Fediverse

TropicalDingdong , in Reminiscing about the "Reddit migration"

Yeah its been a journey. My cakeday for the an account I made on ml would be about now, and I think its around a month till this account is officially a year old.

Its an odd time to be on a platform like lemmy.

We're seeing an almost complete adulteration of what we might call the internet 2.0 era sites into walled gardens of exclusion. Effectively, the stealing, en-masse of almost two decades of user generated content. The walls and gates of the gardens we planted get higher everyday; the enshittification of all things.

And yet here we are. On a self-hosted, federated, unbought, unbroken, and unbent platform. Obviously its not all roses, but for what its worth, both the users and developers have created something incredibly special: A ray of hope in a time where it seems like the world has only been changing for the worse. And while the instances have their differencs, we should be looking to embrace those differences as much as possible, because this is what truly gives the fediverse strength. If its Kbin or Lemmy or Mastadon; or .ml or .world or .blahaj.zone.

The point of the fediverse isn't consolidation or control, but distribution and access. There is so much more possible simply because enough of us were willing to make the journey over here. We're providing the future with an alternative that isn't tracking them, trying to manipulate them with an algorithm, or to turn them into commodities. There is power in that.

So happy cakeday. Happy cake season to those who were messing around with a browser plug-in about this time last year, trying to delete their reddit history. Happy cakeday to the developers, to those who post, and to the commenters. And most of all, happy cake day to you dear lemming reading this. You make this place happen.

maegul OP ,
@maegul@lemmy.ml avatar

Hear hear!!

tmpod ,
@tmpod@lemmy.pt avatar

Great comment, cheers!

Blaze ,
@Blaze@reddthat.com avatar

Well put!

algernon , in Is Mastodon's Link-Previewing Overloading Servers ?
@algernon@lemmy.ml avatar

...and here I am, running a blog that if it gets 15k hits a second, it won't even bat an eye, and I could run it on a potato. Probably because I don't serve hundreds of megabytes of garbage to visitors. (The preview image is also controllable iirc, so just, like, set it to something reasonably sized.)

moreeni ,

Wait, you're going to tell me you don't actually have to serve bloat on a blog like it's foss? No way!

algernon ,
@algernon@lemmy.ml avatar

I only serve bloat to AI crawlers.

map $http_user_agent $badagent {
  default     0;
  # list of AI crawler user agents in "~crawler 1" format
}

if ($badagent) {
   rewrite ^ /gpt;
}

location /gpt {
  proxy_pass https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse163/20wi/files/lectures/L04/bee-movie.txt;
}

...is a wonderful thing to put in my nginx config. (you can try curl -Is -H "User-Agent: GPTBot" https://chronicles.mad-scientist.club/robots.txt | grep content-length: to see it in action ;))

delirious_owl ,
@delirious_owl@discuss.online avatar

Your bandwidth bill lol

algernon ,
@algernon@lemmy.ml avatar

I don't think serving 86 kilobytes to AI crawlers will make any difference in my bandwidth use :)

delirious_owl ,
@delirious_owl@discuss.online avatar

Oic its a redirect now

algernon ,
@algernon@lemmy.ml avatar

It's not. It just doesn't get enough hits for that 86k to matter. Fun fact: most AI crawlers hit /robots.txt first, they get served a bee movie script, fail to interpret it, and leave, without crawling further. If I'd let them crawl the entire site, that'd result in about two megabytes of traffic. By serving a 86kb file that doesn't pass as robots.txt and has no links, I actually save bandwidth. Not on a single request, but by preventing a hundred others.

skullgiver , (edited )
@skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl avatar

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

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  • Moonrise2473 ,

    Or serve a gzip bomb (is that possible?)

    ShittyKopper ,
    Simon , in Pixelfed introduces Loops, a Short-Form Video App

    Vine 3.0 let's try this again

    GlitterInfection ,

    This time it's personal!

    GBU_28 ,

    Wait, we want anonymous

    GlitterInfection ,

    Electric boogloo?

    GBU_28 ,

    Never met her

    Daz , in Announcing Ibis, the federated Wikipedia Alternative
    @Daz@lemmy.ml avatar

    I don't think a federated wiki is solving any of the problems of wikipedia. You've just made a wiki that is more easily spammed and will have very few contributors. Yes, Wikipedia is centralized, but it's a good thing. No one has to chase down the just perfect wikipedia site to find general information, just the one. The negative of wikipedia is more its sometimes questionable moderation and how its english-centric. This has more to do with fundamentally unequal internet infrastructure in most countries than anything though. Imperialism holds back tech.

    I agree that it might be fine for niche wikis but again, why in the world would you ever want your niche wiki federated? Sounds like a tech solution looking for the wrong problem.

