cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/24394554
Text for readability:
So far, Americans using RedNote have said they don’t care if China has access to their data. Viral videos on TikTok in recent days have shown Americans jokingly saying they will miss their personal “Chinese spy,” while others say they are purposefully giving RedNote access to their data in a show of protest against the wishes of the U.S. government.
“This also highlights the fact that people are thirsty for platforms that aren’t controlled by the same few oligarchs,” Quintin said. “People will happily jump to another platform even if it presents new, unknown risks.”
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Yeah sorry but no. Lemmy sucks and the fediverse is an overly complicated mess of in groups, our groups, federated and non federated communities and people will be racist to you and and you can also end up indoctrinated just as much by picking the wrong community starting point.
Wondering why people aren’t here doesn’t take a big mystery and despite all the people in here with blinders for all kinds of topics I’m not shocked that anyone looking in would be disgusted, compare this place to 4chan with user names and move on.
Was just talking with a friend that downloaded a Mastodon app a while back when Twitter was bought by Elon, encountered the “Choose a server” bit, and bailed after choice paralysis. They’re technical and have a doctorate in Computer Science so it’s not like they couldn’t figure it out, but there’s something in the human psyche where most people don’t want to make choices like that. They’re on Bluesky now and think its great.
IMO sites like https://pixelfed.org/how-to-join and https://join-lemmy.org/ should just have a normal sign up flow, and load balance between all servers that opt in. Looks like that’s going to happen for Pixelfed:
https://mastodon.social/@dansup/113830788279211715
It’ll make some people unhappy, but that’s just how you get “normies” onto the Fediverse.
for lemmy I had to try 3 times before landing on this one. just toxic shit constantly pumped my way where I was blocking pretty much everything and still getting more. I still have tons of stuff blocked though.
I had to leave Lemmy altogether for PieFed to finally be able to block an instance of my choosing, without admin support. Tbf I hear that Sync and Connect can let you do that on Lemmy.
But these Category of Communities yo, they are really worthwhile!:-)
Been debating on spinning up my own Lemmy instance and was looking at piefed instead of lemmy-lemmy lol
Heard it wasn’t on parity with implementing the full Lemmy API, how has it been for you? Any issues?
Yeah tbh it’s not quite ready for anyone who doesn’t have the early adopter mindset, and is still a project showing off what features will come to the Fediverse rather than something to use now. e.g. a good fraction of the time it will show me Notifications to comments that I cannot even see in the web UI, that’s quite frustrating:-(, and its search function is really quite horrible. Also notifications based on name mentioning (like @openstars@piefed.social) aren’t implemented yet. And it was only literally yesterday that inline commenting was added to the flagship instance.
Then again, its Categories of Communities is superb, it has hashtags, YouTube embedding, shows you the “sidebar” area for every single post, and other functionality that Lemmy lacks. One I particularly like is the ability to trigger Notifications on or off for anything - following a user account, posts from a community, etc., or like turning them off if you no longer want to receive them for a particular comment. But most important of all: it is written in Python so development should go forward much more quickly.:-)
I use it as my daily driver, then switch to Lemmy also daily, especially if I ever need the search tool for anything, or for moderation that PieFed lacks a lot of ability for (though tbf Lemmy’s cross-instance moderation abilities aren’t the best either, unless 0.19.20 fixes that). I usually spend the largest majority of my time on PieFed, and have such great hopes for it in the future!:-) Also, there is reportedly a fork of Thunder that can connect with it, so at some point such apps may not care whether someone is using PieFed or Lemmy.
Here is an example post showing off what it can do.:-)
I do especially like the categories.
IMO sites like https://pixelfed.org/how-to-join and https://join-lemmy.org/ should just have a normal sign up flow, and load balance between all servers that opt in.
I think the Join Fediverse site should ask a few questions (what service do you want? Where are you? What are your interests?) and spit out a small handful of suggestions. Shouldn’t be too difficult to program.
That’s what join-lemmy.org does, is it not?
It doesn’t ask where you are, just the language. As it’s for Lemmy only, it obviously doesn’t ask what service you are looking for too.
Join the Fediverse needs something much more like that but with the extra options. As it stands you have to do way too much scrolling, reading and clicking.
