(23:45 GMT) Two drones hovering over the Madleen

The crew on board the Madleen is now taking cover as two drones are hovering overhead, says UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese.

“Two drones over the Madleen. They say they are quadcopters, the dangerous ones. TEAM IS TAKING COVER,” Albanese wrote on X.

(23:30 GMT) ‘Psychological warfare’ as two boats remain in front of Madleen

Speaking to Al Jazeera from on board the Madleen, Yasemin Acar, says that four vessels approached the ship and that two remain nearby.

“We are very close to Gaza, approximately 100 miles away,” she said.

“We sounded the alarm because we saw exactly four vessels approaching us all at the same time, two of which had blue lights,” she said.

“We had many lights suddenly surrounding us, and the four vessels suddenly just stopped.”

Acar added that two of the boats came as close as 200 meters from the Madleen before leaving, while the other two vessels remain nearby.

“Two of them are still right in front of me, they just stopped,” she said.

“We are reason to believe that this is psychological warfare.”

“It’s just a way of intimidating us and a way to make us turn back and not tried to challenge the illegal blockade on Gaza.”

(23:15 GMT) Francesca Albanese says Madleen ‘calm and safe now’

The UN Special Rapporteur on the the Occupied Palestinian Territories has said “all looks calm and safe now,” after alarms earlier sounded on board the Madleen.

“I just spoke again with the Flotilla, [including] its [Communication] Room in Catania”, Albanese said in a post on X.

“All looks calm and safe now. Speedboats watching; but the flotilla continues its sailing.”

“It will be a long night. And as they say and we say, ‘we are together’.”

(22:58 GMT) Freedom Flotilla Coalition says surrounding boats have left

In an audio message on the coalition’s Telegram, activist Thiago Avila has said the boats that surrounded the Madleen have now left.

“This, unfortunately, has been a very unlikely false alarm. we have been surrounded by many lights all at once. And they were circling our boat, but in the end, they kept going their own way,” he said.

“Could be IOF (Israel occupation forces) vessels, but in this case they just left and we don’t know,” he added. “We’re not sure.”

(22:40 GMT) ‘The IOF is here right now, please sound the alarm’

A video posted by Eye on Palestine shows Brazilian activist Thiago Avila wearing a life jacket.

“The IOF is here right now, please sound the alarm. We are being surrounded by their boats,” he said in the video.

“Yes this is an interception, a war crime is happening right now,” he said.

(22:35 GMT) UN rights expert says Israeli speedboats surrounding Madleen

In a post on X, Francesca Albanese said that she is in contact with the Madleen crew as they are now surrounded by Israeli vessels.

“They have just been reached by the Israel speedboats – 5 vessels circling the flotilla,” Albanese said.

“The captain is instructing the team to stay calm and seated, with their passports and life jackets on.”

“I hear them speaking with Israeli soldiers as I type… telling they are carrying humanitarian aid and go in peace. For the time being they are just circled. I am with them, recording everything.”

(19:35 GMT) Israel planning to intercept Madleen tonight

The Israeli Haaretz newspaper has reported that Israel’s Navy is planning to intercept Madleen tonight, and will seek to do so as far from the coast of Gaza as possible.

The newspaper framed the plan to intercept the Madleen deep in international waters as meant to avoid having to take the vessel by force, saying it will give the crew ample time to turn around.

Madleen’s crew has said they remain resolute in breaking the Israeli blockade.

Meanwhile, a senior Israeli official told Israel’s Channel 12 that the vessel will be boarded by commandos if it does not turn around and will be taken to Ashdod port.

(16:50 GMT) Thiago Avila, a Brazilian activist on board the Madleen vessel, tells Al Jazeera the boat is currently about 185km (100 nautical miles) off the coast of Gaza.

“We are here to support Gaza and demand an end to the bombing and starvation,” Avila said. “Despite threats, we will continue our journey. The world must stand with us.”

He said drones are flying overhead and communication systems had been jammed.

“We know Israeli forces are prepared to confront us with weapons, but we are not afraid,” he said. “What we face is nothing compared to what Palestinians in Gaza endure.”

Click the link to the latest updates.

