Reconsidering my support for Lemmy.
Posted by TheArstaInventor@reddit | RedditAlternatives | View on Reddit | 174 comments
A user recently commented on one of my posts, bringing to my attention the issue of human rights oppression associated with Lemmy's developers. I would like to learn more about this topic, but what I have gathered so far is that this issue would not matter if I were to spin up my own instance with my own rules, as Lemmy is open-source. However, there are other open-source and decentralized alternatives available, such as kbin and zapddit, that don't have these known issues.
Before becoming a supporter of Lemmy, I had been on Mastodon for years. One of the accounts I followed on Mastodon was Fedi.Tips, who was also a big supporter of Lemmy at the time. However, I recently learned that Fedi.Tips decided not to support Lemmy after all. The user linked to a post from August 2021 that I had missed, in which Fedi.Tips expressed concerns about human rights oppression and other issues surrounding Lemmy. Fedi.Tips made anotherpost on June 2nd, 2023, quoting the old post and confirming that the situation regarding Lemmy still has not changed.
What worries me is that even after two years, it appears that the Lemmy developers have failed to address Fedi.Tips' concerns. They have remained silent since 2021. Fedi.Tips is a reputable account with a long-standing and active following in the fediverse. If these concerns were false, Lemmy had ample time to address them.
If Lemmy were the only open-source alternative, I would still consider supporting it, but not the main server run by the developers themselves. However, now that I am aware of these issues, I am considering other alternatives such as Zapddit and Kbin. I believe in valuing human rights and peace, and I need to think twice about supporting Lemmy.
I don't want to force anyone to stop using Lemmy, but I urge you to consider using other instances instead of lemmy.ml or even lemmygrad. As always, please feel free to educate me further on this topic. I wasn't even aware of what "tankies" meant until today, and I now understand that it's not a great word.
As always please feel free to educate me, all feedback and info is welcome, if you know any other alternatives, that's welcome as well.
For those who truly joined Lemmy (lemmy.ml especially) because of my own posts, I am truly sorry, I wish I learned this earlier, this certainly puts me in a difficult situation, this is not something I thought i'd have to consider as I have always been focusing on favoring platforms for being FOSS (free open source software) like Lemmy, though these issues that I have discovered makes me slow down and reconsider. I certainly don't want to see such form of oppression, Reddit already has it's own censorship here.
I will make another post later when I have more concrete plans, thank you for those who supported me in the meantime, again truly sorry about this, especially for those who do respect human rights like I personally do.
Amelia_the_Great@reddit
Seems like a cool guy, to be honest. Nothing unreasonable to anyone who's interested in being reasonable. He even has a profile pic of Castro, who's a hero against US oppression.
reddit_kinda_sucks69@reddit
Yeah fuck all those Cuban citizens because America bad. Did the CCP do Tiananmen Square because they were frustrated at US oppression too?
happy-when-it-rains@reddit
Nice strawman. The only one who wants to fuck all Cuban citizens is America, which has been doing so with its sanctions for decades.
Are you seriously defending the most bloodthirsty empire in all of human history, that has started virtually every war in the past century? The only one to use the atom bomb, that uses chemical weapons as it did in the Korean War, Vietnam, and Iraq? The one whose soldiers rape and kill entire families including their children, then get away with it, a country in which all its crimes against humanity are celebrated and the only ones ever published are the foreigners who expose it, like Julian Assange who is being tortured to death as the UN's own investigation under Prof. Nils Melzer revealed, because journalism is espionage in the US?
The rest of the world outside of the US, Canada, and Europe sees reality and realises they can call a spade a spade without it being a defense of another authoritarian country, which harms every other country in the world far less. You should try seeing past the racist propaganda that tells you everything is Good vs Evil with the nasty Yellow Peril and Red Menace on the latter side, done since your country is trying to psychologically prepare you for WWIII of course.
RedditAlternatives-ModTeam@reddit
Comments must be civil. What does this mean? No racism, homophobia, blasphemy, arguments, drama, trolls, insults, slurs, automated rage bots, political attacks, profile fishing, etc.
Use your best judgement. If something feels rude, it probably is rude.
reddit_kinda_sucks69@reddit
You spend a lot of time on Reddit don’t you?
toolschism@reddit
This post is absolutely hilarious in it's blatant falsehoods. Big yikes.
Amelia_the_Great@reddit
You understand that Cuba is oppressed by the US, right? I would hope the blockade is common knowledge.
What does Tiananmen Square have to do with anything? What's with you libs randomly injecting it in every conversation?
Piotrekk94@reddit
Trade relations are consensual, not giving consent is not oppression.
Amelia_the_Great@reddit
Do you know anything about the blockade? It's the US forbidding consent between Cuba and other nations. Your comment is comically bad. I don't know if you're ignorant of the Cuba situation and assume I'm talking about the US not wanting to trade with Cuba, or if you're simply malicious.
TheAnonymouseJoker@reddit
Liberals are just fascists in a sheep's skin. We are witnessing a wave of FUD against Lemmy because these koolaid drinkers hate muh gommunism.
Amelia_the_Great@reddit
I accidentally found myself in r/Miami talking about Cuba. It got me nowhere but a weirdo who followed me to an entirely different sub, still shouting random words like "Tiananmen Square," "tankie," "Cambodian genocide," and of course "holodomor". It was very odd, especially since he literally just said those words like they're prayers against true democracy or something lol
TheAnonymouseJoker@reddit
This is such a deep insight into the psyche of a western koolaid drinker. Thanks.
It takes a lot to deprogram yourself. I have no idea what it was for you, but for me it was Hong Kong riots of 2019. USA and UK flags made no sense, as well as PepeFrog graffiti or Ted Cruz visiting China himself. It was a kintsugi moment for my shattered worldview.
reddit_kinda_sucks69@reddit
Oh look, two tankies circlejerking together. Now kiss.
