Hey fellow inhabitants of the Fediverse, particularly those lurking on Lemmy,
I've been thinking a lot lately about the nature of information, discourse, and where genuine human connection can still thrive online. It leads me back to platforms like this one.
We often talk about censorship in terms of direct bans or content removal, which is obviously a critical concern. But what about the more insidious forms of control? I'm talking about the subtle fiddling of algorithms, the deliberate hiding of certain content without outright deletion, the 'shadowbanning' that makes you feel like you're shouting into a void. How resistant is the decentralized nature of Lemmy, and the wider fediverse, to those kinds of pressures? It feels like the very architecture here might offer a unique defense, but I'm curious about the community's thoughts.
I know we're not exactly bursting at the seams with users, and frankly, if you're not already clued into how something like Lemmy works, you're probably never finding it through a casual search – SEO seems like a foreign concept here, battling potential duplicate content issues across instances. Is this quiet corner its strength, or its eventual downfall if the 'outside' world becomes too noisy?
Speaking of noise, it feels like nearly 90% of the content generated on the broader internet these days is starting to feel like it's churned out by LLMs. Autogenerated articles, comments, even entire 'conversations' that ring hollow. Is the Fediverse, specifically, a safe haven from that rising tide of artificial content? Does the human-centric, community-driven nature of these instances inherently push back against such automation?
I've looked into ActivityPub and other federation tools in the past, and my observation has often been that they've been adopted primarily by marginalized groups in society, seeking refuge from mainstream platforms. While that's incredibly valuable and a testament to their utility, what could truly happen to extend this concept, to genuinely get more people involved without compromising the very principles that make it appealing – decentralization, human curation, and resilience against algorithmic manipulation?
Just throwing it out there. Would appreciate any insights or theories.
It may be, I don't know for the very simple reason that I don't read this 'broader' Web that is supposedly AI-infested or made of low-effort content.
I read personal websites whose authors I care about that I don't think will make me waste my (precious) time. For the same reason I quit using all social (beside the Fediverse, mostly here on Lemmy). It's a waste of time (time that is so fucking precious) and their content is of little value, if any.
So, to me, the real question would be: how many of us are still consuming that crap instead of focusing on more... I was about to write 'quality content' but I think it would be safer to say 'focusing on human-made content'?
As long as we're willing to eat their crap, and are willing to pay (one way or the other) to get fed that very crap, why would those websites and corps stop feeding us crap? It's making them money. A lot of it. And as far as I can tell all that matters in our so wonderful world is how much money one makes.
edit: typos.