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> Lemmy is a fediverse application. The whole point is decentralization. No, that's just a marketing lie. The biggest instances have politically-charged "code

by p-e-w 3y ago

> Lemmy is a fediverse application. The whole point is decentralization. No, that's just a marketing lie. The biggest instances have politically-charged "codes of conduct" that other instances are forced to adopt or be defederated. IIRC, some instances even require those rules to be applied transitively, that is, they will defederate from your instance unless you enforce their rules on all instances that you federate with, and so on. The whole point of Lemmy and Mastodon is political control, while convincing people that it isn't so. I'm honestly astonished to see how many smart folks are falling for their lies; mostly, I suspect, because the Fediverse's political leanings pander to their own biases.

deeviant 3y ago
> I'm honestly astonished to see how many smart folks are falling for their lies What exactly are the lies? No one group is in control, each fiefdom is free to do what they wish, including not consorting with those they feel are of ill repute or temperament. As far as being "politically charged", that's just the way the world (well, ok the US at least) is now. Blame the culture warriors who can only think in terms of how something fits or does not fit into their world view, and seek generally only to pander to their base.
- p-e-w 3y ago
  > No one group is in control, each fiefdom is free to do what they wish That's not true in practice. The purpose of a social network is to communicate with others. Network effects ensure that the biggest instances grow ever bigger, and thus not federating with them effectively means not participating in the network. If those instances then impose their rules on other instances under threat of defederation, and further demand that other instances do the same, again under threat of defederation, the "free" network turns into a monoculture that is effectively controlled by whoever runs the most influential instances. Claiming that you are still free to do as you wish under these circumstances is like claiming that you are free to do as you wish on the Internet, as long as you don't connect to any other computers. Imagine if email, a truly federated system, worked that way. It would be utterly useless. "Sorry, you can't send mail to user@example.com, because example.com does not require other domains that send mail to it to abide by our code of conduct."
  - mariusor 3y ago
    > Imagine if email, a truly federated system, worked that way. Maybe news to you, but that's exactly how e-mail works. DKIM, DMARC and all the other anti-SPAM measures amount to exactly that. If your server is not proven to abide by the "code of conduct" of not spamming people, your emails get nowhere. And speaking of fediverse and "network effects", you might not realize but besides the westernized section of the fediverse, Asia has a large community which is mostly defederated on mainstream instances because of what people consider questionable content. They are probably larger in actual numbers. So federation does work as intended. What you really want, I suspect, is to shove your questionable political opinions down the throats of folk that don't really want to be subjected to them. And somehow being told no, is everybody else's problem and not your own.
    - p-e-w 3y ago
      > DKIM, DMARC and all the other anti-SPAM measures amount to exactly that. Nonsense. Anti-spam systems block spam, not content an unaccountable cabal deems politically undesirable. That comparison is laughable. > So federation does work as intended. If the intention is to split the world into silos, each of them populated by a different group of moral absolutists, all of which consider all other groups so abhorrent that severing all communication with them is the only acceptable course of action, then yes. Perhaps that is indeed the intention. Perhaps the prevailing attitude of our time is that this is the only way. However, I'm old enough to remember an Internet that didn't work like that.
marcosdumay 3y ago
> politically-charged "codes of conduct" I wonder what are you calling "politically-charged code of conduct here". Do you have an example? Are you talking about that one single instance that became famous for having a strict code of conduct?
- veave 3y ago
  I'm not accusing you of this, but this argument sounds like the usual "my set of rules is not politically charged, they are just common sense!", which is always bollocks.
  - AlecSchueler 3y ago
    Do you feel that is more true in their comment than the one they were replying to, which characterised the code of conduct as politically charged in the first place without clarifying what they meant by it? The question in response seemed like open curiosity.
    - veave 3y ago
      I admit I haven't looked at Lemmy's CoC, but I have looked at Mastodon's CoC, I imagine it's practically the same, and yes, it's politically charged, so I tend to agree. (When I talk about Mastodon's CoC, I am talking about the CoC of the main federated network; you get defederated from it if you don't share the same set of rules)
      - AlecSchueler 3y ago
        That wasn't what I asked. Do you see that you're also equating your personal opinion on the matter with the reality of how politically charged or not something is? You disagree with it so it's politically charged. You're not even offering a definition of politically charged, just the scare words. Beyond that, you're not even looking at the relevant document, but making a statement based purely on what you "imagine" it contains. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with their code of conduct, but I feel that you're exhibiting the very behaviour you were attempting to call out and portray as "always bollocks" originally. It's not what you feel is "common sense" (or rather, you imagine that it isn't) so therefore it deserves to be marred as "politically charged."
azubinski 3y ago
Maybe yes, maybe no, it doesn't matter. The business model matters. The answer to the question: how does the platform earn to maintain its work? If there is an answer and it is explicit (no matter what it is and how much someone likes or dislikes the business model), it is much better than if there is no answer or it is implicit. Because everything implicit and muddy can be the basis of anything, for example, of hidden but paid propaganda. The injection of ideas is not so annoying at the initial stage, a good nurse gives painless injections. But then the substance will certainly begin to act. A harmless substance may cause a desire for spontaneous purchase and is therefore generally safe. But harmful substances are different ... Intrusive ads are the lesser of evils. If we think about it well, of course.
rotzgoober 3y ago
[dead]
rakoo 3y ago
Everything is politically-charged. Everything has a bias. It's a lie to make you think all opinions can happily be exchanged on a forum with everyone. The fediverse allows you to be connected to whomever you want, and if they're part of an instance whose rules don't agree with you, then those persons also don't agree with you; why should they be subjected to what you want to say ? Join the fediverse by building your own instance, the more instances the stronger the network. But don't expect everyone to be willing to talk with you, that's not how societies work.
carlosjobim 3y ago
> I'm honestly astonished to see how many smart folks are falling for their lies The smartest people will always fall for the most blatant lies and false ideologies. That's because it's a tantalizing challenge for their intellect, to try their hardest to twist logic and words to fit with the lies. Then they derive evil pleasure for making less sophisticated people believe their lies, or even fall so far down the hole that they start believing the lies themselves. Normal people usually just call bullshit and move on with their lives when some false ideology pops up.
FrostKiwi 3y ago
But isn't that the ultimate expression of decentralization? A bunch of instances chose to adopt a code of conduct and you may choose not to do so. Instances may choose to interact with each other or not. No centralized "political" control.
carbotect 3y ago
In essence, every social media platform leads to political echo-chambers in the long run. People build their own social networks consisting of people they know personally or admire, this easily leads to being surrounded with people that share the same political bias as you. I don't believe that healthy political discourse is even possible on social media in the first place. Especially not if the political posters are anonymous. The advantage with Fediverse and Lemmy in particular, is the fact that creating multiple accounts on left-wing/right-wing/neutral instances is pretty easy. You can add all your Lemmy accounts to a (web) app like vger.app and voila you can now join every political discussion on Lemmy in an almost seemless experience. Political control is thus harder in the fediverse than on centralized platforms like reddit or Twitter. But even if the platform managed to discourage political segregation, the people will still look for every possible to segregate themselves.

