4mo ago

Are there any Chinese federated instances?

Seems like the fediverse would be a good way for Chinese citizens to get around censorship.

Does anyone know if they are using it?

20 comments

.ml and hexbear appeared to be blocked by chinese firewall year ago https://lemmy.ca/post/6763328
somehow i doubt that chinese authorities warmed up to the idea of fedi since
- The irony

As a China-born Hongkonger, little to none for Lemmy as far as I know, but there are actually a lot of people in mainland China uses Fediverse but mostly on Mastodon and Misskey. I do have two friends in mainland China who are able to use Mastodon without VPN.
Also some fun fact(?): Each time when I need to go back to mainland China, I always check if several instances are blocked. As far as I tested last time, lemmy.world is not banned in mainland China
- Also some addition: a lot of people in China does not host the Fedi server in China, mostly because the requirement of obtaining ICP License if they want to host in China

A good way for Chinese people to get around the censorship is emigrate. (Btw, I'm a US Citizen that was born in China. Lets hope I dont get deported under Project 2025)
But seriously tho, the language barrier is gonna make like 99% of Chinese people not visit foreign sites, the Great Firewall is not really needed, but Xinnie Pooh-bear be paranoid af. My parents, who live here in the US, don't even use western social media, and use WeChat all the time, even my mother who speaks some level of English, still uses WeChat
I think there were like only one user that had their solo-user instance that said he actually living in mainland China, forgot their username.

Not anymore it seems.
We used to have lemmy.sdfcn.org, but it went the way of other SDF instances. This one I am on is the last one standing.
Well, there is a remnant of lemmy.sdfeu.org, or rather a second spin of it, but the certificate expired all the way back in 7th September.
lemmy.sdfjp.org - 502 and expired cert on 25th November 2023
lemmy.sdfin.org - no response

Yes, there are plenty of big Chinese mastodon instances. https://m.cmx.im/explore is likely the biggest one, and GFW people definitely attempt to blocked it.
There are many others, but I am not sure if you work for GFW 😉.

Lemmy.ml and I'm sure there are others
- ml is more like a Chinese lovers tankie instance. Not a Chinese one.
  I think OP is asking about a Chinese nationals one, written in mandarin and used by people living there.
  
  Yeah, most of the Chinese people I know on the fediverse are most certainly not gonna vib with the like of hexbear, grad, and ml.

20 comments