this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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Fediverse

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A community to talk about the Fediverse and all it's related services using ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, KBin, etc).

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[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com 198 points 8 months ago (9 children)

As for funding, the servers are supported on a donation basis, with no big corporations behind them. This leads to a problem concerning user data and privacy, as there isn't a single accountable entity behind the network.

Bit of a weird take now, isn't it?

[–] otter@lemmy.ca 88 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I think both things are valid points, but it's worded in a weird way

A more explicit pro/con would have been better

No big corporation that controls everything

  • Pro:
  • Con:

This is a good point. Had it been presented like this, it would have hit different.

[–] Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de 48 points 8 months ago (2 children)

It's kind of fair, to be honest, and the "no big corporation" seems more like a pro than a con

[–] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 32 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Eh, it is a con when there are problems, service problems, bugs, etc...

My instance have had a few of them and for a while our 1 admin was unavailable.

It is difficult or impossible to get it resolve because there is no contact point, nobody hired to fix issues that need immediate triage, etc... which can result in longer outages or bugs on specific instances.

I'm not complaining. This is a fantastic service that is being offered completely free from actual altruistic incentives, unlike corporations. There are a few downsides though.

[–] Blaze@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Definitely, that's why I always prefer instances with at least two admins, and a Matrix room for status updates

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[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 8 months ago (12 children)

Yeah, true. It seems like that is a pro that greatly overshadows the cons. Like someone else pointed out, it's just worded weirdly in the article.

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[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 42 points 8 months ago (4 children)

It's actually not wrong if you look at it in another way.

  • Big tech will abuse your data, but it will do within legal constraints, and there is actuall (though weak) accountability of these companies due to the legal system.
  • On federated services like Lemmy, instances are hosted by anonymous individuals. Most social media laws don't apply to them, and their legal accountability is basically zero.
  • Lemmy, for example, does not comply with GDPR. There is no legal notice, no privacy contact person, no banner asking whether you are ok with the fact that your data is sent to unknown servers in random nations, no nothing. Private messages aren't even encrypted, so any admin can read them without issues.
  • There is no way to actually delete your data, as the GDPR requires. Deleted posts are only marked as deleted and you can see their plain text content by just pressing the "reply" button in any of the apps. There isn't any kind of guarantee, that your post will be deleted on other instances. If federation has problems, the post will remain on other instances and is now permanently undeletable by the user.
  • There are no moderation standards. Some instances will delete nazi content, some basically require nazi content. And some instance admin might even edit your posts to say something completely different. It's all possible and in the hands of random people on the internet.
  • Hobbyist-run services are much worse when it comes to availability and reliability. If something happens while the admin is on holiday, nothing will get fixed. If the admin runs out of money, doesn't care anymore or even dies, the instance with all it's content and users is just gone.

So there are very real risks attached to a hobbyist-run service with no legal accountability and no transparency at all.

We all know the downsides of Big Tech though, so it's everyone's personal choice to figure out which disadvantages hurt them personally more.

[–] guy@lemmy.world 15 points 8 months ago (6 children)

That's a bit misleading to say like that. Go to the website, scroll to the footer and click on "Legal". Your instance, feddit.de, has a legal notice, with a privacy contact person, mentioning you can request data erasure, and detailing where your data goes. Mine, lemmy.world, has a number of in depth legal documents attached there.

However, yes, other instances they are federated with might not take it as seriously though, and if all your data is going there too, then that's a hole in your data privacy.

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[–] Plopp@lemmy.world 10 points 8 months ago

Very much this. Plus, how easy will instance admin Joe Schmoe fold under external pressure to give access to certain groups, government bodies etc? And how well have Joe Schmoe implemented good security practices on the server and related things? Etc.

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[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 126 points 8 months ago (8 children)

Discord for large communities is dumb as shit. There's literally too many people that real communication becomes impossible unless you move to DMs or an empty room.

[–] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 52 points 8 months ago

so. much. this.

Discord is just an AOL chat room. Great for short-term conversations among 20 or fewer people. It's not a good place to store your FAQ. It's not a good place for large teams. It's not a good place for anything searchable. It's transactional. And I don't know why people treat it otherwise.

[–] dumpsterlid@lemmy.world 29 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (8 children)

Yeah, I hate discord for many reasons but the primary reason is that I just think it is a terrible place to have a conversation. All the channels I see are always dominated by really low quality effort interaction, interesting conversations just get drowned out and lost by someone sharing another meme or responding to someone else's low effort meme.

As someone with pretty intense ADHD, Discord is just so fragmented with so many channels each with their own conversations all fracturing out in different directions with no capacity to keep a handle on it. I hate it.

Fuck Discord

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[–] IvanOverdrive@lemm.ee 114 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I gotta look into this Lemmy thing. Sounds right up my alley.

[–] remotelove@lemmy.ca 20 points 8 months ago (2 children)
[–] Cavemanfreak@lemm.ee 36 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Lemmy, the singer of Motörhead that died 2015?

[–] Olap@lemmy.world 24 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago

No, Lemmy Koopa.

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[–] LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world 57 points 8 months ago (6 children)

I'm so glad I finally got into Lemmy. Reddit was destroyed on July 1st but I couldn't get into Lemmy until November because the instances were so fickle.

In the meantime I tried saidit but quickly discerned that most of the users there were just really bad Reddit rejects. like the worst of the worst Reddit rejects.

Glad Lemmy finally let me in.

[–] Dasnap@lemmy.world 58 points 8 months ago (4 children)

This place seemed to attract the older tech crowd instead of the Nazis like Voat did.