… and when it asks what language, it doesn’t differentiate between English and American Englishes, for example, and you have to scroll down quite a long way to get shown Feddit.uk.
Sometimes you just want to know everyone’s on the same page when you talk about biscuits, pants and fannies.
Yeah, that’s a bugbear of mine, and one of the reasons I think this place is necessary - people do seem to default to English-language = America. I think quite a few people aew surprised to find lemmy.world is hosted in Europe and subject to their laws.
It’s why @Blaze@feddit.org has been looking into promoting American content on American instances.
I imagine it’s difficult to just round robin sign ups like that when each server has a different audience and various instances they federate with. Could be even more confusing if two people sign up from the same link and see different content, or even missing posts from each other.
You could have a short questionnaire that works as whittles things down based on interests or other parameters (eg. How strict you want the moderation to be or whatever). That could also be used to suggest some optional first follows.
- how do you feel about communism?
- do you think Marxism and communism are the same thing?
- do you have a prosecution fetish?
- would you prefer your username to have a curse word at the end of it always?
Oh yeah. The questionnaire would be fun.
If there were a good invite system you could have just shared that including a pre-selected instance for your friend. That’s way more effective than trying to explain federation to people not really that interested in the first place.
"Lemmy has 42k monthly active users
- https://discuss.online/ if you want a server located in the USA (content is still accessible from any server, the most difference latency)
- https://sopuli.xyz/ if you want a server located in the EU
- https://vger.app/ if you want an app
Feel free if you have any questions"
Server choice affects content discoverability, I don’t think omitting that helps in the long run.
They’re going to be fine with those two. Mentioning federation issues from the get go is the best to get them uninterested in Lemmy immediately
This feels like kicking the can down the road just to trip on it later, but I respect your effort and dedication, so do what you think is best, I wish you luck.
.> Mind shuts down when asked to make a choice for himself
.> Is in computer science
Checks out
Decision fatigue. It’s a well known concept and can even be used in marketing as a standard manipulation tactic. If you have a job that has you making strategic decisions all day though, then you’ll get decision fatigue. Then the last thing you want to do is mull over a bunch of server details to make the right choice 🤷♀️
doctorate in Computer Science
Lmfao
Maybe people want a platform that’s more than just a constant Linux and capitalism-bad circlejerk sprinkled with some basic news and askreddit-type threads.
We have Star Trek too
“This also highlights the fact that people are thirsty for platforms that aren’t controlled by the same few oligarchs,” Quintin said. “People will happily jump to another platform even if it presents new, unknown risks.”
Once again…meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
We’re right here and we suck, mate. FOSS almost always sucks.
Besides, many Lemmy users have been very clear that they do not want the fediverse to have more reach. We don’t try to appeal to TikTok users. We don’t want to make space for them.
the children yearn for the vines
Regarding the fediverse at large…
I believe that this is a design issue. Instances are designed so that they function like categories. That categories then have subcategories.
The issue is that with user distribution, you can’t then just assign users round robin distribute the load. This leads to what we now have which is very confusing to the end user.
Users was a centralized experience. The duplication of communities is a prime example of the bad design.
In the abstract, I would consider putting all instances in a pool. Each instance runs a different community, with servers also duplicating x number of communities for the sake of redundancy (instance goes offline, content still exists on another server). It’s complicated, and has it’s own issues/flaws, but I believe that from a high level view, it is a better design in general.
The current system is just a mess unfortunately.
Perhaps there could be a hybrid of these two approaches that would be superior.
My back of the napkin design prioritizes user experience and ease of use. That said, I can immediately think of a few downsides.
Right now the user’s identity and the content they consume & interact with are too intertwined in many cases.
There are two aspects here:
- The user’s home base, which is basically which server or app they log into.
- The communities they belong to, which can be on any server anywhere on the fediverse.
We have to get out of the mindset that the server you sign up on is your community, because with federation, you are not limited to the server you sign up on.
Each instance runs a different community, with servers also duplicating x number of communities for the sake of redundancy (instance goes offline, content still exists on another server). It’s complicated, and has it’s own issues/flaws, but I believe that from a high level view, it is a better design in general.
