Lemmy's developers say "we are strictly against all forms of oppression (including genocide), and dont allow anything that promotes or supports oppression" and "We definitely are very staunchly against bigotry or persecution of minorities, and are strict about banning that".
This is difficult to fully reconcile with what actually happens on the developers' own instance, and those they feature.
The problem here isn't Lemmy's politics, but their attitude to threads about human rights violations.
On the face of it, the developers' main Lemmy instance has lots of uncontroversial general interest threads, but when you start digging on controversial topics a worrying pattern emerges.
The worrying posts are very reminiscent of the way certain churches have handled priest abuse claims: denial.
@csolisr@feditips Just to clarify, the people who run Lemmygrad are the same people who develop Lemmy?
I'm trying to decide if using, say, Beehaw counts as supporting Lemmygrad. If anything it's less in support of the developers than using Reddit was, given that Reddit routinely lets hate speech fester until advertisers find out about it.
In that case they're in direct control of the platform, while the developer of Lemmy has much less control over Beehaw.
Yeah, it's crazy, they call themselves left wing but defend far right nationalists like Putin.
Also, their first messages to me tried to imply their critics were all troublemakers. I think when they receive criticism, they try to attack the people giving the criticism.
These posts were on the main Lemmy instance, as featured on the official Lemmy website.
Over the past few days I have tried to engage with Lemmy about these posts in private, as I was sure it must be a misunderstanding.
However, Lemmy said that "none of the posts you linked are against our rules", and refused to even discuss the actual issues because "this format is not conducive to political disagreements".
I deeply regret ever having publicised Lemmy. I'm really sorry.
Don't use Lemmy.
For whatever my opinion is worth any more, I would now recommend that people cancel their donations to Lemmy, stay as far away from Lemmy as possible, and donate to another Fediverse project instead.
I was wondering whether to stay quiet, but it seemed better to speak up and say something
p.p.s. Someone has pointed out that lemmy.ml (the official Lemmy instance) resolves to the same IP address as lemmygrad.ml (the instance that contains the most disturbing material).
Lemmy.ml also federates with lemmygrad, and the devs advertise lemmygrad on their "join lemmy" site.
Do the Lemmy developers themselves run the lemmygrad.ml site? (Its main logo is a tank, incidentally.)
@feditips This feels like a both sides are right scenario. If they can look at posts that minimize human suffering and feel ok about it then they are not what they purport to be. Thank you for digging.
@Erik@feditips Rust probably has a lot of LGBTQ sympathizing developers. Now as much as I do not like this community, the software they write is brilliant.
I couldn’t care who wrote it. It doesnt matter because I am interacting with their SOFTWARE not with THEM.
Good neighbors have tall walls. Maybe we stick to our own and just exchange what we mutually agree on then we would be fine. As Erik explained, it really isn’t all that deep and software is not political.
I use so much GNU software but Stallman is a pedo and probably commie (edging on it), do I seethe. No, infact this is the first time I ever put two and two toghether in the last 5 years.
@colinsmatt11@deavmi@Erik@feditips Stallman does genuinely have some really fucked up views on pedophilia (and bestiality too, and he's even pro necrophilia) but I think that's mostly just due to him having a really weird mental state in general, and having very, very theoretical and philosophical views on most issues that aren't really rooted in reality. If you've ever experienced what imageboard culture incorrectly refers to as "autism", he's practically an embodiment of that concept, in a way that's honestly similar to people like Chris Chan - his views are just fundamentally not rooted in reality, so he ends up having pretty bizarre and incomprehensible views that have some consistent internal logic but are still utterly divorced from any real world morals.
that said it's hilarious that this person insists he is definitely a pedo but only "probably" a commie, when Stallman openly refers to himself as a commie and explicitly supports communism, but takes a "raping children is bad and i think sex with kids is gross but children can probably consent" take on pedophilia.
Does Dr Stallman has some unhinged views? Without doubt, but he also changes them when he understands what he thought was incorrect.
If you believe that a person is incapable of change, I think you have other issues.
@colinsmatt11@Erik@deavmi@feditips ngl stallman is one of the few people, if not the only person, who takes a "children can probably consent" stance that i genuinely believe is not a pedo himself. his entire worldview seems to be rooted in fantasy, and i question whether or not he even has a sex drive.
