Sure, there are always outliers and you can correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s just the overall impression I have.
(I wasn’t sure if [email protected] or this community would fit better for this kind of question, but I assume it fits here.)
Mostly mixed. The way i think it’s a weakness is because I’m an anti authoritarian leftist, and i’d like a stronger anarchist/libertarian community on lemmy. Despite hexbear/lemmygrad/lemmy thriving, Solarpunk and dbzer0 feel a little lacking community wise. I’d also like a diverse political community, in general.
Another con is that if you even just disagree with a [bastard] moderator, they’ll immediately ban you. Happens on lemmy.world with being anti-zionist, happens on lemmy.ml under the guise of ‘rule 1’ for literally just criticizing a mod such as dessalines.
But i also think it’s a pro due to the lack of far-right content on lemmy. I remember on reddit casually seeing disgusting content, such as blatant racism (Such as arabs being called sand n-rs, Or racism against asians/immigrants in general on r/canada + r/europe) and most of that is obscure on lemmy.
I’m not denying that the Lemmy community doesn’t have problems, Lord no. But it’s much better than most other platforms.
i’d like a stronger anarchist/libertarian community on lemmy.
That’s one thing that I’ve been both disappointed and surprised to not see.
The anarchist community on Reddit is fairly large, but not very anarchist. There’s a very strong authoritarian bent to their claimed anarchism. I had hopes that the nature of this place would invite a community that was anarchist not only in name but in spirit, but I’ve seen surprisingly little sign of that, or even really of anarchism at all.
db0 is real anarchists, as far as I can tell. Because they are not overbearing about it, it’s harder to be aware of them.
I think by definition, it’s easier to be aware of the “official” self-identified anarchist communities than the ones that are just doing their own thing.
I assumed that they were at least anarchism-adjacent - it’s pretty much a prerequisite for the bulk of their focus.
I hadn’t really looked into their political posting much though, and yeah - even with just a cursory glance, it’s promising.
And I hadn’t thought about that distinction between people who simply hold a position and people who “officially” wear the label in the context of anarchism (though I’ve noted it often with atheists), but yeah, there’s undoubtedly some truth there.
Thanks for the heads-up.
The slrpnk admins, as far as I can tell, stand in the same relationship to anarchism that your average megachurch organization does with Christianity.
If all you look at is the words, it looks like they’re supporting it.
Absolutely yes. Anarchists on reddit were largely only anarchist by name, and we don’t even have a proper community here. And anarchist communities on instances such as lemmy.ml are even worse, to be honest. Most political representation on lemmy is for authoritarian leftists, where’s the love for anarchy :(
I’m sorry but libertarians and ancaps are just proto-feudalists that may like to smoke weed.
I agree. I should have specified, i meant left-libertarianism.
Haha ML loves to ban you for even the slightest challenge of their views.
Don’t even need to challenge it. Just criticize a mod, and you’re banished to the void lmao
Talking about Yogthos eh?
Don’t forget our dear Dessalines, he’s a very sensitive one.
Because everyone knows, the best response when your lack of sources is met with sources is just “🤡”
The type of anarchism that says, “You must agree with my anarchism, and if you have some incorrect view, I’ll use my powers to remove you from the space” is not actually anarchism. It’s actually strikingly reminiscent of how the Russian implementation of communism had nothing to do with worker-led socialism that it was branded as. They implemented freedom by declaring themselves the arbiters of what were the allowed types of freedom and ruthlessly repressing anything else, which isn’t how it works.
In general, I think it’s a myth that if you disagree with liberal orthodoxy on lemmy.world, you’ll be banned. Plenty of people on lemmy.world constantly criticize the liberal orthodoxy and it’s fine. The people purporting the myth are either:
- Being flaming cocks and then claiming they were banned for their factual beliefs when they get banned, when that wasn’t the issue
- Or else trying to make themselves feel better about the censorship of liberals that happens on their own instances, by claiming lemmy.world is doing the same to their “side” when they aren’t.
The occasional whining about how unfair it is that you can’t post anti-Israel stories on lemmy.world, for example, is nothing to do with reality, but is instead a disguised yearning for a space where you can’t post pro-Israel stories, and the mods will enforce that political viewpoint using their powers so the speaker can feel comfortable because all they see is things that they already agree with.
