PS: The discussion on this post turned mainly into a (one-sided) debate about whether the content of my contributions passes the Lemmy ideological purity test. So dull, yet so predictable. To be clear: I stand by everything I’ve written on Lemmy. Efforts at shaming will fall flat, as will pompous denunciations and attempts at dunking based on virtual sleuthing. I’m far too secure in my convictions to be bothered by a brigade of insufferably self-righteous progressives trying to one-up each other in their efforts to root out dissidence. To the (quite numerous) others who offered interesting feedback and kind words, thanks.
Here are some reflections on my personal experience of federated social media.
A bit of background. In the 90-9-1 trichotomy, I am one of the 9%: an occasional active participant. As of 3 years ago I had been dabbling in social media since I was a teenager in the 90s, but never very deeply. Newsgroups and IRC; a bit of invisible blogging; various techie web forums; Twitter from 2008 (hardly any tweets); Facebook in the early 2010s (a post or two per week at the peak); then Reddit. As of 2023 I had been “on” Reddit for nearly a decade and not even written 100 comments. Then I decided on a whim to join Lemmy.
The good
Three years later I have written nearly 100 original posts and over 3000 comments! This is an order of magnitude more than I used social media in the previous 25 years. How to explain it?
A bunch of things. I liked the UX instantly, it’s much better than Reddit. No ads, so no nagging feeling that you’re bankrolling a corporation. A (slightly) higher level of conversation quality than Reddit.
Probably the single biggest explanation is just that it’s quieter. On Reddit I always arrived too late to the party. It’s hard to find the motivation to say something when a thread already has 800 comments. On Lemmy, I’d arrive 12 hours after the post and there were only 6 comments. If I take the time to compose my thoughts, somebody might actually see it! I get the paradox here (there are tons more eyes passively looking at Reddit), but the “quiet room” effect is real.
Highlights
Hands down the best community I’ve found here is (no surprise) a specialized one: !birding@lemmy.world. Lots of original content and genuine expertise, zero vitriol or toxicity. Perfect. In a similar vein, !pigeon@mander.xyz, where you can literally post pics of pigeons to an adoring audience.
I’ve also got some value out of !linux@lemmy.world and !privacy@programming.dev for one of those reasons: the ambient expertise. It’s not really breaking news: Linux and FOSS and privacy are really the only subjects where the fediverse can go toe-to-toe with the corporates in terms of expertise. IMO that’s already an achievement that should not be squandered!
Quite a few of my 96 posts are original content (“OG”, ugh). A whole bunch are photos from my bike-touring escapades, which I posted somewhat arbitrarily to !bicycle_touring@lemmy.world , !bicycling@lemmy.world, and !solarpunktravel@slrpnk.net. I rationalize this as an alternative to blogging: instead of hosting your own invisible vanity website, you can write what you have to say in a place where you have less control but where people may actually read it. It’s the logic of social media, basically, but minus the ads and opaque algos and shareholders. As expected, my holiday photos were not viral sensations, but they did attract some love and a few nice comments. Success!
The less good
My experience on Lemmy has taught me something that I knew in theory but (somehow) not quite in practice: Socializing via text on a screen is quite hard to pull off successfully. The lack of physical accountability, the inherent difficulty of text communication (avoiding ambiguity without the help of a face or body language), all this tends to make people into worse versions of themselves. Me included to some extent, I’m sure.
And then there’s the echo-chamber problem. It turns out that when people have an option to avoid dealing with ideas they disagree with (even slightly), very many of them choose that option. IMO this is a major (perhaps fatal) problem with social media. The fediverse is not magically immune from it.
Lowlights
The first - and definitely worst - experience I’ve had was 2 years ago when I got banned from !europe@feddit.org for “racism and gaslighting” on the basis of, well, pretty much nothing except the moderator’s paranoia. Shut out of the single community that had most drawn me to Lemmy, I tried !europe@lemmy.dbzer0.com and in short order had a similar experience. I am a European liberal who votes green, and a moderate on social questions, although admittedly I do enjoy debate. To be shut down so brutally for daring to question progressive doxas in the politest terms - for me this was quite a shocking confirmation of the intolerance of a certain section of the (mainly US) left.
On !degrowth@slrpnk.net I got a virtual slap on the wrist for posting an article offering constructive criticism of degrowth. I’m basically a degrowther myself but I believe it’s important to stress-test one’s ideas (cf. J S Mill). The moderators politely disagreed. Fair enough. I deleted my post and unsubscribed.
The problem on !china@sopuli.xyz, meanwhile was (is) slightly different. It’s that the community is swamped by a single hyperactive member who posts relentlessly on exactly the same themes with the same POV, and - the echo chamber, again - responds badly to any pushback. I contacted the moderator in private and received a virtual shrug.
