I describe it as a reddit like forum, made from many individual servers strung together. But I suppose that explanation glosses over the whole federation part and could be confusing to less technicly inclined peeps
this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2026
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Antisocial media.
Social news aggregator "like reddit" but without centralized control.
It's a forum. Servers are connected somehow.
Through a series of tubes.
If you don't get the joke: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes?wprov=sfti1
"You know reddit? Its basically reddit, but run by nerds who say its better and then start talking like Doctor Who when they try to explain it. But its basically reddit without so many bots"
"Lemmy is a decentralized internet forum. People host their own "instance" or join someone else's. "
Assuming you're talking to someone who doesn't even use reddit I would spare them any details until they ask.
Social media no one uses
It's open source social media. There's no algorithm. It's a bit like the internet before it became owned by 5 corporations.
I think for tractor folk explaining how it's not like Facebook is probably a good start. If they know what you mean by open source you can tell them more and go into more detail about what federated means, or what instances mean.
Typically you cant really introduce normies to more than one piece of new information at a time. The new piece of information can have three parts, and should. But two of those parts should be in relation to two things they are familiar with.
it's reddit for ultra nerds.
True. I just got here cuz I feel Reddit is being too mainstream these days.
when my suburban conservative suv conformity at all costs is quoting reddit posts to me... yeah it's way too mainstream. 10 years ago she would have seen reddit and dismissed it as a haven for leftwing nutjobs and nerds
You'd have been permanently banned by now.
i was 'perma banned' multiple times. IP bans even, and they kept unbanning me so they could sell me IPO stocks.
It's a joke of a site now. most of my old communities imploded anyway, or got locked down to mod-only approved posting, which meant they became echo chambers of the mods beliefs only.
I hated running into the "hidden" rules for communities by mods. You cant say certain words in certain communities as that would get you shadow-banned (you cant say meshcore in the meshtastic subreddit for instance).
And then reddit giving notices for up-voting certain content it does not want others to see .
They want conversions one way only. And supermods that have hundreds of subreddits under them like its a full time job....
Im glad im here.
I only started catching bans within the past two years. What were you saying that kept getting you into trouble?
Either Reddit got significantly worse, or, my going paranoia: you become the target of political operatives (Zionists, in my case) who mercilessly report anything vaguely actionable until you leave. I just saw the light on Israel a short time before I began catching bans and warnings, but could just be a coincidence.
posting pictures of my cat and being reported for inciting violence. because he was outdoors in the picture and all outdoor cats are murderers
That was a site-wide ban?
You said you got REPEATED bans, though. Does your cat have a Hitler mustache or something?
yep. the anti-outdoor cat people are insane.
All outdoor cats are mass murderers objectively speaking, but a photo of an outdoor cat is not any kind of incitement..
No, they are not. That bullshit is a shitty infographic that distorted results from the actual stud(ies).
But people are idiots and don't read scientific studies, they just let dramatic political cartoonists tell them what to think.
Which studies? Maybe I've just been propagandized by Big Anti-Outdoor Cat?
My personal datapoint is how my yard was completely devoid of bird sounds a year after we moved in with our outdoor cat.
But it’s not “unfederated”, it is federated.
Not that that necessarily matters when you are describing it. That happens to be a feature of the software architecture. Users might not care about that detail so much.
I would just describe it how you would describe Reddit. So then the question becomes how do you describe Reddit? I might call it a link aggregator. People posts links, and then users comment on those links.
Huh yeah i knew that but always used the term unfederated and this is first time im being corrected on it lol
“Federated” or “decentralized”
What do you think federated actually means? Because calling it unfederated makes no sense
Its built in for me to default to hating federations. Lol I understand the federated context, idk why ive just always thought it was unfederated and google's peers of coorporate whores were the federated. Noone ever corrected me until I made this thread.
Community-made reddit clone.
How dare you
Spread out over regional and topic centered servers that cooperate so it all acts like one thing. The main cool detail if they seem interested enough to find out more.
Lemmy is a site where you follow topics that interest you instead of following people.
I just say its open source community run social media 🤷🏻♂️
Most people don't care, so I just move on to talking about whatever I was referencing that required the context of what the platform is
Reddit, with fewer white supremacists/imperialists. 👍
Depending on which instance you are referring to, but yes, overall less.
non-corporate discussion forum?
Lemmy is federated. It's a federation of instances. Unfederated would be the opposite of what Lemmy is.
It’s a link aggregation system that’s user generated, and moderated… plus comments. It’s a lot like Reddit just decentralized.
The main difference with Lemmy is the content. You need to understand that half the content on Lemmy is cartoons of foxes fucking stuff and circlejerking about how ADHD means you don’t have to put any effort into anything.
Think like Jack Nicholson’s character in as good as it gets… you picture someone “and then I take away all reason and accountability…”
unfederated??? unfederated reddit is reddit. federated reddit would be closer to the federation.
Thank you I was reading the comments screaming why is no one pointing out that OP has it backwards!?
It's like reddit, but it works like email : different websites work together, you can sign up to any of them, and talk to and see posts by people on all the other Lemmy websites. Each website is called an instance.
Solutions focused.
No one cares about "federation" or "decentralized".
They do care about contingency in the event of enshittification, algorithms that don't invade privacy, and viable replacements for the apps they already use.
Why bother getting into any great detail. Say it is a bunch of different message boards and move on.
A forum of antisocials being antisocial😉
open source reddit that is accessible through the fediverse account.
if people don't know reddit: "it's organized around communities instead of user accounts. so you don't follow user account, you follow communities instead that each have a specific topic that's being discussed or talked about. like video games, football, memes etc."
highly doubt a bunch of farmers would enjoy lemmy
All the mental illness and personality disorders of Reddit, without as much corporate ownership and shilling.
At least it's genuine.
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