I’m a huge nerd, so the reason I joined Lemmy is because I was looking for a social media platform that conforms with my views on FOSS, moderation, and internet privacy. I would assume many other people are in the same boat, but is that accurate? Who’s just here because they looked up “Reddit alternatives?”
Yes, I am and before you ask: no, I will not help you fix your grandma’s PC.
Like most people on this site, I’m a happy consumer who rejects FOSS (McIBM is enough for me thank you), hates moderation (spicy pickles on icecream is my breakfast), and routinely walks the neighbourhood naked because I think privacy is for prudes. I’m only here as a spy for Reddit and routinely report all activity to Sir Zuckerberg since I hope to start a romantic endeavour with him one day…
…what kind of answers were you hoping to get?
Not a tech person. I’m currently a PhD student in civil engineering and wood science.
I promise I’m not being sarcastic when I say wood science sounds fascinating, lol.
What made you decide to use Lemmy?
Was on reddit for many years, didn’t like the direction it was going. Also I’m permabanned from there!
Oh! What’d you do to get banned off of Reddit of all places??
They wouldn’t shut up about their “awesome, super-hard wood”.
I’ve had a few accounts banned from a few of the larger subreddits, then I got a general permaban for ban evasion. Among the things I was banned from big subreddits for:
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Making even vaguely pro-Palestinian comments on r/worldnews
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Commenting in r/politics, that if the SCOTUS ruled that the president had complete immunity and was effectively a dictator, he should drone strike Supreme Court justices until that power is taken away. (Actual news stories proposing this were allowed on r/politics. But the comments section had an idiotic zero-context zero-thought “no violence” policy. IMO, the only moral use of dictatorial powers is to force through changes stripping yourself of those dictatorial powers.)
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Literally on January 6th, as a group of armed insurgents was actively trying to overthrow our government in a coup, asking why they weren’t being met with automatic weapons fire. I have zero doubt that if BLM tried to storm the inauguration of a president Trump, they would be shot by the dozen. But right wing extremists were allowed to openly attempt a coup in broad daylight. (We later learned the reason this didn’t happen is that the president had deliberately kept troops from being deployed to protect the capital building.)
My primary account on reddit had several hundred thousand comment karma on it. I’ve had accounts with 15 year histories on there. But the main subreddits have been completely taken over by either right wing radicals or pro-advertiser zero-thought censorship policies. I literally had my main account banned from r/politics for wondering why my nation’s military wasn’t defending the peaceful transfer of power from a group of armed revolutionaries.
Looking back, I think we would have been a lot better off if January 6th HAD resulted in scores of thugs being gunned down with machine guns. Instead, the people who planned it haven’t been brought to justice and have been left to simply try again. And since then, in right wing circles, it’s been recast as some noble peaceful protest. We would have been far better off if the leaders of that movement never made it off the capital grounds. If we’ve learned anything from history, it’s when fascists try to seize power violently, you need to come down like the Hammer of God upon them. Giving them a slap on the wrist to appease them does not work, it just teaches them that you are weak, and that they should keep trying til they succeed. If a thousand of the countries most violent right wing extremists had instead never left capital grounds alive that day, I think today we would be in a far better place.
But…you can’t post that kind of thing on r/politics without getting instantly permabanned. They censor any discussion of violence, even when it is entirely justified and legal in the defense of a nation and its democracy. It’s been said that from time to time, the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants. But on r/politics, the tree of liberty is doomed to wither, as discussing watering the tree with the blood of tyrants violates community guidelines and doesn’t make advertisers happy.
Or, as a final example, I think there was a story on there once that was hyperbolically lamenting, “OMG, what happens if Trump raises a group of right wing militias to stage an armed revolution if they lose in 2024?” I replied truthfully and correctly. What do we do if any group of people tries to overthrow the government by force? We shoot them. We send in the most powerful military on Earth, we shoot them, and we put them in the ground. That is what you do with rebels. That is what any democracy needs to do if it wants people to respect the results of elections. When you try to overthrow a legitimately elected government, your life is now forfeit, and you will be met with unrelenting merciless force. That is how that scenario would actually go down in real life. Democracy is worth fighting for. And democracy is worth killing for. And I wasn’t afraid to state this plain and obvious fact. That got one account permabanned from r/politics.
In short, I am not afraid of saying that under certain circumstances, it is entirely just and legal for violence, even extreme and lethal violence, to be used to protect a nation and its republic. But on a big subreddit like r/politics, you’ll be permabanned for saying it’s OK to shoot people trying to violently overthrow the government.
Lemmy isn’t immune to bans for people speaking their mind or promoting violence. It happens all the time.
Hell, Lemmy.world will ban you for OPPOSING violence. But the bright side of federation is the lunatics taking over the asylum on one instance doesn’t impact using others.
