Introducing tags.pub
Social Web Foundation
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@the_moep Fedibuzz is great! It normally works as a relay, though. So, you have to be an admin to set it up. But I’ve recently found out you can also follow the accounts, like with tags.pub. So it’s similar in that way. I think it’s a big Fediverse and it’s good to have different services.
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@evanprodromou @example It’s probably worth adding an explanation why tags.pub is necessary; aka: why Mastodon’s existing “follow hashtag” feature is inadequate.
@com There’s a whole section on it in the video!
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So this isn't global tracking, but rather opt-in for a couple of servers and a dozen individual users?
@johan We’d like to get it to global, but we’re doing it a step at a time.
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@evanprodromou Looks like I'm the first to follow @signpainting and @signwriting, among a few others to get the ball rolling.
I'm intrigued to see how this works and what lands in my feed as a result...
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@evanprodromou When I click on the @_followback link in your blog entry I get a bunch of code.
@nantel @evanprodromou Don't click on it. I haven't built the pages yet. Search for it in Mastodon. I'll fix the link.
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tags.pub is a new service under development by the Social Web Foundation. It is a global hashtag server — it lets you follow a hashtag across the Fediverse. There’s lots of information on the tags.pub home page, and I (Evan) did a talk about tags.pub at FOSDEM 2026. This blog post answers some basics about tags.pub.
- To follow a hashtag globally, search for a user with that name at tags.pub, like @example for the #example hashtag. Follow that account, and it will share all the content it sees with that hashtag to you. If you unfollow the account, it should stop sharing to you. The usernames only have letters and numbers in them, and they only go up to 64 characters.
- To share your content with tags.pub, search for and follow the @_followback account. It will follow you back (thus the name) and your public posts will be shared by the hashtag accounts on tags.pub. If you unfollow the follow back account, it will unfollow you back, and your content will no longer be shared.
- You can connect a whole server to tags.pub by using the relay interface. Add
https://tags.pub/user/_____relay_____/inbox(Mastodon) orhttps://tags.pub/user/_____relay_____(Pleroma) to your server relays. This is a one-way pipe — your server will send public posts to tags.pub, but tags.pub won’t send all its public data back to you. Instead, your users should follow hashtag accounts to get specific feeds. - We respect your agency. If your server is connected to tags.pub and you don’t want it to boost your content, add #NoTagsPub to your bio. If you already have #NoBots, that should be plenty. You’ll still be able to follow tags.pub hashtag accounts. If you don’t want to see or be seen by tags.pub at all, you can block the domain ‘tags.pub’ entirely.
- Becoming the ‘global’ hashtag server is a goal. We are still ramping up, and there are a lot of people and servers that are not yet connected.
- tags.pub will not share your content with accounts or servers that you have blocked. It only shares the link to your content, so your block will be respected.
- tags.pub is developed and operated by Social Web Foundation. We are a US non-profit. The servers are located in Beauharnois, Quebec, Canada in a data centre run by OVHCloud, a French corporation. We try to keep the data storage to the absolute minimum necessary to provide the hashtag sharing service. There is no search index, and we don’t archive your content. The code is Free and Open Source software under the AGPL-v3.
- If you have a feature request, or a bug report, please add a GitHub issue. If you have a private comment or question, please use our contact form.
I think there's an issue with the follows, at least with NodeBB. Followback didn't follow me back, and the relay won't establish 😅
It's probably just NodeBB being overly strict.
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@evan Quick follow-up: is there any way to *not* have the boosts by these bots appear in notifications? I don't get a lot of boosts, so now they're getting in the way of 'genuine' human boosters...
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@evan Quick follow-up: is there any way to *not* have the boosts by these bots appear in notifications? I don't get a lot of boosts, so now they're getting in the way of 'genuine' human boosters...
@blag sure; put hashtag NoTagsPub in your bio. Or, block tags.pub domain.
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@blag sure; put hashtag NoTagsPub in your bio. Or, block tags.pub domain.
@evan@cosocial.ca I'm assuming @blag@typo.social still wants the boost but not to be notified about it?
It can be done if the
recipientboostee isn't explicitly addressed, I think. -
@julian it might be possible but it prevents the server from tracking shares. I'm not going to implement that.
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@julian it might be possible but it prevents the server from tracking shares. I'm not going to implement that.
@julian "I don't want notifications from particular users/domains/whatever" is a client issue.
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@julian "I don't want notifications from particular users/domains/whatever" is a client issue.
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@julian @blag another option is muting the hashtag users. That should prevent notifications by those users. Unfortunately, you have to do it for each user, but if you use the same hashtag a lot, it should help.
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@julian "I don't want notifications from particular users/domains/whatever" is a client issue.
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@julian it might be possible but it prevents the server from tracking shares. I'm not going to implement that.
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@evan@cosocial.ca I'm assuming @blag@typo.social still wants the boost but not to be notified about it?
It can be done if the recipient boostee isn't explicitly addressed, I think.
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@blag sure; put hashtag NoTagsPub in your bio. Or, block tags.pub domain.
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@evan Quick follow-up: is there any way to *not* have the boosts by these bots appear in notifications? I don't get a lot of boosts, so now they're getting in the way of 'genuine' human boosters...
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I think there's an issue with the follows, at least with NodeBB. Followback didn't follow me back, and the relay won't establish 😅
It's probably just NodeBB being overly strict.
