They’ll start by saying lemmy is spreading “disinformation” or “foreign influence” or “harming children” or whatever their excuse of the day is. Then legislate lemmy apps out of the app stores and go after lemmy server operators or users.
Not saying lemmy couldn’t survive as a network, the point of the meme is the dangerous precedent set when people support things like a TikTok ban and say the government should be able to regulate speech or access to speech in that manner. The government shouldn’t be able to tell you what you can say or think, who you share those thoughts with, or what media you consume. It’s a human right to think and speak and be able to listen to others speak. And unfortunately, for different reasons, both the left and right are cheering on its erosion.
Centralized platforms are proprietary, brittle, easily targeted. When they are taken down, they stay down.
Lemmy is, effectively, a protocol, not a platform. Anyone can host an instance, and they all talk to each other by default. Any of the big instances get knocked down, and they get replaced by a dozen others. An instance may die, but so long as someone wants to put up another, Lemmy remains.
Bitcoin is not a centralized platform. Tor is not a centralized platform. Government has had little success targeting these protocols.
They’ll start by saying lemmy is spreading “disinformation” or “foreign influence” or “harming children” or whatever their excuse of the day is. Then legislate lemmy apps out of the app stores and go after lemmy server operators or users.
Not saying lemmy couldn’t survive as a network, the point of the meme is the dangerous precedent set when people support things like a TikTok ban and say the government should be able to regulate speech or access to speech in that manner. The government shouldn’t be able to tell you what you can say or think, who you share those thoughts with, or what media you consume. It’s a human right to think and speak and be able to listen to others speak. And unfortunately, for different reasons, both the left and right are cheering on its erosion.
WikiLeaks was a centralized platform.
Lavabit was a centralized platform.
Tiktok is a centralized platform.
Centralized platforms are proprietary, brittle, easily targeted. When they are taken down, they stay down.
Lemmy is, effectively, a protocol, not a platform. Anyone can host an instance, and they all talk to each other by default. Any of the big instances get knocked down, and they get replaced by a dozen others. An instance may die, but so long as someone wants to put up another, Lemmy remains.
Bitcoin is not a centralized platform. Tor is not a centralized platform. Government has had little success targeting these protocols.