Lemmy's active userbase has been stable since September 2025
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Here is one such very relevant post: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/16hkxua/why_im_giving_up_on_lemmyfediverse/
A really interesting discussion in particular is below the reply saying:
The issues you brought up are very much on Reddit too. They are just more noticeable on Lemmy because there aren't enough niche subs or fluff to drown them out.
Other replies included "I did end up shutting down my instance.", which continued on with "But, for me, seeing people blindly bash the USA every chance they get, It's a turn off." - like, I get that the USA is unpopular (especially now), and also I am okay with the Threadiverse remaining small, but I did want to push back against this magical type of thinking that we can both have our cake and eat it to, in the form of both bashing people from it and also reaching out to invite people on Reddit (who are primarily from the USA) to join us here. Maybe Lemmy will have more success by marketing itself as more "European" (or at least "non-USA", so maybe European + Global South)? Whatever goal we want to aim for, we should keep our eyes open as we aim directly at it, imho.
I do not think that all or even most Threadiverse instances should defederate from lemmy.ml, but on the other hand it would be extremely nice if just ONE instance would do so, which we could then share to people on Reddit as a nicer entry point for those more centrist-leaning users who are primarily people from the USA. Or else decide that that goal is (collectively) not what we all want. The latter being what ended up happening, whether intentionally or no.
Fwiw, Lemmy has gotten much better over the years in this respect, imho, with many more instances having banned lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net specifically.
Like, look at those contortionist comment replies trying to state that, e.g.:
(if anyone's out of the loop - lemmygrad isn't "lemmy", they are usually defederated by regular instances and their content isn't visible in "lemmy" as it is colloquially understood)
This topic is a MAJOR, oft-repeated reason why people on Reddit refuse to come here and check us out.
https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/1jjl8g5/i_tried_lemmy_again_after_a_year_long_hiatus_and/ (the title there gets cut off but continues with "it's still beyond terrible"), and here is that post's concluding paragraph:
If you have a very narrow worldview, politics is your entire personality, and you enjoy dry, charged humor then I guess Lemmy is a good alternative for you, but if you're anybody else it's not worth it. Reddit is not good, everybody here agrees. However, despite it's numerous flaws it's still a product than Lemmy at it's very best. It's simply not a viable alternative imo. Even Instagram and Tiktok are better alternatives than Lemmy.
Note that I do not agree, just stating how these people said that they felt, if that is helpful for a diagnosis of the state of affairs and what we could potentially do to help mitigate those concerns. e.g. I successfully petitioned for discuss.online to defederate from hexbear.net, thinking that could help make Redditors feel more welcomed here. Although now I am placing my hope more in PieFed (which e.g. allows users to perform their own personalized defederations without needing admin approval to block all users from any specific instance), while giving up much hope for Lemmy to keep up with its wondrous pace of adding new features.
i'm glad to hear lemmy is turning fascists away.
they can go back to reddit or twitter.
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Spez here. Hey, come on, man.
Make Spez account
Troll reddit refugees
????
Profit
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I'd much rather Hexbear than people like you who are on a deranged multiple week crusade. Thank god for the blocking feature.
Thanks for the validation - indeed being able to block out what does not match our values is quite helpful for our sanity.
Fwiw, I've been on a crusade against hexbear for years, as many others here do as well.:-P
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It’s been 6 hours, may I out of friendly nature inquire after the hopefully most entertaining intercourse with @Klear@quokk.au? I trust it was most fulfilling?
Yeah, it was fun.
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Maybe I just gotta shitpost harder then.
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A post from 2 days ago presented a graph that showed an important variation in the active userbase: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/52565659
Using the daily rather than monthly view on https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=120 shows a much stable line (especially if you take into account Piefed's growth: https://piefed.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=120 )
Going through the comments in the other posts, a few recommendations that can help with the overall experience
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use different feeds: either using different Lemmy/Mbin accounts (one account per type of content), or Piefed personal feeds, but being able to browse different feeds such as "Good news", "Hobbies", "Art", "Life advice" help to see more content than politics and tech
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discover communities: subscribe to !communitypromo@lemmy.ca, !fedigrow@lemmy.zip and !newcommunities@lemmy.world to add active communities to your feeds
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go to general communities rather than specific ones: the current user base only allows so much specialization. Your favorite city builder community may not exist, but !citybuilders@sh.itjust.works does. !stationery@lemmy.world and !pen_and_paper@lemmy.world may be inactive, but !journaling@sh.itjust.works is not.