Amelia_the_Great@reddit
Gods you're pathetic. You've got no independent thought and you're proud of it.
reddit_kinda_sucks69@reddit
COMING FROM A TANKIE LMAOOOOOO
Amelia_the_Great@reddit
I'm not a tankie and I am on Lemmy, I've been there for a long time lol.
Do you have any how silly you sound accusing me of supporting the USSR's invasion of some country? You can't even provide evidence of this, you just keep insisting that I'm a tankie because the real world means absolutely nothing to your pathetic ass.
reddit_kinda_sucks69@reddit
You are 100% a tankie and I don’t know why you’re so deep in denial. Name one single thing done by a leftist government in history that you disagree with or a single human rights violation that you acknowledge actually happened instead of just waving it off as capitalist propaganda, tankie. Drop the act.
Amelia_the_Great@reddit
I've already done all that and you've ignored it. You're saying I'm hand waving things away based on your own imagination. You're such a clown dude, profoundly segregated from reality. You call me a tankie, therefore I believe whatever you want me to. Oh, I said something other than what you want of me? No big deal, just pretend it was never said.
Not that it matters. I still wouldn't be a tankie even if I didn't fulfill your dumbass request, because, again, I don't support the USSR invasion of Hungary. You're just too fucking stupid to understand what I'm telling you, or what you're even asking.
Well yeah, because they don't exist. Fake things can't reproduce. Much like you, dumbfuck incel. I can't wait till you realize that countries other than the US exists, and how silly that makes your "tankies can't reproduce" projection is.
Cope and seethe loser. You aren't going to get laid and you're never going to amount to anything.
Amelia_the_Great@reddit
Sorry, I got distracted by my stalker lol.
I had a long, roundabout path to Marxist-Leninism. I was a liberal-minded kid who grew up conservative and identified as a conservative from 16 till about 20 as I became disillusioned with conservatives. I could tell they weren't authentic and that they were obsessed with petty things like preserving a homophobic culture. Unfortunately I didn't have the education to analyze the problems and recognize them as problems with capitalism and liberalism, so I began identifying as a libertarian.
From there I spent a lot of time arguing my beliefs online to Democrats, conservatives, and even leftists. I ended up absorbing a lot of knowledge on socialism from arguing with socialists but I rejected it because the concepts didn't mesh with my perception of reality. However, Trump's rise in popularity and my parents' becoming unhinged Trump supporters, as well as moving further from their influence all shocked me into reevaluating my beliefs. It definitely helps that I've hated Trump for years before he ran for President.
I deleted my social media and started dedicating my time to examining what I "knew" with the world around me and finally came to the conclusion that I had always recognized a problem with American politics and society, but misplaced the blame. I realized that I've been assuming that more free-market capitalism would solve our problems, but we've been trying that as a solution for my entire lifetime and only made things worse. At that point all my accidental socialist education clicked together in a coherent and unified way and I realized that only socialism has answers and solutions. From there I deepened my education on socialism and quickly went from "I'm a socialist, not a communist" cringe to being a full Marxist-Leninist.
These days I argue with people much less and typically just use them as an education prompt, while studying communism and society. I agree that it takes a lot to deprogram yourself. I believe that it's because we're taught such a complete and broad false understanding of society that any truth we're exposed to can't be accepted because it contradicts a larger body of knowledge in our minds. I was able to get out because I argued with people so much that I gained an education without "fluency" in it, then was shocked into rethinking my beliefs. So, thanks Trump, I guess lol.
textuist@reddit
you can shop around for different instances like exploding-heads.com which might have discussions of the opposite kinds of views to lemmy.ml; or other such social media in the sticky. if the devs become "problematic", the code itself can be forked
OsrsNeedsF2P@reddit
People here don't remember Wolfballs, which was one of the largest Lemmy communities for a while and it was the polar opposite of Lemmy.ml.
Lemmy devs are building the tools, they're not here to moderate or push an agenda.
WhereWillIt3nd@reddit
When Lemmy' developers bundle a non-removable filter of no-no words they personally don't like, they absolutely are pushing an agenda.
TheChumWizard@reddit
What "no-no words" are you referring to exactly? Because otherwise its the agenda of, what, not saying the n-word?
Cannotseme@reddit
Well, do they? Also it will always be removable. That’s what open source is about, the developers can never force changes like that. If they were to, the code would be forked and it would be removed.
Saik0Shinigami@reddit
There is no list. There hasn't been a hardcoded list since August of 2021.
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/622#issuecomment-897785317
xGray3@reddit
I've seen a few references to Wolfballs on here and Lemmy, but I can't find details about what happened to it. Can you loop me in on the drama? All I know is that it was right wing and defederated from other Lemmy instances and now it doesn't seem to show up. What happened to it?
textuist@reddit
we miss ruqqus tbh
Gladringr@reddit
One of the main Lemmy devs is also the lemmy.ml admin, and that person is actively removing comments and content critical of China.
Gladringr@reddit
Lemmy.ml is actively removing comments and posts critical of the Chinese state.
niomosy@reddit
Seems a Lemmy migration to a new, not alt-right, server that doesn't federate with lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml would be best. Beehaw blocks lemmygrad, at least, but not lemmy.ml.
Gladringr@reddit
I'm hoping that Beehaw will eventually block Lemmy.ml, because frankly, it's clear that the admin abuse will only escalate.
niomosy@reddit
That's my hope as well. I'm also eyeing Kbin and avoiding Lemmy software altogether given the developers of Lemmy are also the admins of lemmy.ml and have been actively negative toward much of any criticism of the CCP or Russia.
Gladringr@reddit
Some of the privacy downsides are sort of inherent to the federated and open nature of things.
For example, a public mod log is inherently counter to privacy in some areas. And there's also questions that need to be answered, like what if abuse materials are uploaded and federated.
winterwulf@reddit
Please delete or edit this post
RealTigres@reddit
liberals are funny
stable_maple@reddit
What human rights violations?