    GarbageShoot ,

    sometimes questionable moderation

    That's one way of putting it. Another way is "ramrodding the narratives of anglo chauvinists that are to the right of even the neoliberal historical consensus".

    morrowind ,
    @morrowind@lemmy.ml avatar

    I think it solves the problems of Fandom, but yeah Wikipedia is good

    Kuori ,
    @Kuori@hexbear.net avatar

    Wikipedia is good

    until you want to learn about a group or country opposed to the west and then it's about as educational as stormfront

    Daz ,
    @Daz@lemmy.ml avatar

    Wikipedia doesn't replace books. In my comment at least that's why I was specific about "general information". I think everyone must be aware that when it comes to Wikipedia on history or current events, it will largely be from a liberal and pro-west perspective. Not all the time, and usually the references and further reading sections point in more interesting directions. But this is far more valuable than the most boring so-called Marxist wikis. If you want critical history, go read historians like Gerald Horne, read first-hand accounts from journalists like Edgar Snow and so on.

    Besides the purely political, wikipedia is also good for overviews on technical and scientific interests. Even with the negatives of wikipedia, I'd take it any day over some decentralized spam fest where its a gamble if you found the best version of some article. Not to mention core issues of the fediverse, such as whether the hypothetical wiki instance you found yourself on will sustain itself long-term.

    Some days I wonder if the core Lemmy developers have drifted further towards anarchist politics and philosophy..

    morrowind ,
    @morrowind@lemmy.ml avatar

    what is stormfront

    Erika3sis ,
    @Erika3sis@hexbear.net avatar

    Nazi forum

    IronKrill ,

    Self-hosting any wiki software solves the problems of Fandom, surely? I fail to see how federation solves any of Fandom's issues.

    morrowind ,
    @morrowind@lemmy.ml avatar

    No, for the same reason forums can't replace reddit. Self hosted wikis have been around before and after fandom. The reason it became popular was giving you all the fandom wikis together, one account, discoverable, user friendly so regulars can contribute. If I have to sign up to every fandom wiki I can contribute to, learn a new interface (likely something old and not mobile friendly) and rebuilt up any reputation to gain extra editing rights... I just won't.

    Ibis then in theory allows you to use one account, federate your reputation, use one interface, with lots of third party options if you don't like the official one (if lemmy is any indication) and have discoverability of new wikis.

    lolcatnip ,

    There is actually at least one other: Conservapedia. It's for people who live in a weird right-wing fantasy land.

    a_wild_mimic_appears ,

    Conservapedia views Albert Einstein's theory of relativity as promoting moral relativism, ...

    ithinkihadastroke

    mindbleach ,

    Arguably even Fandom / Wikia is ruined by plain old greed more than centralization. What's wrong with it isn't content, it's the fact every page loads seven ads, a roll of clickbait, and a goddamn Discord server. A weird blog site for editable text and tiny images would work fine if it wasn't twisted to feed Engagemagog.

    melmi , in Sublinks Aims to Be a Drop-In Replacement for Lemmy
    @melmi@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    It's kind of ironic taking a project that's already written in Rust and writing a replacement for it in Java.

    Usually things get ported to Rust, not the other way around.

    1984 ,
    @1984@lemmy.today avatar

    Yeah I don't think I want anything Java running on my systems...

    StopSpazzing ,
    @StopSpazzing@lemmy.world avatar

    Same. Let's slow things down! IDK what they were thinking?

    1984 ,
    @1984@lemmy.today avatar

    I mean, Java has faster developer speed since it's much less complicated than Rust. But it will also use a lot more memory. That being said, I guess most of what happens in Lemmy is database queries anyway and that will go equally fast in Java.

    Rust is a very fast language but for a web app like Lemmy it's probably not that important that it's rust underneath.

    But I really dislike Java. Lots of issues with code only working on a specific JDK, and code being very ugly due to all classes and shit.

    SorteKanin ,
    @SorteKanin@feddit.dk avatar

    Java has faster developer speed since it’s much less complicated than Rust

    [citation needed]

    To give some context: Exception-based error handling is insanely complex. The error handling of Rust is much simpler to reason about. Finding out where errors happen is a lot simpler.

    The only Java dev I know is an older guy who started university with me at the same time - I was 20, he was 45. He knew Java, I didn't. Java is not the future if you ask me.

    1984 ,
    @1984@lemmy.today avatar

    No of course not. But it's faster to code in since you don't have to worry about the borrow checker.

    SorteKanin ,
    @SorteKanin@feddit.dk avatar

    "faster to code in"... I would not say so. In my personal experience, Rust can be very fast to code in once you get comfortable with it, since you barely even need to run your code to know that it works. You also save a lot of time via less debugging.

    somethingp ,

    Yeah this sounds like someone doesn't know rust and instead of learning it they're porting to Java? It might also be a way to capture an existing userbase as it's still compatible with lemmy, but also adds features that might cause more people to use it. But being written in Java is an excuse to make it more difficult to migrate the additions back upstream to lemmy. Maybe they hope that this will eventually allow them to build out a private platform?

    frozen , in You Can Now Follow President Biden on the Fediverse
    @frozen@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz avatar

    I mean. I can't because I defederated from Threads. But neat, I guess.

