7 ms·

Nostr is everything that fediverse social networks claim to be, but aren’t. I was shocked to find out that the Lemmy instance I signed up on was blocking dozen

by ecf 3y ago

Nostr is everything that fediverse social networks claim to be, but aren’t. I was shocked to find out that the Lemmy instance I signed up on was blocking dozens upon dozens of other instances, which defeats the entire purpose of a federated network.

AlphaCerium 3y ago
Then switch to a different one, the point of a federated network is that anyone is able to talk to anyone, not that they have to.
- _dujt 3y ago
  You must realize that the moment you say “just switch to another” you’ve lost 99% of your potential user base. It took me signing up for Lemmy to realize why Lemmy is still a completely dead network.
  - noman-land 3y ago
    Decentralization/federation is not about "potential user base". It's about diffusion of control. People need to learn to fish because the SaaS model is a precarious foundation to build a culture on. We are having this conversation in a more mainstream way now because more people found out how precarious their online cultural foundations are. Your Facebooks and Reddits and Twitters will get ruined by changes of ownership or on the whim of billionaires. You data will be sold out from under you. You will be squeezed for every penny. The point is to either host your own instance, or use the instance of someone you trust and/or whose moderation policy you align with. It's not to amass a large user base and watch your charts go up.
    - account42 3y ago
      > The point is to either host your own instance, or use the instance of someone you trust and/or whose moderation policy you align with. This should be the goal but will never happen with an activity-pub-based fediverse. It just doesn't scale to everyone or even every small group having their own instances because. Current fediverse software is also too complicated and too resource hungry for even most technically inclined people to self host. You really need a better foundation that is designed for efficient communication between millions of hosts from the start.
      - noman-land 3y ago
        It's a step in the right direction towards diffusion of control. The corporate, SaaS alternatives are untenable. Full stop.
- iteratethis 3y ago
  In which case the point is useless. It's a pie in the sky statement. Fediverse instances being too trigger-happy in blocking other instances means the network as whole is less open in comparison to a centralized social network. So, why bother? You have little to no control over whom you can connect to. Also, "switching" is an alien concept to normal social media users. You never have to "switch" and you never lose your content or followers, exceptions aside when you get yourself into serious trouble.
- account42 3y ago
  Except once instances block other instances for not going along with their blocks. Then you really cannot talk to anyone from a single idenity. This makes the whole system not much better than a bunch of independent sites. Then there is the fact that you once you choose an instance your identity is bound to that instance. Why would anyone invest in such a dead end network.
RIMR 3y ago
This is a strawman argument. The biggest advocateds of federated social media are not promising a fully decentralized and censorship-proof network. Federation is built on trust, and blocking untrustworthy instances is a critical function of any open federated system. There is another side of the Fediverse that operates on the principles you are talking about (eg. Poast, Baest, Spinster, Gleasonator, NoAgendaSocial, NicecrewDigital, et al). That part of the Fediverse, like Nostr, is covered in Lolicon, gore, and Nazi memes because that's the userbase you get when you promise that nobody can stop you from posting whatever you want. More and more I am learning that the people who desire censorship-free social spaces are the kind of people that others rightfully exclude from polite social spaces, because these are people who lack respect and want to say and do horrible things without opposition.
- _dujt 3y ago
  If you think only untrustworthy instances are being blocked then I really don’t want to debate about Lemmy with you.
  - rakoo 3y ago
    By definition, an instance will only block instances it doesn't trust, so yes, only untrustworthy instances are blocked by an instance that doesn't trust them The mistake is believing that all instances behave the same and block the same. The whole point of federation is that every instance chooses who it wants to block.
    - iteratethis 3y ago
      That's not how it works at all. Admins pressure other admins in apply the same blocks, or risk getting defederated. The entire thing is ran by power hungry bullies.
      - NortySpock 3y ago
        Sure, but at least this time it's more than one power-hungry moderator. In the forums of the 90s, if a forum moderator banned you from the server in the middle of a flamewar, that was it. Now at least there could be (in theory) regional blocs of federated servers that share content. I heard some people are proposing a common account interchange format, so you could migrate accounts? (not being in the fediverse yet, I don't really know...)

by ecf 3y ago

AlphaCerium 3y ago

Then switch to a different one, the point of a federated network is that anyone is able to talk to anyone, not that they have to.

