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.

  • iloveDigit@sh.itjust.worksOP
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    1 day ago

    Forgot to reply to half of this at first, my bad

    What? What docs suggest it can’t be done?

    https://join-lemmy.org/docs/administration/tor_hidden_service.html

    So what’s your issue then? If lemmy.nazi set up shop tomorrow, every single instance would block them and they could be unable to federate because no-one would want to federate with them. What now?

    That would be pretty embarrassing for them and the Lemmy devs because Lemmy has no Tor federation, which makes lemmy.nazi an idiot project for trying to exist, and makes Lemmy an idiot project for baiting people to use it to try to make things it doesn’t work for

    • Skavau@piefed.social
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      1 day ago

      https://join-lemmy.org/docs/administration/tor_hidden_service.html

      That’s just TOR, not federation.

      That would be pretty embarrassing for them and the Lemmy devs because Lemmy has no Tor federation, which makes lemmy.nazi an idiot project for trying to exist, and makes Lemmy an idiot project for baiting people to use it to try to make things it doesn’t work for

      How would they be “baiting” them exactly? I don’t recall where the Lemmy devs explicitly advertised it like that.

      • iloveDigit@sh.itjust.worksOP
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        1 day ago

        That’s just TOR, not federation.

        On desktop, use “ctrl+f”

        On mobile, find the “search in page” feature for your browser

        Then type “federation”

        Or, to find it more easily: try reading the second paragraph of the link

        How would they be “baiting” them exactly? I don’t recall where the Lemmy devs explicitly advertised it like that.

        Odd. People keep telling me Lemmy advertises itself as a place where everyone can start their own communities with “self-hosted” instances that combine using “federation”

        • Skavau@piefed.social
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          1 day ago

          Yes, Lemmy apparently doesn’t work over TOR. But normal federation works. You just don’t like how it works.

          People keep telling me Lemmy advertises itself as a place where everyone can start their own communities with self-hosted instances that “federate” together

          Lemmy is open-source software that anyone can use and host their own instance (not community) and set out the rules within that instance as they please. But that doesn’t mean anyone is going to want to play with you if you have posting standards almost everywhere else doesn’t agree with.

          • iloveDigit@sh.itjust.worksOP
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            1 day ago

            Yes, Lemmy apparently doesn’t work over TOR. But normal federation works.

            I don’t get what you mean by “normal federation.” Lemmy has a thing called “federation” that doesn’t work.

            You just don’t like how it works.

            Incorrect, but why depends what you meant:

            If you meant Lemmy’s federation, the issue is that it doesn’t work.

            If you meant some other federation system, I don’t even know what you’re talking about, and haven’t given a position on it.

            Lemmy is open-source software that anyone can use and host their own instance (not community)

            Why do you disagree with the dictionary’s definitions of the word “community” and Lemmy’s use of it in the UI?

            and set out the rules within that instance as they please.

            Incorrect. Lemmy doesn’t support Tor federation, so this doesn’t work. How many times do I have to repeat myself in this thread?

            But that doesn’t mean anyone is going to want to play with you if you have posting standards almost everywhere else doesn’t agree with.

            Whether that means that, wasn’t in contention - the only reason you’d pretend it was, is because you’re into gaslighting.

            And I never said anything about “playing” - the only reason you’d use the term “play with you” is because you’re into gaslighting.

            And you know I’m not the only person who’s against censorship - so the only reason you’d waste time trying to suggest I’m on my own, is because you’re into gaslighting.

            And you embarrass yourself severely with your standard of replies around someone like me, so the only reason for phrasing like “posting standards” is, again, because you’re into gaslighting.

            • Skavau@piefed.social
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              1 day ago

              I don’t get what you mean by “normal federation.” Lemmy has a thing called “federation” that doesn’t work.

              Yes, it does. Instances can choose to federate with each other, to share content.

              Why do you disagree with the dictionary’s definitions of the word “community” and Lemmy’s use of it in the UI?

              I haven’t read how Lemmy distinguishes between instances and communities and how they refer to them.

              Incorrect. Lemmy doesn’t support Tor federation, so this doesn’t work. How many times do I have to repeat myself in this thread?

              Not supporting TOR federation does not mean an instance owner can’t set out their own custom rules on the instance.

