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.)
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.
I don’t care so much about the range of political views, just the quantity of them.
Too many people on Lemmy make their political ideology their entire identity, and it’s just freaking exhausting.
Can we not just be people talking to other people about cool stuff? I just get sick of political ideologies masquerading as people.
People that shy away from this stuff are almost always rich people that are intentionally unsympathetic to the plight of poor people. They’re the same people who downplay and mock trans people and other minorities because they have never known even a moment of misfortune or injustice in their entire lives.
If you lose your shit when you hear about politics, you simply don’t care about helping others. Period.
Personally, I don’t give a flying fuck about making Lemmy a safe space for the apolitical. Simply existing in the WORLD is political.
Until supposedly civilized countries stop grinding the poor into hamburger to feed their rich, the poor should be able to make their plight known and no space should be safe from that. In fact, I will actively avoid, boycott, and mock any social media platform that censors the poor from expressing their REAL opinions while pretending to care about free speech.
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.
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’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 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.
Normally I’d say it was a weakness but the right has significantly departed from reality in most countries for way too long now. It’s incredibly rare to find a right-winger who can be present in a discussion without spewing a whole lot of vile conspiracy hate fascist bullshit.
So I find their absence refreshing, desirable and a strength of Lemmy.
I find the same on the left wing. Everytime I put out a slightly right wing position I get attacked and a ton of down votes.
Every time anyone mentions on Lemmy right wing positions it is with only to attack a strawman version that is very removed from what most right wing people think/do.
Downvotes can’t actually hurt you.
Personally, I’m fine with saying unpopular things and getting downvoted for it. Mods removing a disallowed viewpoint is something different.
They don’t hurt, but they still do not feel nice.
Mods removing a disallowed viewpoint is something different.
They will only do that if the opinion actually resonates lol
Haha yes, that’s usually the issue. I talked down below about getting banned on slrpnk because of some things I was saying. The comment thread with all the highly-upvoted replies getting removed by the mod, and the downvoted stuff intact, is hilarious to me:
https://slrpnk.net/post/14823401/11895951
The same mod also had a habit of arguing with people, while removing their comments but leaving his own side of the argument intact. He’s still a moderator there. In my opinion slrpnk needs to spend less time talking about anarchism and more time embodying anarchism.
I use solarpunk and disappointed that it happened to you. I felt like solarpunk was the best instance Lemmy has, it feels like it has the least amount of echo chamber. Maybe I’m wrong.
I moderate my own community in solarpunk and I will try my best to not be like the moderator you talk about
Removed Comment I am gratified by the rate of downvotes on this. Greta Thunberg would, I think, be disappointed and angry that anyone would take what she said as a justification for ways to help get Trump elected. Let me highlight the very clearly written part that you seem to have missed: > It is probably Impossible to overestimate the consequences this specific election will have for the world and for the future of humanity. > > There is no doubt that one of the candidates — Trump — is way more dangerous than the other. If you want real positive change, listen to Greta and fight for change outside the system. If you want third parties, support RCV and proportional representation, to make them viable. If you want the end of the fucking world, then don’t vote, or vote for spoiler candidates within the current system that makes them unelectable. Edit: Formatting by [email protected]
reason: Electoralism, liberalism
well you did kinda invade their safe space with common sense ideas, shit lord hehe
This moderator behavior here is exactly what you’d see on reddit lol
“We’re anarchists.”
“Cool. Here’s an urgent problem I see for the world that I think we should work on.”
“SHIT COCK GET OUT DISALLOWED We don’t say that here. You’re receiving a gentle ban, to think about what you’ve done. Be better.”
That’s the current modding situation across any community focused on working class politics… as if people running them are not interested in helping the peasants.
Why would anyone act like that on social media… for free at that
Please… this is a serious display of availability bias.
Let’s face it: the demographic here is just a hyper concentrated version of Reddit, which itself is mostly middle-upper class tweenagers from affluent countries. They get online and get convinced that everyone is just like them.
The average person that hangs out on Reddit-like forums absolutely does not represent the population at large, and any “right-winger who can be present in a discussion without spewing a whole lot of vile conspiracy hate fascist bullshit” has learned that there is no way one can have a reasonable exchange of ideas in any forum like this.
Your points about social bubbles and echo chambers are true, but experiencing the displeasure of having to routinely interact with rightwingers in person verifies that they have fully-fledged conviction in their “vile conspiracy hate fascist bullshit”. They can’t have a reasonable exchange of ideas because they bring nothing reasonable or empathetic to the table.
There are many right wingers here, not conservatives. Liberals are right wing, and lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works are mainly liberal instances.
