Search Engine – "The Fediverse Experiment" (Jan 9, 2026)

Host: PJ Vogt

Guests: Casey Newton (Platformer/Hard Fork), Kevin Roose (New York Times/Hard Fork)

Episode Overview

This episode dives into the “Fediverse”—an alternative vision for social media and the internet—by exploring what would happen if the hosts created their own social platform within it. Vogt, Newton, and Roose set out to both explain the idea and test the underlying promise: Could the internet be rebuilt, not as a handful of monopolistic, algorithm-driven social platforms, but as a more open, flexible, user-centered web? Through candid reflection, hands-on experiments, and plenty of banter, the trio examine the hopes, realities, and obstacles of the Fediverse in 2026.

Main Themes & Discussion Points

1. What’s Broken About the Internet—and Why Try Again?

• Opening Framing: Vogt candidly acknowledges the fatigue around talking about how bad today's internet feels—dominated by a few social media giants that harvest attention and promote unhealthy engagement cycles.
  • Memorable phrase: "Gooner’s remorse after we've spent more time than we meant to, mindlessly thumbing a feed that makes us feel worse about ourselves, our friends, the world." (02:13)
• Audience Demand: Despite skepticism, a flood of listener emails reveals real interest in hearing about alternatives, showing a hunger for hope.

2. What Is the Fediverse?

• Casey Newton defines:
  • "The Fediverse is a way for people to take back the Internet for themselves... connect to other things that are important to you online and just not worry about having to fight through a Google algorithm or a Facebook algorithm." (03:49)
• Comparison to the “Old Internet”:
  • Emphasizes the shift from the “infinite websites, infinite message boards” of the '90s/early 2000s, to siloed, audience-captive social platforms.
  • Social media introduced dependence on proprietary platforms, locking in users through follower counts and handing over control to platform “moguls.”
• The Fediverse Vision:
  • Reclaims user agency, moves toward open protocols, and enables migration or aggregation across platforms.
  • “These were people trying to build a Millennium Falcon in their garage out of old car parts.” (06:07)

3. Hands-on Experiment: Building a Fediverse Platform

The Idea

• Roose’s Proposal: "I think we should start a social media platform on the Fediverse. In the Fediverse. Is it on or in?" (09:15)
• Clarifying the Goal: They’re not inventing a new social network, but configuring their own “instance”—a federated server others can join, built on Mastodon and linked to the wider Fediverse.

Why Bother?

• Vogt explains: “What would it be like to try to make a clubhouse that has rules that actually feel healthier?... How good are the tools with which someone perhaps smarter, more patient or more committed than us might be able to do it? That's what I find interesting about it.” (10:12)

Pessimism vs. Optimism

• Newton (skeptical): “There’s a lot of different kinds of people. Some are annoying, there’s two or three that never stop talking and they drive away a lot of good conversation...” (11:09)
• Roose (hopeful): Cites Wikipedia’s surprise success: “If you cultivate the vibe of this space, it can actually be good.” (11:35)
• Newton (tech angle): The Fediverse’s promise is less about “nice people,” more about what content and connections become possible through federation—mixing feeds, connecting with publications and platforms, remixing the network.

4. Building “The Forkiverse”

Naming & Setup

• The trio brainstorm names, joke about “Searchfork” and “Hard Engine” before settling on the “Forkiverse,” evoking both their podcasts and the act of “forking” off the main internet.
  • “Hard Engine sounds like it belongs on a different Internet.” (16:32 – Vogt)

Technical Implementation

• Kevin Roose uses OpenAI’s operator:
  • Delegates most technical work (buying the domain, configuring the Mastodon hosting) to AI — “I gave it this task, and then I came back, like, 20 minutes later, and it had done most of what I asked it for.” (21:21)
• Specs: 2,000 user slots, 400GB storage, “very high federation capacity.”
  • “So the Galaxy plan gives us a social media network that in size kind of resembles like a late 90s message board.” (22:55 – Vogt)

First Impressions: The Blank Slate

• On the initial login, the Forkiverse is “pristine… like in the morning when it snows… nothing is trending right now.” (24:44 – Vogt)
  • Newton: “It’s so beautiful to just see it, you know, without any misinformation, any sort of toxic hate speech or bullying.” (25:39)
  • Roose: “Many people are saying this is the ideal social network.” (25:47)

Registration Oddities

• The hosts find out even they have to apply and be “approved” to join (by unspecified “staff”), revealing quirks in default Mastodon configuration—highlighting how these new systems can be opaque, even to builders.
  • Vogt: “We don’t know who’s in charge of the social network you built, Kevin.” (27:46)