    Mongostein ,

    You could create another account on someone else’s instance to do it you really wanted to

    umbrella ,
    @umbrella@lemmy.ml avatar

    yeah but why would i want to

    Mongostein ,

    To… umm.. read Biden’s posts?

    I don’t want to either, I’m just saying you could.

    lol at the downvotes. I guess suggesting two accounts to access different Lemmy instances - something many people already do - is offensive to some. 🤷🏻‍♂️

    jmcs , in Is Mastodon's Link-Previewing Overloading Servers ?

    There's no reason why 114MB of static content over 5 minutes should be an issue for a public facing website. Hell, I probably could serve that and the images with a Raspberry Pi over my home Internet and still have bandwidth to spare.

    I think they are throwing stones at the wrong glass house/software stack.

    Sleepkever ,

    It is not, but a write amplification of 36704:1 is one hell of an exploitable surface.

    With that same Raspberry Pi and a single 1gbit connection you could also do 333333 post requests of 3 KB in a single second made on fake accounts with preferably a fake follower on a lot of fediverse instances. That would result in those fediverse servers theoretically requesting 333333 * 114MB = ~38Gigabyte/s. At least for as long as you can keep posting new posts for a few minutes and the servers hosting still have bandwidth. DDosing with a 'botnet' of fediverse servers/accounts made easy!

    I'm actually surprised it hasn't been tried yet now that I think about it...

    algernon ,
    @algernon@lemmy.ml avatar

    That would result in those fediverse servers theoretically requesting 333333 * 114MB = ~38Gigabyte/s.

    On the other hand, if the site linked would not serve garbage, and would fit like 1Mb like a normal site, then this would be only ~325mb/s, and while that's still high, it's not the end of the world. If it's a site that actually puts effort into being optimized, and a request fits in ~300kb (still a lot, in my book, for what is essentially a preview, with only tiny parts of the actual content loaded), then we're looking at 95mb/s.

    If said site puts effort into making their previews reasonable, and serve ~30kb, then that's 9mb/s. It's 3190 in the Year of Our Lady Discord. A potato can serve that.

    MinekPo1 ,
    @MinekPo1@lemmygrad.ml avatar
    autistic complaining about units

    ok so like I don't know if I've ever seen a more confusing use of units . at least you haven't used the p infix instead of the / in bandwith units .

    like you used both upper case and lowercase in units but like I can't say if it was intentional or not ? especially as the letter that is uppercased should be uppercased ?

    anyway

    1Mb

    is theoretically correct but you likely ment either one megabyte (1 MB) or one megibyte (MiB) rather than one megabit (1 Mb)

    ~325mb/s

    95mb/s

    and

    9mb/s

    I will presume you did not intend to write ~325 milibits per second , but ~325 megabits per seconds , though if you have used the 333 333 request count as in the segment you quoted , though to be fair op also made a mistake I think , the number they gave should be 3 exabits per second (3 Eb/s) or 380 terabytes per seconds (TB/s) , but that's because they calculated the number of requests you can make from a 1 gigabit (which is what I assume they ment by gbit) wrong , forgetting to account that a byte is 8 bits , you can only make 416 666 of 4 kB (sorry I'm not checking what would happen if they ment kibibytes sorry I underestimated how demanding this would be but I'm to deep in it now so I'm gonna take that cop-out) requests a second , giving 380 terabits per second (380 Tb/s) or 3.04 terabytes per second (3.04 TB/s) , assuming the entire packet is exactly 114 megabytes (114 MB) which is about 108.7 megibytes (108.7 MiB) . so anyway

    packet size theoretical bandwidth
    1 Mb 416.7 Gb/s 52.1 GB/s
    1 MB 3.3 Tb/s 416.7 GB/s
    1 MiB 3.3 Tb/s 416.7 GB/s
    300 kb 125.0 Gb/s 15.6 GB/s
    300 kB 1000.0 Gb/s 125.0 GB/s
    300 kiB 1000.0 Gb/s 125.0 GB/s
    30 kb 12.5 Gb/s 1.6 GB/s
    30 kB 100.0 Gb/s 12.5 GB/s
    30 kiB 100.0 Gb/s 12.5 GB/s

    hope that table is ok and all cause im in a rush yeah bye

    InfiniteFlow , in Oh, Zot! Nomadic Identity is Coming to ActivityPub
    @InfiniteFlow@lemmy.world avatar

    IMO, this seems exactly what the fediverse needs to thrive. The whole “choose a server” thing is a big disincentive to adoption by most people.

    poVoq ,
    @poVoq@slrpnk.net avatar

    That's not exactly what nomadic identity is about, although it can also help with that.

    The way nomadic identity is implemented in Hubzilla for example is that you can have accounts on multiple servers and by importing a shared cryptographic identity into all of them, other servers know to treat them as a single entity. Once that is established you can log into your account on any of the linked servers and use it normally. But if a server goes down or you decide to delete your account on one, you can seamlessly continue to use everything from another linked server.

    otter ,
    @otter@lemmy.ca avatar

    Super cool, the worry of an instance dying will make people avoid smaller instances and pick the big stable ones. Having this safety net should help balance things out.

