I've been trying Lemmy for a little while and wasn't sure how to feel about it.
Today, I wanted to start blocking the most high-censorship instances until I could find a fully zero-censorship instance and simply block all the ones with censorship. Filter bots, not people.
When I looked into it further, I found out there are no zero-censorship instances, because Lemmy relies on a broken "federation" system where each instance is supposed to be able to fetch posts from other instances, but it's never been finished to reach a fully working state. Lemmy's official docs say you can't even do federation over Tor at all. This means it uses DNS, so it won't actually allow Lemmy instances to fetch posts from each other freely, it just gets blocked instantly and easily, every time the authorities feel like blocking anything.
So you can only ever have the "average joe lemmy" and "average joe reddit" with everything approved by the authorities, and then "tor copies of lemmy" and "tor copies of reddit" where you have free speech but you can only reach other nerds.
People seem to think Lemmy is different because this weird censorship fetish is extremely popular and most of you are happy to see bans happen to certain people, not just bots, so a small Lemmy that censors certain people feels fundamentally different from a big reddit that censors more people. But it's the exact same thing, it's reddit.
When reddit was smaller, you could say basically anything you wanted there, they just wouldn't let it reach the main audience. Then it got too big, and any tiny part of the audience you could reach would be too big, so they won't let you talk at all.
Lemmy is now the small part of reddit where you can say whatever you want, separated from the main audience, until too much growth happens and you have to move again.
It's not actually a solution to reddit. It's not designed to be different, it's designed to match the past today and then match reddit's present tomorrow, while being part of a system that's about the same in past, present, and future.
Last year, this year, and next year, you're posting somewhere it won't be seen by many people, and the system that charges people for ambulance rides is getting another year of ambulance ride revenue, facing no organized resistance. There's no difference here.
Lemmy urgently needs federation between onion service instances and DNS addresses in order to actually do what most users seem to wish it would do: allow discussion outside what the corporate authorities allow, while outgrowing reddit & helping undo the damage social media has done to human communication.
Unless you're using a zero-censorship instance it likely will block zero-censorship instances. So it's not a surprise you couldn't find one.
You need to define "fully working state".
Not necessarily. It could be possible to use standard IP addresses directly instead of domain names. In fact odds are good that would work already.
That's overly simplistic. Under a substantially sensorial authority the "average joe" would out of necessity, become such a nerd.
It's not Reddit. The difference is, democratic censorship vs corporate censorship. Reddit users have no real power over what gets censored or not. On Lemmy they do. If your instance censors something you want to see, there's little friction in moving to another one.
That's a big difference.
Unless you think people are owed reach and exposure to a broad platform. In that case yes all censorship is suppressing your right to be heard by everyone in the world.
To be clear you don't have that right.
Censorship isn't the only way to differentiate from Reddit. Lemmy is also different in countless other ways; Algorithms and advertising to begin with. It's myopic and supremely egotistical to think your one idea is the only difference that matters.
Since the context was a tool designed to improve reddit's model by giving clones the ability to "federate" with each other, I guess a "fully working state" would be one where improvement from the reddit model cannot be furthered by adding more ability for clones to "federate" with each other.
Is this a gish gallop, or do you think IP addresses are like Onion addresses instead of DNS?
That's what I'm hoping, yes. There's also the risk that the planet is just going extinct instead. You can't just wish for the best and take it for granted. Freedom isn't free.
If Lemmy users aren't using Tor, then they aren't coordinating to take any authority away from the corporations.
I don't know how many times you people are going to make me repeat this.
First you were on a small corner of reddit, which was a small corner of the internet, which was a small corner of the screens.
Then the internet got bigger, and reddit got bigger, and now Lemmy is that size corner.
Then Lemmy will either stay this size, or fragment again when it gets bigger.
Without Tor, there's zero difference.
Nope.
Again, not making sense, just trying to reframe things in a way where you can insult me.
Incorrect. I'm not the one being egotistical and, depending what "myopic" means, probably not that either. I am focusing on what matters, you are not.
That's not what a Gish Gallop is.
