PNNAmerica Shadowbanned
Feburary 15th, 2024 At 11:39AM
Written By Digital Cheese
PNNAmerica has recently been shadowbanned on Neocities, I figured I would discuss that here and think about what this might mean for other accounts in the future, assuming Neocities begins to more actively do stuff like this to other "mean" accounts.Introduction
PNNAmerica recently got shadowbanned on Neocities from the activity page entirely, and this isn't the first time something like this has happened actually. IIRC, YouTuube also got shadowbanned in this way a while back on Neocities. There also is a ban from commenting on other people's profiles who don't follow you, which used to happen with as low as 3 blocks.
Understandably, this is guaranteed to become more and more of an issue if it continues overtime. Its starting with just minor things like this, but I believe if it goes any further, we'll start seeing censorship on Neocities similar to Twitter, Facebook, and the other platfrms. Except in the case of Neocities, it'll probably be worse because its the only half-decent free website host, though there are other hosts if absolutely necessary.
GitHub is Microsoft so thats out, it'll basically have CodeBerg left as the only free host I can think of that's half-good (maybe GitLab but idk). You could probably get a VPS or something similar if you have the money, but otherwise you're stuck with TOR/I2P and hopping around forums/other websites in an attempt to get people to visit your website, assuming you can't pay.
At least CockLI exists for email and XMPP, which supports TOR and it's actually half-decent so you're not stuck with ProtonMail, but either way it's fucking bullshit this is happening to begin with. I believe it is due to offensive non-website Neocities status posts/Rumble videos, its my only half-decent guess considering his main website doesn't have anything other than not_found.html and index.html to my knowledge.
You probably should prepare for the day Neocities begins fully-banning websites for BS-offenses rather than purely shadowbanning them. If you have a domain, just change your A/AAAA records to the new host if or when you move. If you don't have a domain and can't get one, try to use TOR and I2P for your website. From there, use a cock.li email for contacting people and then just try to get a clearnet mirror of your website as well on something like Codeberg whenever you can, its your only realistic bet here.
Fall Of Neocities?
I believe Neocities will inevitably fall, or at least might as well after it gets to a certain point. Right now, it is still very good and thus I'm staying, but I will try to get the website self-hosted soon in the case that it all goes downhill, and I'll just use Neocities to mirror the website along with Codeberg, TOR, I2P (whenever i figure it out), etc. I'll use my cock.li email as my main non-Venith email too.The fall of Neocities will absolutely not be now, but give it 5-10 years and I believe it will unless something changes. Or maybe I'm wrong, though we'll have to see. I think it will either fall or become so censored and boring that you might as well leave, it'll one day get to the point where its not just a cool hosting service with a bit of an emphasis on old-web, but rather its all just generic BS websites that make you want to rip your eyes out.
I don't really have much to say on the subject of this surprisingly, I'm more so here to rant about BS Neocities stuff. Prepare for the fall though, and expect many issues for those who aren't prepared.