khepri

Yeah, that was my first thought when I read this too. There were plenty of people for whom the internet in general, or later social media, was too complex for them to bother with. I think each generation of technology leaves behind a certain % of people who are past the point of being willing or able to learn how to use something new, and that isn't really a bad thing.

Yes, you have to have some notion of what "federated" means and how it works to make full use of federated sites. But it's just asking people to learn a little bit about a couple new terms, and spending a few minutes outside of their comfort zone while they orient to a new environment, just like when the internet itself or social media started. And I think we obviate the entire point of building something new by trying to make it completely familiar and friction-less for people. If that was the best way to build community, then the internet would just be the phone book and social media would just be the personals section of a newspaper.

So they slapped some reinforcement learning on top of their LLM and are claiming that gives it “reasoning capabilities”? Or am I missing something?

That's all well and good, I agree with virtually all you said. It's certainly the admins' right to block or de-federate any community they want, based on risk or just because they feel like it, I have no issue with that. It's simply my personal belief that discussion of crime is not a crime. Direct links to illegal content should not be allowed, but discussion about piracy in general should carry no more risk that learning about murder in a criminology class, which does not need to be banned just because it's teaching people things they could in theory use to get away with murder.

I think we're close to saying the same thing, I'm in total agreement that linking to illegal content should be banned, it's the uneven enforcement of that principle across communities that I think is an issue. I know .world isn't hosted in the US, so you don't enjoy broad 1st Amendment protections for free speech, but does anyone really think that discussing crime is itself a crime? If I say "here's a scenario for how a group of people could rob a bank" what crime is that? If I say "hey I think there's people dealing drugs on this street corner" what crime is that? And I can of course appreciate a host not wanting to expose themselves to any sort of legal liability, that's their free choice, they own the server. I'm talking about, on principle, what's wrong with allowing a community to exist so long as that community does not post or link to illegal content? That principle seems to work just fine for virtually every other topic but when it comes to discussion of filesharing, torrents, and the like, then suddenly the "don't link to illegal content" principle isn't good enough and it becomes "we must ban this entire concept for our own safety." That's the admins' right and I have no issue if they want to do that, I just want to point out the glaring double standard between moderating communities so they don't break the rules and banning communities so they don't break the rules.