Submitted 2 weeks ago by Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social to fediverse@lemmy.world
With Reddit flirting with requiring Age verification, the next Rexit might be around the corner, are we ready?
With previous Rexit’s like the API debarcle etc. many users were left looking for an alternative, but with decision fatigue and bad UX etc. most did not find the Fediverse a viable option.
What needs to still improve, how can we be ready this time?
Probably more NSFW instances? We barely have one.
I don’t think you actually want the baggage that ecosystem actually comes with. Like, when it’s working well it has baggage. And you wouldn’t like it when it doesn’t run well.
I think so as well. Porn is available in abundance. We don’t really need it here. What I think could be nice is people who like to write erotic fiction as a hobby and post their original content. Or people discuss erotic computer games. Or like relationship advice and NSFW questions in case some country abolishes sex ed. Maybe talking about piracy, mental issues, loss… all the things that are deemed “not advertiser friendly” on commercial platforms. That’d be something positive. But it’s not easy. And it often all gets lumped together under some big NSFW umbrella and 95% of people want to share pron clips anyway.
You hear that people? Go set up a camera and show us your genitals! But also, be hot. Or at least interesting. Maybe learn to juggle as you give a blowjob. That’d be fun to watch! If you can do that, the world needs to see it. So why not put it on Lemmy? For the Fediverse!!!
Hehe. Yeah, I don’t think we need more content. There’s already some out there. What we really need is more admins run servers to host that stuff. And a bigger admin team for the already existing instance so it doesn’t just randomly go away along with all the content, as well.
Doesn’t fedinsfw.app exist?
Well, previously we had LemmyNSFW. That one died, pretty much out of the blue. Now the second admin(?) of it launched FediNSFW as a successor. We have that - for now - I guess? They said they’re gonna try to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen again.
But I guess it’s still a single point of failure. If they don’t properly ensure there’s several people who own the domain and hosting infrastructure, can administer the contracts, server etc, it might still be down to one person and their ability to keep it up. And if there’s legal troubles, uncertainty, not enough donations, law changes or the hoster or Cloudflare pulls the trigger, that might be the end of it as well. A severe technical issue/mistake could also take down a singular instance.
I mean there’s nothing wrong with it? I just think it’s massively questionable to all bet on the same horse, and then call us the “Fediverse”, a decentral platform…
Ready for a bunch of teens coming in and trashing the place? No.
Gatekeeping, nice.
As a new user (I started using PieFed 2 months ago), the UX can surely be improved, but I feel like the main issue is relative to how users are supposed to use the fediverse: I still don’t have a clue on how the fediverse works and how to use it properly. And I’m motivated in learning to use it. But for someone who isn’t motivated, it’s a huge “no thanks, goodbye”
I think we should just hide all of that complexity and just set defaults for everything that the user can decide to change if they want.
BlueSky has 40+ million users, and it’s also technically decentralized like the Fediverse.
aka. you can use the eurosky.social or bluesky.social server etc.
it’s weird that, because once you’re in it’s basically seamless. it’s just that first step of picking a server based on your interests that trips people up, because aren’t you supposed to pick interests after you get in? more national instances would probably solve that, i think, so you can just go to your local one.
I have never understood the importance of choosing an instance, especially at the beginning. Sign up for any one, try it for a while and if you need to change later, you can do so without problems.
On sites like mastodon where followers are essential it can be a problem, in lemmy where karma is not even accumulated, changing servers does not make you lose more than the 5 minutes it takes you to do it
more national instances would probably solve that, i think, so you can just go to your local one.
That’s roughly how I chose my instance… I thought I’d choose an instance geographically close to me for latency reasons and such. I didn’t know anything about different Lemmy instances at the time and didn’t (for example) know that my instance actually hosts very few popular communities, so I’d be participating mostly in remote ones. :D
More instances with minimal/no defederation would help. That way you can just tell people to pick one of those instances and it doesn’t matter which one.
Welcome to PieFed! I see you’ve got an account and you know how to post comments. What else do you need help with?
What do you think about https://phtn.app/ ? Sadly the PieFed support is in Beta for quite a while now, but I do like how clean everything looks. You can also hide away a lot of the complexity but I am not sure if that is the default.
I didn’t know it, and I’m trying it. The UX is really nice, though I don’t understand why I needed to submit the reasons why I wanted to subscribe, and why I have to wait to be subscribed to the different communities… But thanks for the suggestion!
I’d explain it like this:
Social media are built on ‘protocols’. Protocols tell e.g. social media what they can do and how to ‘talk’ to each other.
The Fediverse is a group of social media that use ActivityPub, Diaspora, or AT Protocol. These protocols allow something special that ‘traditional’ social media like Facebook and Instagram don’t: they can communicate across each other, without using a centralised server for hosting content.
It’s comparable to email; you can mail to someone not using your mail provider, and vice versa.
On one of these fediverse social media, people self-host or join a self-hosted group. Such a group is called an ‘instance’. Each instance functions independently and can have its own policies.
Instances (and users) can decide with which other instances they allow their own content to be seen. They can also decide what instances their users can see content from. An instance that is connected to another instance is said to be ‘federated’ with the latter. If that is not the case, they are ‘defederated’.
Within each instances, there are many communities. There’s a community for Linux, a community for cat pictures, a community for nature, and so on.
