I've switched to Lemmy for about 4 days now. Here's my opinion on the platform:

Is it good?

Yes. I found many common communities I follow, such as Degoogling, open source, Linux, self-hosting, history, maps, space, Minecraft, etc etc. Many of the more obscure communities are a bit off-limits, tho, like Polandball or alternate history. I was able to find more underrated Degoogling things on this platform more than on Reddit, which is a huge plus

What caveats do I have on this platform?

Again, obscure communities are a bit off-limits, and while I was able to find SOME, most were non-existant. Other than that, I haven't encountered any other issues other than not being able to create a community

How's the universal community?

They are really helpful. At times even moreso then on Reddit. Again, I found more obscure and underrated things on this platform than I do on Reddit

Is this viable for casual people and would I reccomend it?

If they don't care about the specifics, then sure, this is a viable option. But if they follow obscure communities and care about the specifics, they would have to push through. I so far did, and it's a great experience so far. Would I RECCOMEND it, tho? Yes, I would. Again, tho, it depends on wether you care about obscure communities or the specifics

Conclusion

Lemmy is, so far, great for my experience. The communities are good, the platform is good, and overall it feels fresh that I don't have to be tracked by a centralized platform at all times to fuel their greed. I love the idea of it. I just don't think I'm gonna ever switch fully to it, however decentralized Reddit frontends like Redlib help with me viewing the obscue communities I follow without having to use ths proprietary platform directly

so far, it's been kinda empty. not nearly as many comments as I'm used to.

I don't really care about comment quantity as long as the quality is good

No bots you mean? X')

I still go to reddit when bored at work, but to be honest, the comments are all basically the same. There is only so many times you can read the same reductive comments before you get bored.

It'd be nice for there to be more activity, but I'm happy that its at least humans (mostly) here.

I take it as a good thing. Leas crap and the quality is in general much higher

So far!? I've been here since the Reddit API collapse (RIP RIF) and it's miles better now than it was.

I appreciate the joke, though there are bots here as well. The upside is that the only topics they swarm in are political, e.g. about the US, and unfortunately there are two active posters pushing pro-Putin propaganda.

Other than that, it's clear though. And it's quite chill and pleasant without bots but with careful readers.

Do you have evidence of there being political bots, or is that just a hunch based on running into people with different political beliefs from yours?

agreed

Welcome, have fun! fellow man with great tastes for software 🤣

Just dont talk about the Uyghurs ❤️

This shit reminds me of how neonazis like to spread lies to claim that Stalin was worse than Hitler.

Now you're doing the same thing while your country is actively committing genocide across West Asia.

Which country would that be?

I don't have a proof in a mathematical sense. Nobody here would have. I have, however, a combination of observations here (posts, comments), and first-hand experience with the details of a working propaganda machine from back when I lived in Russia. They are details that unique, in my experience, to propaganda.

• Active pushing, usually by small select number of people. This can happen without propaganda, too.
• Obvious conflict with another group of people that claim the opposite. This obviously happens to at least 2 parties during a conflict of opinions.
• Usage of easy-to-understand, but not detailed underneath, explanations. Especially common is "everyone is against us, so we're fighting back". That can happen without propaganda and by itself as well, although here we're already in the dangerous zone because especially the "everyone is against us" is 95% likely propaganda, even though not 100%.

And the final give-away is... details. You can't be an expert in every topic, so from e.g. posts of a suspected propaganda worker, you take a claim that you feel unsure about, or that contradicts with someone you currently trust, or that contradicts just another group of people who's views is in any way coherent.

And then you dig into that topic. It works best if the topic was native to you to begin with, due to work or hobby or whatever. You drill down on this topic, you find answers and evidence, you fact-check claims. It's not simple, because "simple" you could rotate around. It's tedious. But it works.

The best analogy would be the famous text about Ilon Musk I think.

He talked about electric cars. I don't know anything about cars, so when people said he was a genius I figured he must be a genius. Then he talked about rockets. I don't know anything about rockets, so when people said he was a genius I figured he must be a genius.

Now he talks about software. I happen to know a lot about software & Elon Musk is saying the stupidest shit I've ever heard anyone say, so when people say he's a genius I figure I should stay the hell away from his cars and rockets.

not nearly as many comments as I'm used to.

