Mastodawn

The internet is good again, thanks to you

https://lemmy.ca/post/753759

The internet is great again, thanks to all of you 🙂 - Lemmy.ca

I’m 32, I remember using the internet before google was a thing, discovering flashy websites, hanging out on all kinds of internet forums and chatrooms, ebaums world, MySpace, new grounds… I rember when YouTube was just starting off and it was exploding with all kinds of content. I joined Facebook in 2005, I remember when it was the talk of the town, it used to actually kind of be decent, all the content was from actual real world peers. I remember when pages became a thing, and you could like certain topics, and then eventually it unfolded into something enterely different, I remember when it became New Facebook, and there became a chatbar. And then eventually it became a cespool of garbage. I remember when reddit was at it’s prime, I discovered it in 2011, I spent hours scrolling and engaging in discussion. The content was always new and original, every day on Reddit my mind got blown by something, this is before all the algorithms, and when upvotes and down votes actually dictated where your post would be jn the feed. You could litterally refresh your page and watch your vote counts. Since then I’ve watched it change, I could always tell something felt off about it over the past few years. Everytime I would google something on the net on my phone and click a Reddit link, I would be prompted to install the app. I tried it and it was shit. Once upon a time I could just open Reddit is Fun through the browser. Reddit made it impossible to do that. Since discovering this place a few weeks ago now, I have been hit with a familiar feeling, and that is I am actually enjoying my time here as much as I did on Reddit in the early 2010s. The communities are more grounded, there is no bot activity, my big long posts aren’t deleted after posting them due to shitty rules. I like how it feels free, and everyone agrees to just follow the rules of the community and if the post isn’t quite fitting, people can vote on that, as it should be. Thank you all for restoring something that was once great, I really thought there was no chance in hell people would get away from those platforms. I always told people we need a new website, a new Reddit, and I guess this is it.

Snipe_AT Jun 19, 2023

Is there anything here in the lemmiverse that prevents bot activity?

Kutsuya Jun 19, 2023

An account has to specifically change a setting on their profile so it can be a bot, so maybe people can use something to filter on that.

lixus98 Jun 19, 2023

You don't have to enable that, it's just something you do to identify your bot.
Hopefully lemmy and kbin devs will implement measures to control bots.

Sarsaparilla Jun 19, 2023

Is it actually some kind of switch to activate the bot account, or is that setting just for transparency sake?

tinwhiskers Jun 19, 2023

My take on it was that it was just flag you can set to openly identify the account as a bot, but nothing to prevent either a human or bot from lying. There's bot disclosure laws in progress in the EU and California in some form, so it may be future proofing, too.

Sarsaparilla Jun 19, 2023

Yes, that was my take too. I wish Australia would start moving on some of these sort of laws already. We still have very lax data privacy/retention laws and such ... our pollies definitely ain't thinking about protecting the public from AI chat bots!

Cold Hotman Jun 19, 2023

User setting. No bot mitigation I know of. So far instances either block rogue instances or moderate their own users so others won't block their instance.

Sarsaparilla Jun 19, 2023

I would think there's got to be some sort of spam protection operating, at the very least.

CoffeeBlood91 Jun 19, 2023

I'm sure the programers have stuff up their sleeves.

AI is our biggest threat, it's gotten to be easy for AI to be trained to use the internet and engage in discussion. I just hope when that stuff exponetially takes off, it doesn't invade Lemmy.

AI is much like an invasive species, but rather than in nature, it's online.

Cyberwar incoming? Who's to know.

Emanresu Jun 19, 2023

I've been thinking about this a lot.

Humans that lack uniqueness can be ignored as bot-like. AIs and bots are obviously bots. Bad actors such as advertisers or account farmers will act bot-like or just use bots too.

In the end the content we instinctively don't like is the kind of content that a bot posts, so we just need to reorganise these communities in some way that requires uniqueness.

Have you noticed all instances just copy the generic subreddit style? For example, if i was to make "Politics" I'd be coopting a common domain, but if i made "Emans political news and discussion, EPND, a community with strict rules to force nonstandard content then i think people would enjoy it so much more than a generic community.

