cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/400702

I strongly encourage instance admins to defederate from Facebook/Threads/Meta.

They aren't some new, bright-eyed group with no track record. They're a borderline Machiavellian megacorporation with a long and continuing history of extremely hostile actions:

• Helping enhance genocides in countries
• Openly and willingly taking part in political manipulation (see Cambridge Analytica)
• Actively have campaigned against net neutrality and attempted to make "facebook" most of the internet for members of countries with weaker internet infra - directly contributing to their amplification of genocide (see the genocide link for info)
• Using their users as non-consenting subjects to psychological experiments.
• Absolutely ludicrous invasions of privacy - even if they aren't able to do this directly to the Fediverse, it illustrates their attitude.
• Even now, they're on-record of attempting to get instance admins to do backdoor discussions and sign NDAs.

Yes, I know one of the Mastodon folks have said they're not worried. Frankly, I think they're being laughably naive >.<. Facebook/Meta - and Instagram's CEO - might say pretty words - but words are cheap and from a known-hostile entity like Meta/Facebook they are almost certainly just a manipulation strategy.

In my view, they should be discarded as entirely irrelevant, or viewed as deliberate lies, given their continued atrocious behaviour and open manipulation of vast swathes of the population.

Facebook have large amounts of experience on how to attack and astroturf social media communities - hell I would be very unsurprised if they are already doing it, but it's difficult to say without solid evidence ^.^

Why should we believe anything they say, ever? Why should we believe they aren't just trying to destroy a competitor before it gets going properly, or worse, turn it into yet another arm of their sprawling network of services, via Embrace, Extend, Extinguish - or perhaps Embrace, Extend, Consume would be a better term in this case?

When will we ever learn that openly-manipulative, openly-assimilationist corporations need to be shoved out before they can gain any foothold and subsume our network and relegate it to the annals of history?

I've seen plenty of arguments claiming that it's "anti-open-source" to defederate, or that it means we aren't "resilient", which is wrong ^.^:

• Open source isn't about blindly trusting every organisation that participates in a network, especially not one which is known-hostile. Threads can start their own ActivityPub network if they really want or implement the protocol for themselves. It doesn't mean we lose the right to kick them out of most - or all - of our instances ^.^.
• Defederation is part of how the fediverse is resilient. It is the immune system of the network against hostile actors (it can be used in other ways, too, of course). Facebook, I think, is a textbook example of a hostile actor, and has such an unimaginably bad record that anything they say should be treated as a form of manipulation.

Something strange is going on, I don't see this user

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/1143350

Why YSK: I've seen several commenters asking if there were specific bots such as RemindMe

However, there are so many bots already on mastodon that will federate with us! Check out botsin.space, a masto-instance specifically made for hosting bots

Just tag @[email protected] and say the time after (I recommend you not do it on this post unless you have an actual reason though as it could spam their servers)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.intai.tech/post/47084

This is what I have so far for links

Fediverse New User Orientation

Reddit Migration

Here from reddit? Find your new home.

• Reddit migration
• sub.rehab
• Unoffical Subreddit Migration List
• Reddit Megathread

Fediverse

The "network" of instances that uses ActivityPub

• fediverse.info
• A 5-min Tour of the Fediverse
• Fediverse App List
• Fediverse Observer
• Fedi DB
• to the Fediverse

Lemmy

The Reddit-like federated forum app that runs on ActivityPub within the Fediverse

• Lemmy Intro
• Guide to finding Lemmy Communities
• Lemmymap
• Lemmyverse Explorer
• lemmy the-federation.info
• Lemmy Community Browser
• Lemmy/Fediverse Mod Openings

Instance Lists

Lists of Instances

• Topical Instances
• Awesome Lemmy Instances

Communities

Communities for getting started in the fediverse

• [email protected]
• [email protected]

For instance Admins

Tools and info for admins and admins-to-be

• Lemmy Easy Deploy
• Lemmy ansible playbook
• instance block check

For Devs

Building or contributing?

