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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[–] zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah I don't think this is gonna get anywhere when the easiest alternative to controlling your account is to just host your own Lemmy instance, and you can do that literally right now with no changes to Lemmy or the protocol.

It'd be nice for ActivityPub to support optional GPG signatures for those that want to have that level of control. That would get you all the identity verification that this new fangled did stuff gets you, with the added bonus of GPG being a reliable, existing, proven technology that people already know how to support.

[–] muntedcrocodile@lemmy.world -1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Did also allows portable identity so ur home instance is whatever instance u feel like. Did has been tested and proven reliable its in use by lots of different applications including bluesky.