Okay, but here’s the thing: you’re not entitled to every community that exists. People can decide for themselves who they want to associate with. And if an admin is the one footing the bill for the infrastructure, their word is final on who gets through the door.
If you don’t want mods or admins overruling you, then you need to run your own server. That’s the price of control. I already do this with two Fediverse servers, and I fully intend to do the same with a federated forum server.
I am starting to feel sincerely like it would be a good idea for YPTB to adopt a new rule: If you come in with the point of view “THE MODS ARE GODS THEIR DECISIONS MAY NOT BE QUESTIONED”, they get banned instantly, with a short reply from the moderator saying “Can do! My decisions may not be questioned.”
(Temp banned obviously. I’m not a monster.)
Obviously the admins can do what they want with their server, and mods likewise within their communities. What we’re set up to discuss in this community is whether or not they’ve used that control – which they’re obviously able to wield – in a manner that makes them a twatrocket.
There’s a whole philosophy of cooperative endeavor involved here. I just recently got a temp ban that was 100% justified, I’m fine with that. Lots of mods use their mod powers in a way that’s perfectly reasonable and legitimate, and part of a healthy society is that people in whom is vested some level of control over the surroundings, we can talk about whether they’re being reasonable with it. Almost everyone is, and sometimes there are reasonable discussions to be had about if they unintentionally stepped over a line or offended someone or something. This whole model where it’s little warring fiefdoms, and I’m going to be a screaming unrestrained dickhead if I want to when you’re in my fiefdom and if you don’t like it, go somewhere else, is one that people are able to adopt. I don’t think it is a good one. I feel like ignoring the feedback you get, if you do decide that’s your MO, is going to lead to a bad engagement with the rest of the community and a lack of success for your new instance. It’s a give and take, people can talk, sometimes when people are telling you you’re out of line, they’re just kind of looking out for you and letting you know they take offense and probably others do too, you know?
My biggest concern isn’t the “general” Lemmy community—I’m focused on building my community. If a group of people on some distant server decide they don’t like me, that’s perfectly fine. I’m not there to serve them.
But if that dislike turns into dogpiling or harassment—as I’ve already experienced—I’ll use the tools available: blocking, banning, and defederation. Once my server is live, those are exactly the measures I’ll rely on.
And yes, I know this approach may feel at odds with the broader Lemmy culture. But Lemmy itself is still quite small—around 36,000 users. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the wider Fediverse, and practically invisible next to social media as a whole.
That’s why I’m confident I can create something federated that doesn’t have to follow Lemmy’s norms or culture.
Yeah, I get that. And you’re right, you can do whatever you want including deciding “this community is all just wrong and I’m going to make something right,” and that’s the nice thing about user-hosted networks like this. And I’ve certainly come down on the side of “the Lemmy community can get lost because the majority is wrong on whatever issue we’re talking about” in the past.
Personally in my judgement I don’t really see it as harassment in this case, I just see people disagreeing strongly with your actions and then getting snarky or insulting about it as people are wont to do – like I said, the only thing I really know about you is that you started banning people for downvotes and “bro” both of which seem ridiculous to me. (And also a tactical error, since rightly or wrongly it’ll invite a kind of dogpiling publicity which I don’t think you want.) But yeah, everyone has the ability to draw their own distinction and follow through on their own server / own community based on you being right and everyone else being wrong versus the other way around.
Well, I can only tell you what actually happened: dogpiling and harassment did occur. I had to lock down !fediversenews, and even after that, people followed me into other communities I moderated to continue harassing me.
At that point, the intention behind the original post matters less than the outcome. If the purpose of a community is to amplify outrage, it’s not surprising when some people inevitably take it too far.
Well but like I say, I think you made kind of a tactical error if you don’t want stuff like that to happen. I have plenty of times seen a mod ban for some reason that almost everyone disagrees with. I have never seen a mod snoop on the upvotes for the banned comment and also attempt to ban people from expressing their approval for the banned content, and then send every one of them a snotty DM about it. I think that’s very obviously an overreach, and there is sort of a societal immune system that automatically wants to backlash against that kind of thing by marking the person who did it as “enemy” and making sure they hear about it that that behavior is unwanted. And of course the internet being what it is, sometimes that backlash takes on a life of its own and turns into something incredibly toxic and unwarranted. I think though that this idea that you’ll set yourself apart from that kind of thing ever happening to you, because you can just run your own server and control everything about how people interact with you, is just a non starter. I think reexamining your own behavior is a lot more positive way to approach making sure you won’t get harassed as much in the future.
IDK man, maybe I’m wrong or I missed finding out about some important details of how it happened. And for all I know some people did harass you in some out-of-pocket way. I’m just saying how I see it, that’s all.
