We're RIGHT HERE :(
We're RIGHT HERE :(
Text for readability:
So far, Americans using RedNote have said they don't care if China has access to their data. Viral videos on TikTok in recent days have shown Americans jokingly saying they will miss their personal "Chinese spy," while others say they are purposefully giving RedNote access to their data in a show of protest against the wishes of the U.S. government.
"This also highlights the fact that people are thirsty for platforms that aren't controlled by the same few oligarchs," Quintin said. "People will happily jump to another platform even if it presents new, unknown risks."
The fediverse and the decentralised web has a long way to go and need to learn a thing or two about UX unless it wants to join the plight of Linux distros.
Americans are populist trend followers, get what they deserve. Even China banned TikTok 😂
Even China banned TikTok
Not quite, TT is available in China, BUT the CCP mandates they use a special algorithm for the Chinese audience that promotes positivity, education and other quality content rather than just whatever is popular
K, sounds better than a platform strewn with lies and disinformation used to fabricate political influence
Turns out normalizing mass surveillance makes people not care about being spied on
Sounds like you have chicken and egg reversed
Its OK, I dont mind lower numbers on fedi. Feels more like The Good Old Days™ of forums. More people, more shit.
At least we don't have to worry too much about bots or "karma addicted".
I mostly agree. I do miss some niche communities, though.
The fediverse as a whole has missed a huge opportunity here. I never see anyone talking about it as alternatives to twitter or tiktok, only bluesky and rednote. AFAIK we have no alternative to tik-tok that is viable right now, so I don't know why anyone thought we could manage that one.
Loops would be the fedi alternative for tiktok, no? I think. And I agree..but fediverse has only a little word of mouth (reading your comment I feel guilty not pushing it to my friends a little), no money for these viral campaigns/swarms of new users.
the fediverse needs a simple onboarding process like "signal", to overtly simplify it for casual users. Also, I only heard about loops today and it appears so far it only has a specialized iOS app that requires a special "alpha" mode to be enabled, and no android app. Not exactly ready for primetime.
If you want more people to join the fediverse, you have to improve the user experience. People don’t want to read an article breaking down what the fediverse is, how to join an instance, how to find content, etc.
Streamline the join process so it doesn’t require learning the lore and technical training. Stop promoting the fediverse generally, and instead push people to easy to use frontends and popular instances. Remove the barriers to entry. If they want to dig deeper into different instances and the technical stuff, let them do that later. Stop loading the info dump at the front.
Fediverse and decentralism confused me initially but then I learned I can just sign up at lemmy.world and use it normally without having to know the backend.
I dunno this kinda cracks me up a little because like...if you dig deep enough, were people flame-warring on usenet or BBS (wait lemme finish! Lol) over:
"Email needs way better UX and an insta-one-click-sign-up zero-thinking on-ramp so even a single-celled organism can figure it out!"?
That's the easiest descriptor nowadays that explains the Fediverse. Email. "What if Twitter but as a generalized service that anybody could run, like email. Yahoo? Gmail? RobertLovesSurfing.net? They can all email each other but your account lives on one."
A better way of seeking out an instance could be handy perhaps. I found Mastodon pretty smooth with "Hey you might like these if...!" Sort of suggestions. The openness of the platform should make this a much easier task than it might be otherwise, I think.
I also think better explaining the portability of your account data would help people see the benefit there.
I'd like more kinds of nerds to have an easier time getting on the Fediverse with us, so let's improve that, but I also think we're less popular BECAUSE the Fediverse is more about human communication much like "The Old Internet", and less about desperate vapid fame-seeking and self-marketing and identity-as-brand, like Web2/3.0.
A lot of me thinks we're here because corpo-net "disrupted" our forums and blogs away.
IMHO, the commercial-verse can keep its skibidis and hauk-tuas and *"Oh suddenly I'm famous! thanks for the gold kind stranger!"*s
I don't think it's cruel elitist "gatekeeping" to say the Fediverse is for anybody! But maybe not for Everybody. (Imagine if major brands discovered everybody moved to the Fediverse, for instance. Yikes.)
