https://lemmy.world/post/16211417
Lemmy.ml, like lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net, has consistently been accused of improper Federation practices and many instances have decided to ban one or both of the latter by default, with many individual users having already gone further to block the former as well. However, many individual users on lemmy.ml seem unaware of the accusations of the practices of their admins, and some people go so far as to see lemmy.ml as a sort of default instance on the Fediverse.
This discussion promotes wider knowledge of the situation and what might be done about it in the future, in order to e.g. not turn away new potential Federation members (Fedizens?:-) that could otherwise associate what happens on that instance as something relating to the Fediverse as a whole.
You’re not kidding. All social media right now is plagued by extremists who only seem to know how to fight. Even when they lack any real purpose for it they go looking for one.
And not by random accident either - companies put in HUGE investments into designing blinking, flashing, candied-looking… everything, in order to foster “engagement”. Dark Mirror has several episodes illustrating various aspects, trying to warn people.
In the olden days there was a phrase that “sex sells”. Well it turns out, only up to a point - whereas kittens & puppies sell even moar, and getting people angry is an appetite that seems inexhaustible.
And that does not even begin to touch on how certain actors would very much like to exaggerate certain of those effects, to their own potential benefits. e.g., the likes of anti-vaxxers + never-Hillary-ers got Trump elected, and while both of those movements maybe (probably even) started organically, they definitely have also had their fans flamed both by outside groups and the poorly constructed echo chambers of social media.
This is just the way of the world, and fighting against it, like death & entropy, is an absolute necessity yet difficult.
So if that is how they want to be, then fine. But we still need to do our part to call it out like it is, and to warn others away, or else the Fediverse as a whole suffers. I almost quit the Fediverse myself a few months ago, though fortunately v.0.19.3 came out and I simply blocked lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net instead, and now I am as happy as a clam:-).
- well can someone suggest a instance? And is there a way to transfer my communities to another account
In your account settings there is an export function that will generate a file. Use that file in your new account to import your subscriptions.
I have hopped around a lot myself - @[email protected] is there a particular post to recommend reading in this regard?
My suggestion at this point might be to:
- if you just want to read but not yet interact, log onto any one of them e.g. https://lemmy.world and poke around!:-)
- consider if there are any particular communities that you are interested in the most - e.g. https://programming.dev/c/programmer_humor, or https://sh.itjust.works/c/patientgamers, etc.
- for general-purpose ones - arguably the best approach - visit a site like https://lemmyverse.net/ to see those that have the most activity on them and might be closest to you.
Do NOT get mislead though by the community / instance descriptions, e.g. midwest.social says that it is for “leftists in the Midwest USA”, but what it means by “leftists” is not the common usage (especially for people in the Midwestern USA, who would interpret it like “progressive liberal” or some such) and rather more extreme forms such as full-on communism. Similarly, hexbear.net never bothers to enforce their own Code of Conduct (the only time they remember the human is when you say something they agree with - any other time the human is fair game to be dunked on!). But it is like watching Fox News: regardless of what they say, pretty quickly you get a sense that something is a bit “off” when you visit these places:-).
lemmy.ml is much harder to get a read on though, hence the linked discussion. It does not say that it is leftist, or even has any instance description that I can see - they just call themselves “Lemmy” as if that is sufficient, with no disambiguation between it and the software that runs on it or any acknowledgement that the rest of the Fediverse exists. Ironically lemmygrad.ml is doing better these days at more accurately portraying what it is about, with a communist flag and manifesto - that honesty is appreciated, by me at least, as it shows an intellectual capacity to realize that other viewpoints exist and thus to distinguish self vs. nonself, unlike what lemmy.ml does (not).
I think there are some tools to transfer accounts but I have never used them so I don’t know where to find them - sorry, but I hope knowing that at least helps you find them:-).
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: [email protected]
My comment above is pretty much my recommendation.
I think there are some tools to transfer accounts but I have never used them so I don’t know where to find them - sorry, but I hope knowing that at least helps you find them:-).
For the transfer of communities, there is a tab in the user settings to export your settings (including subscriptions) to a JSON file. You can then import it to your new account.
- lemm.ee is the second most active instance and avoids joining Lemmy.world which is already too big
- reddthat.com is cool if you don’t want downvotes
- sh.itjust.works works, if you don’t mind the name
- if you are based in Europe, discuss.tchncs.de is very well managed (they have other services at https://tchncs.de/)
- if you are based in North America, lemmy.ca is nice
That’s pretty much it.
For the transfer of communities, there is a tab in the user settings to export your settings (including subscriptions) to a JSON file. You can then import it to your new account.
For people that want an instance-level block for the Big 3 Axis powers - hexbear.net, lemmygrad.ml, and Lemmy.ml - are you aware of anything that could be recommended?
