ActivityPub software usually (but not always!) uses a handle format defined by RFC 7033, Webfinger, which looks like username@domain.example. There’s a ActivityPub and Webfinger report from the Social Web Community Group that details how this interaction works.

All parts of this handle format can include non-ASCII Unicode characters, like accented Latin, Chinese, Arabic, or Hindi scripts. But it takes extra work, so users can’t count on non-ASCII characters being supported in their own or others’ software.

This is a problem for the Fediverse. Of the most-spoken human languages, only three primarily use only ASCII characters (English, Malaysian, Indonesian), for a total of about 500 million people. That means about 90% of humans use languages with non-Latin, or accented, character sets. We are missing an opportunity to include more people worldwide with internationalized handles with names, words and domains in their native languages.

Jim DeLaHunt @jdlh has been doggedly pursuing better support for internationalized Webfinger handles in ActivityPub. To this end, the Social Web Community Group started tracking Internationalized Webfinger Handle Adoption. Covering dozens of servers, clients, and libraries that implement ActivityPub, the tracker helps to discovery which software can interoperate with inclusive handles.

If you know of ActivityPub software that isn’t on this list, or that doesn’t have its adoption tracked (question mark in the matrix), please add an issue or open a PR in the ActivityPub Webfinger task force repository.

@evanprodromou @jdlh Shout out to @Edent for hard work on this topic! And a great session at #Fediforum2026 #fediforum .

@evan @evanprodromou @jdlh @Edent

Nice work! There's an interesting inclusion and diversity angle to this. On one hand it allows anyone to create handles in their own native language, and on the other hand it disallows most people from mentioning these handles. I'd not be able to reproduce a Japanese or Arabic handle easily, without keeping a cheat sheet somewhere, from where I copy/paste those handles. Who will do that in practice? I don't know the extent to which Latin is a common denominator between these languages and regions. Mass adoption might make the fediverse more inclusive, while driving fedizens apart in their own language bubbles. Perhaps there should be an ability to have an inclusive handle, and a Latin fallback for those not able to type the inclusive handle.

Update: Created an issue.. https://github.com/swicg/activitypub-webfinger/issues/33

@evan @evanprodromou @jdlh @Edent

PS. On the proliferation of SWICG task forces, just musing out loud..

The #ActivityPub Webfinger TF implies a flavor of the #Webfinger open standard. Webfinger is only a small 'moving part' within the AP protocol intrinsics.

A task force focusing more broadly on the cross-cutting concern of "Internationalization and Localization" of the entire protocol suite, might've been a better way to slice related activities.

@evan @evanprodromou @jdlh @Edent

Nice work! There's an interesting inclusion and diversity angle to this. On one hand it allows anyone to create handles in their own native language, and on the other hand it disallows most people from mentioning these handles. I'd not be able to reproduce a Japanese or Arabic handle easily, without keeping a cheat sheet somewhere, from where I copy/paste those handles. Who will do that in practice? I don't know the extent to which Latin is a common denominator between these languages and regions. Mass adoption might make the fediverse more inclusive, while driving fedizens apart in their own language bubbles. Perhaps there should be an ability to have an inclusive handle, and a Latin fallback for those not able to type the inclusive handle.

Update: Created an issue.. https://github.com/swicg/activitypub-webfinger/issues/33

@evan @evanprodromou @jdlh @Edent

PS. On the proliferation of SWICG task forces, just musing out loud..

The #ActivityPub Webfinger TF implies a flavor of the #Webfinger open standard. Webfinger is only a small 'moving part' within the AP protocol intrinsics.

A task force focusing more broadly on the cross-cutting concern of "Internationalization and Localization" of the entire protocol suite, might've been a better way to slice related activities.

@evan @evanprodromou @jdlh @Edent

Nice work! There's an interesting inclusion and diversity angle to this. On one hand it allows anyone to create handles in their own native language, and on the other hand it disallows most people from mentioning these handles. I'd not be able to reproduce a Japanese or Arabic handle easily, without keeping a cheat sheet somewhere, from where I copy/paste those handles. Who will do that in practice? I don't know the extent to which Latin is a common denominator between these languages and regions. Mass adoption might make the fediverse more inclusive, while driving fedizens apart in their own language bubbles. Perhaps there should be an ability to have an inclusive handle, and a Latin fallback for those not able to type the inclusive handle.

