jointhefediverse.net seems to be a commonly linked resource for directing people to join the Fediverse.
Curiously, it does not list Lemmy under the list of Reddit alternatives. Their GitHub README explains why.
Previous relevant discussion: https://lemmy.ml/post/78808
I hate it when people try to gatekeep like this. I don’t need to be handheld. If there’s a Fediverse alternative to something and it mostly works, it should be on the website. Anything less is not useful at best.
Edit: I say this as someone who has historically criticized the behavior of the devs as well as multiple Lemmy communities BTW.
I agree 100% with this. The developers or the operators of lemmy.ml may be assholes, but the beauty of decentralization is I can simply not use their instance. I do not. Thus, while a warning label is necessary, I think more good is done by making people aware of the alternative to Reddit than by sweeping the whole thing under the rug.
As for user privacy, I’m not sure Lemmy is any worse than any other Fediverse app. There were a couple of bad things like being unable to delete a hosted image, but that has been fixed. Once again, warning label, not rug sweep.
Well, since you’ve vocally criticised the developers and they haven’t bothered changing their ways, wouldn’t you agree they deserve to be gatekept?
On the other hand, it’s not for you to decide the criteria for what is included on jointhefediverse’s curated list. I personally think it is a perfectly reasonable judgement call they’ve made.
No. In fact, I strongly dislike that whole attitude of ‘do what I want or else I will cancel you’. I am not the arbiter of what is ultimately right and wrong and neither are you and neither is parent commenter.
I believe people have the right to make their own choice. And since Lemmy has significant user base and significant active discussion and thousands of communities, I think the users have the right to make that choice for themselves. Make them aware of the situation, make them aware of the potential downsides, make them aware that lemmy.ml is run by tankie assholes, maybe recommend some better instances, and let them choose for themselves.
That is why I like Lemmy and the fediverse as a concept. I can choose the instance that has the policies that I want. Among those policies is which other instances to defiederate from.
It’s kind of a tradeoff. As much as I like Mbin, it’s not at feature parity with Lemmy yet, having only one mobile app is probably a deal breaker to a lot of users.
People keep saying mbin is not good enough but I bang out hellva work on it.
What does it actually miss for this criticism to be valid?
I think it might help if you advertise it more too. I haven’t heard of mbin in months and partially assumed it stopped existing
Posts not being marked as read and lack of app support.
No, I don’t. If it’s about instances I’d understand it a bit more, even though I wouldn’t entirely agree with that either (I’m a free speech stan), but this is a page listing Fediverse alternative software. The software is fine and relatively untainted from the intentions of the Lemmy devs from what I can tell (although that was not originally the case). They deserved to be criticized, but not censored from Fediverse articles listing alternatives to big tech platforms.
It’s not “censorship” when somebody decides to omit a software from a curated list over the developers’ horrible takes. See also Soapbox.
Edited to add: Free speech does not obligate anybody to boost or acknowledge subjects that they disagree with.
They are suppressing information about the fediverse based on political views. They had it up and then they took it down. Please explain how this is not censorship. I don’t know where people get the idea that censorship is an inherently negative thing.
Yeah you’re right of course, it is censorship. It just happens to be positive. Although, I’d argue that maybe it isn’t based on political or religious views, rather on not wanting to give someone a bad impression of the fediverse and make them leave again? As in, self-serving interests?
The main argument I see against Lemmy devs is that they’re “tankies”, which is most certainly political. And I agree. Except that there’s nothing in the software itself that is political. Only the devs, and many of the .ml communities and users.
In the encyclopedic sense, you’re right. In this context that I replied to, however, censorship had a negative connotation, and my response spoke to that rather than the formal meaning.
Right, and I do note that you talk about jointhefediverse “suppressing” Lemmy — another negative connotation.
I’ll maintain that, no, they are just leaving it out. Again, that is the privilege of a list curator. Nobody else have a say in what and why is included on the site. Choosing what to publish, and the omissions that entails, are also protected by free speech.
It can be their privilege and also be censorship. You seem to imply otherwise.
Is that really what all this protest is over? Someone’s ‘horrible takes’?
Generally fair point. My issue though is that most people will just go to this website and won’t consider other lists or websites, viewing this as the definitive list of Fediverse alternatives. Someone not putting someone’s software on their website isn’t technically censorship, true (this is the other coin of free speech), it does effectively censor Lemmy from the general conversation about Fediverse alternatives.
Do most people go to jointhefediverse, though? Honest question, I don’t know the site’s traffic stats vs fediverse.to or fediverse.party (which both show up way above jointhefediverse in my duckduckgo search). It’s not like an authoritative index or search engine blackballed Lemmy, it is literally about a single grassroots site.
Lemmy is bigger by a LOT (LIKE A LOT) than mbin and piefed. So don’t see how Lemmy is losing the strong grip it already has on this type of fediverse. Heck, google reddit alternatives and Lemmy is also king.
This change on that site was in 2023. It’s 2025. So it has not impacted Lemmy’s user base.
Another good point 👍🏾
How is this censorship though?
You can always start joinfediversefreespeechstan.io or whatever. The code is even available, no?
I could never understand american-style preference for “free speech” themed theatrics.
Because as the leading “Fediverse alternative” website, it essentially tells the viewer that Lemmy doesn’t exist, which I think does a disservice to prospective Fediverse users.
But yes good point, anyone can make an alternative website, I think right wing people made like a fuckgab.com site back in the day to recommend Gab alternatives on the Fediverse.
Where does it say “Lemmy doesn’t exist”? The admins of the site are well within their right to curate what service they include. I say this as someone who uses Lemmy a lot and really wants there to be a non-corporate, competition-focused alternative (instances, UIs) to reddit specifically and oligarch run social networks in general.
I don’t understand how “censorship” plays into this (beyond shallow polemical grandstanding). Where is the censorship?