According to Rimu Atkinson, the main developer of PieFed, all PieFed instances come with a 3000-long block list of resources that cannot be linked to. These include all sorts of right-wing outlets. There is no easy opt-out, forcing existing instances to follow the blocklist.

The flagship PieFed instance also rolled out a feature marking various other sorts of outlets - among them, resources considered AI slop and Marxist outlets. These are specific to piefed.social.

Related discussion: https://piefed.social/comment/11254679

Why YSK: Many users have hard time choosing between Lemmy, PieFed, and Kbin/Mbin. Users that prefer a more curated and politically uniform experience might prefer PieFed over the alternatives. Users that are right-wing, Marxist, or generally concerned about global censorship of the Fedi-/Threadiverse, might opt for other options instead.

Note: The post is only meant to inform users of the potentially important differences between Threadiverse platforms. Any ideologically charged discussions are better left in the respective topic.

  • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
    1·
    1 day ago

    the line that somebody draws for themselves is personal

    Exactly my point. Let it be personal. I don’t understand why you would do this without a toggle and without being clear to users.

    I don’t care that you don’t use Piefed. If you’ve seen it before and didn’t know about it, you’re in the same position as most users. This wasn’t advertised.

    Also, you only said Stormfront or Infowars (now a The Onion site). If it was only extreme right stuff that’d be one thing (still bad if it’s not made clear, in my opinion). It isn’t though. It also includes some less radical right stuff, but also some left stuff. If he’s supporting the status quo by hiding Israel genocide information from users, that’s bad, right?

    It’s a piece of software that should be designed to facilitate what the user wants, not what the creator thinks. It should be made in a way that’s easy for users to add or change the block list. It isn’t. The only option is to fork it, which is possible, so he isn’t stopping this, but purposefully chose to make this not clear so people won’t. It’s an attempt at thought control by being hidden and sneaking it in. If he wanted it to be a choice, again, it’d be a toggle. It is a choice through forking, so he hid it.

    • Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      1·
      18 hours ago

      Exactly my point. Let it be personal. I don’t understand why you would do this without a toggle and without being clear to users.

      Err… what? That wasn’t my point at all, you just took the words and decided to say something totally different. I’m talking about the line one draws in what is seen as obvious, objective or morally responsible. Which is exactly what you then go to totally misconstrue here:

      Also, you only said Stormfront or Infowars (now a The Onion site). If it was only extreme right stuff that’d be one thing (still bad if it’s not made clear, in my opinion). It isn’t though. It also includes some less radical right stuff, but also some left stuff.

      I made no comment on the filter list in this part. I said it as my own opinion on what I see as morally correct, not them. I made the comment as a set-up to the next part of the comment; I would think nothing of filtering those two items out as way of demonstrating that few people would object to them being blacklisted as hateful sites of no useful substance. The entire point was to demonstrate that my moral compass in that regard is less controversial yet ultimately it is the same concept - the developer chose to filter what they likely think is hateful or fake, they just have a different idea of what that covers.

      (And thank you so much for the “UMMM ACKCHULLY” on Infowars. I’m well aware of the situation with it but it was clearly done as a way to pick an obvious website that few would have cared about blocking).

      I don’t care that you don’t use Piefed. If you’ve seen it before and didn’t know about it, you’re in the same position as most users.

      Aww, I’m sorry for offering up information that was entirely relevant to the question that you asked me:

      Were you aware of this before the post? If the answer to those is not very high and/or no, it’s not being forward with what it’s doing

      I know you apparently don’t care about answers to questions you ask but I’ll make it clearer for you - Why would I be aware of the features of a piece of software I don’t use???

      If he’s supporting the status quo by hiding Israel genocide information from users, that’s bad, right?

      Yup. But that’s up to them. Don’t like it? Don’t use it.

      t’s a piece of software that should be designed to facilitate what the user wants, not what the creator thinks.

      Absolutely could not disagree more. You do not get to decide on their behalf what they produce - it is no difference in that sense than creating art, or writing a book or running a website. What the creator puts out is up to them - you don’t like it then you stop using it or you change it. Would allowing more user control over stuff like that be preferable to me? Yes. Would it make it more popular? Probably. Can we or should we force or pressure them? No. It is entirely their choice, you have no right to try force their hand to make it more palatable to your sensibilities. They create it that way because that is what they think is best. You can question that choice, you can hold that choice against them, you can attempt to change their mind, ask to re-think it, object to it, submit your own changes to it with justification, do whatever you want but implying that they have some kind of obligation to anyone but themselves to make them do what you think is best is absurd.

      The only option is to fork it, which is possible, so he isn’t stopping this, but purposefully chose to make this not clear so people won’t. It’s an attempt at thought control by being hidden and sneaking it in.

      Aah yes, genius-level thought manipulation and level 100 sneak achieved by *checks notes* leaving the list in a plain text format in a publicly accessible repository, fully indexed, copied & replicated online &offline and integrated right into the most popular AI models. What a galaxy-brained master of subterfuge.

      It isn’t hard-baked into the code. Instance owners can adjust it as needed in the software they want to run and the community they wish to create. If this is such a moral injustice then I’m sure we are going to see a fork of this with filtering removed and the original one will fade into irrelevance…

      This is such a non-issue blown out of the water as some kind of evil mastermind carefully crafting the media landscape rather than just one person making a thing they like and blocking out the things they think are bad. This literally is freedom of speech and it couldn’t be more free than “don’t like what I’m doing? Go and do it yourself then, here are all the instructions, no strings attached”. Trying to force somebody’s hand because you don’t like what they are doing will only have the effect of driving the developer away entirely.

      There are loads of projects and pieces of software I have seen that are either created by hateful people or people who tolerate bigotry in their community but it is my right to ignore them and pretend they don’t exist. Likely all they are doing is hurting themselves and I can live in hope that it doesn’t work out in the long run. I’m happy to make my distaste for it known and make it clear that i object to it but to say they have some kind of duty to cater to me or anyone else??? No, but hopefully if people get the message, agree and stop using their software or fork it and make their own then that’s a win.