For example in the screenshot (twitch clip), if you want to share on reddit you click the reddit button, but what button are devs supposed to put to share in the fediverse? Do they pick an instance of their choice?! Is this a weakness of a federated platform or what?
You’d have to type in your instance name upon tapping the button
You could have a settings page that lets you set your instance name and then twitch (or whatever service you’re using would store that along side your other user data)
It just assumes one of the most popular instances.
But without some central registry there’s no way to know what is your home instance.
Edit: something like what Android does for Activities could work as well. But not sure how to handle that on a PC. … In Android they could just start a generic Intent to view Lemmy and it could then launch whichever app you have installed to handle that intent.
If it were me, when you click the “share to Lemmy” button, I’ll just show a drop down list of most popular instances, followed with a “Custom…” item at the bottom where people can type their instance’s domain name.
Remember back in the old web when letting people know your real name was a horrifying breach of personal privacy? Heck, having the same username for multiple places gave me the hives, if it was unique enough.
We need to go back to those days; not just for safety reasons but because there’s a freedom to the individualized anonymity of being a (apparently) distinct user in each instance.
I’d actually argue that it’s easier to get good names simply because each instance can have its own username pool. For instance, my username could also be used on other instances by other people. Me creating this account doesn’t stop someone from creating the same name elsewhere.
I’m not too sure what you mean, for their own users yeah they can use whatever their users agree to. Phone numbers, IP address, name, email, device, whatever they like really. They can then easily have that all linked up with their relevant Instagram and Facebook profiles for advertisers. Adversisers then kind of build up profiles about users across different services which is why often if for example you look up cats on one app you might see a cat food advertisement in another
Target for example is great at building profiles up (automatically) of their shoppers, a while back there was a huge story about them predicting a pregnancy Forbes Article
Other users not on Meta I’d say no, this sounds like it would be illegal honestly at least in some countries though I don’t know enough about privacy law to say
That said, instance owners could definitely sell off your data to advertisers if they wanted to and it was in the TOS of that instance
In the US I highly doubt any of that would be illegal save in maybe California. But if I for instance had my email associated with my fediverse account and my friend had my contact name plus my email then meta could ostensibly build a profile out on me without my knowledge or consent. That would only be limited by my friend who might have way, way more interaction with me on the rest of the phone (sms, etc etc) to build an even fuller profile. That’s basically what I’m suggesting. My fediverse account might not say much about me by itself but by linking that and other data courtesy of my friend, I’m now a decently built profile to meta.
It really depends, honestly. If your instance is hosted behind a tunnel that is served through some sort of IP farm somewhere without jurisdiction of your own country, and that it doesn’t trace back to you in any way shape or form, then it’s definitely better. But if you are just hosting on your personal IP address, and with a domain name that is yours and registered to your name, you are definitely ‘exposed’ in that way. Up to you how to deal with that though.
The NSFW stuff was/is a bit more complicated than it might appear on the surface. A lot of instances do not allow NSFW. No judgement, it is what it is. But people on those instances could sub to NSFW communities elsewhere, primarily LemmyNSFW. Less so now, but for a while it was common for those posts/communities to not be tagged NSFW, which caused them to show up on All for people that didn’t want to see it.
Then there was the question about types of NSFW content. Even people that enjoy your standard porn categories had lines they didn’t want crossed in their feed. Specifically animated/cgi CSAM and scat. The former is illegal in some jurisdictions, and caused a different instance (name withheld) to be widely defederated. The latter was more of an issue with limited tools, but the result was the same- either LemmyNSFW blocks that (at least until better tools are available), or they also get cut off.
My feed is now all those interesting people, places, & publications that I followed on #Instagram over the years reacting & replying to celebrities & brands like Dunkin Donuts and fucking Paris Hilton.
Or worse, seeing celebrities & brands replying to each other.
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using an URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !fediverse
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using an URL instead of its name, which doesn’t work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !fediverse
Since usernames are only unique to the instance it’s created on, what’s to stop someone from creating a copycat username in order to impersonate another user?
Nothing, really. Each instance is unique. Technically speaking, users will the same name on different instances are unique. You can always spin up your own instance and get whatever name you want. So it’s natural to want to register a username in multiple instances, to avoid confusion. Eventually there will have to be some way to tie identities across instances. Like a GPG key that can be validated on all accounts belonging to the same person.
I think this is ultimately where Meta is going with their Fediverse stuff. They will operate as a low-key ID verification service. Instances are saying they won’t federate with Threads right now, but as shitty as Meta and Instagram are they can guarantee that a Threads user is the same entity as an Intstagram user, which is currently more ID verification than exists right now in the Fediverse. Some instances may open themselves up to Threads in order to gain access to their userbase.
