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.
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Lemmy is designed to fail the same way as reddit when reaching the same size
I didn’t ask you about this. Why waste time telling me about it?
I don’t want Lemmy to be zero censorship.
In every case I’ve known, anywhere claiming “zero censorship” either adopts it sooner or later, or disappears - and in every one of those cases, it was a godawful place to be 100% of the time. IME, those who do say they want this tend to be either edgy teenagers, crackpot conspiracy theorists or psychopaths.
Sure, you can say “well, zero censorship except bots” - well that’s censorship, isn’t it? And given no anti-bot tactic is reliable, you’ll be blocking humans. Or you can say, “zero censorship except CSAM, or extreme pornography, or anti-terrorist” and you’re either applying societal laws or your own morality on others. You can’t use “no censor” and “except” in a sentence without contradiction.
If you want zero censorship, I don’t think Lemmy is for you. I don’t think the fediverse is for you. But if you disagree, then run your own instance and put it on an onion address, please stop trying to rant at us for not sharing your views.
I asked if you actually thought I might be subservient to you, or you were willingly making a pointless suggestion to be annoying.
Are you afk, or is that question too hard-hitting and uncomfortable for you to answer?
You waited two hours before demanding a reply? Wow. Funnily enough I don’t live at the keyboard and was away doing interesting real world stuff.
Your other question wasn’t relevant to the subject in my view, so although I wasn’t ignoring you, I will now.
Please stop wasting my time with replies unless you can explain the intentions/motives behind your words
Sure, you can say “well, zero censorship except bots” - well that’s censorship, isn’t it? And given no anti-bot tactic is reliable, you’ll be blocking humans.
Yes, but not on purpose - and if done correctly, not in any way that allows systemic censorship of people for their whole lives (which most of us live through today).
Or you can say, “zero censorship except CSAM, or extreme pornography, or anti-terrorist” and you’re either applying societal laws or your own morality on others.
Right, don’t do that unless you’re just making educational cartoons for very young children or something (definitely not hosting a space for political discussion)
You can’t use “no censor” and “except” in a sentence without contradiction.
I definitely can.
If you want zero censorship, I don’t think Lemmy is for you. I don’t think the fediverse is for you.
Didn’t ask.
But if you disagree, then run your own instance and put it on an onion address, please stop trying to rant at us for not sharing your views.
Do you actually think I might be subservient to you, or are you willingly making a pointless suggestion to be annoying?
It’s failed like Reddit already and is tiny. The sheer amount of botspam, fake accounts, spam instances, etc makes Reddit look curated.
I agreed with the title, but then downvoted immediately upon reading your post.
Censorship is not Reddit’s problem. It’s enshittification.
Reddit didn’t fail because Spez has some niche political opinions he pushes and you aren’t allowed to say, it failed because its algorithm/UI is structured to farm users and turn to shit.
Lemmy has major problems and power tripping mods, but its existential issue (IMO) is collapse from spam, trolls, attention algorithms, commercialization, and so on.
But federation is a good first step to avoiding the enshittification traps, like the original internet did until Google/Facebook got such a grip on it.
My problem with reddit was not censorship, and I can’t think of why I would want to visit a forum with absolutely no censorship. I want “right” or “good” censorship or however that ends up relating to my values. Lemmy was not designed to address your problems with censorship, but it definitely addresses some problems of censorship.
Same here. I joined lemmy for privacy, the federation that allows smaller communities with very specific interests and moderation and an escape from the capitalist reddit that doesn’t care about it’s users at all.
Why are you wasting my time like I want replies from liars?
“Right” or “good” censorship, as you call it, is censoring bots from political discussion, or censoring pedophiles from a kids’ TV channel, not censoring humans from political discussion.
You’re free to read and respond to any comments you want, you’re the only one who can waste your time.
Talk about blaming others. Interesting person.
Yes, it is interesting that people who discuss things in good faith blame bad faith discussion (and the time wasted therein) on those who choose it.
Incorrect.
Willingly baiting someone to read nonsense in bad faith makes you responsible for wasting their time. You don’t get to blame the victim for being willing to engage in good faith.
Bad faith is bad, good faith isn’t, that’s why they’re called that.
