I have been on reddit for just about 12 years now. Something I’ve noticed over time is just how hateful the place has become. A complete outrage machine. Every single sub became filled with it. I’ve filtered so many subreddits over the last few years, it’s insane. I don’t know enough about this place to be sure, but I do hope it doesn’t become the same type of echo chamber of anger.
This is key. I’m hoping that this platform can break the toxic social media cycle because it’s funded by the people who use it.
I remain concerned about bots. I don’t think there’s a silver bullet to that problem, and I understand that a lot of astroturfing involves making people angry. Eyeballs = money is only one factor that leads to this toxicity.
I can only hope that because the platform doesn’t have a financial interest beyond its users that it will truly grow to serve its users.
It would also benefit well with the fact that it’s open-source. I hope that one day I could also contribute to the project somehow. Hopefully OSS and decentralized social medias become the future. It’s time to stop letting billionaires make money by using our data.
Yes! Honestly, when people on the political right started throwing tantrums when Twitter blocked Trump, their “but muh town square”-rage felt like “finally they’re getting it!”, our marketplace of ideas should not be controlled by privately owned companies!
I think it’s really important to our democracies, that truly democratic means of communication be available online. Lemmy, Mastodon, the entire Fediverse is really one big toolkit to place the control over our data, our communication and thus, our political dialogue back in the hands of the users.
Sure, admins and instance hosters have a lot of power here, but way less than, for example with Big Tech.