I also went through all the top ones at https://lemmyverse.net/ and very few to nothing is defederated from lemmy.ml (though yffit is defederated by Lemmy.ml…:-P).
Kbin.social might have been, but I’m not certain and it’s been down for several days. Possibly an Mbin one could be but that also has enormous implications for apps chosen and the interface in general.
So what I’m trying to think of is a Lemmy instance to recommend to people, even irl to consider joining the Fediverse, bc otherwise I’m hesitant to recommend us at this point, given all the absolute shit that I would be exposing them too by default, until they learn how to block stuff. It’s similar to Linux then in that unless I walk them through setting up an account and curating their experience, it’s too overwhelming and they will just give up. For whatever reason, we collectively have decided that we are okay with this really terrible situation that heavy curation is mandatory… even as we also claim that we want the Fediverse to grow.
That’s pretty much it.
Rude.
Dbzer0, for pirates, mushrooms, etc.
Dbzer0 is great, but I always assume people interesting in it will find it out. The list above is about “general instances”
your home instance doesnt necessarily need to be a behemoth as you can subscribe to all the same stuff. ive got a dozen or so users at moist.catsweat.com who primarily consume lemmy content
The one issue smaller instances have is that the All feed is much less populated as communities only show up if at least one user of the instance is subscribed to it.
Not a dealbreaker of course, but something to be aware of.
that’s a huge dealbreaker all I use currently is the All feed
Which is why all the instances I recommended you have a large number of users (lemm.ee even has more monthly active users than lemmy.ml: https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy/)
yeah i kinda did something silly by have a bot user subscribe to populated communities in popular instances to resolve that exact issue. it misses the brand new ones though.
/new is my favorite
Thanks for posting it here
Really surprised and pleased to see my original comment to you triggering your lengthy call to action and all the traction it received!
Thank you for your OP, that was the start of it all!
Ideas are cheap, execution is key :)
You are very welcome!:-)
I am never sure about how to do the links - here I went with the instance of the community that it was posted to rather than the poster’s original instance where it originated. Lemmy.world is also more populated so fewer people will have to search for it on their home instance that way. One day I hope the tools catch up to allow federated linking to posts and comments:-).
I would maybe add the link to the post (the LW one) at the beginning of the text, so that people can paste in the search bar of their instance and get the post on their instance
Oh wow I had no idea that that worked!?:-) Here all this time I have been using title words, but that is very convenient, thank you so much for the tip!:-)
Interesting, I might post it to [email protected] to see if it could help other people
Meanwhile .world heavily censors for israel but that’s fine.
Dont debunk beheaded babies and rapes on .world that is antisemitic. New York Times never lies guys!
Whether done by community mods or instance admins, it seems like similar thoughts should apply: starting new communities elsewhere (on different instances) increases freedom of choice, so that abuses in one area don’t leave someone entirely out in the wasteland with no content.
This is why defederation with .ml is contradictory. Because it serves to amplify a liberal zionist echo chamber.
Coincidentally virtually every person you hear whining about getting banned from .ml is someone defending the Genocide of Palestinians. And usually the real reason they got banned from .ml is because they went around screaming at everyone they were a Tankie.
.ml very often features criticism about Russia and/or China without being removed. Case in point the Tienanmen square posts yesterday and today. But because it also allows viewpoints which .world users have never experienced in their life they can’t help it but start a shit-slinging contest in comment sections.
I should say that I have no skin in this game, and haven’t even looked into the depths of the content as perhaps you have. I just wanted to promote people looking at the (meta) discussion about the matter, in large part bc regardless of whether the (temporary) bans were justified or not, there is a more important issue (it seems) as to whether proper procedures were followed to achieve the end goal. e.g., were database manipulation practices used to obscure those removals? And why were people removed from many communities at once, rather than e.g. an instance ban or a community ban? Those topics sounded interesting to me.
Thank you for adding additional perspective here. I hope you added it to the post itself as well.
.ml very often features criticism about Russia and/or China without being removed. Case in point the Tienanmen square posts yesterday and today.
Ah yes… So much criticism there… Totally allowing outside viewpoints! No overzealous modding happening here! the entire comments of the linked thread is all pro-china going, with many outright claiming that tiananmen square didn’t happen or were a creation of western media.
The other thread named the same thing (cross-post) completely deleted. Notice that “delete” or “removed” isn’t in the modlog. Exactly as OP has stated that admins are doing on some instances.
This is the primary reason I have my own instance. Power tripping mods and admins cannot remove content from my server. I can view all the comments I like WITHOUT the interference of those people. Make my own choices rather than having them made for me.
Now those newer perspectives aren’t per-se correct. Many times you will find Tankies. Had one guy try to deny the Uyghur concentration camps. But I didn’t get banned for disagreeing with him because my replies didn’t consist of “lmao ur a tankie”.
