Even though millions of people left Twitter in 2023 – and millions more are ready to move as soon as there’s a viable alternative – the fediverse isn’t growing.1 One reason why: today’s fediverse is unsafe by design and unsafe by default – especially for Black and Indigenous people, women of color, LGBTAIQ2S+ people2, Muslims, disabled people and other marginalized communities.
This place only unsafe for trolls. And that’s a good thing.
Not even just trolls, I have yet to come across a clearly-bad post that wasn’t already downvoted to oblivion, or a clearly-good post that had a negative total. And the csam response? Straight up world-class defense system faster than any megacorp could’ve scrambled together.
Lemmy users are anything but passive when it comes to trash showing up in the feed.
I was hoping for an article about the various massive technical and legal issues it has, but oh well.
Say you don’t understand the fediverse without saying you don’t understand the fediverse.
By these standards:
- The web is unsafe by default
- Email is unsafe by default
In all three cases, your safety is determined by the home you choose, and who/what you choose to interact with.
I really don’t know where this notion of the Internet is safe and you get privacy came from. I was taught 25 years ago that neither of those were true.
I mean, I guess the point they are making: “Keeping the fediverse an enjoyable experience is hard work by design” is kind of true.
But I would be very interested in how you can exclude hate speech “by design”
Keeping society enjoyable/safe/functional/etc is hard work by design. That’s just the way humanity is. Sucks it has to be this way, but we’re fundamentally flawed.
You patch one hole in your defenses against destabilization and another one will spring up eventually. It’s always a work in progress.
The exact opposite is true. I am part of a very small minority and I made my own fediverse instances. Everyone who tries to go ableist/racist/misogynist or whathaveyou gets the boot. Very easy solution indeed.
The issue right now is how hard it is to set up an instance. In my opinion, every router on the world should have instances running (and tunneled to not dox themselves) so people are not dependent on big instances.
I would downvote this since it’s misleading af but it also sparks debate so I‘ll refrain.
In my opinion, every router on the world should have instances running (and tunneled to not dox themselves) so people are not dependent on big instances.
That would be a security and moderation nightmare. Moderating an instance is a tough job, and not everybody wants to take on that job.
That could be a moderation and security nightmare. But so could everything else you do.
Running a demilitarized zone to host lemmy for example does nothing for your home network since it is cut off from it. The important part is having automatic updates and smart interface to make configuration easy. I‘m not saying everyone should be doing it, I‘m saying everyone should be able to.
Moderation is no problem either. If only people in your home network are allowed to register, you have only them to police. And stuff from outside gets reported to one or multiple mods and deleted/blocked/defederated. Problem solved.
I don’t see a problem at all. Its still ways off atm but I can see it working.
If only people in your home network are allowed to register
Well, that’s one critical detail you didn’t specify. But, that still doesn’t account for the need for software updates, and hacking attempts. Also, why would anybody subscribe a community on a Lemmy instance with almost nobody on it?
Yes, i didn’t specify that because for me, it was obvious, sorry.
I‘m not sure you know how federation works. If one person subscribes to a one person instances community, that community gets federated. It is suddenly visible like it is on the big instance the one user came from.
It’s not important that your instance is small. You need good content.
i think this will happen. the fediverse software field is literally in its infancy. i cant believe people are complaining rigfht now when so many products havent even reached 1.0, but are getting close.
and seeing these products from the inside, these are not products that are impossible to one-click install for non-tech folks… its going to happen.
you will absolutely see 3rd parties spin up services to auto-deploy a functioning fediverse server much the way a wordpress site is created. but its not now… maybe soon.
Thank you. This is essentially what I thought but couldn’t phrase like you did. There are already companies who spin up and host on demand like a wordpress site. We‘re most of the way there. We just need peeps to refrain from spinning the story the opposite way. People will read it and some will believe it, losing out on the opportunity. The author of the article tried to explain to me that they did mention that the fediverse has come a long way (which is far short from what you and I are trying to say). This shows me that some people just cant judge the huge potential and the fact that human discipline or lack thereof is more of a problem than software atm.