I’ve skimmed the lemmy.world modlog, and it seems you seem to be right. That was a bad example.
But my point was moreso on the stubbornness of mods. For example, if i suggest that China is bad on lemmy.ml, that’ll get me a ban under the guise of “rule 1”. Why? it’s not against the rules, it’s not bigoted or racist.
If i write controversial, or even bigoted comments, then that’s another story. I was criticizing power tripping mods that ban users if they personally disagree with them, instead of actually break the rules
Yeah, those mods are bad, and they definitely exist including unapologetically on the tankie instances. I was just saying that the mirror-image bad mod, who will delete anything anti-Israel, is almost entirely a self-serving myth by a selected group that likes to pretend.
On the other hand, if someone repeats a lie often enough, doesn’t that make it true? :-P
I absolutely think that’s the idea, yes.
The world is a complicated place. Part of the optimization our brain does, to even be able to make sense of it at all without being overwhelmed, is to absorb things that you see other people saying to each other, and incorporate them into how you see the world. So I’m always interested when I see a variety of people all saying the same thing, even though that thing is demonstrably not true if you think for yourself for a few seconds.
In this case I think it’s just some kind of internal cope that they’re doing for themselves, and the repetition leading to other people potentially absorbing it is purely accidental, but it’s still a dangerous pattern.
I tend to love reading your comments - they are insightful and deep:-).
When people behave identically as a “bot” would - passing along what it has heard, without thinking twice or even so much as once about it - they can act as part of that same, dark anti-pattern. Except the danger is so much more real then b/c they “genuinely” hold their belief?
I thought that a lot of it was due to enshittification reasons to maximize profit incentive, e.g. making it hard to “search” on Reddit, yet exceedingly easy to “post”, while at the same time making it harder to read the community rules prior to doing so, all to maximize “engagement”. But it seems more related to human nature, which will never change.
Hey, thank you! Yeah. The nature of the network can induce people to behave nice or behave mean, and to put a lot or a little effort into the stuff they are posting. I think a lot of the anonymity and ease-of-getting-on of the modern Lemmy-type internet means that you get kind of the lowest common denominator of human nature. It’s unfortunately true of commercial networks as it is of free ones.
It’s a weakness. We need more anti-authoritarians here for sure. And even conservatives if nothing else so they can represent their own opinions rather than just laughing at straw-man versions of what neolibs want to say they think. I have moments I hate it here but there’s nowhere good to go and I guess I add a little diversity.
I disagree with the conservatives part. Their ideology does not deserve a place at the adults’ table. It is far too bent on undermining democracy, equity, and egalitarian society.
EDIT: To clarify, this is elementary “Paradox of Tolerance”. Those that wish to undermine democracy in an equitable society cannot be tolerated without making an end to democracy inevitable. Not all opinions are created equal. For example: “I think trans people should receive additional state-funded support.” and “I think that trans people should be murdered and/or the state should cultivate an environment amplifying their likelihood to commit suicide.” (the prevailing view expressed by the far-right through their actions and legislation) are opinions that should not be given equal treatment.
Yep, paradox of tolerance. We shouldn’t bend over for far-right, or even fascists for the sake of “pure tolerance”.
Saying, “I don’t like what they say so they shouldn’t have a voice” sounds a lot like undermining democracy to me. Them living in conservative echo chambers doesn’t increase dialog or challenge their beliefs either. Divided media and divided opinions are the tools to take down a nation. Supporting this kind of division strikes me as an example of the main kind of foreign interference this country is crumbling because of. If that was your goal, I guess congratulations?
Paradox of Tolerance. Those that intend to undermine a just and equitable society that tolerates the existence of all kinds of people cannot be tolerated.
But do we actually wait until we see how people think, or just silence them based on their opinion on one or twy divisive issues as a litmus test to justify our own intolerance? “They don’t support trans women in women sports so none of their opinions are valid.”