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use a client that allows for comments consolidation: I don't remember which mobile apps does it (Sync, I think?), Piefed has that feature built-in too. It allows to see all comments on a cross-post in the same view: https://piefed.zip/c/privacy/p/928874/worst-in-show-ces-products-include-ai-refrigerators-ai-companions-and-ai-doorbells#post_replies
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report toxic users and avoid communities that do not handle your reports: quite a few comments mentioned that issue in the other thread. Mods can't see everything, reporting helps to keep the atmosphere of a community enjoyable.
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use a client that implements keyword filters: quite a few mobile apps and alternative Lemmy front-ends do, Piefed has it built in. It can really help avoid the "doom and gloom" overwhelming your feed.
Finally, a few communities recommendations for lighthearted communities
- !casualconversation@piefed.social
- !goodnewseveryone@piefed.social
- !wholesome@reddthat.com
- !nicememes@sopuli.xyz
- !dullsters@dullsters.net / !dull_mens_club@lemmy.world
- !twogoobers@lemmy.zip
I'm completely new to Lemmy and fediverse in general. I wonder if there have been any initiatives to promote Lemmy more and help it attain the critical mass of people.
For exampe, having a Lemmy or Fediverse month, when the community attempts to advertise to friends that don't know about it yet. If a few of the main instances participate in this, I'm sure the community could come up with some great ideas for spreading the word.
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Same here lol
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A post from 2 days ago presented a graph that showed an important variation in the active userbase: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/52565659
Using the daily rather than monthly view on https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=120 shows a much stable line (especially if you take into account Piefed's growth: https://piefed.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=120 )
Going through the comments in the other posts, a few recommendations that can help with the overall experience
-
use different feeds: either using different Lemmy/Mbin accounts (one account per type of content), or Piefed personal feeds, but being able to browse different feeds such as "Good news", "Hobbies", "Art", "Life advice" help to see more content than politics and tech
-
discover communities: subscribe to !communitypromo@lemmy.ca, !fedigrow@lemmy.zip and !newcommunities@lemmy.world to add active communities to your feeds
-
go to general communities rather than specific ones: the current user base only allows so much specialization. Your favorite city builder community may not exist, but !citybuilders@sh.itjust.works does. !stationery@lemmy.world and !pen_and_paper@lemmy.world may be inactive, but !journaling@sh.itjust.works is not.
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use a client that allows for comments consolidation: I don't remember which mobile apps does it (Sync, I think?), Piefed has that feature built-in too. It allows to see all comments on a cross-post in the same view: https://piefed.zip/c/privacy/p/928874/worst-in-show-ces-products-include-ai-refrigerators-ai-companions-and-ai-doorbells#post_replies
-
report toxic users and avoid communities that do not handle your reports: quite a few comments mentioned that issue in the other thread. Mods can't see everything, reporting helps to keep the atmosphere of a community enjoyable.
-
use a client that implements keyword filters: quite a few mobile apps and alternative Lemmy front-ends do, Piefed has it built in. It can really help avoid the "doom and gloom" overwhelming your feed.
Finally, a few communities recommendations for lighthearted communities
- !casualconversation@piefed.social
- !goodnewseveryone@piefed.social
- !wholesome@reddthat.com
- !nicememes@sopuli.xyz
- !dullsters@dullsters.net / !dull_mens_club@lemmy.world
- !twogoobers@lemmy.zip
So are we living in some kind of Bizarro Eternal September?
Where instead of being flooded with normies, a few dozen thousand of us are walled in behind barriers to entry that the greybeards of old could only imagine.
It's like a social experiment that would be unethical if we weren't all self-selected to be here. Will we flourish or will we go mad?!?
Given my experiences so far, I'm gonna ride this thing as far as it takes me. Just today I was inspired by a fellow lemming to format my entire hard drive just to switch to a slightly different Linux distro. On my work laptop!
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A post from 2 days ago presented a graph that showed an important variation in the active userbase: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/52565659
Using the daily rather than monthly view on https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=120 shows a much stable line (especially if you take into account Piefed's growth: https://piefed.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=120 )
Going through the comments in the other posts, a few recommendations that can help with the overall experience
-
use different feeds: either using different Lemmy/Mbin accounts (one account per type of content), or Piefed personal feeds, but being able to browse different feeds such as "Good news", "Hobbies", "Art", "Life advice" help to see more content than politics and tech
-
discover communities: subscribe to !communitypromo@lemmy.ca, !fedigrow@lemmy.zip and !newcommunities@lemmy.world to add active communities to your feeds
-
go to general communities rather than specific ones: the current user base only allows so much specialization. Your favorite city builder community may not exist, but !citybuilders@sh.itjust.works does. !stationery@lemmy.world and !pen_and_paper@lemmy.world may be inactive, but !journaling@sh.itjust.works is not.
