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Queer.af is Shutting Down, Due to Taliban (wedistribute.org)

submitted 4 months ago by deadsuperhero@lemmy.world to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

36 comments fedilink hide all child comments

When registering a country code domain, keep in mind where the domain is being registered. A shift in government or geopolitics can have serious consequences.

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[-] Blaze@discuss.online 105 points 4 months ago

That’s an old story, and if I remember correctly the title was misleading, it was more of a decision of the instance admins to not renew it rather than the Taliban having anything to do with it

[-] deadsuperhero@lemmy.world 39 points 4 months ago

Yeah, they didn't want their money going to the Taliban, and it's a little shaky as to whether the Taliban's Ministry of IT would take a stricter content enforcement on their ccTLD. For a while, it was only possible to renew domains, not buy new ones.

Still, I stuck with the title because the Taliban is still the reason.

[-] spujb@lemmy.cafe 13 points 4 months ago

the misleading title you are remembering was closer to “queer.af is shutting down, killed by the taliban”

[-] foggy@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

It's more like just because you can make a funny domain name out of a specific top level domain like .af Make sure some country doesn't have dibs on it first.

Like it wouldn't be smart to start a business selling che Guevara merch at comra.de.

[-] Norgur@kbin.social 16 points 4 months ago

Why would Germany of all places ban a shop selling Che Guevara merch?

[-] Alto@kbin.social 7 points 4 months ago

I think the point is politics in a nation can change at any time, and as such you may lose the domain/no longer feel safe supporting that nation. Just because they wouldn't now doesn't mean they wouldn't in the future. (Especially with how well AfD is polling and how much CDU/CSU seem to be starting to cooperate)

[-] yetAnotherUser@feddit.de 1 points 4 months ago

How are non-ccTLDs, like .com any safer? A fascist like Trump could decide to nationalize managing them at any time

[+] foggy@lemmy.world -23 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Che Guevara's Ideology: Che Guevara is known for his Marxist and revolutionary ideology. He was a key figure in the Cuban Revolution and is often associated with anti-capitalist and socialist movements.
Germany's Political System: Post-World War II Germany, particularly West Germany and the reunified Germany, has been a capitalist, democratic nation. East Germany (GDR) was a socialist state, but it no longer exists since Germany's reunification in 1990. Modern Germany is part of the European Union and is considered a strong advocate of democratic values and a free-market economy.

So, using a German country code top-level domain (like .de) for a website selling Che Guevara merchandise creates an amusing contrast. It's the juxtaposition of a domain associated with a country known for its capitalist and democratic principles being used to sell merchandise symbolizing a figure who opposed those very principles. This contrast is what makes the joke humorous and pointed, highlighting the importance of being mindful of the historical and political connotations of country code top-level domains.

There, I had chat GPT explain it for you.

Edit, also: "comrade", Germany. Idk, Google it?

[-] CameronDev@programming.dev 22 points 4 months ago

Selling Che merch is a pretty solid example of capitalist commercialisation/exploitation.

[-] Timwi@kbin.social 5 points 4 months ago

The way you equate capitalism with democracy, and then tacitly imply that Che Guevara must therefore have stood against democracy, is American propaganda.

[-] foggy@lemmy.world -2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Che Guevara stood against Imperialism, Colonialism, Capitalism, economic inequality, Oppression/dictatorships, social injustice, racial inequality....

Y'all can downvote all you want. The joke was apt and the commentary was on point.

Go read a book.

The comrade pun on the .de and Russia and Germany being enemies in two world wars, and Russian ideology being more in line with Che than any leader of Germany is the icing on the cake

Just...go Read a book.

[-] iopq@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

Marx and Engels were German, so the joke is meh

[-] Norgur@kbin.social 3 points 4 months ago

Nothing like a foreigner spouting US centrism trying to explain to me how my country, my values and my culture work.

[-] Allero@lemmy.today 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

The most ironic part is selling communist merch

[-] Norgur@kbin.social 3 points 4 months ago

That is the most american logic I've read all week. Nothing of this makes a sliver of sense to a German. Absolutely none. The whole communism is so evil it has to be banned spiel is absolutely and purely American these days. There is absolutely nothing that qualifies Germany as an example because there is no grounds or will to publicly ban something like this at all. It's like saying "don't register a T-Shirt-shop about rivers as me.cong in the US, amirite?" And "comrade" in German would be "Genosse" which is related to the DDR, so...what exactly are you saying?

