Bonum Certa Men Certa

Libera.Chat Became Far Smaller After the Collapse of Matrix.org, But the Number of Distinct IRC Networks is Growing

Libera.chat shrank



Summary: It seems like more IRC networks are being rolled out (deployed afresh) this year, but Matrix.org no longer gives IRC a false sense of magnitude (many users were just bridged across from Matrix.org)

ONLY weeks ago Ryan mentioned the layoffs and moderation crisis* at Matrix.org, resulting in exclusion from the largest IRC network (if scale is measured by number of users "online", including passive lurkers and bots). The users' fatigue has extended to Matrix.org and judging by the front page (homepage) of Matrix.org, you'd not know anything is amiss:



Matrix.org homepage



We've spent some time trying to put all this in context. Some GNU/Linux bloggers took note of the woe-some situation and we've quoted them in Daily Links.

The good news is, judging by netsplit.de, the number of unique and decent-sized networks actually grew. It's now higher than when we last checked (before 'Matrix-pocalypse'):

IRC Networks index: There are 525 known IRC networks listed below...



Just to add a quick line about why that is a good thing, consider the collapse of Social Control Media and what it does to online communities. IRC seems a lot more robust, so communities can stay together. They don't get scattered. USENET didn't age too well, partly due to ISPs pulling the plug (that, in turn, was partly due to lawsuits from the copyright cartel).

IRC has been around since the 1980s and it's still doing fairly well, so it'll probably survive just fine well past 2030. No company controls it. Money does not determine its success. _________ * The 'moderation crisis' and its effects got more properly explained by Ryan earlier this month. He said that child abuse images or other illegal content were routinely being posted there and even when reported to the operators/moderators there was nobody available to take action. This could be clarified a bit more by Ryan, who was a (now former) Matrix.org user. They also kept banning a lot of legitimate and law-abiding users, according to him, so it's not clear what or who got excluded (or why exactly). It was not being filtered transparently (same issue as old Freenode). They were overzealous with their global, centralised moderation hammer. IRC is not centralised like this. IRC "dictatorship" it limited to particular networks, but some networks share banlists (thankfully not a common practice; OFTC does this).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Gemini Links 19/06/2025: Unix Primitivism, Zine Club, and Gemini Protocol Turns 6 at Midnight
Links for the day
 
Microsoft's Windows is a Niche Operating System in Africa
African nations aren't a large contributor to Microsoft's income, but if many African nations move away from Windows, then the monopoly is at risk
Links 19/06/2025: WhatsApp Identified as Assassination 'Crosshairs', Patreon Now Rips Off People Even More
Links for the day
"Told You So": Another Very Large Wave of Microsoft Layoffs Now Confirmed in Mainstream Media
So we were right to believe the rumours, based on the credibility of prior such rumours
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 18, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 18, 2025
Gemini Links 18/06/2025: Magit and Farming
Links for the day
Slopwatch: BetaNews is Now a Slopfarm (Like Linuxsecurity) and Google News is Overwhelmed by Slopfarms
The Web is bad
Links 18/06/2025: SCOTUS Decision on Fentanylware (TikTok) Still Ignored, 4.5-Day Work Weeks
Links for the day
Links 17/06/2025: Windows TCO and G7 Rifts
Links for the day
The Right to Know and the Freedom to Report on Crime (at the Higher Echelons)
I'd like to do the same thing for the next 20 years
BetaNews Appears to Have Fired All Of Its Staff
Even serial sloppers
After the Web Becomes Slopped to Death
A lot of people are rightly fed up with the "modern" Web
Gemini Protocol Turns 6 on Friday
Active (online) Gemini capsules are estimated by Lupa at over 3,000
Like Most Social Control Media, Microsoft LinkedIn is Collapsing
One reason for Microsoft acquisitions is debt-loading, i.e. offloading and burying its debt
Microsoft is Losing Its Richest Clients
Unlike some very poor countries, Germany and the EU are a considerable source of income to Microsoft
Proprietary Means Not Secure
Proprietary software tends to rely on secrecy, not good design
Slop in 'AI' Clothing is a Passing Fad, We'll Get Past It (Like Blockchain Before That)
Many people cheat in exams using slop and there are professionals that try using slop as a "shortcut"
GNOME Does Not Campaign Against Microsoft, KDE Does
It's good to see that KDE is still active in promotion of Free software - a term that it uses
Slopwatch: BetaNews, Linuxsecurity, and Other Prolific Slopfarms
name and shame the sites that establish such proliferation of slop
Gemini Links 18/06/2025: Birch Lake and Loon Pond
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 17, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Links 17/06/2025: "The Grift Economy" and Kubernetes Does Proprietary
Links for the day
Microsoft's "FUD-as-a-Service" (Against Linux) Not Functioning Well
This is the kind of contribution companies like Microsoft and Google have to offer to society
Betanews Becoming a Slopfarm is "Betanews Growing Alongside You", According to Betanews
Their first 'article' in over two weeks is 52% "AI-generated" (slop), 33% mixed (edited slop), 18% human-written, says an advanced scanner.
Coffee Day and LLM Sloppers
The LLM slop "bros" are a lot like fake-money bros; they lie to people, they boast that they lie to people, and they're generally bad people, BS artists in colloquial terms
Double-Dipping the Docket for Microsoft Glory and Censorship of Microsoft Critics
same lawyer, same barrister, all US, all Microsoft
TheLayoff Censorship of IBM Threads Has Gone Truly Ludicrous
we do not argue that TheLayoff should not cull LLM slop
More Stallmanites Added to FSF Board and Summer Fundraiser Commences
There's some good news from the FSF
Gemini Links 17/06/2025: Consistency and Notes About NixOS
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 16, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 16, 2025