What rimu was mainly talking about are conservatives, or even far right users. So he wasn’t criticizing the whole right wing, he just used the term right wing to refer to those.
Liberals are right wing
Case closed.
They are? i’m not sure where you live, but most of the world considers them to be right wing.
but most of the world considers them to be right wing.
Yep. I’m fiscally conservative, mildly sympathetic to people who fear and resist change, and fond of the pragmatic pursuit of libertarian ideals, where that’s possible.
I also feel that how others do sex is none of my damn business, taxes supporting social services are necessary, and equitably applied rule of law is critical for any real economic prosperity.
On the scale of history, I suspect that makes me centrist or even a moderate conservative.
In my country, and today, somehow, astonishingly, this combination makes me what most would call very left leaning.
I feel that the right has gone insane and continues to alienate people who might otherwise have been allies.
In my country, and today, somehow, astonishingly, this combination makes me what most would call very left leaning.
Let me guess, the US? The only people i’ve ever heard call liberals something as BS as far-left communists are conservative americans. The overton window in america is so ridiculous it’s hilarious.
Weakness.
Limited range of political views breeds echo chamber. In my experience, you can’t really have meaningful discussion inside an echo chamber. Disagreement, compromise, nuance doesn’t exists inside an echo chamber. Just that same idea repeated over and over again.
Gonna be honest, you can’t have meaningful and nuanced discussion here. Everything is black and white. Capitalism? It’s the worst thing on earth. Religious people? Those people are idiots. Don’t YOU dare use Windows, use Linux instead. ALL cops are bad, no exception.
This kind of things makes me actually scared of recommending people to Lemmy. I’m sure most people are casual people who doesn’t have extreme views on anything. Just some people who wants to shut their brain off and scroll. I feel like the echo chamber I mentioned will put most people off.
Going tangent a bit–In general fediverse is not diverse.
When you scroll, you realize most of the post comes from the same kind of political ideas, same country (USA), same beliefs, etc.
You can’t spell fediverse without spelling diverse, yet I feel like fediverse is anything but diverse.
This needs to change.
Religious people? Those people are idiots.
Okay for what it’s worth as a Muslim I’ve found Lemmings to be a lot more civil about the religion thing than redditors. At least I feel that people here are less likely to think being atheist makes them smart.
Oh hey, finally a fellow Muslim
Okay for what it’s worth as a Muslim I’ve found Lemmings to be a lot more civil about the religion thing than redditors
Unfortunately my experience here is different :(
This needs to change.
Half the people on here working to ensure that it never changes.
They want that echo chambers as if their life depends on maintaining a narrative.
that’s disappointing really
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)
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
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?
Because everyone knows, the best response when your lack of sources is met with sources is just “🤡”
Don’t forget our dear Dessalines, he’s a very sensitive one.
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.
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.
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.
@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.
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.
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.
Honestly, especially recently I feel like this place has been just a big Opinion Bubble/Echo Chamber and as someone who values trying to avoid these types of Bubbles and wanting to see what other opinions may look like this has consistently been one of my Biggest Issues with Lemmy. Not to mention that making it really hard to honestly recommend Lemmy to outsiders
Deposed CEO or health insurance grift?
The political divesity is less of an issue than the political ferver. Most people don’t want to talk aboit politics. They want to avoid political discussions, and get upset when people do things as basic as pointing out that politics exists in their bubble.
The fediverse turns them off because it’s loaded with politically aware and stubbornly vocal people, not because there aren’t enough people playing apologetics for the ruling class
Yeah, normal people do not care about anything outside the very small bubble of their own life. They have a few interests, a few hobbies, watch a few shows, know a few other people, and that’s… kind of it.
Weakness, definitely. The range of “permitted” ideas is way too narrow.
I tend to agree with most common political stances on Lemmy, but still I feel I’m self-censoring occasionally.Many instances intentionally want an echo chamber. Posts and comments are often deleted even if they’re not abusive, if they are ideologically opposed.
The problem doesn’t seem to be that instances want to cater to a unique political group (that’s why we have federation) It’s that most instances cater to the same or similar groups. I think in general it’s better that instances are differentiated by political beliefs. For example, i don’t like Hexbear. I just block it. But if hexbear and solarpunk were a single instance, i wouldn’t be able to separate the good and the bad.
But i agree that separating yourself too much from other ideas is bad, and echo chambers are bad in general.
What ideas do you want to see more of?
There is a bunch of angry brigading here for any of a multitude of reasons, and that shear wall of vitriol thrown at people doesn’t help lemmy grow.