    I wonder if this could work with threadiverse communities. We've seen communities disappear when an instance goes down. Could the communities also be saved like this?

    ada ,
    @ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    I don't see why not. And in fact, they would benefit from the whole relay thing, allowing multiple accounts on different instances to be the "same" community

    jqubed ,
    @jqubed@lemmy.world avatar

    That could be an improvement over following 3 or 4 identically named communities on different instances

    poVoq ,
    @poVoq@slrpnk.net avatar

    Personally I like that there are different communities with different characters, but the option for community moderators to opt into such a nomadic arrangement would certainly not hurt. At least it is much better than if 3rd parties like clients or alternative implementations like Piedfed smash them together with currently no way for communities to opt out of that.

    jqubed ,
    @jqubed@lemmy.world avatar

    Yes, it should definitely be optional

    0x1C3B00DA ,
    @0x1C3B00DA@fedia.io avatar

    It wouldn't change that, unless the moderators of those communities agreed to merge them by using the same cryptographic identity.

    ada ,
    @ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    This article was the first time I understood that particular way of implementing nomadic identity, and it's the first time I've felt genuinely excited by the idea.

    My concern is that with "instanceless" nomadic identity on the fediverse is that ultimately, it would mean that instance would lose their sense of differentiation and community, and would simply be infrastructure instead, and that's how we we end up with bluesky.

    This implementation though is amazing. It lets people actively lean in to community based instances, without having to only pick one, and it gives people protection against loss of any particular instance.

    poVoq ,
    @poVoq@slrpnk.net avatar

    Indeed I am also slightly weary of too easy account migration. Not only do instances lose character because of it, but also are much more likely to be shut down or abandoned if it can be justified with easy account migration. The instance I am currently on for example would probably not exist anymore had not the previous admin felt the need to hand it over to someone else.

    But in the bigger picture I think Hubzilla's nomadic identity is a good compromise of balancing out these different considerations.

    0x1C3B00DA ,
    @0x1C3B00DA@fedia.io avatar

    Super disagree. A community at the protocol level can have just as much character as a community at the network level, but without most of the drawbacks. The "instance as community" idea was always a poor substitute for actual Groups. The community shouldn't be a server that users are bound to; it should be a Group that has access controls and private memberships (if desired). The moderators get all the same benefits of maintaining a limited community with their own rules, but users aren't beholden to petty drama via instance blocks or defederation.

    poVoq ,
    @poVoq@slrpnk.net avatar

    That's one way to look at it, sure. But it fails to account for community dynamics. The fediverse is largely run by volunteers and funded by that small percentage of users that feel strongly committed to their particular instance. If you break that up you end up with only a few large and likely advertisement funded instances being able to survive.

    This is also why I doubt Bluesky federation will be ever anything but a novelty for some self-hosters.

    0x1C3B00DA ,
    @0x1C3B00DA@fedia.io avatar

    If you break that up you end up with only a few large and likely advertisement funded instances being able to survive.

    I'm not saying I don't think instances should be able to use that model, only that I think that model should not be the dominant way of building a community on the fediverse. But I don't see why a user would be less attached to a community just because its hosted on a different server from them, especially on the threadiverse which is topic based and where users are most likely going to engage in multiple topics.

    deadsuperhero OP Mod ,
    @deadsuperhero@lemmy.ml avatar

    I think another way to look at it is that accounts are tightly coupled to instances, to the point of being a detriment. I've personally lost all of my data and had to start over from scratch 5 or 6 times due to servers suddenly going down over the years.

    Groups are one way to abstract community functions up a level, and what's crazy is that Group Actors themselves could also have a similar thing. People have talked about merged cross-instance communities on Lemmy; this would be one way of enabling that.

    InfiniteFlow ,
    @InfiniteFlow@lemmy.world avatar

    That makes total sense. Still, it removes the pressure of choosing a server, since migration and use of several servers becomes seamless. As it is right now, there’s the resilience and future lifespan of an instance to consider, plus fragmentation of your identify as defined not by your username but by your actual “online persona” constructed from your posts, etc. (unless you’re really going for alts, of course). You can create other identities on other instances but they are separate, you “lose” your posts, etc. if something happens. if I understood correctly, that becomes less of an issue with nomadic identity?

    poVoq ,
    @poVoq@slrpnk.net avatar

    Yes as long as you remember to link up your account to one on another instance before it goes down ;)

    Perfide , in queer.af, a Mastodon instance, has been killed by the Taliban

    Maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't be picking domains based on stuff like "hehe it says queer as fuck lul"? What did they expect to happen picking Afghanistan of all places for the domain of an LGBT instance?

    jackpot ,
    @jackpot@lemmy.ml avatar

    funny as shit

    PanArab , in Jack Dorsey says he quit Bluesky because it was becoming another Twitter

    They built it to be another Twitter.

    vonbaronhans ,

    That's what I was thinking. Wasn't that the point?

    kbal , in Lemmy.ml is supposedly blocked in China
    @kbal@fedia.io avatar

    As the comment there says, the surprise is that not every instance is blocked yet.

