With the recent happenings in the United States, the dangers of the privately owned Internet is more apparent than ever, and frankly, it’s scary. And so I’d like to make a simple request to anyone who is reading this; Please use the Fediverse, just a little more.
I personally hate it when I’m stuck having to visit say, YouTube or Reddit to get information, or to entertain myself in quiet moments, and if you’re reading this, the likely chance is you’re the same.
All I want to ask of you is to just comment a few more times, press send on that post that you felt wasn’t of enough substance to be worth anyone’s time. We have such a small community compared to everywhere else, but what we do have in common is that, in the grand scheme of things, we are the early adopters. And if we take that to heart and make this space a little bigger, maybe it will be just big enough we won’t have to visit walled gardens so often.
Thank you :)
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I was recently banned from reddit.
On all my accounts.
Across four email addresses.
Simultaneously.
Many of which haven’t been used in months. Years in some cases.
So - banned on one account linked to one address. Accounts linked to four other email addresses were banned. None of those accounts have been logged into from any device the account I got banned from was being used on.
The emails are linked to my phone number though.
So. Two steps ahead of you. But. They are either using some kind of NLP to identify the way I write. Or google is sharing that the accounts are linked to my phone number.
Anyway. Reddit can fuck right off. And I’ll be buying a burner phone with cash to make some accounts soon.
Google is sharing the details. Reddit is lousy with Google trackers. You literally can’t log in without Google and gstatic trackers being active. Only old.reddit.com doesn’t send Google your views.
How do you know your accounts weren’t part of a ban wave? It doesn’t necessarily mean they linked them through your phone.
Not using other social media annymore. Lemmy was my first introduction to the fediverse. Now I am also using Mastodon and experiment with a hubzilla hub on my homeserver.
I just deleted most of my other social media apps and am trying to lean into the fediverse and nostr as much as I can.
I’m a fediverse supporter (obviously, that’s why I’m here), however what you’re looking for requires a critical mass of users that the fediverse (at least the Lemmy side of it) will never achieve as long as two very critical problems persist:
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sign up is confusing. People are used to clicking “create an account,” inputting a user name, password, and maybe an email, and then BAM they’re a user. I realize the whole instance thing is the entire point, but no one wants nor expects to have to do significant research and make a decision about how they want to interact with a social media site before they’ve even started using it.
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the site (or at least lemmy.world) is sooo slooow. Basic functions like loading images take me back to the dial-up era of “click the image then do something else while it loads,” which is downright ridiculous in the 2020s. Again I’ve stuck with it because I want to support the fediverse, but 99% of users won’t.
And no, these aren’t “features not bugs” unless you want to keep the site small and homogenous.
but no one wants nor expects to have to do significant research and make a decision about how they want to interact with a social media site before they’ve even started using it.
Then just directly recommend specific, general purpose instances to people.
I honestly don’t understand point 1. no matter how much people say it.
Maybe I’m naive because it wasn’t confusing to me personally, but it is only one extra step to create an account. When people explain the Fediverse to new people they compare it to e-mail anyway, which basically has the exact same sign-up structure. The only difference to me is the way it is advertised. Nobody in general says “you need to join e-mail”, it’s usually “join GMail” or “join Yahoo”. I don’t know how it would be solved without detracting from the “choose the instance that is right for you” experience though, since the instances with the most support and funding will obviously hold the most influence (as we currently see with lemmy.world and lemmy.ml, not to mention pixelfed.social).
IDK maybe I’m wrong, lmk, but I don’t think choosing an instance is all the friction it’s said to be.
The big instances are definitely slower though.
I think you’re drastically underestimating how even small steps like that can tune a ton of people out. If they’re only sort of on the fence about it it might be enough to make it not worth it. Or maybe they’ll think they’ll check later but never get around to it.
I was confused by #1 before I got a grasp of Lemmy then I realized lemmy.world is the largest instance and I can just sign up here.
Nobody in general says “you need to join e-mail”, it’s usually “join GMail” or “join Yahoo”. I don’t know how it would be solved without detracting from the “choose the instance that is right for you” experience though
No I think you’re right, give them an instance. They won’t have enough knowledge to choose an instance anyways. If they don’t like the one you gave them then they can move later.
I agree with you on 1. I hope it never fucking changes. The worst thing that could happen is we get the critical mass of dipshits that turns every online service into a fucking shit tornado.
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I already use fediverse an unhealthy amount, if I do more I might die.
you aren’t social mediaing right unless it makes you bleed
I don’t think advertising here is necessary 😉
They posted the same on reddit. It’s an open letter to humans.
Maybe in the coming 4 years people will finally understand why handing over everything to corps isn’t great. Whether they’ll do anything with that understanding is questionable though. The amount of “but it’s so easy” and “I’m just one person” doomerism is fantastic.
Since all this shit started happening I’ve deleted all the social media apps on my phone and I’ve started using lemmy more. Gonna switch my YouTube shit over to peertube when I can.
Intending to actually delete my accounts in the coming weeks too. Bye bye, 13 year old reddit account. Nobody gonna miss ya.
Tbf I have been using Nebula a lot since I signed up pretty cheaply and I enjoy it. It’s owned by the creators. Found it through Jacob Geller.
Bye bye, 13 year old reddit account.
don’t forget to delete your comments there!
I mean if the account is deleted it’s no longer tied (to the puboic at least), and I’m not about to fool myself into thinking my internet use is actually secure.
YouTube is a bit of an issue as unlike the others there’s a lot of content and information you can’t get elsewhere.
I’ve been considering using a proxy to scrape and download subscriptions and add them to a personal server. Probably not practical to do for everything though with how much space that would be.
