I've been trying Lemmy for a little while and wasn't sure how to feel about it.
Today, I wanted to start blocking the most high-censorship instances until I could find a fully zero-censorship instance and simply block all the ones with censorship. Filter bots, not people.
When I looked into it further, I found out there are no zero-censorship instances, because Lemmy relies on a broken "federation" system where each instance is supposed to be able to fetch posts from other instances, but it's never been finished to reach a fully working state. Lemmy's official docs say you can't even do federation over Tor at all. This means it uses DNS, so it won't actually allow Lemmy instances to fetch posts from each other freely, it just gets blocked instantly and easily, every time the authorities feel like blocking anything.
So you can only ever have the "average joe lemmy" and "average joe reddit" with everything approved by the authorities, and then "tor copies of lemmy" and "tor copies of reddit" where you have free speech but you can only reach other nerds.
People seem to think Lemmy is different because this weird censorship fetish is extremely popular and most of you are happy to see bans happen to certain people, not just bots, so a small Lemmy that censors certain people feels fundamentally different from a big reddit that censors more people. But it's the exact same thing, it's reddit.
When reddit was smaller, you could say basically anything you wanted there, they just wouldn't let it reach the main audience. Then it got too big, and any tiny part of the audience you could reach would be too big, so they won't let you talk at all.
Lemmy is now the small part of reddit where you can say whatever you want, separated from the main audience, until too much growth happens and you have to move again.
It's not actually a solution to reddit. It's not designed to be different, it's designed to match the past today and then match reddit's present tomorrow, while being part of a system that's about the same in past, present, and future.
Last year, this year, and next year, you're posting somewhere it won't be seen by many people, and the system that charges people for ambulance rides is getting another year of ambulance ride revenue, facing no organized resistance. There's no difference here.
Lemmy urgently needs federation between onion service instances and DNS addresses in order to actually do what most users seem to wish it would do: allow discussion outside what the corporate authorities allow, while outgrowing reddit & helping undo the damage social media has done to human communication.
Edit - I was banned from my instance, and before being unbanned, some of my comments seem to have been removed. I apologize if I hurt anyone's feelings, but it seems pointless to try to discuss this topic here. I'll give a few more replies, and then suggest any further responses be directed to me on nostr, where there are no bans. I've also had a good time posting on PieFed while I was banned, so I'll probably keep spending time there. If anyone's curious, I had a thread about this topic on PieFed too. Btw, instead of the misplaced focus on bots, I should have said filter spam, not people earlier in this post.
If you want an instance that doesn't defederate from any other instance, you're going to be left with very few options, and those are going to be the ones hosting some incredibly, incredibly questionable content.
There are 2 options:
Don't defederate from any other instance, but keep a list of censored instances and an easy way for users to block that full list
Just make the list of defederated instances the list of censored instances
Anything else is useless
Anything designed by people who think "questionable" is a bad trait and "censored" is a good trait, is useless for others
Sounds like the solution is for you to just start your own instance, create your own 'free speech zone' communities, and engage in a 'censorship-free' policy there. Personally, I prefer to stay as far away from instances hosting, for example, CSAM and unbridled hate-speech as I can, and the current federation system handles that quite well.
Again, can't.
That's the whole point of my original post. Don't know how many times I have to repeat it. Lemmy uses DNS / IP addresses, stops Tor from being used, can't have free speech instances under this configuration. Might need new code, not just new instance
Do you consider taking down CSAM as censorship?
Why are you asking me if I recognize a valid dictionary definition I've said nothing to indicate I wouldn't recognize?
Bad faith, that's why.
Let me rephrase. Do you think sites should be forced to take down CSAM?
Reply next with the right answer to my above question, and I'll reply to that with the right answer to yours.
Fine, it's censorship. I was really meaning to try and see if you are opposed to CSAM being taken down.
I was looking for right answers, like "bad faith" or "a weak attempt at gaslighting"
Care to try again before expecting me to waste time answering a dumbass question you should be able to figure out the answer to / find my previous answers to yourself?
I'll do whatever I like, without your permission. I reject your claims about my behaviour.
My question stands: Are you against laws that compel site owners and administrators to remove CSAM?
Didn't ask. Why do you bring this up? Did you misread a word as "permission?" I didn't say any words that use any letters like "permission." Did you get confused in some other way?
Don't care.
Yes, since you decided not to earn an answer, your question stands. Let me guess, you just learned the phrase "my question stands" and you were in a rush to use it?
The correct punctuation mark also would have been a period, not a colon, to end a sentence.
Your phrasing, and the misused colon, could confuse a reader who joins in here, into thinking this was the old question - not a new one.
Either way, it's pretty dumb to add a second question when you just commented on how you decided not to earn an answer to the other one.
I don't care. My question stands: Are you against laws that compel site owners and administrators to remove CSAM?
Because that ultimately seems to be where your argument is at this point. "Embrace TOR so you are no longer legally tracable for hosting CSAM or terrorism".
Didn't ask.
Yes, since it's similar to the question you decided not to earn an answer to, the question stands.