For the record, this people are still linking to this embarrassing hellthread...
@galena
> Stallman openly refers to himself as a commie and explicitly supports communism
No, he doesn't. In countries with a functioning democracy and a news media that isn't entirely Pravda-for-corporations, he'd probably be called a "social democrat". In the linear model of political space, this sits to the left of a liberal, but to the right of a "left libertarian".
@feditips@Erik
I sympathise, but I also think separating politics from the software to some extent is important for the fediverse at large. If core devs are problematic, then fork or put up new independent instances. There’s gotta be a bit more teamwork if there’s going to be a good ecosystem of software
@feditips@Erik additionally to this, it might be worth considering what values are shared. While you may be accurate, and I might have myself seen a red flag or two about excessive support for Russia/China, I’ve certainly been happy hanging on lemmy and with the views of many there. I’d also question, if we’re going to get real for a second, the values of mastodon as a platform and whether anyone should join it. Point being, I’m inclined to think big picture stuff might win out on this one.
It's not about support for one country or another, or one political viewpoint or another.Trying to present it as such is missing the point and giving it a misleading political cover story that it doesn't deserve.
The red flag is the consistent denial of well-documented human rights abuses. That kind of denial is never acceptable from anyone under any circumstances.
If human rights are abused, and those abuses are well documented, people must not deny the abuses took place.
@feditips@Erik
I hear you. I would imagine lemmy core devs, being marxists or communism sympathisers, would see many critiques of communist states as most likely western/capitalist propaganda, and therefore intrinsically political, however rightly or wrongly that is. I’m open minded and ignorant on the details enough to hear that line of thought out.
I’m curious now, any chance you’d be willing to share those receipts?
You can say as much about human rights abuses as you want, but using the software, especially when it comes to FOSS, doesn’t support the devs in any way.
I can use Lemmy to spread whatever information I want, right or wrong.
There’s no ideological war happening through the usage alone.
The better solution in my opinion is using the software for purposes the devs would dislike (in this case spreading correct information about human rights abuses) and hence reclaiming the software.
@feditips@Erik yea kbin is definitely nice. Fusing microblogging with link-aggregating/Reddit-like formats is the way forward for the fediverse IMO: new creative platform formats.
To my point above though, kbin, being essentially similar to lemmy, interops well with lemmy and is currently developing symbiotically with existing lemmy communities, with both dev teams, AFAICT, believing in the health of a diverse fediverse, especially against a dominant mastodon.
This is the developers saying no to requests to allow moderators of instances to edit the list of banned words. Their attitude is pretty patronising, and it directly effects the software.
@stib@Erik@feditips I don't see them saying "No", in fact they're supportive of adding an editable list of additional slur words.
What they are saying "No" to is allowing the static global built-in hardcoded slur list to be easily editable (which is what the Issue asks for and why it's denied).
To me this ultimately seems like a deceptively simple ask that's actually complex when it comes to federation since somehow the various instances would need to enforce each other's slur lists.
If you use a platform, it tends to give more power and more resources to the person developing it. People are supposed to donate to projects they use, so it is important to consider where the money is going.
Also, it allows the official channels to advertise the instances owned by the project. In Lemmy's case they are promoting lemmy.ml and lemmygrad on the official Lemmy website.
I’ve just come back from a long shower in which I thought about your comments, and I think you’re right, hence I will be moving to Mastodon (#MastodonDE) soon (just called a friend, we’ll setup a server in Frankfurt or sth)
Just to legitimize my beliefs to some degree, here’s why I thought what I thought:
Sure, I use Soapbox and Rebased, but I’ve never given a penny to Gleason. As a matter of fact, I am very open about my opinion on him and tell everyone who asks about the software my instance uses or shows interest in Gleason’s software why I think they should rethink their actions. I do that on here as well as a moderator on r/Fediverse.
My instance is promoted on his website, so whenever someone who is a TERF or something along those lines (libertarian, alt-right, etc.) wants to join a Soapbox instance, they might just join mine and get introduced to an alternative viewpoint (an ultra-woke radical leftist perspective in which trans rights are, obviously, human rights).