    But I've seen hardly any Chinese on the fediverse, so they probably don't care that much. And it's not just that I've stuck to the English-speaking parts, there's been lots of Japanese and various European languages. I suppose even if it otherwise would have a chance to catch on there, Chinese users know that if it did it quickly would get blocked.

    Daz OP ,
    @Daz@lemmy.ml avatar

    Wouldn't they just use a VPN? I know they're technically illegal in China but from what I've heard lots of people still use them regularly.

    kbal ,
    @kbal@fedia.io avatar

    I'm sure lots of people do, it's a big country. But for the vast majority I imagine that the risk of getting in trouble for it, plus the risk of the one you paid for getting successfully blocked, plus the difficulty of finding out which ones are allowed to operate only because they share all your data with the authorities, plus the cost, plus the usual difficulties in finding a good vpn outweigh any desire to communicate freely with foreigners.

    Buelldozer ,
    @Buelldozer@lemmy.today avatar

    I feel like I should say that a VPN isn't a magic bullet. Even if its configured correctly to totally obfuscate the data and the final endpoint of the traffic it's still blatantly obvious that a VPN is in use. Given that the CCP monitors all of this stuff it wouldn't surprise me to learn that if you run a VPN long or often enough without providing stating why that it'll either end up blocked or you'll end up in trouble.

    ademir ,
    @ademir@lemmy.eco.br avatar

    Given that the CCP monitors all of this stuff it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that if you run a VPN long or often enough without providing stating why that it’ll either end up blocked or you’ll end up in trouble.

    How do you know this? I have friends living in China that states otherwise.

    poVoq ,
    @poVoq@slrpnk.net avatar

    As far as I know there are specific legal provisions for foreigners living in China in regards to VPN use, so what might be true for your friends isn't necessarily true for a regular Chinese person.

    andscape ,
    @andscape@feddit.it avatar

    Even if its configured correctly to totally obfuscate the data and the final endpoint of the traffic it's still blatantly obvious that a VPN is in use.

    Which is why Chinese users don't use standard VPNs, they use obfuscated proxies with protocols like Shadowsocks and V2Ray, which mask the tunneled traffic as innocuous HTTPS traffic.

    Buelldozer ,
    @Buelldozer@lemmy.today avatar

    That's a fair point, but what you are talking about isn't a "VPN", at least not as they're commonly known and understood. Please remember that my response was directed to a user whose comment boiled down to "Get a VPN, that will solve the problem." A regular VPN will absolutely not the solve the problem.

    novibe ,

    But using a VPN is not illegal in China… why would you even have to explain why you’re using one?

    Buelldozer ,
    @Buelldozer@lemmy.today avatar
    novibe ,

    Lmao South China Morning Post and Radio Free Asia are literally propaganda mouthpieces for the CIA

    Buelldozer ,
    @Buelldozer@lemmy.today avatar

    Fair enough.

    https://www.zdnet.com/article/chinese-man-arrested-after-making-1-6-million-from-selling-vpn-services/

    That one details several such cases and includes links to local coverage from Litchi News from one of them.

    Then there's this showing that the CCP banned unregistered VPNs in 2017. It's partially why they prosecuted the people in the previous article.

    https://www.neowin.net/news/china-will-block-vpn-access-for-individuals-companies-must-register-with-the-government/

    If you don't like that then here's The Guardian with a separate incident:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/22/man-in-china-sentenced-to-five-years-jail-for-running-vpn

    Seriously, I can find articles like that detailing different incidents in every major mainstream media source. So either all of them are lying to me -or- you are trying to gaslight me.

    Guess which one I think is more probable?

    Omega_Haxors ,

    The correct response to "you just posted propaganda" is not to try and find a source that says the exact same thing as the propaganda...

    Like that's the moment you should stop and say to yourself "maybe I was lied to"

    Buelldozer ,
    @Buelldozer@lemmy.today avatar

    The correct response to someone claiming something is propaganda is to go find more sources for more and separate incidents. If you can find multiple sources showing that a situation has happened multiple times then it stops being "propaganda" and starts being information.

    At this point I have a pile of independent sources documenting multiple different incidents that support my understanding of the situation. I'm still open to counter evidence but so far you haven't provided any.

    ademir ,
    @ademir@lemmy.eco.br avatar

    VPNs are not illegal in China. And one can use it to circumvent any restrictions.

    Hotzilla ,

    I assume all vpn services accessible from china are run by government and they monitor the traffic

    Socsa ,

    Non-approved VPNs used to circumvent the great wall are absolutely illegal, though largely tolerated (and observed), but the authorities can and have used them as an excuse to bring people in.

    Source: have actual been to China and played the whole "which VPN will work on which network" game many times.

    Aria ,

    White man telling you VPNs are not illegal.
    https://yewtu.be/watch?v=bzti2CELXrg

    ZILtoid1991 ,

    I've only seen Taiwanese on Mastodon, especially as they're leaving Twatter due to Chinese bot activity.