Sure. But again, it’s a distributed platform. And it does tend to be less subject to zero-thought zero tolerance policies built to appease advertisers. If you start posting death threats to politicians, you’ll get banned (and probably visited by law enforcement.) But I never posted anything like that. I never threatened anyone. I never advocated vigilante violence. I never posted anything that I couldn’t, completely legally, write on a big sign and literally walk around in front of the White House fence advocating for.
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I’m a techie and left reddit after the api-desaster. I won’t use things when they have ads. Period. And I’m glad I found lemmy.
I’m techie enough to be interested in federated social media networks. I’m techie enough to start using Linux. Ain’t that enough techie?
*crawls out of a gutter and sneers*
where’s your collection of broken calculator watches that you swear you’ll fix some day?
*scuttles back into sewer*Never had a calculator watch, let alone a collection of broken ones.
*sneers further, revealing blackened teeth*
yes i am partially computer
Not exactly. I’m kind of a “learn what I need to to get by” person. I’m not really a Linux person… but my old laptop took 15 minutes to boot up, and the hardware obsoleted out of windows updates, so now I have Linux.
I ran out of space in Google Photos. I would’ve happily bought more space but they told me I’d have free backup space forever if I compressed my photos. When they changed that policy I realized I was being jerked around. So then I got a raspberry pi, and learned how to (barely) set up a server to run Immich.
I liked browsing reddit, but, again, I don’t like being jerked around, so here I am.
It depends on the community, but in general people on Lemmy love FOSS. The linux community is very helpful and friendly (although headstrong). Moderation depends on your instance (.ml is quite politically motivated). Privacy on the platform is non existent due to how the software works, but in general, people here do care about privacy related topics.
That is true but doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a tech person. I don’t consider myself one, in fact I come here for help when I have questions or issues. I do appreciate foss and privacy but I’m not hardcore on either. I’ve certainly known a lot of people with even less understanding than me about tech, but I don’t think I qualify as a tech myself and I believe there are many others here in a similar situation as me
True, I didn’t actually answer the question. I suppose it’s because yes, I am a tech person. I am a senior systems engineer and software developer with a career of over 20 years. I have run my own tech company for 10 of those years, and recently went back to work in a corporate setting as lead developer for a contact center software company.
I’m just a regular person. I’m learning everyday about the fediverse, what its capable of. But its actuality only around 3-4years since I got into this rabbit hole. I used to in my younger days to think that FOSS is to nerdy😄im excited to get more into the FOSS and Fediverse world!
We’re glad to have you! The more the merrier
90% of people who joined Lemmy (or the fediverse in general) are tech savvy enough to wrap their head around the concept of federation.
but do you need to understand that
Is it really so tough? It’s the very similar to email providers, and who doesn’t understand those?
It isn’t tough at all, and anyone who says the concept is can’t wrap their mind around it is either a Luddite or is willfully dismissive.
Yet you’re describing 99% of internet users, so…
I work in a computer shop and talk to regular computer users all day everyday.
The average user might know what a browser is. Most don’t know that the Internet is outside of their computer.
Real quotes like this happen everyday: “I just get on the green one to check my Google”. Translation: I check Gmail using the Edge browser.
It took me 25 minutes the other day to explain what video chat was and that FaceTime is only one kind of it, and it’s only available on Apple devices, of which an HP laptop is not.
Do not underestimate the computer illiteracy of the common person.
Yes. I’ve worked in tech ever since I was able to teach myself enough to hold a job amongst people with CS degrees. I hadn’t been on Reddit for a lot of years up until six months before the exodus. I had no account and only consumed. Here feels worth submitting links and discussing things.
Negative, I am a meat Popsicle.
Smoke you!!
I like doing tech stuff as a hobby yeah. Don’t remember why I signed up for Lemmy but I have been aware of it for years before I signed up. I think I wanted to have a place to talk about FOSS but also in a community that was generally aligned with my political views (hence my decision to sign up for lemmy.ml)
I like how this platform works, I’m actually active here unlike the garbage fire that was and is reddit
I was formally studying Software Development before I came here, and yeah, I’ve been a sort of techie for the better part of 24 years. Been a LiGNUx user for probably a combined 18 years. If it wasn’t for FOSS I probably would have lost interest long ago, because when I recently tried out some new hobbies I was shocked as I was reminded how much other basic activities cost to seriously engage in. I also happened to migrate from that other website you mentioned, but that’s not important. I really wanted to simply find other forums that weren’t based on one centralized website. Lemmy is kind of a compromise with that for me.
i never heard someone using the term LiGNUx, is it some new way of saying GNU/Linux?
it’s an alternative to GNU/Linux proposed by Richard Stallman. I use it because I don’t want to write out as much and I still want to differentiate from my use of Android’s OS which is also technically Linux but it’s not GNU.
What would you call Alpine Linux?
