The selfhosting movement sets people free in general.
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2025
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John Mastodon.
keeping you engaged on their terms. And their terms alone. There's no freedom
So keeping you engaged on seemingly your own terms is acceptable and possible?
Such articles just make me think of Bluesky with boredom and suspicion.
The real free web is the non-existent luddite web. It should solve problems platforms solve now, but with minimal engagement possible, ideally look for a second, push a button and leave for a walk. A platform is not interested in minimizing engagement, so it should be a system where paid work necessary for its operation doesn't allow one to become a platform.
I like talking about that, and even tried to push myself (executive dysfunction is a bitch) to try to start a little toy project of something like small web (meaning objects with basic hypertext pages with links to other objects ; with current state of an object being a result of many crud-like messages, and which are considered and which are not would be determined by signatures and chain of trust, meaning that two people with different political views could have very different versions of the same forum and both be happy ; such messages and not resulting objects would be what's stored and replicated, like something between Usenet and a version control system). But then realized I don't really want to do that, just to talk about that, and that's more complex than it reads. Maybe eventually, when I'm twice older.
I tried Bluesky for while but honestly I like Mastadon and Lemmy better. I'm also testing LOOPS (tiktok replacement) which is from the same creator as Pixelfed. There's something comforting using decentralized platforms that are safe from Government and Corporate intervention
What's your impression of loops so far?
I've been underwhelmed, but I don't know if that's a platform issue or an adoption issue. Found a couple good accounts to follow, but I really want a block option to keep some accounts out of my "for you"
will be hard without some algorithm. tiktok is useful for finding content that align with my interests
Content wise it’s underwhelming but it’s random videos. There’s more variety than Pixelfed which has an even smaller community. Eventually more trends will catch on to Lopps but I hope there’s more original content once it’s out of beta and public
I like that it feels more like the web when I was younger, smaller communities usually with a more specific topic, run by a person or small group.
LOOPS
Where can I DL and try it?
https://loops.video/ You can download the Android APK or Download TestFlight for iOS to use it. You have to sign up first
Thanks.
Signed up for it, now awaiting activation.
I hope more active users move to the fediverse. That way we will have a lot of variety in content and can also potentially prevent communities from becoming echo chambers. I suppose moderation will also have to be taken up a notch for these changes to actually have a positive effect.
Echo chambers are not bad when the echo is due to the majority opinions being in favor of basic human rights and equality. Giving voice to those that spew hate is not conducive to going anywhere except a circle.
And you will be the one deciding what constitutes hate, whose voice to cut off?
You tell on yourself.
As long as we have ways to give feedback and affect the system this is a good thing.
The less recourse we have the more authoritarian it is though.
Hopefully. ghostrider2112 seems like a decent dude.
Partly, yes, the individuals will decide. Also, partly, server owners. Collectively, the entire community will decide.
Thankfully, for better or worse, you'll still be able to spew hate, on your own server, to anyone who wants to hear it. The rest of us, we don't have to put up with it.
Also, more active users means more niche communities. I just realized there’s a Severance community that is medium active. One less thing I need Reddit for.
Niche communities are awesome ! Sadly reddit is still the king in this aspect.
Maybe in a few years lemmy will reach that level or even surpass it... One can dream.
Another thing is google results. When I want a recommendation for anything I will add “Reddit” to my query. This is because I know it will return great recommendations and conversations that help me decide. Hopefully I will eventually be able to just use Lemmy for this.
What! My outie loves Severance.
I can’t locate this community using search on the term ‘severance’.
Do you mind sharing the instance and community name?
Praise Kier!
prevent communities from becoming echo chambers
I suspect this will still become a problem since we can subscribe to whichever communities we like and vice versa.
It is a feature, not a problem.
I have, like, this whole rich life offline. My curated list of instances and communities (plus my user block list) is just my entertainment and a small portion of my day.
You may not believe this but I have numerous thoughts, activities and interactions that never leave a trace online. I have no obligation to drink from the firehose that is being pumped from the septic tank of the human psyche.
@Flagstaff @gunpachi I'm not sure echo chambers are inherently a bad thing. My real life is a carefully crafted echo chamber of people I like to spend time with (which conveniently includes my family). The problem comes when we get *all* our information from that echo chamber.
I agree with what you are saying. What I really meant is that every community should have some amount of people who think differently and see things from a different perspective. This can help widen the variety of posts, comments and even sources used for citations.
For instance, here on lemmy I've noticed a tendency for people to see things from a political viewpoint and don't hesitate to start a flame war in the comments. Maybe the average user will feel more welcome to express their opinions if they see that the existing users are open minded. Thankfully most communities I'm a part of are very nice, more so than their reddit counterparts.
P.S: forgive me if there are any logical inconsistencies in my comment. I might be a little intoxicated.
Why moderation? The old internet didn't have moderation. Why does everyone feel the need for moderation?
The old internet was hidden behind dial-up modems and TCP-IP stacks and weird telnet and usenet protocols. This complexity worked as a filter and the people using it were mostly academics, students, techies and other nerds (me amongst them). The moment uncle Bob could poke his way through social media on his phone from the shitter, the whole thing cascaded into Eternal September and "the old internet" was lost forever.
I don't know what old internet you used, but the IRC channels and forums I used to run around on definitely had moderation. This was about '97. Maybe you're talking about the late 80s when barely anybody knew the Internet even existed and it was just academics and ubernerds?
Trolls, bots, and scammers make them necessary at a minimum, and then the subliminal messaging from the cronies of politicians, etc. make them welcome. Bots are easier to make than ever before so you can't compare the past with the present that easily. kbin.social died last year because of relentless spam bots posting garbage/malware links 100x/sec.
What? The old internet absolutely had moderation, even back in the day of BBS.
I remember reading a book that talked about public spaces and how we often think of malls as public spaces, but they have so many restrictions and ulterior motives that it doesn't really hold.
They're essentially the irl equivalent of centralised social media platforms. I hope once the fediverse really takes off, we can have 'official' platforms/instances that are run by governments that federate only to other 'official' ones. That seems like a better way to reach people, instead of Xitter.
It is incredibly frustrating to see for example Ursula Von der Leyen preaching "EU STRONG" stuff on fucking shitter. Really? This is your way of showing how strong the EU is and we shouldn't or can't rely on USA? By posting your I'm strong message on the precise platform the US chief nazification officer owns? FFS.
If all EU governments together decide to ditch shitter and move to mastodon instances, media follows. It's a pretty cheap measure to implement, too.
It makes sense if you are helping Russia or are in on isolating the USA. These parties are being funded by these billionaires in Europe. So I mean, eu strong is likely just a front.
Hard agree! I do think fediverse platforms are perfect for public entities to disseminate information.
I’m US based so my example is say a county. They already have the IT infrastructure and staff. Make an instance for the county and a community for each department.
The road department can post road closures and upcoming traffic diversions. The parks department can promote events, etc.
These type of instances can just disable comments. They are read-only so moderation is not needed.
It’s trivial from a resource perspective and even easier than updating a website.
Any great app on Android for mastodon?
I've been using Moshidon. One day I'll find an app as good as Ivory on iOS, but in the meantime Moshidon is fine.
I'll second moshidon. It gets bonus points for letting you see your followed hashtags. Or something like that. There's something with hashtags that you can't do in the web browser that you can do with apps. Moshidon does that thing.
I use Tusky and am satisfied, maybe there are better apps idk
Preach!