    Omega_Haxors ,

    any Chinese

    💀

    antihumanitarian , in Announcing Ibis, the federated Wikipedia Alternative

    This is almost entirely misdirected. The success of Wikipedia is from its human structures, the technical structure is close to meaningless. To propose a serious alternative you'd have to approach it from a social direction, how are you going to build a moderation incentive structures that forces your ideal outcomes?

    Federation isn't a magic bullet for moderation, alone it creates fractal moderation problems.

    jol , (edited )

    When you're a hammer, all problems look like nails. That's most engineers' perspective to social problems.

    Source: am engineer

    cupcakezealot , in Jack Dorsey says he quit Bluesky because it was becoming another Twitter
    @cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    bluesky has a robust moderation system which blocks transphobes, bigots, and racism which is why jack hates it.

    ada ,
    @ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    It doesn't block them though does it? My understanding is that it simply filters them so that you don't see them anymore. They're still there doing their thing though.

    damon ,

    It does block them more so than on fedi. When I block someone they can’t see my content nor account, they can’t log out and go see my content. It’s not just filtered, also they have banned accounts and removed content

    Jennykichu ,
    @Jennykichu@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    You're correct. It doesn't stop Nazis from having a home or building a following. It just allows users to not see it.

    Jennykichu ,
    @Jennykichu@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Uh... source? This runs counter to everything I've seen and read about it.

    guts ,

    So it's like Reddit

    _lunar , in Fedi Garden to Instance Admins: "Block Threads to Remain Listed"

    Meta: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/, https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1320040111, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facebook-files-11631713039

    Instance admins: Let's give them a chance guyyyyss!!

    Those of you who think the problem is data scraping or whatever are totally missing the point. All profit-motivated social media platforms engage in promoting hate content for engagement, and in doing so have deadly real world consequences. The Fediverse is one of the few online spaces where people can just be themselves naturally without being manipulated by algorithms. Given their history, there's no reason to assume Threads won't be any better about handling their own community, and anything that happens with them will affect the rest of us.

    VirtualOdour ,

    You think lemmy doesn't have algorithms?

    Kindness ,

    Verifiable algorithms. Algorithms meant to make using the platform enjoyable, rather than meant to entrap users for profit.

    QuaternionsRock , (edited )

    Maybe I’m just being naive, but this seems like an argument in favor of federating with Threads. One of the reasons Facebook and Instagram are so effective at driving engagement is that users have basically no ability to curate, sort, or filter the content that they see, especially since third-party clients are banned. You can’t even view most things without logging in.

    The implementation of ActivityPub in Threads is a strange departure in this context - (federated) Mastodon users can view all of the content Threads has to offer without subjecting themselves to Meta’s arguably predatory curation algorithms. It almost seems like an escape for people who want to use a Meta-sized platform without Meta getting its grubby little fingers all over your mental wellbeing.

    If people are worried that Threads will affect likes and comments (and therefore like/comment-based sorting algorithms) on other instances, it should always be possible to exclude Threads’s contribution to those metrics, no?

    octopus_ink ,

    f people are worried that Threads will affect likes and comments (and therefore like/comment-based sorting algorithms) on other instances, it should always be possible to exclude Threads’s contribution to those metrics, no?

    That's one of the effects of defederating. And you are still ignoring the overall point of the comment 2 layers up from your reply.

    Really I think you are losing the forest for the trees. Meta/Facebook/Zuck is a known quantity. They will corrupt and exploit any environment they are a part of via any means they can. We don't need to be able to predict every last detail of how they will do so to know it is true. They have a track record of being awful, anti-consumer corporate citizens. WHY would we want to try to invite them in and try to contain them? Can we make the fediverse invisible to them? Of course we can't, but why would we cooperate in any way?

    Folks who don't think this is a problem can use an instance that federates with them, just as I've chosen ( and will always choose) an instance that does not.

    There is no reasonable argument for trying to be a good neighbor to Meta, because you can always, always be sure that Meta has no concern for being a good neighbor to you.

    QuaternionsRock ,

    They will corrupt and exploit any environment they are a part of via any means they can.

    Right, unless they can’t, though. Ideally the Fediverse should be resistant to this kind of influence without resorting to defederation. I’m also concerned that defederating from Threads will make more Threads users than Mastodon users.

    We don't need to be able to predict every last detail of how they will do so to know it is true.

    I mean, some idea of what they might do would be nice.

    They have a track record of being awful, anti-consumer corporate citizens. WHY would we want to try to invite them in and try to contain them?

    I couldn’t care less about Meta itself. My interest begins and ends with Threads users. There are a ton of people that would never give the Fediverse a try for one silly reason or another—predominantly, I would argue, the fear of the unknown—and this seems like it could be an opportunity to overcome that obstacle if leveraged correctly. The prospect of everyone and our parents using social media that is not completely beholden to Meta is exciting to me.