Drive we are so privacy focused here. What is to prevent myself or anybody out there, from starting to report individual instances of GDPR and CCPA....
In the UK a screen name is an identifier. See ICO here. I am in the UK. Therefore combined with other data being collected, e.g. IP. Lemmy and instances I interact with are handling personal data. If it is transferred between instances when I search or view content from one instance to another, there are GDPR implications.
Zot’s identity layer is unique. It provides invisible single sign-on across all sites in the grid.
It also provides nomadic identity, so that your communications with friends, family, and or anyone else you’re communicating with won’t be affected by the loss of your primary communication node - either temporarily or permanently.
The important bits of your identity and relationships can be backed up to a thumb drive, or your laptop, and may appear at any node in the grid at any time - with all your friends and preferences intact.
Crucially, these nomadic instances are kept in sync so any instance can take over if another one is compromised or damaged. This protects you against not only major system failure, but also temporary site overloads and governmental manipulation or censorship.
Nomadic identity, single sign-on, and Hubzilla’s decentralisation of hubs, we believe, introduce a high degree of degree of resiliency and persistence in internet communications, that are sorely needed amidst global trends towards corporate centralization, as well as mass and indiscriminate government surveillance and censorship.
As you browse the grid, viewing channels and their unique content, you are seamlessly authenticated as you go, even across completely different server hubs. No passwords to enter. Nothing to type. You’re just greeted by name on every new site you visit.
How does Zot do that? We call it magic-auth, because Hubzilla hides the details of the complexities that go into single sign-on logins, and nomadic identities, from the experience of browsing on the grid. This is one of the design goals of Hubzilla: to increase privacy, and freedom on the web, while reducing the complexity and tedium brought by the need to enter new passwords and login names for every different sight that someone might visit online. You login only once on your home hub (or any nomadic backup hub you have chosen). This allows you to access any authenticated services provided anywhere in the grid - such as shopping, blogs, forums, and access to private information. Your password isn’t stored on a thousand different sites; it is stored on servers that you control or that you have chosen to trust.
You cannot be silenced. You cannot be removed from the grid unless you yourself choose to exit it.
Hello! I recently set up a small instance running on pleroma which was my first time setting up something like that. I’m currently thinking about abandoning it, wiping the computer, and doing everything over again, this time with all of the knowledge I have now so Ill mess less things up, a dramatically better site name, as...
Same reason Spez is still doing damage control over 3% of his userbase leaving, up to and including signing up more bots to boost traffic and denounce the protests. It's not like he's losing a whole lot, he's kept multimillions of users (human and otherwise) to make his shareholders happy and his site will stumble along pretty ok for years. But in capitalism, especially the ad-driven digital sphere, eyes are everything.
Federating with the rest of us IS a blip in the grand scheme, but so was 3%. The fediverse existing outside of Threads carries the very significant risk that their users will sign up for their service and see the other platforms that are just as nice without being ad-soaked, subscription-based, and demanding your real name while they sell every ounce of your info.
One of us is going to be leeching users from the other and meta will not like this, so they're liable to make damn sure it's them. It wouldn't really shock me to see them neglect to upkeep federation with non-meta instances while they attempt to charm users away with a high-traffic platform full of bells and whistles.
This is also ground that hasn't been broken by a big name company in decades, meaning whoever gets here first probably gets the bulk of the new users. Other companies could and may do copycat sites, but they don't tend to survive well.
For now, this is the best I’ve found. I think there’s work on implementing this in actual lemmy, but this python script is the best option I know of ^.^ - you basically put your user account name and password for each account in a config file and run the script - though I’d make sure to delete the config file after you’ve done it, preferrably with some kind of secure-delete tool like shred on linux.
However, we don’t know yet if lemmy.world will defederate from Meta/FB, until the admins make some kind of statement on it nya. So I wouldn’t leave yet. Though making an account on a smaller instance might be a good idea anyway for simple performance reasons :)
What if users could just configure their own named groups for communities from the various instances, and when you view the group you’d see a feed from all of them?
Would you want this to work retroactively also? Like if I spun up an instance with a community called astronomy with only pictures of buttholes that look like galaxies, should that be automatically added to the community group? What if I started the most legit instance with a community called astronomy with a bunch of my university of space scientist buddies, would that also be retroactively added to the community group?
I think it’s a cool idea to be able to subscribe to all communities of a similar name. But it’s kind of akin to following a hashtag eventually as the fediverse grows.
It would be pretty cool if communities could federate, but that would be p much like a content load balancer. Like if 5 different instances all had an astronomy community that was sync’d across all 5 instances. You wouldn’t have to follow each community across all instances. You could just pick one and all posted content would land on each instance’s community. Like raid for social media lol.
