It’s rough right now politically in the US. A lot of people around me seem like they’re ready to give up hope. It makes me incredibly angry seeing Zuck up there with all the other billionaires, and Elon is a parasite that has infected the government.
I often find myself wondering how I can make a difference. How can we regain control of our world?
Idk if I’m being dramatic, but 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.
Am I being dramatic lol? Do you all feel the same way? I was kinda getting emotional even. Like we could bring real change. That gives me hope, which is something we are desperately lacking right now.
It’s not just Lemmy. It makes me happy to see all the Fediverse platforms (specifically activity pub based) blowing up.
Friendly reminder if you have the financial means, donate to your instance, donate to the Lemmy devs, donate to Pixelfed or any other social media app fighting big social media. And better than a one-time donation, set up a monthly contribution even if it’s just $2/month. It really helps open-source developers when they have a steady income.
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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
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.
EDIT: I also dont think it needs to be any kind of agent or tool of change. Why can’t it just be what it is? Groups of people socializing with one another?
Oh, no. Not at all. All hope is lost, this is just a comfortable place to die.
Yes but then I realized that unfortunately it will never take off and suffers from most of the issues that centralized sites suffer from. So yea, rip.
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.
Yes
Using the Fediverse feels like a small step in the right direction. Big changes are built on lots of small steps. I would say move in the direction of using the Fediverse more, the old alternatives less, and think of more small steps in the right direction you can do. I don’t think just using the Fediverse is enough, but it is an important step to take. Keep going.
I agree! Another small step - though I do enjoy the like-minded crowd - would be to get some different perspectives here. Even if I don’t necessarily agree with all those ideas, I don’t think it’s healthy for my own ideas to be trapped in an echo chamber.
I don’t live in that country, but while I like Lemmy, no, I don’t have hope any more. I’ve not had that for a long time now.
It’s interesting though, to see the US slowly turn into our enemy, and to consider that Germany will be one of our strongest democratic, antifascist allies against the new axis of evil when the time comes.
Thankfully I’m too old to be forced to fight in the next war against fascism, but I suppose poverty and climate change might kill me before then anyway. There truly is no hope left for me.
Mark Zuckerburg was up there at the inauguration because he is one of the richest men alive, and he became so mostly because of the platforms he owns.
By using the Fediverse and not his platforms, I’m denying him revenue from ads and data, even if its an infinitely small amount.
Use open platforms, give your money to ethical businesses and keep it from these assholes. Money isn’t the only way for someone to have power, but there’s no denying that the net worth on that inauguration stage was the most concentrated anywhere on earth. Don’t give them a cent more.
Vote with your dollar! You can also vote by donating to projects you believe in!
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 :)
In general yes, but I would prefer if it had a wider variety of viewpoints on societal issues. I don’t even always disagree with the prevailing circlejerk here on everything, but I would occasionally like to read counterarguments to it too.
I agree. I like the crowd here, but I also worry I won’t be able to argue my ideas if I never leave the echo chamber.
Yes. The fediverse is a pretty difficult thing to be controlled by a single group: that’s sorta the idea. I see it as almost a refuge from all the bullshit. The lack of ads, tracking, content farming, censorship and control etc is refreshing. Here’s to hoping the fediverse continues to spread.
There’s plenty of censorship here though. Some instances are worse than others but even on a community basis, your average moderator is just some random dude who is free to remove your posts/comments and ban you just because they don’t like something you said and there’s not really anything you can do about it.
Not all moderation = censorship 🙄 You play by the rules or you face the consequences. Nowhere on the planet are the consequence-free zones - at least not forever.
If you really want fediverse instance where absolutely everything is permitted, make it. I bet you after the first CP post you’ll rethink your stand on “all moderation = censorship”.
That’s quite the number of assumptions you made there
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.
Not all moderation = censorship
It is, by definition.
Do paste the definitions and sources here.
Let’s not argue semantics and argue realistic uses of moderation.
It gives me confidence. I know that now that I host my own lemmy, I cannot be randomly banned because I triggered some automatic spam filter with my scripts (happened in reddit), or banned because I talked back to the wrong mod. I know that our internationally distributed nature makes it harder to control top-down, so takeovers like Musk-Xitter are not possible. We can still be affected by disinfo campaigns and troll farms, and we unfortunately have weakened defenses against that, but I’m confident that a lot of smart admins and tooling providers will bunch together to figure out the countermeasures that will work.
oh snap, db0 the person! Love your instance.
How expensive is it to host your own instance? Assuming you aren’t doing it in house.
About 5-20 eur/month should be enough for most instance admins, depending on their provider.
Which do you use?
Nothing gives me hope.
At least there is some small respite.
The Fedi is the only hope right now.