My idea behind it was something like “just because there was one Nazi punk, punks didn’t stop identifying themselves as punks”, so instead of leaving something that is now problematic because it was annexed by the far right, you ensure that it won’t become another symbol for them. If they want to use climate change as a means to push for ecofascism, you don’t let them, if they annex Christianity to push christofascism, you don’t let them. If they develop software to promote “free speech”, you don’t let them. If more leftists and trans rights activists used Soapbox than any other group, the problem would shift to the side of Gleason: continue developing a software that now mostly pushes for something that is against his ideals, or stop entirely. I liked that idea more than moving away from a sinking ship and letting Soapbox develop into a larger and more radical bubble to the extend where instances using it become Auto-defederated.
However, I am not sure how realistic that was. Considering I needed a lot of help with bugs and stuff from Gleason, I also wasted lots of his time for which he didn’t get paid - another example of why possibly using software from problematic devs is a good thing rather than a bad thing. Yet getting more leftists to open Soapbox instances is probably harder than I thought.
Yet I cannot measure the amount of people that saw my instance and software, decided to give Soapbox a try, and possibly donated money to Gleason due to me, it’s probably zero people, but I can’t tell, and as long as the software my instance uses links to a GitLab under his name, your point stands and continues to stand indefinitely.
The argument that Lemmy’s frontpage displays lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.ml is valid, but it also displays ~70 instances that have no genocide denying opinions whatsoever, so the Lemmy mods are left having to develop software for people who do not support their ideology or opinions whatsoever.
But, you’re right: if there are alternatives, promote those, if there aren’t, make a fork. You shouldn’t support something with the name, logo, and link to where to donate by people who have problematic views to this degree.
Software, media, and especially social media software are tools, it’s our task as admins to ensure we maintain control over our platforms and do not inadvertently support increasingly problematic people or viewpoints by using their software. Even if the software itself seems to have none of the admin’s viewpoints hard-coded now, a future update can change that, and then you’re left to decide whether you want to go through the effort and migrate to another software, or accept the problematic updates and give people whom you do not support more control.
To remain independent of problematic admins means not to support or use their software.
TL;DR: I think you’re right, I will switch to Mastodon under mastodon.de ( #MastodonDE) soon, because Soapbox and Rebased are problematic due to the developer’s anti-trans viewpoints.
@feditips@Erik Sorry if those here already know, but I didn't see it mentioned in this thread, so... kbin is a fediverse Reddit-like alternative to Lemmy.
Not sure if you've been following this thread and its conclusion but after thinking about what you wrote and what my change in beliefs truly should mean as consequences, I've put together a diverse mod & dev team and spent probably every day since our conversation planning what infrastructure such a server would take, transporting hardware across Germany, mounting racks, drilling holes for networking cables, and opening a new Mastodon Server on https://mastodon.de/
I've had the help of many Fedizens as well as data centers across the country that donated old hardware for this to become a reality (especially the DENIC eG). I guess if there's a will there's a way, although a month ago I wouldn't have believed myself if I made that statement.
I cannot thank you enough, the past few weeks have been wonderful, and I'm happy to have kickstarted such a lovely new project, with newfound good friends, without the bad sour aftertaste of supporting a developer with horrid views.
Keep doing what you're doing! #MastodonDE will always be in your debt!
"👉If you use a platform, it tends to give more power and more resources to the person developing it. 👈People are supposed to donate to projects they use, 👉so it is important to consider where the money is going.👈
Also, it allows the official channels to 👉advertise the instances owned by the project...👈
Also, it’s open source. You’re not paying the people who made Lemmy. It’s a link aggregator, like Reddit. You can defederate instances where moderators allow things like denying genocide.
There are 74 Lemmy servers. I know many that aren’t like Lemmygrad. There are also many Mastodon instances that spread the same things you’ve talked about. That doesn’t mean I begin telling people to not use Mastodon.
@Erik I usually agree with @feditips on this stuff, but Lemmy is a FOSS project which anyone can fork and modify. What would be the distinction between forking Lemmy and rebranding it Kropotkin? It would still be the same software. Tech concepts are political, but software inherits its politics from the intent of the software.
There's kbin and lotide if you don't want lemmy. Lotide's web ui is abysmal but considering the fact that it was made by a sourcehut user that's expected still doesn't change the fact it's atrocious.
