It’s rough right now politically in the US. A lot of people around me seem like they’re ready to give up hope. It makes me incredibly angry seeing Zuck up there with all the other billionaires, and Elon is a parasite that has infected the government.
I often find myself wondering how I can make a difference. How can we regain control of our world?
Idk if I’m being dramatic, but the Fediverse really seems like it could be our response to these fuckers controlling the narrative on social media. It could be more than just an interesting decentralized social media platform. I really think this could be a key step in reclaiming our democracy.
Am I being dramatic lol? Do you all feel the same way? I was kinda getting emotional even. Like we could bring real change. That gives me hope, which is something we are desperately lacking right now.
It’s not just Lemmy. It makes me happy to see all the Fediverse platforms (specifically activity pub based) blowing up.
Friendly reminder if you have the financial means, donate to your instance, donate to the Lemmy devs, donate to Pixelfed or any other social media app fighting big social media. And better than a one-time donation, set up a monthly contribution even if it’s just $2/month. It really helps open-source developers when they have a steady income.
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It gives me hope yeah, alot of my family and coworkers are extremely conservative and it’s given me hope that they’re not the default for cis people. I’ve since gotten away from alot of them and met irl friends who’re more accepting but the presence of people online who didn’t begrudgingly tolerate me before then has given me hope and the courage I would need to advocate for myself and not accept the bare minimum
It does give me hope, but I also worry it may be a double edged sword and opening pandora’s box. There are way too many ideologies here that aren’t democracy. Given how easy the public was brain washed by Trump, I fear this may be an avenue to expose those people to things that probably shouldn’t even be crossing their minds.
No, it’s continued relative unpopularity in the face of universal hated-but-contined-use of the mainstream networks continues to be depressing.
Although the onboarding process for most of the major fediverse platforms is a bit scary for normies.
Lemmy is very harsh to most people. People that think liberal means the Democrats.
The response is to tune-in, turn-on, and drop-out.
Start making things from scratch. Stop buying shit.
Opt-out.
It gives me hope, but hope for a slightly better future; not for a cure for fundamental ills of online communities.
Nothing gives me hope these are the darkest times ever
It’s nice to see a significant portion of people (probably still not enough though) leave proprietary social media. Unfortunately, it took them extremely long to realize why that’s a bad thing to use.
So that’s one step in the right direction I guess.
On the other hand, there generally isn’t much hope for humanity left because we haven’t learned from past mistakes, haven’t listened to science, and haven’t ensured ourselves a decent future on this planet.
the Fediverse really seems like it could be our response to these fuckers controlling the narrative on social media. It could be more than just an interesting decentralized social media platform. I really think this could be a key step in reclaiming our democracy.
Agreed, and I would add that finding ways to get nonprofit news organizations (e.g. ProPublica) and public media (e.g. NPR, PBS, etc.) to host and administer their own instances and to start directing their readers/listeners to those services would be a great way to advance this goal
Yeah
I mean if this is the best the left has
Trump will never get tired of winning LMAO 🤣
Using the Fediverse feels like a small step in the right direction. Big changes are built on lots of small steps. I would say move in the direction of using the Fediverse more, the old alternatives less, and think of more small steps in the right direction you can do. I don’t think just using the Fediverse is enough, but it is an important step to take. Keep going.
Corporations might accidentally help if they try to make their own instancss, like if you sign up with google to join the fediverse, realize most instances block googles because its corporate, then they make an account at non corporate version.
I think the best way for it to grow would be making it easy to self host, yunohost maes it pretty easy, but more managed hosting options competing or more of the big ones offering it would go a long way.
I agree! Another small step - though I do enjoy the like-minded crowd - would be to get some different perspectives here. Even if I don’t necessarily agree with all those ideas, I don’t think it’s healthy for my own ideas to be trapped in an echo chamber.
It gives me confidence. I know that now that I host my own lemmy, I cannot be randomly banned because I triggered some automatic spam filter with my scripts (happened in reddit), or banned because I talked back to the wrong mod. I know that our internationally distributed nature makes it harder to control top-down, so takeovers like Musk-Xitter are not possible. We can still be affected by disinfo campaigns and troll farms, and we unfortunately have weakened defenses against that, but I’m confident that a lot of smart admins and tooling providers will bunch together to figure out the countermeasures that will work.