So I decided to ditch all politics and stick to photos and niche subjects. But even here it has not been plain sailing. A (slightly whiny) post I wrote a few months ago about the difficulty of installing Linux on cheap hardware (a pretty niche subject!) received an avalanche of mockery and insults that really took me aback. And then I really stirred up a hornets’ nest quite recently in this very community when I proposed a feature which would hugely improve my experience of Lemmy without affecting anyone else. Can’t link to that because it got (very belatedly) deleted, ostensibly because offtopic but in reality because the proposal was unpopular. In fact this was my last post on Lemmy to date. Probably not a coincidence.
Conclusions
For me personally, the jury’s still out. I’m pretty ambivalent about social media in general. Since The Atlantic introduced a discussion space a few months ago, I admit that I’ve transferred some of my energy there. And yes, it’s been a better experience. But the reason is no indictment of Lemmy: It’s that The Atlantic has a paywall, which essentially means I’m talking only to privileged people like myself there. I enjoy Hacker News even more, but that’s because it’s super specialized (politics is mostly banned), and professionally moderated, and also (attention: wild POV!) because it’s full of engineers and other spectrumy types who take a Spock-like approach to communication. The problems I’ve had on Lemmy are problems of all generalist social media, not specifically of the fediverse.
In my case what remains are the figures. Despite everything, I have contributed more, and more personally, on Lemmy than I ever did on the R-site or anywhere else. That has to count for something. Corporate social media is a manipulative money-driven spyware-fueled nightmare. The federated decentralized type is obviously, plainly, better. That’s why it has to succeed.
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The first - and definitely worst - experience I’ve had was 2 years ago when I got banned from !europe@feddit.org for “racism and gaslighting” on the basis of, well, pretty much nothing except the moderator’s paranoia.
It wasn’t me, but looking at your moderation log and the messages in question, I would have called it “islamophobia and downplaying neo-nazi crimes” and banned you just the same. Others are welcome to have a look at those messages and judge for themselves 🤷
tried !europe@lemmy.dbzer0.com and in short order had a similar experience.
looks in the mod log
reason: blatantly denying genocide
Yep i guess i can skip this section of the post
blatantly denying genocide
I do wish the removed content was always available from the modlog. We’re not immune to a mod saying something that someone said something that they didn’t strictly say. While we’re better about keeping things open, i thing we’re better protected with keeping it all available.
Unfortunately there’s loads of reddit style interactions on here. But at a structural level, it’s successfully set up differently from Reddit.
Will be good to see it flesh out more, and I hope it keeps growing.
As it grows I think it will be much easier to justify a new person or instance in cutting off entire toxic areas and that will only cause it to grow faster.
Right now we all have to weigh the balance between activity and toxicity but eventually we shouldn’t need to make that calculation, we can have “high moderation” and “low moderation” versions of every topic.
I would love to see spaces for centrists and even right-wingers to discuss matters - how can anyone be expected to learn in a vacuum without that? However, I can see the argument that such a space need not be here.
I find it the height of irony that many right-wingers are much more able to discuss topics with one another than left-wingers - e.g. Jordan Klepper videos, especially his behind-the-scenes discussions about making those videos. Or perhaps a better formulation is that extremists/zealots are incapable of truly rational discussion regardless of political affiliation (though on top of that there truly seems something about the Right that facilitates ability to discuss matters more readily than the Left, with less judgement in advance than the incessant purity beatings, which seem to presume knowing the other person’s mind completely even before they’ve barely begun saying anything yet).
When you say the discussions "need not be here" do you mean c/fediverse@lemmy.world? Or all of discuss.online?
I meant the Threadiverse as a whole.
Often I see that phrase spoken by e.g. a trans person who does not want to deal with anti-trans language, and so would rather that their instance not federate so broadly than to encounter such in the wild. It makes sense to me - that’s literally the purpose for which blahaj was constructed, hence allowance of right-wing viewpoints goes counter to that purpose.
Or from pro-Palestinians who do not want to see anything other than rabid acceptance of that viewpoint either. Anyone who is wrong there is not acceptable to exist here, even in more entry-level spaces designed for such, and even if allowance of the latter might help to change people’s minds.
The Threadiverse is not a place for “open discussions”, it is a giant echo chamber reflective of the values of the majority. Tbf it could in theory be whatever people want, like if a right-wing instance were to be created (I think one does exist even!?) and then go to all the trouble of getting people to join it, but in practice it’s all just took much effort. The network effect is real. So if the majority of people here want to be a certain way then… that is that, and unlikely to ever change.
Sorry I need to backtrack for a moment. I don’t understand how you’re suggesting right-wing discussion need not be on the “Threadvisere as a whole”? How would that even be possible? It’s an open platform, instances don’t get to control other instances.
