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this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2024
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Fediverse
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Criticizing China on lemmy.ml goes about as well as evangelizing crypto on awful.systems. Join an instance that shares your values or roll your own. Know your audience or get the hammer.
It's like a huge chunk of the population out here has never experienced a forum before.
It is far more than just that. Removing comments is one thing, mass-banning from many communities at once despite never even having commented in them at all is another, but the real issue is using database manipulation to delete the log entries as to why the comments were removed after the fact.
Even if unintentional, which strains credulity, this is some spez-level stuff going on, edit: where we have the option to either take what a single person (who does not seem inclined to follow their own stated rules) offers, or else we can leave. Many are choosing the latter, and like the Rexodus, making the situation known to others as well in the process.
"Criticizing China" was merely the spark that lit the match, with the situation offering proof of what apparently people have been suspecting for some time now.
The sad part is that this situation was entirely predictable a year ago.
The Lemmy devs (who also run lemmy.ml) made no secret of who they are and what they believe. Especially dessalines.
I do think they have made a very good piece of software. And I think we're better off here than on Reddit. At least it is more difficult for one asshole to ruin everything. We have tools to block people and instances, so it doesn't matter as much even if they're in charge.
I worry that if lemmy.ml continues to be run the way that it is, then it will bleed over into the software side, and we would be forced to fork Lemmy. So far though, despite running lemmy.ml like assholes, the actual development seems fine -- not too different from any other open source project (I only remember that one issue where dessalines completely failed to understand why a user would want to block an instance).
The irony is that, despite creating a tool with what seems like very socialist principles (it gives users & communities a lot of power, and doesn't centralize that power with one person), those principles are often lost on the devs in favor of authoritarianism. Hence the term: "tankie".
Oh he knows why, because he IS why. He wants to pretend he doesn't because he knows people will use it to block the instances that force the politics he enjoys. Nobody is fucking trying to escape star trek lol, it's him and his ilk and he knows it, and since their goal is evangelism (they have to save our souls with authoritarian dictatorships!) he doesn't want the evangelism machine shut down.
Fascism is quite capable at achieving its goals - seeing as how it is not limited by any of that pesky "morality" that slows others down.
You people are so lost up your own asses, you will never find yourselves. Conspiratorial nonsense driven by your McCarthyism 2.0 with a complete lack of self awareness.
But I guess I shouldn't expect anything more from a NATO funded user and instance, right? The Heritage Foundation and CIA signing the checks over here?
Very worrying indeed.
What kind of moldy McCarthyite garbage is this? If my Grandmother had wheels she would have been a bike.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
If my Grandmother had wheels she would have been a bike.
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
You need to take a step back. You can't see the forest for the trees. Our strength is in our diversity.
Hexbear defederated from us as we were discussing whether to vote on defederating them, which was a foregone conclusion. Our users can't walk into their communities, because they are scared that we might poke a hole in their bubble. Perhaps these boogeymen that you envision are less interested in taking over the world, and more interested in simply having their own space on the internet.
It's not nice to put words in someone else's mouth. I will always protect my users against being brigaded. Hence why we were about to defederate hexbear before they beat us to the punch. But we aren't being brigaded by lemmy.ml.
You actually believe Dessalines is taking money from the Chinese government? Come on dude, that's absurd. Occam's razor: he just doesn't like when people say shit he doesn't agree with, and petulantly bans them. It's not a conspiracy, it's just an internet moderation saga that has played out a million times before.
Just going to address your first paragraph: I sincerely doubt that the devs are receiving money from a fascist government. I simply don't think Lemmy is big enough yet to be on the radar of e.g., the Chinese government. Yes, maybe there are some Wumaos on here. My understanding is they get better training and autonomy these days, so it's certainly possible. But most of the comments look more homegrown. I just doubt the Chinese government (or any similar government) would care to the point of trying to pay off devs, and it's not their MO anyways.
But you're happy to spread this rumor around.
Doesn't seem very responsible to spread that indeed.
It may have come from a hole in the ground. It may have come from the Pentagon. It may have come little green men from Mars. What are you smoking?
I don't even admit to anyone that I use Lemmy, too much political extremism and propaganda.