It’s, unfortunately, very subjective. A statement like that could be from a place of ignorance that they are willing to dig into and grow as a person. Any judgement has to include whether good faith is intended, etc. Conservativism itself is incompatible with motion towards a more just world, as rigid hierarchy is part of its core, and it is also an ideology rife with bad faith actors. Giving extra space for such an ideology that already has a far louder voice than it should have does not result in anything productive.
I’m here because I DON’T want to have to read fucked up opinions. People here are mostly nice compared to mainstream platforms.
I’m all for difference of opinion, but not when one of those opinions is “we should oppress LGBT people” for example. 10-15 years ago, I’d have been more receptive to discussing opposing opinions, but shit has changed. A lot of those opposing opinions are now simply unacceptable to even entertain, because they’ve become a real, actual threat to my well-being. People aren’t discussing tax policy anymore, they are discussing imposing states of emergency to do some kind of purge on undesirables.
Some people call it an echo chamber, I just call it chilling and having fun with like-minded people. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s what forums have always been.
Yeah, I don’t think anyone would ask you “Are you okay with sitting at the bar with nazis?” yet plenty will happily judge you for saying “I’d rather not have to deal with MAGAts and their opinions”
Sorry but if your opinion is “trans people aren’t people” or “blacks need to know their place” then your opinion is shit and no the fuck I don’t have to listen to it
But another question, “are you ok with sitting at the bar with nazis, but they’re wearing red shirts with a hammer and sickle on them and espousing the same propensity for murder?”
Lemmy is fine with murder and genocide so long as you wear the right shirt while doing it.
Source: .ml, grad, hexbear.
🤡
No u
I agree, which is why I recently kicked a MAGA guy out of my D&D group that meets at my house. I had tolerated him up to then because he generally acted decent and was a good player. But after the election I decided I just don’t feel like extending my hospitality to that anymore.
But on the flip side when I hear a phrase like, “uncomfortable with trans people” my first reaction is, “What makes you uncomfortable?” instead of, “Fuck you you fucking bigoted fuck!” For that moral imperfection in my character I’ve received name-calling and at least one ban. Whatever. People have irrational fears and I’m not going to exile them to the desert because their “eww” reflex isn’t pristine.
People here are mostly nice compared to mainstream platforms.
Try disagreeing with the hive mind. Anyone can be nice to someone who echo’s their own opinion. The real niceness of a person is revealed when they can show civility to people they disagree with (I’m not talking about LGBTQ oppressors or Nazis…there’s a huge spectrum of opinions that aren’t extreme).
I don’t know. I am still as opinionated and difficult as I ever was on Reddit, but I also turn it around, display civility, and cede points far more often here. Maybe I’m becoming better, but I think it’s just a better situation overall.
I’ve received way more bitter and raged out responses here than I’ve ever received on Reddit for very lukewarm vanilla takes. I’m not saying Lemmy is full of extremists but there is a user base here that is all or nothing. My guess is it’s age related though.
Overall the people here are nicer.
The extremes are higher though - some people were booted from Reddit for a reason, and they came here.
Yea. I agree. There is a nice median and really strong extremes. But those extremes sometimes hog up the convo.
The presence of the high end of the extreme is what blew me away though. On Reddit I had given up all hope bc it never happened (even from myself, as I kept becoming more defensive, more snarky but less kind) while here the fact that it sometimes, heck even often happens, is just… outstanding!:-) 😍
Also the low end of the extreme is concentrated into specific instances, such that blocking Lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net will improve someone’s experience on the Fediverse by ~90%, and then blocking users from lemmy.ml (with the PieFed Lemmy alternative, or either the Sync or Connect Lemmy apps, or lemmy.cafe, dubvee.org, or quokk.au at the instance admin level) improves by a further 90% I found.
So the structure of the curve matters greatly here, to someone’s quality of experiences in the Fediverse.:-)
The version of someone you invite in the door determines the initial trajectory of how that person will act in the community. You can invite in the leading edge of someone’s developing kindness or invite in the ossifying mass of their nature that is threatening to turn hateful and uncaring. No one instance of invitation to a new person (however that may happen, formally or informally) pushes the needle far either way within any one particular person (though sometimes it can radically do so) but the overall integrated effect is a moderate shift of the an entire community towards the better or worse version of the community members. When this effect is used for good people often describe the resulting community space as a community that accepts them for who they are or more succintly is a genuinely safe space.