• awesome-lemmy for devs
• lemmy source

The Fediverse Could be Awesome (If We Don't Screw it Up) any others I should add? Any suggestions for copy/organization? list is maintained here

This is mainly a topical server and I know we haven't hit 1/2 the possible topics. I also respect that people using this as a home server might want a few other communities as well.

Thus far integrated ai has been a highly curated community, who is interested in being moderators or starting thier own communities here?

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/681066

By "here" I mean all of the Fediverse, but more specifically sh.itjust.works; I don't want to cause any bad vibes in my new home instance.

I don't NORMALLY post, and I'm limiting my access to Reddit in favor of Lemmy, but if stealing from the rich is acceptable, I'm happy to occasionally Robin Hood content over; I just prefer my theft to be within prevailing ethical guidelines.

Thanks!

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/414527

I think apps become really relevant in the federated world, as it allows to manage multiple accounts at the same time, in the same place, allowing for quick switching, etc, while simplifying so much workflow (and making server requests lighter too!).

On F-Droid, tho, I see Peertube apps basically being frozen in time. No updates since a long time ago, but Peertube itself keeps getting better and better, so what's up?

Also, don't link NewPipe, I know it allows Peertube videos, but you cannot log in or interact, which is crucial for the survival of the fediverse.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/911114

Hi All,

If anyone still wants to use Reddit Sync there was a post up on the Reddit page for the Revanced patch. In case you might want to stick to Sync till the Lemmy app launches.

Here is the tutorial shared by the creator, u/KobeW50

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wHvqQwCYdJrQg4BKlGIVDLksPN0KpOnJWniT6PbZSrI/preview?pli=1

I tried it and it worked. You can try it on Sync Pro if you have the apk.

I am pasting u/hihowareyou0_0's simple guide.

Go to https://www.reddit.com/prefs/apps Click on "Are you a developer? create an app..." Give it any name. Set it as "installed app." IMPORTANT: Set " redirect uri " to http://redditsync/auth create the app. TAKE NOTE OF THE CLIENT SECRET (the gibberish text and numbers below the Name) Go to any Text editor (I use an app called "just notes") Copy + paste the client secret. (And nothing else.) Save the file and call it " reddit_client_id_revanced.txt " MAKE SURE TO NOT SAVE IT ON ANY Folder, JUST THE INTERNAL STORAGE/ROOT Download (not install) this sync for reddit apk Install & open Revanced Manager Make sure all permissions are enabled (Especially " All files access ") Go to the "settings" tab. Enable "experimental patches support." Restart revanced manager Go to the "Patcher" tab. Click on " Select an application. " Then CLICK ON "Storage" and select the .apk we downloaded. Click on "select a patch." Select " Change Oauth Client ID" (and optionally "disable ads") click on done. Then finally click on "patch." Now wait for it to patch and install the patched apk! If it asks you to update, DON'T. (just a warning)

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/615669

We’re about to enter another Reddit mass migration phase starting tonight. We’ve already attracted the users most actively engaged with the protests and Reddit’s changes—users who are driven enough to put in the effort to grow the Fediverse.

Now we need to make it feel like home to casual users and lurkers. Not just attract them for a few visits, but keep it interesting enough that they stay here in the coming weeks/months.

Major kudos to all the developers working day and night to bring us familiar-feeling apps and interfaces on insanely short timelines. But what can the rest of us do to make Kbin and Lemmy feel like home to all the new Reddit refugees? Populate Lemmy and Kbin with as much quality content as you can find!

Over the next few weeks, fill your magazines/communities with as much good the content as you can. Post comments and subscribe to things. Click that upvote button on content or comments you like.

Not sure where to find good content? Ironically, check out your favorite subreddits for ideas. Make sure we have the best of the content you can find on Reddit. See a good article or link? Post it here! Don’t be shy about posting to interactive communities like Ask Lemmy- we’re after volume.

For OC Reddit posts, see if there’s a non-Reddit page to post here. I don’t know whether it’s acceptable to copy text posts, but if you do, make sure you at least give credit/copy a link to the original post.

Basically, do everything you can to engage over the next few weeks and avoid lurking. Show off the Fediverse and welcome the next group of Reddit refugees to their new home.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.nbsp.one/post/1245

A good site that helps me find great alternatives to non-oss that I have grown accustomed to.

