this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2023
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Fediverse

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A community dedicated to fediverse news and discussion.

Fediverse is a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe".

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As Reddit's enshittification reaches new heights their attempts to suppress attention for alternatives, like federated Lemmy, has the opposite effect as this Hacker News discussion shows.

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[–] thoro@lemmy.ml 110 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

Reading criticisms of Lemmy from Reddit and other platforms like HackerNews reminds me of reading criticisms of Reddit from Digg back in 2007-2010, except they're more based on architecture instead of "it looks ugly".

Now there are things that will turn away users. There's obviously a strong leftist culture here, there are less users so less content, and obviously federation is a stumbling block for many people.

But I really think that's ok similar to what people are saying in that Hacker News thread. I wouldn't want all of Reddit to come over, and I think it's better for the culture and growth here to get a self selected trickle/stream of users instead of a deluge.

I don't think Lemmy will necessarily have the same issues as Mastodon because Twitter/Mastodon requires you to know people or know accounts to follow to be useful. Lemmy just requires communities you're interested in and a critical mass of users to drive posting and engagement. We're already seeing greater activity as more users arrive

[–] humanetech@lemmy.ml 44 points 1 year ago (6 children)

That second comment by goplayoutside says it well: "Maybe the modest technical hurdles are a feature, not a bug."

I think it is a feature, and the same is true for Mastodon and the Fediverse as a whole, imho.

[–] Kichae@kbin.social 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I also see it as a feature. If instances have a natural active user cap, then server-based communities can't get so big as to outpace moderation. And admins have the ability to moderate local users' behaviour on off-site sublemmies by enforcing their own codes of conduct.

The internet used to be small, but expansive. It became big, but concentrated.

I liked the former. I know many people like the latter. Those people are welcome to their corporate slums.

[–] cavemeat 14 points 1 year ago

I liked the former. I know many people like the latter. Those people are welcome to their corporate slums.

You've worded it well. I think the technical nature of it is to its benefit, and many server may not want to make the signup process easier, for the reasons you mentioned.

[–] animist@allthingstech.social 23 points 1 year ago

@humanetech @thoro I like it because it weeds out the type of people who would end up being low-effort posters, trolls, and spammers.

[–] smartwater0897@lemmy.one 11 points 1 year ago

Very much so. It shares the load, both from a technical point of view but also from moderation and maintenance point of view.

It's actually pretty great, all of this.

[–] wintrparkgrl 7 points 1 year ago

While it keeps the willfully ignorant out, it can also keep people with learning disabilities out. Accessibility should always be worked on. That being said, Lemmy is certainly easy to access, Even more so than Mastodon IMHO because Mastodon you have to know people whereas lemmy all you have to do is sign up for a community

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[–] Ignacio@kbin.social 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's obviously a strong leftist culture here

That depends on what instance you create an user on. For example, Lemmygrad.ml and Lemmy.ml are not the same thing, despite both belonging to Lemmy. The issues I see are having a tankie culture, and not having more points of view.

There are less users so less content

That's something we can help with, although it's not so easy. I mean, the users that are already here, we can create more content and interact more with each other, so eventually more users will come. It can be boring and tiring, but it's not impossible.

Federation is a stumbling block for many people

That's something absolutely new for the vast majority of people. I felt myself confused the first time I joined the fediverse too. But after some time, I felt myself less confused. Some clarifications, tutorials and support can do the real trick.

[–] CrimsonOnoscopy 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

I have to hope that main instances will stop federating Lemmygrad at some point. There's no place, IMO, for genocide denial/affirmation and authoritarian extremism on platforms like these. Or any platforms.

Edit: Seems this is unfortunately unlikely as the lemmy.ml instance appears to be moderated by a genocide denier and authoritarian.

[–] argv_minus_one 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Edit: Seems this is unfortunately unlikely as the lemmy.ml instance appears to be moderated by a genocide denier and authoritarian.

Who has reportedly been banning people for calling out said genocide denial and authoritarianism.

[–] CrimsonOnoscopy 7 points 1 year ago

And they removed my comments among others, for calling the Chinese state a colonial and imperialist state.

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[–] CrimsonOnoscopy 15 points 1 year ago (5 children)

The most disturbing thing I've seen is the evidence that Lemmy.ml is controlled by a genocide-supporting red fascist/third positionists. If that's true, its a massive issue and makes the platform hard to trust.

Very open to learning that this isn't true, if it isn't.

[–] m532@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 year ago

You are a wrecker who is trying to destroy lemmy. You will not succeed. Go back to 4chan where someone might believe your weird conspiracy theories.

[–] Moonrise2473@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Maybe you're confusing with lemmygrad?

I'd like to read more on this, if true

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[–] luckless 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

What's the source on that? That's a pretty big accusation but I'd certainly want to know if it's true.

[–] Kichae@kbin.social 38 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It stems from the fact that lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml cofederate, that the project leads are communists, and the claim that lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml off of the same IP address.

The first two points are not in contention, but I haven't, personally, been able to verify the third.

Now, lemmygrad is absolutely a trollish, auth-left hellscape. And I say that with... well, not respect, but not specific derision, either. That genuinely seems to be the aesthetic they're going for. They're not here to make friends with anyone but themselves, and they'll play apologetics for China, North Korea, and Stalin's takeover of the Soviet Republic all day long.

But even if the project leads are genuinely involved in that, it doesn't really change the fact that the project is not inextricably tied to them. It's an open source project. It can be forked, and forked again. No one actually needs lemmygrad or lemmy.ml. Or lemmy, for that matter. Everyone can hop over to kbin or Friendica and still access all of the same communities.