[-] Carighan@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago

I think "funny" names involving TLDs as a whole just need to be more careful. It should never be what you expect.

Like, if someone from the US told me to go a website called "comrade" to buy merch, I'd expect comrade.com. To get me to go to their intended address they'd need to be a German telling me to go to "comra". That's utterly unintuitive as far as verbal communication goes.

[-] sizzler@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

You buy both and link from the .com

[-] steal_your_face@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 months ago

I hope no country has dibs on .rodeo

[-] Norgur@kbin.social -1 points 4 months ago

I should found xxxistan.

[-] sentient_loom@sh.itjust.works 44 points 4 months ago

That sucks but it's also funny because it's a pun.

[-] Allero@lemmy.today 27 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Can we stop for a minute and appreciate the fact that to this day, a queer community uses domain of freaking AFGHANISTAN? :D

That by itself is based, although yeah, registrar fees issues are real.

[-] bdonvr@thelemmy.club 21 points 4 months ago

Unfortunately in the fediverse changing your domain isn't really possible. You basically have to start over.

[-] deadsuperhero@lemmy.world 19 points 4 months ago

It's technically possible, just really, really hard. One example of a successful migration was the transition from calckey.social to firefish.social. It was a massive, extremely difficult undertaking, though.

A big problem involves how user identities are tied to instances. If there were a way to decouple that, I think a lot of the pain goes away.

[-] Tangent5280@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

People change domains all the time right? Isn't it just a matter of reconfiguring your servers to recognise the new domain provider and address?

[-] tjhart85@kbin.social 6 points 4 months ago

From what I understand due to the way that Lemmy handles federation, it doesn't (currently?) have a way to handle an instance changing its domain name and still being able to communicate or even an individual user changing their instance and retaining their comments/votes/etc... (this might be more ActivityPub limited since the way Mastodon does it still seems pretty hacky and just a work around for underlying issues).

From a website perspective, yeah, just change some settings and you're good to go and accessible on the web, but that doesn't mean that anything regarding Lemmy is going to actually work.

[-] deadsuperhero@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

Sadly, it's more complicated in the Fediverse, because Actor identities are tied to specific domains. If a user moves accounts, they basically send out an update that says "this profile is dead, follow this new account instead", and users automatically switch upon receiving it.

There are three problems:

If your server goes down before you initiate this switch, the change can't actually federate out to your followers. You basically have to build up your follower list from ground zero.
Mass migration is slow, spammy, and inefficient. If we had thought to incorporate some kind of decentralized identifier and relied on that, rather than @user@domain.tld, switching your account to something else could theoretically be more seamless.
Doing this for hundreds or thousands of users is not only a headache, but can be a real strain on servers. It's one thing when a single person does this switch for 3,000 followers: the update is gradually trickled out across accounts, and after a while, the new account is at parity. Doing this with thousands of accounts with thousands of followers is extremely painful.

[-] csolisr@communities.azkware.net 3 points 4 months ago

In a similar fashion, it would be great to find a way to migrate your post history, not just your followers, between one service and another. So far it's possible to request a backup, but only a few services allow importing said backup, let alone import a backup from a different provider (so far only Firefish, Pixelfed and its derivatives allow for the latter).

[-] gedaliyah@lemmy.world 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

That green pixel tho. I know it's not the point at all, but I can't unsee it.

[-] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 14 points 4 months ago

when you're so queer you can't even get your flag straight smh

[-] deadsuperhero@lemmy.world 11 points 4 months ago

Actually, that's probably my fault, I had to edit the graphic on a phone, and don't have the steadiest hands.

I'll fix it when I get home.

[-] AFC1886VCC@reddthat.com 0 points 4 months ago

Its just occurred to me that the pride flag is a bunch of STRAIGHT lines. I am amused.

[-] neutron@thelemmy.club 9 points 4 months ago

Domain hacking is fun, but politics isn't fun. Bit.ly got taken over by the Libyan government agency, FMHY.ml also had to start over after Malian government stopped Freenom from giving out free domains.