@colinsmatt11@RL_Dane@feditips If Lemmy and its alternatives are "federated" versions of Reddit, I'm not interested. I was on Reddit for a few months and had zero use for it.
@colinsmatt11@RL_Dane@feditips I'm still on Twitter but there are only about five people there that I still interact with. If they show up here and find me I'll have no problem leaving Twitter.
@AlgoCompSynth@RL_Dane@feditips I was never on twitter thankfully. After seeing the behaviour of people that were on it I had no interest in getting anyway near it.
@AlgoCompSynth I think Twitter was horrible way before elon ever got near it.
I mean the only why I'm on fedi because a few recommended to me atleast give it a shot before a verdict on it.
I don't hate it here but I don't like it as well.
Things could be better but would they get better is a matter of time and for now I'm playing a waiting game.
For me, 2008.
Back when there was no search, hashtags was just a thing on hashtags.org, and RTs meant copying the original tweet, replying to it with "RT @soandso " and then pasting in the text of the tweet (and usually having to sborten it).
Also, when I joined, you used it on your phone via SMS. 😄
IIRC, I whacked my account the DAY I learned of Elon's purchase probably going through.
@RL_Dane@AlgoCompSynth@feditips I've been on Lemmy for a while
and I'd say some but not all. It's decentralized but some instances have some problematic users but many do not including the one i'm on ( slrpnk.net ) which is small and the admin has talked to me about possibly resetting the instance with a different fediverse software since they feel the things you mentioned are keeping better users away. The decentralized nature really does mean the issues vary instance to instance, etc though that doesn't excuse any of the issues you mentioned.
Well, there's the gatekeeper principle. By that, I mean if the gatekeeper of a community (in terms of leading, not "gatekeeping" as the word is usually used) is extreme, that community will tend to be extreme.
There's nothing wrong with hard marxists interspersed among regular communities. They're just one of many voices.
@feditips
You seem to be missing the point. We want to promote decentralised systems in order to not having to deal with anyone's (including the original developer's) opinions.
Anyone can create an instance/server in the fediverse, including Mastodon and Lemmy, without having to deal with the opinions of the owners (like twitter, facebook, reddit) since there isn't one.
Let's not shoot our own feet.
Tech is not neutral, it is affected by the values of the people who make it.
If an online platform becomes popular, it gives the developers more influence, funding and power. I don't want to be giving that to people I don't trust.
For example, the official Lemmy website advertises the problematic instances. And it seems the Lemmy devs run the problematic instances.
@feditips
It is hard to believe that Lemmy is not an improvement compared to ALL other commercial social networks.
And sorry but I funamentally disagree; tech is neutral, science is neutral, but people are never neutral. I will not kill a technology because the people who created do not share the same ethical standards that I do.
Even if Isaak Newton was a horrible person, his work improved the lives of the whole humanity.
@feditips my honest issue is that instance moderation dont have a real way to migrate without deleting all data. I'm not saying lemmy isn't problematic but how are we supposed to leave for kbin/other Reddit stuff
@feditips you should really rephrase this as "don't use lemmy.ml" rather than encourage people to ignore the entire open source decentralized platform "Lemmy" where they could join another instance or host their own and completely avoid everything you're talking about.
@feditips@podiboq Let me play a bit of devils advocate here. I think we should continue to use Lemmy, because what they do with their instance shouldn’t affect ours.
Far as I’m concerned, the software is good. I deploy it and I don’t allow false information or such denial on my server. If Lemmy.ml devolves into a toxic cesspool, they can be defederated like anyone else.
@feditips@podiboq Personally, it sounds like Mastodon - I don’t necessarily like the organization, but once the software is up on GitHub we use it as we like.
Besides, what about Beehaw.org, a Lemmy instance well known for being quite nice and wholesome? Would you have them nuke their entire site and move to something else, just because of some threads on another instance?
If the lead dev of Mastodon was running an instance like Lemmygrad, I would be telling everyone to leave Mastodon.
If you use Lemmy on any instance, it will give the lead developer more power, influence and funding. The more people use a FOSS project, the more donations it gets and the more impact it has.
For example they are using the official Lemmy website to give visibility to the vile instance Lemmygrad.
Add comment