How did the person “bait” you? How is it nonsense? How does the responsibility, how you spend your time, shift to someone else? How are you a victim? How are you arguing in good faith?
So much to unpack.
How did the person “bait” you?
Why do you ask? Is the context deleted now? I don’t feel like scrolling up to check
How does the responsibility, how you spend your time, shift to someone else?
What do you mean? Why would one person’s responsibility shift to someone else? Is that even a thing?
How are you a victim?
Are you asking me to consult a dictionary for you, or asking me to repeat what I said above?
How are you arguing in good faith?
Again, can’t tell what you’re asking here other than “help me use a dictionary”
So much to unpack.
You could get better at doing gish gallops but luckily I’m pretty good at handling them
Edit - I checked and the context was not deleted, so the “how” at the beginning is another weird question
Hahahahahahahahaha what the fuck. I did not bother reading past your first section. Why should I? Waste someone else’s time.
You asked questions, I answered them.
“Waste someone else’s time,” but unironically. I hope you won’t waste mine anymore.
Personally I use other platforms for uncensored discussions.
Unfortunately they’re filled with insufferable twats like yourself, but that’s the price we pay for free speech.
It’s obvious for everybody except for you, that Lemmy isn’t intended as a free speech platform, but a means to form your own community based on shared interests and values. That inherently comes with some amount of censorship at the discretion of instance operators. I’m a free speech advocate, but I value and respect individuals’ right to maintain their property (Lemmy instance) as they see fit.
If you want free speech, hop on Simplex where you can yell racial slurs until you’ve satisfied yourself.
Or spin up your own lemmy instance. I’d be happy to join and engage in some debates.
Personally I use other platforms for uncensored discussions.
No you don’t. We use other platforms for less censored discussions. Maybe you use nostr like me but that doesn’t mean either of us has overcome this era of censorship.
Unfortunately they’re filled with insufferable twats like yourself, but that’s the price we pay for free speech.
Yep.
It’s obvious for everybody except for you, that Lemmy isn’t intended as a free speech platform, but a means to form your own community based on shared interests and values.
This is self-contradictory. Which is it?
Not intended for free speech?
Or indeed intended for free speech (freedom to form your own community (discussion space) based on shared interests and values)?
If you want free speech, hop on Simplex where you can yell racial slurs until you’ve satisfied yourself.
Simplex isn’t what I use for free speech, nostr is, and my slurs are generally not racial.
How would you even use Simplex for more free speech? Does it have group chats or something? (I don’t actually care, I’m just mildly confused)
Or spin up your own lemmy instance. I’d be happy to join and engage in some debates.
I will not be spinning up instances of anything. I will seed hashes in bittorrent-like P2P networks, I will put my posts where they fit, I will look for posts from others in the most anti-censorship ways I can find, and I will hope devs and server admins create a version of Lemmy that’s fitting for more of my posts - while hurrying toward a possible future where Tor isn’t enough to make Lemmy relevant anymore, because P2P networks become the only place worth posting anything.
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Mods please censor this guy
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I think/hope it was a joke.
But none that I’d like or find healthy, to be honest.
So you want to censor 99% of speech, leaving only people who agree with you on only hearing speech from people that post in your mkni community? I feel like that’s counter-productive.
Sometimes people say Lemmy.ml is “high censorship,” but I’ve never been censored here. People sort themselves into instances that generally align with what they want to post and comment, it isn’t that there are censorship regimes going on.
As for Lemmy “failing,” it already does what it needs to do, it provides a good platform. Reddit went downhill because of the profit motive, Lemmy doesn’t have that.
If 99% of speech comes from people who are against free speech, I want to let 99% of people censor themselves by posting in censored communities while I stay in a free speech zone.
You can phrase that as me wanting to “censor them from my own feed” as long as you recognize the caveat that, unlike them, I give them the option to deactivate my censorship of them any time, all they have to do is deactivate their censorship of me.
Was it in good faith that you just made me explain this, or were you only pretending not to understand me?
But I can say whatever I would want to say here, I’m not censoring myself. People sort themselves into places where they can already say whatever they would want to. I understand your point, I just don’t think it’s actually an issue because people post on instances where they can say what they want already.
