D932011167 .

³ The Individual Eleven:

https://cosocial.ca/ (https://cosocial.ca/) | https://fedilist.com/instance/cosocial.ca (https://fedilist.com/instance/cosocial.ca)
https://hcommons.social/ (https://hcommons.social/) | https://fedilist.com/instance/hcommons.social (https://fedilist.com/instance/hcommons.social)
https://hachyderm.io/ (https://hachyderm.io/) | https://fedilist.com/instance/hachyderm.io (https://fedilist.com/instance/hachyderm.io)
https://masto.donte.com.br/ (https://masto.donte.com.br/) | https://fedilist.com/instance/masto.donte.com.br (https://fedilist.com/instance/masto.donte.com.br)
https://mspsocial.net/ (https://mspsocial.net/) | https://fedilist.com/instance/mspsocial.net (https://fedilist.com/instance/mspsocial.net)
https://piaille.fr/ (https://piaille.fr/) | https://fedilist.com/instance/piaille.fr (https://fedilist.com/instance/piaille.fr)
https://sfba.social/ (https://sfba.social/) | https://fedilist.com/instance/sfba.social (https://fedilist.com/instance/sfba.social)
https://social.coop/ (https://social.coop/) | https://fedilist.com/instance/social.coop (https://fedilist.com/instance/social.coop)
https://tooting.ch/ (https://tooting.ch/) | https://fedilist.com/instance/tooting.ch (https://fedilist.com/instance/tooting.ch)
https://wandering.shop/ (https://wandering.shop/) | https://fedilist.com/instance/wandering.shop (https://fedilist.com/instance/wandering.shop)
https://woof.group/ (https://woof.group/) | https://fedilist.com/instance/woof.group (https://fedilist.com/instance/woof.group)

@p @evan @taoeffect @nova @tchambers @jaz @graf Congrats on revealing all this and thanks!

for some reason sfba.social was familiar and i checked my notes and i had written that they were "anti-crypto" which is a warning sign I have for glowies myself

btw i must congrat poa.st server for dropping cloudGlare.... it should be a given to not be cloudfalre but poa.st was cloudfed for a while and it is nice change to not have to remove poa.st people from my mentions.... i just want to acknowledge and enjoy successes like this. :)

It would surprise me if the person who came up with the terrible pentogram image for fediverse wasn't a glowie. Apparently they are/were a pro-west russian, so i'd be willing to put my money on asset/useful stooge. etc. And then it stands t reason that the accounts that MADE that terrible icon ubiquitous are most likely assets/glowworms also. As i say i think the last chance we have to reclaim the open web is to use the RSS icon for fedi, if your instance supports RSS, of course.

I have often felt that fedi was being deliberately held back and subverted so your work illustrating this fact is not so much a surprise, but its still awful.... the banksters printing the money are happy to pollute spaces like fediverse, I believe that they are quite happy to exist on fediverse themselves and enjoy what it offers them and their corporate partners/collegues, but that they are being paid to keep to mass away, god forbid thayd have to deal with more people etc.etc. as long as they are being paid they really dont care about the commons.... suspicions are confirmed. Thanks again, p.