AFAIK, It’s to solve or mitigate the “Replies from other servers may be missing” issue.

Essentially imagine you are signed in on server A, responding to or looking at a comment from server B. But people on servers C, D and E have faved, boosted or replied to that same comment. Unless you or someone on your server had followed people on the other servers, you can’t see those comments or their contributions to the boost count, unless you go to view the comment on server B’s site.

Backfilling means server A fetching those other actions from other servers somehow, so that they will show up when you view it from your own server reliably. Examples of that somehow could be, obtaining all the info from server B (localized single source of truth), it could be collected individually from other servers, from a centralized server, or other means.

Unironically this, if you couldn’t possibly trust any Lemmy admin with your data. Host your own single user Lemmy/mbin/Piefed instance and you set the rules. If you can trust a cloud VPS provider then use that, but if even that is too risky in your view, then self-host. Note it costs money and you will have to put a lot of effort to safeguard yourself from spam attacks and info-stealing.

Using someone else’s server means ultimately entrusting your information for safekeeping with the admin. I’m not that paranoid but it all depends on the tradeoffs you want to pay for.

I grant you that it’s not perfect and it doesn’t prevent the abuse in the first place, but calling it out is important. There are still plenty of dramata about people DMing each other, but there’s less hearsay involved with the ban actions themselves. Appropriate suspicion is cast upon any mod that’s too vague with their ban comments or any user that doesn’t want to reveal their old banned username.

In terms of what users can do about mod abuse: There have been coordinated community shifts in response. A couple examples:

!onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone was created because the !196@lemmy.blahaj.zone mods wanted to forcibly move the community to !196@lemmy.world, but most users didn’t like that because BZ has more LBGTQ+ friendly policy. So the new community got set up with new mods.

!risa@startrek.website more or less moved or splintered to !tenforward@lemmy.world after some mod beefing and people getting banned for some rules even though it was a “no real rules” community.

The public modlog is one of the best features of Lemmy, IMO. When a Lemmy user appeals to the public of stuff mods/admins have done, we can call BS on them since we can read through stuff if they’ve been toxic, or if it’s the mods on a power-trip, or if it’s controversially borderline but reasonable discretion given the circumstances.

Instead of sneaker-net it will be rocket-net… and at a certain point you need an on-prem on-planet support team to just figure things out.

Yeah. I have used that. And I’m sure most with personal instances that just pressed the “Install NextCloud” button have no clue, including me.

You are correct and I get that. Where I get frustrated is when companies decide to, after I have agreed to share data for one purpose, but then later that data is sold or used instead for secondary unrelated purposes. The clearer and more upfront a company is with how they treat data, the more I can trust it. Of course because of the history of how many companies about-faced on this, that trust is not permanent.

As an aside, the current funding model for the company behind the app is subscriptions from users, and subsidies from transit agencies and local governments, such as Calgary Transit.

I am not sure how the Google settlement connects to your claim that privacy policies never work. Google is an ad company, so that is their priority over everything else.

I also said “at present”, and included the archive version, as I’m aware that if Transit sells out in one way or another their policy and app can change for the worse. But let’s be realistic about what it is right now, this is about the best you can expect from non-libre and closed-source.

The transit app does utilize motion sensor data to try to guesstimate your position while you are in subways or other areas with low GPS reception.

Here’s the privacy policy: https://transitapp.com/privacy-policy (Aug 14 2025 archive version). They have the who, what, where, when and why and how your data is used all in the policy. It’s quite readable, and on 3rd party data sharing, they list out what they collect and which third parties they give it to.

The app is made by a company based in Montréal, Québec, Canada. Personal information data is stored in Canada and the EU, location data not tied to your personal info is collected and stored in the US. The company has at present committed not to sell collected info to databrokers and advertisers, but they do provide it to researchers and transit agencies.

My privacy model is that if I am to consent to my data being collected, I need to receive a tangible benefit that is directly related to the data given. So location advertising to help myself and other people around me know where the bus is is an amazing benefit all around. So I use that feature.

https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/yes-jeremy-corbyn-was-vilified-because-he-criticized-israel/

How very sad it is that Corbyn was ousted as leader for making the case for Palestinian rights too early. Now look at what the current ruling Labour party is doing.

Watch China shrug off Don Taco again.

Every time YouTube raises the price of Premium or messes with their ad-model, it raises the value of blocking ads! 😊✨️

Here’s your cliché small talk starter: the weather.

• Nice weather out today, huh? (Sprinkle sarcasm or adjust to match actual weather conditions)

UK version:

• Gloomy weather as usual, innit?

I’ve used Jerboa for years now, and have the press back twice to exit setting enabled:

My configuration for it is very minimal, to mimic RedReader that I used to use.

Seriously. I’d be somewhat less concerned about the impact if it was only voluntarily used. Instead, AI is compulsively shoved in every nook and cranny of digital product simply to justify its own existence.

The power requirement for training is ongoing, since mere days after Sam Altman released a very underehelming GPT-5, he begins hyping up the next one.

That means that Copilot could have already indexed the content of all your files without telling you.

Perhaps the closure of Lemm.ee took away some of the quantity and variety of posts and communities?

Maybe I wouldn’t consider them losing causes, since we have our small wins here and there. Every positive difference you make, is rewarding when it amounts even to the tiniest win. You posting this question and other Lemmings like me answering is itself a little Lemmy W.

But yeah, things for me don’t have value only because they are popular. Yes, popularity can affect that I get recommended stuff that I end up liking, but I consciously reject being told to like something without being aware of the full details.

Here’s some contrasting examples: PEAK is a game I got on the bandwagon for, after seeing it posted on GamingOnLinux via !pcgaming@lemmy.ca . Seeing the gameplay, it looked like fun, and I had friends to play it with so it was worthwhile. On the other hand, trends like Stanley Cup, blindbox toys like Labubu, “Dubai Chocolate”, I’m not going to get any of those, despite their explosive popularity, unless I see a legitimate use for my own needs.

Also, my values are set towards lasting ownership of stuff then renting/BNPL schemes.

Wifi boards in bulk cost less than a dollar each to produce at scale. So manufacturers don’t really care about the costs of how things connect to what, since the cost of making something wireless is pretty small to begin with.

I don’t think people believe Israel’s lies as much as uses the legitimization cell’s work to suspend their disbelief towards any message they don’t wish to hear.