-
use a client that allows for comments consolidation: I don't remember which mobile apps does it (Sync, I think?), Piefed has that feature built-in too. It allows to see all comments on a cross-post in the same view: https://piefed.zip/c/privacy/p/928874/worst-in-show-ces-products-include-ai-refrigerators-ai-companions-and-ai-doorbells#post_replies
-
report toxic users and avoid communities that do not handle your reports: quite a few comments mentioned that issue in the other thread. Mods can't see everything, reporting helps to keep the atmosphere of a community enjoyable.
-
use a client that implements keyword filters: quite a few mobile apps and alternative Lemmy front-ends do, Piefed has it built in. It can really help avoid the "doom and gloom" overwhelming your feed.
Finally, a few communities recommendations for lighthearted communities
- !casualconversation@piefed.social
- !goodnewseveryone@piefed.social
- !wholesome@reddthat.com
- !nicememes@sopuli.xyz
- !dullsters@dullsters.net / !dull_mens_club@lemmy.world
- !twogoobers@lemmy.zip
Niceeee. I think people are starting to consistently leave Reddit to keep the stagnant user percentage down.
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A post from 2 days ago presented a graph that showed an important variation in the active userbase: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/52565659
Using the daily rather than monthly view on https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=120 shows a much stable line (especially if you take into account Piefed's growth: https://piefed.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=120 )
Going through the comments in the other posts, a few recommendations that can help with the overall experience
-
use different feeds: either using different Lemmy/Mbin accounts (one account per type of content), or Piefed personal feeds, but being able to browse different feeds such as "Good news", "Hobbies", "Art", "Life advice" help to see more content than politics and tech
-
discover communities: subscribe to !communitypromo@lemmy.ca, !fedigrow@lemmy.zip and !newcommunities@lemmy.world to add active communities to your feeds
-
go to general communities rather than specific ones: the current user base only allows so much specialization. Your favorite city builder community may not exist, but !citybuilders@sh.itjust.works does. !stationery@lemmy.world and !pen_and_paper@lemmy.world may be inactive, but !journaling@sh.itjust.works is not.
-
use a client that allows for comments consolidation: I don't remember which mobile apps does it (Sync, I think?), Piefed has that feature built-in too. It allows to see all comments on a cross-post in the same view: https://piefed.zip/c/privacy/p/928874/worst-in-show-ces-products-include-ai-refrigerators-ai-companions-and-ai-doorbells#post_replies
-
report toxic users and avoid communities that do not handle your reports: quite a few comments mentioned that issue in the other thread. Mods can't see everything, reporting helps to keep the atmosphere of a community enjoyable.
-
use a client that implements keyword filters: quite a few mobile apps and alternative Lemmy front-ends do, Piefed has it built in. It can really help avoid the "doom and gloom" overwhelming your feed.
Finally, a few communities recommendations for lighthearted communities
- !casualconversation@piefed.social
- !goodnewseveryone@piefed.social
- !wholesome@reddthat.com
- !nicememes@sopuli.xyz
- !dullsters@dullsters.net / !dull_mens_club@lemmy.world
- !twogoobers@lemmy.zip
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Hey, nice to see you around!
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Hey, nice to see you around!
Thanks Blaze!
Thanks for having me, hopefully soon on piefed!
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It was probably an automated decision to be entirely honest
I once got banned for quoting a spammer to make fun of their spam. They banned me because they thought I was the spammer.
I think certain subjects they do not want to violate you for if not against the rules so they find a pretext on an unrelated subject, automation is their excuse.
Just like uhealth putting ai in charge of denying claims that qualify, or the uk putting ai in charge of post office fraud, or michigan in charge of unemployment insurance claims. They were all set up to deny legit claims and flag legit claims. They deny there is a problem with software until they cannot, then oops, only the ai is at fault, as if it was not knowing.
We have no rights in the us so social media will never get to that admitting stage. The government is the one telling them to find pretexts to violate accounts oftentimes too.
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The sealion in the original comic is completely correct, which makes me very suspicious of anyone who dismisses someone for "sealioning" and as you say, it usually is just used as an excuse not to engage with what someone is saying.
The sealion in the comic overheard someone being racist against them, and stepped in to say, "Hey, why are you being racist?" And for some reason is wrong because... they're persistent? Or because they're annoying? How is that not literally just every "anti-woke" argument?
