I am still playing around with Lemmy like I am sure a lot of people are. I have accounts on multiple instances to see how things are and what not.
I understand why beehaw decided to defederate with .world, I just didn’t think much about the consequence of it after it happened. Today I was browsing the !anime@lemmy.ml from my beehaw account and looked at the same from my this .ml account and realized I am missing so posts… Any user from .world posting a discussion thread for an anime I watch from, I can’t participate in…
I could create my own discussion post about the anime, but now there are two posts going about the same thing. beehaw users would be able to see and participate in this now, but every other instance will see two posts. Duplicating the same thing and splitting the discussion unnecessarily.
I love the power, control, and principles behind Lemmy and the wider fediverse, its just something that is annoying me at the moment. Its amazing for taking care of spam instances (70k users with no posts? yea right), but when one large/popular instance spanks another, it can be problematic. Thinking of maybe self hosting (which I am no stranger to) as a way to avoid an issue like this in future.
Still like Lemmy and wanting to push through these “quirks”, but just wanted to vent a little.
A counter. You can still talk to beehaw people. Apart from whatever other media they’re on, such as matrix or mastodon, you can create an account there to start a conversation about re-federating, no problem.
Defederation doesn’t completely cut people off from each, or create crazy prejudices about what’s happening on the other side. This isn’t real life, it’s just accounts in servers.
What it does do is allow people to take some control over their social spaces. It’s a new thing compared to big corp social media, and we almost certainly have done learning on how to do it better, but it does create a social dynamic online closer to real life, where being active about your social space rather than passively subjected to anything is the norm.
Don’t get me wrong, defederstion can be done badly and rashly. But I would push back on any perspective that would erase or ignore the genuinely social aspect of controlling who and what you associate with, especially online where things are so much more plastic and connected.
Compared to what big corp social media has made us think, we don’t all need to be connected to everyone. In fact we never were … it was a profiteering fantasy. Instead we can embrace the choices and freedoms people have here while also trying to build better bridges. That’s what I’d do in real life anyway.
So I see where you’re coming from, and it’s a valid point.
There’s a but here though.
Point 1: Corpo soshuls don’t connect you to everyone. They have very specific rules that they abuse to ban people with inconvenient (and admittedly sometimes schizophrenic) beliefs.
Point 2: As a user, you can block somebody (or should be able to block) anyone you find distasteful or upsetting. why would you want someone else to make that decision for you by blocking a whole instance? Don’t you want that control?
RE 1 … “everyone” was meant figuratively. Any big social platform had lots of people all in one space, almost certainly more than ever were before. And of course their interests were in provided that “convenience” and reaping the “engagement” that ensued. Even if their banning practices were questionable, by the numbers, regarding people’s natural tendency to form groups and networks, the size of big social platforms was surely significant!?
RE 2 … Control is nice! And we have a good amount here (I can block you and this community if I wish). But control is also work, right? At some point the work could become too much. And for those susceptible to being targeted by abuse and bad faith actors, it often can be. So deferring control to a group action level also makes sense and is also nice, especially if we have control over which groups we belong to (getting back to “accounts on servers”).
Generally I’m with you on a personal level. But I also know I’m pretty capable of tolerating some of the most vile shit the internet has to offer, and am privileged enough that little of it will be personal to me and my qualities. I also believe that avoiding defederation is an objectively good thing to do.
But you can’t tell people how to feel about things or to change their life history or how they’re seen by some shitheads … and the best thing we can do, I believe, is be somewhat accepting of the chaos and the value of the right of association, and, be good citizens by building bridges as best we can.