Gullible_Ad_5550@reddit
Everything about lemmy is confusing
ArthurParkerhouse@reddit
Bad take.
Kasenom@reddit
I definitely am wary of the dev, he has a Castro pfp that's a big red (literal) flag to me. I have a feeling that the dev doesn't even want their instance to actually grow because he's made his own little community of like minded individuals. Having a flood of Redditors who aren't necessarily their flavor of communist could be a problem.
But on the other hand Lemmy is FOSS, if we don't agree with the people are Lemmy ml we can create our own instances. We can even fork the code if the devs are a problem.
FreakingSpy@reddit
I don't know who this dev is but he sounds cool
Wolverinexo@reddit
They posted neo nazi literature.
Kasenom@reddit
Hey if you like that good for you but I'm proudly liberal
TagierBawbagier@reddit
Fidel Castro was pretty popular guy in his time. Do you not like independance from the colonial cuban elite for Cuba?
Castro literally went to Pierre Trudeau's funeral. Idk what kind of 'liberal' you are to be so hawkish on foreign affairs.
ibrown39@reddit
They are!
OsrsNeedsF2P@reddit
Yes, he's literally asked people to please find an instance other than Lemmy.ml
Cannotseme@reddit
Well he asked people to do that because Lemmy.ml is overloaded af rn
ibrown39@reddit
because it got overloaded…
Kasenom@reddit
I know, and like I said I don't agree with him politically but if he wants his community he has all the right to have it. It's just contrast this with mastodon, if the biggest proponent and existing instance is restricted to new people how can the platform grow? I'm not saying it's impossible it's just going to be harder
Gladringr@reddit
The other Dev has Mao, and is overt in their denial of the Xinjiang genocide.
niomosy@reddit
Didn't one of them also post on Reddit about how the Uyghur are a problem for China? Thought I read that in another post on Reddit.
Gladringr@reddit
Yes, the Mao-profiled dev seemingly isn't just a genocide denier. But is outright in favor.
niomosy@reddit
Yeah, found the Raddle post on it.
Kasenom@reddit
Mao?? Oh wow that's much worse 🙃
Paranoia22@reddit
Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait …….
The linked-to OP DELETED their post(s) (sussy check 1) but based on the context here, your main ass-pain is because they are anti-Nazi?
My sibling in Christ… if you are anti-communism/socialism I have some very bad (or good… depending on how sick you are) news for you.
That person you linked to/about was a Nazi. Absolutely no other way to cut it. They are (ironically?) lying about others saying they deny “””””””””genocides”””””””” (they’re absolutely referring to the Nazi made up “Holodomor” which was a very real and very bad famine in Ukraine but not a single reputable western or Russian/Ukrainian (or elsewhere) historian believes it to have been a genocide now days with full access to the full Soviet historical logs and such. Anyone who still “believes” it was a genocide and not a horribly fucked up event is a dipshit definitely and 99% of the time Nazi/Nazi-adjacent (aka just a Nazi))
Ulu-Mulu-no-die@reddit
I'm still very new to Lemmy, joined only very recently, but I'll express my opinions in general anyway.
I think it's important to distinguish Lemmy as a software from Lemmy as an implementation (servers).
The software is opensource, noone "owns" that kind of software, many people contribute to it, anyone can fork it, modify it, and setup their own servers with it, regardless of the belief of the one who started the project.
Now, telling people to avoid the "main server"/"grad whatever" is fine, because those are the servers in which those "political views" are expressed.
But any instance of it? It doesn't make sense, many new Lemmy servers are popping up because of redditors trying the platform, and surely people setting them up now have nothing to do with what the main devs believe.
You can't put everyone in the same basket, if would be like saying that anyone having an iPhone is in favor of child labor, or that anyone eating Nutella is in favor of destroying the Amazon forest, or whatever other example you can think of products we consume daily that are detrimental to the health of our planet.
Heck even Reddit got investments from Tencent, a Chinese company, and we all know what the Chinese government thinks of human rights, yet we're here using the product.
Where to draw the line is of course a personal matter, but again, it doesn't do any good to "categorize" everyone based on the views of a few.
Cannotseme@reddit
I’ve also been on lemmy for a bit and there seems to be a general dislike of tankies among the 2m users. Tbh I think we’re fine
Emperor_Zombie@reddit
Because of this, I believe it is imperative to emphasize that joining an instance with which you agree philosophically with is the most crucial thing you can do.
Especially given the inability to switch from one instance to another without losing data currently.
ferk@reddit
Is this actually the case at the moment? I did not see any option in lemmy to do this right now.
What about moving across different fediverse/activitypub services? ...like what if I want to move from lemmy to kbin, is that possible?
Cavemanfreak@reddit
You can't migrate your account, but you can create a new one with the same username as the old one, since usernames are only unique to the instance they were created on.
IAmABullDozer@reddit
I'm not sure I agree here. The idea that the solution is to find insulated communities where everyone already agrees with you sounds like truth social.
romulusnr@reddit
Maybe it's my unique experience, but what federated instance I'm on doesn't really affect what I view on the instance.
Like, I know a lot of Mastodon instances formed around certain communities like lgbt, or like kolectiva, or what have you, but I don't think that most people use Mastodon primarily based on their local feed.
I could be in the minority, also for the fact that I'm on a large-ish, non-focused instance so the local feed isn't that meaningful.
I mainly find folks to follow through hashtags, links, boosts, and so on. (And now, that includes Lemmy instances' communities too!)
simplex0991@reddit
I think finding insulated communities is what we already do. The whole idea of a subreddit is its people with shared interests/viewpoints. I'm not joined to r/conservatives because I don't agree with them. Any point that I could make in disagreement would just be drowned out, so why would I want to see or interact with them?