Of course, every interaction is in an invitation in some small way, it doesn’t just happen once.
I’m on BlueSky on top of IceShrimp because anything better than Twitter is good to use at this point.
Let’s see how downvoted I get.
I’m also on BlueSky as well as Mastodon, because BlueSky has the momentum right now, and critical mass is important.
In that same vein, I wish you’d treat LW as you do any other instance. We’re not hostile to other instances, and I think there’s a healthy balance right now. It doesn’t hurt Lemmy to have a bigger, more mainstream instance. I think defederation solely for the sake of defederation does hurt Lemmy.
I wish you’d treat LW as you do any other instance. We’re not hostile to other instances, and I think there’s a healthy balance right now. It doesn’t hurt Lemmy to have a bigger, more mainstream instance. I think defederation solely for the sake of defederation does hurt Lemmy.
I never advocated for defederation of LW, just for more decentralization rather than have 90% of the active communities on LW.
You never answered my latest comment: https://lemmy.world/comment/13624614
Just to make it sure, are you saying that it’s not true that at this moment
- [email protected] has 1.85k monthly active users
- [email protected] has 754 monthly active users?
What prevents you from locking [email protected], redirect to [email protected], and get that community more active?
I can even make you or any other LW mod mod of that community too, I’m not attached to being a mod, I just want communities to flourish on other instances as well.
Because besides monthly active users, LW has 4,600 subscribers where lemm.ee has 537. It’s not a clear cut case.
What good is 4600 subscribers when 754 are active?
I just checked the updated numbers, now it’s 2.57k monthly active users for lemm.ee vs 958 on LW.
On [email protected], we actively build the community, we have a best of 2024 post, we opened the moderation posts to any person willing to help, while you keep that community unmoderated with 2 bots as mods.
Really, I just don’t understand. What are you afraid of? I’m pretty sure that [email protected] had more subs than [email protected] when it was locked down, but it was still okay, because the activity was happening on the sopuli instance.
I just checked, [email protected] has more subscribers than [email protected] , but the slrpnk community was still chosen when the consolidation happened: https://lemm.ee/post/46935805
If you’re afraid about losing the people, you just pin a post, point to the new community, similar to [email protected], and that’s it.
I did everything fair. “Not happy with the community? Create your own, and become the better one!”. I did, everything, and while we’ve had success, the LW staying open hinders the growth of that topic as a whole.
You ask me to treat LW as any other instance, but no other instance is reacting in that way, preferring to keep some of their communities open when other people actively try to build an active community on a topic that apparently only a few people are interested in anyway.
Honestly the tankie takes justifying atrocities is nearly as bad as the conservative takes justifying the same.
Why nearly? They are just as bad, if not worse.
Nah. Tankies are wrong, but they’re also powerless. Conservatives actually have power though, and are extremely dangerous.
An idea being “bad” is power agnostic. If I want to blow up orphanages, wanting to do so is bad whether I’m the president or a homeless dude, the ability to follow through may change with power, but the ability to follow through isn’t what makes “wanting to blow up orphanages” bad, the idea itself is bad.
Mixed opinion these days often reads more like outright polarization vs balanced discussions.
For attracting new users, the extreme views of the majority of users on this platform are detrimental. I personally very much dislike how one-sided all platforms are now. They lean heavily to one side or the other, which isn’t an accurate representation of the world. Most people are somewhere in the middle, yet online they’re expected to behave according to the platform’s presiding mindset or be shouted down.
Not everywhere though - e.g. lemm.ee tries to keep things open, at least on the instance level, and the anarchist servers (chiefly lemmy.dbzer0.com but iirc slrpnk.net as well) very much do not remove things that many people would expect them to if they had been more driven by a more authoritarian mindset.
In our new community [email protected] for instance, I very much hope that we can remove comments that attempt such a shouting-down as would make people feel unwelcomed to be there - regardless of their political affiliation (so long as the people being shouted down do not DESERVE it for trolling, e.g. “my reason for helping the less fortunate than myself is my belief in the Christian God who guides all my ways” is absolutely fine but “your gawd is shit and u r too, l0s3r” is not).