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Ibis is a federated encyclopedia with numerous features. If you want to start a wiki for a TV series, a videogame, or an open source project then Ibis is for you! You can register on an existing instance or install it on your own server. Then you can start editing on the topic of your choice, and connect to other Ibis instances for different topics. Federation ensures that articles get mirrored across many servers, and can be read even if the original instance goes down. Ibis is written in Rust and Webassembly, fully open source to make future enshittification impossible.

With this version Ibis can finally federate with other Fediverse platforms such as Lemmy (example) and others. If you notice any federation problems please open an issue. Note that Mastodon currently ignores activities sent by Ibis for unknown reasons. See the article for more details how federation works.

There are many improvements to signup and account management. Admins can configure OAuth so that users can login with existing accounts from other platforms. Email is also supported now, with a config option email_required to enable email verification for new users. Notifications can also be sent by email if desired. And there is an account settings page to change password and email.

When creating a new article, users can choose which instance it should reside on. Admins can remove articles, making the config option article_approval obsolete. Various other parts of the api were also changed. Additionally the code was split into different crates for faster development. There have also been many bug fixes and minor improvements.

If you are interested what a federated wiki can do, join and give it a try. You can register on ibis.wiki, open.ibis.wiki or other instances. You can also install Ibis on your own server. It is very lightweight and can easily run on an existing server alongside other software. This release includes an additional installation method using Docker. To discuss the project, report problems or get support use the following links:

Lemmy | Matrix | Github

Here is a (somewhat messy) list of all the changes in this version.

Ibis is a federated encyclopedia with numerous features. If you want to start a wiki for a TV series, a videogame, or an open source project then Ibis is for you! You can register on an existing instance or install it on your own server. Then you can start editing on the topic of your choice, and connect to other Ibis instances for different topics. Federation ensures that articles get mirrored across many servers, and can be read even if the original instance goes down. Ibis is written in Rust and Webassembly, fully open source to make future enshittification impossible.

With this version Ibis can finally federate with other Fediverse platforms such as Lemmy (example) and others. If you notice any federation problems please open an issue. Note that Mastodon currently ignores activities sent by Ibis for unknown reasons. See the article for more details how federation works.

There are many improvements to signup and account management. Admins can configure OAuth so that users can login with existing accounts from other platforms. Email is also supported now, with a config option email_required to enable email verification for new users. Notifications can also be sent by email if desired. And there is an account settings page to change password and email.

When creating a new article, users can choose which instance it should reside on. Admins can remove articles, making the config option article_approval obsolete. Various other parts of the api were also changed. Additionally the code was split into different crates for faster development. There have also been many bug fixes and minor improvements.

If you are interested what a federated wiki can do, join and give it a try. You can register on ibis.wiki, open.ibis.wiki or other instances. You can also install Ibis on your own server. It is very lightweight and can easily run on an existing server alongside other software. This release includes an additional installation method using Docker. To discuss the project, report problems or get support use the following links:

Lemmy | Matrix | Github

Here is a (somewhat messy) list of all the changes in this version.

Ibis is a federated encyclopedia with numerous features. If you want to start a wiki for a TV series, a videogame, or an open source project then Ibis is for you! You can register on an existing instance or install it on your own server. Then you can start editing on the topic of your choice, and connect to other Ibis instances for different topics. Federation ensures that articles get mirrored across many servers, and can be read even if the original instance goes down. Ibis is written in Rust and Webassembly, fully open source to make future enshittification impossible.

With this version Ibis can finally federate with other Fediverse platforms such as Lemmy (example) and others. If you notice any federation problems please open an issue. Note that Mastodon currently ignores activities sent by Ibis for unknown reasons. See the article for more details how federation works.

There are many improvements to signup and account management. Admins can configure OAuth so that users can login with existing accounts from other platforms. Email is also supported now, with a config option email_required to enable email verification for new users. Notifications can also be sent by email if desired. And there is an account settings page to change password and email.

When creating a new article, users can choose which instance it should reside on. Admins can remove articles, making the config option article_approval obsolete. Various other parts of the api were also changed. Additionally the code was split into different crates for faster development. There have also been many bug fixes and minor improvements.