Ulu-Mulu-no-die@reddit
Communities are not "insulated", instances aren't either, but admins can avoid automatic communication with "problematic" instances if they want.
I still don't fully understand how the whole thing works, but communities are the exact equivalent of subreddits.
Instances are servers, they host communities and user accounts.
You need to choose a server to create an account, but once you've done that you're free to participate in any community on any server, like they were all connected together (federation), unless a server gets excluded on purpose.
There are a few servers that "exclude" the main server for political reasons, that's why the user you're answering to said to check server rules before joining one.
What to do is up to individuals ofc, but if you want a free environment, it's enough to choose a server that doesn't block anything - I did that, it's up to me to choose what content I want to see or not.
Emperor_Zombie@reddit
A server you join can have an open philosophy or it could sensor content that the owner doesn't approve of. They are individually moderated which prevents one owner from killing the entire platform. Think subreddits within subreddits all on an open platform.
Yes, the Fediverse is only as open as the community you join. Just the same as there are plenty of subreddits that are locked and or blocking users.
Hopefully that dispels some of your apprehensions.
Also, I'm also not an expert on the Fediverse but I'm definitely not joining lemmygrad for what it's worth.
cerevant@reddit
This keeps coming up, but nothing is behind it except the warning that they are bad.
Regardless - Lemmy is open source software. If you want to avoid Lemmy.ml because of the types of users there, go for it. It doesn't make sense to say kbin is better than Lemmy when they are essentially the same thing - just different software accessing the same network.
ibrown39@reddit
How Lemmy biggest hiccup for Lemmy. Many people don’t understand that Lemmy isn’t a company or even mirror of a single, concentrated website. You don’t join Lemmy, you basically join a site that was built with/using Lemmy. Lemmy’s devs don’t manage or own the servers that use it Lemmy. Etc.
cerevant@reddit
This is why I always use the e-mail paradigm when I explain it to people. People seem to catch on quickly when you compare it to Gmail / Yahoo / etc.
ibrown39@reddit
I’ll also add as for the various logins for different instances, ultimately what will likely come about are apps that are like email apps that are able to get your email from different sites like your yahoo, gmail, and etc but all in the same place. Your responses to your gmail are through your gmail, your yahoo using your yahoo, and etc.
smelly_stuff@reddit
I think it is wrong seeing lemmy.ml as the main instance. You as a user of federated platform are supposed to join an instance you think most suits you. If the first instance you find isn't for you then maybe the next one is. For example, you probably won't have any problem with sopuli or hexbear. The join-lemmy website lists many more instances.
The developers like all people have their own beliefs and I think it is pretty okay when an instance they run reflects those beliefs, since it isn't supposed to be for everyone.
cerevant@reddit
I think the perception of it as the "main instance" is that it is where some of the most popular communities live.
ibrown39@reddit
Basically. A server can host several instances and will grow because it would handle the credentials for all of them. The biggest missing think rn is something like an email app that lets you use multiple emails (yahoo, gmail, and etc) in one place.
cerevant@reddit
Actually, Lemmy and Mlem both support multiple accounts.
omnikey@reddit
Lemmy sucks
thelongestusernameee@reddit
It might as well be in chinese to me. I don't understand a single word anyone ever says about it, and nobody ever explains either.
ibrown39@reddit
I’ll try but you gotta help me help you where there’s something that doesn’t click, ok? I’m going to explain this without going to deep into how Lemmy actually work under the hood but what would most relevant to those who are considering migrating to/using a community built on it (versus if you were trying to understand how make/host an instance of your own). My point is to those who are also reading this don’t come at me if it’s not 100% accurate, I’m trying help this person understand why and how people are using Lemmy at all.
Short version: Think of Lemmy as the Sears Build your own house kit. Lemmy is a project that lets you quickly make a website/community like reddit hosted/on your own server (like how you would have to source your own property for the house, here instance = server = land/property). Lemmy isn’t a company that owns all the servers that used/use Lemmy like Reddit. Instead of having to recreate something from scratch each time, lemmy helps streamline the process and give the maintainers/creators a similar operational and users similar UI and UX experience across communities that use Lemmy. Each prefab/house may be similar, but they each have their own set of keys (credentials) and land (server). Reddit being like one big company that owns a bunch of land and is the one who manages all the keys because they know/own all the locks (hence why you would only need one account).
Long: So Lemmy itself is basically a blueprint that one can use to quickly use to sort of build a website with and make it operationally similar to those also use Lemmy. An “instance” could be basically be equated to “server”. Reddit owns servers but they are all managed and owned by Reddit. Since each lemmy “instance” is basically it’s own server, each also manages it’s own credentials (think login info). So lemmy.world, lemmygrad.ml, lemmy.ml, and etc all use Lemmy to manage and create their community but each has their own server and credentials.
Subreddits are sort of like when you go to a shop online (I’m not going to assume you have experience with forums from the past or now which 100% ok) and click on a department. Each department has a manager, like subreddits have mods.
Where Reddit is company, Lemmy is more of the name of the software project (the blueprint) and associated url that those who use Lemmy include for visibility and association.
taxation-relaxation@reddit
I feel like you are complaining about lack of censorship and not human rights. When I clicked that thread I was expecting something like "Lemmy devs invest in slavery coffee" or "Lemmy's hardware is built by child labour finger"
Freedom of speech includes speech you disagree with.
winterwulf@reddit
Come on, this is not true. There are two sides of a story
jberk79@reddit
You still here? Miss you.
winterwulf@reddit
lol I am still using this account calling people to lemmy until the 30th Jun.
jberk79@reddit
Lol I'm just trolling.
winterwulf@reddit
It is ok
Tristatek@reddit
I'm a bit confused. Is the problem simply that the developers allow commies to speak their own wacky opinions? If people want to deny the Uygher genocide, claim North Korea is a paradise, and celebrate Stalin's birthday that's fine by me as long as they also allow all of the opposing opinions. Additionally, if it's Open Source software it's not as if we're in any way contributing to the developers and their beliefs either.
pyopippic@reddit
Yeah, the whole point of the fediverse is that people can maintain their own spaces and moderate how they want while (largely) remaining connected to other communities. This post is just anticommunist lol.
luke727@reddit
The principle of free speech on the internet is almost extinct, surviving only in small corners of far away places.