You know, I only tried the private message approach because someone suggested it was the best way to de-escalate. Before that, I would simply ban—no conversation, no debate.
On the servers I run myself, I go even further: I de-federate. No warnings. It’s clean, simple, and fast.
Where I misjudged things—and I see this clearly now—was in thinking that private messages would actually reduce conflict. They don’t. If someone shows signs of being toxic, or openly supports toxic behaviour, it’s best to take them at their word. A conversation in that situation won’t lead anywhere productive.
So yes, messaging turned out to be a big waste of time. The real takeaway for me is simple: own the space, set clear expectations, and act quickly when problems arise.
I think the issue was banning for giving votes you didn’t agree with, not with sending the DMs. I’ve sent DMs instead of doing admin actions before, just to open a dialogue, or to give people a chance to push back or explain before I take some kind of action, and that part seems fine. I can’t even really articulate why it was that this rubbed people so badly the wrong way, but I think sending the DMs and getting in an extended back and forth did somehow make it worse. Definitely doubling down and banning people (and also DMing them) because their reaction and vote on it wasn’t the “correct” and permitted one according to you made it worse.
People can vote. People can react. Setting yourself up as this lord and arbiter of what’s right and wrong is always going to make a backlash. If it was me, I would have made a public reply instead of a DM so that other people can weigh in, I would have framed it in terms of “what I allow here” and made sure to clarify the rules on the sidebar instead of framing your point of view as the one that’s objectively the right one (which you’re still doing here, when you describe calling someone “bro” as “toxic” instead of saying that you personally think it’s rude and don’t allow it). And then if they still don’t agree, you’re still within your rights to just say yes okay fine but that’s the rules, sorry, and ban them (and then move on yes).
I still think you would have gotten backlash, but framing it in that way would have at least shown you have some awareness that these categories and judgements are just your categories and judgements, and regardless of what the Lemmy software’s mod controls have led you to believe, other people are allowed to have their own that are different from yours. If you’d done that I don’t think it would have really developed to anything, there might have been one YPTB post about it at worst and then people would have shrugged and moved on with their day.
I’ll say this again: the DM wasn’t about a single vote. It was about endorsing toxic behaviour.
Now, about this word “bro.” On the surface, it comes across as casual, even friendly. But in practice, “bro” tends to be shorthand for a culture that excuses arrogance, entitlement, and pack mentality under the banner of camaraderie.
A “bro” is the person who laughs at cruelty because it’s entertaining. The one who treats someone else’s discomfort as sport. The one who believes inside jokes and mockery outweigh basic respect. That isn’t just harmless slang—it’s a posture that normalizes being inconsiderate.
So when people lean on the word “bro,” they’re not just using a throwaway expression. They’re reinforcing a culture built on lowest-common-denominator bonding, where aggression is rewarded, harm is brushed off, and civility is treated like weakness. That’s not a culture I want to foster in spaces I’m responsible for.
Now, you may disagree, and that’s fair. But this is my interpretation. And when everyone doubled down on “bro”—using it in the exact way I find problematic—it only confirmed for me that they were subscribing to bro culture. I don’t do bro, bruh, brah, or dudebro for good reason.
What struck me is that nobody asked why. They just assumed it was a quirk. But to me, it’s not a quirk—it’s a principle. Maybe these are simply my categories and judgements, but I believe the world genuinely needs fewer bros. Fewer Andrew Tates. Fewer Donald Trumps.
Yes, this is one of my lines in the sand. And the fact that so many people on Lemmy seem comfortable embracing “bro” as an identity—that, to me, is a real problem.
No, no—moderators aren’t all-powerful. They do important work, but they also have very real limits.
Administrators, on the other hand, carry much greater authority.
And just because someone doesn’t get along with another person doesn’t mean they’re automatically entitled to that person’s spaces. What I find appealing about the Fediverse is precisely that ability to manage the whole stack myself—without waiting on a distant company like Meta or X to make those decisions for me.
Of course, I could be banned for saying this. But since this thread is about me, and about my upcoming plans, I think it’s only fair that I share them openly.
So, in absence of disagreements & conflicts (bcs insta ban/defederation), and building your own community, isn’t that a bit like that the lines of Trump (well, generally politicians to various degrees) or CEOs do?
Bcs with that (in those cases being surrounded by “yes-men”) reaching other specific goals is easier/faster.
I think I’m starting to understand where & how you are going with this, but perhaps not why. CEOs don’t have ‘a nice community’ as a goal, they have their agenda and timelines/mandates. Their ‘communities’ are purpose-built (“moderated”).
What “use” (~overall benefit?) is a highly selected federated community?
It’s a genuine question about endgame, how it would look like.
Trump runs a Mastodon fork—Truth Social—that’s cut off from the broader Fediverse. That’s the textbook example of building a walled garden surrounded by yes-men.
