"the company looked at the history of social media over the past decade and didn’t like what it saw… existing companies that are only model motivated by profit and just insane user growth, and are willing to tolerate and amplify really toxic content because it looks like engagement… "
The Lemmy devs have no power over instances they do not run themselves.
Other than writing the software that all of those instances use to stay up to date and in contact with each other, regardless of their federation status.
can’t people just take the lemmy source code and make their own version of the lemmy api?
Sure, technically. But good luck getting anyone to use your version over the mass adopted one. And good luck fitting back in if they decide to take their fork in a direction you dont like, which isolates your instance further and further.
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