Djhg2000@reddit
According to the linked github issue the maintainers are using a hardcoded slur filter, which breaks some languages that use the same spelling for completely unrelated words (like "end" in Swedish and Danish).
The position of the developers seems to be that they will never change their stance on having that slur filter hard-coded, because they do not want to facilitate the use of slurs on the internet. It's like they have a bit of a god complex.
Asyncrosaurus@reddit
Hey, There is no list. There hasn't been a hardcoded list since August of 2021. Stop spreading false information.
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/622#issuecomment-897785317
Djhg2000@reddit
I said "according to the linked github issue". That statement is not false. I probably could've worded it better but English isn't my native language either so whatever.
Furthermore the list was still hidden in the template config file until version 0.16.7, and it might still be hidden somewhere else but I have neither the time nor motivation to keep looking for it in the code. Furthermore the change that supposedly closed that issue didn't actually remove the slur filter, it added the
additional_slurs
config option (which was later renamed toslur_filter
).No matter how you look at it the maintainers are playing dirty games. At best misrepresenting their commits to save face and at worst being outright deceiving their users for their own virtuous goals.
But even so the list still exists in their test suite, so there clearly is a list somewhere and it's being tested.
So it sounds to me like you're the one spreading false information, or misinformation, whichever is the right word for being technically correct on some parts but leaving the impression that something false is supposedly true.
I also find it amusing that you're not allowed to tell someone to retard the timing on their ignition (for those who don't know, it's very common to advance or retard ignition timings when troubleshooting a gasoline engine that runs rough). Advance and retard are the actual technical terms in this context. It's absolutely hilarious how people try to ban words with multiple meanings because they think one of them is so bad it's punishable with censorship.
TheGhostDM@reddit
I think the good news is that we have the fediverse generally. I think Fedi.tips is recommending kbin. Lemmy does have a history of... unique views on speech and censorship too; there was some controversy about a hard-coded censor at one point.
TheArstaInventor@reddit (OP)
Yeah kbin is certainly on my list, other alternatives (like some based on nostr) is also very interesting, using the relays concept instead of instances/servers. I will certainly dig deeper.
estebanabaroa@reddit
check out plebbit https://plebbit-test.netlify.app it's fully P2P, not federated or relays. it uses IPFS (content addressing similar to bittorrent) under the hood.
dontquestionmyaction@reddit
Open that page. Click on the first post.
Do you expect ANYONE to use this?
TheArstaInventor@reddit (OP)
Look, it's in demo firstly, secondly communities end on .eth, crypto is involved? And thirdly, the UI looks like an exact reddit copy.
Yeah, while I love p2p tech, plebbit doesn't seem to be the one.
estebanabaroa@reddit
yes it's a demo, I am one of the creator. we have been working on it for 1.5 years, it should be a lot smoother in 6 to 12 months.
the protocol doesn't use crypto, it uses content addressing like bittorrent (IPFS) and public key cryptography, but to map human readable names to public keys, you need a name system. the protocol can support any name system, for example .eth being one of them. but it's optional and can support any name system, like .com
yes that's by design, we also plan on having interfaces that look like old.reddit, stackexchange, discourse, vbulletin and more, all interoperable ways of viewing the same P2P content
we are the only people working on fully P2P message boards that I know of. there are other reddit alternatives, some less centralized than others, but they are not fully P2P
Ecksearoh@reddit
That white people as people of color post is cringe as fuck.
funkinaround@reddit
getaether.net is fully P2P.
estebanabaroa@reddit
last time I checked, it wasn't, it had some non sybil resistant way of moderating content/electing moderators.
plebbit is actually fully P2P, once you create your community (which is just a public key pair), there's literally no way to ever get your community taken down, seized, for "someone" to vote for you to be kicked out of your own community.
reaper527@reddit
FTA:
this is never going to take off. you can expect everyone that wants to host a sub to literally host their sub. this needs to be handled similar to reddit where you just click "create sub" and the creator doesn't have to worry about the hosting.
unless i'm misunderstanding, entire subs are going to be temporarily unavailable simply because the person who created it had to reboot their machine. (or they lost power/internet temporarily).
this design will not scale to anything beyond a proof of concept.
estebanabaroa@reddit
it's possible to create a centralized service that hosts subs for others for free, ie a "1 click create" kind of thing. and this would be highly superior to reddit, because a service like this would be non custodial, because if the service bans you, you can just change the name record in your name service to a new hosting service, or to you own node on your device.
so our design is the best of both world, it allows you to self host P2P, no domain name, no public HTTP endpoint, no KYC, no SSL, no DDOS protection, no cost, no config, no command line, and it also allows you to host through a service provider, that cannot permanently delete your community,the worst they can do is stop hosting it, and you can move it somewhere else. if literally all hosting services collude against you, you buy a rasp pi and host it at home. Nobody can ever stop you from reaching your users.
bettervanilla@reddit
There are some P2P-specific discussions brewing in the Aether recommendation thread.
This list of Decentralized Web Projects also exists with some decentralized and/or P2P social networks I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere.
Matir@reddit
How does community moderation work in a "fully p2p" model?
estebanabaroa@reddit
Same as reddit. Someone creates a community (generates a private key pair). He is the owner/admin of the community. He can assign mods, delete posts, etc.
He seeds his own community P2P, so no one can delete his community. There are no global admins that can delete his community or "turn off the API".