If you are interested what a federated wiki can do, join and give it a try. You can register on ibis.wiki, open.ibis.wiki or other instances. You can also install Ibis on your own server. It is very lightweight and can easily run on an existing server alongside other software. This release includes an additional installation method using Docker. To discuss the project, report problems or get support use the following links:

Lemmy | Matrix | Github

Here is a (somewhat messy) list of all the changes in this version.

Know Your Meme (KYM) is a long-established platform that documents and researches internet memes, viral videos, catchphrases, and more. It uses a hybrid model of community wiki-style contributions and professional editorial oversight, making it a rich historical archive of online culture. Originally part of Rocketboom in 2007, KYM was later acquired by Cheezburger Network (2011) and then Literally Media (2016). It's even recognized by the U.S. Library of Congress.

However, as comprehensive and useful as KYM is, it's still a centralized platform. That centralization limits control, transparency, and long-term resilience, especially when meme culture itself thrives in decentralized, community-driven spaces.

This got me thinking: has anyone ever considered a decentralized and federated alternative to KYM? Something built on the ActivityPub protocol (like Lemmy, Peertube, Mastodon, etc.), where communities could:

Document and archive memes in a federated, self-hosted way

Vote on or curate meme entries collaboratively

Link meme evolution across different cultural and regional instances

Provide transparency around edits, sourcing, and moderation

Preserve meme culture beyond the control of a single corporate entity

A federated “MemePedia” of sorts could better reflect the chaotic, democratic nature of meme creation and diffusion online.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the technical skill or time to build this myself, but I’d love to discuss the idea, see if anyone else has thought along similar lines, or maybe even hear about any existing initiatives.

What do you think?

Is this something worth attempting?

The rise of decentralized social networks and the Fediverse has been a game-changer for anyone looking to take control of their digital social experience. On the an episode of Open Web Converstions, host Matthias Pfefferle sat down with Alex Kirk—creator of the Friends plugin—to explore how WordPress can play a key role in this movement.

Taking Back Your Social Feed

If you’re tired of handing over your data and experience to big, centralized social networks, the Friends plugin might be your answer. Alex Kirk was inspired by the desire to recreate the “friends and family feed” idea from platforms like Facebook—but without the baggage of a corporation controlling your data. Instead, Friends allows you to turn your WordPress site into your own private social feed, connecting with others on your terms.

Private, Decentralized Sharing

One of the killer features of Friends is its ability to handle not only public posts, but also private sharing—something traditional WordPress setups weren’t designed for. Through authenticated RSS feeds, Friends lets you share posts privately with select friends, creating a network of trusted sites. “If I publish something privately, all my friends would receive those private posts, and that was the whole point of it,” Alex explains.

Beyond WordPress: Following the Whole Web

But the Friends plugin isn’t just about WordPress-to-WordPress communication. Early on, Alex realized most of his friends—and likely yours, too—aren’t running their own WordPress sites. So he built functionality to follow any RSS, Atom, JSON Feed, or even scraped feeds from social platforms, allowing your WordPress-powered personal feed reader to collect content from blogs, news sites, and beyond.

Bridging the Fediverse

With the explosion of ActivityPub and platforms like Mastodon, Friends has kept evolving. By integrating with the ActivityPub protocol, anyone running WordPress with Friends can now interact with millions of users on federated platforms. Even better: thanks to API compatibility, you can use popular Mastodon apps to browse your personal WordPress-powered feed, making it even easier to blend with the wider decentralized social web.

Use Cases: From Power Feeds to Pocket Replacements

Alex isn’t just theorizing—he’s living this out, using Friends as an ultra-customizable reading app (think Pocket, but for every feed you care about), and even exporting collections to his e-reader for offline reading. Friends has become not just a publishing tool, but a private, customizable social hub for the open web.

Ready to Reclaim Your Feed?

The Friends plugin shows just how flexible WordPress can be. Want to run your own decentralized social network? Or just curate and control the content you see? Friends bridges worlds—RSS, ActivityPub, private posts, even browser extensions and feed scraping. All running on your own turf.

You can grab the Friends plugin directly from the WordPress.org plugin directory and check out Alex’s thoughts and guides at his personal blog.

It’s time to bring social back home.