At the very least see if there’s a wrapper that can strip out a lot of content and just show the stuff I want to watch VS all the nonsense they fire at you.
Ok. I’ll start commenting more literally right now.
Unexpected [email protected]
Is there a list or links somewhere of the defederated basic site replacements?
Like I know about Lemmy (replacement for reddit), Loops (replacement for ticktock/reels), and pixelfed (replacement for insta). Oh and I switched from Spotify to tidal. 🤷🏼♀️
Is there a YouTube replacement? Thats really the next big media channel I use daily…
Thanks Lemmy friends 💜
This is a good place to start: https://fedidb.org/software/
I like the idea of PeerTube and hope it catches on, but I wouldn’t call it a YouTube replacement at this point. There are services that feed youtube content to users remotely though (there is/was a link-converter bot that went around that annoyed some people here, but a) can’t remember the name, and b) can’t remember the actual software involved).
I’d love to see nothing but PeerTube links in the fediverse. YouTube has become almost unusable for me.
Piped bot I believe it was called?
can’t remember the name
But nowadays I would rather recommend https://grayjay.app/ or https://freetubeapp.io/
I think 90% of my posts are deleted before sending because I just know that someone somewhere will find a way to be mad about it
But OK - here is a post that I would usually have deleted :)
The trick, plumbercraic, is not minding that they will be mad.
Over the years I’ve learned it’s ok to ignore if it seems like someone wants to pick a fight. Not everything has to be a debate, and no it doesn’t make you look weak. You just got better shit to do than argue with strangers on the internet. :)
As Someone Somewhere, I urge you to post more.
I cannot believe this account is two years old and not made just for this comment haha.
I’ve taken on the mantra of “Participate, but be respectful.” That’s led me to post a few times where I normally wouldn’t.
Realize that there is nothing wrong with pissing someone off because they disagree with you. It’s only wrong if you pissed them off because of how you said it, or if you are closed minded about being proven wrong.
And in the real world, a down vote doesn’t matter.
OMG really? How COULD you…
Neglect to offer your valuable opinion. Hey, you’re a human and have valuable things to say. Haters gon hate. Fuck 'em.
I’ve also been posting less after managing to upset someone. We can have a club. The shy posters club.
You’re not shy, you’re just a normally adjusted human.
It’s normal to want to avoid being abused and insulted for, say, having an opinion which is marginally different to the in-group consensus. But unfortunately that’s what happens when we post on text-based social media. Apparently the medium does something to people’s minds, turning them into nasty vindictive unpleasant versions of themselves.
I’m a pretty self-confident person in real life and even I think twice about posting anything here that contradicts the prevailing groupthink. The inevitable insults and abuse and mockery are sometimes just not worth it.
Personally, I have hope that if a larger variety of people are posting and commenting (typical lurkers and such) then hopefully the echo chamber aggression will weaken a little, and hopefully foster a positive and friendly community. I’m trying to lead by example :)
Refreshing optimism!
if a larger variety of people are posting and commenting (typical lurkers and such) then hopefully the echo chamber aggression will weaken a little
Unfortunately I’m not sure the hope is warranted. Putting a lot of people with different views in front of each other, over text, does not, in general, by default, seem to go that well. At least not going by the experience of the first 30 years of the social internet. You tend to get the worst aspect of human group dynamics and speech-policing without the self-moderation that comes with in-person contact - i.e. the effect of audible voices, and visible faces and body language.
I’m not a complete pessimist or I wouldn’t be here. But I think these issues can only be solved by activist moderation that enforces rules with a light touch while remaining tolerant and always assuming good faith. And, of course, that kind of moderation is time-consuming and very, very hard. It’s a skill that hardly any communities have access to. But it is at least a reasonable goal.
I see where you’re coming from, historically the internet and large communities tend to foster that kind of aggression. I, for one, will be striving to build a positive environment though, and just maybe, we’ll see those fruits lead into a brighter future :). I myself am applying for some moderator positions to help take up that effort!
That’s great news. Good luck.
I’ve had abuse for posting a short story that validated the group think. Several times.
I’ve only just managed to overcome my membership in the shy posters club haha! Hey, keep a seat warm for me while I’m away, okay?
I do that quite a lot too
Just remember that the people getting mad at you are not deleting any of their posts.
Thank you :), and I’ll just let you know, that this comment brought a smile to my face. I’m proud of you.
That’s a horrible take and you should feel bad.
But I’m a stranger on the Internet and probably a moron so it’s ok to not take me seriously or respond to me.
thats reddit, ppl hate way less here, id prime myself to argue before I made a comment on reddit, made me a more argumentative person
I get this. I used to use Threads and someone got very angry at me cause I said Labour, supposedly the left wing party in the UK, are “upsetting the right people”, I should have clarified that I don’t think that they are doing a good job, but never mind.
A lot of times I’ll write out a comment and end up deleting it. Most times it’s because I feel like it’s something that’s already been said or not worth reading but I’ll try to be less of a lurker.
I’m in the exact same boat. But I kind of realized, if I want to see a bigger fediverse, I’ll have to help build it up. As the classic saying goes, you can lead a horse to water; but first there’s gotta be water. So thank you for taking up the cause of building this lake :)
actually i don’t think that’s the saying
Well it is now that you opened the spigot
wish I could upvote this a thousand times
I’ve started explaining this to non-techies. Hopefully starting to gain a little traction as the meta/ticktock machine becomes more and more egregious. Also this is speeding up the homelab I’m building.
I’d add the appropriate meme but I’m new here.
I’m doing my part .gif