The only thing that can't be done P2P is curating a list of default communities like r/all. This needs to be done by a group of humans, to prevent spam. But if you know the name of a community, you can access it directly P2P and no one can stop you, not even ISPs or governments like China.
Matir@reddit
I just noticed you're the developer, thanks for the answer. Will there be some mechanism for providing a human readable namespace for communities? Does a community up and disappear if the owner stops running their instance?
My experience with dht is that it's pretty slow. I would have an expectation of loading a community taking less than 1s. Is that feasible?
I know you say it's not required to use crypto for the underlying protocol, but there still seems to be a lot of crypto discussions in many places. It reads a little inconsistently in those regards.
I've looked at the test instance and am currently horrified by what I see.
estebanabaroa@reddit
It can use any name system, like .com or cryptocurrency based like handshake or ENS, or anything anyone makes. You can make your own name system where you are god and moderate names (that's what lemmy does, each instance is the source of truth for names on their instance).
If the owner node is offline, the community becomes read only (seeded by users) until they come back online. If there's no one left seeding, the content disappears.
Bittorrent's DHT is pretty slow, but IPFS's DHT is 90% of the time under 1 second in my experience.
If you try to load a community's feed completely cold, it might take 3-5 seconds when fully optimized (our demo is not fully optimized yet). But most of the time you're not loading stuff cold. For example while you're browsing we're preloading stuff in the background.
You can read, post and vote in the demo without any cryptocurrency. It uses IPFS, which is a more modern version of Bittorrent, it doesn't use cryptocurrency.
The owner of each community decides how they moderate their own community. There are no "instance" or "instance owners" that can censor them. You as the user can block communities and only follow communities that think like you. there's only like 5 communities online at the moment, it is a demo. But anyone can create a community right now if they want, the demo is working.
TheGhostDM@reddit
I think by posting here, you've created an incel problem on the test board above.
Zorbithia@reddit
Nostr is very cool and there are a ton of very awesome, very pro free-speech/anti-censorship developers working on building stuff for it. It's also got the benefit of having easily built-in monetization options by using the bitcoin lightning network for micropayments and tips and stuff, if one wanted to do such a thing (though it's completely separate from nostr, just pointing this out as some people are vehemently anti bitcoin lol).
Ecksearoh@reddit
Built in bitcoin anything is something I would prefer to avoid.
Kilo_Juliett@reddit
what are some nostr based ones?
I'm still not really sure how nostr works. I downloaded damus a while ago but I never use it.
ExternalUserError@reddit
Hard-coded censor?
bettervanilla@reddit
https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/622
ExternalUserError@reddit
Wow, that is pretty cringy.
It's baffling anyone could ever think that's a good idea.
PrimaxAUS@reddit
Sounds like the kind of thing a tankie would approve of
MozzarellaCode@reddit
What’s a tankie
ferk@reddit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
ExternalUserError@reddit
Some words are contrary to the spirit of Animalism.
boosha_@reddit
It’s completely optional and customizable though the admin panel. Stop trolling.
reaper527@reddit
so is that something that's specific to 1 instance or are the devs maintaining a blacklist of words that applies to all instances?
the former would be akin to how automod gets abused here while the latter is a MAJOR red flag.
bettervanilla@reddit
All instances. More context in the first quote here.
TheGhostDM@reddit
Indeed it is. I only mention it because the responses at the time were less friendly than one might have expected.
TheArstaInventor@reddit (OP)
Considering how issues from 2021 is still not addressed, this may still be very relevant, that's just....wow.
R1chterScale@reddit
lol, it literally says in the link that it's not relevant anymore because it's not hardcoded now
TheArstaInventor@reddit (OP)
It's not about that, it's about the devs conversations in that posts.
DismalCaregiver6947@reddit
reddit is a scary place
Luvax@reddit
Hard coding the slur filter so no one can hack in and modify it is a new one.
That said it appears to have been addressed eventually, yet the conversation doesn't seem very welcoming.
DovesArePigeons@reddit
Bruh
plazman30@reddit
So, you don't like Lemmy because they don't censor their posts?
Isn't that what the downvote button is for?
Were any of these posts made by the Lemmy developers themselves, or were the Lemmy developers smart enough not to get into the moderation game that would have led them down a rabbit hole they probably don't want to go?
Levainathan@reddit
you cant vaguely talk about some incident of lemmy without giving a rundown on what developer names and what they have done thats controversial.
I clicked on the link that you provided and the user who came to you with information of lemmy was deleted so naturally me and many others are confused as to what exactly is being said.
yzrIsou@reddit
Before anyone mentions "they can't push out instances they disagree with, they can host their own instance" they did.
On their app called Jerboa, they've blacklisted an instance. Someone has recently pointed out this is not ok on Github, and what's their response?
"I do reserve the right to have some sort of filter like theirs."
Keep in mind that this app is developed by Lemmy developers. What's stopping them from putting an auto-update that blocks a certain instance by default?
frozengrandmatetris@reddit
the rest of the fediverse also deals with this problem. multiple apps have hardcoded blocks for various mastodon and pleroma instances. one of them was forked and renamed to husky to deal with this. you basically always have to have a team of credibly neutral developers on standby who can fork anything and take out the ridiculous stuff.
I saw something really funny once. there was a mastodon instance being run by insane people. one of the users on this instance was talking to someone from somewhere else, and the admin determined that this external user was using husky, so he defederated that user's entire instance. there's basically two fediverses at this point because of all this insanity and people refusing to be neutral.
romulusnr@reddit
What's stopping someone from forking Lemmy and removing whatever is objectionable about it? Assuming there is something objectionable in the code... or maybe you're afraid all those $0.00 download fees will make them too much money.
bankimu@reddit
In other words, let's be woke and cancel Lemmy.