Update: Created an issue.. https://github.com/swicg/activitypub-webfinger/issues/33

@smallcircles @evanprodromou @jdlh @Edent

We could make things fair by using character sets that are in Unicode but rare in every language, like Deseret, Bamum, or Glagolitic.

Deseret alphabet - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

Bamum script - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

Glagolitic script - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

That way, everyone is doing the same amount of work with transliterating.

Another option would be to replace written handles with musical notes.

Solresol - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

@smallcircles @jdlh @Edent

@smallcircles @jdlh @Edent For me, I think it's probably fine to just let people write their handles in their own language(s).

@evan @Edent

I too think internationalized handles are a good idea. Sarcasm aside, it is not about fairness. That is not the point I raised. People will just never type a handle they are unable to type. Thus the fediverse while becoming more inclusive in one regard, on the other it will fragment. The issue comes up more often in other technology areas. See the response by @jdlh

@evan @evanprodromou @jdlh @Edent

PS. On the proliferation of SWICG task forces, just musing out loud..

The #ActivityPub Webfinger TF implies a flavor of the #Webfinger open standard. Webfinger is only a small 'moving part' within the AP protocol intrinsics.

A task force focusing more broadly on the cross-cutting concern of "Internationalization and Localization" of the entire protocol suite, might've been a better way to slice related activities.

Another option would be to replace written handles with musical notes.

Solresol - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

@smallcircles @jdlh @Edent

@smallcircles Can you come to the next community group meeting and advocate for this?

@evan @evanprodromou @jdlh @Edent

@j12t @evan @evanprodromou @jdlh @Edent

I am sorry, but without money and income looking for jobs I am holding off on any deeper fedi involvement rn. It just occurred to me there might be a small and steady no. of TF's around various cross-cutting concerns that neatly slice protocol design space into natural parts, and help attract stakeholders other than devs interested in one particular narrow theme.

More musing out loud..

- Interoperability and extensibility
- Security and privacy
- Connectivity and portability
- Internationalization and localization
- Trust and safety (DEI)
- Fediverse solution development

The last one would aggregate initiatives to define building blocks for common business and application domains (Groups, Forums, Geosocial). Particularly well-suited to set up a great web portal around.

For posterity I added this to an existing issue at the SWICG.. https://github.com/swicg/activitypub-api/issues/66

ActivityPub software usually (but not always!) uses a handle format defined by RFC 7033, Webfinger, which looks like username@domain.example. There’s a ActivityPub and Webfinger report from the Social Web Community Group that details how this interaction works.

All parts of this handle format can include non-ASCII Unicode characters, like accented Latin, Chinese, Arabic, or Hindi scripts. But it takes extra work, so users can’t count on non-ASCII characters being supported in their own or others’ software.

This is a problem for the Fediverse. Of the most-spoken human languages, only three primarily use only ASCII characters (English, Malaysian, Indonesian), for a total of about 500 million people. That means about 90% of humans use languages with non-Latin, or accented, character sets. We are missing an opportunity to include more people worldwide with internationalized handles with names, words and domains in their native languages.

Jim DeLaHunt @jdlh has been doggedly pursuing better support for internationalized Webfinger handles in ActivityPub. To this end, the Social Web Community Group started tracking Internationalized Webfinger Handle Adoption. Covering dozens of servers, clients, and libraries that implement ActivityPub, the tracker helps to discovery which software can interoperate with inclusive handles.

If you know of ActivityPub software that isn’t on this list, or that doesn’t have its adoption tracked (question mark in the matrix), please add an issue or open a PR in the ActivityPub Webfinger task force repository.

@evanprodromou @jdlh I'm glad to say that the `webfinger` and `activitypub-webfinger` NodeJS libraries now support globally inclusive handles.

https://www.npmjs.com/package/webfinger
https://www.npmjs.com/package/activitypub-webfinger

#ActivityPub #WebFinger #i18n #GloballyInclusiveHandles

@evanprodromou @jdlh there are already a few other projects on the list already. I'm excited by these developments!