Within a couple weeks of signing up for Lemmy I was told I'd "get the wall", and had to abandon an account because Lemmy.ml users followed me around and downvoted everything I posted (mostly funny memes).
But after I blocked hexbear.net and Lemmygrad.ml, I started to forget that all of that was even there, though I internally made a kind of automatic mental block for Lemmy.ml too (like WHAT!? oh nvm it's from them...). I shouldn't forget though, that that is what a new user would see... thus it would be quite unfriendly for me to bring fresh meat to the fascist audience for their amusement.
Listening to instance admins, I just don't know why they refuse to see those campaigns of brigading as you described happened to you (can you prove it btw, like if the account still exists, and you find a way to view downvotes - does Mbin let you? I tried but maybe it needs a login to do that and it appears greyed out to me without one...), and they say things like "they don't affect our users" (bullshit, you just perfectly described a situation that I suspect happens all the time where it does), and basically act like bullying and intimidation is not a thing that exists in the world. Like, if you ever say anything to anger someone on lemmy.ml, then that's your fault and you deserve whatever comes your way after that!?
Tbf, there are instances - e.g. reddthat.com - that disable downvotes entirely. But I don't want to simply become insensitive to everyone else's disapproval around me - rather I want the system to work properly so that I am only getting disapproval from people who I either respect or at least are neutral, i.e. not fascists who abuse the system bc they are allowed to by inattentive admins.
If there was an instance somewhere that had defederated from the Big 3 Axis powers - hexbear.net, lemmygrad.ml, and lemmy.ml - I would likely join it, and promote it, and recommend Lemmy to people irl again. Otherwise, I will either leave the Fediverse if it gets too bad, or far more likely simply block lemmy.ml but then only enjoy the Fediverse privately rather than as something I am allowed to share bc of how poor and off-putting the initial user experience is.:-(
It is extremely sad how heavily this aspect hinders our continued growth - even if Reddit does something annoying like finally kills off old-reddit for good this time, are people really going to want to come here, so that instead of being exposed to the right-wing propaganda over there, they can be exposed to the fascism-disguised-as-leftism over here? Fascists are controlling everything, everywhere!?!? But we were supposed to be different, here. At least that's what we told ourselves.
Yeah, well said. I'm not sure about seeing where downvotes come from, if I could it might be worth getting back into my abandoned account to provide more evidence that defederation is warranted.
Same. I want a system where everyone has an equal voice with limited censorship and a zero tolerance approach to governments or corporations spreading agendas.
The problem with "equal voice" is that those who are okay to resort to unethical behavior - like spinning up 1000 bots - can "win", over those who constrain themselves to more ethical routes, of speaking or voting one-by-one. Obviously nobody is perfect, but game theoretical analysis shows us that the more unethical someone allows themselves to be, the more they can "game the system" - which DOES work, at least in the short-term.
iirc, blocking someone also prevents them from downvoting you. Though I'm not positive that that works when you, as an individual user, block an entire instance. So if there was lets say 10 people that follow you around downvoting literally everything that you do, blocking them would mean that either you would have put a stop to that, or else they would have to spin up additional bots to continue - which at least forces them to put in additional effort. Unless its an instance user block, in which case you no longer get notifications from their replies, but you can still see their comments, reply back to them, I think vote in either direction, etc. b/c that kind of blocking basically does very little to separate you away from them.
It seems to me that posting is inherently an unequal activity, compared to voting, b/c whereas when we do the former we expose ourselves to criticism, but others who use solely the latter can hide behind anonymity when they vote. Thus the system inherently is not "equal" at all, unless we could either post anonymously, or else if we could see who is doing the voting. I might not even mind if I got 40 down-votes, all from hexbear.net, lemmygrad.ml, and lemmy.ml - I probably would wear that accomplishment as an achievement with pride:-) - but in that case I would want to know that that is the case, as opposed to 40 downvotes from non-brainwashed masses.
Yeah, I see equal voice as an important goal to strive for, but realize that's difficult on anonymous social media. It seems like it'll only get worse as LLMs improve.
Agreed. But to be fair, there's never been a forum like the fediverse before. People are still learning how to navigate this complex, multifaceted space. It's not just one audience, it's many different ones.