What I’m doing is the opposite. I will be federating. The difference is that I’ll only connect with servers that are well-maintained, responsibly moderated, and respectful in how they interact.
The key is, I don’t control those remote servers. I can’t dictate their policies, their culture, or their moderation. I only control mine. That’s the entire point of federation—each admin curates their own space, and people decide which servers they want to call home.
So users already have choice. Anyone who doesn’t like my standards can join another server with open registrations or spin up their own. That’s not authoritarian. That’s freedom of association.
A selective federated community matters because it resists the flattening effect of mass culture. Big, open servers always drift into lowest-common-denominator populism—outrage cycles dominate, noise overwhelms signal, and actual discussion suffocates. Curation is not about surrounding myself with yes-men. It’s about creating an environment where real conversation can thrive without being hijacked by mob dynamics.
The irony is that pretending hierarchical software is flat and universal—that it magically represents “the people”—is closer to the politician/CEO move. That’s the populist trick. At least I’m upfront about the structure and honest about what I’m doing with it.
The endgame isn’t control for its own sake. It’s sustainability—a space I’m willing to take responsibility for, that won’t collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.
It seems like you want yo choose how you are seen and have a eorld that includes others but has no room for them to take any agency. You’re big on concept that things are owned.
I believe my work should remain my own, and I should have the freedom to choose who I associate with. The only way to guarantee that—both practically and legally—is by covering the cost of the server myself.
And you absolutely have your own agency as well. It just means you may need to exercise it in a space that’s a better fit for you.
Im not saying you need to associate with anyone in particular, im saying you might be saying that to paper over some seriously fucked/unhealthy attitudes towards what people are amd what you want from them. They’re not toys. You can curate, but even the closest collaborators will have differences that need resolving. Saying that rwsolution must always fit uour exact vision if even a small part of the world is pretty fuvked up.
I don’t agree with the idea that everyone is automatically entitled to my server. For me, running a server is about configuring and curating a space I’m prepared to take responsibility for.
The Fediverse gives that same freedom to everyone. If someone doesn’t like how a server is managed, they can join another or create their own. That’s the strength of the model—real choice.
So when I talk about “control,” I’m talking about shaping my own space, not laying claim to anyone else’s.
Federation is two way, while a blog tends to be one way.
Mastodon does not segment according to interest other than hashtags. Hashtags are non-moderated and can be abused with spam.
I have no problem with people commenting or contributing provided they are good people. Hell, I’ll even host them. Provided, of course, they understand the limitations of that hosting.
But that goes back to what I said previously. There’s freedom of association, and the Fediverse gives that. There’s lots of options. You don’t have to interact with me, nor I with you.
That stance becomes problematic when a community really grows & becomes more than the sum is it’s parts.
(I mean at bigger sizes than a few thousand active users.)
It’s a complex issue, but at some point “your” infrastructure becomes a community that itself should* be respected.
(*should isn’t the same as needs to, but I think that morally)
I appreciate that you’re raising this in good faith because it is a complex issue. But I see real problems with the idea that infrastructure becomes morally owned by the community once it gets big enough.
Unless that community is actually paying the bills, this so-called moral obligation just shifts the burden onto the one footing the costs. That doesn’t strike me as moral at all.
And online communities are transient by nature. People show up, feel invested for a while, then disappear. To act as if their fleeting sense of ownership creates a lasting obligation on the admin is unrealistic.
There’s also what Ortega y Gasset warned about in The Revolt of the Masses. When something is said to be “owned by the community,” it rarely means real stewardship. It means the mass asserts itself and the loudest voices dictate terms. That isn’t democracy. It’s populism built on top of a hierarchy.
Because if the software itself is hierarchical but claims to be “for the masses,” that isn’t democracy either. It’s a pyramid structure dressed up in populist rhetoric. The admin still has the keys. The mods still enforce. The users still depend on both.
That’s why I insist on my own server. I’d rather be upfront: I curate and maintain a space I’m willing to take responsibility for. That’s not authoritarian and it’s not populist. It’s just owning what I host instead of pretending the power structure doesn’t exist.
Yeah, the bit where the owner of infrastructure ‘owns’ the community feels super weird (bcs community are the people & what they produce, the space is the infrastructure).
But I understand what you are saying.
Yeah, I get why the word “own” makes people uneasy. There’s a sincere belief that communities should belong to the commons—that no one should control the space, that it should be shared, stewarded, collective.
I sympathize with that. I really do.
But that’s not how the software works.
Lemmy isn’t structured like a commons. Neither is Mastodon. Neither is most federated software. These platforms still rely on admins, moderators, and users. There are hierarchies, permissions, access levels. Someone has root. Someone pays the bills. Someone can click “ban.”
