cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/6251633
LemmyWorld is a terrible place for communities to exist. Rationale:
- Lemmy World is centralized by disproportionately high user count
- Lemmy World is centralized by #Cloudflare
- Lemmy World is exclusive because Cloudflare is exclusive
It’s antithetical to the #decentralized #fediverse for one node to be positioned so centrally & revolting that it all happens on the network of a privacy-offender (CF). If #Lemmy World were to go down, a huge number of communities would go with it.
So what’s the solution? My individual action idea is to avoid posting an original thread to #LemmyWorld. I find a non-Cloudflare decentralized instance to post new threads. I create one if needed. Then I cross-post to the relevant Lemmy World community. This gets some exposure to my content while also tipping off readers of the LW community of alternative venues.
Better ideas? Would this work as a collective movement?
Centralized:
Cloudflare Inc is a single US corporation. A tech giant like Google. All CF proxied websites go to Cloudflare’s assets who has centralized visibility on all that traffic. Don’t be fooled by the padlock in your browser. When you login to #lemmyWorld, the tunnel stops not at lemmy world’s host but at Cloudflare’s, where it is decrypted. Cloudflare sees your username and password and everything you do on lemmy world, DMs, etc. When you login to your bank, if it is Cloudflared, CF also sees everything you do on your bank account. If your government’s voter registration office is on Cloudflare, CF sees everything you do there, such as upload your driver’s license. Everything you do on any CF site is seen centrally by CF.
If you visit lemmy*world, lemm*ee, lemmy*ca, lemmy*one, & sh*itjust*works, these are separate Lemmy nodes but they are all Cloudflared so your connection & traffic all goes to the same place and CF sees everything you do on all those sites. All 5 of those sites are configured using the defaults, so you are either blocked on all or a permitted to access all those sites together without variation.
Exclusive:
The individual admins have some blunt controls over who gets access, but lemmy world just uses the defaults so lemmy world simply accepts CF’s decision on who to block, as do most CF sites. I’ve confirmed that lemmy world excludes tor users. And considering it just uses the defaults, it likely blocks people whose ISPs use CGNAT, libraries, and various other shared IPs.
