frank

And I have seen block lists where most of the stuff is toxic and should be blocked, but then mixed in there are people who pissed off the person maintaining the block list, usually over some petty dispute or the fact that they voted for the wrong guy in the last election. Unfortunately a lot of these distributed block lists wind up becoming the maintainer's personal weapon against enemies.

How decentralized is Funkwhale? Does everything go through their website, or do you host your own version and you get the music directly from the artists?

This is what I suspected. I can get behind blocking actual Neo Nazis and hate groups, and illegal content, but when it becomes "blocking anyone who disagrees with me" that can easily be abused, especially if the people running the list can't tell the difference between Nazis, MAGA, Republicans, Centrists, and Libertarians. Or someone who can't tell the difference between a tankie, a communist, a socialist, a democratic socialist, or an anarchist. Contrary to some people's beliefs, all of these things are not the same.

People are welcome to block whomever they wish and have the power to curate their own feeds, but when someone else does it, and there is no way to opt out of that, then it becomes censorship or suppression of information.

And someone who is against Nazis might want to read Mien Kamph, not because they agree with Hitler, but because they want to understand the enemy so they can be better equipped to stop Nazis.

Are they blocking illegal content (such as content that promotes violence or issues threats) and content against the terms of service (like hateful, trolling, or disrespectful content)?

Or are they banning people based on their political beliefs or who they voted for, even if their content is not political in any way whatsoever?

And how are they defining alt right? A literal Neo Nazi? Or someone who voted Republican?

Sounds interesting, but how would these currencies be translated into fiat currency (USD, EURO, YEN, etc.)? Because ultimately people need to pay for housing and food with their country's chosen currency, and that is one of the main reasons why people sell stuff.

This sounds interesting.

*Says a new word. Quickly files a trademark.*

These bullies are going to ruin the fediverse.

@ronflex said:

The problem with left leaning individuals on the internet is we have a lot of drive and conviction behind our ideas which is a good thing, but that should translate into real life activism or doing something that will combat the current political system and promote change. But we are beaten down since that’s basically a total pipe dream, we realize what the problem is and feel powerless to fix it.

In many ways, that's what they want you to believe: that you have no hope to change things, so most people never try. That leaves the powers-that-be in charge.

But the reality is that people have the power to transform the country, and it does not have to be through the government. For example, if you are socialist or communist, you can establish your own communes, cooperatives, and employee-owned enterprises yourself, and it is totally legal! And, there are plenty of them already in existence.

People like to complain that someone else should fix their country, but the reality is, they can do it themselves, even when they have no political power whatsoever. But it takes hard work, and that is something most people aren't willing to do.

@Blaze (he/him) I heard someone mention Blacksky a couple of times. I forgot who, but apparently they are trying to set up alternatives for Bluesky on the AT protocol network.

They both use ActivityPub, so the two platforms can communicate with each other. I think it is just a matter of promoting your community.