If you’re building a community on someone else’s server, you are doing so inside their infrastructure. And under the law, they are the legal operator and data controller. That gives them full authority—technical and legal—over the domain, the storage, the moderation tools, and the continued existence of what you built.
So yes—everything you post on Reddit, Facebook, or Twitter lives behind walls. Even if you retain copyright, you’ve handed over a perpetual license to do whatever they want with it. They own the platform. They control the archive. You’re not publishing. You’re donating.
The Fediverse is better—but let’s not pretend it’s structurally different. If you build something inside someone else’s instance, they own the keys. If they kick you out, it’s gone. That’s not a glitch. That’s the model.
If you truly want a commons—a system with no admins, no mods, no hierarchy—you need to build software that works that way. But that’s not Lemmy. Not Mastodon. Not Misskey. Not PeerTube.
In this system, the only real recourse is to run your own server. That’s where your power begins. That’s where your autonomy lives.
And that’s why I say: I want to own my community.
Because if I don’t, someone else will. And I’ve seen what happens when they do.
I get where we are, but I think there is a lot of nuance about this - between a policed community and a totally anarchist one (where everyone is the police). The later you prob see as that instantly & whims of the masses guided by populism.
A bit like irl in a public square. It def depends on the state laws & enforcement (sever & community mods), and the people who frequent the square (“association”?), but most of behaviour is provided by the people. What they talk and agree is theirs.
I get that server owners “are paying” (that’s why I believe such communities/instances should be powered by donations, I think my previous home lemm.ee was), but they don’t create content. And curating content (beyond a fixed set of rules everyone has access to upfront) by curating users is a bit like playing with AI (add a bit of this, ups a bit too much of that, etc).
That’s why folk believe (I think rightfully) even a community on Reddit or Twatter is the users, not the mods. Like, you can adopt someone, house then, even ban disown, yet you don’t own them & their work isn’t yours. You do it bcs you want that in your life or want that for others.
I get what you’re saying, and I even sympathize with it. I would love a true public square owned by the commons—something where people’s conversations aren’t at the mercy of whoever happens to run the machine.
But that’s not how Lemmy, Mastodon, Misskey, or any of the current platforms work. These systems are hierarchical by design. They require admins, they require mods, and everyone else becomes “users.” That’s not a public square, that’s tenancy.
Even donations don’t change that. If the admin holds the keys, they hold the power. Look at lemm.ee—did the community there want to be wiped out overnight? Of course not. But the admin pulled the plug, and that was the end of it. That’s the architecture working as designed.
If we really want a public square, then we have to stop talking about “users.” There should only be peers. And that means each person owning their own node, not donating their content to someone else’s server and hoping they’ll be benevolent forever.
That’s the uncomfortable truth: until the design itself changes, we don’t have commons. We have hierarchies dressed up in populist rhetoric, and every user is just one admin’s decision away from disappearing.
I feel like you are arguing two extremes and nothing in between.
I’m arguing a community is possible within a prison population. And these communities are moderated yet still not owned by the prison (even if the prisoners might be, or even get executed, or punished, isolated, removed, etc).
I don’t know who is saying social networks aren’t hieratical in nature or where that idea would come from.
Or what is wrong with that. Only in a perfect anarchy would peers moderate themselves. And most folk aren’t anarchists (in the sense they don’t want to police their peers or actively contribute to values & their upkeep & evolution).
On one side you’ve got pure authoritarianism—admins as unchecked rulers. On the other side you’ve got utopian anarchy—peers moderating themselves with no hierarchy. I’m not in either camp.
What I’m pointing out is the middle: these platforms are hierarchical by design. That means admins do hold systemic power, but it also means admins have responsibility for how that power is exercised. My stance is simply to acknowledge that reality instead of pretending hierarchy doesn’t exist.
Selective federation is part of that. It’s not about isolation or domination—it’s about setting clear boundaries for what I’m willing to host and connect with, while still participating in the broader network. Users still have choices. They can join another server or start their own. That’s federation working as intended.
So this isn’t an extreme position. It’s the pragmatic one: take responsibility for the space you run, be upfront about the structure, and don’t pretend current software is something it isn’t.
![[Update] AtomicPoet has deleted the piefed.social communities where he was the sole moderator (!movies@piefed.social being the exception). Content is still available, details in the linked post](https://lazysoci.al/pictrs/image/cb7c5a29-e297-41a8-bde5-698ba205c3fd.png){kind=link}
Okay, but here’s the thing: you’re not entitled to every community that exists. People can decide for themselves who they want to associate with. And if an admin is the one footing the bill for the infrastructure, their word is final on who gets through the door.
If you don’t want mods or admins overruling you, then you need to run your own server. That’s the price of control. I already do this with two Fediverse servers, and I fully intend to do the same with a federated forum server.