              And I never said anything about “playing” - the only reason you’d use the term “play with you” is because you’re into gaslighting.

              Dear me, it’s just a turn of phrase.

              And you know I’m not the only person who’s against censorship - so the only reason you’d waste time trying to suggest I’m on my own, is because you’re into gaslighting.

              Almost everyone on the fediverse disagrees with you. That’s the relevant demographic here.

              And you embarrass yourself severely with your standard of replies around someone like me, so the only reason for phrasing like “posting standards” is, again, because you’re into gaslighting.

              By “posting standards” I mean rules of an instance. If your instance allows abuse, slurs, insults, threats etc - you’ll be marginalised and isolated.

              • iloveDigit@sh.itjust.worksOP
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                24 hours ago

                Yes, it does. Instances can choose to federate with each other, to share content.

                But it doesn’t work for the advertised / ostensibly intended purpose, of improving on the reddit model. That was the topic. Why do you keep pretending you can’t remember anything I’ve said? Just to gaslight me, right?

                I haven’t read how Lemmy distinguishes between instances and communities and how they refer to them.

                Didn’t ask. Why did you waste my time with this, and why is it right after a part where you quoted me asking yet another question you ignored?

                Not supporting TOR federation does not mean an instance owner can’t set out their own custom rules on the instance.

                Under the current model, you are incorrect. Not supporting TOR federation does mean an instance owner can’t set out their own custom rules on the instance.

                Dear me, it’s just a turn of phrase.

                Didn’t ask. Why waste my time with this? Just more gaslighting, right?

                Almost everyone on the fediverse disagrees with you.

                Didn’t ask. Why waste my time with this? Just more gaslighting, right?

                That’s the relevant demographic here.

                To who? To what?

                Not to anything I’ve said. Not to me. Guessing you won’t answer to who, or to what, like most of my questions.

                By “posting standards” I mean rules of an instance.

                Didn’t ask. Why waste my time with this part?

                If your instance allows abuse, slurs, insults, threats etc - you’ll be marginalised and isolated.

                Didn’t ask. Why waste my time with this part?

                Are you scared in the future, it will be abusers like you who are marginalized and isolated, instead of the people who work on revealing you to the public?

                • Skavau@piefed.social
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                  24 hours ago

                  But it doesn’t work for the advertised / ostensibly intended purpose, of improving on the reddit model. That was the topic. Why do you keep pretending you can’t remember anything I’ve said? Just to gaslight me, right?

                  The fact that the Fediverse is split up into different instances is the improvement in itself.

                  Didn’t ask. Why did you waste my time with this, and why is it right after a part where you quoted me asking yet another question you ignored?

                  Most of your questions are incoherent or loaded.

                  Under the current model, you are incorrect. Not supporting TOR federation does mean an instance owner can’t set out their own custom rules on the instance.

                  Presumably by “custom rules” here you mean “not allowing CSAM”.

                  To who? To what?

                  To the Fediverse. If no-one agrees with you here, you’re going to make no headway.

                  Are you scared in the future, it will be abusers like you who are marginalized and isolated, instead of the people who work on revealing you to the public?

                  How am I an abuser? What are you implying here?

                  • iloveDigit@sh.itjust.worksOP
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                    23 hours ago

                    The fact that the Fediverse is split up into different instances is the improvement in itself.

                    Nope. Hasn’t solved anything so far, due to broken federation.

                    Plus, there were already separate instances of reddit, using reddit’s open source code, if you don’t care about federation.

                    Most of your questions are incoherent or loaded.

                    Nope. This seems like shallower projection and lazier gaslighting than you’ve been doing so far.

                    Presumably by “custom rules” here you mean “not allowing CSAM”.

                    Nope. Also, not sure you know what “presumably” means.

                    To the Fediverse. If no-one agrees with you here, you’re going to make no headway.

                    Why waste time typing this shit though?

                    How am I an abuser?

                    You have wasted hours of my day gaslighting me.

                    What are you implying here?

                    Nothing. I’ll copy and paste what I said, which was explicit, not implicit:

                    Are you scared in the future, it will be abusers like you who are marginalized and isolated, instead of the people who work on revealing you to the public?