by p-e-w 3y ago

deeviant 3y ago

> I'm honestly astonished to see how many smart folks are falling for their lies What exactly are the lies? No one group is in control, each fiefdom is free to do what they wish, including not consorting with those they feel are of ill repute or temperament. As far as being "politically charged", that's just the way the world (well, ok the US at least) is now. Blame the culture warriors who can only think in terms of how something fits or does not fit into their world view, and seek generally only to pander to their base.

p-e-w 3y ago
> No one group is in control, each fiefdom is free to do what they wish That's not true in practice. The purpose of a social network is to communicate with others. Network effects ensure that the biggest instances grow ever bigger, and thus not federating with them effectively means not participating in the network. If those instances then impose their rules on other instances under threat of defederation, and further demand that other instances do the same, again under threat of defederation, the "free" network turns into a monoculture that is effectively controlled by whoever runs the most influential instances. Claiming that you are still free to do as you wish under these circumstances is like claiming that you are free to do as you wish on the Internet, as long as you don't connect to any other computers. Imagine if email, a truly federated system, worked that way. It would be utterly useless. "Sorry, you can't send mail to user@example.com, because example.com does not require other domains that send mail to it to abide by our code of conduct."
- mariusor 3y ago
  > Imagine if email, a truly federated system, worked that way. Maybe news to you, but that's exactly how e-mail works. DKIM, DMARC and all the other anti-SPAM measures amount to exactly that. If your server is not proven to abide by the "code of conduct" of not spamming people, your emails get nowhere. And speaking of fediverse and "network effects", you might not realize but besides the westernized section of the fediverse, Asia has a large community which is mostly defederated on mainstream instances because of what people consider questionable content. They are probably larger in actual numbers. So federation does work as intended. What you really want, I suspect, is to shove your questionable political opinions down the throats of folk that don't really want to be subjected to them. And somehow being told no, is everybody else's problem and not your own.
  - p-e-w 3y ago
    > DKIM, DMARC and all the other anti-SPAM measures amount to exactly that. Nonsense. Anti-spam systems block spam, not content an unaccountable cabal deems politically undesirable. That comparison is laughable. > So federation does work as intended. If the intention is to split the world into silos, each of them populated by a different group of moral absolutists, all of which consider all other groups so abhorrent that severing all communication with them is the only acceptable course of action, then yes. Perhaps that is indeed the intention. Perhaps the prevailing attitude of our time is that this is the only way. However, I'm old enough to remember an Internet that didn't work like that.