View the fediverse like a few forests, linked by many wild bridges. Lemmy might be one forest, Peertube and Mastodon yet other ones.
An instance is like a single tree. And a community a branch. Users are leaves.
Some parts of the fediverse allow these leaves to leave and join another tree.
Traditional social media, on the other hand, are comparable to a single, isolated and big tree, far away from other trees. You cannot jump to other trees, cannot easily go to a forest.
Would that be a good explanation?
Wow, thanks a lot, this is the best explanation that I was able to find so far!
We need more cat forums.
This. Video games too. And porn for that matter. We’re overall a little weak on the trifecta of primary internet subject matter.
At least we’re solid on owls though, my enduring admiration to our dedicated owl posters.
There’s some anime titties but not enough to go around.
And guitars.
Every time I think about starting a community about one of my hobbies, I look at a random modlog and realize I don’t want any part of it.
Well, from a technical standpoint I am more prepared as an instance admin. We’re running on powerful dedicated hardware after all.
🫡
Rexited a long time ago. We must encourage (sensible people) to move to Lemmy and Piefed
I mean, no? Are you all going to constantly screech at people for not hating capitalism? The people and their behavior are the problem.
It’s 2026. We’ve more than accepted that the people who simp for capitalism are the problem.
The authoritarian tankies masquerading as leftists/progressives is a problem too. Esp the mods and not just lemmy.ml.
It’s not a problem on PieFed, it’s mostly been delt with
Still needs infinite scroll.
Ugh I hate infinite scroll. If some people want it, sure, you can implement it as an opt-in feature. But a lot of people use the fediverse to avoid the typical features of corporate social media
Some mobile apps already have it and with the ruling against Meta and YouTube in the USA, I don’t know if having infinite scroll will cause legal problems in the future.
I’d also like this, but I feel you’ll get pushback against this on the Fediverse
Perhaps it’s a feature instance’s can set as default or not themselves
I think it would be nice as an opt-in feature in the user settings
PieFed has that. I get to the bottom, it loads another page.
People actually like infinite scroll?
Is there any new development around this or are you just specualting? All I’ve seen so far is discussions about age verification on Reddit, and most of the conversation was about finding workarounds than leaving.
What needs to still improve?
The community here is what needs to improve the most. The majority here is hostile to new users and too prone to demand purity tests from everyone who is just thinking about leaving Reddit.
Not specifically age-verification, but they are considering checks of some sort at some point to deal with the bot problem on there. That’s at least one angle. They’ve also just rolled it out in small scale to suspicious accounts. So whether or not it is done for the purposes of verifying age, or just dealing with bots - I suspect it’ll arrive in the end once they feel they have the capital to do it.
As for the UK specific issues, it’s hard to get a concrete numbers because most people in the UK just switched to a VPN. In the event of Reddit implementing global ID-check measures, it wouldn’t matter what VPN you switched to.
Reddit already requires it in the UK, afik.
But it’s mostly speculation form my side.
Reddit already requires it in the UK
Yes, and do we have any numbers about UK usage before/after the changes? Do we have any idea of how many people there:
And for those that were not satisfied, what was failing to them? Was the Fediverse so bad that they rather go back to Reddit, or did they just quit social media altogether?
The UK started asking for age verification ~5 months ago. That should give us more than enough data to take a look at this objectively.
I used a vpn that put me in the UK and reddit asked for my ID…
I don’t want people from Reddit here.
The fact that half of Twatter moved to Bluesky instead of Mastodon is a blessing.
ActivityPub is by design a data harvesting goldmine, the fact that it flies under the radar is the only saving grace.
No, not ready for another USA spam shit. Other than that, the rest is fine.
yeah but more pictures of cats and dogs.
Yea bro, I need it more than reading for the hundred time what Trump will do. I don’t leave in hell, yet feels live living in it.
Sign up is still a confusing, exclusionary, inaccessible mess. So, no.
Is reddit blocking VPNs now? I don’t use reddit anymore, but sometimes I search something on the web and like it or not, redditors in niche communities have good answers to uncommon questions. Definitely better than can be found on quora or other places.
But it doesn’t let me view them, supposedly because I’m using a VPN now…
If that’s the case, fuck spez and all corporate sellouts. Reddit used to be a mecca for freedom of association…
We’ve always been ready. Ready for the drama. 🍿
lime@feddit.nu 2 weeks ago
we need more hornyposting and leftist infighting
OpenStars@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
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Specter@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Let’s be honest, go to any left wing party and you’ll see most people are dating liberals hahaha
sad_detective_man@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Hey! U r dumb and also I’m jorking my peanor
lime@feddit.nu 2 weeks ago
👍
OpenStars@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
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Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
I hate being left wing sometimes https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vHfbUIQeW_A
leoj@piefed.zip 2 weeks ago
I don’t think I have ever felt this validated in my entire life, thank you.
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
I just avoid harshly criticising the left, while continuing to do so for liberals (but still being welcoming for them), and outright rejecting far-right.
Keep in mind that infighting was often initiated by the CIA, in order to undermine the Black Panthers. Likewise we may see such attempts.
lime@feddit.nu 2 weeks ago
do you think the same is true for the hornyposting?
mistermodal@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Peace and love among all progressives ❤️🩹
Image
lime@feddit.nu 2 weeks ago
this might be the worst image i’ve ever seen.
…also why is bosnia and herzegovina in there twice