Fun fact, safereddit.com still works perfectly fine as a frontend in my experience! (not the only one out there, just an instance of redlib If you need to bypass the login requirement just add "safe" before "reddit" in the URL and it should let you in :)
this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026
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I'm getting this on the new UI too.
Maybe my browser finger print triggering something?
This may be unpopular to say here, but the fediverse needs to be less toxic for the average user. I'm probably going to be downvoted to hell for this, but here goes: the whole tesseract situation was a clusterfuck and the dev is a jackass, but in one regard he is right - there is a toxicity problem. I mean, let's look at it:
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Lemmy's main dev is what many would refer to as a tankie. He regularly spreads misinformation, supporting fascist governments, so long as they claim to be socialist or communist - and don't belong to the west. Anything the West does is, by definition, evil.
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Lemmy's flagship instance is lemmy.ml. An instance where many communities have a "be nice" rule, but say anything against the (similarly aligned) group think and you'll be ridiculed, insulted, and banned. Meanwhile, some pretty insane calls for violence stay up. And lemmy.ml isn't even the worst in that corner of the fediverse.
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There are many other instances that aren't great, either. Wander into an instance and accidentally say something absolutely factual that someone doesn't like - ban, because some thin skinned mod sees it as derogatory. Remember the whole dragonfucker saga? Yeah, that's very off-putting to your average user.
Look, I'm no stranger to Reddit group think, I've had it turn on me, and trust me, it's no fun. Hell, I've had it on Facebook back when that was still a thing (yeah, I'm dating myself here). But it was nothing on what I've seen on here. I've been able to avoid it here (or, sometimes I've purposefully wandered into it in an attempt to disrupt an echo chamber, but then I knew exactly what I was getting into and expected as much), but what I saw happening to others - holy shit. I mean, to be fair, the instance I'm on is an instance that very rarely defederates, which I like because I like seeing different viewpoints including ones with which I vehemently disagree with (although the viewpoints are very unbalanced, that does have to be said). But it's a hell of a lot more fun to not have to keep your guard up all the time.
So, you might argue, be careful which instance you chose. OK, so I chose an instance like Lemmy.world, which as far as Lemmy goes, is definitely more on the normal side of things. But then, who are they federated with? The next rabbit hole. And how do you know which ones have less crazies? Experience. And as a saying goes, experience is what you needed just before you got it. Then many people suggest putting together blocklist and what not. Another rabbit hole. Put briefly: it involves work, a lot of it. People aren't on Reddit to work (for the most part), they're there to have fun. If you need to put in so much work, at some point it's not fun anymore. And that's what's off-putting for the typical user.
What can be done to make it more palatable for normal users? I honestly don't know. I see it as a chicken and egg problem. We need more "normal" people to drown out the crazies, but then the "normal" people won't come because of the crazies. Maybe Piefed is better in that regard - although I've heard there were/are?tesseract-style problems there, as well - I just haven't had the nerve to go down yet another rabbit hole to figure out what's actually going on. Which brings us back to square one - that's already gone way, way too far for the average user. And I can't exactly blame them. I'm "only" here because I care about open source and decentralisation. And I insist on staying here on matter of principle. But I can't in good faith recommend it to anyone I know IRL.
Anyway, sorry for the long rant. Maybe someone has some better ideas.
I believe Lemmy has the potential for a wider range of discussion and debate than Reddit, or any other social media platform I've been on, simply because of the defederated & community-based system. The issue, as you describe, seems to be saying the wrong thing in the wrong place, which, to be honest, is similar to the real world. There are a lot of topics people probably shouldn't talk about in public, but it's normally fine for them to talk about in their chosen groups/community. Lemmy just kind of brings these groups and communities closer together, igniting more discussion, but simultaneously causing issues you describe.
For example, you can't walk up to a group of homosexuals and try to convince them they shouldn't be gay. You can discuss topics related to LGBT+ rights of course, but there are definitely off-limit discussions in that group, same as any other group. I think it's a matter of paying attention to where you are in the Fediverse and who may be reading your response before blurting out what's on your mind.
On the comment about tessaract; I cannot agree on the idea that the dev of tessaract was "right" about toxicity. Even if he was, he was in no place to take it into his own hands to address (especially in a secretive way). Lemmy is a community-based platform and we need to figure that stuff out as a community. We don't have a corporate-level moderation team ensuring the platform is safe for those under 18, and we don't have anyone enforcing political views in any way other than in specific communities (who have every right to enforce their chosen views). Just as some say we wouldn't need police if we had strong communities, the same goes here, strong communities are the key. If you see a lot of toxicity where you browse, maybe your chosen community just isn't a healthy one.
I believe in reality, the kneejerk reddit mod multiban just transitioned seamlessly into fediverse multibans and defederations - I know, who could've foreseen such shit. Some defederation happened for good reasons, but I've been cluster banned from a bunch of communities I never even been in as a "lemmy.world zionist", apparently, and that last bit is news to me at least. People bring their sad, incredibly petty bullshit with them.
People here are no fonder of "alternate viewpoints" than on reddit, you can tell the hivemind kicking in just from the person who pointed out a couple of blatantly realistic issues 8 seconds ago.
What can be done to make it more palatable for normal users?