No, thanks.
xGray3@reddit
I'd highly recommend lemmy.ca or sh.itjust.works! Both instances of Lemmy are run by Canadians and seem to have very thoughtful admins that I've found have less concerning policies related to censorship. I'd definitely keep away from lemmy.ml and lemmygrad for sure.
TheAnonymouseJoker@reddit
Are those admins in affirmation with Canadian indigenous genocides, since they have not decided to leave Canada for a better country?
Fro-Bear@reddit
Name a better country - I’ll wait
TheAnonymouseJoker@reddit
...any country that did not commit genocide? The countries that did and do is a very short list largely limited to Anglosphere countries.
Fro-Bear@reddit
So name one
reddit_kinda_sucks69@reddit
FYI the dude you’re talking to is a tankie, unless you just want to fuck with it I’d recommend ignoring it.
FromHereToEterniti@reddit
Fedi.tips isn't a very reasonable person as far as I'm concerned. And as far as I can tell it's the only person that's constantly reporting everywhere that lemmy has "human rights issues".
I'm not even sure it's a human account, if it is, it's not someone that will respond when challenged.
Lemmy addressing it...
Dude... I wouldn't address the constant BS of a single paranoid figure either. What does human rights issues even have to do with developing a decentralized link aggregator?
It's just a roundabout way of trying to pin some kind of pro-China, pro-communist onto the developer or lemmy.
And yeah, the dude probably is leaning communist. But what do I care, it's got nothing to do with the protocol and software he's developing (but it does have an effect on lemmy.ml - which you don't have to use anyway).
(I'm on kbin myself, but that's for other reasons)
Trying to come up with some censorship issue... It's just outright wrong in the context of a decentralized platform. Anyone that doesn't understand that, doesn't understand decentralization or they're intentionally trying to twist logic towards a desired outcome.
Not supporting lemmy.ml? Cool, I don't mind. Not supporting lemmy itself for the same reason? Hey... Now you're just screwing around and anyone with a decent brain and understanding of the technology can see you doing it.
pandakekok9@reddit
He's not just "leaning communist". He's a fucking tankie. https://raddle.me/f/chapotraphouse/113374/say-no-thx-to-lemmy
forkingtoads@reddit
Communism bad. Fedi.Tips and OP seem to have stage 4 lib brainrot.
livinginfutility@reddit
I know right, but it keeps the stage 4 lib brainrot from Lemmy I suppose.
golebowl@reddit
you got a source for that?
FromHereToEterniti@reddit
Try reading it again, but this time slower.
golebowl@reddit
Just as ambiguous as the first time :p
McFin@reddit
They're saying "Here is what I have to say about your statement that Lemmy has had plenty of time to address these concerns."
GuyWithLag@reddit
These aren't human rights issues, they're content moderation issues. And in a federated implementation, _who_ is going to do the moderation? Who will moderate the moderators?
Lemmy.tips reads as someone that lived in walled gardens all their life getting exposed to the true nature of the human condition - it's shit, dude.
FromHereToEterniti@reddit
The answer is the server owner. And since any moderator can be a server owner, that means the answer is "no one".
Sounds like you're a misanthrope? That's not really the kind of person I'm willing to take information from regarding other people. You're too biased for your own good, let alone my good. /r/depression_help
sussywanker@reddit
I would be happy if it was on Lemmy and not on kbin.
Kbin seems shite :(
Chemputer@reddit
Well, shit.
ComplaintDelicious68@reddit
I literally just downloaded an app for Lemmy and was about to create an account when I saw this post. Between this and the comments I think I'm gonna keep looking at other sites.
RollerSkatingHoop@reddit
you can try kbin
toolschism@reddit
I just deleted my account on lemmy.ml earlier today due to the crazy level of censorship and just generally disagreeing with pretty much everything the dev supports.
As for lemmy itself, I'm still not sold it'll ever be more than a niche community. I just don't really think the platform lends itself well to what you got with Reddit.
I plan to make an account on kbin or beehaw just to see if those instances are any less... Extreme.. but we'll see.
RollerSkatingHoop@reddit
kbin is not using lemmy software. kbin is its own thing but can connect to lemmy
VWH2@reddit
I mostly agree with /u/Ulu-Mulu-no-die - using the software doesn't mean that you agree with what goes on in the "flagship instance", and using the instance doesn't mean that you agree with the admins' views on human rights. I'm myself there but I heavily disagree with their "you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs" mindset when it comes to this subject.
Plus Lemmy admins themselves are asking people to go to other alternatives. They see their own instance as a "flagship", not as the main product - the main product is the software.
You don't even need to federate with the main instance if you don't want to. I used to use Votal some time ago, that did exactly this; a shame that it was short-living, but I really liked it.
Let's also be consistent. Reddit is mostly owned by a company associated with "problematic practices" when it comes to race. Plus it has capital from another company, already mentioned by another poster as the lapdogs of a cruel regime. And Reddit itself hosted T_D for years and years and years, to the point that it became one of the biggest subreddits in this place - and it still would, if not for a certain blackout. People might associate hate discourses with the chans, but it's in Reddit that the hate discourses grew and connected to each other. It is not just about "Reddit having its own censorship here", the shit goes deeper.
So even if your options were only Lemmy's flagship instance and Reddit, I'd say that you're still making the world better by not using Reddit, even with all shit going on with Lemmy's admins. And you also have a bunch of third options, at least some will be better in this regard than both. (For example, I'm certain for example that Beehaw's admins don't agree with those views, given the goal of their instance. But they still chose to use the software.)
inb4, if anyone here is eager to claim that that's a whataboutism or red herring: no, it is not, learn what those are supposed to mean. Bringing up shit from one side to distract the reader from shit in the other side would be whataboutism; however, doing it to create an explicit comparison of both is not.
[Speaking on censorship, I had to delete and re-create this comment because it hit some automatic filter.]
izit23@reddit
Is it wise to invest (time) in software developed by people you can't trust?
