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Dessalines 2021-08-06 17:46:48 -04:00
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107
src/shared/components/about.tsx
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@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
import { Component } from "inferno";
import { Helmet } from "inferno-helmet";
import { i18n } from "../i18next";
import { T } from "inferno-i18next";
const title = i18n.t("about_title");
@ -16,98 +17,20 @@ export class About extends Component<any, any> {
</Helmet>
<div class="container">
<h1>{i18n.t("about_title")}</h1>
<p>The idea to make Lemmy was a combination of factors.</p>
<p>
Open source developers like myself have long watched the rise of the
“Big Five”, the US tech giants that have managed to capture nearly
all the world’s everyday communication into their hands. We’ve been
asking ourselves why people have moved away from content-focused
sites, and what we can do to subvert this trend, in a way that is
easily accessible to a non-tech focused audience.
</p>
<p>
The barriers to entry on the web, are much lower than say in the
physical world: all it takes is a computer and some coding knowhow…
yet the predominating social media firms have been able to stave off
competition for at least two reasons: their sites are easy to use,
and they have huge numbers of users already (the “first mover”
advantage). The latter is more important; if you’ve ever tried to
get someone to use a different chat app, you’ll know what I mean.
</p>
<p>
Now I loved early reddit, not just for the way that it managed to
put all the news for the communities and topics I wanted to see in a
single place, but for the discussion trees behind every link posted.
I still have many of these saved, and have gained so much more from
the discussion behind the links, than I have from the links
themselves. In my view, its the community-focused, tree-like
discussions, as well as the ability to make, grow, and curate
communities, that has made reddit the 5th most popular site in the
US, and where so many people around the world get their news.
</p>
<p>
But that ship sailed years ago; the early innovative spirit of
reddit left with Aaron Schwartz: its libertarian founders have
allowed some of the most racist and sexist online communities to
fester on reddit for years, only occasionally removing them only
when community outcry reaches a fever pitch. Reddit closed its
source code years ago, and the reddit redesign has become a bloated
anti-privacy mess.
</p>
<p>
Its become absorbed into that silicon valley surveillance-capitalist
machine that commidifies users to sell ads and paid flairs, and
propagandizes pro-US interests above all. Software technology being
one of the last monopoly exports the US has, it would be naive to
think that one of the top 5 most popular social media sites, where
so many people around the world get their news, would be anything
other than a mouthpiece for the interests of those same US coastal
tech firms.
</p>
<p>
Despite the conservative talking point that big tech is dominated by
“leftist propaganda”, it is liberal, and pro-US, not left (leftism
referring to the broad category of anti-capitalism). Reddit has
banned its share of leftist users and communities, and the reddit
admins via announcement posts repeatedly villify the US’s primary
foreign-policy enemies as having “bot campaigns”, and “manipulating
reddit”, yet the default reddit communities (/r/news, /r/pics, etc),
who share a small number of moderators, push a line consistent with
US foreign-policy interests. The aptly named /r/copaganda subreddit
has exposed the pro-police propaganda that always seems to hit
reddit’s front page in the wake of every tragedy involving US police
killing the innocent (or showing police kissing puppies, even though
US police kill ~ 30 dogs every day, which researchers have called a
“noted statistical phenomenon”).
</p>
<p>
We’ve also seen a rise in anti-China posts that have hit reddit
lately, and along with that comes anti-chinese racism, which reddit
tacitly encourages. That western countries are seeing a rise in
attacks against Asian-Americans, just as some of the perpetrators of
several hate-crimes against women were found to be redditors active
in mens-rights reddit communities, is not lost on us, and we know
where these tech companies really stand when it comes to violence
and hate speech. Leftists know that our position on these platforms
is tenable at best; we’re currently tolerated, but that will not
always be the case.
</p>
<p>
The idea for making a reddit alternative seemed pointless, until
Mastodon (a federated twitter alternative), started becoming
popular. Using activitypub (a protocol / common language that social
media services can use to speak to each other), we finally have a
solution to the “first mover” advantage: now someone can build or
run a small site, but still be connected to a wider universe of
users.
</p>
<p>
Nutomic and I originally made Lemmy to fill the role as a federated
alternative to reddit, but as it grows, it has the potential become
a main source of news and discussion, existing outside of the US’s
jurisdictional domain and control.
</p>
<i class="is-right">Written by Dessalines, December 2020.</i>
<T i18nKey="about_text">
<p>#</p>
<p>#</p>
<p>#</p>
<p>#</p>
<p>#</p>
<p>#</p>
<p>#</p>
<p>#</p>
<p>#</p>
<p>#</p>
<p>#</p>
<i class="is-right">#</i>
</T>
</div>
</div>
);