this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2024
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Asklemmy

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Hey everyone, I'm new to Lemmy and just starting to figure this site out. I mainly moved here because of the censorship on Reddit where they didn't publish posts that included the slightest word not allowed by their filter and they removed/blocked lots of content. I wonder if it will be somewhat better here (on the official site it says "Censorship resistant - By hosting your own server, you can be in full control of your content.").

The weird thing I saw with Lemmy was when I wanted to sign-up on the "lemmy.ml" server instance that according to the official Lemmy Servers listing page is a "A community of privacy and FOSS enthusiasts, run by Lemmy’s developers".

So I thought I try that one when it's from Lemmy's own developers. When I wanted to sign-up it required an application that you needed to fill out with one of the requirements being having to copy a sentence from the link provided which links to some article called "The Principles of Communism" which I thought was very odd for a site to do. I've never seen a site like this promoting some ideology that directly where it's part of the sign-up process to almost pledge to some political or religious ideology.

This seemed very sketchy to me. Does anyone know something about this?

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[–] starbrite@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 minutes ago

Ikr? I'm honestly tempted to go back to reddit, but the privacy concerns ick me out

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 44 minutes ago* (last edited 29 minutes ago)

The .ml admins (and devs of Lemmy the software) are from that crowd, basically. If you don't like it, try another instance.

Edit: .ml is for Marxist-Leninist, even. There's no connection to Mali.

[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Welcome. Admins and mods of every instance, not just ml are very trigger happy to enforce their opinion. Going as far as fully disabling users accounts. Not by using an automatic word filter though.

Each instance has different political opinions you need to agree with. This one likes communism. Upside is no email verification required, so it is very private.

Lemmy is much more wild west than moden Reddit. Similar to old Reddit. Enjoy the ride.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 42 minutes ago

As the internet should be.

[–] Nexy@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 2 hours ago

That depends on the instance you are in.

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 16 minutes ago) (1 children)

Main Lemmy devs are communist and aren't shy to enforce their views, which gets reflected in their instance, lemmy.ml, which is considered to be fairly tankie.

However, as Lemmy is federated, you can join any other instance and view whatever interests you without having to recite political literature to sign up.

In fact, the most popular instance is actually lemmy.world, which is not politically affiliated; although it defederated from certain instances, which might make you feel limited. I found lemmy.today as a way to be connected with anything and everything, from Hexbear to Beehaw, to, well, Lemmy.world

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 43 minutes ago (1 children)

There's a list on GitHub of instances by most federation. It's where I found mine.

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 2 points 26 minutes ago* (last edited 22 minutes ago)

Good option! Could you please share the link to the list if you still have one?

[–] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 18 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (9 children)

If you have an email address, you're already used to the federated service pattern. When you sign up for a gmail, you're making an account with Google to be able to send emails to anyone else with an email address. And there's nothing stopping Google from making you fill out a "sketchy" application to get an account.

On Lemmy, each instance has its own set of rules, and if you don't like them, you just make an account on a different instance.

As far as censorship, each "community" (analog to subreddit) lives on a certain instance and the rules of that instance apply.

Edit: also on the topic of communism, however you feel about communism in the physical world is irrelevant when it comes to the digital world. Free and Open Source Software makes the world go 'round, and is often communist in nature, even if done unintentionally. The pattern of people developing software for their own purposes, and then sharing it freely with others is the purest form of "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need." That said, running an instance isn't free, so make sure to kick your instance a few bucks if you appreciate their work.

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[–] MrFunnyMoustache@lemmy.ml 57 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This wasn't around when I joined. I suppose this serves two purposes:

  • Stop conservatives from joining the instance.

  • An additional filter to make it a bit harder for bots to make accounts.

I think that's killing two birds with one stone.

[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 day ago

Yeah when I joined IIRC I just had to write a sentence about why I wanted to join. The communism thing made me laugh though!

[–] juliebean@lemm.ee 126 points 1 day ago (1 children)

it's not sketchy, it's basically a captcha to keep down automated bot sign ups, and they link to that document in particular, i assume, because the devs are marxists and figure folks who are vehemently anti-communist would refuse and thus keep down their moderation load.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 47 points 1 day ago

The most correct answer here honestly.

[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 24 points 1 day ago

The fediverse is not really about avoiding censorship as it is about providing choice. That means the choice to listen to who you want to listen to (i.e. what servers to (de)federate from/to), the choice to post whatever you want (but you might get banned from your own instance or any other instance, that's their prerogative), the choice of administrators and moderators (i.e. which instance you sign up to and what communities you participate in).

All of that stuff doesn't really have to do with censorship directly, but it has implications for censorship. The fediverse is not built primarily to avoid censorship though, and in some cases it is made to make "censorship" (moderation) easier, rather than harder.

[–] AnnaFrankfurter@lemmy.ml 30 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Yeah lemmy.ml is full of commie bastards...πŸ˜‚πŸ˜‚πŸ˜‚

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[–] Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works 68 points 1 day ago (2 children)

.ml is treated as a bit of a bogeyman around here - most of my interactions with their instance and users has been good. I realise this could be different for others. But, yes, they are Marxist-Leninist so, obviously, their opinions and content will be closely aligned with their political philosophy. In my personal opinion and experience .world seems to have vacuumed-up a tremendous amount of people from the other site you mentioned (Robbit?). Their netiquette seems to have not changed. Also, myself and some others have noticed that on .world it’s not unusual to see comments that express views from outside what the majority believe get deleted. Fortunately the β€œmod logs” are public record so you can see why comments were deleted, whom by and what the original post/comment was. (I guess with the exception of illegal content that has to be scrubbed) I hope you enjoy your time here. Welcome.

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