I am starting to feel sincerely like it would be a good idea for YPTB to adopt a new rule: If you come in with the point of view “THE MODS ARE GODS THEIR DECISIONS MAY NOT BE QUESTIONED”, they get banned instantly, with a short reply from the moderator saying “Can do! My decisions may not be questioned.”
(Temp banned obviously. I’m not a monster.)
Obviously the admins can do what they want with their server, and mods likewise within their communities. What we’re set up to discuss in this community is whether or not they’ve used that control – which they’re obviously able to wield – in a manner that makes them a twatrocket.
There’s a whole philosophy of cooperative endeavor involved here. I just recently got a temp ban that was 100% justified, I’m fine with that. Lots of mods use their mod powers in a way that’s perfectly reasonable and legitimate, and part of a healthy society is that people in whom is vested some level of control over the surroundings, we can talk about whether they’re being reasonable with it. Almost everyone is, and sometimes there are reasonable discussions to be had about if they unintentionally stepped over a line or offended someone or something. This whole model where it’s little warring fiefdoms, and I’m going to be a screaming unrestrained dickhead if I want to when you’re in my fiefdom and if you don’t like it, go somewhere else, is one that people are able to adopt. I don’t think it is a good one. I feel like ignoring the feedback you get, if you do decide that’s your MO, is going to lead to a bad engagement with the rest of the community and a lack of success for your new instance. It’s a give and take, people can talk, sometimes when people are telling you you’re out of line, they’re just kind of looking out for you and letting you know they take offense and probably others do too, you know?
I’ll respond to your edit directly.
My biggest concern isn’t the “general” Lemmy community—I’m focused on building my community. If a group of people on some distant server decide they don’t like me, that’s perfectly fine. I’m not there to serve them.
But if that dislike turns into dogpiling or harassment—as I’ve already experienced—I’ll use the tools available: blocking, banning, and defederation. Once my server is live, those are exactly the measures I’ll rely on.
And yes, I know this approach may feel at odds with the broader Lemmy culture. But Lemmy itself is still quite small—around 36,000 users. That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the wider Fediverse, and practically invisible next to social media as a whole.
That’s why I’m confident I can create something federated that doesn’t have to follow Lemmy’s norms or culture.
Yeah, I get that. And you’re right, you can do whatever you want including deciding “this community is all just wrong and I’m going to make something right,” and that’s the nice thing about user-hosted networks like this. And I’ve certainly come down on the side of “the Lemmy community can get lost because the majority is wrong on whatever issue we’re talking about” in the past.
Personally in my judgement I don’t really see it as harassment in this case, I just see people disagreeing strongly with your actions and then getting snarky or insulting about it as people are wont to do – like I said, the only thing I really know about you is that you started banning people for downvotes and “bro” both of which seem ridiculous to me. (And also a tactical error, since rightly or wrongly it’ll invite a kind of dogpiling publicity which I don’t think you want.) But yeah, everyone has the ability to draw their own distinction and follow through on their own server / own community based on you being right and everyone else being wrong versus the other way around.
Well, I can only tell you what actually happened: dogpiling and harassment did occur. I had to lock down !fediversenews, and even after that, people followed me into other communities I moderated to continue harassing me.
At that point, the intention behind the original post matters less than the outcome. If the purpose of a community is to amplify outrage, it’s not surprising when some people inevitably take it too far.
Well but like I say, I think you made kind of a tactical error if you don’t want stuff like that to happen. I have plenty of times seen a mod ban for some reason that almost everyone disagrees with. I have never seen a mod snoop on the upvotes for the banned comment and also attempt to ban people from expressing their approval for the banned content, and then send every one of them a snotty DM about it. I think that’s very obviously an overreach, and there is sort of a societal immune system that automatically wants to backlash against that kind of thing by marking the person who did it as “enemy” and making sure they hear about it that that behavior is unwanted. And of course the internet being what it is, sometimes that backlash takes on a life of its own and turns into something incredibly toxic and unwarranted. I think though that this idea that you’ll set yourself apart from that kind of thing ever happening to you, because you can just run your own server and control everything about how people interact with you, is just a non starter. I think reexamining your own behavior is a lot more positive way to approach making sure you won’t get harassed as much in the future.
IDK man, maybe I’m wrong or I missed finding out about some important details of how it happened. And for all I know some people did harass you in some out-of-pocket way. I’m just saying how I see it, that’s all.
You know, I only tried the private message approach because someone suggested it was the best way to de-escalate. Before that, I would simply ban—no conversation, no debate.
On the servers I run myself, I go even further: I de-federate. No warnings. It’s clean, simple, and fast.
Where I misjudged things—and I see this clearly now—was in thinking that private messages would actually reduce conflict. They don’t. If someone shows signs of being toxic, or openly supports toxic behaviour, it’s best to take them at their word. A conversation in that situation won’t lead anywhere productive.