It’s a strength because we finally get to interact amongst the left without having to explain how society works to every ignorant conservatwat who thinks they can conservasplain some bullshit. It’s what makes it great.
Okay so yeah for actual conservatives totally. The Alt-Right is never going to be convinced no matter how many “facts” you explain to them anyway.
But you are considered a right-winger too, as well as I, by the likes of the folks in hexbear and Lemmygrad and lemmy.ml. We don’t view ourselves that way, but it’s the truth: compared to the likes of the Alt-Left, we legit are more “right-wing” than they are. And for good reason: e.g. we may not appreciate them but we’ve never actually murdered our landlords.
It’s a weakness in the sense that there are times this place turns into a straight-up echo chamber…
But when there is actual debate going on, it tends to be a lot more civil than on other sites (most of the time)
Yeah hasn’t been helpful for getting a sense for the minds of the masses but generally a lot more grounded than reddit
Also though echo chambers are bad most of the time for most people, occasionally they help in challenging our own beliefs but only when engaged critically.
I think it’s a strength because I don’t want to chat with fascists, thanks
@crimeschneck Personally I’ve decreased my Lemmy usage a lot due to its echo chambery-ness. I avoided the political subs since day one, both since I’m personally not a big politics junkie and because I’m not in alignment with Lemmy’s specific brand of politics, but things also extend to other topics as well.
A lot of the enjoyment of using Lemmy is getting news/articles and seeing what people think, but even in the tech spaces the range of tech news is somewhat limited and the top comments are almost always in line with Lemmy’s specific tech thoughts (regardless of my agreement, I’d like to see interesting thoughts/commentary, if I can predict the theme of what’s said it becomes less interesting). Sorting by new did help a little, even if a dissenting but well thought out idea was downvoted to oblivion I could still read it - but the value of link aggregators to me is articles + strangers thoughts, and if all the strangers have the same thoughts then I might as well stick with RSS.
My 2c anyways.
Echo chambers are never good, no matter the politics. Just reading this comment thread is proof. Some of these comments are fucking ridiculous.
Half of Lemmy working to ensure that we never get any diversity of opinions or anymore normal people lol
Weird seeing you again, and seeing you say this, after you quickly resorted to name-calling over a disagreement in another thread just 20 minutes ago. Do you really not think that you’re a member of the half you refer to? I’m not so sure you actually want “diversity of opinions” or “normal people” if that’s been your response so far.
You took a bad position, I clarified why it was unfounded.
That’s called a discussion. You are entitled to post your opinion, I am entitled to provide a rebuttal.
That’s how discourse works.
Oh no, the poor right whingers aren’t being represented here.
Oh wait, good. Fuck ‘em.
They still have to suffer from shiti health insurance…
But sure let’s make sure nobody but a good neo libs “allies” are permitted here champ
Totally. Maybe we should invent some kind of… oh I dunno, ideological purity test? Surely that would not eat our faces off, hrm? Surely we can exclude only “them”, while keeping “us”.
Smh, it’s always the same. People don’t even see it.
In your country sure.
And who the fuck wants neo libs here? Neo libs (and libs) are right wing ideologies.
For me, it’s neither strength nor weakness. I’m a boring old fart, I’m not here for politics.
I mostly here not for politics too… yet everywhere I look in Lemmy, it’s all politics, kinda annoying
I guess it could be counted as a weakness as far as attracting new users go, but I think it’s a strength overall.
It would be sort of nice if there was a stronger right-wing presence here, but at this point in our history, the right is overtly toxic. They’ve completely lost touch with honesty, empathy, integrity and simple human decency. Their entire identity at this point is built on hatred, bigotry and callous disregard for anyone other than themselves. They poison everything they touch, so the fact that they can’t gain a foothold here is very much to our benefit.
If we survive this era of Trump/Putin/Netanyahu/Polievre/Le Pen/Modi/Meloni/Hanson/etc., then hopefully the right will reconnect with reality, integrity and simple decency enough that they can take part in a community without turning it into a cesspool of hatred and lies, but unless and until that happens, this place is absolutely better off without them.