It does have a bit of a echochamber (defederation and moderation) problem, i agree. We should look out for that.
echochambers are what people want.
i’m not sure how you fix that ‘problem’. you can’t force folks to interact with those who are different than them without them becoming resentful and angry that differences exist, and inevitable demonizing people for those differences.
It would be great to have opt-in choices to either enter or not be forced into entering such spaces. Like I do not wish that e.g. ChapoTrapHouse did not exist, I only wish that proper labels would be more readily visible so that people would not stumble into them unawares. Likewise, Lemmy.ml’s disallowance of criticism of Russia, China, or North Korea is not exactly easily read from the instance sidebar, nor is that sidebar readily visible from most 3rd-party apps that I have seen - especially when browsing by All, which how else would someone even browse, especially when new and haven’t subscribed to much yet?
So agreed that labeling would solve most of the issues. But if e.g. Lemmy.ml refuses to allow any criticism of Russia, China, or North Korea, then at least someone would be aware that it has chosen to be an echo chamber in that manner (while others choose to be echo chambers in different ways - e.g. PieFed chooses to restrict votes to a daily quota rather than topic-based, which is just a different style of filtering).
problematic communities like that are never going to label themselves as problematic.
they also don’t see themselves that way. They think they are bastions of truth and free speech and open-mindedness, it’s just that everyone else is wrong and close minded.
every echo chamber, and hate community, and cult-like group thinks like this. abusive sex cults don’t go ‘hey we are an abusive sex cult who will destroy your identity and steal all your money, come join us!’
And that mismatch between the claim and reality is what will - if anything does - doom the entire Threadiverse to irrelevance. It’s understandable that inside the echo chamber they refuse to see what is plain, but what is far less fine is when everyone else simply goes along with it, with zero pushback.
Lemmy is a
Nazitankie bar (for anyone who does not know, see Paradox of Intolerance). The lack of moderation is why whenever Lemmy gets brought to in outside mentions, it is as the butt of a joke and laughed at (I’ve seen it treated such in Reddit, X, Bluesky, Tildes, etc.).Here is a perfect example: https://www.reddit.com/r/fossdroid/comments/1uiywal/should_we_switch_to_lemmy/. An entire community was deciding whether to move here or no, and the majority of the top comments are basically just “lolz no fucking way”. A few examples:
My answer is no. I have tried repeatedly to use the Lemmy/Piefed and have bounced off each time because the platform is fundamentally at odds with good content. Bluesky’s upcoming Reddit alternative shows far more promise and I’d personally wait for that.
I tried switching to Lemmy a long time ago, but that place is toxic and full of weird people.
There are big pockets of radical tankie communities on Lemmy that like trolling and being toxic
There are a lot more reasons than this but having spent the last 3 years on the fediverse alternatives, and just seen the shit that happens over there, I feel very confident in saying it will not ever serve as a serious Reddit alternative. It will serve as something, but not Reddit
Lemmy is shit. So is reddit but Lemmy is shittier
Lack of proper moderation… I once saw CP and have never used fediverse ever since. I’d rather not use social media at all than to take part in half measures
To be fair, some of these issues are older now - like PieFed has basically solved the onboarding issue, and db0 solved the CP spam one from years back, though such events tend to stick around in people’s memories… and I cannot honestly state that the lack of moderation has gotten any better. MAYBE will the upcoming release of Lemmy v1.0??? Though I exceedingly doubt that, especially after seeing what happened to Lemm.ee.
Also tbf, people did recommend Beehaw and mander.xyz as sensible choices. The former was more or less soundly rejected by bringing up its defederation status from lemmy.world, cutting it off from the majority of the Threadiverse communities (although the ones locally on it i think are quite nice - I’ve never had a negative interaction with any of them), and the point that a single cadre of super-mods controls the entirety of what is allowed to be said on it, which is what they would be wanting to get away from by leaving Reddit. Browsing locally on mander.xyz though… that just might work!? But only if you are exclusively interested in STEM and basically nothing else.
Being a tankie bar is our choice, but others refuse to enter into that journey alongside us. So long as we entertain the most toxic among us, refusing to distinguish them in any way from anyone else, mainstream normies are going to refuse to put in the enormous amount of effort required to do that work for themselves, and so will simply stay on Reddit or move to corporate solutions (like Bluesky) that do not shirk from doing so, rather than enjoy the Fediverse where they would be free but that also requires the high amount of effort that comes with that.
I love reactionaries self selecting themselves from coming here, personally.
Oh no, the bigoted sack of shite is upset!
Write another book about it if you want, but no, you can’t play with the leftists. Also getting banned from feddit for being too liberal is HILARIOUS.
Banned for a day. Next time is a perma.
Get ratioed AND go fuck yourself.
So, you’re a debate bro who argues Syrian refugees increase crime and terrorism, trans women in sports and children accessing trans healthcare are legitimate issues, and support Israel and claim there isn’t a genocide.