So yes, messaging turned out to be a big waste of time. The real takeaway for me is simple: own the space, set clear expectations, and act quickly when problems arise.
I think the issue was banning for giving votes you didn’t agree with, not with sending the DMs. I’ve sent DMs instead of doing admin actions before, just to open a dialogue, or to give people a chance to push back or explain before I take some kind of action, and that part seems fine. I can’t even really articulate why it was that this rubbed people so badly the wrong way, but I think sending the DMs and getting in an extended back and forth did somehow make it worse. Definitely doubling down and banning people (and also DMing them) because their reaction and vote on it wasn’t the “correct” and permitted one according to you made it worse.
People can vote. People can react. Setting yourself up as this lord and arbiter of what’s right and wrong is always going to make a backlash. If it was me, I would have made a public reply instead of a DM so that other people can weigh in, I would have framed it in terms of “what I allow here” and made sure to clarify the rules on the sidebar instead of framing your point of view as the one that’s objectively the right one (which you’re still doing here, when you describe calling someone “bro” as “toxic” instead of saying that you personally think it’s rude and don’t allow it). And then if they still don’t agree, you’re still within your rights to just say yes okay fine but that’s the rules, sorry, and ban them (and then move on yes).
I still think you would have gotten backlash, but framing it in that way would have at least shown you have some awareness that these categories and judgements are just your categories and judgements, and regardless of what the Lemmy software’s mod controls have led you to believe, other people are allowed to have their own that are different from yours. If you’d done that I don’t think it would have really developed to anything, there might have been one YPTB post about it at worst and then people would have shrugged and moved on with their day.
I’ll say this again: the DM wasn’t about a single vote. It was about endorsing toxic behaviour.
Now, about this word “bro.” On the surface, it comes across as casual, even friendly. But in practice, “bro” tends to be shorthand for a culture that excuses arrogance, entitlement, and pack mentality under the banner of camaraderie.
A “bro” is the person who laughs at cruelty because it’s entertaining. The one who treats someone else’s discomfort as sport. The one who believes inside jokes and mockery outweigh basic respect. That isn’t just harmless slang—it’s a posture that normalizes being inconsiderate.
So when people lean on the word “bro,” they’re not just using a throwaway expression. They’re reinforcing a culture built on lowest-common-denominator bonding, where aggression is rewarded, harm is brushed off, and civility is treated like weakness. That’s not a culture I want to foster in spaces I’m responsible for.
Now, you may disagree, and that’s fair. But this is my interpretation. And when everyone doubled down on “bro”—using it in the exact way I find problematic—it only confirmed for me that they were subscribing to bro culture. I don’t do bro, bruh, brah, or dudebro for good reason.
What struck me is that nobody asked why. They just assumed it was a quirk. But to me, it’s not a quirk—it’s a principle. Maybe these are simply my categories and judgements, but I believe the world genuinely needs fewer bros. Fewer Andrew Tates. Fewer Donald Trumps.
Yes, this is one of my lines in the sand. And the fact that so many people on Lemmy seem comfortable embracing “bro” as an identity—that, to me, is a real problem.
No, no—moderators aren’t all-powerful. They do important work, but they also have very real limits.
Administrators, on the other hand, carry much greater authority.
And just because someone doesn’t get along with another person doesn’t mean they’re automatically entitled to that person’s spaces. What I find appealing about the Fediverse is precisely that ability to manage the whole stack myself—without waiting on a distant company like Meta or X to make those decisions for me.
Of course, I could be banned for saying this. But since this thread is about me, and about my upcoming plans, I think it’s only fair that I share them openly.
TIL using a colloquialism is the same thing as not getting along.
You and I disagree on whether it’s just a harmless colloquialism.
I don’t like bro-talk. Because bro-talk feeds bro culture—and bro culture is something I want no part of.
And according to you that disagreement also means we don’t get along. Because otherwise you wouldn’t be banning people for saying bro, bro.
You would be correct.
So, in absence of disagreements & conflicts (bcs insta ban/defederation), and building your own community, isn’t that a bit like that the lines of Trump (well, generally politicians to various degrees) or CEOs do?
Bcs with that (in those cases being surrounded by “yes-men”) reaching other specific goals is easier/faster.
I think I’m starting to understand where & how you are going with this, but perhaps not why. CEOs don’t have ‘a nice community’ as a goal, they have their agenda and timelines/mandates. Their ‘communities’ are purpose-built (“moderated”).
What “use” (~overall benefit?) is a highly selected federated community?
It’s a genuine question about endgame, how it would look like.
The Trump comparison actually cuts the other way.
Trump runs a Mastodon fork—Truth Social—that’s cut off from the broader Fediverse. That’s the textbook example of building a walled garden surrounded by yes-men.