Fediverse New User Orientation

Welcome to the Fediverse New User Orientation! If you're just starting out on Fediverse or planning to join in from Reddit, here's a rundown of what you need to know and how to navigate this new space.

What is Fediverse?

The Fediverse is a network made up of diverse platforms, such as Lemmy, Mastodon, PeerTube, and several others, that use a common protocol known as ActivityPub. This allows for seamless interaction between users across these platforms. With Fediverse, you have the freedom to join any instance (server) that caters to your interests, and you can interact with users from other instances as well.

Lemmy

The Reddit-like federated forum app that runs on ActivityPub within the Fediverse

Lemmy is one of the platforms within the Fediverse. It shares quite a bit similarity with Reddit, hence it has been referred to as the "Reddit of the Fediverse." It provides users with the opportunity to create communities (like subreddits). The federated forum app runs on ActivityPub, meaning you can follow, comment, and share posts from different Lemmy servers.

• Lemmy Intro
• Guide to finding Lemmy Communities
• Lemmy Apps Directory
• Lemmymap
• Lemmyverse Explorer
• lemmy the-federation.info
• Lemmy Community Browser
• Lemmy/Fediverse Mod Openings

Reddit Migration

Here from reddit? Find your new home. Lookups and mappings of Reddit subs to Fediverse communities including Lemmy.

• Reddit migration - Maps Reddit subs to their equivalent communities on Lemmy.
• sub.rehab - Another useful tool for finding Fediverse communities similar to Reddit subits.
• Unoffical Subreddit Migration List - A compiled list of subreddits that have been migrated to Lemmy and other Fediverse platforms.
• Reddit Megathread - Keep up with relevant discussions about migrating from Reddit to Fediverse.

Fediverse

The "network" of instances that uses ActivityPub

These guides should provide you with a more detailed look into the Fediverse and how to make the best use of it:

• A 5-min Tour of the Fediverse - A quick look into the basic workings of the Fediverse.
• Fediverse Guide - An in-depth guide exploring the nuances of the Fediverse.
• Fediverse App List - A list of apps that are compatible with the Fediverse, allowing you to get connected and stay connected.

Would you like to know more?

Fediverse

• fediverse.info
• Fediverse Observer
• Fedi DB
• to the Fediverse
• A Resource For Figuring Out The Fediverse

Instance Lists

Lists of Instances

• Topical Instances
• Awesome Lemmy Instances

Communities

Communities for getting started in the fediverse

• [email protected]
• [email protected]

Mastodon

• mastodon-lists

Tools for Communities and Devs

If you're interested in building or contributing to communities in the Fediverse, here are some resources:

For instance Admins

Tools and info for admins and admins-to-be

• Lemmy Easy Deploy
• Lemmy ansible playbook
• instance block check

For Devs

Building or contributing?

• awesome-lemmy for devs
• lemmy source

Remember, the Fediverse is a community-oriented network. Choose your instance wisely, engage with respect, and enjoy the freedom of a decentralized social network.

The Fediverse Could be Awesome (If We Don't Screw it Up)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ninja/post/30893

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ninja/post/30492

Summary

We started a Lemmy instance on June 13 during the Reddit blackout. While we were configuring the site, we accumulated a few thousand bot accounts, leading some sites to defederate with us. Read on to see how we cleaned up the mess.

Introduction

Like many of you, we came to Lemmy during the Great Reddit Blackout. @MrEUser started Lemmy.ninja on the 13th, and the rest of us on the site got to work populating some initial rules and content, learning how Lemmy worked, and finding workarounds for bugs and issues in the software. Unfortunately for us, one of the challenges to getting the site up turned out to be getting the email validation to work. So, assuming we were small and beneath notice, we opened our registration for a few days until we could figure out if the problems we were experiencing were configuration related or software bugs.

In that brief time, we were discovered by malicious actors and hundreds of new bot users were being created on the site. Of course we had no idea, since Lemmy provides no user management features. We couldn't see them, and the bots didn't participate in any of our local content.

