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.

  • sous-merde@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    16 hours ago

    I’ve read less than half of the comments here, but my main feeling is that the downvotes only happened because they didn’t understood what you said, in their mind you want something even less censored than 4Chan, which will lead to something even worse than 4Chan, they believe that moderation helps in healthy discussions.
    I’ve got reserves on that, for example mods should only ask for the user to edit h.er.is comment instead of instabanning them for life, and as i said elsewhere our states don’t only ask platforms but are making laws to “moderate” the internet.

    But that’s not what you were talking about, these downvotes should tell you that your thought hasn’t matured enough to be presented as a clear project, like here :

    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.

    At first i was furious because i thought that many people opposed freedom of expression, but after reading more comments i’m relieved that it’s still seen favorably by a majority.
    The problem here seems to be that your “vision” isn’t clear enough, and that’s probably why you wanted to discuss it with others. The good news is that people didn’t oppose your ideas

    It’s a bit late in France so i don’t intend to stay much more online(, and you’ve been at it for more than 12 hours), even if i’d be interested in your answer because i frankly still don’t understand you, sry :/

    • Skavau@piefed.socialEnglish
      4·
      16 hours ago

      I’ve probably read less than hald of the comments here, but my main feeling is that the downvotes only happened because they didn’t understood what you said, in their mind you want something even less censored than 4Chan, which will lead to something even worse than 4Chan, they believe that moderation helps in healthy discussions.

      He does. By his own admission he wants quite literally, zero moderation. Except for spam. What do you think that would lead to, honestly? What do you imagine the outcome of that would be? What sort of community would that become?

      The problem here seems to be that your “vision” isn’t clear enough, and that’s probably why you wanted to discuss it with others. The good news is that people didn’t oppose your ideas

      Almost everyone in this thread opposed him bar a few people.

      • sous-merde@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        16 hours ago

        What do you imagine the outcome of that would be?

        Depends, i haven’t understood what he talked about, and neither have you. What if it’s a moderation made by the user h.er.im.self, while taking into account the vote of users with the same “tags”/preferences as him ? That’s not his idea but other methods are possible, in any case it’s aiming for an ideal of freedom, it’s left to us to see the best path in attaining it, and internet is still in its infancy.

        Almost everyone in this thread opposed him bar a few people.

        And they didn’t understood what he said, and you’re always answering aside

        • Skavau@piefed.socialEnglish
          3·
          16 hours ago

          They did. I’m sorry, but they did. Most of them focused on his inane objection to any and all moderation and fundamental misunderstandings of the fediverse and how it actually works. He doesn’t really know anything about it, and makes baseless about what’s happened on the site that he refuses to back up.

          But again, the core thing here is that most of the people on the fediverse are not free speech absolutists who want to operate in an instance with no moderation.

    • sous-merde@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      14 hours ago

      From what i understood :

      • When you’re critcizing the incomplete/broken system of federation, would it be enough if instances can’t block each other(, even if you’d probably don’t mind if users can block instances) ? I’ve seen that same thought in /c/fediverse a few times, along the lines of being able to access a real “All” tab ;
      • Instances shouldn’t communicate through DNS because authorities could block it, hence why you’re suggesting to use Tor, it’d make Lemmy a.n free/unconstrained network ;
      • You’re making a mistake i.m.o. when stating that Lemmy will become censored like Reddit, because you can’t have the same Lemmy admins for all instances. So, while Reddit banned republicans and communists, it can’t be done for Lemmy(, unless through national/federal laws). You probably already knew that, just in case(, bonus by the devs) ;
      • It feels like the core of your speech ? In any case, i’m missing almost all of what’s surrounding it hence the comment above.
      • Skavau@piefed.socialEnglish
        2·
        15 hours ago
        • You want instances that can’t block each other, even if you’d probably don’t mind if users can block instances, i’ve seen that same thought in /c/fediverse a few times ;

        How would this even be possible? This is essentially forced platforming.

      • iloveDigit@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
        2·
        15 hours ago

        I’m saying Lemmy’s censorship is the same as reddit’s because we still have roughly the same groups as on reddit.

        I still post to about the same audience or smaller, not bigger than peak reddit.

        The people saying “ambulance rides shouldn’t cost money” are still drowned out by the people saying “poor people should die because I’m rich enough to be the one people listen to” so I don’t think we should choose who to listen to based on money.

        If reddit worked as a system the authorities could use to control discussion, what we have now with reddit and Lemmy definitely isn’t any less useful for the authorities that way, because I seem to be making slower progress towards making ambulance rides free, instead of faster progress.

