There is perennial discussion about what fediverse servers (Lemmy or otherwise) to recommend to new users. I have a proposal, perhaps not very original but I haven’t seen it made often.
Let’s just recommend that newbies pick an instance that is located close to them geographically. That’s to say: their country, their region, or (ideally) their town.
Some context. Personally, I am not totally sold on social media, federated or otherwise. The evidence is now pretty clear that it causes major social harms. One way it does this is by fuelling polarization around hot-button national and international debates, at the expense of local issues. Reviving democracy is going to mean boosting communities at a local level. This could be a small way to do that.
There’s only one mexican instance, it uses a whitelist and it fucking federates with grad so… Yeah, out of options.
I’ve been here since the reddit API exodus and I’ve never seen a latinamerican comm in my feed, much less latinamerican spanish posts.
And hosting an instance is not that simple, it requires effort, content, time, some originality and money (even if a little)… And people who want to join, but I’ve seen maybe 1 mexican (who I assume lives in México too) other than me… Because mexicans love being strangled by meta, so there’s little to no incentive into creating a space for us in the fediverse.
There’s only one mexican instance
Join it and make it better.
it uses a whitelist and it fucking federates with grad
Change that fact, or accept it, or use blocking features (which are not lacking).
Sure, these won’t be popular suggestions, but IMO social media should not be just another form of shopping, where we pick exactly what agrees with us best, and annoys us least, and then lock the door to keep everything else out.
They said why they don’t join there: federation with unsavory instances
Yes and I answered that argument
Your views here go against the nature of the fediverse. You’re telling people they should go there and be unhappy with their choices. That’s not how the fediverse works.
The fediverse way to to spun up a Mexican server which does have the views and federation people want, and encourage others to join naturally.
Well, if the true nature of the fediverse is to encourage people to silo themselves into echo chambers where they never have to deal with others who don’t already share all their values and opinions - if that’s truly the point of this thing - then yes, apparently I’m wasting my time here. I still hope there’s a better way.
Ah I believe this is the Either/Or logical fallacy.
People not wanting to see hate speech or propaganda does not mean they are in echo chambers. Those are two different things.
It also doesn’t stand with my original statement. Go set up your own instance that is welcoming. That would prove that it’s not an echo chamber and expand the fediverse. Win win from what I see. Let us know when it’s up.
People not wanting to see hate speech or propaganda does not mean they are in echo chambers.
You know that bad guys are now calling your ideas “hate speech” and “propaganda”, right? And they believe it as much as you do. How do you propose to get out of this mess if not by talking?
And I believe this logical fallacy is Moral Equivalence.
We’re not comparing here, I’m not biting on the rage bait. Again, the proposed solution stands. Set up your own instance and prove us all wrong, show us how to make this utopia you promise.
Since when am I proposing a utopia? I’m proposing that people talk to people in their physical communities. Nothing more ambitious than that.
If the user likes none of the regional instances he/she knows of, should the user recommend things he/she doesn’t like?
Similarly, some instances have more clear-cut niches. If the user finds such an instance to be a good recommendation to someone interested in the fediverse, should he/she avoid it if it’s too far physically from the interested user?
Everyone can do what they like. I just believe we have a small opportunity to strengthen our offline communities, and we should take that opportunity.
