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Who owns the Fediverse? I mean who owns and runs the hardware that runs this system? (lemmy.ca)
submitted 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) by to c/main@lemmy.ca
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I've been talking to many people about the controversy with Reddit, why I left it and why I went onto Lemmy, Kbin and Mastadon instead. Some of my friends have commented that the control is still a problem as other platforms and it is all dependent on who owns the software, who owns the hardware, who are the admins, who are the moderators and which community or group has the most influence.

Who are these people that influence the most control on the fediverse? Are they Conservative? Are they Liberal? Are they Republican? Are they Democrat? Do they lean to the left of politics? to the right? or are they center? Are they even political? But also if they had to be would they easily or not so easily influenced?

So .. for the ELI5 version of the question ... Who owns the fediverse?

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[–] 35 points 3 years ago (2 children)

hello! i'm the current owner & admin of lemmy.ca.

Who are these people that influence the most control on the fediverse? Are they Conservative? Are they Liberal? Are they Republican? Are they Democrat? Do they lean to the left of politics? to the right? or are they center? Are they even political? But also if they had to be would they easily or not so easily influenced?

i don't really consider myself very policital, but I have taken those "vote compass" things just to see where I would fall, and i typically lean left. not sure exactly what you mean by easily influenced, but I would hope that I'm not. I think of myself as fairly level-headed, and probably overly analytical about things, and I typically don't try and let my emotions get involved in my decision making.

I have to run but can answer more questions if you'd like. or i can maybe do an AMA later?

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  • [–] [S] 10 points 3 years ago (4 children)

    That's amazing that you responded ... that would never happen to any commercial social media service out there.

    Thanks for that.

    My concern is not so much what your personality or political leanings are ... to a degree, if any owner holds extreme views, it should be concerning.

    My biggest concern is money and funds - where it comes from and where it goes.

    The work you guys (owners of an instance) are doing is admirable but no one should expect you guys to provide any and all of these services for free. I am sure you are working hard and tirelessly to keep this instance working and maintained but it must take up a considerable amount of your time and energy. Which begs the question, how do you make your money? Do you have a separate job ... or do you make any money by running this instance? And also, what are your costs in being able to maintain this instance? Do you break even? Are you running a loss? Are you making a profit?

    My questions are two fold because I would like to know if you are benefiting from this work ... and I would be the first to congratulate you on that.

    The other side of that question is ... if you are suffering a loss ... shouldn't we be helping you with your work? We shouldn't be taking your work and energy for granted and expect you to work for free, pay for services for us who enjoy them. Even if you are able to pay for services, hardware and rentals ... we shouldn't expect you to work for free.

    I know you have to maintain your own privacy but as users of your service, it would be nice to know what your situation is ... maybe you are independently wealthy and you don't care about money .. I don't know. Or maybe you have no money at all and you are barely getting by.

    If you do need funds ... I would be more than willing to donate, subscribe or sign onto a subscription to keep this instance running.

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  • [–] 17 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Which begs the question, how do you make your money? Do you have a separate job … or do you make any money by running this instance? And also, what are your costs in being able to maintain this instance? Do you break even? Are you running a loss? Are you making a profit?

    I currently have a day job not related to this at all. I'm a software developer by day. I currently accept donations that go towards the hosting of this instance. The users so far have been very generous, so we have enough to carry us for around 6 months (from what I remember), based on current usage. As long as we don't get any huge spikes in usage (and i'm likely talking about in the thousands of new users joining), we should be ok for a while. If donations slow down I will be able to maintain the instance on my own, but ideally i'm hoping it can run off donations. I will be as transparent as I can be about this instances financials, as I plan on doing a monthly (maybe every other month?) "State of the Instance" type post, that I've seen done on mastodon, and some other lemmy instances too.

    My questions are two fold because I would like to know if you are benefiting from this work … and I would be the first to congratulate you on that.

    I have no plans to ever profit from this. All donations will 100% go towards our hosting costs. If, for whatever reason, this instances changes owners, I will transfer whatever donations are left over to the new owner as well.

    If you do need funds … I would be more than willing to donate, subscribe or sign onto a subscription to keep this instance running.

    Thank you! You can see from the donation link above how much we currently have. As I said earlier, we've had quite a few generous donors, so I'll let that up to you! I'll be adding my hosting expenses into opencollective as well so that will be visible too.

    Hopefully I've answered most of your questions? If there's anything I've missed or if you have other questions, let me know!

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  • [–] [S] 10 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    I'm not a rich man (I wish I were and I would just send more to you) but I've subscribed to a $5 month plan ... if all us users did the same, it would be more than enough to pay for the services you run and pay you for the work you do ... I honestly believe that we users have to learn that we need to directly pay the people who do the actual work of maintaining these open source social media systems ... even if it means that each user contributes a dollar a month, with thousands of users, it would all add up ... if we don't, we will eventually run into the same scenario of someone coming along to monetize it, commercialize it and sell it all along with our content.

    I look forward to what you will with this instance ... keep up the good work, you sound like a good man who is working towards admirable goals.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago

    that would never happen to any commercial social media service out there.