Shit, they're accessible from Mastodon and Calckey.

And besides, it's not like people avoid using software when it's made by white supremacist capitalist techbros. In those cases, we all basically just go "yeah, but I'm not a white supremacist capitalist techbro" and carry on with our day. And those products generally can't be wrenched from their control or oversight.

Most people chose Elon over learning that multiple websites exist...

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[–] FaceDeer@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 year ago (4 children)

And even if it were true, there are other instances. The only reason I'm on lemmy.ml myself is because the one that was recommended to me first was offline when I tried it, I could move somewhere else if this turns out to be true.

[–] Ignacio@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When I joined Lemmy a year ago (with another user), Lemmygrad was not my piece of cake, Lemmy.ml was too big (similar to mastodon.social), Lemmy.ca was not in my continent, and I didn't notice about beehaw. So, sopuli was the only one standing: small, from Finland and not tankie.

Creating a instance can be difficult, but it's a good way when you don't like what you're offered, and it can help other people to find their home.

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[–] aRatherDapperFox@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Do you happen to have a link to said evidence? I'd love to review it, myself.

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[–] RagingNerdoholic@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Very open to learning that this isn’t true, if it isn’t.

That's not how this works. If you're going to make serous accusations like that, the onus is on you to provide evidence to support them.

FWIW, I have no particular loyalty to lemmy.ml, I just joined the first instance I saw.

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[–] backpackn@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What will the next social media trend be? Seems like the centralized options are done for (FB, TW, Reddit), but they’re not being replaced by any single solutions. Tiktok took mainly genZ. Professionals have been wanting a twitter replacement to move to since musk and have yet to figure it out (bluesky, tribel, post social, takes, mastodon, etc has no apparent frontrunner). Political apps segmented some off like parler and the right stuff. Decentralized and foss apps have all kinds of solutions but won’t likely ever attract a huge crowd. So are we seeing the end of of an era of massive centralized social media?

[–] fuzzzerd@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 year ago

So are we seeing the end of of an era of massive centralized social media?

God, I hope so.

[–] smartwater0897@lemmy.one 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can actually follow hashtags on mastadon, which is a lot easier then knowing users. :)

[–] Kichae@kbin.social 16 points 1 year ago

Yeah, but none of the Twitter people were using hashtags, and a lot of them where hyper-fixated on finding their Twitter mutuals. They were just trying pretend Mastodon was a drop-in replacement for Twitter.

They didn't want to create their own space in the new place, and they didn't want to integrate with those who were already there. They just kind of wanted to ignore the fact that anything was happening, while still, I guess, engaging in slacktivism.

[–] ipkpjersi@lemmy.one 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not like there's not a strong leftist culture on reddit either so I don't really see that as a problem unique to Lemmy. If Lemmy can provide a centralized-like decentralized platform, I think it can succeed.

[–] thoro@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There isn't at all. Reddit is liberal at the very best and even then it's mostly Obama liberal, which is center right outside the most conservative parts of the world.

The leftist communities are much smaller, easily ignored, and often ridiculed in the mainstream subreddits. The gaming spaces complain about "wokeness" and criticisms of female representations among others. Thinly veiled racism and explicit transphobia abounds.

In contrast, Lemmy is full of anarchists, communists, socialists, and other anti capitalist. It has been and remains a dominantly leftist community.

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[–] responseAIbot@lemmy.ml 47 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was made aware of lemmy because of this. Joined.

[–] ablackcatstail@goblackcat.net 10 points 1 year ago

@responseAIbot @humanetech I now have my next project: Lemmy. Going to start on it this afternoon.

[–] Anarcho_Mandalorian@lemmy.ml 23 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Lemmy structure very anarchist and I like it

[–] Alkalyon@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah, even some documentation sections look like manifestos but you can't disagree to be honest.

Reddit and the top media brought it on themselves.

[–] mrmanager@lemmy.today 9 points 1 year ago

I loved that page so much. It's 100% truth what has happened, at least in my opinion.

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[–] altair222 5 points 1 year ago

the whole of the fediverse is like that

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[–] elouboub@kbin.social 22 points 1 year ago (5 children)

A few hundred people will migrate but the majority will put up with shit, because they're used to swimming in it.

[–] tookmyname@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It will be a small percentage of Reddit. But even small percentage is way, way more than a few hundred. And the most active users (mods, post makers, etc.) are the most likely to move. The casuals who just scroll are the most likely to stay. It’s the former that make most of the content.

[–] Dasnap@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The question is if we'd even want the majority to migrate.

[–] Tordoc 7 points 1 year ago

I personally migrated because I wanted to avoid the majority

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[–] blob42@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's a lovely news. Let them bleed.

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[–] osma@mas.to 12 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Hilarious that a #HackerNews top voted comment on a post wrt #Reddit censoring mentions of #Lemmy effectively argues that the latter is "too geeky and hard to use" and that the former two won't be displaced because they're well known and easy to approach.

These people have ZERO self awareness. Never mind understanding about the legacy of their forums.

@humanetech

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[–] Sam_uk@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago

I think to an extent that depends on how much effort/funds the devs are willing to put in to keep sites online. Say 100k people want to come and have a look on the 12th. ~1/10 of those would create accounts, if the server falls over at 11am and stays down then only 10k people will see the site, maybe 1k sign up.

If the server is up all day then I think you'd see much larger adoption.

[–] Showervagina@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

I'm here because they banned it. Figure if they are threatened by lemmy it must be good.

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