BTW it's 2025 and plenty of people I've observed, here in the U.S, still complain that email is "too complicated." (And no, they weren't formerly from an uncontacted tribe or rescued from a sealed 1950's fallout shelter.)
We could make things a bit easier to understand and smoother to experience, but trying to UX-away the requirement for a modicum of intelligence required is not a great end goal, I think.
Yeah this is more my take. The sign up process is already pretty smooth. Sure some of the theory or technicals might be complicated, but is a centralized platform that has secret algorithms to keep you engaged and push content, some of which may or may not be promoted invisibly you can't always tell -- is that really less complicated? /rq
Like if you type in "join lemmy" or "join mastodon" or hell even "join fediverse" in any search engine, the first result is a website briefly describing the concept and giving your some choices of servers to sign up at.
A site goes to shit when everyone and their grandma hops on it. At the risk of sounding elitist, I would prefer to a part of the userbase that hasn't been Eternal Septembered into the lowest common denominator.
All right then, keep your secrets. But then let's promote a normie instance to Grandma so she doesn't get brainwashed.
I agree that promoting the fediverse generally kind of doesn't make sense. People join communities, not web protocols.
I wonder if we shouldn't talk so much about "the fediverse" as we do about individual instances, because that's what people actually join. They get the rest of the fediverse for free, but their home server will always be home. Just like with reddit back in the day, how I may not have identified much with the reddit overculture, I did love some of its communities.
Like look at the difference between the slrpnk communities, and the programming.dev communities. That's something to be celebrated, like, come join this server - look at all the cool things we're doing!
You get it. Well said.
Lemmy's Rookgaard. After 30 comments, you're forced to register somewhere else.
instead push people to easy to use frontends and popular instances.
I've seriously thought about starting up a website to do exactly this. The problem is I already have a mile long project list. Oh and I suck at UX lmao, backend and hosting/infrastructure stuffs that's my jam. Putting together a nice UX with a good flow and then successfully promoting it....
Pixelfed’s app release seems like a good start.
The internet use to be about discovery, not convinience. The reason big companies like TikTok can exploit people so well is because the barrier of entry is so low and people would rather get their content quick than to have any involvement in how it works. When someone creates a federated community or a server, it's not plug and play. Work goes into that, so yeah, if you want simplicity, stay on X and Facebook and Insta. If you want control and more clarity about how these protocols work, welcome.
That would just turn the fediverse into tiktok/facebook/whatever. The whole point is that you have to engage intentionally here, which prevents you from being served things that other people/countries/companies want you to see.
Its not hard to join here, but its not going to serve up the same experience so people leave. People also follow others, so there aren't many people on those other platforms suggesting people join them in the fediverse.
I dont understand why anyone cares if the next big social media exodus off-ramp is to the fediverse or not. A huge influx of people that dont like this style of content and how its served to them isn't going to make this better for those who do.
Also our developers are too poor to ge oligarchs.
I don't want TikTokers on the Fediverse, thankyouverymuch.
"I don't want AOLers on the web. The open internet should just be for us enlightened few"
JFC, * don't want you pricks on the fedi. Can't you go back to BBSes or something and wank each other there?
while I laud your sentiment, it's those who needlessly pick on BBSers who need to be ejaculated from the internet.
you can defederate with groups but gatekeeping the entire fediverse feels wrong
So be it. Tiktok is one big slop pool of content. The fediverse doesnt have to be. Tiktok needs to be. I'm okay with advocating for that separation, sorry.
We've been here the whole time
The TikTok algorithm shows you what you want to see. My TikTok algorithm was history, math, and language learning content.
It shows you what keeps your eyes on a video for longer, on a frame by frame basis. "Want" is a slightly separate concept.
I do! Their opinions affect us; the fediverse reduces a social problem.
I feel the same. I prefer less crowded places, but I believe it would be better for us all if people left any kind of corporate or attention draining social media.
I know we are all on here because we dislike the kind of algorithms that tik tok, Instagram, and Facebook have, but that is exactly the thing my wife was looking for. When I had her download pixelfed and loops she was like ' I have to search out content and manually follow people like I did with Facebook back in the day?' and she uninstalled.