_dujt 3y ago
You must realize that the moment you say “just switch to another” you’ve lost 99% of your potential user base. It took me signing up for Lemmy to realize why Lemmy is still a completely dead network.
- noman-land 3y ago
  Decentralization/federation is not about "potential user base". It's about diffusion of control. People need to learn to fish because the SaaS model is a precarious foundation to build a culture on. We are having this conversation in a more mainstream way now because more people found out how precarious their online cultural foundations are. Your Facebooks and Reddits and Twitters will get ruined by changes of ownership or on the whim of billionaires. You data will be sold out from under you. You will be squeezed for every penny. The point is to either host your own instance, or use the instance of someone you trust and/or whose moderation policy you align with. It's not to amass a large user base and watch your charts go up.
  - account42 3y ago
    > The point is to either host your own instance, or use the instance of someone you trust and/or whose moderation policy you align with. This should be the goal but will never happen with an activity-pub-based fediverse. It just doesn't scale to everyone or even every small group having their own instances because. Current fediverse software is also too complicated and too resource hungry for even most technically inclined people to self host. You really need a better foundation that is designed for efficient communication between millions of hosts from the start.
    - noman-land 3y ago
      It's a step in the right direction towards diffusion of control. The corporate, SaaS alternatives are untenable. Full stop.
iteratethis 3y ago
In which case the point is useless. It's a pie in the sky statement. Fediverse instances being too trigger-happy in blocking other instances means the network as whole is less open in comparison to a centralized social network. So, why bother? You have little to no control over whom you can connect to. Also, "switching" is an alien concept to normal social media users. You never have to "switch" and you never lose your content or followers, exceptions aside when you get yourself into serious trouble.
account42 3y ago
Except once instances block other instances for not going along with their blocks. Then you really cannot talk to anyone from a single idenity. This makes the whole system not much better than a bunch of independent sites. Then there is the fact that you once you choose an instance your identity is bound to that instance. Why would anyone invest in such a dead end network.

RIMR 3y ago

This is a strawman argument. The biggest advocateds of federated social media are not promising a fully decentralized and censorship-proof network. Federation is built on trust, and blocking untrustworthy instances is a critical function of any open federated system. There is another side of the Fediverse that operates on the principles you are talking about (eg. Poast, Baest, Spinster, Gleasonator, NoAgendaSocial, NicecrewDigital, et al). That part of the Fediverse, like Nostr, is covered in Lolicon, gore, and Nazi memes because that's the userbase you get when you promise that nobody can stop you from posting whatever you want. More and more I am learning that the people who desire censorship-free social spaces are the kind of people that others rightfully exclude from polite social spaces, because these are people who lack respect and want to say and do horrible things without opposition.

_dujt 3y ago
If you think only untrustworthy instances are being blocked then I really don’t want to debate about Lemmy with you.
- rakoo 3y ago
  By definition, an instance will only block instances it doesn't trust, so yes, only untrustworthy instances are blocked by an instance that doesn't trust them The mistake is believing that all instances behave the same and block the same. The whole point of federation is that every instance chooses who it wants to block.
  - iteratethis 3y ago
    That's not how it works at all. Admins pressure other admins in apply the same blocks, or risk getting defederated. The entire thing is ran by power hungry bullies.
    - NortySpock 3y ago
      Sure, but at least this time it's more than one power-hungry moderator. In the forums of the 90s, if a forum moderator banned you from the server in the middle of a flamewar, that was it. Now at least there could be (in theory) regional blocs of federated servers that share content. I heard some people are proposing a common account interchange format, so you could migrate accounts? (not being in the fediverse yet, I don't really know...)