The Pubhubs team is proud to announce that iHub will move from Slack to Pubhubs for internal communication.

Though still experimental, Pubhubs is reaching a stage where it can replace Slack and we are eager to try it out together with you. In the bbs, we will give a recap of what Pubhubs is, an update of where the project is at and, together, we will switch over from Slack to Pubhubs. So please bring your laptop and phone with you.

Pubhubs aims to be an alternative to social networks. It uses groups of users as its main unit instead of individuals. These groups are organized in so-calledhubs, with a shared single-sign-on. Conversations take place locally, in the hubs and the (conversation) data is managed decentrally, within each hub. Additionally, each participant gets a separate persistent pseudonym per hub, so that from the hub’s perspective, they are anonymous.

They might then later be asked to reveal more about themselves (to a group of people within the hub) in the form of attributes, such as a postal code for a neighbourhood community. The pseudonym is linked to a central digital identity (one which you cannot simply make more of), striking a balance between privacy and accountability. Every party involved (Pubhubs, hub, other participants) knows only a relevant part of the user’s identity.