If you were on Reddit in the early days this feels very familiar in a wonderful way.

At a glance I'd guess Canadian, coincidentally a country where many Nazis and collaborators moved after WW2.

So in other words, it's just a hunch.

You can talk about them! Xinjiang looks beautiful to visit, sadly I've only seen it through video.

I would encourage anyone to give the Photon theme a try. Lemmy+Photon is the perfect combo.
If your instance doesn't have it installed, you can use it through its own website, phtn.app.

It looks and feels much better than the default theme. It even beats every App Store app I've tried, in my opinion.
If you "add it to your homescreen", it runs flawlessly as a web app.

This is not a sponsored comment lol. I just think Photon rocks.

Just in case, the area of expertise for me and lemmy happened to be the war that Russia started against Ukraine.

If a person just says once or twice something from the usual pro-Putin propaganda texts, then so be it. Can be discussed etc, but it's not propaganda itself. But if you see that a person literally has a job, from the amount of time spent, posting memes or quoting other people about it, and they're constantly making logical fallacies, not seeing them, misquoting others etc etc, then well you have a propaganda worker. With years, it frequently becomes evident or proven that all this time they were paid money to say that.

In case of Russia the job of proving lies frequently becomes a bit absurd though, because the bad and good sides on the conflict are quite evident. But of course only if you know enough details, so if unsure, the path above is a good way to find out.

No, you're just spreading propaganda run cover for your government as it commits genocide in West Asia. Hence, a neonazi.

You proved my point 🫶

I'm referring to travel vlogs like this one. Do you have videos of the vocational schools you'd like to share?

We talk about them more than anyone.

Previously:

The US tried to foment division in China by funding and organizing Salafi terrorist into Xinjiang, and once its efforts failed, it made lemonade out of its lemon by concocting and promoting a genocide narrative.

The only countries pushing this narrative are the “always the same map” imperial core countries, which just so happen to be largely the same ones supporting Israel’s genocide.

Almost no predominantly-Muslim country buys the Uyghur genocide narrative, because they know it’s bullshit, because they talked to the Uyghurs themselves.
https://twitter.com/un_hrc/status/1578003299827171330
#HRC51 | Draft resolution A/HRC/51/L.6 on holding a debate on the situation of human rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of #China, was REJECTED.

• The Uyghur Human Rights Project is a product of the National Endowment for Democracy, which is the American government’s main regime change NGO.
• A Reddit AMA Claiming To Be A Uyghur Quickly Exposes A CIA Asset Slandering China
• The Xinjiang Genocide Allegations Are Unjustified
• Uyghur genocide allegations
• American Debunks All Major Western Propaganda on Uyghurs and Xinjiang
• US-Funded Uyghur Activists Train as Soldiers of Empire
• The blueprint of regime change operations How regime change happens in the 21st century with your consent

Previously:

Genocide is more than just killing, it’s the deliberate destruction of a people including its culture and institutions.

(a) Show me the Uyghur bodies

(b) Show me the serious bodily or mental harm

(c) Show me the conditions calculated to bring about physical destruction in whole or in part

(d) Show me the measures intended to prevent births within the group

In accordance with China's affirmative action policies towards ethnic minorities, all non-Han ethnic groups were subject to different laws and were usually allowed to have two children in urban areas, and three or four in rural areas.

(e) Show me the forcible transfer of children from one group to another group

violent incidents in East Turkestan

I wonder where those Salafi terrorists came from? Oh right: the US, UK, and Israel organized, funded, and trained them, as they did Al Qaeda and the various flavors of ISIS/ISIL, including the “moderate rebels” that just took over Syria. The blueprint of regime change operations How regime change happens in the 21st century with your consent.

I haven't encountered any other issues other than not being able to create a community

.world doesn't limit community creation to my knowledge. What trouble are you having in creating a community?

Posts I saw reaching a few hundred upvotes 9 months ago now reach 1K +

...I'd say either my perception has changed or the user numbers are growing.

Yeah, your point is that we don't let you spread your stupid nazi lies. How terrible!