Yeah, being banned because a mod didn’t like you was the worst thing on Reddit. Especially if they modded multiple subs and banned you from a subreddit you never even came close to breaking the rules on. Some Reddit mods were just assholes.
oh snap, db0 the person! Love your instance.
How expensive is it to host your own instance? Assuming you aren’t doing it in house.
About 5-20 eur/month should be enough for most instance admins, depending on their provider.
Which do you use?
My setup is quite complex and I have 1000+ MAU so we’re not a small instance anymore. That said we use hetzner, ovh, and mailgun. Our hosting hosts are more than 100 per month but I could probably be running a bit cheaper if I wanted, but this way we have easy growing space.
I’m curious about this too
It gives me hope. We have an opportunity to level the playing field. So much hope that I’m actually starting a show to try to help folks get to know people behind the Fediverse! I truly believe in it and hope we can claw back the internet from the tech giants.
What kinda show?
Calling it Fireside Fedi, where I just talk to folks around the Fediverse and get to know them. I have Gabe Kangas first tomorrow. He’s the lead Dev of Owncast. Created a community !firesidefedi@lemmy.world if you’re interested. Fully Fedi powered. Livestream, Voss, socials, eventually setting up Fedi audio player as well.
Edit: fixed link to community
Cool idea!
I hope. :-D. I’m no Dev, but I enjoy talking to people and I really believe In the Fediverse so just trying to contribute anyway I can to make it a more welcoming and interesting place.
Having been around since the early days of identica/statusnet: no, not really.
It’s always been small and a generally nice set of communities but it won’t reach a large enough audience to matter. US (and to some degree) global politics are such a clusterfuck that it’ll take more than some little servers with people discussing open source software and art or whatever to create substantial change.
that’s not to say it’s pointless. it’s nice to have these little groups to focus on. it doesn’t give me any hope but it does regulalry lift my spirits.
EDIT: I also dont think it needs to be any kind of agent or tool of change. Why can’t it just be what it is? Groups of people socializing with one another?
Bruh, I’ve been tracking it for years and the fediverse was dead before the Reddit exodus. Now I can have discussions about fantasy football without going on Reddit or X
Oh, no. Not at all. All hope is lost, this is just a comfortable place to die.
Based we are all doomed
Yes. The fediverse is a pretty difficult thing to be controlled by a single group: that’s sorta the idea. I see it as almost a refuge from all the bullshit. The lack of ads, tracking, content farming, censorship and control etc is refreshing. Here’s to hoping the fediverse continues to spread.
There’s plenty of censorship here though. Some instances are worse than others but even on a community basis, your average moderator is just some random dude who is free to remove your posts/comments and ban you just because they don’t like something you said and there’s not really anything you can do about it.
Not all moderation = censorship 🙄 You play by the rules or you face the consequences. Nowhere on the planet are the consequence-free zones - at least not forever.
If you really want fediverse instance where absolutely everything is permitted, make it. I bet you after the first CP post you’ll rethink your stand on “all moderation = censorship”.
Yeah but there are a few notorious large instances that censor things that aren’t stated in their rules at all.
Like criticising china or russia will get you banned from the ML instances but their rules don’t mention that.
But the point is, you have freedom to choose whatever instance and thus whatever level of moderation you want. I’m not saying censorship is impossible here, that’s just not the argument. The thing is, you aren’t locked in to the control of a specific group/owner/company. If you don’t like the way things are being run, skip to somewhere else, or alternatively make your own instance.
For people who value freedom the most, you can choose a platform with less moderation, and thereby accepting the risks that come with it. For people who value a more safe, stable and curated platform, choose one with more/stricter moderation.
Oh yeah, for sure(I blocked the lemmy.ml and lemmygrad instance). But there is a difference between censorship and moderation.
That’s quite the number of assumptions you made there
Not all moderation = censorship
It is, by definition.
Let’s not argue semantics and argue realistic uses of moderation.
If you don’t want to argue about it then don’t bring it up.
Lmao are you censoring me, telling me not to bring it up? Weak.
I told you not to bring it up because you said you didn’t want to argue about it. Censorship would be if I removed your comment.
Do paste the definitions and sources here.
Help yourself.