Algorithms can be addictive and evil, but for some people that's what they're looking for.
Okay, well I have impulses to go and get drunk, do hard drugs, and attempt to sleep with random women. None of those things are close to a good idea for me.
Just because you feel drawn to something or a type of thing does not make it healthy or a good idea for that person. Taking desires and expressing them in a healthy way is important, desires dont just disappear.
lol I absolutely agree that TikTok style content is a major contributing factor in mental unwellness (and there's scientific data supporting that) but you have to understand that is what the majority of people are looking for. and it's not going away, at least not any time soon, and probably not from any top-down actions of coordinated governance. we gotta accept the reality that like AI it's part of our world now.
with that said, hey, the parent comment makes a pretty good case for why normies dont federate
It's fascinating how Lemmy users view internet consumption habits as a reflection of personal ethics. You can't always hold other people to the standards you've achieved. Using and navigating Lemmy takes effort insight that the majority just don't have. Being alive also takes effort and can be very painful. Sometimes people just need to be able to turn off and zone out. Try not to place value judgements on the ways that other people do that.
Some people's aversion of algorithms on the fediverse kind of reminds me of people's aversion of GMO food. Genetically modifying rice to contain more vitamin D is probably good; genetically modifying vegetables to contain more cyanide would probably be bad. Algorithms don't have to be built to maximize "engagement;" they can be designed to maximize other metrics, or balance multiple metrics, or be user-customizable.
IMO, Mastadon is much worse off for their refusal to implement any kind of algorithm outside their "explore" feed. When I tried using Mastodon, search was unhelpfully in chronological order, and my home feed just got overtaken by the people that post the most. In contrast, Lemmy's handling of algorithms is pretty good, imo.
As bad as search engines are now, they'd be even worse if they just gave you results in chronological order.
I think you're hung up on how Big Tech has designed feeds with the express purpose of keeping you there for as long as possible, or even more perversely, as enraged as possible.
But algorithms can be made to serve other purposes, and I think the fediverse could do with a curation algorithm. Or even better, multiple choices for algorithms to suit your preferences and needs. From what I've heard, Bluesky offers something along those lines, which has contributed to its adoption rates.
I think if Lemmy devs wanted, they could probably come up with some great starter options. Heck, maybe they make it easier for everyone to customize their own algorithms. Not sure how far you get without knowing how to code that sort of thing directly, but even a little would go a long way, I bet.
Seems astroturfed to me
What should we expect from people who voted in a rich, old, white guy as their savior.
people who voted in a rich, old, white guy as their savior.
This describes every single election except one.
That's kind of my point. People who voted for him seem to think he'll save them from the long string of rich, old, white people who have been doing all the harm when he's really just the same, turned up to 11.
Now, If you have said something like "...an hypocrite, corrupted, convicted criminal" i would have completely agreed with that statement.
...Just saying.
See response above.
"well hey you can trust a rich guy who becomes a politician, but not a politician who becomes rich!" said some poor old white lady who probably shouldn't trust either
Sure. Makes sense.
Somewhere deep in the CCP...
Senior Operative: "What intelligence have we gleaned from the Americans so far?"
Junior Operative: "I'm beginning to think this well is dry."
"They love to virtue signal apparently, not sure how that helps us takeover their country though."
Fediverse fanboys when they realise that their obscure and socially complex software isn't know by many people specially outside of the tech bubble, and that it's not the same experiences that they will get with their known platforms:
As someone who isn’t tech savvy I only joined the fediverse when I had no other choice when Apollo shutdown (except of course going back to Reddit)
Heck when I heard talks of lemmy hearing the word servers was enough to spook me out of joining until last minute
I had a point in here somewhere but I’m so tired i lost it so feel free use your imagination
I had a point in here somewhere but I’m so tired i lost it so feel free use your imagination
Fuck I feel this, I have to delete comments halfway through writing them sometimes because I meandered too far from the original point and forgot was I was trying to say
it seems daunting to join Lemmy, and without the catalyst forcing you to you never would have joined, right? and that's probably going to be the default exp for most normies?