You say shit like “So many hypersensitive thin-skinned vacuum-cleaner owners! Perhaps they’re projecting their insecurities because deep down they know I’m right.” and argue intolerance that people don’t support your terrible viewpoints?
You’re peak fucking reddit mate.
To me the good of the Fediverse is that it highlights dishonest people like yourself.
On the contrary, I think the impulse to check a user’s post history and judge them is a bad habit on Lemmy.
Take me. Scroll through my history, and you’ll probably peg me as a AI Tech Bro and a… closet neolib, maybe? I dunno. But if it’s along those lines, you could not be more wrong, on either count.
With the exception of extreme trolls (or moderators doing their thing), I think Lemmy’s culture of “purity checks” is poison to the platform. It turns communities insular, toxic, and angry like it does on Reddit, governed by takes that have nothing to do with the particular thread. It kills the focus of communities. It rewards conformance.
And this thread is a good example. I thought OP was raising some good general points, but digging previous comments up threw all that out the window. I’ve seen this happen in other threads, where a technical or fandom discussion devolves into unrelated, raging arguments on something I did not come there to read.
Counterargument: I don’t want to engage in good faith with a bigot.
It hardly needs to be said, but the problem is many people here define “bigot” as “someone who doesn’t agree with me”.
Said dude who wrote this shit:
And it is at least partly because of a radical overreach in policy demands over the last decade by the “T” in LGBT. It has generated an inevitable backlash that is now hurting the other letters in the soup, of which I am one.
Maybe it’s you who are the problem, at least sometimes?
Good someone went to the trouble of digging that up. A link would have been useful. I stand by everything I have ever written, otherwise I would have deleted it.
Okay but dont you see how it’s a pretty big window into your intolerant thinking? This imaginative conglomerate, which to you is a single body, the “T” in LGBT, you are saying that all their demands have been radical and damaging. What even are you talking about? That they want to exist and get their gender affirming procedures? That they’d like society to recognize their gender, when Trans people have been around more than thousands of years in human culture and are even in other biological animals? What other fuckin policies would you be talking about? It just feels like your little dog whistle…
Sometimes rights can be zero-sum. For one person to gain them, somebody else has to lose them. That’s the issue in female sports. As for youth gender medicine, it is clearly an ethical minefield where nothing is automatically right or wrong. To paint these things as black and white is a form of religious thinking. Only the US progressive left is sticking to the absolutist line you’re selling. It’s been abandoned everywhere else. Presumably this is a consequence of America’s extreme political polarization.
Anyway, I find this subject incredibly boring so that’s all I have to say on the matter.
Lemmy is a total echo chamber, so I was smiling when you said “it’s not immune to it”. That’s the understatement of the year award. :)
Upvotes make sure that popular opinions are at the top and people even report opinions they dont like to moderators here. Lol.
At least I’m on a good instance with a sane owner, but Jesus Christ, this place can be ridiculous. I’ve been told I’m a troll for disagreeing with the majority many, many times.
Not vaccinering against covid used to upset almost everyone, and it probably still does.
my favorite was being banned for being both anti-gaza and anti-israeli, in the same thread.
Would love to see that to see context and the comments in question
Cause this thread seems to be you’re very antisemitic and don’t give a shit about the Palestinians
https://lemmy.zip/post/58290305/24384479
At very least using nazi dog whistles
Idk if you already knew and were just engaging to fight the anti-semitism, but “follow the money” especially in reference to “the rich ones (Jews)” is literal neo-nazi dogwhistling. Just pointing out that you won’t get anywhere productive with that one unless you plan on using a loaded gun as your primary means of communication.
you got me bro. i’m just a Big Zionist Nazi who wants to kill everyone everywhere all the time.
i hope you feel very important and special now, for all your hard investigative work, exposing me for the horrid piece of shit human being. i bet that little thrill you got up your spine for ‘exposing’ me was very yummy for you.
instead of like you know, acknowledging the hard fact that AIPAC is spends a fuckload of money buying off US politicians… to get them to vote for weapons packages… nah that can’t be real. it’s that i’m a nazi who hates jews, but also i love israeli and hate palestians. we can’t be looking at facts because facts are thinks that nazis and jew haters and palestian haters would look at. we can’t do that. we can’t make statements based on the facts of the political situation, no sir.
hey, did you know i don’t use pronouns on my lemmy profile and that means i also hate an want to kill trans people! yeah! that’s how all of this works. anyone who isn’t on your side and goosesteps the way you think you should goosestep, is your enemy.
There is a lot of truth to what you are saying here. Lemmy users are very quick to categorize other users into extreme categories, such as nazi or fascist, based on a few comments they make.
How many actual nazi or fascists do we have that are Lemmy users? Can’t be many.
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