Let me guess, you just learned the phrase “my question stands” and you can't get enough of it?
I don't use the word "legally" and, while I understand that "tracable" is a typo for "traceable," I don't understand what "legally tracable" even means. I can't really tell if this is anything like "where my argument is at this point."
So you openly want CSAM visible on the internet. I'll let stand on its own.
People use TOR to obfuscate and cover their tracks so they can get away with doing illegal things. That's its primarily appeal for many people. It also seems to be the ONLY reason why you want the fediverse to incorporate it.
Why did you put this after a random quote from what you were replying to? Is it supposed to flow together somehow?
Incorrect, and weirdly phrased.
Incorrect again. I want Lemmy to support "federation" over Tor so I can see what a zero-censorship cluster of instances is like, as I said in my post. I don't do shit like call half-banned acts "illegal"
You said "Yes", finally, to my question about CSAM and whether or not you think it should be legal.
Sorry, you don't think TOR is ever used to facilitate illegal activity?
I don't why you'd think it'd be so interesting. It's just be shitposts and spam and slurs and threats and CSAM. You can get close experiences to this on 4chan and Twitter.
That's a lie, but why do you put it right after a quote where I asked yet another question you refuse to answer? Is that another layer of dishonesty? Seems like gaslighting
I don't get what you're trying to ask, or why. Explain both what and why?
Hard sentence to parse. You really suck at typing.
What is? What is just be that stuff?
Didn't ask, why waste my time with such a pointless suggestion?
It's not a lie. You've said in other posts that it shouldn't be removable.
TOR is used for criminal activity.
I don't get why you think a total lack of moderation in a feed would be so interesting.
An uncensored feed. You're not very good at picking up context.
Lying again doesn't stop a lie from being a lie, it's just lying again.
That is not a question or a reason for asking, but yes.
I don't. I think a feed that removes spammers like you (and allows all good-faith discussion) would be interesting, and you can easily understand that, but you pretend you "don't get it" because you're very dishonest.
I was making fun of your typo, genius.
I already made it pretty clear I'm not interested in what you pretend an anti-censorship feed would look like.
You literally said here that it shouldn't be removable.
Finally.
How am I spamming? I'm replying to your posts. Sounds like you want me censored.
It's also comical to me that you assume an instance with zero rules would automatically lead to good-faith discussion.
And you know what it would look like, would you?
Didn't remember ever using the word "removable."
Clicked your link. Ctrl+f "removable" both results are you, not me.
What do you mean?
You're replying with abusive nonsense, making me repeat stuff 50 times, ignoring all my questions while asking a thousand of your own, etc. It's quite spammy.
From the current version of Lemmy, which relies on that kind of targeted censorship in its design, which you're against fixing.
Not from nostr, which you can't be banned from or have your posts removed from, where I've repeatedly said you should join me in discussion since you seemed to be trying to bait me to say things I could be banned for.
Not from the version of Lemmy I want, where only spammers are censored, and no human is banned (their spam is just removed/throttled/blocked by individual users)
I didn't ask.
I simply speculate on it, instead of lying about what it would mean.
You refuse answer most of my questions. I feel completely justified in the doing the same.
I'm pointing out your hypocrisy. All behaviour is not equal. I haven't hurled abuse at you, you have repeatedly hurtled abuse and insults at me.
Incorrect. I have answered most of your questions, often multiple times since you keep repeating them.
Maybe you're insane enough to believe I refuse to answer most of your questions, and you feel justified, but that's not healthy. You also might just be knowingly lying through your teeth, which isn't healthy either.
Nope. There's none there to point out. I do keep pointing out yours, though.
Correct.
Incorrect. You have been "hurling" abusive replies at me for hours.
Incorrect. What I have done is repeatedly "hurtled" (hurled?) insults at you, and occasionally responded in kind to your abuse.
Hurtled was obviously a typo.
You just go "Nuh-uh" to most of my questions. And refuse to elaborate. And then claim you answered them.
Didn't ask. Why waste time typing something so obvious?
I don't know or care if that's true, but it sounds like most of your questions aren't earning very in-depth answers.
Incorrect. I pretty much never refuse to elaborate. In fact, I usually refuse to refuse to elaborate. This is pretty noticeable about me.
Incorrect, since the "and then" implies I did the other part first. I claim to answer questions after answering them, not after refusing to elaborate.
Because you commented on it. So I commented back.
You constantly refuse to elaborate. You've provided no evidence of any lemmy instance ever shut down due to outside pressure from the "authorities". You've provided no evidence of lemmy.world moderators being "glowies".
How is that a justification for wasting time?
Incorrect. I more often refuse to refuse to elaborate. Why do you keep acting like you need so many things repeated?
I didn't ask if I did. Why waste time typing that?
Again, I didn't ask if I did.
So what? Do you need "ask" for me to point this stuff out? I obviously gave them as examples for where you've refused to elaborate on particular points.
What are you asking?
See below:
There's your answer, looks like you're able to waste time answering questions nobody asked.