What I’m doing is the opposite. I will be federating. The difference is that I’ll only connect with servers that are well-maintained, responsibly moderated, and respectful in how they interact.
The key is, I don’t control those remote servers. I can’t dictate their policies, their culture, or their moderation. I only control mine. That’s the entire point of federation—each admin curates their own space, and people decide which servers they want to call home.
So users already have choice. Anyone who doesn’t like my standards can join another server with open registrations or spin up their own. That’s not authoritarian. That’s freedom of association.
A selective federated community matters because it resists the flattening effect of mass culture. Big, open servers always drift into lowest-common-denominator populism—outrage cycles dominate, noise overwhelms signal, and actual discussion suffocates. Curation is not about surrounding myself with yes-men. It’s about creating an environment where real conversation can thrive without being hijacked by mob dynamics.
The irony is that pretending hierarchical software is flat and universal—that it magically represents “the people”—is closer to the politician/CEO move. That’s the populist trick. At least I’m upfront about the structure and honest about what I’m doing with it.
The endgame isn’t control for its own sake. It’s sustainability—a space I’m willing to take responsibility for, that won’t collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.
Ah, so…
It seems like you want yo choose how you are seen and have a eorld that includes others but has no room for them to take any agency. You’re big on concept that things are owned.
I believe my work should remain my own, and I should have the freedom to choose who I associate with. The only way to guarantee that—both practically and legally—is by covering the cost of the server myself.
And you absolutely have your own agency as well. It just means you may need to exercise it in a space that’s a better fit for you.
Im not saying you need to associate with anyone in particular, im saying you might be saying that to paper over some seriously fucked/unhealthy attitudes towards what people are amd what you want from them. They’re not toys. You can curate, but even the closest collaborators will have differences that need resolving. Saying that rwsolution must always fit uour exact vision if even a small part of the world is pretty fuvked up.
Generally speaking, I get along with people just fine. But I also believe you need to have principles. Without them, what do you really stand for?
What does standing for anything have to do with this?
I’m not entitled to or interested in a community you run, but this is really cringe and implies a lot of really awful shit about you.
You get how that looks, right? Wanting ‘total control’ of a community?
I don’t agree with the idea that everyone is automatically entitled to my server. For me, running a server is about configuring and curating a space I’m prepared to take responsibility for.
The Fediverse gives that same freedom to everyone. If someone doesn’t like how a server is managed, they can join another or create their own. That’s the strength of the model—real choice.
So when I talk about “control,” I’m talking about shaping my own space, not laying claim to anyone else’s.
How’s that different from having your personal site or blog? Because that sounds like what you want, instead of a fediverse instance
Federation is two way, while a blog tends to be one way.
Mastodon does not segment according to interest other than hashtags. Hashtags are non-moderated and can be abused with spam.
I have no problem with people commenting or contributing provided they are good people. Hell, I’ll even host them. Provided, of course, they understand the limitations of that hosting.
If I had my way, everyone would be self-hosting.
But if the space includes people, this stops being so simple.
Sure, because people are complex.
But that goes back to what I said previously. There’s freedom of association, and the Fediverse gives that. There’s lots of options. You don’t have to interact with me, nor I with you.
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that if I’m reading this right; the way you’re trying to use it is potentially pathological toxic and doomed.
That stance becomes problematic when a community really grows & becomes more than the sum is it’s parts.
(I mean at bigger sizes than a few thousand active users.)
It’s a complex issue, but at some point “your” infrastructure becomes a community that itself should* be respected.
(*should isn’t the same as needs to, but I think that morally)
I appreciate that you’re raising this in good faith because it is a complex issue. But I see real problems with the idea that infrastructure becomes morally owned by the community once it gets big enough.
Unless that community is actually paying the bills, this so-called moral obligation just shifts the burden onto the one footing the costs. That doesn’t strike me as moral at all.
And online communities are transient by nature. People show up, feel invested for a while, then disappear. To act as if their fleeting sense of ownership creates a lasting obligation on the admin is unrealistic.
There’s also what Ortega y Gasset warned about in The Revolt of the Masses. When something is said to be “owned by the community,” it rarely means real stewardship. It means the mass asserts itself and the loudest voices dictate terms. That isn’t democracy. It’s populism built on top of a hierarchy.
Because if the software itself is hierarchical but claims to be “for the masses,” that isn’t democracy either. It’s a pyramid structure dressed up in populist rhetoric. The admin still has the keys. The mods still enforce. The users still depend on both.
That’s why I insist on my own server. I’d rather be upfront: I curate and maintain a space I’m willing to take responsibility for. That’s not authoritarian and it’s not populist. It’s just owning what I host instead of pretending the power structure doesn’t exist.