    Again, maybe I’m wrong, but this whole thing is basically an experiment, isn’t it? I’d like to see what happens before reaching any conclusions.

    octopus_ink ,

    I’m also concerned that defederating from Threads will make more Threads users than Mastodon users.

    Already done, and by an order of magnitude at least. (probably many orders, I don't have the numbers at hand)

    I mean, some idea of what they might do would be nice.

    You can look at their entire history for that. And somewhere in this very discussion some other person has given a very plausible overview of their potential EEE approach. I'll add a link to that comment later when I have time to find it again.

    But, I'm starting to realize that no amount of evidence is sufficient for folks who want to federate with Meta, and at the end of the day my freedom ends where yours begins, so although I will continue to advocate for defederation and flee any instance that does not make that choice, I very sincerely encourage you to do you.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Criticisms_and_controversies

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawsuits_involving_Meta_Platforms

    Here's a couple recent individual ones:

    https://theintercept.com/2024/03/26/meta-gaza-censorship-warren-sanders/

    https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/03/netflix-ad-spend-led-to-facebook-dm-access-end-of-facebook-streaming-biz-lawsuit/

    The prospect of everyone and our parents using social media that is not completely beholden to Meta is exciting to me.

    I firmly believe that hoping Meta isn't going to be the worst possible company they can this time is not the way to achieve that, and is in fact actively working against that future possibility.

    I've been alive, adult, and working in IT for the entirety of the existence of Facebook, so I've had a long time to see everything I needed to see about them.

    QuaternionsRock ,

    But, I'm starting to realize that no amount of evidence is sufficient for folks who want to federate with Meta

    This is an incorrect assumption, because

    And somewhere in this very discussion some other person has given a very plausible overview of their potential EEE approach. I'll add a link to that comment later when I have time to find it again.

    I would be very interested to read this! There are definitely limits to my optimism here. I think Meta is a horrible company and I don’t expect them to act in the best interests of the Fediverse; I’m just not yet convinced that them giving up what is essentially free and ad-free API access to one of their platforms cannot be used to our advantage. Threads federation could absolutely be catastrophic, but it’s also possible that it’s a good opportunity; that’s all I’m saying.

    octopus_ink ,

    This is an incorrect assumption, because

    And somewhere in this very discussion some other person has given a very plausible overview of their potential EEE approach. I’ll add a link to that comment later when I have time to find it again.

    In a non snarky way I say that if the dozens of actual past actions linked in the two wikipedia links, plus the recent events I linked, still leave you in doubt, I don't see how a plausible but still speculative EEE summary is going to tip you over, but I'll clap anyway if it does, so:

    https://lemmy.ml/comment/9792668

    Quoting @Gestrid :

    What’s the number of Threads users compared to Lemmy? If the number of Threads users greatly outweigh the number of Lemmy users, then we’d simply be drowned out by all the Threads posts. That’s part one of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

    Extend adds functionality to Threads that Lemmy either can’t support or won’t support for a while due to development time. People migrate to Threads because Lemmy is “missing” functionality. Plus, though I’m not clear on the exact legal specifications, proprietary code can be added to open-source code, and the proprietary code would be copyrighted. In other words, Lemmy devs would have to figure out a way to interact with and mimic Threads’ proprietary code using open-source code.

    Extinguish is when Threads’ support of Lemmy is eventually dropped. The users left on Lemmy have suddenly lost a huge amount of content, and they’re left with fewer users than before Threads enabled federation.

    There are definitely limits to my optimism here.

    I do feel a little bit bad being the table pounding pessimist in this circumstance, but I don't see how one can look at this company's history and come to any other conclusion. It frustrates me like few other areas of disagreement about tech do to imagine folks look at everything Meta has done and think we need to wait and see how they will handle this.

    Regardless, I appreciate the conversation. :)

    VirtualOdour ,

    That's the same thing with a different label.

    marcie ,
    @marcie@lemmy.ml avatar

    for real. im new to lemmy but places like hexbear seem really good for trans stuff. i hate how so many trans places are dependent upon facebook or reddit to exist. facebook itself is problematic because those fuckers already assisted a genocide in myanmar, whats to stop them from helping to massacre trans people here?

    Omega_Haxors ,

    hexbear seem really good for trans stuff.

    HB and blahj are the two explicitly pro-trans instances. Hexbear is strongly oriented towards communism but I would strongly suggest them over blahj just because of their abysmal handling of c/196's noncery. They just don't have as strong of a track record as hexbear.

    marcie ,
    @marcie@lemmy.ml avatar

    hexbear seems way more active in the trans spaces at least. its also nice seeing everyones pronouns and being able to guess what variant of transness someone is talking about when theyre describing their experiences.

    im on lemmy cause i saw advice saying that you could access pretty much all the lgbt spots on the fediverse from here, which seems true. ive already seen a bunch of transphobic bullshit on this site and on blahaj so maybe ill just swap to hexbear, idk

    Omega_Haxors ,

    Yeah you should make the jump if not seeing transphobia is your goal. lemmyML is a great omni-instance but as a result you're going to be exposed to a lot of right-wing bullshit. And really, transphobia on blahj? That's extremely disappointing but not all that surprising.

    marcie , (edited )
    @marcie@lemmy.ml avatar

    yeah one of the top trans posts the other day was filled with transphobes and people debating the merits of transphobia. i think blahaj doesnt have very active modding?