I know. I'm here and I don't even know what they're talking about, much less my friends. I suppose it's Loop? But a quick search in app store brings up nothing
I dunno about iPhone but for Android the loops app isn't on the app store yet because the whole thing is still in dev. Once you get your invite email there's a link on the site to download the APK for the app.
Sure, but people cannot cry about a service disappearing when disappearing resistant technology exists and just needs attention. Like, it's being worked on, either help or get out of the way and quit complaining
Lemmy is great but it does not hit the spot for a large-scale consumer social network because that's just not the philosophy (It also lacks the unified identity because of its greatest feature: federation)
People are not searching for an aggregator of small forums of friendly tech people, they want to be part of the next big thing.
If you work on apps as a front-end, you probably understand that Lemmy requires too much hassle to get started with UX-wise.
It's engineered for a niche, and it's perfect to me but obscure for the majority of people who were trained to use the same UX for years and years.
No algorithm, no feeling of fame, rarely drama, content takes some time to be updated. Those are features to me but hindrance for large-scale adoption I believe.
Reddit got quite successfull over the years.
I think the potential audience for lemmy is huge, just that people havent gotten the same marketing hype/trend like you pointed out.
Reddit userbase absolutely skyrocketed when Obama (then president) did an AMA. The site was never quite the same after that
Xi's 50 Cent Army will be kept busy.
Lemmy doesn't have the censorship and speech-control from those platforms, but it pretty much distributes your data widely to anybody that asks for it.
Hear me out: if you post stuff publicly, it is out there. The issue is data that shouldn’t be public getting public
This is it. A strong public domain benefits everyone. It is why open source software works.
It's never really been about data collection. It's about what service feeds users. The algorithm can be tweaked to provide slant towards particular ideals. It can sway elections. Some would rightly say that's already done hard by western social apps. Yeah, and that's wrong too. So they blame other countries for a smoke screen.
AFAIU Lemmy sends your username, a user ID, and URI along with your message. That's pretty innocuous.
It's way less innocuous than you think.
But yeah, it's only the stuff that you'd expect it to send. And only the stuff it needs to send. But the thing is, the valuable data those social networks gather is almost exactly that. They will invade your privacy and get everything they can, but the real value is on that and what you read. (What you read isn't shared here.)
On that note, I’d be shocked if one or more of the alphabet agencies haven’t developed a half-duplex version of the fediverse platforms purely for surveillance purposes. The openness of the ecosystem is really nice, but the default promiscuity of the protocols in question does have some specific and notable drawbacks.
Content sure, but not where you are when you posted it and other meta data
You forgot .ml
You can't put videos on pixelfed, right? That unfortunately means it's not a competitive platform. Video is what people seem to want.
You can. Your instance just needs to up the max size or turn it on.
Example from someone who only has one video as the sample content. https://pixelfed.social/p/Sarahschannel/785335877987047968
This is exactly the kind of barrier to entry that keeps people out. You need to pick an instance to sign up, but may not even understand their differences or limitations until you sign up. It's mind blowing to see people act like this doesn't severely limit adoption.
I used to think that the perceived complexity of the fediverse was creating a hurdle for more adoption.
Now all these fucking people are learning Chinese to better use RedNote.
Apparently convenience isn't actually a barrier? I'm baffled why so many people are flocking to anything other than the fediverse.
id rather learn Mandarin than Linux
I think it's probably marketing more than convenience
Exactly. I think a lot of people just go to whatever is blasted into their eyeballs often enough without a second thought as to the source. I bet with the TikTok news, RedNote probably started paying a bunch of influencers to astroturf and bought a bunch of ad space.
I doubt so many people would be buying nonsense on Temu if it wasn't buying up every. Single. Unblocked. Ad space. Across everything.
People would be like "WTF is a Temu? I'm not into pokemon. Oh I see. It looks sketchy."
I agree. You have to either be in the tech sphere or privacy sphere to know about fediverse apps. Outside of reddit refugees I don't think anyone using the normal apps know about fediverse options or what that even means to be decentralized. I don't think it's really a functionality or convenience issue, we really need our own special interest groups or something to help with fedi app branding and PR. Not sure if that is even something that is crowd sourceble?