Make a piefed feed and advertise it. that way newbies avoid the politics and tech. ex:
There's a difference between advocating for a "set the world on fire" attitude, and a "we must take up arms to defend our continued existence" attitude. I think we are well past the point where we should be pulling our punches on fascist ideology. Putting flowers in the gun barrels of the oppressors just means there'll be pollen on the bullets. I'd absolutely LOVE for there to be a peaceful solution*, but let's be real: we've seen this horror movie before. We know what's around that dark corner. I'd much rather go on the offensive and nip this shit in the bud.
(*and I hope there's still time to have one, let me be clear)
Speaking as a ln anarchist/council communist... There are some good instances and I simply don't see the bad ones if I'm on an instance acc with good defaults.
I don't view it as problematic if people are put off by Lemmy holding more normal, less capitalist and less reactionary views.
That said, in terms of preference, I'll pick free communist groups over tankies and liberals (I decline to ever consider fascists an option at all).
In these dark times I'm not quite sure whether we can afford to lose what allies we have. But we do need to mold what can be sympathetic to our progressive and left-wing causes.
Piefed is problematic for me - although it has a lot of modern features, I oppose the karma system there. I prefer a system that cannot be abused by bots.
I don't remember the dragonfucker saga. What was that about?
There's an account that insisted people address them as that, because that was their username.
Then they had a handful of accounts named some version of "dragon" who they would borderline roleplay fuck in random communities.
It was really weird.
Like, no judgement if you're into that. The ick was they seemed to enjoy doing it in front of people to make them uncomfortable, and people that get off on violating consent like that, are going to be giant trolls about it. That account even created their own instance (pretty sure they ban anyone else that comments or creates an account) just so they could get onto the admin comms and cause drama.
Like, Ive hooked up with a woman who (at least at the time) claimed to honestly believe she was a dragon. So technically I'm a dragon fucker too, I just don't throw it in everyone's faces unless it comes up organically
I'm also very aware that she wasn't actually a dragon, and was most likely just trying to psych out of the military.
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Any pushing you can do is probably not going to help. Last time it was some API shit that actually generated a small amount of outrage enough to move a small amount of people. Apathy, habit and lock-in will tend to defeat that, so unless this gets people at least as pissed as whatever the API thing was, I wouldn't hold my breath.
Also, y'know, reddit... maybe it's just as well.
With honestly a large number of general web searches being reddit results on virtually any topic, I think the need for login will gradually frustrate many into seeking out the fediverse. It could take a long time, though. It also may not have a huge effect passively, because there is a high chance that the information they want isn't here.
Honestly I've given up on encouraging people to do things to better themselves. We've had open source technology for a very long time. The Fediverse has been pretty mature for a good while now. Xitter and Reddit have been through many rounds of appalling enshittification, not to mention Meta.
RSS is as old as the internet but people overwhelmingly choose Apple News and other dumb shit.
Email is as old as the internet but people overwhelmingly choose corporate platforms like Gmail.
Podcasts are ancient but people overwhelmingly choose to use platforms like Spotify, and worse, YouTube.
People just overwhelmingly make bad decisions, and have been for decades so, yeah, I'm exhausted.
I used to ask people to switch and they would ask "why?" and I would be so appalled that they would even ask the question because, how could you not know any of the litany of reasons to get off this fucking platform?
Sometimes they ask and I explain and then the only thing that changes is that they think I'm a weirdo.
Something has been lost over the past 15-20 years. It's like nobody has the mindset anymore of the world wide web era. Where's the curiosity. Where's the discovery. Where's the malleability to find something new to you and try it. Inertia has locked them into subservience.
The internet flipped upside down. It was new frontier for you to explore. Now you lay there as it spoon feeds you.
People have been quantified into units. So they can be packaged and sold as datasets. They're boxed into what the ad industry categorizes them as. This person is an Apple News user, reddit user, and Youtube watcher. That user is on Twitter and Facebook. Much more fine grained than just what platforms they use of course. They told the system what they like and the system built a reinforced box around them. And then charge them for an air tube for good measure.
We are far gone from the days where a user would be so excited to post a wall of text about using a thing that another user doesn't know about. These days the reaction is more likely to be,"Who are? Who sent you?!? What's your real motive???" Skepticism. Distrust. Paranoia.
Often these days, outright indifference. People know these platforms fuck with their minds. With public conscious. They mould the world we live in. People don't care. The world chose to be Cypher. They wanted to be plugged into the Matrix.
Though that's not really a good analogy because outside the system isn't a desolate landscape. The outside world is still normal.
People know these platforms fuck with their minds...People don't care.
Exactly. The vast majority know how terrible they are, but continue to subject themselves to it anyway. Why? Lack of self-respect? Unwillingness to explore and learn new things? I don't get it.
The Fediverse has shown me that what these companies have isn't anything special, aside from the network. People don't go there for the software, they go there for the people. But they can't move the people to new/other software.
people go where the content is. That's just the nature of the beast. Like I'm pissed at the reddit mods for kicking me off of reddit more because that's were 90% of the minecraft community lives, (most of the reason I used reddit in the first place) and less because they got the ass pains for me calling them out on their corporate bootlicking behavior.
They instaban people who talk about Lemmy. It's useless.
I'm still not banned yet
Nope, it's the best secret of the internet.