Dear Admins and Users of lemmy.world,
I am writing to express my concerns about the impact of lemmy.ml on our community. It has come to my attention that lemmy.ml frequently disseminates propaganda and engages in historical revisionism. Moreover, there have been instances where their admin privileges were used to suppress dissenting views, reminiscent of the already defederated lemmygrad instance.
While personal blocking of lemmy.ml is an option, it does not address the broader issue of new users potentially being influenced by misleading content. It is crucial that we protect our users from a continuous stream of biased information.
To illustrate these concerns, I have provided a link to a detailed post on the Fediverse that documents these issues comprehensively [Here].
Given these points, I urge the admins to consider a defederation from lemmy.ml. If their users wish to remain part of Lemmy.ml, that is entirely acceptable, but we should take steps to prevent the propagation of harmful misinformation, especially in their comment sections.
Thank you for your consideration.
See, now that’s a much more positive approach. Users making informed decisions and organically migrating is much more in keeping with the Fediverse spirit than admins wielding the defederation hammer, IMO.
Agreed, but let’s also be honest about this:
The smaller, less visible alternative communities seldom grow. It’s the classic case of the biggest and oldest trees getting all the sunlight, while the saplings in their shadow are stunted.
We saw this on Reddit, too. Alternative subreddits, usually born out of protest of the moderation on the original, popped up all the time and never grew. Some did, some even overshadowed the original, but that was rare. The algorithm and search results would always funnel visitors to the old one.
Unless there’s an effort made to give more visibility to the smaller and less established alternative, there’s a good chance it goes nowhere.
So in reality the user choice you’re describing is less about choosing between two communities, and more about choosing between a community or a DND group that gets together once a week, but half the people flake out anyway.
LW communities are already much more active than lemmy.ml ones, there are just a few missing, I wouldn’t worry too much.
Absolutely agree, which is why I would advocate against defederation. It’s better to let users organically migrate away from problematic moderation than for the LW admins to preemptively make the decision on everyone’s behalf.
Lemmy is still a relatively small community, and too much defederation is only going to be detrimental to its overall health.