It's marketing, but it's also the value proposition. Average Joes don't see the value in decentralization, privacy, or the freedom from corporate control. Although that may change under an authoritarian regime....
A big barrier is the UI, the default lemmy UI is terrible.
The apps aren't great either, I'm very techy and haven't found one feels as nice as reddit (and the reddit app has many issues)
Normies just aren't going to push past all those barriers
show me a federated system that has a bunch of cool tiktoky videos….
afaik, it’s mostly text and that much data would be a huge problemcool
tiktok
pick one
Loops by Pixelfed
IMO it is DOA because the whole point of TikTok is the feed algorithm. You're not supposed to pick what to watch, the algorithm knows your interests. The idea of TikTok therefore is fundamentally unethical and any libre alternatives will be hindered by the fact that users want the unethical part which no developer should or wants to implement.
FWIW Pixelfed's been growing like crazy the last couple days
Source: https://pixelfed.fediverse.observer/dailystats
edit: loops has a much smaller userbase but has also gained active users in the last couple days: https://loops.fediverse.observer/dailystats
Not the first on the app store, unfortunately...
I understand people arguing that a lot of advocacy work is on tiktok, hence it is important; but I really wish good people can advocate on good platforms, instead of monopolistic data-hungry tech oligarchs.
I have long since given up on Normies ever coming to the Indie Web, federated or otherwise
Ever since the big Xwitter exodus, when people went to BlueSky when Mastodon was right there.
Xitter* (x pronounced sh style)
yes, we've all seen this tired meme
Apparently some Israeli-Americans went on Red Note to specifically asked Chinese people what they thought of Israel, and users basically said they were "Devil's on this earth for killing babies" which like...damn. Even through the Great Firewall they aren't beating the allegations.
So I'm sure the Israeli lobby will get that banned next, we shouldn't worry.
others say they are purposefully giving RedNote access to their data in a show of protest against the wishes of the U.S. government.
Yes. Why? Because pettiness
Ptime example:
That's some good humor LMAO.
" . . . giving Rednote access to their data as a show of protest . . ."
That's a special kind of stupid.
They’d be right at home at .ml
Not everyone who is willing to use redbook is interested in the authoritarian gatekeeping done in the outrage farm known as lemmy.ml
You might be surprised to learn that there are plenty of leftists who aren't interested in marxist-lenninism at all
Sir we're all outrage farmers, it's why we (mostly) left Reddit.
The weird obsessions you and some users have for certain instances that you can block is truly mind boggling
Edit: lmao considering OP went to trouble of making a whole gif to celebrate being banned from .ml, I’d say they also fall into the category of "user being obsessed with another instance". A very mature and normal thing to do!
Whu, are you really criticizing op for spending time to make content???
Cirklejerking is nothing new. Dissing on the big heavily moderated instances is just a part of lemmy culture as I understand it. And its not like people on those big instances arent cirkejerking against the haters also.
Here is a mirror. Why are you making a fuss about it? You yourself are free to block any of us if that is your preferred solution.
I am not gonna block them, I am even subscribed to some spaces on .ml .Majority of the users are no different then elsewhere. But i do take the underlying warning seriously and try to pay extra attention to subtle propaganda (which exists on every instance). Encourage people to sign up to smaller less restrictive instances.
I have read your explanation comment btw, and i am gonna be honest it makes no sense in the context of myself. The reason I personally cant relate with tankies is not because they are too left for my comfort but the exact opposite. Compared to my own anarchist ideals tankies lack qualities i deem important and exhibit propertied i recognize as fascist in nature.
If you are now thinking my opinion on what counts as fascist isnt worth any salt to you then you are close to understanding my point. We are still both a part of this community regardless of both our valuable opinions and while yours frustrates me a bit, i hold no ill will against you.
TikTok doesn't want the data of the average person becaue they aren't valuable in any way.
TikTok is being blocked because they can manipulate their algorithm to feed influencers to them that push pro-Chinese stances.
