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.
So there’s no reason to believe it will go down the same trajectory.
What commercial pressures is Lemmy currently subject to?
…I’m lost on why this is pointless. Don’t you achieve the same result?
You can? You run your own instance and block who you like and federate with who you like. If it’s just you, you’d likely not be defederated by the instances who you federate with.
I explained how it would and it had nothing to do with that stuff, so that doesn’t make sense.
Moderation is done by humans, so they can always be bribed.
But the thread you’re commenting on was actually originally about how Lemmy’s federation is broken, and the brokenness is perpetuated by people who are into censorship (which it can be argued is a “commercial pressure”) and then the result, where instances/clusters can all be shut down by ICANN any time, definitely leaves the user base continuing to be subjected to commercial pressure
What? How is this confusing you?
For the millionth time, federation is broken according to the documentation. Tor doesn’t work, so you cannot just start your own instance. It has to be approved by the authorities. How many times do I have to repeat myself in this thread?
Reddit is subject to intense commercial interests and pressures which has led to its decline as a platform. The Fediverse simply is not. Your diagnosis of Reddits flaws is broken to begin with, ergo your conclusions don’t work.
Then if an instance is compromised by bribery, people can all defederate the instance and move their communities from it. That’s the point of federation.
Have you considered both the users and the admins of the instances don’t support a free-for-all system where people can hurl abuse, insults, slurs, and make threats?
A fantasy that exists only in your head, that has never happened.
Why does it matter if they block themselves vs. you blocking them?
That doesn’t mean its broken, it just means it doesn’t work like you want it to.
The “authorities” do not manually approve every single emerging lemmy instance. What are you on about?
Correct.
Incorrect.
Didn’t ask. Is this supposed to be relevant somehow? If so, how?
Copying and pasting yet again: “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.”
Source?
Me blocking them is a waste of time when they’ve already blocked themselves, and why did you yet another dumbass question you shouldn’t need me to answer after a quote where I asked you yet another question you ignored? Just a weak attempt at gaslighting, right?
No, I’m talking about the broken federation system, not my whole preference for P2P systems over “federation”
Why do you bring up yet another random thing? Again, is this supposed to be related somehow?
Are you asking what I’ve typed on a screen where you can already re-read it?
How?
Yes, because it means that bribery to censor or control content on an instance is not an effective way to manipulate the Fediverse.
It negates your point.
Yes, I’m happy to see bans happen to “certain people”. You are a desolate minority on here. Almost no-one agrees with you, and does not desire an instance or federated instances without moderation.
You made the claim. You back it up. Have you got any precedent of ICANN doing this at all?
So? You still get what you want.
It’s not broken. It works as intended.
You’re making claims that are not true. You said that "Tor doesn’t work, so you cannot just start your own instance. It has to be approved by the authorities. "
Yet again, federation broken. Re-read original post.
Incorrect.
Nope.
Didn’t ask, don’t care. Why did you type this?
What claim? (Too lazy to scroll up and check)
Why should I back it up?
Nope. Is there a reason I should?
This seems like it’s baiting me to give a reply that could get me banned here. Try saying it on nostr
Incorrect, unless it’s intended to keep ambulance rides expensive for poor people.
Incorrect.
Correct, with the caveat that anyone discussing this in good faith would find it very obvious I meant a proverbial “you,” not a glowie like you personally.
No, it’s not. I’ve read your post.
How is it effective if you’re just one instance and people can quit using your instance if you’re caught moderating it based on bribery?
Because you’re pissing in the wind. Almost no-one here wants what you want.
You said: “and then the result, where instances/clusters can all be shut down by ICANN any time”
This hasn’t happened, and there’s no good reason to assume it will.
Well you’re paranoid about them supposedly doing so despite it not ever being done.
How on earth is that baiting you to give a reply that could get you banned here?
This logic still makes no sense to me.
Anyone could start their own instance, and they don’t have to get “approval” from anyone.
Incorrect.
Didn’t ask. Did tell you to re-read it since you’re still acting like you didn’t ever read it.
Are you asking me to help you use a dictionary to check what “effective” means, or are you suggesting modern “law enforcement” is able to catch every criminal before they act (even for crimes they haven’t officially banned yet)?
Or, are you just gaslighting and wasting time?
What is because of this?
Do I care about whatever that is enough for you to reasonably justify bringing it up?
And why did you start with “because” while going right after a quote of yet another question you refuse to answer? More gaslighting and wasting time?
Incorrect. We can safely assume instances will be shut down increasingly often the more instances there are.
Incorrect. It probably has been done, and if not, that doesn’t make my paranoia “despite” it. The paranoia pairs as well with future events as past/present ones.
I said to try on nostr (where I can’t be banned), not to try again here. Are you truly very very dumb, not just pretending?
Didn’t ask.
Incorrect. Under the current model, federation requires “approval” of other instance admins, as well as the higher authorities that determine what’s allowed on DNS/IP addresses. How many times are you going to make me repeat myself?
Nope.
Yes, an instance owner could in theory be paid off to moderate a certain way, but it only has so much impact and I would argue, is more obvious in a federated system - so if they get caught, their instance is discredited and abandoned. And people move to other places. In this way, Lemmy is more resilent than Reddit - whereas if Reddit is compromised, the entire site is tainted.
Yes, instances close down from time-to-time - but that’s not because of any government or regulatory pressure. The owners just burn out or lose interest. There’s no evidence that instances will start getting shut down by governmental bodies as opposed to just being closed down by the owner.
It “probably has been done” but you’ve got no evidence for this.
I fail to see how my question was even like that.
That’s approval to be federated with other instances, not approval to exist. You can spin up your own instance. And most processes of hosting are automated. You don’t have to go through a background check to host a lemmy server.