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Statement on discourse about ActivityPub and AT Protocol

Emelia Smith

Emelia Smith

— 4 min read
Statement on discourse about ActivityPub and AT Protocol
Photo by Michael Pointner / Unsplash

Date: 6th September 2025

A community letter on the recent heated discourse about ActivityPub and AT Protocol, co-signed by the people working on or with the respective protocols.

This statement was originally published on the swicg/general repository after I had been granted approval to merge. Since then one community member has claimed that it did not follow the Community Group's processes, with another who doesn't regular participate also disagreeing with the statement below, and consequently the document has been taken down. Both of these people have been very vocal in their opposition to AT Protocol existing.

There is a statement now in the place of the original link.

Over the past few months in particular, the Social Web Community Group has seen an increase in heated discussions online that have been arguing protocol superiority and creating conflict between ActivityPub and AT Protocol, or trying to promote one over the other. These discussions have generally not been productive, created contention within the community that stands in the way of collaboration, and been a hotbed for conflict, disagreements, and misinformation. There has often been significant biases exhibited within these conversations.

ActivtyPub in its current usage does make different design decisions to AT Protocol, but ActivityPub is not necessarily that different from AT Protocol: both are open social web protocols.

There is an entire section of the ActivityPub specification that isn't as well known or widely adopted but which, at a high level, provides fairly similar ideas to those emphasized within the AT Protocol community for separation between data, identity and applications. Recently, a taskforce within the Social Web Community Group has been established to advance what is now known as the ActivityPub API.

Whilst we may have our differences at present, over time those gaps will narrow, as we share a lot more in common than we have differences.

There does not have to be a “winning” protocol. We do not build a better open social web for everyone by fighting and arguing about protocol superiority. That is not how we achieve a better open social web. Instead, we must work together, cross-pollinate and share ideas, and participate within each other's communities with respect and mutual understanding. Arguing between us only emboldens those that seek to derail and destroy efforts to build an open social web.

The practice of collaboration outside of our own groups has a long history within the standards community, whether that is with competing companies working together on standards or protocols, or collaboration between different standards bodies like the W3C and IETF.

There has already been cross-pollination of ideas between the people working on ActivityPub and AT Protocol. For example, AT Protocol adopted an internet draft that was originally written to support the ActivityPub ecosystem, and projects within ActivityPub have adopted some ideas on content labeling and starter packs from the AT Protocol ecosystem.

Both ActivityPub and AT Protocol can and do co-exist. This co-existence is perhaps best emphasized by the outstanding work of Bridgy Fed project, which connects ActivityPub, AT Protocol, and other protocols together allowing for interoperability and community that crosses between protocols. If you wanted to summarise this letter on a t-shirt, it would be “People > Protocols > Platforms”.

This statement is a call for cooling the temperature of discussions and a reminder to be respectful of each other and the huge amount of work everyone is putting in to build a better open social web. We do not win by tearing each other down, which only emboldens and empowers those who do not want either protocol to succeed.

This statement was written following an initial discussion at this month's Social Web Community Group meeting, and was reviewed by several members of the CG before it was originally published.

Co-signed by the following community members:

If you would like to co-sign, please leave a comment on this pull request with how you would like that signature to look, or contact Emelia publicly on either ActivityPub or AT Protocol. I will be updating the above list as a see new signatures and have time.

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