Imagine a hypothetical hot war between the US and China where China is telling a significant number of the US population what to think. I specifically say it that way becaue I don't believe any US company has a significant user base is China.
It could be that sorta thing, but I think it was the same aim as the "salt typhoon" attack on U.S telecomms corpos.
A majority of the vulnerabilities and data dumps are, yes, worthless, but somewhere there's dumb U.S officials or people with clearances doom-scrolling TikTok , and their data or meta-data is giving valuable insight into how they can be manipulated, blackmailed, who they're connected to, whatever.
Imagine a hypothetical hot war between the US and China where China is telling a significant number of the US population what to think.
This sounds like an imaginary situation where it might be ok to ban TikTok, but definitely not like actual reality.
What pro Chinese stances?
I feel like I already answered that in the last paragraph.
It's litterally anything that whitewashes anything the CCP does. Maybe it's justification for island building in the South China Sea, framing international right of way passages through the same body of water as border incursions, trying to reduce support for weapon sales to Taiwain, or trying to reduce allied responses to an invasion of Taiwan. It could also just be spreading general unrest.
And because of the potential blackmail stuff I suppose
idk, pixelfed is doing great.
I do find it kinda funny that that the US gov. Was using "CCP propaganda" as an excuse to ban a platform of expression, and now many of those users have begun using an app that actually has a history of defending the CCP
Where were people's protests & complaints when the US government were first proposing the ban?
RedNote wasn't coughing up all the ad money and buying off influencers to screech "I'm going to RedNote, all hail glorious PoohBear!" at the time I guess lol.
Everyone assumed that they wouldn't be so stupid as to ban an app used by 170,000,000 Americans.
Now they've proven that yes they are that stupid. That corrupt.
So nah. Not going back to any US based alternative. Ever. TT to Red Book. If they ban Red Book we'll go to VK or Jaco or whatever Vietnam has going on.
Best part? It took all of about 2 hours to completely obliterate 60 years of CIA propaganda. We can see plain how much better they have it than we do. How much better life is there.
So they are stupid.
I like your welcoming attitude! /s
Truth hurts some but eases others irritation.
"This is why Trump won!!11!"
Cause people are idiots? Yeah, I think so.
Personally I just like the fuck you energy behind it all.
Platforms that work and are easy to use*
Is Loops out yet?
very beta rn, but its no worse than TikTok functionally and doesn't have any Chinese spyware
It is dogshit compared to tiktok in the only functionality that matters - algorithmic matching of content to user.
Yeah ok it can stream a video cool. That's not worth a can of beans in 2025 - can it give you content that you want to see when you want to see it?
The answer is a resounding no right now. Until it's consistently serving up top notch pairings of content to user interest it wont stand a chance in the mainstream.
I have a loops account but I have not been able to upload a video in over a month, it fails on every single attempt.
I found that any video I try to upload longer than about 17 seconds fails while anything shorter works.
Yea, but it's very early. Backend seems pretty solid, but the client app...leaves a lot to be desired lol
Not on App Store just beta for iPhone only
People were sarcastically making the comment about sharing their data with the Chinese government. AFAIK there has been zero evidence that this had been happening in the first place.
It's definitely happening, but it's not why tiktok was banned. The government doesn't care who gets your data.
What are you basing that on.
We are using it mainly as a massive middle finger to the US government
People so stupid
Maybe y'all should stop screeching bootlicker schill Nazi with every moderate take and replace the mods with reasonable people trying to mod instead of censoring opposition vote points.
So so so many people talking about confusion and platform design and privacy. It's the users and moderation pushing regular people away.
I mean apples to oranges, this isn't really anything like tiktok, we don't share shorts here we create and post on each other's posts
That's the fediverse in general on the bottom, not Lemmy.
Be careful what you wish for.
Do I need to buy a billboard to advertise the concept of not being a complete dipshit
This anti-China sentiment is just dumb our politicians are just holding everything back, when we should be working with China for the betterment of the planet. They've always been responsible for making technology accessible, and every day.
🤦🤦♀️🤦♂️🙈
I don't even .... Just odd.
We live in a society…….
The tiktok ban was never about China. It was about killing off a dissent medium.