Yeah, the bit where the owner of infrastructure ‘owns’ the community feels super weird (bcs community are the people & what they produce, the space is the infrastructure).
But I understand what you are saying.
Thx for the reply.
Yeah, I get why the word “own” makes people uneasy. There’s a sincere belief that communities should belong to the commons—that no one should control the space, that it should be shared, stewarded, collective.
I sympathize with that. I really do.
But that’s not how the software works.
Lemmy isn’t structured like a commons. Neither is Mastodon. Neither is most federated software. These platforms still rely on admins, moderators, and users. There are hierarchies, permissions, access levels. Someone has root. Someone pays the bills. Someone can click “ban.”
If you’re building a community on someone else’s server, you are doing so inside their infrastructure. And under the law, they are the legal operator and data controller. That gives them full authority—technical and legal—over the domain, the storage, the moderation tools, and the continued existence of what you built.
So yes—everything you post on Reddit, Facebook, or Twitter lives behind walls. Even if you retain copyright, you’ve handed over a perpetual license to do whatever they want with it. They own the platform. They control the archive. You’re not publishing. You’re donating.
The Fediverse is better—but let’s not pretend it’s structurally different. If you build something inside someone else’s instance, they own the keys. If they kick you out, it’s gone. That’s not a glitch. That’s the model.
If you truly want a commons—a system with no admins, no mods, no hierarchy—you need to build software that works that way. But that’s not Lemmy. Not Mastodon. Not Misskey. Not PeerTube.
In this system, the only real recourse is to run your own server. That’s where your power begins. That’s where your autonomy lives.
And that’s why I say: I want to own my community.
Because if I don’t, someone else will. And I’ve seen what happens when they do.
I get where we are, but I think there is a lot of nuance about this - between a policed community and a totally anarchist one (where everyone is the police). The later you prob see as that instantly & whims of the masses guided by populism.
A bit like irl in a public square. It def depends on the state laws & enforcement (sever & community mods), and the people who frequent the square (“association”?), but most of behaviour is provided by the people. What they talk and agree is theirs.
I get that server owners “are paying” (that’s why I believe such communities/instances should be powered by donations, I think my previous home lemm.ee was), but they don’t create content. And curating content (beyond a fixed set of rules everyone has access to upfront) by curating users is a bit like playing with AI (add a bit of this, ups a bit too much of that, etc).
That’s why folk believe (I think rightfully) even a community on Reddit or Twatter is the users, not the mods. Like, you can adopt someone, house then, even
bandisown, yet you don’t own them & their work isn’t yours. You do it bcs you want that in your life or want that for others.I get what you’re saying, and I even sympathize with it. I would love a true public square owned by the commons—something where people’s conversations aren’t at the mercy of whoever happens to run the machine.
But that’s not how Lemmy, Mastodon, Misskey, or any of the current platforms work. These systems are hierarchical by design. They require admins, they require mods, and everyone else becomes “users.” That’s not a public square, that’s tenancy.
Even donations don’t change that. If the admin holds the keys, they hold the power. Look at lemm.ee—did the community there want to be wiped out overnight? Of course not. But the admin pulled the plug, and that was the end of it. That’s the architecture working as designed.
If we really want a public square, then we have to stop talking about “users.” There should only be peers. And that means each person owning their own node, not donating their content to someone else’s server and hoping they’ll be benevolent forever.
That’s the uncomfortable truth: until the design itself changes, we don’t have commons. We have hierarchies dressed up in populist rhetoric, and every user is just one admin’s decision away from disappearing.
I feel like you are arguing two extremes and nothing in between.
I’m arguing a community is possible within a prison population. And these communities are moderated yet still not owned by the prison (even if the prisoners might be, or even get executed, or punished, isolated, removed, etc).
I don’t know who is saying social networks aren’t hieratical in nature or where that idea would come from.
Or what is wrong with that. Only in a perfect anarchy would peers moderate themselves. And most folk aren’t anarchists (in the sense they don’t want to police their peers or actively contribute to values & their upkeep & evolution).
I’m not arguing for extremes at all.
On one side you’ve got pure authoritarianism—admins as unchecked rulers. On the other side you’ve got utopian anarchy—peers moderating themselves with no hierarchy. I’m not in either camp.
What I’m pointing out is the middle: these platforms are hierarchical by design. That means admins do hold systemic power, but it also means admins have responsibility for how that power is exercised. My stance is simply to acknowledge that reality instead of pretending hierarchy doesn’t exist.
Selective federation is part of that. It’s not about isolation or domination—it’s about setting clear boundaries for what I’m willing to host and connect with, while still participating in the broader network. Users still have choices. They can join another server or start their own. That’s federation working as intended.
So this isn’t an extreme position. It’s the pragmatic one: take responsibility for the space you run, be upfront about the structure, and don’t pretend current software is something it isn’t.