And yet, I’ve been banned from lemmy.ml for saying, verbatim
“Because being critical of a Russian company = racism. At least according to lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml users.” in response to someone else asking why “how is not liking Kaspersky, in and of itself, racist or xenophobic?”. So much “Xenophobia” packed into my answer right? Considering that ban was handed out by dessalines himself. I’m going to have to agree with your “Many times you will find Tankies” statement, and that’s because nearly the whole of lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml are all tankies.
So you painted all if lemmy.ml as a tankie fest and got banned. Just like I stated.
Be glad that it’s not for criticizing israel like /news and /politics on .world does. And if you point it out on those instances your comment also gets removed and you get banned.
And as I said. You will have tankies with insane takes. Those usually come from Lemmygrad or Hexbear. .ml is mostly lefties and just a few tankies in the mix. But the people I see getting banned from .ml are not banned for content but the presentation of said content.
Lemmy.World sounds like another conversation worth having. Feel free to assemble your references and post that as well - probably somewhere other than Lemmy.World:-). I for one don’t know enough about it.
Also, the linked OP wasn’t merely about sth along the lines of “Lemmy.ml being tankies” (anyone at all who is on the Fediverse is surely a tankie according to some, like conservatives on Truth Social:-P), it was rather more about abusive moderation practices. It sounds like you think you have a strong case to make against Lemmy.World similarly, but definitely find as solid proof as you can to prove it to others who will refuse to spend anywhere close to as much time on it as you have & will.
Still further, the linked OP wasn’t even just about abusive practices, but by ones that look deceptive, by virtue of hiding (not necessarily intentionally, fwiw) them in the database edits, and being done by instance admins rather than just mods of the communities. If your case against Lemmy.World is rather about the latter, that greatly reduces its overall applicability to the Fediverse, though in that case you would want to appeal to the admins to remove those mods? (unless they are the same people?)
Worst of all, this issue with Lemmy.ml was eminently solvable: there are other instances that people can shift over to, which instantly solves it for them. But finding mods of such a high-profile and contentious community among our still fairly small user community base… may prove difficult. Especially when those people may receive literal death threats. So I am saying: you might not get as strong a response as you hope, having little to do with the content, and more to do with the psychology of people not wanting to put in actual effort to solve problems. Even so, your conscience will rest easy b/c you told people. And you may need to tell them again months later.
Lastly, I hope it is obvious that Lemmy.World doing bad things in no way shape or form excuses Lemmy.ml from doing far worse things. Especially if you didn’t even get banned, but merely censored. Not that that makes it alright, just that the vehemence of the linked OP made the situation much more noticeably obvious, whereas a more subtle pattern of discrimination may be harder to prove?
So you painted all if lemmy.ml as a tankie fest and got banned. Just like I stated.
I was literally followed around by a moderator of lemmy.ml who was screaming at me tankie shit. There’s nothing nuanced there. I noticed you ignored the fact that the thread got locked and deleted though. Not sure how you can continue to defend it when shown that your own example is actually a counterexample.
[email protected] Here’s a moderator on lemmy.ml on a couple large communities. Scroll through and you’ll find ACTUALLY xenophobic remarks. You’ll find hate speech, you’ll find ALL of it. But because it’s pro-china, it’s okay. When you endorse moderators like this on your instance, you’re a tankie instance.
Be glad that it’s not for criticizing israel like /news and /politics on .world does. And if you point it out on those instances your comment also gets removed and you get banned.
I’ll criticize Israel too if it’s warranted in the conversation. I’ve yet to be banned from any other instance other than lemmy.ml
Checking up on the Mod Log regularly reveals exactly how petty and unhinged many mods on Fedi are. Suppression of political ideas is the main one.
Well worth doing once in a while. Though only when you are feeling extra “tough”. I just did and saw a lot of hateful comments I’m glad are gone, but also 2 (both from lemmy.ml) that look perfectly on topic. At least we can find out what our moderators are doing.
One of the best features of lemmy. A bit of transparency is great.
Except when that process gets subverted by someone with admin access to the database, as the OP discussion mentions:-(. But when it works properly, absolutely yes:-).
I for one go there extremely rarely, and only to look up specific matters. It does not help that something (post or comment) could be removed by either a community moderator, on one instance, or an admin, on an entirely different instance. But I am glad that there are people that analyze it:-).
I used to be a mod of a small and then another medium-sized (for a niche) community on Reddit. Since coming to Kbin and then Lemmy, I have not volunteered to moderate anything. We need people to, but it’s an extremely depressing job.
It’s like politicians: we need them, but the role tends to attract the attentions of those least suited to get it done:-(. And the actual GOOD ones tend to not stay for long - perhaps a year or two, if they actually care about the community that they moderate:-|.