Sarsaparilla Jun 19, 2023

Indeed, I was just engaged in a similar discussion on another thread, and pointed out the retro feel of discovering a new, blossoming internet community - and the fact that there are seemingly real people behind the posts here. At the moment, I think that all that's protecting us is that we are not yet on the radar of conversational bots, nor big enough to be of interest YET. I do think the decentralised platform is a very clever idea for social networking, and yes, I hope the devs have some ideas to combat the inevitable incoming AIs.

CoffeeBlood91 Jun 19, 2023

They will definitely to ban bot activity. On Reddit bots became sort of accepted, if they can atleast moderate automatic post activity, that is a start.

My biggest concern is for when the bots can post on an untimely matter at random instances.

I could litterally be a bit just replying to posts at a natural human pace, based off of some sort of Redditors writing style if you catch my drift.

I am sure it's just a matter of time. AI detectors are good, but not that good. It will get to the point where the most believable posts are the ones with spelling mistakes and poor grammar, Infact human error would make for a good watermark.

grgr Jun 19, 2023

Skynet is coming.

calhoon2005 Jun 19, 2023

my big long posts aren’t deleted after posting them due to shitty rules.

Oh man that was annoying when that happened. So many times.

ZeroDrek Jun 19, 2023

I definitely feel like the posts talking about Reddit here are few and far between. And guess what…? You don’t have to read them. But you do you.

tallwookie Jun 19, 2023

an accurate summation of my thoughts on the matter as well - the active communities (not the ones that get created because they were big on reddit but have no content here) are the ones I like - there's intriguing posts, insightful comments, actual conversation instead of toxic arguing.

lemmy is like a breath of fresh air.

Emanresu Jun 19, 2023

I'm looking forwards to people getting into their grooves on lemmy. So far it seems like most people are just copying the good and bad parts from reddit without thinking. Downside is that its not exactly easy to start unique communities on demand.

tallwookie Jun 19, 2023

yeah - it's really easy to create a community but extremely difficult to foster it and make it grow - even if you're just dumping loads of content into it on a daily basis, if there's no interaction then it's... not a waste of time, but perhaps next closest thing.

I havent managed to find something that I'm passionate about that doesnt already exist, so I just contribute to those communities that I can, as I find them.

Emanresu Jun 19, 2023

Aye, that's why I'm trying to focus replying more than to just creating my own. Id end up just adding to the spam. The "bug" of instant updating when trying to sort by new is a bit awkward lol

It's just a matter of time till someone has their eureka moment.

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻Jun 19, 2023

Funny how it feels like the old forums isn't it?

I'm glad we found this place.

CoffeeBlood91 Jun 19, 2023

My biggest worry is that it becomes over moderated like all the subreddits.

I fucking hated writing a heated passionate post, only to have it automatically removed because I didn't read the fine print.

I prefer when everything is voted on in the community, vs automatic removals and strict mod's.

It actually took my motivation away to post, so I ended up just being a lurker.

The fact that there are so many Lemmy servers makes me feel as if one server goes to shit, there will be another one that offers more freedom of expression.

I also enjoy that that there is a specific instance for NSFW content, it keeps things organized.

tomve_cz Jun 19, 2023

I'm hoping that mods will be fine.

I literally stopped to write answers on stackoverflow.com decade ago because mods were fixing my bad english and always somehow kicked me for it.

jgrim Jun 19, 2023

This is exactly how I feel! So excited to be part of it.

lixus98 Jun 19, 2023

This is my first time feeling part of an online community, it's amazing!

blahaj Jun 19, 2023

I'm about your age, and I have to wholeheartedly agree. Lemmy has that old forum vibe and I'm all for it.

grgr Jun 19, 2023

I got my first internet access in 1998 and your description closely resembles my own experience. Thank you for your post and take my upvote. :-)

I think as with many technological and community-related changes - revolutional or slow - we are now heading to a "social media 2.0" (sounds like a bullshit bingo buzzword, I know) like with similar developments. After the twitter exodus to mastodon, the current stream of users from reddit to lemmy, and other distributed alternatives to centralized solutions gaining more and more attention, I hope that the fediverse and distributed systems in general will gain even more traction and empower us users again.

