They sell ads and they work with MS (Bing). But they’re EU (French) and I hope more respectful of our privacy because of GDPR.

It’s my fallback engine but my main search engine is Kagi, even though it’s US and paid-for (no-free tier, beside free trial).

I know saying good things about a paid product is frowned upon around here but I certainly won’t lie, or change what I think in order to please some random self-proclaimed vigilante. Imho, Kagi works very well and, as long as you can afford it, is worth every single cent.

It’s ad-free, tracking and seo-crap free too. Comes with some nifty features (to further filter and control the type of results you see, for example). I also love their ‘small web’ search that focuses, well, on small websites by default. That’s so cool. Plus, it gives excellent results that must be among the most useful I’ve ever gotten… like in the 90s and 00s when Google used to be disruptive and useful to its users, not to advertisers ;)

none.

Glad I’m not in academia.

That makes two of us. This is so depressing and it also feels like the situation is hopeless and things will only get worse :/

I think all of this is a huge problem in the world today.

Always have been a problem. It was just a lot less consumerist-focused in the past.

I just read a text from Pascal that he wrote somewhere in the year 1656 and in which he was discussing how a bunch of people from the Sorbonne university (they were not your average angry lynching mob, they were scholars) were asking for another one to be severely punished for something he had said in favor of some text they deemed heretic (which was no joke, back then). Pascal then explains they refused to change their mind when they were faced first with the fact that all the guy said was that he could not find any occurence of that heresy in said text (they even refused to read the text to see by themselves when he proposed to do so); and then when they were told that this dude they wanted so badly to punishe (for something he did not say) was indeed agreeing with them on the condemnation of that heresy only refusing to blame it on that specific author since he never wrote that. Their reply? He still deserved to be punished because of his attitude. I have grossly over-simplified the thing but that is indeed the core idea: they did not like the dude and his tone and wanted to make him pay for that, they openly said fuck it to any fact demonstrating them wrong. And those people were scholars.

This happened some 370 years ago but it could be happening at this very moment in (too) many universities—one would just need to replace ‘heresy’ with any of the ‘sensitive’ topics we consider so much more important nowadays.

And I have little doubt it will keep on happening under a variety of guises. Probably even much more frequently, seeing the world-wide rise of proud idiocracies, and their proud idiot leaders, and the rise of all those communitarisms that that thrive on hating on one another, almost everywhere.

Edit: typos and a few minor changes.

Removed by mod

Every single second. Or never. It depends what ‘Internet’ you look at, and how.

Edit: corrections.

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Removed by mod

I’m just wondering if it would actually stop people acting this way though.

Not all of them, there a few different types of bullies but I would say the majority of them are just weak people that like to focus their frustration on other persons they don’t think could get them into trouble (either by replying or by being able to make them pay in any way). And by dressing differently you’re sending a message they can read as an opportunity to bully you with little risk.

But then it depends who they are, other bullies won’t change at all because you change your look.

I don’t know wtf is happening I’m so sick of it cause it happens way too often I just want to go outside without being treated like garbage for 2 seconds

Not knowing you nor what’s happening exactly, I can at least say I feel for you and understand your frustration. Those kind of things should not be happening in a functional society.

What may help is try spending your time in other places. I live in Paris, it’s really far from being the worst city in the world and if most Parisians are indeed constantly angry people, they rarely bite. Still there are some sectors I will try not to spend too much time in, some where I would not put out any cash, and so on. I know it can be a pain but changing habits can help.

Reading the title, I wondered for an instant in what way body temperature was related to being bullied or not.

I imagine being ‘hot’ can help not being annoyed by bullies (they could be somehow intimidated)… but then being ‘hot’ one would probably be annoyed by admirers or wannabe friends or just plain wankers. Would that really be better? I’m not sure.

I’m not hot and I’m old-ish, and I also don’t give a crap about bullies—I never hesitate to more or less nicely tell a bully to go fuck themselves when I have to—so I may not be the best informed ;)

I unplug as often as I’m able to. So, it’s not like I need a dedicated day, but if it helps people learn to disconnect, why not but isn’t it a bit too late to announce it?

See my answer to your other comment below ;)

Oh, I did not get that. That’s an interesting idea. Would still need to solve the ‘where’ do I post (which for many seems to also mean ‘to what Instance do I belong’), and then how do one moderate content from various communities, from posters that may or may not adhere to one’s own rules. It won’t be obvious but I would be more than willing to see something like being experimented, even if it’s to decide it’s too complex, it seems worth at least an attempt, imho.

But how do you prevent this from happening if the content is centralized?

I have no idea and like (I think) I said, I’m not even sure that’s an option we should consider. It’s just it feels likes there is this path circling back to centralization and that makes me wonder.

Once we reach a big enough population (not a given, Discuit is still doing 210 weekly active users) , a company comes in, makes the owners an offer they can’t refuse, and they do what you criticize in your previous comment

That’s why I (want to) believe in the fediverse. If something like that were to happen and that’s also why I’m not sure centralization is a solution.