    Actually it does. Lots of people used to talk to the dude who started Twitter and he would respond. Making "important" people accessible to randos like you or I was kind of the major benefit of the whole service, especially in the early days.

    Likewise, I've personally had comment chains back and forth with /u/spez on Reddit on many occasions, and a few other notable admins, founders and CEOs too (keysersosa, aaronsw, yishan and kn0thing spring to mind) although they weren't necessarily CEO at the time.

    That said, it certainly is nice when communities can stay small enough to still have regular interactions with each other, admins and users alike. And fediverse is designed to promote exactly that. These huge communities like lemmy.world and even lemmy.ca are sort of a sign we're not using it quite "right" and we're still following the "centralized" model, but that's okay they are serving an important role for now and will continue to serve an important role probably forever, but hopefully never too important, and it will always be possible to break out into smaller more specialized communities but still stay in touch with these bigger ones.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    If you're interested in seeing how much they're getting in donations, the sidebar of lemmy.ca lists their opencollective and liberapay - the numbers are listed publicly. They get CA$30.59 per week from liberapay (CA$122.36/mo) and CA$21/mo on opencollective. Roughly $100 USD/mo

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    Hey @smorks I am interested to hear how you will handle content that some people may view as "hateful"? One of the problems I often see in some reddit communities is that they can be heavy-handed on moderation and it can often mean the subreddit is filled with primarily left-leaning comments as the right-leaning comments are counted as "hateful". I'm personally looking for an instance where I can see a diverse set of viewpoints and based on what you said here it sounds like this may be an instance that is supportive of that.

    Just to be clear, I am not asking whether people would be allowed to be blatantly racist, but whether people could disagree with political movements that lean right/left without being censored? I personally think communities thrive when they can have more open, productive good-faith conversations about topics. When people get censored it usually seems to create more division and more hate in my opinion.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    first, i'm one of the admin's here, and try and let the mods of their respective communities handle the bulk of the reports. i will only step in if there's anything blatantly against the rules.

    i don't care if it's left-leaning or right-leaning comments. i'm going to remove it if it's hateful, and will start with a temporary ban if it continues, and a permanent ban if it persists.

    the first two rules from this instance's sidebar read:

    • No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia.
    • Be respectful. Everyone should feel welcome here.


    does that help?

    Just to be clear, I am not asking whether people would be allowed to be blatantly racist, but whether people could disagree with political movements that lean right/left without being censored? I personally think communities thrive when they can have more open, productive good-faith conversations about topics. When people get censored it usually seems to create more division and more hate in my opinion.

    i agree 100%.

    if you want to give me an example of what others deem "hateful", but you do not, i can tell you where i stand on it and why?

    hope that answers your question!

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    I can throw out a view examples of content that I have seen deemed as "hateful" in local subreddits that I personally don't think fit under the purview of "hate speech".

    • Comments removed that were speaking about drivers from a particular city being bad. The city has one of the highest insurance rates in Canada due to high collision rates. It however also has one of the highest immigrant populations of East-Indian people so I will often see any comment vaguely mentioning this cities poor driving being deemed "racist" simply because it could be a racist implication despite the bad driving comments having no race component and being backed by stats.
    • Comments that are against PRIDE movements. Now again I am not meaning blatantly homophobic comments like "Gay people suck", I mean comments like "I don't agree with this content being taught in schools". In many subreddits both of these comments will get removed and result in bans. Which I'd agree is valid for the first comment, but not the latter.
    • With COVID-19 specific topics I saw some pretty heavy handed moderation as well. It's been a bit so I don't have any specific example, but I saw people who would be presenting simple opinions who were trying to have good faith discussions/debates have their comments removed and get banned. Again, I am not talking about the blatant "don't get vaccines, they cause autism" clowns. During COVID I actually was working for a public health clinic and worked in vaccine clinics. So don't get me wrong on which "side" of things I stand on, but it was always disheartening to see people who had differing opinions, or who were hesitant about things get mobbed by people, comment removed, and banned. People who could have had reasonable conversations and eventually maybe formed different science-based opinions instead get shut out and pushed off to fringe communities.

    Now don't get me wrong, I am a moderator on some communities on reddit and I know content-moderation in general is a hard topic. Knowing someone's intentions behind a comment can sometimes be murky and that is often part of the issue. I come from a viewpoint where I think it is important for people to see comments that they may disagree with or may even offend them. Of course there is no need for posts that just flame someone, or attack specific immutable characteristics, but I think there is harm from being too isolated from different viewpoints as well.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago

    thank you for taking the time to send me those examples!

    i 100% don't agree with your second example. from my understanding (i have a son currently in grade 3), they are teaching about acceptance and inclusiveness. and i know not all schools teach the same thing, and it could vary with different schools and at different grades, but i personally don't see anything wrong with that. If people don't want to join in in pride parades, then they don't have to, plain and simple, that's their choice. But don't hate on the movement just because you don't agree with it.

    for your first and third example, it's hard to say, since like you said, intentions (and context) matter a lot. so I will always try to take all those things into consideration.

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