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It really doesn’t matter, I don’t think. You can avoid the official-ish servers run by developers and join another, or host your own. At the end of the day, Le

It really doesn’t matter, I don’t think. You can avoid the official-ish servers run by developers and join another, or host your own. At the end of the day, Lemmy’s just server-software. Whatever the developer’s politics are, it doesn’t magically poison the software.

timeon 3y ago
I like Lemmy’s stack etc. and do not want to spread some 'FUD' but are tankies (or alt-right) just politics? I think it is bit different than being liberal using software by conservative developers (or vice versa).
- malicka 3y ago
  It depends on whether or not the author's politics bleed into the software or somehow influences the user-base; which could be disasterous. I think with Lemmy, though, there isn't much risk for that.
  - bioemerl 3y ago
    There are literally advocates for a genocidal state. Their politics are going to bleed over into the software eventually. To think otherwise is deeply naive.
    - malicka 3y ago
      I just don't see how they could manipulate, outside of their own servers?
      - bioemerl 3y ago
        Software updates. The fact that they own the main domain and the main server means they can choose who to federate with cut off large parts of the network at a whim. The fact they own the software means they can make it easier or harder to surprise or spread certain messages, and do so in very subtle ways. Do not confuse open source with safe, something can be open source and be abused even if it's able to be self-hosted.
        malicka 3y ago
        > The fact they own the software means they can make it easier or harder to surprise or spread certain messages, and do so in very subtle ways. I just can’t imagine how, honestly! It’s not exactly trivial to programmatically hinder certain messages in a way that others won’t notice and complain about — as they did when Lemmy had hard-coded blacklists for slurs. If anything, they'd abuse their control of the Lemmy.ml server, like you said.
        bioemerl 3y ago
        All you have to do is do something like sneak in telemetry, add some sort of back door, who knows. There are near infinite opportunities for a bad actor to sneak bad code in, so when you're dealing with a bad actor you just don't trust anything they do. Running code from people who are tied to an authoritarian government is not something you should be doing ever.
bioemerl 3y ago
It matters deeply when the people who run and develop the platform support something that simply shouldn't be supported, and at the end of the day even if they don't control the federation they do control a significant chunk of the direction and policies of the federation. It would be like encouraging everyone to move to a place like voat. Don't give random extremists to the opportunity to control media or any form of narrative.
- malicka 3y ago
  I honestly don't think the Lemmy developers have any control other than that over lemmy.ml. And with Lemmy’s user-base spreading out to use other servers, their influence is decreasing more and more each day.

timeon 3y ago

I like Lemmy’s stack etc. and do not want to spread some 'FUD' but are tankies (or alt-right) just politics? I think it is bit different than being liberal using software by conservative developers (or vice versa).

malicka 3y ago
It depends on whether or not the author's politics bleed into the software or somehow influences the user-base; which could be disasterous. I think with Lemmy, though, there isn't much risk for that.
- bioemerl 3y ago
  There are literally advocates for a genocidal state. Their politics are going to bleed over into the software eventually. To think otherwise is deeply naive.
  - malicka 3y ago
    I just don't see how they could manipulate, outside of their own servers?
    - bioemerl 3y ago
      Software updates. The fact that they own the main domain and the main server means they can choose who to federate with cut off large parts of the network at a whim. The fact they own the software means they can make it easier or harder to surprise or spread certain messages, and do so in very subtle ways. Do not confuse open source with safe, something can be open source and be abused even if it's able to be self-hosted.
      - malicka 3y ago
        > The fact they own the software means they can make it easier or harder to surprise or spread certain messages, and do so in very subtle ways. I just can’t imagine how, honestly! It’s not exactly trivial to programmatically hinder certain messages in a way that others won’t notice and complain about — as they did when Lemmy had hard-coded blacklists for slurs. If anything, they'd abuse their control of the Lemmy.ml server, like you said.
        bioemerl 3y ago
        All you have to do is do something like sneak in telemetry, add some sort of back door, who knows. There are near infinite opportunities for a bad actor to sneak bad code in, so when you're dealing with a bad actor you just don't trust anything they do. Running code from people who are tied to an authoritarian government is not something you should be doing ever.

bioemerl 3y ago

It matters deeply when the people who run and develop the platform support something that simply shouldn't be supported, and at the end of the day even if they don't control the federation they do control a significant chunk of the direction and policies of the federation. It would be like encouraging everyone to move to a place like voat. Don't give random extremists to the opportunity to control media or any form of narrative.

malicka 3y ago
I honestly don't think the Lemmy developers have any control other than that over lemmy.ml. And with Lemmy’s user-base spreading out to use other servers, their influence is decreasing more and more each day.