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.
No you don't. We use other platforms for less censored discussions. Maybe you use nostr like me but that doesn't mean either of us has overcome this era of censorship.
Yep.
This is self-contradictory. Which is it?
Not intended for free speech?
Or indeed intended for free speech (freedom to form your own community (discussion space) based on shared interests and values)?
Simplex isn't what I use for free speech, nostr is, and my slurs are generally not racial.
How would you even use Simplex for more free speech? Does it have group chats or something? (I don't actually care, I'm just mildly confused)
I will not be spinning up instances of anything. I will seed hashes in bittorrent-like P2P networks, I will put my posts where they fit, I will look for posts from others in the most anti-censorship ways I can find, and I will hope devs and server admins create a version of Lemmy that's fitting for more of my posts - while hurrying toward a possible future where Tor isn't enough to make Lemmy relevant anymore, because P2P networks become the only place worth posting anything.
It's not self-contradictory. Any user created community will have rules designed to keep on-topic. Whether or not its a music community, video game community, national community, pottery community. "Free speech zones" so to speak are contradictory to those goals.
It is self-contradictory.
Reddit has the authority to hijack a subreddit and change the mods and the rules, or just ban it. Reddit staff take that authority, and reddit users grant it.
If you want Lemmy to improve on that, which I also want, that area of improvement is what we call a form of "free speech."
You cannot accurately say Lemmy should offer this improvement over reddit, but it is not related to free speech. That is just incorrect.
Yes. So do lemmy instances.This is because community moderators don't actually own any part of the instance they operate on. How is it you imagine Reddit users can somehow not grant it?
But ignoring that, any user-made community has specific topics and themes in mind for what it wants to focus on. This necessarily requires focusing on those things to the explicit censorship of other topics.
By coding a decentralized P2P reddit and moving there, I guess.
Or just a tor version of Lemmy could be good.
Right, and you can't pick those other topics for your community, because federation is broken.
The Fediverse existed for disgruntled reddit users.
Huh? Community owners (I'm talking about the equivalent of subreddits here can pick the topic and focus of their communities). And in terms of instances, an instance owner can absolutely choose the theme of their instance. There are many different instances with different vibes, aesthetics and political persuasions across the fediverse.
Didn't ask.
Don't get what you're trying to say here.
Incorrect. Federation broken, which prevents this. How many times do I have to say this?
Incorrect. All of them are in the same pro-censorship bubble so far, because Lemmy so far is designed with broken federation to promote that outcome. How many times are you going to make me explain the same shit again?
How does federation allegedly being broken mean that lemmy.blahaj can't be an LGBTQ focused instance? How does federation allegedly being broken mean that slrpnk.net can't be a solarpunk themed instance? Or that adult.swim isn't themed around animation?
Are you of the opinion that a "pro-censorship bubble" is somehow a single theme on its own and that there's no difference between hexbear.net and maga.place?
What would distinguish an instance from each other in your mind? Also, the federation system has no relevance here to the culture of the Fediverse. Even if the Fediverse was on TOR - it would not stop instances having federation standards.
I don't know. I would bet that's not even true. Why do you ask?
Again, I don't know. Again, I would bet that's not even true. Yet again, why do you ask?
Nope. I have no idea what hexbear.net or maga.place are, and overall don't even understand what you're asking.
Are you asking me for dictionary help again? Why can't you just check "distinguish" in a dictionary? I never said or implied I use it differently from the dictionary "in my mind"
Didn't ask, why waste time typing that stuff?
Bet what isn't true? That lemmy.blahaj isn't pro-LGBT?
Bet what isn't true? That slrpnk.net isn't solarpunk-themed?
Hexbear is an overt Marxist instance. Maga.place is a pro-trump instance. Do you think they have the same culture? The same themes? It's also of note that you've not heard of hexbear, as to me that makes you quite uninformed about the entire fediverse.
I didn't ask you for the definition of "distinguish". I asked you what sets instances apart. What makes lemmy.world different from sh.itjust.works, according to you?
The point is your grievances here with federation wouldn't change.
Whatever the premise was of the question I was replying to. I'm pretty sure lemmy.blahaj is pro-LGBT so if you were asking why they're not, then maybe yes, "that lemmy.blahaj isn't pro-LGBT" except I'm pretty sure that wasn't what you asked.
Whatever the premise was of the question I was replying to, but I have no idea what slrpnk.net is, so it couldn't have been that.
