I got a lot of backlash for a thread on Lemmy the other day about how the “federation” system is fundamentally broken by its lack of Tor support.
To recap: the lack of Tor support seems like part of why Lemmy’s existence so far hasn’t brought the world’s “overton window” any further from capitalist fascism than it was at reddit’s peak. It just isn’t currently designed for the task.
If Lemmy got big enough to make too many people think it’s potentially on the cusp of triggering a serious organized resistance, it would just be fractured in a crackdown by the authorities, like reddit was when it got too big.
With the “federation system” not supporting Tor, Lemmy isn’t designed to resist corporate (ICANN) control. It isn’t designed to help or attract users looking for that ability.
I can’t find any solid clarification for whether Piefed/mbin have the same issue. Do they? Can instances / servers be “federated” using Onion service addresses instead of DNS / IP addresses?
Before posting, I’ll address some replies I expect certain people might post instead of addressing my question (based on my experience the other day)
“This is a possible future problem, not a today problem.”
Incorrect. The server admins / devs / users on Lemmy today are limited by this already. If PieFed / mbin are the same way, this impacts everyone.
You’re not seeing posts from people who decide there is nowhere worth posting. You’re also not seeing posts from people who post where the authorities aren’t in control, if you’re only using DNS and IP addresses to fetch posts. You also can’t reply to them, if I understand correctly.
This also might have deep psychological impact, where it’s not only that you can’t see posts from those people, but that you’re driven closer to the middle of the “overton window” by fear of becoming one of those people yourself.
It’s extremely far from a “tomorrow, not today problem.”
“OK, so you think it’s a today problem, but that’s a lie. Every instance has an owner deciding their own rules freely, without Tor.”
This seems impossible, since without Tor you’d be relying on DNS / IP addresses that can be conveniently blocked by the authorities at any time.
By “Occam’s razor,” the lack of Tor “federation” also seems to explain why every “federated” instance I can find has rules other than simply don’t spam.
“Very few people want to see content banned by the authorities; mainly just pedophiles and Nazis, so that’s who you’d have as users in a place the authorities don’t control.”
As examples of large groups of people, that would want to share content “banned by the authorities” - I believe Nazi groups would be dwarfed by Luigi Mangione supporters, and pedophile groups would be dwarfed by “internet pirates.”
However, it is true that these groups wouldn’t behave exactly how I want. They might splinter into separate clusters, where all the pedophile/Nazi groups are sent to their own echo chamber, all the Luigi Mangione supporters settle in theirs, the pirates only venture into the pirate bubble for piracy purposes, etc.
What I would want is instead for everyone to recognize that you can’t have a serious place for political discussion in a democracy if it’s full of adults who aren’t willing to listen or talk to each other. It should be one supercluster of people who agree on that, with communities for all topics, where everyone can see and reply to each other if they want.
I would also think it’s pretty reasonable if we had a “Tor cluster” where the standard for instances is that they block nothing except spam, and a “mainstream cluster” where the standard is to remove nothing except spam and whatever else the authorities require removal of. No bans for anyone that doesn’t spam, or bring obviously banned material into the “mainstream cluster.”
That might be a lot to ask of the human race.
But it’s still a good idea to take control away from “the authorities” and have people share that control more equally, even if they might never do what I want.
Personally, I appreciate progress towards zero censorship, even if we never reach actual zero.
“OK, so you disagree with me even if you’re outnumbered, but Nazis will take over if you let them talk, so you’re a bad person for disagreeing. Paradox of tolerance.”
The Wikipedia page says “the paradox of tolerance is a philosophical concept suggesting that if a society extends tolerance to those who are intolerant, it risks enabling the eventual dominance of intolerance, thereby undermining the very principle of tolerance.”
I don’t get how that would be a paradox. It sounds like what’s called “irony,” not a “paradox.” I definitely don’t see how it’s supposed to make the concept of tolerance itself inherently paradoxical.
But if it is, what do you do about it? Do you somehow tolerate nothing in a fair, unbiased way? Calling tolerance “paradoxical” seems like an insane premise that can’t go anywhere logically.
If you’re using that paradox to justify censorship, you’re saying we should be intolerant of free speech because if we try to tolerate free speech, we could end up with people who are intolerant of free speech anyway? That sounds like you being a defeatist, not tolerance being paradoxical.
I don’t see tolerance as paradoxical. I just tolerate stuff I find tolerable, like free speech - and don’t tolerate stuff I find intolerable, like racist vitriol.
So, when a racist uses racial slurs, the problem for me isn’t that they’re allowed to have their own views or use their own words. The problem I see there is, they’re racist, they’re promoting science denialism, and it also brings to mind other problems, like how the racists I encounter are usually also climate science deniers who are still eating quite well while climate change is starting to get to the stage where it causes famine for people in other parts of the world.
I don’t care if we stop racists from using their phones to type dumb shit. I wish we were busy stopping them from using their guns and drones to keep food crops away from people who never promoted science denialism like they did.
It seems like the underlying issue isn’t even really about any “paradox.” The undertone is that some of you think censoring Nazis makes them go away. How? It seems to me like internet censorship and Nazism have increased together in recent years.
That’s anecdotal, but the science is also not in favor of echo chambers. There’s plenty of “actual research” backing me up.
“In line with our expectations, we find that partisan echo chambers increase both policy and affective polarization compared to mixed discussion groups.”
“The researchers found that when people preferentially connect to people with similar opinions, they create an echo chamber that increasingly polarizes the views of everyone in the network. On the other hand, people who are part of a network consisting of a variety of viewpoints tend to moderate one another. Understanding that social networks influence polarization — rather than merely reflect it — could be crucial in developing interventions to curb polarization online and the spread of political extremism, the researchers report.”
“Our analysis reveals that while these algorithms are designed to enhance user engagement and satisfaction, they inadvertently foster digital polarization, diminish exposure to diverse viewpoints, and contribute to the spread of misinformation.”
Of course, to base your opinion purely on the consensus of scientists would be the “appeal to authority” fallacy. When we have anecdotal evidence as widespread as there is, we should be able to discuss this issue without linking to studies.
However, the main way I know racism is wrong is because it’s science denialism. So, after talking about the example of racism, I would feel remiss not pointing out that to promote echo-chambering also seems like science denialism. So it seems like projection when you suggest anyone that won’t ban a racist from online discussion is then somehow akin to a racist.
“Whatever, it doesn’t matter if you disagree while being so outnumbered. Too many people think you’re wrong; that makes you wrong and the app we’re using right.”
This is a logical fallacy called the “bandwagon” or “argumentum ad populum.”
“I wish you wouldn’t post about this without fixing it yourself.”
I am fine with posting about it being my only involvement in it possibly being fixed. I don’t see how it’s really my problem if that upsets you.
Fair enough. I had that happen to me with Instagram and my secondary Google account. But for “suspicious activity” and at least Google wanted some ID from me, which I’m not going to provide due to privacy reasons. It’s going to suck once they decide to take my 18yo Youtube account away. Other than that, I’m into the whole Free Software and Selfhosting game for long enough to be safe with most of my stuff. “They” can hardly mess with my Nextcloud on the NAS at home or my Matrix chat or PieFed instance on the VPS. It’s quite a step up but not perfect. I still rely on a good amount of services provided to me, and sometimes even the ones I control aren’t perfect. Projects get abandoned, servers shut down because admins/developers burn out, loose interest or their life changes and that has a similar effect… In the end I empathize with your main point. I think digital sovereignty and being in control of our information channels is really important. And now more than ever.