Well, merging communities means trying to reduce the number of alternative communities on the same topic, or did I miss something?

But, like I said, I’m not saying it is not doable. I’m only sharing how I felt reading the OP post.

So… Reddit?

I don’t know, I just shared agut feeling while reading the OP. And I’m not saying it’s what we should thrive for, just sharing that gut feeling about what, like I said, I consider a critical issue on Lemmy.

With the cancelled third-party apps, the visible ads, the ads hiding as posts, the powertripping mods (but unpaid as well), the algorithm trying to get the most “engagement” by showing hateful content?

That’s a whole other discussion imho. But if you want to discuss about that:

• I only talked about a centralized system (aka, a unified one) and, once again, I did not say it was the solution only that it felt like that while I was reading the post. As far as I know, centralization does not imply the obligation to rely on algorithm (and ads, paywalls, or nothing dirty like that).
• As far as mods abusing their power is an issue (it is), I think we do have a few on Lemmy too. Isn’t there a community dedicated to that issue?
• Ditto for the ‘hateful content’ (and I would add the extremely low effort posts too), it was a pain on Reddit, it’s a pain on Lemmy too there is just of it on Lemmy because there are less of us posting ;)
  I consider the Reddit default home page an insult to any half-working brain but I would not be much more sympathetic to Lemmy’s default feed either. I remember we briefly discussed that already: I’d rather see an empty feed by default, with only a short-ish selection of very broad categories the user would pick from to start seeing content that they’re interested in. And only that content, not all the crap. They would then be able to start fine tuning their selection. Something like that.
• Reducing Reddit to what you listed here would be… unfair to the great content and great discussion one can easily find over there. As an ex-Reddit user, after an adaptation time (learning how to get rid of the default crap feed and how to remove the crap ads, learning what subs were better ignored) I had a great time using Reddit (and that is despite its poor UI). I did not quit using it because of the flow of hate or the flow of moronic content, nor because of abusive mods (quite the opposite, I appreciated their work… thx to fine selection of the few subs I was subscribed to). I did not quit reddit for that, no more than I would quit Lemmy for those flaws either. I left because I hated how Reddit, the corporation, took hold of our content and started restricting access to our content in order to negotiate deals with partners. And started talking about paywalling some of it. I briefly explained it as a last post on my Reddit profile and I close the door behind me. But I do miss those interesting discussions I had, and I miss a few subs too (r/Simpleliving, would be the first one I would mention).
  If I was not admitting I miss that I would be a liar.
• I also find it difficult to motivate/encourage more people to join and participate here on Lemmy because I’m myself constantly faced with the ‘messy’ aspects of Lemmy. I’m stubborn and I decided I could live with them (happily) but I also know many people are not ok with that and it’s unlikely they ever will.

Hence me agreeing with the OP: Lemmy being as fragmented as it is is a critical issue.
Hence, the second part of my comment: it feels to me that the only easy/obvious solution is to rely on a centralized system. I’m not saying it’s what should be done (I would not be part of the fediverse if I had no desire to see an alternative to that centralization). I may be wrong in that, most probably I’m (I have no technical expertise) but it still is what I felt while reading the post. Nothing more.

And for the rest, let the downvoters enjoy their very own moment of power ;)

I quite agree with the issue described and I 100% agree it’s a critical one but, because none of the proposed solution seem to be ideal, I’m also wondering if this doesn’t end up saying the right model, right in the sense that it will work with/feel much more simpler to most users, is a centralized system and not a federated one?

Great, subscribed!
BTW, you may want to check our journaling community at !journaling@sh.itjust.works ;) edit: and check the links I added in the sidebar to find other interesting communities.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a more private setup browser-wise? Tracking blocking at DNS level will continue and I’m on debian-based linux.

My worries sound similar to yours but my approach is a bit different.

• I switched from Mac to Linux (Arch, then Debian and for the last 4 years, Mint).
• I use EU services as much as I can instead of the US ones.
• I do block as much tracking and ad crap as I can. Still use javascript on a few sites.
• I use different browsers for different activities.

But I also consider this a lost cause. Sadly.

• I consider anything I do online (read, write, watch, listen to,…) is at risk of being tracked, and exploited, mined or whatever and somehow linked to the real me (not to one of my pseudonyms).
• With an increasing speed and willingness to destroy any remaining rights to privacy we may still have, I’m also expecting my country (France) to sooner than later make it illegal to use real encryption, to use a VPN, or even to use a pseudonym instead of my real name—all of that for my own good and for the protection of little kids which is obviously something that I as a law abiding citizen would not ever dare question.

So, instead, I do as much things as I can offline. Reading, writing, watching stuff, listening to stuff, communicating with people.

Note that they have their own ad-blocker (not as good as uBo, mind you).