If Lemmy doesn’t allow federation over Tor, you are potentially helping censor both of us by posting here, unless your posts aren’t made with goals like making ambulance rides free, in which case you’re just helping censor me & other honest people, not yourself (who might be fine with “only reaching nerds” when posting here).
That may become a problem down the line, but it doesn’t seem to be one yet.
I explained exactly how it is a yesterday, today, and tomorrow problem, not a waiting-to-come-tomorrow problem.
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.
Is it in good faith that you make me copy and paste myself?
I can agree that TOR functionality would be useful, I can’t agree that it’s necessary at the present moment.
Are you saying you think ambulance rides should cost money, or are you just saying you can’t understand what I’m saying?
Then where is a zero-censorship instance for me to use?
What do you mean by “censorship” and what is your example of the “high-censorship instance” doing it?
This started with me blocking lemmy.world because I heard they defederate “tankie” instances
Just host your own fucking instance then nerd
No thanks.
Server admins can host their own instances when Tor support is added, though.
I’ve read less than half of the comments here, but my main feeling is that the downvotes only happened because they didn’t understood what you said, in their mind you want something even less censored than 4Chan, which will lead to something even worse than 4Chan, they believe that moderation helps in healthy discussions.
I’ve got reserves on that, for example mods should only ask for the user to edit h.er.is comment instead of instabanning them for life, and as i said elsewhere our states don’t only ask platforms but are making laws to “moderate” the internet.But that’s not what you were talking about, these downvotes should tell you that your thought hasn’t matured enough to be presented as a clear project, like here :
I will not be spinning up instances of anything. I will seed hashes in bittorrent-like P2P networks, I will put my posts where they fit, I will look for posts from others in the most anti-censorship ways I can find, and I will hope devs and server admins create a version of Lemmy that’s fitting for more of my posts - while hurrying toward a possible future where Tor isn’t enough to make Lemmy relevant anymore, because P2P networks become the only place worth posting anything.
At first i was furious because i thought that many people opposed freedom of expression, but after reading more comments i’m relieved that it’s still seen favorably by a majority.
The problem here seems to be that your “vision” isn’t clear enough, and that’s probably why you wanted to discuss it with others. The good news is that people didn’t oppose your ideasIt’s a bit late in France so i don’t intend to stay much more online(, and you’ve been at it for more than 12 hours), even if i’d be interested in your answer because i frankly still don’t understand you, sry :/
From what i understood :
- When you’re critcizing the incomplete/broken system of federation, would it be enough if instances can’t block each other(, even if you’d probably don’t mind if users can block instances) ? I’ve seen that same thought in /c/fediverse a few times, along the lines of being able to access a real “All” tab ;
- Instances shouldn’t communicate through DNS because authorities could block it, hence why you’re suggesting to use Tor, it’d make Lemmy a.n free/unconstrained network ;
- You’re making a mistake i.m.o. when stating that Lemmy will become censored like Reddit, because you can’t have the same Lemmy admins for all instances. So, while Reddit banned republicans and communists, it can’t be done for Lemmy(, unless through national/federal laws). You probably already knew that, just in case(, bonus by the devs) ;
- It feels like the core of your speech ? In any case, i’m missing almost all of what’s surrounding it hence the comment above.
I’m saying Lemmy’s censorship is the same as reddit’s because we still have roughly the same groups as on reddit.
I still post to about the same audience or smaller, not bigger than peak reddit.
The people saying “ambulance rides shouldn’t cost money” are still drowned out by the people saying “poor people should die because I’m rich enough to be the one people listen to” so I don’t think we should choose who to listen to based on money.
If reddit worked as a system the authorities could use to control discussion, what we have now with reddit and Lemmy definitely isn’t any less useful for the authorities that way, because I seem to be making slower progress towards making ambulance rides free, instead of faster progress.
I’m saying Lemmy’s censorship is the same as reddit’s because we still have roughly the same groups as on reddit.
I still post to about the same audience or smaller, not bigger than peak reddit.If these two sentences are meant to be understood together, then it’s misleading to use the word censorship i think, it’s more a mix of a lack of visibility and echo chambers, in which case these are two things that don’t seem debatable/false.
If i understood you correctly, could you expand on your solution ?then it’s misleading to use the word censorship i think, it’s more a mix of a lack of visibility and echo chambers
But the authorities cause it willingly, so it’s censorship, imo. Maybe debatable
If i understood you correctly, could you expand on your solution ?
