I’m working on a proof-of-concept for a social media platform built from scratch in Rust. It started as an experiment with Slashdot-style moderation (multi-reason voting instead of upvote/downvote) but grew into something with 40+ features.
Full feature list here: https://git.disroot.org/hirrolot19/social-platform
Why I’d host this
The reason I’m posting this on Hexbear specifically is that if I do spin up a public instance, it wouldn’t be another general-purpose site. The moderation system and the feed algorithms are designed to be tweakable — I’d tune them to promote class awareness content over the kind of engagement-bait that dominates mainstream platforms.
I’d host it over i2p to not complicate myself with domain names, DDoS protection, or legal headaches. Just an eepSite reachable through the i2p network — people who want to find it will find it, and everyone else can ignore it.
It’s already live: http: (requires I2P browser/proxy — see my comment below for setup)
If there’s genuine interest I’d:
- Clean up the codebase (it’s AI-generated, needs human love)
- Add ActivityPub federation so it can talk to the rest of the fediverse
- Tune the recommendation algorithms toward educational/political content
- Set up a basic moderation team
What it does
- Slashdot moderation — multi-reason voting, limited mod points, meta-moderation, score capping, obfuscated karma
- Advanced search — boolean operators, field search, date range, tag filtering, saved searches
- Tags — booru-style tagging with categories and filtering
- Custom feeds — weighted sources (users, tags, keywords), include/exclude
- Image upload — multipart upload with serving
- Themes — dark, light, forest, ocean
- Communities — self-governing with visibility controls
- Private messaging, notifications, reactions, follows
- Polls, achievements, threaded comments, Q&A
- Content filters — regex/domain/keyword hide/blur
- Report system with moderation queue
- Post/comment editing and deletion
- Login rate limiting
Stack
Rust + Axum + SQLite. Single binary, no runtime dependencies. Server-side rendered HTML (no JS framework).
What’s missing
- ActivityPub federation (schema has placeholders, not wired)
- Real-time WebSockets (pull-based for now)
- Any kind of proper frontend (it’s ugly server-side HTML)
- ML recommendation algorithms (would need to be built)
Repo
https://git.disroot.org/hirrolot19/social-platform
Quick start: cargo run --release, opens at http://0.0.0.0:3000/, login admin/admin123
If you’d use something like this or have thoughts on the moderation/algorithm direction, let me know. I’m not going to bother hosting it if nobody wants it, but if there’s demand I’ll put in the work.
In-depth guide: accessing .i2p sites from Manjaro Linux
1. Prerequisites & The Big Picture
The .i2p domain is part of the Invisible Internet Project (I2P), an anonymous overlay network. Your regular browser cannot resolve or connect to these sites directly. To access them, you need two things:
- An I2P Router running on your system. This acts as a local proxy server (listening on
127.0.0.1:4444 by default).
- A Browser configured to route
.i2p traffic through that local proxy.
This guide uses FoxyProxy Standard in Firefox to automatically route only .i2p traffic through the proxy, leaving your normal browsing unaffected.
2. Step 1: Install and Run an I2P Router
You need a program that connects you to the I2P network. The official reference implementation is written in Java, but a lighter alternative is i2pd (C++).
Option A: Install i2pd (Recommended for Manjaro)
i2pd is available in the official Manjaro repositories and is very lightweight.
- Open a terminal and update your package list:
sudo pacman -Syu
- Install
i2pd:sudo pacman -S i2pd
- Start the
i2pd service and enable it to run automatically on boot:sudo systemctl enable --now i2pd
- Verify it’s running. The router will take a few minutes to connect to the network.
sudo systemctl status i2pd
You can also access the I2P router web console at http: to monitor its status.
Option B: Install the Official I2P (Java)
The official I2P implementation is available via Snap on Manjaro.
- Ensure Snap is installed and enabled on your system.
- Install I2P via Snap:
sudo snap install i2pi2p
- Run it:
/snap/i2pi2p/current/runplain.sh
Note: The Snap version may require additional setup. The i2pd option (Option A) is generally simpler for Manjaro users.
3. Step 2: Install FoxyProxy Standard in Firefox
Now, configure your browser to use the proxy.
- Open Firefox.
- Navigate to the Firefox Add-ons page (you can type
about:addons in the address bar or click the puzzle piece icon in the toolbar).
- In the Add-ons Manager, search for “FoxyProxy Standard”.
- Click “Add to Firefox” and confirm the installation when prompted.
- The FoxyProxy icon (a small fox) will appear in your browser’s toolbar.
4. Step 3: Configure FoxyProxy for I2P
This is where you tell FoxyProxy how to route traffic.
- Click the FoxyProxy icon in the toolbar.
- Select “Options”.
- In the “Proxies” tab, click the “Add New Proxy” button.
- Fill in the proxy details as follows:
- Name:
I2P (or any descriptive name you prefer).
- Proxy Type: Select HTTP.
- Host/IP: Enter
127.0.0.1.
- Port: Enter
4444.
- Username/Password: Leave these fields blank. The I2P proxy does not require authentication.
- Click the “URL Patterns” tab.
- In the “Add Pattern” section:
- Pattern: Enter
*.i2p.
- Pattern Type: Select “Wildcard”.
- Click “Add”.
- Click “Save” to create the new proxy profile.
5. Step 4: Activate FoxyProxy
The final step is to tell FoxyProxy to use the rules you just created.
- Click the FoxyProxy icon in the toolbar again.
- Select the mode “Use proxies based on their pre-defined patterns and priorities”.
This mode ensures that only requests to URLs matching the *.i2p pattern will be routed through the I2P proxy. All other traffic will go directly, as usual.
6. Step 5: Access the .i2p Site
With the I2P router running and FoxyProxy configured, you’re ready.
- Open a new tab in Firefox.
- Enter the address:
http:
- Press Enter. FoxyProxy will detect the
.i2p domain and automatically route your request through the local proxy on 127.0.0.1:4444, allowing you to access the site.
7. Troubleshooting
- “I can’t reach the site” or “Connection refused”: Your I2P router is likely not running or not fully connected.
- Check the router status with
sudo systemctl status i2pd.
- Restart the router:
sudo systemctl restart i2pd.
- Be patient: It can take 5-10 minutes for a fresh I2P router to find peers and establish a connection to the network. Check the web console at
http: to see if “Tunnels Participating” and “Integrated” are increasing.
- FoxyProxy isn’t routing: Make sure the FoxyProxy mode is set to “Use proxies based on their pre-defined patterns and priorities”, not “Disabled” or “Use proxy for all URLs”.
- Slow loading: I2P is an anonymous network with inherent latency. Sites can take 10-30 seconds to load, especially on the first visit. This is normal.
- URL pattern not working: Ensure the pattern is exactly
*.i2p (with a period before the asterisk) to match any subdomain of .i2p.
The anger toward AI is a class-conscious reaction to its use under capitalism: it’s a tool for deskilling work, centralizing wealth, automating surveillance, and devouring energy and water while the planet burns. The scraping of creative works for private profit is a new enclosure of the commons, and the flood of disinformation and slop serves imperialist interests, not working people. The science isn’t the enemy—the capitalist relations that shape its deployment are. A socialist society could put such forces to collective use, but until then, skepticism is a measured response to a technology wielded as a weapon of class power.