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Joined 4 months ago
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Cake day: January 26th, 2025

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  • Actually, I think it should be possible to protect the fediverse: Each instance must simply not qualify as a social network. For example, the EU has many regulations which only apply for commercial providers with some minimum revenue or user count. As I understand it, none of these actually apply to small self-hosted servers (e.g. a by a local hackerspace or small friend group) even if they allow for federation.

    To make this really viable, the Fediverse apps need to become better at discovery among many small instances. Currently, my self-hosted instance barely shows me any posts because it only gets updates for the communities I (or a user of my instance) explicitly subscribed to. This splits up the already small userbase so much that I instead use tchncs.de, one of the larger instances in Germany, where many communities are already subscribed by other users.



  • It alienated me.

    Most queer people identify with the label “weird”.

    That’s fair actually. When I first heard it without context, I also felt kind of alienated by it.

    I think you can be weird in good and bad ways, context matters in this case. I think it’s fair to call out fascists for being “weird” in the sense that they are evil, crooked and - crucially - not relatable for the vast majority of voters. The “weird” thing is about the fascists not being “like us” - and thus very instinctively not trustworthy.

    At the same time it’s also possible to be “weird” in an individualistic, relatable and validating way. Most people have insecurities or fears on some level and accepting this “weirdness” can be validating and actually show likeness. I think it’s very clear that Tim Walz didn’t mean it like this.

    He didn’t call them weird out of the blue, but rather to sum up his other points about their unrelatable, evil behaviors. The message was something like: “The fascists are not real, believable people. They don’t seem driven by everyday worries like us. They don’t seem to have the same kind of feelings like us.”

    And I think that is actually exactly the message that wins elections in this political climate. Debating the issues is getting you nowhere if your opponent has no actual beliefs to debate against. Calling them out for being fake people with no actual beliefs is a better strategy.