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.
I don’t see it as connected, nor do I see how size on Lemmy correlates to strength of moderation. As for ambulance rides and the predatory healthcare system, we need to abolish capitalism and move onto socialism.
Is capitalism being abolished tomorrow, or are you posting somewhere a small percentage of Americans will see it?
How does anything you’re saying relate to what I just said:
I don’t see what you’re getting at, here. Are you implying that once Lemmy overtakes Reddit, it will be censored by the government if TOR isn’t implemented? First, it’s not known if Lemmy would overtake Reddit, secondly TOR isn’t implemented yet, but it’s also not a problem yet. All of this just means socialism is necessary, rather than trying to worry about a problem that just doesn’t exist yet.
Lemmy is censored by the authorities today.
Governments would probably not censor Lemmy. Censorship seems more like the type of thing you get when you give authority to criminals who don’t believe in governance. For example, a lot of the people with the authority to censor the internet are Republicans and Democrats, who identify with parties of war crimes and slavery and stuff, not governance.
Then what’s the point?
Only memes, and only the low-stakes memes, at that?
Some of us miss the days when we could all talk on the internet, only bots were banned, and it felt like Republicans and Democrats were losing authority, and soon we could have a real government or something.
Some of us don’t like how it’s been decades and the human population has revealed itself to be too evil and stupid to get it done by now, spending all this time ruining the technology instead of using it.
It is. It currently stops any zero-censorship instances from federating with any others, which helps keep things in the same position they were in a few years ago, when all of us were probably on reddit. We have roughly the same percentages of people in the same groups going through the same increasing levels of splintering, isolation, growing mental illness, etc.
You can find a group of commies sharing an evolving set of commie ideas together, and a group of Nazis sharing an evolving set of Nazi ideas together, and the authorities keep finding new ways to make sure nobody goes anywhere too interesting or listens to anyone too smart. We do not suddenly have ambulance rides for free due to everyone’s TV screens suddenly showing them Noam Chomsky every day
Lemmy is not “censored by the authorities today.” Secondly, Lemmy already does what it needs to do, present an alternative to Reddit that is FOSS for those who want it. The goal isn’t to compete with Reddit, but largely to create a space where communists can’t be censored, and for now Lemmy does its job well.
Ambulance rides for free in the US Empire requires socialism, at this point. Rather than complain about Lemmy, join an org and try to do that.
For the millionth time, Lemmy is censored by the authorities today.
Docs say Tor federation isn’t allowed. This means the authorities can just defederate any instance from every other instance by blocking the domain name or IP address. This explains why there are no zero-censorship instances.
There is no org to join that would have a better use of my time than using my technical and political knowledge to explain what I’m explaining, though you people making me repeat the explanations like this do impact the efficiency of the whole process.
It says it isn’t “supported”. You are free to change the code to add socks5/tor support or make some bodge where it connects over tor and have your tor only network. Just don’t complain when nobody can connect to you.
You are reiterating my point that Lemmy currently doesn’t allow unrestricted federation (by supporting/allowing Tor) and also reiterating my point that there should be a version of Lemmy that actually works, but you’re weirdly trying to reframe both points into insulting me. Why?
Lemmy isn’t censored by the authorities today. You gave an example of how they could be, but not how they are.
Secondly, no, absolutely join an org. That’s far more useful than what you’re doing right now.
I didn’t mean to give any specific examples, future or present. If you cannot see examples today, showing them to you does nothing, you’re fundamentally misunderstanding something and need to be shown how to see the examples, not simply told what they are.
If you know what “censored by the authorities” means - simple words, middle-school-level at the worst - you can see the examples for yourself. We’re both adults.
I get that the censorship fetish can make you enjoy it when you see a human banned, but you have to learn to use words correctly and tell the truth. Just because you enjoy it doesn’t mean the person isn’t censored. Just because you are one of the people giving the authorities their authority, doesn’t mean it’s not authority and they’re not authorities.