The sealion in the comic overheard someone being racist against them, and stepped in to say, “Hey, why are you being racist?” And for some reason is wrong because… they’re persistent? Or because they’re annoying? How is that not literally just every “anti-woke” argument?
I think the point is that the sea lion is feigning civility while harassing someone over a casual opinion.
My response would be that if we extend the metaphor, like you did, and substitute the absurd 'sea lions' for a race, then harassing the racist doesn't bother me. Bigots don't deserve peace. It's absolutely harassment to stalk and interrogate someone who doesn't want to talk, I just wouldn't care that they're being harassed for airing such bigotry.
(On the other hand, if we assume the original opinion is not a metaphor and replace it with a similarly absurd statement, like enjoying pineapple on pizza, then the sea lion would be acting unreasonably. If someone followed you around online and kept bringing up how you prefer pizza to be prepared, demanding a calm discussion and insisting on peer-reviewed proof that pizza tastes better a certain way, while you ask them to stop, that harassment would obviously be uncalled for. For what it's worth, the author made a comment that it wasn't meant to be "analogous to a prejudice based on race, species, or other immutable characteristics." - but I say it's a though-provoking interpretation to explore regardless)
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Personally I still relate to the other graph. Lemmy posts can sometimes be much too focused on negative things, so I sometimes take pretty long breaks before coming back when it gets too depressing.
some users solve that with keyword filters, but be careful not to block too broadly
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(not a statistician) The events that WOULD be synchronized are: instances going down, users being deleted, and new user signups.
Maybe this is enough to make them look like this. Those are the events that cause jumps, whereas users hitting the 6 months of inactive time would just be a steady, stable, gentle slope.
Im not sure how these stats are collected, I assume that they query each server for its to make the chart, rather than query every server every day and copy the results.
If they're really copying the results, then you're absolutely correct that temporary instances outrages would cause those correlated downward blips, but I'm surprised to hear you wouldn't just be able to query servers to get this data on demand.
But then again if a server went permanently offline you'd lose that data forever. Hmmm -
The sealion in the comic overheard someone being racist against them, and stepped in to say, “Hey, why are you being racist?” And for some reason is wrong because… they’re persistent? Or because they’re annoying? How is that not literally just every “anti-woke” argument?
I think the point is that the sea lion is feigning civility while harassing someone over a casual opinion.
My response would be that if we extend the metaphor, like you did, and substitute the absurd 'sea lions' for a race, then harassing the racist doesn't bother me. Bigots don't deserve peace. It's absolutely harassment to stalk and interrogate someone who doesn't want to talk, I just wouldn't care that they're being harassed for airing such bigotry.
(On the other hand, if we assume the original opinion is not a metaphor and replace it with a similarly absurd statement, like enjoying pineapple on pizza, then the sea lion would be acting unreasonably. If someone followed you around online and kept bringing up how you prefer pizza to be prepared, demanding a calm discussion and insisting on peer-reviewed proof that pizza tastes better a certain way, while you ask them to stop, that harassment would obviously be uncalled for. For what it's worth, the author made a comment that it wasn't meant to be "analogous to a prejudice based on race, species, or other immutable characteristics." - but I say it's a though-provoking interpretation to explore regardless)
If it wasn't meant to be analogous to prejudice based on immutable characteristics why did they make it prejudice based on immutable characteristics? Sea lions in the universe the comic takes place in are clearly sapient people, capable of complex thought, communication in English, and the ability to navigate human society. The person in the comic isn't being "metaphorically racist" or expressing something "analogous" to racism; they're simply being racist.
As you say, what the sea lion is doing is harassment, it is hostile, it is aggressive, and the racist depicted in the comic deserves it. It is model behavior, we should make people dread the idea of expressing racist views in public.
If you substitute the racist opinion for a mundane one, of course the comic changes and the sea lion becomes unreasonable. You've completely changed what the sea lion was responding to. If you swap all the Nazis in Wolfenstein with peaceful dogs who aren't doing anything, now it's a game about being a cop. Now you're being completely unreasonable by shooting them. But that doesn't tell us anything about the validity of shooting the original Nazis. When we look at the original context of Wolfenstein, shooting the Nazis is completely reasonable because they're Nazis and not dogs.
Furthermore, even if we do substitute the racism expressed in the comic for a more mundane opinion, like enjoying pineapple on pizza, it still seems inapplicable to internet arguments. A significant part of the reason the sea lion is unreasonable is its persistence. At no point do the other people in the comic engage with the sea lion but it won't stop harassing them. But on Lemmy, this behavior is so universally punished that it almost never happens because it would obviously get you permabanned from your home instance no matter what it is. Most people I've seen accused of "sealioning" are simply replying, one comment at a time, to people who are actively engaging with them. You can't be "sealioning" unless you are following someone who isn't engaging with you somewhere else, meaning in this context a different thread, to demand further engagement in the conversation. Which, again, would get you banned so fast that I don't think I've ever actually seen it happen on Lemmy.
