If the fediverse doesn’t do something about all the authoritarian propaganda it will just be a flavor of the week.
I was thrilled by the concept and excited to join. Now that I’ve experienced it, I’d be embarrassed to say I use it, and I’m considering leaving.
I’ve been on the Fediverse for years and I’ve never much encountered this. I curate my timelines very carefully. I don’t look at the Local or Federated timelines in Mastodon, Pixelfed, or Lemmy.
That said, I do the exact same thing with all social media. I don’t go to the subreddits that would have such content, don’t follow users on Twitter who spew this content, etc.
I’m not disputing that it’s there, because of course it is. But it’s also there on every other social media platform, and with far more resources these platforms haven’t been able to do nearly anything about it.
I don’t know what the answer is to this propaganda, and I want to make clear that I think it’s awful. But it’s the fault of social media writ large, not the Fediverse.
In fact, I’ve found the Fediverse to be better about calling it out and encouraging defederating offending instances than I’ve seen on traditional social media, which seems to shrug its shoulders at it at best and actively encourages it at worst.
Why don’t you just join communities you like and block the ones you really dislike? Reddit was crawling with propaganda you couldn’t escape.
It’s not overwhelming, but I see occasional “eruptions” of Tankies and their ilk on posts and in communities where you wouldn’t expect to see them. Maybe just an organic thing where they see each other coming out of their closets and decide to pile on when they get the chance, but still kind of annoying and not something that’s easily preemptively blocked.
That said, this is hardly unique to the Fediverse. There’s stuff like that in social media in general, the Fediverse just happens to have that particular flavor for reasons of historical happenstance.
They tend to come from the same instances, so it’s pretty easy to block actually, especially after the next Lemmy update comes out. Block hexbear and Lemmygrad and you already got almost all of them. You can do that with certain mobile apps.
I can handle the blocking, that’s something I can control. what I can’t control is the same link being posted on multiple instances that just gets annoying to scroll through.
Recently Google announced Android 14, now all the technology, android, google related communities start posting the same link to the announcement along with the commentary by tech blogs and it repeats 10s of times in the feed.
I follow multiple tech subs across multiple instances for broader coverage but if the news is popular, it’s on every one of them.
To be fair, is that radically different from Reddit? Major news is also repeated in all relevant subreddits there.
Because I want the fediverse to succeed, not become another failed platform drowning in extremism like Voat.
The fediverse will succeed or fail because of one’s ability to choose with whom they associate. Voat was just as centralized as Reddit, except its whole point was to invite the alt-right with a freeze peach dog whistle.
We can label the devs authoritarian if we want, but what they’ve built is inherently liberating.
I think it’s unique that we see more different sides and not just a US echo chamber that reddit was. However some communities of all spectrums have their idiots and communities that brigade stuff are very annoying. The idea that these communities exist is not the problem. I just block what I don’t want to see. I am ready for the block instance by user feature. I have to play wack a mole right now.
