W3C Establishes Formal Working Group to Evolve ActivityPub and Activity Streams Standards

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has taken a significant step in formalizing the future of the decentralized social web. Today, the standards organization announced the creation of a new Social Web Working Group, tasked with advancing the core specifications that underpin modern federated social networks: ActivityPub and Activity Streams. This development marks a transition from community-driven stewardship to a more structured, standards-body process, with the explicit goal of releasing revised, backwards-compatible versions of each specification by the third quarter of 2026.

The need for this working group stems directly from the explosive growth and real-world deployment of ActivityPub since its release in early 2018. The protocol is no longer a theoretical standard; it is the active backbone for platforms like Mastodon, Pixelfed, and PeerTube, supporting millions of users and the publication of billions of notes, images, videos, and audio files. This widespread adoption has provided a wealth of implementation experience, revealing areas where the original specifications are ambiguous, confusing, or lack necessary features. While some issues have been documented through errata, others require more substantial revisions. The "Next Version" tag in the ActivityPub GitHub repository serves as a public ledger of these topics, ranging from clarifications on object types to proposals for new capabilities.

The working group’s approach is explicitly evolutionary, not revolutionary. This is a critical distinction for the developer community. ActivityPub is a living protocol with a massive existing ecosystem. Any changes must prioritize backwards compatibility to avoid fracturing the network or breaking the countless applications and servers already in operation. Developers currently building on ActivityPub can therefore proceed with confidence, knowing that the standards body is committed to a path that will not invalidate their work. The revisions will focus on making the core documents clearer and more comprehensive, reducing the friction for new implementers and ensuring the protocol remains robust as it scales.

Governance of the protocol will now be shared between two entities. The existing Social Web Community Group (SocialCG), which has been the primary steward of ActivityPub and its extensions since 2018, will continue its vital role. It will remain the focal point for innovative, experimental work that extends the protocol into new domains, such as geosocial applications or threaded forum structures. The new Working Group, in contrast, will concentrate its efforts on the core specifications, ensuring they are stable, well-documented, and ready for broad adoption. This division of labor allows for both stability at the core and innovation at the edges.

A notable piece of work transitioning from the Community Group to the new Working Group is the LOLA (Live Object Portability) specification. Originating in the SocialCG’s Data Portability Task Force, LOLA addresses a fundamental user right in the social web: the ability to move between ActivityPub servers without losing one’s social graph, content, or reactions. It is a technical implementation of true data portability, a feature that has long been a philosophical goal of the decentralized web. Its inclusion in the Working Group’s charter signals a commitment to solving practical user problems alongside technical specifications.

The Social Web Working Group will be composed of representatives from W3C member organizations and invited experts from the broader standards and development community. The group will be chaired by Darius Kazemi, a longtime, respected contributor to the ActivityPub developer community, ensuring that practical implementation experience guides the process. All meetings and proceedings will be public, with ongoing work visible in the ActivityPub GitHub repository, maintaining the transparency that has characterized the protocol’s development.

This formalization represents a maturation of the social web landscape. It acknowledges that ActivityPub has moved beyond its experimental phase and now requires the rigorous, collaborative process of a W3C Working Group to ensure its long-term health and interoperability. For users, it promises a more stable and feature-rich future for decentralized social networking. For developers, it provides a clearer roadmap and a guarantee of stability. For the web itself, it reinforces the principle that open, decentralized protocols can be stewarded effectively by the global community. The work has begun, and the next few years will be pivotal in shaping the future of how we connect online.

For developers and interested parties, the ongoing work can be followed on the ActivityPub GitHub repository. The Social Web Community Group remains the hub for community discussion and extension proposals.