For all your boycotting needs. I'm sure there's some mods caught in lemmy.ml's top 10 that are perfectly upstanding and reasonable people, my condolences for the cross-fire.

!memes@lemmy.world and !memes@sopuli.xyz. Or of course communities that rule.
!asklemmy@lemmy.world
!linux@programming.dev. Quite small, plenty of more specific ones available. Also linux is inescapable on lemmy anyway :)
!programmer_humor@programming.dev
!world@lemmy.world
!privacy@lemmy.world and maybe !privacyguides@lemmy.one, lemmy.one itself seems to be up in the air. !fedigrow@lemm.ee says !privacy@lemmy.ca. They really seem to be hiding even from another, those tinfoil hats :)
!technology@lemmy.world
Seems like !comicstrips@lemmy.world and !comicbooks@lemmy.world, various smaller comic-specifc communities as well as !eurographicnovels@lemm.ee
!opensource@programming.dev
!fuckcars@lemmy.world

(Out of the loop? Here's a thread on lemmy.ml mods and their questionable behaviour)

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[–] fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

With the ability to block hexbear.net and lemmygrad.ml, I got cocky and started recommending Lemmy to people that I know irl, however upon thinking it over in greater depth, I am afraid to do that anymore.

I don't even admit to anyone that I use Lemmy, too much political extremism and propaganda.

Within a couple weeks of signing up for Lemmy I was told I'd "get the wall", and had to abandon an account because Lemmy.ml users followed me around and downvoted everything I posted (mostly funny memes).

[–] OpenStars@discuss.online 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

But after I blocked hexbear.net and Lemmygrad.ml, I started to forget that all of that was even there, though I internally made a kind of automatic mental block for Lemmy.ml too (like WHAT!? oh nvm it's from them...). I shouldn't forget though, that that is what a new user would see... thus it would be quite unfriendly for me to bring fresh meat to the fascist audience for their amusement.

Listening to instance admins, I just don't know why they refuse to see those campaigns of brigading as you described happened to you (can you prove it btw, like if the account still exists, and you find a way to view downvotes - does Mbin let you? I tried but maybe it needs a login to do that and it appears greyed out to me without one...), and they say things like "they don't affect our users" (bullshit, you just perfectly described a situation that I suspect happens all the time where it does), and basically act like bullying and intimidation is not a thing that exists in the world. Like, if you ever say anything to anger someone on lemmy.ml, then that's your fault and you deserve whatever comes your way after that!?

Tbf, there are instances - e.g. reddthat.com - that disable downvotes entirely. But I don't want to simply become insensitive to everyone else's disapproval around me - rather I want the system to work properly so that I am only getting disapproval from people who I either respect or at least are neutral, i.e. not fascists who abuse the system bc they are allowed to by inattentive admins.

If there was an instance somewhere that had defederated from the Big 3 Axis powers - hexbear.net, lemmygrad.ml, and lemmy.ml - I would likely join it, and promote it, and recommend Lemmy to people irl again. Otherwise, I will either leave the Fediverse if it gets too bad, or far more likely simply block lemmy.ml but then only enjoy the Fediverse privately rather than as something I am allowed to share bc of how poor and off-putting the initial user experience is.:-(

It is extremely sad how heavily this aspect hinders our continued growth - even if Reddit does something annoying like finally kills off old-reddit for good this time, are people really going to want to come here, so that instead of being exposed to the right-wing propaganda over there, they can be exposed to the fascism-disguised-as-leftism over here? Fascists are controlling everything, everywhere!?!? But we were supposed to be different, here. At least that's what we told ourselves.

[–] fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, well said. I'm not sure about seeing where downvotes come from, if I could it might be worth getting back into my abandoned account to provide more evidence that defederation is warranted.

I don't want to simply become insensitive to everyone else's disapproval around me - rather I want the system to work properly so that I am only getting disapproval from people who I either respect or at least are neutral

Same. I want a system where everyone has an equal voice with limited censorship and a zero tolerance approach to governments or corporations spreading agendas.

[–] OpenStars@discuss.online 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The problem with "equal voice" is that those who are okay to resort to unethical behavior - like spinning up 1000 bots - can "win", over those who constrain themselves to more ethical routes, of speaking or voting one-by-one. Obviously nobody is perfect, but game theoretical analysis shows us that the more unethical someone allows themselves to be, the more they can "game the system" - which DOES work, at least in the short-term.

iirc, blocking someone also prevents them from downvoting you. Though I'm not positive that that works when you, as an individual user, block an entire instance. So if there was lets say 10 people that follow you around downvoting literally everything that you do, blocking them would mean that either you would have put a stop to that, or else they would have to spin up additional bots to continue - which at least forces them to put in additional effort. Unless its an instance user block, in which case you no longer get notifications from their replies, but you can still see their comments, reply back to them, I think vote in either direction, etc. b/c that kind of blocking basically does very little to separate you away from them.

It seems to me that posting is inherently an unequal activity, compared to voting, b/c whereas when we do the former we expose ourselves to criticism, but others who use solely the latter can hide behind anonymity when they vote. Thus the system inherently is not "equal" at all, unless we could either post anonymously, or else if we could see who is doing the voting. I might not even mind if I got 40 down-votes, all from hexbear.net, lemmygrad.ml, and lemmy.ml - I probably would wear that accomplishment as an achievement with pride:-) - but in that case I would want to know that that is the case, as opposed to 40 downvotes from non-brainwashed masses.

[–] fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee 2 points 5 months ago

Yeah, I see equal voice as an important goal to strive for, but realize that's difficult on anonymous social media. It seems like it'll only get worse as LLMs improve.