On no level do most accusations of "sealioning" seem to hold up to scrutiny, in my opinion.
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If it wasn't meant to be analogous to prejudice based on immutable characteristics why did they make it prejudice based on immutable characteristics? Sea lions in the universe the comic takes place in are clearly sapient people, capable of complex thought, communication in English, and the ability to navigate human society. The person in the comic isn't being "metaphorically racist" or expressing something "analogous" to racism; they're simply being racist.
As you say, what the sea lion is doing is harassment, it is hostile, it is aggressive, and the racist depicted in the comic deserves it. It is model behavior, we should make people dread the idea of expressing racist views in public.
If you substitute the racist opinion for a mundane one, of course the comic changes and the sea lion becomes unreasonable. You've completely changed what the sea lion was responding to. If you swap all the Nazis in Wolfenstein with peaceful dogs who aren't doing anything, now it's a game about being a cop. Now you're being completely unreasonable by shooting them. But that doesn't tell us anything about the validity of shooting the original Nazis. When we look at the original context of Wolfenstein, shooting the Nazis is completely reasonable because they're Nazis and not dogs.
Furthermore, even if we do substitute the racism expressed in the comic for a more mundane opinion, like enjoying pineapple on pizza, it still seems inapplicable to internet arguments. A significant part of the reason the sea lion is unreasonable is its persistence. At no point do the other people in the comic engage with the sea lion but it won't stop harassing them. But on Lemmy, this behavior is so universally punished that it almost never happens because it would obviously get you permabanned from your home instance no matter what it is. Most people I've seen accused of "sealioning" are simply replying, one comment at a time, to people who are actively engaging with them. You can't be "sealioning" unless you are following someone who isn't engaging with you somewhere else, meaning in this context a different thread, to demand further engagement in the conversation. Which, again, would get you banned so fast that I don't think I've ever actually seen it happen on Lemmy.
On no level do most accusations of "sealioning" seem to hold up to scrutiny, in my opinion.
On no level do most accusations of “sealioning” seem to hold up to scrutiny, in my opinion.
Agreed. While I haven't seen many accusations of it, all the ones I've seen have been false. And like you said, Lemmy has sufficient moderation that I've never seen it happen here.
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A post from 2 days ago presented a graph that showed an important variation in the active userbase: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/52565659
Using the daily rather than monthly view on https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=120 shows a much stable line (especially if you take into account Piefed's growth: https://piefed.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=120 )
Going through the comments in the other posts, a few recommendations that can help with the overall experience
-
use different feeds: either using different Lemmy/Mbin accounts (one account per type of content), or Piefed personal feeds, but being able to browse different feeds such as "Good news", "Hobbies", "Art", "Life advice" help to see more content than politics and tech
-
discover communities: subscribe to !communitypromo@lemmy.ca, !fedigrow@lemmy.zip and !newcommunities@lemmy.world to add active communities to your feeds
-
go to general communities rather than specific ones: the current user base only allows so much specialization. Your favorite city builder community may not exist, but !citybuilders@sh.itjust.works does. !stationery@lemmy.world and !pen_and_paper@lemmy.world may be inactive, but !journaling@sh.itjust.works is not.
-
use a client that allows for comments consolidation: I don't remember which mobile apps does it (Sync, I think?), Piefed has that feature built-in too. It allows to see all comments on a cross-post in the same view: https://piefed.zip/c/privacy/p/928874/worst-in-show-ces-products-include-ai-refrigerators-ai-companions-and-ai-doorbells#post_replies
-
report toxic users and avoid communities that do not handle your reports: quite a few comments mentioned that issue in the other thread. Mods can't see everything, reporting helps to keep the atmosphere of a community enjoyable.
-
use a client that implements keyword filters: quite a few mobile apps and alternative Lemmy front-ends do, Piefed has it built in. It can really help avoid the "doom and gloom" overwhelming your feed.
Finally, a few communities recommendations for lighthearted communities
- !casualconversation@piefed.social
- !goodnewseveryone@piefed.social
- !wholesome@reddthat.com
- !nicememes@sopuli.xyz
- !dullsters@dullsters.net / !dull_mens_club@lemmy.world
- !twogoobers@lemmy.zip
If the userbase has held steady, the AI scraping must be astronomical. Shitjust works stops working every evening.
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