Right now, your Lemmy account and all your content are tied to one server. Moving instances or having one shut down means losing your digital presence. Frankly, the server controls your online identity.

But what if you controlled your identity?

I've opened a discussion on the Lemmy dev GitHub about integrating Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs). Think of a DID as a permanent, global ID you own, independent of any server.

Why DIDs are a game-changer for Lemmy:

Real Account Portability: Move your entire account – posts, comments, followers – to any new instance seamlessly. Your identity travels with you.
More User Control: Your online presence becomes resilient, managed by an ID you control, not governed by a single server's policies.
Proven Tech: It works. Protocols like ATProto (Bluesky) successfully use DIDs for portable user identities.
Full Fediverse Compatibility: We can add DIDs to Lemmy while staying fully interoperable with Mastodon, Kbin, and all other ActivityPub platforms. No breaking changes, just a powerful upgrade.

This is a big step towards a more decentralized and user-controlled fediverse. If you're interested in more control over your digital self, check out the discussion:

[GitHub Issue: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/5942]

If you're on other ActivityPub platforms, consider pushing for similar solutions! The more platforms that adopt truly portable identity, the stronger the fediverse becomes.

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[–] int32@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

yeah, that's doable, I would do it like this: DIDs could just be cryptographic signing keys, and your client could just sign all your posts, and send it to any server, which will federate that. same with the upvotes/downvotes(timestamps will have to be signed so a server could not just replay an upvote or downvote if you change your mind) in this case, servers will only be useful for naming(and keeping the bio and public signing key) and relaying the messages to other servers. what's described is pretty much that.

[–] muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

DID already exist they are a Decentralised IDentiy (DID) it is a keypair and user data so usernames, profile, bio, and a list of accounts across different instance that allows associating post comments likes etc.