I’m banned-for-life from there.
Russia invaded/desecrated/butchered Ukraina, & I remember what the vids showed of Mariupol ( sorry spelling ).
I made a comment on there to the effect that if Putin was the pusher of the war, then making things as politically-difficult for Putin in the election would be a Good Thing™.
( to me, the obvious implied-point is that it might have ended an immensely-wasting-of-life war that people other than Putin weren’t so interested in, and that, by definition, must therefore be a Good Thing™ )
Anybody who pushes Russia’s butchering of Ukraina as something which cannot be spoken-against, is fucking terrorist-at-heart.
Just my opinion, but there I’ve no right to such opinion.
The beauty of this?
It perfectly demonstrates how segregation-of-ideologies allows positive-feedback-loops, which produces extremism.
Left, right, political, religious, moneyarchist, legalist, nationalist, sexist/genderist, ALL ideologies are self-amplifying.
There’s a book on the US’s political-segregation ( “The Big Sort” ) & it looks like that mechanism, ideological-segregation, has only 1 outcome: butchery/war.
So, given the evidence, it looks like the whole world is going to be butchering everybody within a … decade or so.
Amplification, feedback-loop, polarization, and nothing is countering its controlling of the process of this world…
it’s got an outcome.
And if our world’s population won’t stop/prevent the “drunk driver” from force-crashing our “bus” with all our world’s peoples in it … well, then we get crashed/killed.
The Great Filter.
WHEN one has cancer, THEN is it right to KILL that cancer??
WHEN one is newly-infected with rabies, THEN is it valid to prime one’s immune-system to as violently as possible defend one’s life against rabies?
Or should we just make-nice, live in making-believing, & hope that our hopium works??
What Russia’s been doing to Ukraina, what Hamas got Israel to be doing against the Palestinians & all the journalists…
do we let rabies overrun our world’s life?
Will the US allow rabies to overrun its life?
( yes, obviously.
The others … likewise.
Therefore, Universe’s Natural Selection is looking to be … “pruning” our world from the worlds-in-Universe-with-civilized-life-on-them, this century … isn’t it? )
_ /\ _
ALL ideologies are self-amplifying.
I would put it differently, I think: all ideologies can become amplified, but they do not necessarily have to be. I tend to find that people of character can discourse on anything at all, whereas people lacking character cannot discourse on much if anything without it devolving into a fight - for the latter, fighting is the point, not a(n unfortunate) by-product of the discussion topic at hand. For people whose ultimate end-goal is Truth, then what idea could possibly be a “cancer”? Though for people whose goal is rather Control, every dissenting opinion must be rooted out & destroyed. But I would say that it is not “facts” that are the deadly things, and rather “attitudes”, like whether someone values Truth vs. Control. I hope that makes some semblance of sense:-P.
Also, there’s a difference between labelling something and censoring it. You getting banned is an example of the latter, whereas e.g. X’s adding a note that “this post may contain misinformation” would be the former. In movies, labelling porn as X or XXX or whatever, and more “adult” movies as R, “young teenager” movies as PG-13, child aka “general audience” movies as G, allows people to pick and choose what they want (though e.g. to get into a PG-13 movie, someone younger than 13 needs an adult present). But then when you have people arguing not about facts but which authoritarian viewpoint is going to be force-fed to the masses, neither labelling nor censoring is going to be possible in a manner to please both sides, b/c the truth cannot be agreed upon first, nor even THAT the truth should matter at all in the first place.
Some places, like Wikipedia put in ENORMOUS investments of effort (time, attention, real WORK) to getting something that everyone can more or less agree upon. e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump says not that “he’s totally innocent, framed I tell ya!” nor “he’s guilty as sin and should be shot”, but the bare-bones facts that:
In May 2024, a jury in New York found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels, making him the only former U.S. president to be convicted of a crime. He has been indicted in three other jurisdictions on 54 other felony counts related to his mishandling of classified documents and efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In separate civil proceedings in New York state court, Trump was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation in 2023 and for financial fraud in 2024.
This will not stop people from interpreting these facts however they wish, but these words do serve the purpose of being recorded in a purely factual manner for the sake of a public record.
Conversely, social media is not worth that amount of attention, so moderators resort to simply censoring it. It’s the nature of the game, which we sign up for by commenting to such a place in the first place. We are entitled to nothing. Though we can comment on our POV from our experiences, and e.g. if we don’t like their admin practices, we can - and should - leave lemmy.ml and move on to better places where we are more free to discuss things among people who care more about facts than authoritarian regimes propped up by censorship of dissenting opinions (and yes, contrarian facts).
But first, we need to acknowledge that it is happening, as we are doing now. And then share that knowledge with others who may be taken unawares, so that they too do not have to go through all the pain that you did, in having to find that out first-hand. :-)