marcosdumay 3y ago

> politically-charged "codes of conduct" I wonder what are you calling "politically-charged code of conduct here". Do you have an example? Are you talking about that one single instance that became famous for having a strict code of conduct?

veave 3y ago
I'm not accusing you of this, but this argument sounds like the usual "my set of rules is not politically charged, they are just common sense!", which is always bollocks.
- AlecSchueler 3y ago
  Do you feel that is more true in their comment than the one they were replying to, which characterised the code of conduct as politically charged in the first place without clarifying what they meant by it? The question in response seemed like open curiosity.
  - veave 3y ago
    I admit I haven't looked at Lemmy's CoC, but I have looked at Mastodon's CoC, I imagine it's practically the same, and yes, it's politically charged, so I tend to agree. (When I talk about Mastodon's CoC, I am talking about the CoC of the main federated network; you get defederated from it if you don't share the same set of rules)
    - AlecSchueler 3y ago
      That wasn't what I asked. Do you see that you're also equating your personal opinion on the matter with the reality of how politically charged or not something is? You disagree with it so it's politically charged. You're not even offering a definition of politically charged, just the scare words. Beyond that, you're not even looking at the relevant document, but making a statement based purely on what you "imagine" it contains. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with their code of conduct, but I feel that you're exhibiting the very behaviour you were attempting to call out and portray as "always bollocks" originally. It's not what you feel is "common sense" (or rather, you imagine that it isn't) so therefore it deserves to be marred as "politically charged."

azubinski 3y ago

Maybe yes, maybe no, it doesn't matter. The business model matters. The answer to the question: how does the platform earn to maintain its work? If there is an answer and it is explicit (no matter what it is and how much someone likes or dislikes the business model), it is much better than if there is no answer or it is implicit. Because everything implicit and muddy can be the basis of anything, for example, of hidden but paid propaganda. The injection of ideas is not so annoying at the initial stage, a good nurse gives painless injections. But then the substance will certainly begin to act. A harmless substance may cause a desire for spontaneous purchase and is therefore generally safe. But harmful substances are different ... Intrusive ads are the lesser of evils. If we think about it well, of course.

rotzgoober 3y ago

[dead]

rakoo 3y ago

Everything is politically-charged. Everything has a bias. It's a lie to make you think all opinions can happily be exchanged on a forum with everyone. The fediverse allows you to be connected to whomever you want, and if they're part of an instance whose rules don't agree with you, then those persons also don't agree with you; why should they be subjected to what you want to say ? Join the fediverse by building your own instance, the more instances the stronger the network. But don't expect everyone to be willing to talk with you, that's not how societies work.

carlosjobim 3y ago

> I'm honestly astonished to see how many smart folks are falling for their lies The smartest people will always fall for the most blatant lies and false ideologies. That's because it's a tantalizing challenge for their intellect, to try their hardest to twist logic and words to fit with the lies. Then they derive evil pleasure for making less sophisticated people believe their lies, or even fall so far down the hole that they start believing the lies themselves. Normal people usually just call bullshit and move on with their lives when some false ideology pops up.

FrostKiwi 3y ago

But isn't that the ultimate expression of decentralization? A bunch of instances chose to adopt a code of conduct and you may choose not to do so. Instances may choose to interact with each other or not. No centralized "political" control.

carbotect 3y ago

In essence, every social media platform leads to political echo-chambers in the long run. People build their own social networks consisting of people they know personally or admire, this easily leads to being surrounded with people that share the same political bias as you. I don't believe that healthy political discourse is even possible on social media in the first place. Especially not if the political posters are anonymous. The advantage with Fediverse and Lemmy in particular, is the fact that creating multiple accounts on left-wing/right-wing/neutral instances is pretty easy. You can add all your Lemmy accounts to a (web) app like vger.app and voila you can now join every political discussion on Lemmy in an almost seemless experience. Political control is thus harder in the fediverse than on centralized platforms like reddit or Twitter. But even if the platform managed to discourage political segregation, the people will still look for every possible to segregate themselves.