I am thinking about creating an outpost in Lemmy for Reddit’s r/moderatepolitics subreddit. Briefly, the goal of the subreddit is to bring together a variety of viewpoints with rules that are mostly limited to not attacking other users and some operational rules (e.g. no editorialized headlines). These loose rules have allowed us to bring together voices from across the political spectrum for discussions that usually get stuck in echo chambers.
When I was looking through the Code of Conduct for the lemmy.ml instance, I noticed that it bans “oppressive” speech. That raised an immediate red flag for me. That term is so vague and broad as to leave an immense amount of discretionary power to an admin making a moderation decision. I know several of the admins on this instance are very left wing. Nothing wrong with that, but many on the left hold a rather expansive view of what oppressive speech is that includes even moderate or center-right discourse, never mind further right.
Is there any room to build this type of community on lemmy.ml? Or will we be forced to choose between our own instance or living with the threat of intervention that labels some elements of community discourse as oppressive?
As in slurs, hate speech, bigotry, personal attacks, stuff like that. Any discussion worth listening to should be able to make their points without any of these.
I agree “oppressive speech” doesn’t make sense, at least not to a lot of people. You could change it to
“insulting speech”
“speech directed against an individual”
“slurs, hate speech, bigotry, personal attacks”
Normally the tools of oppression are guns, fences, censorship. Speech is the major weapon against oppression. The term “oppressive speech” sounds like a euphamism. A lot of good people will be justifiably suspicious.
what dessalines said about the power dynamic is important, people should be able to insult and target those keeping them down
It sounds like the word “insult” means something different for us both.
For me, insulting is what we’re talking about here, useless counterproductive attacks against one of the other people in the debate. Something that might make him feel miserable, alone, even oppressed. It seems to perfectly describe what we are trying to proscribe here.
In the pub, sure, insulting people is part of the social dynamic, but not on a safe-space type internet forum like lemmy.
I replied elsewhere, and I would’ve liked to reply the same here. But I didn’t wanna spam, so here’s the link: https://lemmy.ml/post/68696/comment/58928
“recognizes that power imbalance” is a red flag IMO. The rules have to be the same for everyone. The traditionally powerful group has to have the same rights as the traditionally weak group. To apply different rules to people based on which group you percieve them to belong to - that’s the problem we are trying to fight! I can say more, I could give a full explanation, with examples from where misguided jurisdictions have attempted that and it’s backfired, but it just seems so obvious!
“hate speech” might have a particular legal meaning in your jurisdiction, but the internet is bigger than that. “hateful speech” is a concept everyone should understand and AFAIK doesn’t have a special legal definition anywhere.
You can define a new expression, you could call it alienating speech, assaulting speech, slurring speech, or you can invent any new expression that’s not already in use by a legal system. But the best thing is to use language that is already clear, describe what you really mean to say.
I’m still concerned about the bigotry portion of that. We have banned the worst hate speech (e.g. Nazis, full throated racism), but generally left it to the community to downvote and give rebuttals otherwise. So something like posting about Portland being a nightmarish hellscape due to rioting and homelessness, would often be countered with the more realistic experience of a resident. I know that’s not really bigotry, but I’m demonstrating how the back and forth usually goes.
I’ve personally never really considered that to be bigotry specifically. It would be if it got more extreme than your example though, like if someone were saying that Portlanders should die or something.
Yeah, that wasn’t the best example to give, even with the added note about it not being bigotry. A better example would be someone saying that transgirls shouldn’t participate in girls’ sports, and someone else giving a reality check on how small of an impact that has in practice, especially if they are under treatment early on. If an admin deletes the first comment, the second comment never gets a chance to be said.
I keep going back to trans-related topics because they are the newest front on the push for LGBTQ+ civil rights, so the window for what is acceptable conduct in the greater society still includes hurtful, bigoted statements. Also, I’m gay so I feel I owe a debt of solidarity to my trans kin.