Another way of looking at the problem is, without Tor federation, all the federated instances will be 100% one group of people, and each Tor instance will be 100% another group
That’s not healthy, there needs to be a balance where each place has some of each group. I don’t want a place full of nothing but pedophiles, but I also don’t want a place full of nothing but people who send pedophiles to their own place. I want a place full of nothing but people who agree everyone should be allowed to talk
To do that, would it be enough if instances can’t block each other, or if users could unblock the foreign instances blocked by their original instance ?
You’d also want some .onion instances, and that they could communicate with those using the DNS.
Am i missing something ? You seem to also have more to sayTo do that, would it be enough if instances can’t block each other, or if users could unblock the foreign instances blocked by their original instance ?
You’d also want some .onion instances, and that they could communicate with those using the DNS.
Absolutely. That all sounds perfect to me. I actually don’t think you’re missing anything
Then the first part(, leaving the choice of blocking an instance to the user,) is a relatively common desire since i’ve already seen it expressed before. If enough people keep asking for it then it may happen.
I’m making a lemmy app and among other things you’ll be able to follow (a group of )users and not only (a group of )communities, sthg reddit will end up adopting probably. And you’ll also be able to display the “All” tab with multiple accounts. So, if you have an account on lemmy.world, as well as on the instances blocked by lemmy.world, then you’ll be able to have access to all instances at once.
You can see the instances blocked by going to sh.itjust.works/instances, or lemmy.ml/instances, and as you can see only very little instances, for spamming i think, were blocked. Which means that you’re probably already seeing ~99% of lemmy in your “All” tab ?It doesn’t solve the presence of moderators in communities but that may be kinda out-of-topic from your original subject.
(i’m going to sleep r.n., so don’t be surprised if i don’t answer before tomorrow, not that there’s necessarily something to add, but you seemed to go further than being able to talk with all instances from any instance of origin)
You don’t really want zero censorship.
Not sure what you mean. I really want a dev to make a version of Lemmy with Tor federation so we can have a zero-censorship Lemmy cluster. That is definitely true, not false.
The meaning is closer to “it would not be in your best interest, and you could never hold yourself to it” than “you do not desire it in the abstract”
Depending on how literal you are with “let people send ANYTHING over tor 🐒🔨😃🤜🤛😀💰” I’m downright uncomfortable with this whole concept
Incorrect. It would really be in my best interest. I am holding myself to that right now, by reiterating it in this reply.
What are you actually trying to say? What’s your train of thought here? Just cryptic gaslighting, right?
Not that long ago, after the first big exodus from Reddit to Lemmy, there was a group that decided to mess with Lemmy any way they could.
They spent weeks DDoS-ing it and when that failed to get a reaction there were sudden posts of extreme gore and very explicit child pornography across the front page.
Free speech is nice in theory, but for true anarchist style freedom of speech to exist we would have to tolerate the intolerable.
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Free speech is nice in theory, but for true anarchist style freedom of speech to exist we would have to tolerate the intolerable.
No, you would have to stop.
If you think raping and bombing people is tolerable, but showing you pictures of it isn’t, you are intolerable to me - and I am absolutely the one who’s right, in that conflict.
If you think raping and bombing people is worse than showing you pictures of it, stop fucking around with bullshit and try tolerating the tolerable while not tolerating the intolerable.
If most of the human population is into rape and bombing, wipe out most of the human population until the front page is full of better posts, don’t just shield yourself from posts and call it “not tolerating the intolerable”
If it’s only a minority of the human population, outvote them to fill the front page with better posts
Use science and modern technology to make the world a better place instead of trying to deny the science, ruin the technology, and end the world
Fundamentally, just stop being fucking dishonest
I think you need to take your meds.
Weak gaslighting attempt, glowie. I just smoke weed. Stop being fucking dishonest
You’re an actual psycho
I didn’t ask.
While we’ve got you on the line, what is the appeal of a platform like Nostril? Is it Bluesky for crypto nonces?
You ignored my questions, but I’ll answer yours before asking again.
You can’t be banned from nostr and you’re not tethered to a single “instance” and Tor is supported a little better. As for “nostril,” I bet spelling things wrong on purpose goes hard af when you have 62 IQ.
