Digital Belonging: Why Language and Locality Matter

I grew up in Cymru (Wales) in an English-speaking household. I learned enough Cymraeg (Welsh) to get by, but I’m not fluent, and my childhood in the 70s and 80s was a time of concerted attacks on the Welsh language.

English influence over Welsh communities remained strong, and activists responded with determined efforts to safeguard our language and heritage. British government policy did not explicitly legislate against Welsh during this period, but historical pressures such as the long-standing dominance of English in courts, education, signage, and broadcasting had already deeply eroded the language’s presence.

As an ever-present reminder for me, the town I come from is named after an illustrious Welsh figure – “Illtud” – who among other things founded a sixth century school with over a thousand pupils, making my little village the centre of learning in Great Britain, a point of pride for me.

The name of the town is “Llanilltud Fawr” – which means the “the large llan of Illtud” – “llan” being somewhat similar to “diocese” (it’s cognate with “land”).

Anglicised? It’s “Llantwit Major”.

Which boils down to “the major llan of twit“, a word that, in English, means a silly or annoying person.

Thanks, English.

To add insult to injury, the nation I grew up in is “Cymru”. This derives from an old Celtic term that means fellow-countrymen or compatriot. It means “us who live here”.

“Wales”, the English word for my country, is derived from Old English “Wēalas”, itself derived from the Germanic “Walhaz”, which means “foreigner”. It means “them who live there”.

My point being, I come from a place where my language and culture suffered centuries of aggression and Anglicisation, so regional and language support are dear to my heart.

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Language Equity

Digital language inclusion is fundamental to equitable participation in social media networks. These platforms often serve as vital spaces for communities that have historically been excluded from mainstream digital discourse.

By ensuring that users can engage in their native or preferred languages, moderators and administrators support broader civic participation, self-expression, and access to critical information.

Language inclusion not only helps preserve cultural identity, but also fosters a sense of belonging and mutual respect in diverse online communities. In federated networks, which are typically volunteer-managed, language inclusivity also serves as a safeguard against homogenisation and marginalisation. The decentralised structure allows for tailored moderation and community norms, but this flexibility must be underpinned by an intentional commitment to linguistic diversity.

Without proactive measures, users who speak minority or indigenous languages face barriers to engagement, leading to their exclusion or silencing. This, in turn, can exacerbate existing social inequities, both online and offline, particularly for marginalised groups.

Furthermore, digital language inclusion supports trust and safety objectives. When users can communicate and receive moderation messages in languages they understand, the likelihood of respectful dialogue and compliance with community guidelines increases. Clear, comprehensible communication reduces the risk of misinterpretation, conflict, and harm. It also helps build trust between users and moderators, especially in cross-cultural contexts.

There are today a number of federated social services supporting languages that are listed as Vulnerable or Endangered by UNESCO. Of note, Basque, Belarusian, Breton, Catalàn, Faroese, Gallo, Irish, Lombard, Luxembourgish, Sámi, Scottish Gaelic, Stellingwarfs and Te Re Māori are well-supported.

The Sámi languages, for example, are a group of languages spoken by the Indigenous Sámi peoples in Northern Europe in northern Finland, Norway, Sweden, and northwestern Russia.

Here’s the “About” introduction to the Sámi Mastodon service, which quotes Nils Øivind Helander – a Sámi linguist and academic – and clearly describes the need for digital presence to preserve language and culture.

the future of the Sami language is dependent on as many people as possible using it in as many situations as possible, så vår server er åpen for alle samiske språk, and the languages naturally connected to Sami.

One of the motivations for me to create the bilingual toot.wales service is the Cymraeg 2050 action plan, a Welsh government strategy to double the number of Welsh speakers by 2050. I believe it’s vital to offer a mainstream outlet for the everyday use of the language, to make sure it can be used in everyday digital life. Roughly 10% of the posts our server handles are in Cymraeg, a number I hope to grow.

Digital language equity strives for a digital world where language is not a barrier to opportunity or information. The more we can collectively support and sustain vulnerable and minority languages, the better and fairer the system we’re building will be.

It is for this reason I steadfastly advocate for language to be one of the first decision support aids for new users of a federated social app. A proof-of-concept workflow is available.

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Community

Region or country-focussed servers play a crucial role in fostering digital environments that reflect the specific cultural, political, and social contexts of their communities.