Technically a notification could be if a instance using the same name pops up, but that wouldn’t be that simple. I don’t think its that tedious to check the list every once in a while.
As to the design I had an idea. It could be a list of instances using the name and at the top it has a join all button. Then instance has its own join button.
Everywhere I look there are people advocating for defederation from this and that! Do you even understand what you’re suggesting? Do you get what’s the point of decentralized social media and activity pub?...
The foundation of free speech is that you cannot force someone to say something they do not want to. This is a lot more foundational than the “you can say what you want” aspect of free speech. You can’t force someone to agree with you, you can’t force someone to publish or say something in their name, you can’t force someone to host content on their website.
Similarly, you can’t force an owner of a Lemmy instance to host or say something they don’t want to. If an owner said “you know what, I don’t want to host this” or “I don’t want to federate with X” then you can disagree with them sure, but you can’t force them to say/do something they don’t want to.
Whether this is or isn’t authoritarian, the alternative is that someone can force a Lemmy owner to host things they don’t want in their server. Imagine if some really repugnant communities showed up on your instance and you couldn’t remove them. Now that really would be authoritarianism - it’s removing your freedom to choose what you say… Just because someone can say something, doesn’t mean you as an owner/individual have to listen to it, like it, agree with it, or host it.
The big free instances are running off of good will, they don’t owe you anything, they certainly don’t owe your view a voice unconditionally. If you don’t like it, especially with Lemmy, you can set up your own instance/club and say and not say what you like.
They could be doing this already, for all we know. We don’t know who owns all those little instances out there. Large corporations or government surveillance just need to set up a discreetly named instance or two and start subscribing, and they’ll get all the data they want. (In fact, could that be part of the reason for the explosion in silent bot accounts?)
Not op, but I’ve been using various flavors of Linux off and on for a couple of years.
First I’ll note that in pretty much any flavor you pick should be able to retrieve data off those Windows drives. You’ll probably need NTFS support if you want to read from the drives directly, but I’m not 100% certain about the details so do a little searching before taking the plunge. Files generally should work fine. Images saved in any common format (.jpg, .png, etc) will be fine. Game files could be trickier. If you mean the actual files for running the game, you’ll either need a dedicated Linux version or run them through a compatibility layer like WINE or Proton (this may take a bit of luck to get working). If you mean things like save files then that all depends on the particular game… you’ll need to research moving data across operating systems for each game. For regular computer files, though, it is usually as simple as throwing them on a USB drive and dragging and dropping them.
Given that you want to do some gaming I would be remiss to not mention that, even in the best cases, Linux gaming can still be a little hit-or-miss. This is greatly exaggerated if you have uncommon hardware. For instance, Linux gaming on Intel ARC video cards is pretty rough right now. Sooner or later you will find a game that doesn’t work right, and you may not be able to fix it. Such is life.
As for picking a flavor (colloquially called a “distro”) that can get a bit complicated. If you just want a jumping-off point without the full breakdown, then Pop!-OS is probably a good starting point. They aim at being a more newbie-friendly distro, and they have a big enough community that you should be able to find help if you get stuck on something.
You should know that when you’re installing Linux, you will usually first boot the computer using a USB drive with the distro of your choice. This is called a live environment, and it gives you a chance to test out a distro without making any permanent changes to your computer. Of course, once you actually do install the new OS it will wipe all data from the computer’s drive so make sure you’re ready.
If you want to get a bit out in the weeds of picking a distro then read on, otherwise you can ignore the rest of the comment. If you choose to take the plunge then good luck, and I hope you enjoy it!
There are two major families of Linux that I think you should consider: Debian-based and Arch-based. There are a lot more than that, but IMO these are the most appropriate for your use case. Of the Debian-based distros, I’d recommend the aforementioned Pop!_OS, Ubuntu, and Mint. Some good Arch-based options are Manjaro, Endeavour, or possibly Garuda.
When in doubt, a Debian-based distro is probably the right choice. Any of the distros above should do the trick, but all are a little different. I already described Pop!, so I won’t rehash it. Ubuntu is one of the most popular Linux distros ever. Probably the most popular for home computers. As a result, there is a wealth of forums and other users you can ask for help. If you run into a problem in Ubuntu, someone else has had to deal with the exact same thing and probably made a forum post about it. Linux Mint, in particular with their “Cinnamon” desktop was made to feel a bit like old Windows 7. It’s not exactly like Windows (no distro is) but if you’re a long-time Windows user then Mint feels strangely comfortable. Like Pop! its userbase is smaller than Ubuntu, but still more than substantial enough to help out with the most common hangups.