        • sous-merde@lemmy.mlEnglish
          3·
          15 hours ago

          I’m saying Lemmy’s censorship is the same as reddit’s because we still have roughly the same groups as on reddit.
          I still post to about the same audience or smaller, not bigger than peak reddit.

          If these two sentences are meant to be understood together, then it’s misleading to use the word censorship i think, it’s more a mix of a lack of visibility and echo chambers, in which case these are two things that don’t seem debatable/false.
          If i understood you correctly, could you expand on your solution ?

          • iloveDigit@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
            2·
            15 hours ago

            then it’s misleading to use the word censorship i think, it’s more a mix of a lack of visibility and echo chambers

            But the authorities cause it willingly, so it’s censorship, imo. Maybe debatable

            If i understood you correctly, could you expand on your solution ?

            Another way of looking at the problem is, without Tor federation, all the federated instances will be 100% one group of people, and each Tor instance will be 100% another group

            That 100% isn’t healthy, there needs to be a balance where each place has some of each group. I don’t want a place full of nothing but pedophiles, but I also don’t want a place full of nothing but people who send pedophiles to their own place. I want a place full of nothing but people who agree everyone should be allowed to talk

            • sous-merde@lemmy.mlEnglish
              1·
              14 hours ago

              To do that, would it be enough if instances can’t block each other, or if users could unblock the foreign instances blocked by their original instance ?
              You’d also want some .onion instances, and that they could communicate with those using the DNS.
              Am i missing something ? You seem to also have more to say

              • iloveDigit@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
                2·
                14 hours ago

                To do that, would it be enough if instances can’t block each other, or if users could unblock the foreign instances blocked by their original instance ?

                You’d also want some .onion instances, and that they could communicate with those using the DNS.

                Absolutely. That all sounds perfect to me. I actually don’t think you’re missing anything

                • sous-merde@lemmy.mlEnglish
                  2·
                  13 hours ago

                  Then the first part(, leaving the choice of blocking an instance to the user,) is a relatively common desire since i’ve already seen it expressed before. If enough people keep asking for it then it may happen.
                  I’m making a lemmy app and among other things you’ll be able to follow (a group of )users and not only (a group of )communities, sthg reddit will end up adopting probably. And you’ll also be able to display the “All” tab with multiple accounts. So, if you have an account on lemmy.world, as well as on the instances blocked by lemmy.world, then you’ll be able to have access to all instances at once.
                  You can see the instances blocked by going to sh.itjust.works/instances, or lemmy.ml/instances, and as you can see only very little instances, for spamming i think, were blocked. Which means that you’re probably already seeing ~99% of lemmy in your “All” tab ?

                  It doesn’t solve the presence of moderators in communities but that may be kinda out-of-topic from your original subject.

                  (i’m going to sleep r.n., so don’t be surprised if i don’t answer before tomorrow, not that there’s necessarily something to add, but you seemed to go further than being able to talk with all instances from any instance of origin)

            • Skavau@piefed.socialEnglish
              1·
              15 hours ago

              And how do you force current instances like lemmy.world or sh.itjust.works then to tolerate /some/ pedophiles exactly?

              Because that’s what would have to happen under your system.

              • iloveDigit@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
                1·
                14 hours ago

                And how do you force current instances like lemmy.world or sh.itjust.works then to tolerate /some/ pedophiles exactly?

                I don’t get what you mean.

                Because that’s what would have to happen under your system.

                Again, not sure what you mean.

                • Skavau@piefed.socialEnglish
                  2·
                  14 hours ago

                  For crying out loud. You just said: “That 100% isn’t healthy, there needs to be a balance where each place has some of each group. I don’t want a place full of nothing but pedophiles, but I also don’t want a place full of nothing but people who send pedophiles to their own place.”

                  Now, this implies that the current instances that currently ban pedophiles on sight would be expected to host some amount of them.

                  • iloveDigit@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
                    1·
                    13 hours ago

                    For crying out loud. You just said: “That 100% isn’t healthy, there needs to be a balance where each place has some of each group. I don’t want a place full of nothing but pedophiles, but I also don’t want a place full of nothing but people who send pedophiles to their own place.”

                    Yes, I’m pretty sure I did say that.

                    Now, this implies that the current instances that currently ban pedophiles on sight would be expected to host some amount of them.

                    Not sure what this part means, or what any of this has to do with anything.