iNeedScissors67 Jun 19, 2023

On Reddit I always felt like a raindrop in an ocean. I'm just one of way too many, and very little of what I wrote was ever seen or engaged with. That was discouraging at times, especially when I put plenty of thought or research into my reply, only for it to have no engagement while typical low-effort replies like "this!" Or "I'm a simple person I see x I updoot" always rise to the top. It was starting to feel like all the other social media I've quit over the years, and I was originally there because it felt like a forum, not social media. I'm on kbin now and I'm getting the feeling I got from posting on forums like Playstation Underground when I was younger. I even recognize user avatars across different threads and magazines/communities, which definitely reminds me of forums of old. Who knows what it will become but the federated nature of it means it can feel as big or small as I want it to, which is what is keeping me invested.

Onii-Chan Jun 19, 2023

Agreed. kbin has been thoroughly enjoyable so far, to the point that I kinda hope it remains a small, niche thing. I loved forums and smaller communities when I was younger in the early-mid 2000's, and this really is the first time I've been able to capture that feeling again since. I'm glad reddit is run by an egomaniacal dickhead, because without him, I'd never have gone looking for something better. It feels like people are slowly, but surely becoming tired of the 'corporate centralized internet', and are looking to branch out to smaller, but more meaningful free communities.

I'm actually excited for the first time in almost 10 years.

jeebus Jun 19, 2023

I've been thinking of going complete 2003 and going back to flip phones. I'm just tired of the greed over wanting me to see ads. I fucking can't stand ads and go out of my way to avoid them. Reddit was trying to force me to use their app so they can collect data to show me ads.

Onii-Chan Jun 19, 2023

imo, simplifying your digital life is completely worth it. I personally have no social media outside of this site, have ads blocked on all my devices, use Brave as my browser (it has its issues, but for the most part, it does what I need it to), use GrapheneOS instead of Android, use ProtonMail instead of Gmail, and access YouTube through a NewPipe fork that integrates SponsorBlock, use Signal as my messenger (or SMS otherwise.) This generally has kept me from doomscrolling and wasting my mental energy throughout the day, and now that I no longer have a reddit account, I'm even better off than I was before.

At some point I realized that life with so many modern conveniences and centralized power just made me unhappy. I absolutely believe there's merit to the idea that not everything needs to be made as easy and accessible as possible. Humans need time away from the internet, and they need some kind of challenge, even if it's as simple as needing to use SMS instead of Facebook Messenger.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Basically, I agree with you haha

minimar Jun 19, 2023

I just did the same thing with youtube, switched to piped and now I purely engage through the subscription feed. Fuck the algorithms, I decide what I want to watch!

Breakfulus_Emphotoga Jun 19, 2023

This is exactly how I felt on reddit! With Kbin I feel more at "home", with reddit I felt distant, the same with most other social media platforms. I feel like me and others feel less stressed when contributing to a discussion here compared to how I felt on reddit,

NightOwl Jun 19, 2023

It feels calmer here now that I think about it. I think being part of the huge swarm and trying to stand out and made things feel pretty hectic at times.

redsky Jun 19, 2023

Good conversations on kbin, Lemmy, Squabbles, et al. I think there's a new feeling of solidarity and ownership with these new (to some of us) forums. I'm here for it.

DreamerofDays Jun 19, 2023

Solidarity and ownership… fellowship… it’s beautiful.

That this collection of people who are so often omni-belligerent have found common cause is wild to me

digitalfreedom Jun 19, 2023

Yeah, ever since I first arrived on kbin, I’ve felt like a breeze is passing through me. It took me a while to realize, but then it hit me: it’s because I’m not enraging Redditors every day by just opening my mouth.

Jessica Jun 19, 2023

Negative people are always saying we'll never see anything like the early internet again with how everything is owned by corporations, but this last week on Lemmy has come damn close for me! Time to go be nostalgic about asking A/S/L in AIM chatrooms while flash animations on https://joecartoon.com/ eh @[email protected]?

(I can't believe that site is still running!)

CoffeeBlood91 Jun 19, 2023

Oh man, frog in a blender! You bring back memories.

serfraser Jun 19, 2023

Now to go see if elf bowling is still a thing...