    Omega_Haxors ,

    They do have moderators they just care more about PR-washing than actually protecting their trans base. I would stay away from them.

    davel ,
    @davel@lemmy.ml avatar

    We aggressively remove transphobic/transmisic posts/comments on lemmy.ml. Please report any that you see. But understand that we don’t control the content of other Lemmy instances, so when you select “All” instead of “Subscribed” or “Local,” it’s the wild west.

    marcie , (edited )
    @marcie@lemmy.ml avatar

    i guess the question is more of bans and not just removals. for instance this guy https://lemmy.ml/comment/9833425 seems to regularly go on to write misogynistic and queerphobic screeds, but seems to not have been banned because he is a moderator and has been here for 4 years?

    davel ,
    @davel@lemmy.ml avatar

    He’s gotten some temporary bans as well as post/comment removals. Omega_haxor is right about hexbear: it’s explicitly socialist, unlike lemmy.ml, and it’s even more explicitly supportive / aggressively protective of the trans community. Several of the largest instances have defederated from hexbear, so for better or worse, access is more limited.

    marcie ,
    @marcie@lemmy.ml avatar

    my thing is this guy is a clear misogynist, hes discussed his misogyny for 4 years now. you dont have to be a socialist to think thats unacceptable. are the rules simply never enforced with bans?

    marcie ,
    @marcie@lemmy.ml avatar

    no answer? alright jotting that down... ✏

    davel ,
    @davel@lemmy.ml avatar

    Okay, let me know how this passive-aggressive pressure tactic works out, person who just just got here. I’ve given you my answer.

    marcie , (edited )
    @marcie@lemmy.ml avatar

    getting all defensive about keeping misogynists around? maybe just ban the misogynist? doesnt take someone being new to realize that youre just inviting reactionaries that will drive people off the service, i had this whole interaction and understanding within three fucking days. people come here to leave reddit, not to find more redditors

    i asked, and you did not answer, do you actually enforce your rules with permanent bans? what causes someone to be worthy of a permanent ban? do you simply just like this guy and go to bat for him?

    davel , (edited )
    @davel@lemmy.ml avatar

    I’m not going to take the time to dispel your presumptions nor explain myself, my motivations, or this Lemmy instance. I’ll just say that I’m not convening a grand jury trial and constitutional convention because one new user (who on first impression is giving Western chauvinism vibes) had one negative interaction with one Global South socialist who has been here over four times longer than me.

    Edit to add: Again, please note that this is not an explicitly socialist instance. I won’t elaborate as to why, but it’s no more by accident than the explicitly socialist ones. What is lemmy.ml?

    marcie , (edited )
    @marcie@lemmy.ml avatar

    who on first impression is giving Western chauvinism vibes

    🤣 im a communist, dweeb. you dont have to be a communist to think misogyny is bad, in fact, thats the prevailing opinion almost everywhere. the idea that the global south is in some way inherently reactionary is absurd

    all youre giving off is chauvinistic reactionary misogynist vibes. jesus christ this place is a shithole, good luck getting anyone that isnt a white guy and/or a techbro here. all im getting is you got a handful of bigoted buddies that you hang out with and are completely uninterested in introspecting on it

    Apollo42 ,

    Hexbear is definitely a good place for trans stuff, its just a shame about all of the authoritarians.

    marcie ,
    @marcie@lemmy.ml avatar

    youre starting to really sell me on it

    davel ,
    @davel@lemmy.ml avatar

    There is a spectre haunting Lemmy hexbear-specter

    octopus_ink ,

    for real. im new to lemmy but places like hexbear seem really good for trans stuff.

    I am not trans, and so this may be incorrect, but while of course you can use any instance you choose, IIRC it's https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/ that is very explicitly trans-supportive at the instance level. (I'm not saying other instances are transphobic, to be clear)

    Edit: I see you've already taken the convo far past the comment I replied to, sorry for not reading ahead!

    papaya , in Single-user Mastodon Instance is a Bad Idea

    As someone who's had a single-user Mastodon instance for two years now: I love it. It's definitely not for everyone, for reasons mainly stated in the article. However, if you like a more personal, highly-curated federated timeline, a single-user instance is great.

    I 90% use Mastodon to keep up with my friends' posts and see art and animal pictures (and I hate interacting with strangers LOL), so I curate my instance to only subscribe to them. For the remaining 10%, I have a secondary account on a larger instance for when I want to read the news etc. It's worked well for me, but again, it's surely not for everyone!

    brbposting ,

    I hate interacting with strangers

    I would reply but that would be awkwarddd. Hey, wait - PAPAYA? Is that YOU?! :p

    delirious_owl ,
    @delirious_owl@discuss.online avatar

    Does this allow you to do a full text search of all posts on all instances that you federate with?

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