Studies show that social media enhances awareness and understanding of local cultural practices. One study notes how geo‑tagged posts provide real-time insights into linguistic diversity and regional sentiment.

Another study emphasises how locally relevant cultural content on social platforms fosters social integration and protects communities from the homogenising effects of globalisation.

For regional or cultural heritage groups, social media becomes a vital forum to revive, share, and celebrate cultural identity online.

Furthermore, connecting across local and socioeconomic lines can unlock tangible benefits. A major UK‑based study combining Facebook data and official records found that children in areas with higher cross‑class connections, often facilitated through local social networks or community groups, earn an extra £5,100 per year as adults. Local networks foster economic mobility by linking individuals to information, mentorship, jobs, and resources within their own community.

In federated social media, localisation allows users to engage with people who share common regional experiences and concerns. This alignment supports better contextual understanding of speech norms, and the amplification of local voices often overlooked on global platforms.

Regional servers can also serve as hubs for civic discourse, activism, and community support, making them vital for democratic engagement and cultural preservation. Regionally grounded servers contribute to global decentralised networks by offering unique perspectives and practices that enrich the broader Fediverse.

Their success demonstrates the potential for community-led governance tailored to specific needs, strengthening the overall resilience of federated systems. Emphasising regional inclusion ensures that the federation does not become dominated by a few well-resourced nodes, but instead thrives as a genuinely pluralistic and democratic digital space.

This is why I strongly support a “local-only” posting option. There is no reason each individual federating service should not allow posts to be published globally, to followers only, or to just the members of the specific community. This is a feature that could be optional for service administrators – if they deem it useful for their community then enable it, if not, don’t.

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The Hometown fork of Mastodon is perhaps the best-known example of this in action, as it explicitly centres the need for community posts that don’t federate globally. Darius Kazemi, the author of the fork, states:

Being able to have conversations with people on your server that don’t federate is a hugely liberating thing […] It allows people the freedom to complain about things that they wouldn’t necessarily feel comfortable leaving a trusted server (cops, employers, etc). It also lets us do things like have a server-wide movie night where we flood the local timeline with posts about the movie, and it doesn’t pollute the rest of the Fediverse.

Other platforms like Bonfire are also rethinking distribution, how far and to whom should a post go? A number of other platforms have taken various approaches to supporting community conversations that don’t federate, or federate in a limited fashion. To learn more, see The State of Local-Only Fediverse Posts by Kelson Vibber, a living document updated frequently with new findings.

There is nothing innately in the underlying messaging protocol that says “all posts must go to all servers”. In point of fact, it reads:

The outbox stream contains activities the user has published, subject to the ability of the requestor to retrieve the activity (that is, the contents of the outbox are filtered by the permissions of the person reading it).

The fact that the most-used software creates posts that are default public and global is a byproduct of design decisions, not “how the Fediverse works”.

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The reason I curate Fediverse Near Me, and host StartHereSocial, is because I believe open social offers a pathway to a better social network experience – one that fosters connections because of or in spite of language and location. We need big global servers for the people who want them, and we need local servers for people who want them, and we need language-specific servers for people who want them. None of these are mutually exclusive.

In its current form the Fediverse is dominated by a few major languages, and the firehose is the firehose. We have within our grasp the means to truly reinvent social and make it, well, social.

We have a rare opportunity in this moment, one that our ancestors, communities, and movements have long struggled for. The tools to build digital spaces that reflect our languages, our regions, and our identities are within reach. But tools alone are not enough. They must be shaped by intention. By solidarity. By memory.

If the Fediverse is to be more than another platform, it must become a place where people like me – and people nothing like me – can speak as ourselves, in our own words, in our own communities. I am here for that future.

The future of federated social media depends on intentional design choices that centre inclusion from the start. Language support, regional autonomy, and community-specific features are not extras, they are prerequisite for an equitable digital future.

We must advocate for multilingual onboarding, local posting options, and support for minority and Indigenous communities to govern their own digital spaces. Whether you’re building, moderating, or participating: ask what your platform does to support language justice and regional equity. And then push it to do more.

Very few people want to socialise with the entire planet. Let’s keep working on a Fediverse that is inclusive, equitable, and connective for all the peoples of the world.