Does the Fediverse give you hope?
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Do paste the definitions and sources here.
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Having been around since the early days of identica/statusnet: no, not really.
It's always been small and a generally nice set of communities but it won't reach a large enough audience to matter. US (and to some degree) global politics are such a clusterfuck that it'll take more than some little servers with people discussing open source software and art or whatever to create substantial change.
that's not to say it's pointless. it's nice to have these little groups to focus on. it doesn't give me any hope but it does regulalry lift my spirits.
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Yeah but there are a few notorious large instances that censor things that aren’t stated in their rules at all.
Like criticising china or russia will get you banned from the ML instances but their rules don’t mention that.
Oh yeah, for sure(I blocked the lemmy.ml and lemmygrad instance). But there is a difference between censorship and moderation.
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the Fediverse really seems like it could be our response to these fuckers controlling the narrative on social media. It could be more than just an interesting decentralized social media platform. I really think this could be a key step in reclaiming our democracy.
Agreed, and I would add that finding ways to get nonprofit news organizations (e.g. ProPublica) and public media (e.g. NPR, PBS, etc.) to host and administer their own instances and to start directing their readers/listeners to those services would be a great way to advance this goal
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I don't think the fediverse as it currently exists will draw a significant amount of people away from it, but who knows? My partner isn't particularly tech-savvy and she was on Mastodon without me ever having mentioned it to her. She was also the first person between us to use PixelFed.
I feel like the fediverse in its current incarnation is much like the early internet. It has a lot of promise, but most people on it are those who are enthusiasts and/or idealists. If the fediverse becomes easier to engage with over time, I can see it growing in appeal. If the fediverse equivalent of a killer app or high-profile voice gets established, we could see some huge growth.
I think that one of the hurdles it will face is that hosting these instances isn't free. With the centralized apps, they have VC funding they can burn through while they try to figure out how to monetize their service and to build it to be robust enough to be stable while handling growth.
What happens when a large instance has to pull the plug due to lack of funding, or they fail because they get hacked and/or don't have working backups, or the person/people who run it turn out to have an agenda? How things move on from those disruptions will be very telling for the future of the fediverse. They're all things that could happen, and I'm sure at least one of them will happen at some point.
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I get what you’re saying, but that train of thought isn’t very productive IMO. First, I agree with you on BlueSky, and I even tell that to all my friends switching to BlueSky, but I also believe it’s better than Twitter.
I think we should stop and ask ourselves why people are choosing BlueSky over Mastodon. How do we learn lessons from this switch to BlueSky and use what we learn to draw more people into the Fediverse?
I know I’m probably being idealistic, but I also think being pessimistic won’t increase our chances of winning in the end.
I have never visited either Mastodon or Bluesky before this week, but I finally did a test yesterday. I wanted to see how easy it was to find mention of that Reddit group fedinews that "everyone" seems to be talking about lately. Note, I'm not trying to promote Reddit here, it's a legitimate trend and I wanted to see if there were meta-discussions about such.
First, on Lemmy there are zero mentions of this term that I could find with a search from the past six months.
Second, Mastodon.social had like 1-2 items tops.
Third, Bluesky had the topic plastered all over the front page, without me needing an account, making it darn near impossible for someone to miss even if they tried.
TLDR: the content is either on Reddit or Bluesky, unless we are talking about using Arch btw, or promoting violent overthrow of the entire Western philosophy and way of life (having a bank account = being a landlord btw). Yes there are tiny niches on Lemmy, and I love them, but if our goal was somehow to replace Reddit or X for a source of discussions as to what is going on in the world... then we would have failed.
Bluesky seems to offer people what they want. I suggest that Mastodon copy that, if it is capable of doing so.
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And isn’t it our job to normalize Lemmy as much as Reddit has been normalized? Though I guess that depends on your goals for Lemmy. I would like to see it overtake Reddit. Whether that’s an unrealistic goal or not, I say we aim for the stars and see how far we go.
Yeah, I agree with you. There are so many topics that nobody talks about here, but does elsewhere on the Internet.
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It gives me hope. We have an opportunity to level the playing field. So much hope that I'm actually starting a show to try to help folks get to know people behind the Fediverse! I truly believe in it and hope we can claw back the internet from the tech giants.
What kinda show?
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That’s a cool idea? How do we actually make that happen? Call up NPR?
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Why can’t I do a bit of both? Maybe start by voting with my money by supporting less unethical businesses.
Voting doesn't work, they control the candidates. Money and power is what people like that want, and they get that in exchange for playing along.
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What kinda show?
Calling it Fireside Fedi, where I just talk to folks around the Fediverse and get to know them. I have Gabe Kangas first tomorrow. He's the lead Dev of Owncast. Created a community !firesidefedi for my.world if you're interested. Fully Fedi powered. Livestream, Voss, socials, eventually setting up Fedi audio player as well.
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I mean it's really depressing even being in Europe honestly but at the same time it's a huge opportunity. It's time to take it
Let's show them how decentralization AND open source can be a new standard! I'm seeing the same trend in Linux too and this is so important as well.Also a lot of new projects to help decentralization are emerging, check https://spritely.institute/ which there's Christine Lemmer-Webber a co-author of the ActivityPub protocol
Yes! A bump for spritely!
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It's nice to see a significant portion of people (probably still not enough though) leave proprietary social media. Unfortunately, it took them extremely long to realize why that's a bad thing to use.
So that's one step in the right direction I guess.
On the other hand, there generally isn't much hope for humanity left because we haven't learned from past mistakes, haven't listened to science, and haven't ensured ourselves a decent future on this planet.
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Calling it Fireside Fedi, where I just talk to folks around the Fediverse and get to know them. I have Gabe Kangas first tomorrow. He's the lead Dev of Owncast. Created a community !firesidefedi for my.world if you're interested. Fully Fedi powered. Livestream, Voss, socials, eventually setting up Fedi audio player as well.
Cool idea!
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We don't have control of our world, we never did. Just distance yourself from the madness and embrace the good in the world. Focus on those things and it becomes your reality.
I think it's unhealthy to suggest we have no control over the world. Invidiually, yes we have very little influence, but collectively, we have tremendous power to influence the world. To believe otherwise simply ensures others who will act and believe they can influence things will dominate over those who believe they are impotent.
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Cool idea!
I hope. :-D. I'm no Dev, but I enjoy talking to people and I really believe In the Fediverse so just trying to contribute anyway I can to make it a more welcoming and interesting place.
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No, the Fediverse is full of conservatives. The technology is great, but the people here suck.
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Yeah, being banned because a mod didn't like you was the worst thing on Reddit. Especially if they modded multiple subs and banned you from a subreddit you never even came close to breaking the rules on. Some Reddit mods were just assholes.
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I'm curious about this too
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Yeah but there are a few notorious large instances that censor things that aren’t stated in their rules at all.
Like criticising china or russia will get you banned from the ML instances but their rules don’t mention that.
But the point is, you have freedom to choose whatever instance and thus whatever level of moderation you want. I'm not saying censorship is impossible here, that's just not the argument. The thing is, you aren't locked in to the control of a specific group/owner/company. If you don't like the way things are being run, skip to somewhere else, or alternatively make your own instance.
For people who value freedom the most, you can choose a platform with less moderation, and thereby accepting the risks that come with it. For people who value a more safe, stable and curated platform, choose one with more/stricter moderation.
