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this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2024
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It affects people who think that Lemmy.ml is the default instance, as it says itself and people say that any instance is fine to join.
It also affects people in the batshit insane comments that come from people on that instance, like lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net, that occur with noticeably higher frequency than from other places.
It also affects people on that instance who talk as if into a void with many people blocking their instance but they don't even know that. And that effect will increase over time.
It lowers traffic on the Fediverse, decreasing overall engagement, and drives people away from it altogether. It also lowers the likelihood that you can recommend to people irl to check out the Fediverse - when THAT stuff (e.g. defense of genocide) is seen it tends to turn people off who aren't used to it or who are tech or culture savvy enough to know how to handle it.
So it does affect you, I promise, even if not directly, and over the next few months will do so increasingly as your instance turns into more of an echo chamber than it has been in the past, as more people block it either individually or at an instance level.
Agreed that many of the users are regular people who are just innocently getting swept up in all of this due to the actions of the admins. Just like users of Reddit were when spez did his power flex moves.
You might want to at least make an alt somewhere else so that you get some experiences that your .ml account increasingly will start to lack.
I hear you. When I first joined .ml, they were pressing for people NOT to join it. To create their own instances so that .ml didn't become a central entity, and get overwhelmed with users. The latter did occur during the reddit exodus.
I also agree that they can curate and manipulate the instance to their ideals, which will limit casual users and their reach.
I don't feel like I'm being secluded, but that doesn't mean it isn't happening. I have seen hate for .ml users and hexbear users, and I really don't get it. The fediverse shouldn't be segregating users based on what instance they're in. That's like saying all US citizens are awful because they live there.
I agree with you for Lemmy.ml
I'm not so sure about hexbear, people don't randomly end up there
I did. I stumbled upon a post to chapotraphouse while browsing the All feed from startrek.website that had not defederated it at the instance level. And similarly I found a politics (or maybe it was a memes) community on lemmygrad.ml that same way too! It seems neither of those are defederated from that server still. And on discuss.online while lemmygrad.ml is defederated, hexbear.net is not.
Probably you meant people don't sign up with a login on those instances randomly, but I thought I would add the above perspective at least - that anyone across the Fediverse can get there randomly, if the defederation is not at the instance level.
If an instance is full of authoritarian propaganda and extreme censorship then actual users should leave.
Right, so we should unblock the nazi instances like exploding heads because they have one cool guy there maybe?
Wait, you need a passport to leave .ml and make a new acct, and have to endure a long process and spend thousands of dollars to become a citizen there? Oh so it's a lot less like people trapped in the US than you thought I guess.
Man I'm gonna level with you, I'd prefer if most people on those instances weren't assholes causing problems everywhere on lemmy since all they are is brigadiers, but since they are, you will be associated with them by being one even just in name. Unfortunate, but human nature.
You probably aren't... yet, but you will become thus, increasingly over time.
For the past half a year I have defended lemmy.ml, saying that its users are nowhere near as bad as hexbear.net or lemmygrad.ml (just... visit them, you'll see fairly quickly what they are all about). And that much is still true - the users are quite often innocent.
Though not 100% so, and now this with the admins, I will block lemmy.ml soon. I have already started blocking some of its communities, like all the politically-themed memes were simply not fun to keep appearing in my feed, unlike the many other meme communities scattered throughout the fediverse. I am missing out on basically nothing but contention, which has noticeably improved my experience of the Fediverse.
Yes, I am throwing out some babies along with the bathwater, but I am okay with that. The point is to foster a sense of enjoyment and peace, rather than constantly argue with people who are not engaging in good faith to begin with. I left Reddit for good reason, and believe it or not I would have left it regardless of all of spez's bullshit.
Imagine my dismay when coming to the Fediverse, I make the mistake of ONE comment in chapotraphouse, and I got like a hundred replies of the most batshit insane, derogatory, bad-mannered and bad-faithed "arguments", which lasted for WEEKS long after I stopped responding. I was being "dunked on", which they LOVE, and which - apparently, much to my dismay upon finding out - is the literal purpose of that community. I almost left the entire Fediverse after that.
Well, it did not help that I made the same mistake upon replying to a comment in some political community on lemmygrad.ml. It was those two events together that almost made me leave. However, fortunately for me Lemmy v0.19.3 came out just as I was mulling that issue over, so I blocked those two instances, and now I am as happy as a clam. Honestly this issue with Lemmy.ml is nowhere near as bad as those two instances. But it's still not great, it still impacts people - e.g. it will impact you far more than me - and it will hurt all of us if we cannot recommend to irl people to come to the Fediverse, b/c they are likely to see that stuff and be put off by it. And therefore all the content that they may have offered for our consumption is gone along with it.
An analogy might be: how much fecal matter is okay to appear in your food? We can spend a large amount of time curating our own experiences here to avoid that, but how likely is a non-Linux-using average person who might want to leave Reddit and come here to be even willing to do that, before they can start enjoying their interactions here? That "shit" demeans us all.
I suggest a different analogy instead. Crime in the USA in general has gone down substantially in recent decades, but let's say that you wanted to walk the streets of NYC in the 80s-early 90s. It's not "just b/c they are there", but rather "crime is MUCH more likely to occur there, than other places". If you choose to go there, you are making a probabilistic bet that you will survive the encounter. Maybe you will... or maybe your child will become Batman after you get brutally murdered in front of him, but either way, past some threshold it becomes a foolish bet to have chanced it, in return for what gain even?
You and I do not get to decide upon the preferences of others. Many will leave Lemmy altogether, rather than put up with this stuff. I at least will block Lemmy.ml, but that leaves the newest and least aware and therefore most vulnerable people to still have to deal with it. In the meantime, we are conversing about it, letting people know about the problems that we all face, together.
I have noticed the high level of political memes and threads and don't care for it. I didn't understand why they were so common, I thought we were all trying to get away from politics.
I will try a different instance and report back.
Possibly a good comparison could be memes@lemmy.ml vs. the two alternatives mentioned in the OP - I really wanted to keep the former, but politics kept creeping in and just made the experience un-fun so eventually I blocked it all. I thought perhaps the mods were simply lazy, I had little idea of the systemic issues across lemmy.ml altogether.
So I decided to go to sopuli.xyz. Viewing their all/hot is not much different than what I have now. However Sopuli is closer to what I expected .ml to be. There are some instances with zero defederations (completely unsensored), but I'm happy not seeing porn, discrimination, or ads in their feed. @Oka@sopuli.xyz
First of all, why would you think that? Second of all, everything is political so that is literally impossible. And third of all, only centrists who want things to stay exactly as they are, because they feel they are are benefiting from the status quo, ever say such things.