Discovering the Bots

Within a couple of days, we discovered some third-party tools that gave us the only insights we had into our user base. Lemmy Explorer and The Federation were showing us that a huge number of users had registered. It took a while, but we eventually tracked down a post that described how to output a list of users from our Lemmy database. Sure enough, there were thousands of users there. It took some investigation, but we were eventually able to see which users were actually registered at lemmy.ninja. There were thousands, just like the third-party tools told us.

Meanwhile...

While we were figuring this out, others in Lemmy had noticed a coordinated bot attack, and some were rightly taking steps to cordon off the sites with bots as they began to interact with federated content. Unfortunately for us, this news never made it to us because our site was still young, and young Lemmy servers don't automatically download all federated content right away. (In fact, despite daily efforts to connect lemmy.ninja to as many communities as possible, I didn't even learn about the lemm.ee mitigation efforts until today.)

We know now that the bots began to interact with other Mastodon and Lemmy instances at some point, because we learned (again, today) that we had been blocked by a few of them. (Again, this required third-party tools to even discover.) At the time, we were completely unaware of the attack, that we had been blocked, or that the bots were doing anything at all.

Cleaning Up

The moment we learned that the bots were in our database, we set out to eliminate them. The first step, of course, was to enable a captcha and activate email validation so that no new bots could sign up. [Note: The captcha feature was eliminated in Lemmy 0.18.0.] Then we had to delete the bot users.

Next we made a backup. Always make a backup! After that, we asked the database to output all the users so we could manually review the data. After logging into the database docker container, we executed the following command:

---

select
  p.name,
  p.display_name,
  a.person_id,
  a.email,
  a.email_verified,
  a.accepted_application
from
  local_user a,
  person p
where
  a.person_id = p.id;

---

That showed us that yes, every user after #8 or so was indeed a bot.

Next, we composed a SQL statement to wipe all the bots.

---

BEGIN;
CREATE TEMP TABLE temp_ids AS
SELECT person_id FROM local_user WHERE person_id > 85347;
DELETE FROM local_user WHERE person_id IN (SELECT person_id FROM temp_ids);
DELETE FROM person WHERE id IN (SELECT person_id FROM temp_ids);
DROP TABLE temp_ids;
COMMIT;

---

And to finalize the change:

---

UPDATE site_aggregates SET users = (SELECT count(*) FROM local_user) WHERE site_id = 1;

---

If you read the code, you'll see that we deleted records whose person_id was > 85347. That's the approach that worked for us. But you could just as easily delete all users who haven't passed email verification, for example. If that's the approach you want to use, try this SQL statement:

---

BEGIN;
CREATE TEMP TABLE temp_ids AS
SELECT person_id FROM local_user WHERE email_verified = 'f';
DELETE FROM local_user WHERE person_id IN (SELECT person_id FROM temp_ids);
DELETE FROM person WHERE id IN (SELECT person_id FROM temp_ids);
DROP TABLE temp_ids;
COMMIT;

---

And to finalize the change:

---

UPDATE site_aggregates SET users = (SELECT count(*) FROM local_user) WHERE site_id = 1;

---

Even more aggressive mods could put these commands into a nightly cron job, wiping accounts every day if they don't finish their registration process. We chose not to do that (yet). Our user count has remained stable with email verification on.

After that, the bots were gone. Third party tools reflected the change in about 12 hours. We did some testing to make sure we hadn't destroyed the site, but found that everything worked flawlessly.

Wrapping Up

We chose to write this up for the rest of the new Lemmy administrators out there who may unwittingly be hosts of bots. Hopefully having all of the details in one place will help speed their discovery and elimination. Feel free to ask questions, but understand that we aren't experts. Hopefully other, more knowledgeable people can respond to your questions in the comments here.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/757680

With all the new clients popping up, is there any interest in the development of a TUI or CLI client for the terminal? I hope so, cause I'd really like the option. Browsing rtv for questions and help was a godsend, it also helped me not get sucked into scrolling.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/746782

https://lemmy.world/c/mod_recruit

[email protected]

Moderator Recruit

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/694314

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/687883

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/687882

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/465785

Android

• Jerboa Official Android client.