Myopic
Definition 3: Narrow-minded
Also you aren't really connecting the dots well as to how Lemmy can be censored by corporate authorities, or what specifically those are. Explaining those may help your case. Size also, it's not clear how that really matters to censorship.
Not clicking your link, but what you quoted here is what a Gish Gallop is, and what the reply I was replying to is (hence why I brought it up)
What's not? Like, what were you referring to?
So, like "egotistical," I'm not the one being myopic
What dots have I not connected?
These posts have a small audience. I've said that.
In the past, this small audience was on reddit. I've said that.
This audience isn't much bigger than it was on reddit. There's no fundamental difference in how censored you are right now, with Lemmy vs reddit. The authorities have successfully kept your audience about as small as they were successfully able to keep it on reddit. I've said that.
In the future, if Lemmy tries to grow this audience using its current design, it can't really get far past where it was on reddit without the authorities fucking it up by blocking IP addresses and domain names. I've said that.
I don't know what new thing to say to "connect the dots," you're just making me repeat myself.
Edit - no reply, 2 downvotes. Community full of mentally ill bullies who waste time with bullshit, and then run out of bullshit to say and just stop replying, without admitting they were wrong in any way.
Who are "the authorities" here? The owners of instances? It's not clear what you're referring to.
Why would "the authorities" (whatever that means) block IP addresses and domain names in the event of potential Lemmy growth?
Why are you asking again and acting like it isn't clear when I've answered this question in very clear wording multiple different ways for you already?
Same reason they created FCC licenses, same reason they started taking subreddits away from reddit mods by force, etc.
War criminals would find it difficult to keep being granted authority by The People without seeding mental illness and shifting the "overton window" as far as possible from realism
You use the word "authorities" in such a vague and bizarre way that it's like someone just saying "the man!" The "authorities" here seem to be the active userbase, so far as I can tell, and community moderators and instance admins - most of whom all desire a moderated experience as most people on here, as I've said, don't want to use a forum with no rules.
Reddit has always been able and willing to take away subreddits from moderators, and has done so since its inception. That doesn't really have anything with domain names and IP blocking.
Not sure what FCC licences would have to do with anything here. What specific "authority" would even be blocking IP addresses and domain names from Lemmy?
Incorrect on being vague / bizarre, but some people do use "the man" as a synonym
You left a lot out but did you have a point here?
Incorrect. They were always able, but not willing and didn't do it until years in. I think not even until after Aaron Swartz was out of the way.
Why do you keep lying? Is it just that you're a deeply dishonest person? Again, it's pretty much just us here, unless lying to me about reddit is supposed to somehow bait admins/mods into censoring me
Why are you complaining to me about your own inability to understand basic English yet again?
Why are you yet again repeating questions I've directly given you and others in this thread answers to multiple times?
Yes, and that's also vague and basically a constructed boogeyman.
Who else are the relevant agents in the Fediverse outside of the userbase, moderators and admins?
I don't really trust you as a reliable narrator here, but it'd be hard to demonstrate this either way given how awful Reddits search is looking for historical threads on this.
No, you have never answered this question. If you're going to claim that ICANN would do this, it's just a completely empty conspiracy theory.
Didn't ask.
Don't get what you're asking.
OK. Good for you or sorry that happened or whatever.
The "no" implies this is in response to me claiming I answered a question I didn't, but that doesn't seem like something I'd do, and you keep lying constantly, and I don't feel like checking what quote you copied and pasted.
Do what? If you mean the things I've claimed ICANN does, that's incorrect. I haven't really said anything about ICANN that would be a big secret or anything. It's all pretty widely documented.
I said, when describing the 'authorities' of the Fediverse that it's comprised of the users, mods and admins. You said I "left a lot out". Who else did I leave out here?
Name a single website that ICANN has shut down
POTUS, ICANN, etc.
Weird how you keep begging me to do this when you have nothing to offer anyone
They have zero involvement in the Fediverse.
Incorrect.
Provide evidence that ICANN and/or the President meddle and intervene in the management and running of the Fediverse.