It's pure Reddit. Just fling shit everywhere and then act like we're owned when we tell you your shit stinks.

I have circumstantial evidence of paid actors, but they’re not of the kind that BlueAnoners claim. https://lemmy.ml/post/39655060

I find it a little charming to be in a smaller forum, though. I'm still on Reddit for when I want to talk to thousands of people (and bots) about any obscure topic, but I appreciate that on Lemmy, it matters if you post and it matters if you comment. It's like the difference between boating on a lake and in the ocean, both are nice for different reasons.

Because I couldn't find the "create community" button. I'm using the Voyager app

I don't like gradient themes. They drain battery, they don't look good in most cases, and together with squarcles... It looks wayyyy too modern. I prefer no gradients with squarcles and/or not with minimal designs

IDK where it is in Voyager, but on regular Lemmy there's a create community link in the menu

https://lemmy.world/create_community

It's possible that Voyager just doesn't have the feature

I'm aware, though I do think there'a decent room for people in it for the love of the game. If there are nerds willing to propagandize for socialism without getting paid for it, there must be the liberal equivalents.

Ignoring the contextless rant, OP is on Lemmy.world, just a Lemmy.ml community. Lemmy.world isn't run by communists, last I checked.

If all the people who said "Lemmy doesn't have enough users" had joined Lemmy/PieFed/Mbin instead of complaining, we wouldn't have these issues lol

But also Reddit has way too many comments, or too many bots. If I leave a comment on something big I usually never get any replies or even upvotes. It's kinda pointless. On Lemmy I pretty much always get some interaction.

The threadiverse grows organically, by word of mouth. It has zero marketing budget, so it will never be as popular as corporate social media platforms. But the quality the comments are better, there are vastly fewer bots, and there is very little embedded advertising.

Also your data isn’t being sold, at least not by us. Content does get scraped by bots, and nothing can be done about that. But the threadiverse is pseudonymous, so it’s not likely to be linked back to you.

Our content may get incorporated into some large language models. If there’s a silver lining to that, it’s that more English language LLMs will train on more anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist content.

Can you please explain what you're talking about with .world and lemmy.ml like I'm an idiot?

I think there are a few dedicated “bots” here, but they’re not the ones you’re thinking of:
3½ years of anti-China & anti-Russia news posts by several similar Lemmy accounts

unfortunately there are two active posters pushing pro-Putin propaganda

Okay, but there are hundreds of times more posters pushing imperial core “propaganda” than “pro-Putin” propaganda[^1]. Which makes sense, since most Lemmings live in the imperial core, and in particular in the Five Eyes states.

[^1]: They’re not actually “pro-Putin.” Nobody on Lemmy thinks Putin is a swell guy, nor believes that Russia isn’t a capitalist oligarchy. Support for Russia is quite limited.

Most are in it of their own volition, but these particular accounts I suspect really are doing a job based in Germany.

O Canada

Government retreats on Victims of Communism memorial names in aftermath of Nazi controversy

Interesting, anything you can share about the Germany part, or no? I always safely assume its for the love of the game until seeing something that points otherwise.

OP's account is on Lemmy.world, an instance. This thread is on Lemmy.ml's c/Lemmy. Lemmy.world and Lemmy.ml are federated instances, meaning users of each can visit the communities of the other. Lemmy.world admins and moderators (and those appointed by them) are in control of Lemmy.world communities, and Lemmy.ml admins and moderators, and those they appoint, are in control of Lemmy.ml communities.

1. Several of these accounts sometimes post & reply in German.
2. The hours they keep and the days they work.
3. The timing of when certain accounts went into retirement and new accounts suddenly appeared to replace them.
4. The commonality in the communities they frequent. They stick to the same few communities.
5. Their ratios of posts to comments.
6. The fact that they never respond to questions about their motivations. They always go silent when questioned about themselves.

Interesting, have you checked if they use upvote/downvote shell accounts too? Might paint a more organized picture.

I poked around for that about a year ago, but didn’t find any evidence. I’m not motivated enough to write a script looking for it.

I don’t think any amount of evidence would make a difference. They were chased out of a few communities in the past, but the remaining communities’ mods & instances’ admins seem content to platform them.

Makes sense. Thanks!