Are you referring to moderators and admins as “the authorities?” I already acknowledged that moderation exists, but the idea of the government censoring Lemmy is baseless.
The “zero censorship” instances that you say can’t exist would be blocked anyway by the bulk of the fediverse, rendering them completely mute.
Your definition of “authorities” also seems to be literally anyone with moderating power or influence. This is not a concept on shared ground.
Actual governing bodies are not preventing “free speech” instances from popping up. They would only intervene currently if those instances played host to child pornographic content, terrorism plots and maybe piracy proliferation.
If by “the bulk of the fediverse” you meant “all users except the first person who started the first one,” then you are wrong both about what “the bulk of” means (a majority, but not one as extreme as all but one of billions of people) and what would happen with a zero-censorship Lemmy network (the bulk of people would block it, not an all-but-one version of “the bulk”)
If by “the bulk of the fediverse” you meant “the bulk of the fediverse” then you must have meant something different from “completely mute” when you said “completely mute.” Maybe you meant “censored enough to please me, but still leave me feeling anxious enough to feel the need to exaggerate”
Regardless, these are all pretty simple words, why do you have to use them wrong? Please try to reply to me using words correctly. Be literal here. We don’t agree, I’m not bantering for fun, I’m trying to discuss the real world.
The dictionary is more than enough shared ground for me. My simple way of defining “authorities” would be “those who are given authority,” which I’m sure is not in conflict with the dictionary.
So you’re saying there’s a big network of instances with child porn, terrorism plots, and piracy, but the authorities haven’t decided yet to crack down?
Or you’re saying you’ve used Wonder Woman’s rope on every server admin to get the true answer why they don’t run Lemmy instances that allow child porn, terrorism plots, and piracy, and not a single one of them said “it would get blocked,” and when you asked “so you think it wouldn’t get blocked?” they were all like “maybe it wouldn’t, I have other reasons for not trying it”
Or is this yet another reply I have to deal with from someone engaging in bad faith, making me explain/repeat stuff that shouldn’t need so much explanation/repetition?
No, I mean the people who use the Fediverse now. I suppose I mean the audience and admins of Lemmy, Piefed and Mbin.
See what I mean about you taking words literally?
I have not been “given authority”. I am no more an “authority” on the fediverse than you. The instance owners and admins have actual authority, and it derives from their ability and willingness to run these servers. If I don’t like how a server is run, I can take my interest elsewhere. That’s it. I have no actual regulatory power.
No, I am saying that those are the only scenarios in which they might intervene.
Well, I suspect its both. If I was an instance owners I both would want to block CSAM, and also would be legally obliged to. I assume you don’t oppose the removal of CSAM and terrorist content?
I’m not sure. Maybe you know I deserve recognition for arguing in good faith, and your comments on “taking words literally” are you struggling to convey that while you yourself find good-faith discussion difficult. Or maybe you just enjoy gaslighting people who are more honest than you, and the comments on “taking words literally” are succeeding as intended when they make me feel disrespected instead of recognized.
We all have actual regulatory power as humans. Humanity collectively is the world’s decision-making regulatory body right now. Politicians aren’t a different species from you. And not only that, but we live in the era where this is fucking commonly understood, where we use a language with the word “democracy” and everything, so why does this have to be another point of contention? Seems like you’re doing a gish gallop, confirming that probably what you mean about the “taking words literally” is just gaslighting.
But that’s neither of the possibilities I presented (which would kinda justify your overall point), nor a third possibility that somehow justifies your overall point, right?
It’s not an assumption, I’ve stated pretty clearly that I’m aware censoring humans is bad.
Then “authority” is a word of no value or utility by your logic. Indeed, its impossible to not have authority by your logic. Everyone has it.
But the only authority actual of any instance on the Fediverse are the instance owners who fund the instance, maintain it, and can terminate the instance if they see fit.
So you think its bad to remove CSAM and death threats?