You could try creating an account on kbin/mbin instead of lemmy, my understanding is that that gives you the “threadiverse” and the microblogging fediverse on one platform, though I have not tried it yet.

On Lemmy you can only follow communities, not individuals.

I always find it funny when I read a lemmy thread that’s being posted in by microbloggers who just start all replies with @ followed by usernames of people they’re replying to.

They’re a lot younger than me too… but I was on the Internet, including in some mostly-adult communities, at 16 too (not so much at 13). Many of my formative experiences took place there and so I see absolutely nothing wrong with what they’re doing.

no, I’m very certain I’ve never seen one, this article certainly doesn’t have one

I don’t have a “main social media app”. I use Lemmy and Mastodon on mobile; Reddit and Facebook only on desktop.

You’re living under a rock, aren’t you? I keep reading about it nearly everywhere, way more than I would like to.

It’s a microblogging platform, i.e. replacement for Twitter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluesky

you can sort !casualconversation@lemm.ee by “new comments”

Last decade it was “destroyed”

https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/21/these-are-a-few-more-of-my-least-favorite-things/ point 2

I’m here, I don’t answer to anywhere near all questions I see though.

The article is from September, why is it it being posted now?

If there were a universal answer to this, there wouldn’t be any others.

I myself currently use Debian (testing), have for some years now, but I have used other distros in the past too.

honestly any that wants to leave (by a democratic referendum) and doesn’t cause any exclaves or enclaves to exist

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesusland_map

ideally donations like lots of other FOSS projects

you do realize that people from other instances than beehaw can post here too? :D

I’ve been in online communities since shortly after my 10th birthday and this has never once been a problem.

Most of my friends when I was a teenager were people I met online. It was beyond a reasonable doubt good for me to be on the Internet during that time because it was the only place where I fit in, where I could be myself.

If I ever have kids, I hope they fit in better than I did offline, but if they don’t, there is no way I am going to prevent them from socializing in online communities.

At whatever age they want to.

holy shit why would you deprive kids of (often their only way to have any) social contacts and think you’re the good guys

What were you doing from early 2017 to early 2021? I suggest you do approximately that, unless you’ve grown out of things you were doing at the time of course.

Another author who doesn’t make the important distinction between moderation and censorship.

Somebody tried approximately this online already in 2016: https://apnews.com/article/right-wing-influencer-sentenced-voter-suppression-6bbf876ed7b81cb137669129350791b9