Didn't ask.
Did they pay you for advertising? I didn't ask what they are.
You tell me, you're the one spamming about them, I never heard of them before this
I didn't ask, why waste time typing this?
Good, because it almost seemed like you did.
I assume you mean actual existing instances, so:
I feel high certainty lemmy.world is run directly by glowies and some certainty sh.itjust.works isn't (directly - like, the admins themselves)
Your inability to imagine the future seems like it's more your problem than mine. I think you shouldn't be bothering me with it.
I said: "And in terms of instances, an instance owner can absolutely choose the theme of their instance."
You replied: "Incorrect. Federation broken, which prevents this. How many times do I have to say this?"
I asked: "How does federation allegedly being broken mean that lemmy.blahaj can’t be an LGBTQ focused instance? How does federation allegedly being broken mean that slrpnk.net can’t be a solarpunk themed instance? Or that adult.swim isn’t themed around animation?"
The point is that different instances have different local cultures, rules, themes etc. That's my point. Federation not working properly, as you claim, doesn't change that.
Yes, I did.
Okay then so there are different instances, active instances with different cultures, rulesets, themes.
Yeah, about that, got any evidence of lemmy.world being run by glowies?
Your future imagined here would require all current active and used instances to become completely anti-censorship in the way you want. Which they won't.
I don't remember the adult.swim part at the time but why are you recapping the discussion instead of continuing it?
I don't see how it's a point, and it's weird how you keep copying and pasting random quotes from me and then changing the subject without answering, while I copy and paste quotes from you and then type my responses to them.
You keep asking this, like you can't figure out the answer for yourself. It's kind of amusing.
No, my imagination is separate from yours. You imagining something and typing it for me to read doesn't make it my imagined future.
Didn't ask, don't care.
I added it in shortly afterwards. And I posted it because you seemed lost, and needed a recap as to what I was referring to. As usual. You did deny that instances could have their own themes.
You barely answer me ever. You get lost all of the time.
So no evidence. Of course. "Me when I make things up".
The question was "why are you recapping the discussion instead of continuing it?"
Incorrect. You're just gaslighting and wasting time.
Again, just gaslighting.
I doubt it.
Incorrect. I have been trying to clear my notification inbox of your replies for hours, and no matter what, you always have more replies before I can finish replying to the last ones. It's like you're typing extremely fast or I'm typing extremely slow or something. I'm definitely answering every single thing, though.
Incorrect again. Repeating it doesn't stop it from being gaslighting. In fact, it's a pretty common trait of gaslighting attempts.
Incorrect, unless you're just observing that sometimes when you request evidence in bad faith, I might not have it on hand, or even necessarily feel like wasting time/energy providing it.
Not sure what you were trying to type here.
Yes you did.
"And in terms of instances, an instance owner can absolutely choose the theme of their instance."
"Incorrect. Federation broken, which prevents this. How many times do I have to say this?"
Simply replying to me doesn't mean you actually substantially answer my points.
So why would you expect me to just concur with your claims when you refuse to back them up?
This is a link, not a screenshot. Why waste time posting a link instead of a screenshot when I haven't really been clicking your links?
These are sentences in quotation marks. Not reading them. Is there a reason they're here?
I didn't ask if it did. Why waste time typing that?
For a second time I tell you, I'm not really into riddles.
Sorry, so you're too lazy to click a link. You need an image every time?
https://i.imgur.com/KXvX9Vv.png
Here is where you denied that instances can have their own themes.
The second sentence is your sentence. It's in the link. I actually provide the evidence for things you claim you didn't say.
If you refuse to back your claims up, why would you expect others to agree with them?
I'd also be fine with you not replying.
This shows up as an imgur link for me, not the actual image.
I doubt it. Maybe you're misreading. Can you get an image to show up as an embed on the instance I'm using now?
But why post links when I'm not clicking them?
Not possible since I don't really claim I didn't say things I said.
Because people don't typically disagree with themselves too much.
Here is where you denied that instances can have their own themes.
Again I thought I already replied to this but no, your description doesn't match what you cite here
Heads up, if you reply to this I might not see it because I was banned here so it doesn't seem worth trying to have much discussion here. If you have anything to say to me, try the nostr version of this thread
What themes are "rejected" by the "authorities" that they cannot choose for their instance?
Is this "Oh, we can't have a CSAM themed instance :(((((" how bad how ebil the authorities much sad