VWH2@reddit
It is, depending on the reasons why you don't trust the devs, plus anything increasing/decreasing the risk with running/using their software.
In this specific case the risk is all about their political views. It would be a problem if you need to obey anything that they say, but you don't need to do it if you're just running the software. And the fact that the software in question is open source also makes it less risky, because:
TheArstaInventor@reddit (OP)
I agree with this to a certain degree and I have also acknowledged the fact that you can indeed spin up your own instance or any of the other instances and not depend on lemmy.ml and don't have to keep in touch with the admins, while this is true to a certain extent, these people are the founders and maintainers of the whole project, it's where all the donations go as well, not to mention, lemmy.ml is unfortunately the flagship instance just like mastodon.social even if some people move to other instances, the flagship "run my lemmy's devs" is lemmy.ml and that's where a lot of people are. The instances page also lists lemmygrad right next to lemmy.ml, and if an average users gets into it, they will most probably get freaked out.
And I do agree, using a non lemmy.ml instance is certainly much better than reddit, but since lemmy is not the only alternative out there, I don't think I'd want to adjust and deal with something like that rather than find another project without these issues.
VWH2@reddit
Worst case scenario, someone might fork it. And while I'm not sure, kbin itself might be a fork.
You mentioned kbin as an option, it's worth noting that it federalises with lemmy and even Nutomic (one of lemmy's devs) is active there. I feel like it might be the best compromise in your case, both to use and promote.
bettervanilla@reddit
Here's the inspirations behind Kbin from the developer himself. I don't believe it's a fork of anything based on this information.
VWH2@reddit
I stand corrected. And props for the dev, for making it from his own codebase but still choosing to federalise it.
bettervanilla@reddit
Lemmy is currently visibly worse for privacy than Reddit or Mastodon.
This is something for (prospective) users to consider about whether to use the platform at this time. Note that the main dev is transparent about limitations and privacy issues.
nuclearbananana@reddit
This isn't that strange, if you pust something publicly on the internet, it's unreasonable to expect you can just delete it. Even on reddit, everything is stored on the likes of pushift and whatnot.
bettervanilla@reddit
Everything can always be more private.
Also, Mastodon and Matrix support federated deletion. Lemmy should too.
nuclearbananana@reddit
I agree but it's good to be aware that any sort of federated deletion is, how should I say it, superficial? Since any instance can just choose not to respect the request. Bad actors can still access everything if they want.
Flag_Red@reddit
This, it wouldn't be hard to spin up an instance that just listens to every other instance it can find and log everything.
wicklowdave@reddit
I'm all for privacy as much as anyone else but there's a conflict between how much privacy we want and how much it costs to give us that, especially when we don't want to pay for it out of our pockets (and requiring payment would make it a non-starter - it would never achieve critical mass).
Where is the balance?
bettervanilla@reddit
That's a question for individuals to answer for themselves. My desired amount of privacy and acceptable costs to achieve it are different from yours which are different from everyone else's.
winterwulf@reddit
These are all lies
ExternalUserError@reddit
I share your concerns. I mean ultimately software is software, but it's also community. And for better or worse, the initial instances are the flagship instances and lemmy.ml is the flagship instance and it is, well, pretty problematic. And lemmygrad just openly endorses violence.
The problem with kbin is that seems awfully green right now...
Ultimately you might see lemmy forked. The code itself seems mostly fine, if a bit unpolished.
Gladringr@reddit
Lemmy.ml is actively removing comments and posts critical of the Chinese state.
ExternalUserError@reddit
They are. And as OP's link points out, lemmy.ml and lemmygrad are on the same IP address.
SkeletonBGone@reddit
Check out one of the Lemmy dev's github repos: "the essays" https://github.com/dessalines/essays
Gladringr@reddit
The Lemmy.ml who is definitively a Dev is also posting openly about their genial of the Xinjiang genocide: https://lemmy.ml/post/1167199
OsrsNeedsF2P@reddit
I've been on Lemmy for several years and voiced my opinions against the developers on numerous occasions, but to be frank it doesn't matter, because the developers are largely impartial and building something that is self-hostable and works for everyone.
They don't even want Lemmy.ml to be the main community, so I'm not sure why this FUD keeps getting brought up.
VWH2@reddit
I mostly agree with /u/Ulu-Mulu-no-die - using the software doesn't mean that you agree with what goes on in the "flagship instance", and using the instance doesn't mean that you agree with the admins' views on human rights. I'm myself in Lemmy but I heavily disagree with their "you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs" mindset when it comes to this subject.
Plus Lemmy's admins themselves are asking people to go to other alternatives. They see their own instance as a "flagship", not as the main product - the main product is the software.
You don't even need to federate with the main instance if you don't want to. I used to use Votal some time ago, that did exactly this; a shame that it was short-living, but I really liked it.
Let's also be consistent. Reddit is mostly owned by a company called Conde Nast, associated with at the very least problematic practices when it comes to race. Plus it has capital from Tencent, already mentioned as the lapdogs of a cruel regime. And Reddit itself hosted T_D for years and years and years, to the point that it became one of the biggest subreddits in this place - and it still would, if not for a certain blackout. People might associate hate discourses with 4chan, but it's in Reddit that they grew and connected to each other.* It is not just about "Reddit having its own censorship here", the shit goes deeper.
So even if your options were only Lemmy's flagship instance and Reddit, I'd say that you're still making the world better by not using Reddit, even with all shit going on with Lemmy's admins. And you also have a bunch of third options, at least some will be better in this regard than both. (For example, I'm certain for example that Beehaw's admins don't agree with those views, given the goal of their instance. But they still chose to use the software.)
*inb4, if anyone here is eager to claim that that's a whataboutism or red herring: no, it is not, learn what those are supposed to mean. Bringing up shit from one side to distract the reader from shit in the other side would be whataboutism; however, doing it to create an explicit comparison of both is not.