There are various reasons Lemmy succeeded as a Reddit alternative where others failed. One of the underappreciated ones is probably that the devs were communists. I know that sounds a little strange
Great thing about free speech. They can talk and so can you. You can ask them why believe in that stuff and maybe stop them from believing in it. But what’s hard. So just ban them.
I guess the closing footnote of the blog post summarizes it well:
from the point of view of many leftists, they’re not very far left, and liberals are, in fact, right wing
Trying to place people as left/right in an international forum like this is a complete waste of time. I’m writing from a Polish instance, where communist symbols are banned and the political left/right dimension looks completely different from my Scandinavian home country. In my traditionally left-leaning home country I’m a leftist. By the minds of many Americans I’m a stupid centrist because I’m not ideologically pure enough - Social Democracy is just capitalism with a human face etc. And don’t get me started on the Russians and the Chinese.
For some people, if you reject Leninism you’re right wing.
For some people, if you reject Leninism you’re right wing.
It goes deeper: sometimes being Leninist is not enough.
I used to be part of a socialist party, split into many “tendencies” (sub-parties? Dunno how to translate it). The way that we often referred to the largest tendency? “The right-wing of the party”.
In a few cases it is a matter of purity = orthodoxy, indeed. In some it’s simply stupidity: failure to realise that those things rely on a point of reference. And in some it was simply “it’s understood in the context anyway, so… meh”.
A while ago lemmyworld temporarily defederated from my old instance, and the feeds + activity dried up pretty quickly.
They refederated after a few of us hopped on to the matrix to try and find out the reason behind it, but it showed how much mass Lemmyworld has. Even if the communities are distributed across many instances, most of the users are visiting from Lemmyworld.
Things may be a little different now though as users have started to spread out a bit, and of course we have instances like Beehaw and Hexbear that aren’t federated with lemmyworld, but are running just fine.
Would you say like in the case of your comment, where the ratio skews heavily towards negative, something like having the thread collapsed by default or like hiding the score would be a better way to facilitate productive discussion? I think it works as a temporary middle ground (say the first 24H a post is up and folk’s aren’t completely decided, it gives controversial ideas a fightin’ chance)
I’ll admit lemmy is left wing, especially compared to sites like reddit, bluesky, voat, or any one of those fascist twitter clones like parler. But unlike the fascist twitter clones, I’d say many of the more popular instances here aren’t echo chambers, just spaces with larger overton windows.
there were no vaunted ideals of free speech
So? Even as someone who loves free speech (i am literally an anarchist), I recognize that speech has consequences, and sometimes those consequences are getting banned or defederated. This article talks about how not being a free speech absolutist makes a site more appealing by removing fascists, and lemmy’s issue with tankies by being more open to them. The second issue sorted itself out using federation and defederation.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing if people don’t want to see hate speech and wanf moderation. That was the feature that got me to join lemmy at first, beehaw was my first instance and was certainly the least toxic place I have found online.
Echo chambers aren’t as prevalent or as problematic as you think. The biggest echo chamber is actually most likely your own neighborhood. The internet, even small communities, is where you’re most likely exposed to diverse viewpoints. Shit, just yesterday I saw someone saying they were hurt by how we talked about Slavs. Where the heck am I gonna see that in Maryland?
Yeah, thanks. /s For turning Lemmy into a left wing echo chamber. Because we all know how good echo chambers (right or left) are. 🤦♂️
My favorite line from this is, “There were no vaunted ideals of free speech…”. Because they said the quiet part loud. That was nice of them.
The existence of lemmy.world which you’re part of, proves that lemmy tolerates right-wing instances if you ask me.
Make use of the decentralized nature of lemmy, the devs won’t knock at your door for creating or posting on right-wing instances.
Maybe it’s more that the majority of the fediverse doesn’t tolerate far right bullshit and open racism, unlike the other reddit alternatives.
Removed by mod
Looks to me like people downvote you because all your comments are said in either a condescending or dismissive manner.