I didn’t say the fediverse has come a long way. I said that many people on well-moderated instances have good experiences – which has been true since 2017. In general though I’d say there was a brief period of rapid progress on this front in the early days of Mastodon in 2016/2017, and since then progress has been minimal. Lemmy for example has much weak moderation functionality than Mastodon. Akkoma, Bonfire, Hubzilla etc are better but have minimal adoption.
And @originallucifer Ipeople have been complaining about this for years – it was an issue in 2011 with Diaspora, 2016 with Gnu social, 2017 with Mastodon, etc etc etc – so it’s not a matter of fediverse software as a whole being in its infancy. Even Lemmy’s been around for almost four years at this point. It’s just that the developers haven’t prioritized this.
As I say in the article:
Despite these problems, many people on well-moderated instances have very positive experiences in today’s fediverse. Especially for small-to-medium-size instances, for experienced moderators even Mastodon’s tools can be good enough.
However, many instances aren’t well-moderated. So many people have very negative experiences in today’s fediverse.
Welcome to the fuckin internet and humanity in general, for that matter.
deleted by creator
It’s in the article.
My bad. I thought it was just a statement. I will take the time to read the article and form my own opinion.
For that I guess you have to click on their website, which I have 0 interest in doing.
Total bullshit article.
If anything, I’ve seen more LGBT people here and on Mastadon than anywhere else on the entire internet.
I think the community doesn’t particularly care if you are LGBT or whatever else you are. Does not matter.
Firstly, WTF is LGBTAIQ2S+?. Secondly, I haven’t experienced any more bigotry here than I would on any other social media platform.
This is the first time I’ve seen this one. Best result I saw from 30 seconds of googling:
In 2020, the National Runaway Safeline (NRS) began using LGBTQIA2S+ to recognize those who identify as “Two-Spirit.” This phrase refers to people who identify as having both a masculine and feminine spirit, and is used by some Indigenous and Native communities.
“Two-Spirit” describes the cultural-specific understanding for the diverse gender traditions of Indigenous and Native people. Historically, Two-Spirit people were among the most respected in their communities, often serving as community healers, ceremonial leaders or caregivers to the elderly or orphaned children. This is consistent across many cultures who experienced extreme oppression and intergenerational trauma through periods of colonization. Today, young people who identify as Two-Spirit may suffer from inequalities perpetuated by a legacy of discriminatory laws and policies.
Source: National Runaway Safelinedeleted by creator
From the article:
I’m using LGBTQIA2S+ as a shorthand for lesbian, gay, gender non-conforming, genderqueer, bi, trans, queer, intersex, asexual, agender, two-sprit, and others (including non-binary people) who are not straight, cis, and heteronormative. Julia Serrano’s trans, gender, sexuality, and activism glossary has definitions for most of terms, and discusses the tensions between ever-growing and always incomplete acronyms and more abstract terms like “gender and sexual minorities”. OACAS Library Guides’ Two-spirit identities page goes into more detail on this often-overlooked intersectional aspect of non-cis identity.
A terrible idea by the LGBT community to expand the definition, when they thought they already “won” the battle and wanted to expand their scope, completely ignoring how marginalized the trans community was at that point, and how much was still left to fight for LGB rights. People quickly objected and most threw away the dumb acronym.
I kinda thought the ever-expanding acronym problem was being informally solved by a gradual transition to just saying “Queer.”
I am not a member of any of the groups that would fall under that categorization though, so I may be wrong.
As a trans person, I feel far safer on Lemmy and mastodon than I ever did on any other social media.
That’s great! And a lot of trans people I’ve talked with on Mastodon say similar things, which is also great. But a lot don’t. It depends a lot on the instance you wind up choosing. So the people who stay wind up as a self-selecting sample.
