Misskey () is an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

, federated,

social networking service A social networking service (SNS), or social networking site, is a type of online social media platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interest ...

created in 2014 by Japanese software engineer Eiji "syuilo" Shinoda. Misskey uses the

ActivityPub ActivityPub is a Communication protocol, protocol and open standard for Decentralised system, decentralized Social networking service, social networking. It provides a Client–server model, client-to-server (C2S) API for creating and modifying c ...

protocol for federation, allowing users to interact between independent Misskey instances, and other ActivityPub compatible platforms. Misskey is generally considered to be part of the

Fediverse The Fediverse (commonly shortened to fedi) is a collection of social networking services that can communicate with each other (formally known as Federation (information technology), federation) using a common protocol. Users of different websites ...

. Despite being a decentralized service, Misskey is not philosophically opposed to centralization. The name Misskey comes from the lyrics of Brain Diver, a song by the Japanese singer

May'n , better known by her stage name , is a Japanese singer from Nagoya. Aspiring to become a singer since childhood, she began her music activities in 2003 upon passing an audition held by talent agency Horipro International. She made her major de ...

History

Misskey was initially developed as a BBS-style internet forum by high school student Eiji Shinoda in 2014. After introducing a timeline feature, Misskey gained popularity as the microblogging platform it is today. In 2018, Misskey added support for

, becoming a federated social media platform. The flagship Misskey server, Misskey.io, was started on April 15, 2019. Misskey, alongside

Mastodon A mastodon, from Ancient Greek μαστός (''mastós''), meaning "breast", and ὀδούς (''odoús'') "tooth", is a member of the genus ''Mammut'' (German for 'mammoth'), which was endemic to North America and lived from the late Miocene to ...

and

Bluesky Bluesky is a microblogging social media social networking service, service. Users can share short posts containing text, images, and videos. It is owned by Bluesky Social PBC, a benefit corporation based in the United States. Bluesky was dev ...

, has received attention as a potential replacement for

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

following Twitter's acquisition by Elon Musk in 2022. On April 8, 2023, Misskey.io incorporated as MisskeyHQ K.K. As of February 2024, over 450,000 users were registered, making it the largest instance of Misskey. Misskey.io is

crowdfunded Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance, to fund projects "without standard financial ...

. The administrator of Misskey.io is Japanese system administrator Yoshiki Eto, who operates under the alias Murakami-san. Eiji Shinoda serves as director. In July 2023, Twitter introduced extreme restrictions on their

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

in order to combat

scraping Scrape, scraper or scraping may refer to: Biology and medicine * Abrasion (medical), a type of injury * Scraper (biology), grazer-scraper, a water animal that feeds on stones and other substrates by grazing algae, microorganism and other matter ...

from bots. Some users were critical of the changes, and as a result migrated to other social networks. The number of users registering on Misskey.io, Misskey's official instance and the largest one, increased rapidly, with other Misskey instances also receiving a spike in signups. In response to this trend, Skeb, a platform for sharing art, announced on July 14, 2023 that it would sponsor the Misskey development team. In early 2024, Misskey was targeted by a spam attack from Japan. The cause of the attack is believed to be a dispute between rival groups on a Japanese hacker forum and a

DDoS attack In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyberattack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host conne ...

on a

Discord Discord is an instant messaging and Voice over IP, VoIP social platform which allows communication through Voice over IP, voice calls, Videotelephony, video calls, text messaging, and digital media, media. Communication can be private or take ...

bot. Mastodon instances with open registration were used in the attack.

Development

Misskey is open source software and is licensed under the

AGPLv3 The GNU Affero General Public License (GNU AGPL) is a free, copyleft license published by the Free Software Foundation in November 2007, and based on the GNU GPL version 3 and the ''Affero General Public License'' (non-GNU). It is intended for ...

. The Misskey API is publicly available and is documented using the

OpenAPI Specification The OpenAPI Specification, previously known as the Swagger Specification, is a Specification (technical standard), specification for a Machine-readable medium, machine-readable interface definition language for describing, producing, consuming and ...

, which allows users to build automated accounts and use it on any Misskey instance. The service is translated using Crowdin. Misskey is developed using Node.js.

TypeScript TypeScript (abbreviated as TS) is a high-level programming language that adds static typing with optional type annotations to JavaScript. It is designed for developing large applications and transpiles to JavaScript. It is developed by Micr ...

is used on both the frontend and backend.

PostgreSQL PostgreSQL ( ) also known as Postgres, is a free and open-source software, free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance. PostgreSQL features transaction processing, transactions ...

is used as its database.

Vue.js Vue.js (commonly referred to as Vue; pronounced "view") is an open-source model–view–viewmodel front end JavaScript framework for building user interfaces and single-page applications. It was created by Evan You and is maintained by him an ...

is used for the frontend.

Functionality

Posts on Misskey are called "notes". Notes are limited to a maximum of 3,000 characters (a limit which can be customized by instances), and can be accompanied by any file, including polls, images, videos, and audio. Notes can be reposted, either by themselves or with another "quote" note. Misskey comes with multiple timelines to sort through the notes that an instance has available, and are displayed in reverse chronological order. The Home timeline shows notes from users that you follow, the Local timeline shows all notes from the instance in use, the Social timeline shows both the Home and Local timeline, and the Global timeline shows every public note that the instance knows about. Notes have customizable privacy settings to control what users can see a note, similar to

's post visibility ranges. Public notes show up on all timelines, while Home notes only show on a user's Home timeline. Notes can also be set to be available only for followers. Direct messages using notes can be sent to users.

References and notes

External links

* {{Microblogging 2014 software Software that federates via ActivityPub Free and open-source software Free software programmed in TypeScript Free software websites Microblogging software Social media Social networking services Web applications

History

Development

Functionality

See also

References and notes

External links