How are policies/moderation decisions discussed between the instances? That’s why you have different versions of the same instance, because !politics@lemmy.world and !politics@lemmy.ml are going to be quite different
No more instance based communities. Instead instances are assigned to groups of servers for redundancy and you end up with a more centralized experience.
Essentially you end up with a server cluster.
“This also highlights the fact that people are thirsty for platforms that aren’t controlled by the same few oligarchs,”
So they move (and apparently willingly provide more access to their info than they already need to) to a platform that is controlled by a different few oligarchs, as a treat… 🙄
Also, you say we’re right here, but the number of people already here praising this shit* because they’re either tankies simping for faux communists, or simply too indoctrinated to realise that you don’t have to choose one, and can oppose both oppressive states (which use almost identical tactics), is pretty fucking gross.
*and before they descend on me with their bullshit and excuses and their throwing of marginalised people under the bus for the sake of maintaining their own black and white view of the world - yes Chinese and American people communicating and breaking down barriers is good. However the idea that this can honestly and freely be done on their oppressive state controlled media, any more than it can on ours, or that one is somehow less oppressive than the other, is a joke, and so are the people ignoring the fact that both states have equally terrible mass surveillance and control over our communications.
Oligarch doesn’t mean a rich person, it means a person who controls the country with their wealth. Even the richest people in china are still at the governments behest, not the other way around like in America.
Lmmfao, who do you think runs the Chinese government, the workers?
Anyway, thanks for providing an example of exactly the kind of bullshit and excuses I was referring to.
they execute billionaires from time to time. when’s the last time a western country did that?
most western countries are civilised enough to not allow capital punishment.
I love how modern liberals sound exactly like they did 140 years ago when discussing foreign people
Yes unlike the barbaric yellow hordes, their western betters have the civility to only perform executions in the streets, prior to arrest.
Extrajudicial street executions happens in Baghdad and Boston, both are done by white supremacist thumbs exported from the USA
Thesis:
Boston
Antithesis:
exported from the USA
Synthesis:
Boston is not in the USA
Lol. Lmao even. They kill millions of Arabs and Asians just for fun
Oh yes, it’s because we who are carrying out a genocide are so much more civilized than them, I see. China just isn’t civilized enough, you say? And what skull measurement would you posit is responsible for that, Professor?
Lmmfao, who do you think runs the Chinese government, the workers?
yes
deleted by creator
“people are thirsty for platforms that aren’t controlled by the same few oligarchs” so they’re willingly submitting to and supporting CCP tyrannical oppression because they personally have never felt it’s raw evil, “Fuck the Chinese” I guess, huh
Nah, fuck the Chinese GOVERNMENT. You don’t have to be bigoted towards the people of a country to disapprove of what their authoritarian government does.
Personally, I have nothing against the people of China, Iran, or the US (to name a few obvious examples of peoples under the boot of an unrepresentative government), but that doesn’t mean that I approve the oppression and other abuses their governments keep committing towards their own people and others.
congratulations, everyone else understood what i was saying but you
Nope. If you mean the Chinese GOVERNMENT, say that. “The Chinese” means Chinese people.
I mean look at it from their perspective: either there is a war with China, in which case you’re fucked so many more ways than whatever data tiktok has collected. Or you’re one of a billion with compromised data. What are the Chinese going to do? Pick you in your service industry job to blackmail for no reason? Even if they were doing that the chances of it being a you are one in a million. Advertise more directly to you? The fact is no one cares.
The desire for privacy is either necessary to a very small percentage of the population or just an icky feeling with no discernable consequences. (Even if you list me irl consequences for the Chinese taking your data, I can guarantee you it doesn’t end up affecting the majority of people’s lives in a noticeable way.)
Maybe you’re in a service industry job but maybe your cousin works for the DoD. Yeah to the majority of people it will never matter. But same can be said for researching some rare disease. Insuring against car accidents. It’s probably not going to be me, so who cares?
Lol. I’m not actually surprised at all that the country that just elected Junior Hitler again is literally begging to be fucked by the CCP. You REALLY cannot fix stupid and stupid is now the vast majority.
