this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
4 points (75.0% liked)
Lemmy.ca's Main Community
3484 readers
13 users here now
Welcome to the lemmy.ca/c/main community!
All new users on lemmy.ca are automatically subscribed to this community, so this is the place to read announcements, make suggestions, and chat about the goings-on of lemmy.ca.
For support requests specific to lemmy.ca, you can use [email protected].
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
So the question just goes down one level .... who owns the instance? It's an important question as it then determines what influence can occur with any instance or any owner or owners of an instance.
Yes, no one can own the English language but the language can only occur because each and everyone of us own the hardware because the hardware is built into our bodies.
A fediverse instance has to be run from some location and by some hardware ... so the question I still wonder about is ... who owns any one instance ... who owns or controls Lemmy.world? who owns and controls lemmy.ca
htpps:/lemmy.world is run by (@[email protected]) and htpps://lemmy.ca is run by (@[email protected]). That information literally took me a matter of seconds to google... there's no conspiracy. The deal is that literally anyone can spin up a server and fire up an instance. The answer is different for every instance (usually).
Your friends are stating the obvious - pretty much everything in the world is owned by someone, whether it's a Huffy Princess Bike or a message board server. The difference between Reddit and Lemmy is that Lemmy is open source.
If you don't trust lemmy.world and lemmy.ca for whatever reason, it's trivial for you to move on to another instance and continue using Lemmy on an instance that makes you feel more comfortable, and still get the Lemmy experience. Or as others have pointed out, spin up your own instance, but with blackjack and hookers, then you can defederate from whomever you wish. That's when the fun really begins (but by "fun" I mean tremendous workloads and tons of responsibility. And financial costs :p)
hello! i'm the current owner & admin of lemmy.ca.
i don't really consider myself very policital, but I have taken those "vote compass" things just to see where I would fall, and i typically lean left. not sure exactly what you mean by easily influenced, but I would hope that I'm not. I think of myself as fairly level-headed, and probably overly analytical about things, and I typically don't try and let my emotions get involved in my decision making.
I have to run but can answer more questions if you'd like. or i can maybe do an AMA later?
That's amazing that you responded ... that would never happen to any commercial social media service out there.
Thanks for that.
My concern is not so much what your personality or political leanings are ... to a degree, if any owner holds extreme views, it should be concerning.
My biggest concern is money and funds - where it comes from and where it goes.
The work you guys (owners of an instance) are doing is admirable but no one should expect you guys to provide any and all of these services for free. I am sure you are working hard and tirelessly to keep this instance working and maintained but it must take up a considerable amount of your time and energy. Which begs the question, how do you make your money? Do you have a separate job ... or do you make any money by running this instance? And also, what are your costs in being able to maintain this instance? Do you break even? Are you running a loss? Are you making a profit?
My questions are two fold because I would like to know if you are benefiting from this work ... and I would be the first to congratulate you on that.
The other side of that question is ... if you are suffering a loss ... shouldn't we be helping you with your work? We shouldn't be taking your work and energy for granted and expect you to work for free, pay for services for us who enjoy them. Even if you are able to pay for services, hardware and rentals ... we shouldn't expect you to work for free.
I know you have to maintain your own privacy but as users of your service, it would be nice to know what your situation is ... maybe you are independently wealthy and you don't care about money .. I don't know. Or maybe you have no money at all and you are barely getting by.
If you do need funds ... I would be more than willing to donate, subscribe or sign onto a subscription to keep this instance running.
Hey @smorks I am interested to hear how you will handle content that some people may view as "hateful"? One of the problems I often see in some reddit communities is that they can be heavy-handed on moderation and it can often mean the subreddit is filled with primarily left-leaning comments as the right-leaning comments are counted as "hateful". I'm personally looking for an instance where I can see a diverse set of viewpoints and based on what you said here it sounds like this may be an instance that is supportive of that.
Just to be clear, I am not asking whether people would be allowed to be blatantly racist, but whether people could disagree with political movements that lean right/left without being censored? I personally think communities thrive when they can have more open, productive good-faith conversations about topics. When people get censored it usually seems to create more division and more hate in my opinion.
first, i'm one of the admin's here, and try and let the mods of their respective communities handle the bulk of the reports. i will only step in if there's anything blatantly against the rules.
i don't care if it's left-leaning or right-leaning comments. i'm going to remove it if it's hateful, and will start with a temporary ban if it continues, and a permanent ban if it persists.
the first two rules from this instance's sidebar read:
does that help?
i agree 100%.
if you want to give me an example of what others deem "hateful", but you do not, i can tell you where i stand on it and why?
hope that answers your question!
I can throw out a view examples of content that I have seen deemed as "hateful" in local subreddits that I personally don't think fit under the purview of "hate speech".
Now don't get me wrong, I am a moderator on some communities on reddit and I know content-moderation in general is a hard topic. Knowing someone's intentions behind a comment can sometimes be murky and that is often part of the issue. I come from a viewpoint where I think it is important for people to see comments that they may disagree with or may even offend them. Of course there is no need for posts that just flame someone, or attack specific immutable characteristics, but I think there is harm from being too isolated from different viewpoints as well.
thank you for taking the time to send me those examples!
i 100% don't agree with your second example. from my understanding (i have a son currently in grade 3), they are teaching about acceptance and inclusiveness. and i know not all schools teach the same thing, and it could vary with different schools and at different grades, but i personally don't see anything wrong with that. If people don't want to join in in pride parades, then they don't have to, plain and simple, that's their choice. But don't hate on the movement just because you don't agree with it.
for your first and third example, it's hard to say, since like you said, intentions (and context) matter a lot. so I will always try to take all those things into consideration.