Right on, dude. It would be refreshing to see right-wing arguments advocating a serious fact-based (instead of hate-based and/or lie-based) position on any issue. I’d still disagree, but I’d welcome that disagreement.
Until that glorious future when “the right will reconnect with reality, integrity and simple decency,” I am delighted that they’re underrepresented on Lemmy.
Thing is you never will see that here. Even if those people are here (more reasonable right wing people are here in fact), they speak up less (typically once, before they learn what this place is) because the second you say “actually I don’t want to murder all landlords, my old landlady is so nice, she baked us brownies and let us put on illegal punk shows in the basement” you’re called a literal nazi that deserves death for having compassion for a nice old woman. So all you see are the ardent conservatives that are here to fight, not the reasonable ones that learn to just roll their eyes and block anyone with an @hexbear uname to save themselves the trouble.
On Lemmy.world it’s a weakness. Your instance may vary
I think it’s primarily, but not exclusively, a strength. “We need more right-wing posters” is not something I’ve ever thought of Lemmy.
Preemptively let me say that I agree, although there is an entire spectrum along which people can hold their beliefs, and then on top of that there is the strength with which they hold them that can vary a lot - including some who are apolitical entirely as far as they themselves may be aware.
Also, recalling the phrase “first they came for…” - remember that WE are the “right-wingers”, from the perspective of instances such as lemmygrad.ml, lemmy.ml, and hexbear.net. I am not saying that Truth is subjective, but the definitions of those particular terms most definitely are.
So if they exclude us, and then we exclude “centrists”, who themselves exclude people to either side of them… ultimately what does that make us - conservatives ourselves, chasing some kind of ideological “purity”?
Let’s get back to me agreeing with you now, but clarifying why: we MUST be intolerant to those who are intolerant of others. However, to those who ARE tolerant… shouldn’t we be as tolerant to them as we can stand to be? As in, interact with them civilly even if we do not fully agree with everything they say?
So leftist vs. right(-ist?), I don’t care what someone is, so much as I care whether they are tolerant of others. BUT NOT TO THE INTOLERANT (i.e. not the Alt-Right, and also not the Alt-Left that I see hanging out on various Lemmy instances).
I think it’s both. I can avoid having to engage with cruel or shitty perspectives as often, but I also don’t love spending so much social time in an echo chamber, it’s not great for you.
I think echo chambers are really bad for a culture and for people immersed in them, but like not seeing Nazi shit is certainly nice
I just wish the top posts on the meme pages were more than just an anti-capitalist caption and a vaguely related image.
I block most of thé memes community, the only ones remaining being [email protected] and [email protected]
Omg [email protected] is also amazing, check it out! Also there’s Risa and the Star Wars memes etc. - there are so many fantastic memes communities available:-).
Separately, you may be interested to know that the entire “vibe” of Lemmy has changed in the last two weeks. Very seriously, check out an instance where you are not logged in and just take a peek at what the most popular content is lately. I’m not suggesting that you wallow in it but you should know what’s going on lately bc it affects the future of us all.
I’m not familiar with Star Trek, so I usually don’t get those memes
the entire “vibe” of Lemmy has changed in the last two weeks.
The entire USA vibe has changed in the last two weeks, from what we can see on every social media. What happened is an important historical events, it has repercussions on all aspects of USA society
True, and btw I don’t mean that there is not good/great reasons for such even - people are DYING.
I was just pushing that thought since we were initially responding to:
I just wish the top posts on the meme pages were more than just an anti-capitalist caption and a vaguely related image.
It’s creating an environment where people who can’t handle the cultural shifts (e.g. not everyone is neurotypical) are having to heavily curate their experiences.
It’s creating an environment where people who can’t handle the cultural shifts (e.g. not everyone is neurotypical) are having to heavily curate their experiences.
Non Americans already had to curate their experience for weeks before and during the US presidential election
Not everyone wants that, but excellent point about the fact that some do:-).
And there, as now, it would be nice to constrain things.
Though you mentioned the rather powerful counterargument earlier that this was a MAJOR event, and it’s understandable that it’s leaking.