[–] remotelove@lemmy.ca 30 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I am old'ish so this checks out.

Lemmy has its quirks and it has its own distinct cliques, for sure. Posting specific viewpoints on some specific instances can be a bit awkward, especially for new users. Let's just say that if you haven't been called a capitalist pig baby killer at least once on Lemmy, you haven't had the full, well rounded experience.

All in all, Lemmy is fairly nice but people can still play follow the leader with comments. That is a curse with all social media, I'm afraid.

[–] Serinus@lemmy.world 16 points 8 months ago (2 children)

capitalist pig baby killer

I'm guessing your instance hasn't blocked Hexbear and Lemmygrad yet.

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[–] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I think that was just a matter of fortunate timing. The other Reddit migrations were due to toxic subs being banned, so the worst parts of Reddit migrated to whatever platforms were being discussed at the time, which happened to be mainly Voat.

The July 1st exodus was due to the Reddit API being paywalled at extortionate rates to crush third-party apps, which affected normal users - particularly long-time contributors and the tech-savvy. Lemmy discussion was picking up steam at the time, so that's where a lot of these users went.

If the timings were reversed and Lemmy got the worst users Reddit had to offer Lemmy probably would have handled it much better than Voat did (especially since the devs would loathe the new users), but I'd imagine a split forming between instances, with right-wing instances being defederated and creating their own bubbles of toxicity.

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[–] rimu@piefed.social 37 points 8 months ago (1 children)

In that list, only Lemmy has voting or comments in a tree, both key features that make reddit into reddit. If I was going to put together a list of reddit alternatives, those last 3 wouldn't be on it.

[–] rimu@piefed.social 14 points 8 months ago

Oh, except hacker news. But it's just one topic, people can't make their own communities/groups/subreddits another key reddit feature.

[–] Snapz@lemmy.world 36 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Fuck Reddit, but shouldn't be so excited for external validation. We're doing a good thing building this community, we know that without them signing off.

[–] moon@lemmy.cafe 17 points 8 months ago

Good publicity means more traffic, which means more people for community, which means more content, which means the network is more entertaining as a whole (hopefully)

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[–] Suavevillain@lemmy.world 32 points 8 months ago

I really like Lemmy's UI and general nicer community. I hope we see more people joining.

[–] Psythik@lemmy.world 30 points 8 months ago (5 children)

How did Discord make the list but not Imgur? At least Imgur is somewhat like reddit.

[–] nekusoul@lemmy.nekusoul.de 55 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

People will turn everything into a Discord server. I've even seen a Github project disabling their Issue tracker in favor of Discord, which is completely insane to me.

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[–] AbsurdityAccelerator@lemmy.world 18 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Can someone please explain to me why discord is being used for everything? Isn't it basically IRC?

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 15 points 8 months ago

It's a great tool to set up with a small group of friends to stay in contact. It's being pigeonholed for everything else

[–] CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Its fancy IRC with voice channel support, etc

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[–] crazyminner@lemmy.ml 27 points 8 months ago

There are dozens of us, dozens!

[–] kandoh@reddthat.com 27 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Lemmy is great if you love Linux and Star Trek. If you're really into cybersecurity and privacy Lemmy has it all.

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[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 21 points 8 months ago (19 children)

Key strengths of Lemmy

  1. Federation
  2. Tankies
  3. Star Trek memes
  4. Star Trek memes community civil war
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[–] CultHero@lemmy.world 21 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I had been on reddit since 2008, I was looking for an alternative to the message boards I belonged to after the popularity of Facebook killed them off. I really enjoyed it, not the same level of community that you find in a message board but still good for conversation.

Then trump happened and it turned to shit. It's so fucking toxic and I ended up getting banned for defending myself. Apparently fascism is good and standing up for yourself goes against community standards.

I'm a disabled 49 year old just looking for conversation. Facebook is also a toxic wasteland now. To say I miss myspace is an understatement but there's hardly anyone there anymore.

I'm happy whenever I find a place that's put the social back into social media because antisocial media is just trash.

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[–] takeda@lemmy.world 21 points 8 months ago (2 children)

What about kbin (well it is connected with Lemmy, but technically it's not Lemmy) and tildes.net?

[–] datavoid@lemmy.ml 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

Tildes is the only other reddit alternative I've been using. It has really high quality content, but posting there can be intimidating if you don't have 20 minutes to write something insanely detailed.

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[–] Kierunkowy74@kbin.social 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

kbin.social is only PWA right now. There is Interstellar app for Android being developed right now, but it is available only via Github releases (no Google Play nor F-Droid). And it works only on https://kbin.earth (or instances of /kbin fork called /mbin) right now.

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[–] ApeNo1@lemm.ee 14 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Mentioned the Apollo / Reddit saga but did not list Voyager as a client for Lemmy which at least for me has been the closest client in terms of Apollo experience. I know this is Android Police but it did talk about Android and IOS clients in the article.

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[–] Sho@lemmy.world 13 points 8 months ago

We did it Lemmies!

[–] TheVillageGuy@kbin.melroy.org 13 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Mbin https://github.com/MbinOrg/mbin

Pro for me: the ui is a bit more intuitive

[–] takeda@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I guess I missed it. Why there was a need to fork kbin? Are there issues with it?

[–] cabbage@piefed.social 21 points 8 months ago (5 children)

The Kbin developer wants to focus his work on deeper technical challenges, while the Mbin developers want development to be more fast-paced with greater community involvement. Both takes are valid, but difficult to combine in one development effort.

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[–] HallowellNash@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Squabblr seems like a nest of 13 year-olds trolling each other for fake internet points. Pass.

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