  • Currently latest version (v0.0.35) works only with v0.18 Lemmy instances. Download v0.0.34 from Github releases until instances switch to new Lemmy
  • Community: [email protected]
  • Github: link
  • Google play: link

---

• Thunder app

  • Community: [email protected]
  • Github: link

---

• Liftoff

  • Community: [email protected]
  • Github: link

---

• Summit

  • Community [email protected]
  • Google play: link

---

• Connect for Lemmy

  • Community [email protected]
  • Google play: link

---

• Sync for Lemmy (Announced)

  • Community: [email protected]

---

• Lemming

  • Community: [email protected]
  • APK link (Download at your own responsibility, app is closed source, and APK is unverified) link

---

• Artemis (Announced)

  • Community: [email protected]

---

• Lemmy Fennec (No release yet)

  • Github: link

---

• Beyond (No release yet)

  • Community: https://lemmy.world/post/355285

---

• Warami (No release yet)

  • Github: link

---

• Slide for Lemmy (Announced)

  • Community: [email protected]

---

• Lemmur (Abandoned)

  • Github: link

---

---

IOS

• Memmy for IOS

  • Community: [email protected]
  • Github: link
  • Testflight: link

---

• Thunder app

  • Community: [email protected]
  • Github: link
  • Testflight: link

---

• Mlemapp

  • Community: [email protected]
  • Github: link
  • Testflight: link

---

• Liftoff

  • Community: [email protected]
  • Github: link
  • Testflight: link

---

• Artemis (Announced)

  • Community: [email protected]

---

• Cavy (No development?)

  • Github: link

---

• Ares (No release yet)

  • Github: link

---

• Beyond (No release yet)

  • Community: https://lemmy.world/post/355285

---

• Morpha

  • Community: [email protected]
  • Github: link

---

---

Linux

• Lemoa GTK client

  • Github: link

---

• Liftoff

  • Community: [email protected]
  • Github: link

---

• Lemonade GTK4 client

  • Github: link

---

• NeonModem

  • Website: link
  • Github: link

---

---

Windows

• Liftoff

  • Community: [email protected]
  • Github: link

---

MacOS

• Liftoff

  • Community: [email protected]
  • Github: link
  • Testflight: link

---

---

Web based

• Slemmy

  • Github: link
  • Website: https://slemmy.libdb.so/

---

• Wefwef

  • Github: link
  • Website: https://wefwef.app

---

• Createlab

  • Github: link
  • Website: https://createlab.io/

---

• sx-lemmy

  • Github: link
  • Website: https://sx-lemmy.vercel.app/

---

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/692385

Something similar to “wowthissubexists” or “findareddit” to get a curated list rather than just searching.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/214231

So I've noticed while using an RSS feed app alongside Jebora, that while original post from other users of the same instance appear in full and with photos, like so:

However if a user is from another instance, the OP content is not visble at all, as so:

Other than that, RSS works great as a notification system for Communities. Figured id leave this here to help out anyone looking for a notification style system for new posts.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/1549004

I had been feeling a bit drawn in to reddit for the past few months before the divorce. I feel like the slower pace at which content comes out on Lemmy is good for me in that way. I can't just scroll and scroll and scroll my entire day away.

Does anyone else feel similar?

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/434069

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/433151

Just an FYI post for folks who are new or recently returning to Lemmy, I have updated the linked grease/tamper/violentmonkey script for Lemmvy v0.18.

These two scripts (a compact version and a large thumbnail version) substantially rearrange the default Lemmy format.

These are (finally) relatively stable for desktop/widescreen. Future versions will focus a little more on the mobile/handheld experience.

• Greasyfork here: https://greasyfork.org/en/users/1107499-mershed-perderders
• Github here: https://github.com/soundjester/lemmy_monkey
  • If you need the userscript for Lemmy v0.17.4, that can be found here:
    • https://github.com/soundjester/lemmy_monkey/tree/dev-v1.11-Lemmy-v0.17
    • this v0.17.4 userscript is no longer in active development

Screenshot of "Compact" version

main page

-

comments page

As always, feedback is appreciated!