5. Filling the Feed: Federation in Practice

• Now able to connect, the hosts describe the experience:
  • Roose: “...because this is a federated social network, no one has to have an account on the Forkaverse for us to put their stuff in our feeds.” (29:58)
  • Explains how users can cross-follow accounts from other federated platforms (e.g., Mastodon, Lemmy, Pixelfed, some Threads accounts).
• Roose: “When I go onto theforkaverse.com, I see something that looks basically like the old Twitter...” (31:04)
• Memorable moment: A list of popular accounts (Stephen Fry, “God”, the Auschwitz Memorial, NASA, Elon Musk’s jet tracker) shows who’s “wandered in” to this new part of the internet (32:36–33:37).

6. Is It All Just Nostalgia?

• Roose notes much of Mastodon/the Fediverse is preoccupied with “recapturing the magic of old Twitter”—a “backward-looking” vibe (34:09).
• Newton agrees: “It does feel like it is rooted more in nostalgia and… the way millennials thought of their first experiences of the Internet...” He warns that for the Fediverse to “take off,” it’ll need to “feel new and obviously better than what came before in some very obvious way.” (34:41)

7. What’s the Fediverse Actually Good For?

• Vogt and Roose argue that, aside from vibe, the Fediverse’s practical value is easy exit and portability:
  • Roose: “If you're part of a server that does make some kind of rule that you disagree with, you can pack up and move without losing all of your followers and all of your feeds.” (36:05)
• Casey Newton’s personal example:
  • Leaving X meant sacrificing 200k followers (and income)—no easy way out.
  • Leaving Substack, he exported 200k email subscribers and continued seamlessly: “...for my subscribers, it was as if nothing had ever happened. And I just kept on writing Platformer as normal. So that is the dream of a Fediverse.” (36:54)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On nostalgia and ambition:
  • “These were people trying to build a Millennium Falcon in their garage out of old car parts.” (06:07 – Vogt)
• On social network birth:
  • "It’s like in the morning when it snows. The social network right now." (25:25 – Vogt)
• On leaving platforms:
  • Newton: “If you are a big drama queen like me and you’re always leaving platforms at the drop of a hat, you can actually do it in a way that doesn’t destroy your life.” (37:34)
• On user migration:
  • Roose: “You can take your stuff with you when you leave.” (36:16)
• Deadpan banter:
  • Newton: “Hard Engine sounds like it belongs on a different Internet.” (16:32)
  • Roose: “We’re the Slayers now. I don’t know if that’s going to work.” (15:55)
• Ironically accurate summary:
  • “It really is. It’s very Zen. There’s zero active users.” (25:50 – Kevin Roose and PJ Vogt)

Key Timestamps

• 02:00–04:20: Problems with the current internet & intro to the Fediverse
• 09:15: The trio decides to build a Fediverse server
• 16:14: Brainstorming the name (“The Forkiverse”)
• 20:04–22:55: Kevin instructs AI to build the Mastodon server & reveals tech specs
• 24:06–25:50: First login—blank, pristine feed; initial reactions
• 29:37–33:37: Filling the feed, federation explained, who’s on Mastodon
• 34:09–36:26: The nostalgia problem, and what’s actually new about the Fediverse
• 36:54: Casey Newton’s story of leaving platforms, user data portability
• 38:20–38:34: The Forkiverse launches and is open to public signups

Tone & Style

The episode maintains a wry, earnest, and playful tone. The hosts are self-deprecating, joking about their own tech skills and the structural quirks of the Fediverse. They remain critical but hopeful, modeling curiosity and transparency about both the technical hurdles and the sociological stakes.

Final Thoughts & Next Steps

The Forkiverse is now open—an experiment in what a user-created, federated social network might look like in practice. The hosts pledge to share updates and further stories, using their hands-on experience to probe whether a less addictive, less monopolistic, and more portable internet is truly possible.

If You Want to Join

• Visit: theforkiverse.com
• Act fast: Only 2,000 user slots, and they want you to post low-res photos of where you’re listening!

“The appeal of the fork reverse is OK. If you don't like the social media that exists, build your own. You don't have to fill it with people because you can connect to existing little planets people have built for themselves. Right? That's it.” —PJ Vogt (35:15)

For more stories and updates on the Forkiverse and the Fediverse, keep listening to Search Engine and check out their sibling show, Hard Fork.