Anyone who knows about Arch Linux would probably raise an eyebrow at recommending any form of it to someone new to Linux, but in my defense, most of the development in Linux Gaming is being pushed by Valve right now, and their new SteamOS 3 (which is what the Steam Deck runs by default) is Arch-based. AFAIK SteamOS 3 is not yet available for non-steam deck systems. Valve has stated they intend on releasing it as a fully-fledged distro, and if that ever happens then it will likely become the de facto standard gaming Linux distro. Until then, I suspect that running another Arch-based distro might result in fewer issues while gaming. That said, while the distros I’ve named are much more user-friendly than vanilla Arch Linux, the Arch family is generally less beginner-friendly than their Debian counterparts. Some quick notes: Manjaro is fairly popular but a bit weird as far as Arch distros go, Endeavour is clean but I’m not super confident in their noob-friendliness, and Garuda has a gorgeous desktop and is probably the most feature complete for gaming but it includes some power-user tools (chaotic-AUR) out of the box that I wouldn’t recommend for new users.
On a final note, if you want to learn a lot about how to use a Linux system, and in particular the command line, you could try installing vanilla Arch. This is almost certainly a terrible idea; you’d have to be more than a little masochistic to try it. If you want your computer to just work then steer well clear of this option. Arch has a reputation for being non-user friendly and borderline hostile to newbies for a reason. If you decide to try this don’t expect anyone to hold your hand. And don’t ask for help on the Arch forums unless you’ve done everything by the book, to the letter, and you’ve actually tried everything else first. But making vanilla Arch your first distro would be a pretty chad move.
Damn, yeah, that’s enough of a bad first impression (mainly the “loli” shit) that I’d be put off from it too. I’d misread/understood your post at first (as you having joined the named instances vs. one federated with them), so my bad there!
That’s one of the misfires of folks trying to tell people to join any instance when suggesting Mastodon/Lemmy. The instances do matter, as you rapidly found out, since the admins/mods determine which other instances you may have the misfortune of seeing posts from.
I managed to avoid a similar, “uh fuck i’m out” experience by doing a little more digging on the first Mastodon instance I joined, but I recognize that really shouldn’t be expected of everyone.
How would share buttons work given lemmy is federated (vs a unique instance)? (lemmy.world)
For example in the screenshot (twitch clip), if you want to share on reddit you click the reddit button, but what button are devs supposed to put to share in the fediverse? Do they pick an instance of their choice?! Is this a weakness of a federated platform or what?
Now that we are all switching to Lemmy, now is the time for all the redditors with embarrassing usernames to make their username right! Don't screw up this time!
Why people keep defending Meta/Threads?
(Sorry for bad english not my first language)...
YSK: If your instance updated to 0.18.1, there's new themes in your profile settings, including compact and pure black themes! (for the website version of lemmy, version number at bottom of page)
Why YSK: Because that’s friggin awesome?!...
Own lemmy
Hey guys, thanks to some of you I was able to set up my lemmy instance. Its working flawlessly. But here comes my new question:...
What do you think is responsible for lemmy’s growth over other alternatives like KBin and Tildes?
Is it speed? Features? Ease of development? Just curious why lemmy is seeing more activity as opposed to other networks.
What's to prevent someone from hijacking my username?
Since usernames are only unique to the instance it’s created on, what’s to stop someone from creating a copycat username in order to impersonate another user?
GDPR
Drive we are so privacy focused here. What is to prevent myself or anybody out there, from starting to report individual instances of GDPR and CCPA....
Looks like you are going to be able to sign in with Mastodon on Pixelfed (i.ibb.co)
[Question] Is it worth redoing?
Hello! I recently set up a small instance running on pleroma which was my first time setting up something like that. I’m currently thinking about abandoning it, wiping the computer, and doing everything over again, this time with all of the knowledge I have now so Ill mess less things up, a dramatically better site name, as...
ELI5: Why are Lemmy users freaking out over threads?
Title
Why Defederating from Facebook/Meta is So Important (ploum.net)
I strongly encourage instance admins to defederate from Facebook/Threads/Meta....
Is there a way to subscribe to all communities with the same name? (i.imgur.com)
Is it possible to automatically subscribe to all (federated) communities with the same name?...
Tame your inner dictator!
Everywhere I look there are people advocating for defederation from this and that! Do you even understand what you’re suggesting? Do you get what’s the point of decentralized social media and activity pub?...
Meta will kill small instances! Please read.
I just read this point in a comment and wanted to bring it to the spotlight....
Outlook suddenly started opening links in Edge, disregarding my default browser settings (www.theverge.com)
Current-era Microsoft continuing to push the boundaries of consent....
Do you believe Lemmy/Mastodon can become mainstream and fully replace their centralized counterparts?
What the title says. I think there is still a long way for that to happen but i’ve been hopeful. What do you think?