It's an instance that crossposts posts from Reddit, except it also makes a new user for each Reddit account it came from. So if /u/hello123 made a post, it makes that post under a new account called hello123. That makes it impossible to block posting bots.

Not only that, it makes posts look like they're posted by real people, with many question and text posts being copied as well. I was very confused as to what these posts were until I realized they're crossposts.

Examples:

https://alien.top/post/263029

https://lemm.ee/u/pocalyuko@alien.top

https://lemm.ee/u/ItzMeRocket@alien.top

https://lemm.ee/u/CaptainCapp-n@alien.top

I strongly believe Lemmy isn't the place for mirroring content from other websites. You can host your own alternate Reddit frontend like LibReddit, there's no reason to spam the posts to everyone using Lemmy just because 5 people asked for it. Not to mention there are already enough instances mirroring posts, this is getting obnoxious.

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[–] registrert@lemmy.sambands.net 12 points 11 months ago

I don't see the point replying to you any more, you seemingly overlook the points I'm trying to make in a sort of "the goal justifies the means" argumentation. But others might find it interesting.

No identity is being “stolen”. The mirrors are not doing anything on behalf of the users, and no content is being altered.

It's copying content belonging to a different entity without permission and presents them on a third party site without enough clarification to be distinguishable from the original account (many have expressed confusion at replying to "mirrored"/ghost accounts). It's not a content viewer like teddit etc. It's copying the content and presenting it for itself.

I hope people understand how it can be argued for it being a stolen identity, even if one personally doesn't agree with it.

Go to /r/redditalternatives and let me know how many people simply don’t understand the concept of instances. Or understand the concept of instances, but didn’t want to bother with the process of finding out which one to choose. Or went with the “just go to lemmy.world” approach, got burned because it was struggling to deal with the influx of people and thought “Aw, Lemmy sucks”. Or took the time to find an instance, but after signing up had no idea how to find (re-)discover all their niche communities.

Sure these are issues, but I still don't think it's ethical to present "claim your account now!" to users. It comes across as borderline extortionate to me. I don't think it's ethical to apply "peer pressure" by having regular users clamor for people to claim their accounts.