UpChuck Jun 19, 2023

This is the better internet.

heyfrancis Jun 19, 2023

@UpChuck @CoffeeBlood91 Make Internet Great Again

AskThinkingTim Jun 19, 2023

I'm not saying Lemmy is going backwards, but I prefer this forum vibe I am experiencing here with people expressing their opinions and helping each other.

Sarsaparilla Jun 19, 2023

I'm also noticing a satisfying lack of the /s tag.

samus12345 Jun 19, 2023

I wonder why that is? Do older users just not tend to joke that way as much?

didntbuyasquirrel Jun 19, 2023

I guess I'm older but I feel like it ruins it. The context matters most and I'd rather add context than a tag if I have to. Part of the joke is people missing the context when it's obvious to others. I'm not sure there's much point in sarcasm if you're spelling it out.

Sarsaparilla Jun 19, 2023

Adding the /s is like saying "I just told a joke." ... with sarcasm, well it's kinda like saying the punchline.

samus12345 Jun 19, 2023

It's more like "I just told a joke, don't downvote me!"

AlmightySnoo 🐢🇮🇱🇺🇦Jun 19, 2023

Internet forums that were based on phpBB and other popular scripts were one of the best parts of the internet that Reddit and Facebook shamelessly killed with the applause of the netizens. It was a huge regression and it felt like we went to a point that was worse than Web 1.0. I feel like Lemmy is a return of that forum culture that made the internet great.

Zerlyna Jun 19, 2023

I’ll further date myself… we all had our own Geocities webpage back in 2000/2001…

lwgrs Jun 19, 2023

When I first got online, I used Lynx (an entirely text-based browser).

Borgzilla Jun 20, 2023

I still use it to test websites for accessibility at work. It's a great way to visualise what a screenreader might see.

Kichae Jun 19, 2023

Huh. I didn't realize Geocities was still around that late.

DopaDodge Jun 19, 2023

Hello my future girlfriend days lol. Man those were good times

OonTaaKissa Jun 19, 2023

I'm much younger so I never really got to use these smaller forums, I grew up with a centralised and corporate internet where everyone used the same handful of websites. And then began the enshittification. All the sites I used started getting worse with every update so I stopped using them one by one, with the most recent one being reddit. Moving to the fediverse made me realise just how little I was actually enjoying those sites. I wasn't browsing them for content or for discussion, I was browsing them because I was addicted. Uninstalling the apps and deleting my accounts has done wonders for my mental health, and the smaller community here is so much nicer and more welcoming than the toxic ocean that is social media.

samus12345 Jun 19, 2023

It's interesting how different the perspective of a youngin' who starting using the internet after corporations had already gotten their hands on it is. Heck, even you notice the difference between now and 5 years ago.

MiddleWeigh Jun 19, 2023

Guess what, I actually read the whole thing. (:

alm42 Jun 19, 2023

You moved me.

TGRush Jun 19, 2023

Well then, welcome to the Fediverse I guess :P

Get comfy, as Kbin and Lemmy aren't the only services part of the Fediverse. There's also Microblogging services like Mastodon, YouTube-like Video sharing through Peertube and even self-hosted streaming with OwnCast.

There's statistics on https://fedidb.org, on which there's also a list of instances/servers on all kinds of topics using all kinds of software.

We ain't corporate, we're a community.

FediDB - Fediverse Network Statistics

Fediverse Network Statistics

ThesePaycheckAvenging Jun 19, 2023

Microblogging services like Mastodon, YouTube-like Video sharing through Peertube and even self-hosted streaming with OwnCast.

On kbin I only seem to see federated lemmy threads though. Are those mentioned yet to be added or how does that work?

SpaceBar Jun 19, 2023

I'm 51. I started with BBS's, compuworld, Usenet and MUD telnet screens. I've seen access to the internet.and pre internet go from 1,400 baud modems to 56,000 modems to the 5G internet access we have today.

To me, the fedeverse feels like a modern technology in development without corporations ruinous hands in it.

I really hope the corporate hold on social media is breaking, because they eventually ruined everything they touched in order to squeeze every last dollar out of it.