this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2023
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The two biggest contributors to the original lemmy code are pro china and pro russia respectively. No one is sure how strong their opinions are, but there is a lot of fear mongering because their PFPs on GitHub are political. They created the first instance, lemmy, and the second, lemmygrad, using the same ip address.
Now, there's two important things to keep in mind. Lemmygrad, which is a "tankie" (highly political) group, is set up separately from the main lemmy group. Not only does this keep lemmy from being highly political, it also allows all other groups to defederate from lemmygrad while staying connected to lemmy. Most groups have lemmygrad defederated by default.
In my opinion, this is the right way to do things and there's nothing to worry about. But there are some people who think that since the creators are pro china and russia that it could be an attempt to "poison the well" of federation from the beginning. It comes from a biased belief that anything to do with the red scare is bad by default. The creators are not funneling money into political campaigns. They're not asking everyone to agree with their beliefs or pushing their opinions in non political groups. They're not able to remove communities that disagree with their philosophies.
Lemmy's code is open source and it is easy for moderators to block political content if they choose. There's going to be people with differing opinions. People who are socialist, or conservative, or anarchist are capable of creating good things. Plenty of people still buy from chick fil a or nestle even if they disagree with the group's politics. As of now there is no issue. However, reddit refugees are currently sensitive to a) preexisting problems from reddit that could carry over into fediverse and b) leaders disagreeing with their beliefs.
TL;DR: it's something that could potentially be a concern in the future, but isn't a problem right now. With new users on edge it's likely being blown way out of proportion.
Just to add, the devs don't even want lemmy.ml to be the main instance. I signed up there initially but they have a sticky to encourage incoming users to use different instances so I figured it's best to find another in case they get the hug. I stayed there only for a day or two but didn't really encounter the censorship other users are claiming is happening there. There is the modlog anyway to check if there's anything fishy going on . I've had a few interactions with the devs as well and they seem...polite and formal, even welcoming.
I agree it can be a concern, but right now it's not. Remember, many users came from reddit and we all know the controversies that happened there. We still stayed.
I'd say be wary but don't just listen to allegations. See for yourself so you can decide on your own.
I'm clearly agree, this post finally just permit me to be confident on what I thought despite on what I read there and there.
I hope it can help others to clear their mind on this false campaign against Lemmy. I can be agree or disagree with them, they don't act to impose their idea to me and that's the essential.
I will not even read the controversial topic. There is an difference between Lemmy.ml being lemmygrad and hosting on same server two instances of Lemmy (one controversial, one the vitrine). Its not clever but I mean, yoo there is more critical than that. And its free and open source. Its not like an fucking Tesla YO
Ty all.
They encourage to choose other instances because of the load, not because they don't want users to sign up to that instance. If that wasn't explained in the memo, yes, that should have been explained.
beehaw's approach to modering is far worse if you ask me. We wanna filter everything out, so it's simpler if we just defederate from instances all together. So, they defederated from sh.itjust.works and lemmy.world. What kind of an attitude is that. The whole point of having the fediverse is so everyone can connect with anyone, not have 63827383 accounts on thousands of different instances just so you can be a part of some of the communities that have set up shop on an instance that has snowflake users that report every single post they don't like or agree with 😒.
Defederation should be removed as an option of you ask me. You don't like a community? Block it. You don't like a user? Block him/her. Beats the point of having a fediverse if you opened an account on an instance that blocks half the fediverse for one reason or another.
People need to actally look at where do they sign up on. I specifically choose mine because it appears to federate with everyone and I hope it will stay that way.
Yep, did the same. Looked for an instance that federated with everyone and has no plans to defederate with anyone.
I'm agree with you. All of that, make me think about taking an server and create my own instance.
I feel even admins can misunderstood what they do. There is differences between blocking an community and deferate. I don't have the whole story, I'm new here. But it feel wrong to deferate just because we are not agree. If I own my instance, I will deferate if there is no choices ( attacks, raids, )
Like u Said i dont want to have Xaccounts, because admins think they will take care of me, or anything else.
For now here (FMHY) seems ok, but again i have no history on mine, and im too lazy to check too XD
People defederate for all sorts of reasons, mostly political and ideological, but... let's be honest... there is a block option, it's easy to use, defederation doesn't solve anything IMO 🤷.
It was. But if they were seriously using lemmy.ml as a propaganda tool, they could simply have upgraded instead of pushing others to use different instances.
For beehaw, I really can't comment since I don't think I know enough about it (or what's going on in that instance). Tbh though I was a bit surprised they chose to defederate world and shitjustworks. I do get the lack of well-developed mod tools to handle stuff, but maybe there are other less drastic ways.
I'm not that familiar with the fediverse yet, but it would be nice if users can choose which instances to block. Or at least a majority vote before defederating (although that might encourage trolls or other people to join just to sway the vote). For now I'm mostly observing.
Which just confirms what I was saying. They're not using it as a propaganda too. Will they tollerate posts/comments against communism/socialism? Most likely not. Hey, it's their right. Though, yes, I do believe that if they do that, it has to be stated in the rules of the instance, not just randomly applied (posts/comments just deleted, users banned, etc.).
beehaw is your typical US based instance. A lot of people there claim that they're liberal, but they're just snowflakes if you ask me. They try and control the influx of posts/feeds, which is not what the fediverse is about if you ask me. But they chose their way, that's fine, it's their choice, but that's just wrong if you ask me. On the other hand, everyone defederated from lemmygard, but lemmyrad didn't defederate from anyone... talk about irony. Everyone blaming lemmygrad for being this or that, defederating from them, but lemmygrad doing the complete oposite 🤨 😂.
And there are tools that can cope with this problem. Don't like a community/user? Block him/her. Heck, that's what I did with all of the cats communities here. I do like cats, but not in every second post, and some people just make post after post of cats, so my feed was cluttered with posts of cats 😒. Don't get me wrong, I love all animals, cats included, but it's not why I joined Lemmy - to look at cute cats. But, it's their right to post cats, and since I can't control the feed, I did the next best thing, just block those communities 🤷.
And I didn't bitch to anyone about "too many cats on Lemmy", which is just childish IMO. Don't like it? Block it. It's as simple as that.
That would be a better option if you ask me. User based blocking of instances, as well as users and communties. By default, you can view everytjing. Don't like a user/community/instance? Block it.
Ty vm, So there is really nothing to talk about..
Lemmy.ml admins are most definitely in agreement with lemmygrad views. They've deleted posts and comments if it could be in any way conceivably anti china, yet allow denial of the Uygur genocide
People are worried because the tankie ideology they thought would be contained to lemmygrad is spilling over into the enforcement on lemmy.ml