Edit: also that you are a free market boot licker which generally doesn’t sit well with groups of pirates, commies, and open-source users.
Lol. Your posts are all antagonistic, smug and self important. No wonder you are a disaster.
Great thing about free speech. They can talk and so can you. You can ask them why believe in that stuff and maybe stop them from believing in it. But what’s hard. So just ban them.
Where bigots are welcome, no one else truly is.
If you want a place where bigots are welcome, you have plenty. 4chan, reddit, facebook, youtube comments, exploding-heads, xhitter, etc.
Not everywhere has to be a playground for bigots. There are too many already.
Free speech except the speech that espouses taking away free speech.
Lemmy.world is a right wing instance? Is that what you are saying?
I guess the closing footnote of the blog post summarizes it well:
Trying to place people as left/right in an international forum like this is a complete waste of time. I’m writing from a Polish instance, where communist symbols are banned and the political left/right dimension looks completely different from my Scandinavian home country. In my traditionally left-leaning home country I’m a leftist. By the minds of many Americans I’m a stupid centrist because I’m not ideologically pure enough - Social Democracy is just capitalism with a human face etc. And don’t get me started on the Russians and the Chinese.
For some people, if you reject Leninism you’re right wing.
It goes deeper: sometimes being Leninist is not enough.
I used to be part of a socialist party, split into many “tendencies” (sub-parties? Dunno how to translate it). The way that we often referred to the largest tendency? “The right-wing of the party”.
Only the purest are good enough for the People’s Front of Judea.
In a few cases it is a matter of purity = orthodoxy, indeed. In some it’s simply stupidity: failure to realise that those things rely on a point of reference. And in some it was simply “it’s understood in the context anyway, so… meh”.
Still kind of amusing for outsiders.
True. But they can also lock it. I see federation has a double edged sword.
Lemmyworld is far more populated than Lemmy.ml, LW would be the one locking them out
Strong agree.
A while ago lemmyworld temporarily defederated from my old instance, and the feeds + activity dried up pretty quickly.
They refederated after a few of us hopped on to the matrix to try and find out the reason behind it, but it showed how much mass Lemmyworld has. Even if the communities are distributed across many instances, most of the users are visiting from Lemmyworld.
Things may be a little different now though as users have started to spread out a bit, and of course we have instances like Beehaw and Hexbear that aren’t federated with lemmyworld, but are running just fine.
Removed by mod
Would you say like in the case of your comment, where the ratio skews heavily towards negative, something like having the thread collapsed by default or like hiding the score would be a better way to facilitate productive discussion? I think it works as a temporary middle ground (say the first 24H a post is up and folk’s aren’t completely decided, it gives controversial ideas a fightin’ chance)
I’ll admit lemmy is left wing, especially compared to sites like reddit, bluesky, voat, or any one of those fascist twitter clones like parler. But unlike the fascist twitter clones, I’d say many of the more popular instances here aren’t echo chambers, just spaces with larger overton windows.
So? Even as someone who loves free speech (i am literally an anarchist), I recognize that speech has consequences, and sometimes those consequences are getting banned or defederated. This article talks about how not being a free speech absolutist makes a site more appealing by removing fascists, and lemmy’s issue with tankies by being more open to them. The second issue sorted itself out using federation and defederation.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing if people don’t want to see hate speech and wanf moderation. That was the feature that got me to join lemmy at first, beehaw was my first instance and was certainly the least toxic place I have found online.
Echo chambers aren’t as prevalent or as problematic as you think. The biggest echo chamber is actually most likely your own neighborhood. The internet, even small communities, is where you’re most likely exposed to diverse viewpoints. Shit, just yesterday I saw someone saying they were hurt by how we talked about Slavs. Where the heck am I gonna see that in Maryland?
That may be so, but in the other scenario, lemmy wouldn’t exist and we’d all be miserablely sitting in reddit still
Free speech is a good thing. Absolute free speech is the excuse shit people use to air their shitty opinions.