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.

  • Steve@communick.news
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    edit-2
    1 day ago

    That’s not what a Gish Gallop is.

    A rhetorical technique in which a dishonest speaker lists a string of falsehoods or misleading items so that their opponent will be unable to counter each one and still be able to make their own counterpoints.

    Myopic
    Definition 3: Narrow-minded

    Also you aren’t really connecting the dots well as to how Lemmy can be censored by corporate authorities, or what specifically those are. Explaining those may help your case. Size also, it’s not clear how that really matters to censorship.

    • iloveDigit@sh.itjust.worksOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      That’s not what a Gish Gallop is.

      A rhetorical technique in which a dishonest speaker lists a string of falsehoods or misleading items so that their opponent will be unable to counter each one and still be able to make their own counterpoints.

      Not clicking your link, but what you quoted here is what a Gish Gallop is, and what the reply I was replying to is (hence why I brought it up)

      What’s not? Like, what were you referring to?

      Myopic

      Definition 3: Narrow-minded

      So, like “egotistical,” I’m not the one being myopic

      Also you aren’t really connecting the dots well as to how Lemmy can be censored by corporate authorities, or what specifically those are. Explaining those may help your case.

      What dots have I not connected?

      These posts have a small audience. I’ve said that.

      In the past, this small audience was on reddit. I’ve said that.

      This audience isn’t much bigger than it was on reddit. There’s no fundamental difference in how censored you are right now, with Lemmy vs reddit. The authorities have successfully kept your audience about as small as they were successfully able to keep it on reddit. I’ve said that.

      In the future, if Lemmy tries to grow this audience using its current design, it can’t really get far past where it was on reddit without the authorities fucking it up by blocking IP addresses and domain names. I’ve said that.

      I don’t know what new thing to say to “connect the dots,” you’re just making me repeat myself.

      Edit - no reply, 2 downvotes. Community full of mentally ill bullies who waste time with bullshit, and then run out of bullshit to say and just stop replying, without admitting they were wrong in any way.

      • Skavau@piefed.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        18 hours ago

        This audience isn’t much bigger than it was on reddit. There’s no fundamental difference in how censored you are right now, with Lemmy vs reddit. The authorities have successfully kept your audience about as small as they were successfully able to keep it on reddit. I’ve said that.

        Who are “the authorities” here? The owners of instances? It’s not clear what you’re referring to.

        In the future, if Lemmy tries to grow this audience using its current design, it can’t really get far past where it was on reddit without the authorities fucking it up by blocking IP addresses and domain names. I’ve said that.

        Why would “the authorities” (whatever that means) block IP addresses and domain names in the event of potential Lemmy growth?

        • iloveDigit@sh.itjust.worksOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          15 hours ago

          Who are “the authorities” here? The owners of instances? It’s not clear what you’re referring to.

          Why are you asking again and acting like it isn’t clear when I’ve answered this question in very clear wording multiple different ways for you already?

          Why would “the authorities” (whatever that means) block IP addresses and domain names in the event of potential Lemmy growth?

          Same reason they created FCC licenses, same reason they started taking subreddits away from reddit mods by force, etc.

          War criminals would find it difficult to keep being granted authority by The People without seeding mental illness and shifting the “overton window” as far as possible from realism

          • Skavau@piefed.social
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            15 hours ago

            Why are you asking again and acting like it isn’t clear when I’ve answered this question in very clear wording multiple different ways for you already?

            You use the word “authorities” in such a vague and bizarre way that it’s like someone just saying “the man!” The “authorities” here seem to be the active userbase, so far as I can tell, and community moderators and instance admins - most of whom all desire a moderated experience as most people on here, as I’ve said, don’t want to use a forum with no rules.

            Same reason they created FCC licenses, same reason they started taking subreddits away from reddit mods by force, etc.

            Reddit has always been able and willing to take away subreddits from moderators, and has done so since its inception. That doesn’t really have anything with domain names and IP blocking.

            Not sure what FCC licences would have to do with anything here. What specific “authority” would even be blocking IP addresses and domain names from Lemmy?

            • iloveDigit@sh.itjust.worksOP
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              14 hours ago

              You use the word “authorities” in such a vague and bizarre way that it’s like someone just saying “the man!”

              Incorrect on being vague / bizarre, but some people do use “the man” as a synonym

              The “authorities” here seem to be the active userbase, so far as I can tell, and community moderators and instance admins - most of whom all desire a moderated experience as most people on here, as I’ve said, don’t want to use a forum with no rules.

              You left a lot out but did you have a point here?

              Reddit has always been able and willing to take away subreddits from moderators, and has done so since its inception.

              Incorrect. They were always able, but not willing and didn’t do it until years in. I think not even until after Aaron Swartz was out of the way.

              Why do you keep lying? Is it just that you’re a deeply dishonest person? Again, it’s pretty much just us here, unless lying to me about reddit is supposed to somehow bait admins/mods into censoring me

              Not sure what FCC licences would have to do with anything here.

              Why are you complaining to me about your own inability to understand basic English yet again?

              What specific “authority” would even be blocking IP addresses and domain names from Lemmy?

              Why are you yet again repeating questions I’ve directly given you and others in this thread answers to multiple times?

              • Skavau@piefed.social
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                14 hours ago

                Incorrect on being vague / bizarre, but some people do use “the man” as a synonym

                Yes, and that’s also vague and basically a constructed boogeyman.

                You left a lot out but did you have a point here?

                Who else are the relevant agents in the Fediverse outside of the userbase, moderators and admins?

                Incorrect. They were always able, but not willing and didn’t do it until years in. I think not even until after Aaron Swartz was out of the way.

                I don’t really trust you as a reliable narrator here, but it’d be hard to demonstrate this either way given how awful Reddits search is looking for historical threads on this.

                Why are you yet again repeating questions I’ve directly given you and others in this thread answers to multiple times?

                No, you have never answered this question. If you’re going to claim that ICANN would do this, it’s just a completely empty conspiracy theory.

                • iloveDigit@sh.itjust.worksOP
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  13 hours ago

                  Yes, and that’s also vague and basically a constructed boogeyman.

                  Didn’t ask.

                  Who else are the relevant agents in the Fediverse outside of the userbase, moderators and admins?

                  Don’t get what you’re asking.

                  I don’t really trust you as a reliable narrator here, but it’d be hard to demonstrate this either way given how awful Reddits search is looking for historical threads on this.

                  OK. Good for you or sorry that happened or whatever.

                  No, you have never answered this question.

                  The “no” implies this is in response to me claiming I answered a question I didn’t, but that doesn’t seem like something I’d do, and you keep lying constantly, and I don’t feel like checking what quote you copied and pasted.

                  If you’re going to claim that ICANN would do this, it’s just a completely empty conspiracy theory.

                  Do what? If you mean the things I’ve claimed ICANN does, that’s incorrect. I haven’t really said anything about ICANN that would be a big secret or anything. It’s all pretty widely documented.

                  • Skavau@piefed.social
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    13 hours ago

                    Don’t get what you’re asking.

                    I said, when describing the ‘authorities’ of the Fediverse that it’s comprised of the users, mods and admins. You said I “left a lot out”. Who else did I leave out here?

                    Do what? If you mean the things I’ve claimed ICANN does, that’s incorrect. I haven’t really said anything about ICANN that would be a big secret or anything. It’s all pretty widely documented.

                    Name a single website that ICANN has shut down