Now, what I asked before:
What were you trying to say before? What was that train of thought? Just cryptic gaslighting, right?
Go ask the wind, my guess is lots of people ignore your hard-hitting interview questions
Again, this must go hard af when you have 62 IQ
I.d.k. if you’ve heard of reclaim the net, you may be interested to give them a follow, and if you know similar websites/accounts i’m interested, thanks for the thread !
(thanks as well to the moderators for allowing you to speak freely, this should be a basic freedom)Here’s one more example of censorship i’ve just learned about : I’ve already been permanently demonetized by YouTube and had albums removed from Spotify, this time under a false allegation of transphobia. Felt pertinent to add somewhere.
I hope in the near future you’ll find more of a paying audience than YouTube or Spotify have ever offered you
Nah, i’m stupid sorry, it was a quote from a post by David Rovics, i should have put the «…», my bad.
He’s the only anti-imperialist singer i know, along with Red Creators Network, worth checking out i think :)Got it, will do 🙏
I’ve found that the other replies don’t really express my personal take on this, so I’ll go ahead and write mine down.
First of all, and it’s important, people’s take on such topics is heavily dependent on the country they live in. It’s legitimately hard to imagine why you would want to break government rules hard and be a good person if you live somewhere in Norway. And it’s legitimately hard to imagine a world where you really trust your government and think that the current levels of censorship is actually good if you live in a dictatorship country.
With this in mind, a comfortable and universal level of censorship simply doesn’t exist.
I think the lack of Tor support is valid criticism if you’re in a dictatorship. Of course, DNS-based solutions are not good-enough for you. I hope you’ll find something that solves your problems. Unfortunately a simple Lemmy instance is not a solution for you.
Generally, if I’d advise something, I’d suggest to look at what the project actually aims to do, not at what you think it should be doing. E.g. visit https://join-lemmy.org/ and there it says:
Lemmy is a selfhosted social link aggregation and discussion platform. It is completely free and open, and not controlled by any company. This means that there is no advertising, tracking,…
Well, does it sound like a solution made for people in heavily censored environments? To me – not. If you want to present your case and incentivize the Lemmy devs to ADD another perspective or direction to the software that they’re spending time developing, prepare your case and argumentation well. Explain your situation (e.g. “I’ll be hung if I speak freely where I live”, or more relevant, “my country heavily DNS-censors 90% of the good existing Lemmy instances, I’m deprived of good information you have circling here”), propose some solutions or offer help. I don’t know really. It’s up to you. Good luck with your seach
I explained my situation. I want to shift towards a cluster of zero-censorship instances, but I found out they apparently can’t exist because Lemmy blocks Tor (?), so I’m better off just spending less time on Lemmy.
I don’t care that much if devs fix it, I’m just explaining the problem. If it gets fixed, good; if not, the devs who would fix it will do some other good thing; if that’s not enough for the planet to survive, it’s that there aren’t enough good devs, not that they aren’t focused enough on Lemmy. I hope there are enough good devs for the planet to survive, and also for Lemmy to get fixed, though.
While I agree on the general message, I very much disagree on the “completely free speech part”, for the same reason the paradox of tolerance exists.
That makes no sense. Why would you not be able to tolerate anything without tolerating everything? Or, why would tolerating one thing force you to also tolerate some other unrelated thing? And if that’s what you believe, how do you pull off absolute intolerance in a fair and peaceful way? When it comes to discourse, just don’t let anyone talk? Just have everyone censor whoever they disagree with because that’s “fairness?” It makes absolutely seriously no sense.
Everything has limits. Water is good for you but too much will kill you. Most people don’t want to take the moral and legal risks of running a completely uncensored site.
Why did you reply with this where you did? What does it have to do with the post you’re replying to? I didn’t ask about what some percentage of people is doing this year
It’s an overall response to your post. If you want to take the risk of allowing unfettered speech then run your own Lemmy server.
It sounds like you haven’t even read my post. My whole point (as I’ve repeated many times throughout this thread to others acting like you) is that I cannot solve anything about Lemmy by running my own instance because federation is broken.
Find the other posters complaining about absolute free speech and y’all can post to each other on your instance.
