So far Lemmy is vibing. Everyone here is excited and optimistic and willing to put up with a few rough spots to be part of something.

When the Eternal September comes, which it will, how does a Lemmy instance deal with bad actors?

  • academician
    262·
    2 years ago

    What makes you think this platform has “free speech”? It has a bunch of tools for suppressing or excluding undesirable tools. Most obviously, moderation can be used to remove comments or users from an instance, and federation can be used to remove whole instances from the network.

    I value free speech. But not every platform has to support it, and Lemmy explicitly doesn’t - unless people just don’t just those levers.

    • Null User Object@lemmy.world
      251·
      2 years ago

      You can run your own instance or join an instance that tolerates that speech, and federate with other instances that tolerate it. So, the “platform” is not supressing you one bit. Go forth, and be an asshole if you wish.

      However, administrators and users on other instances also have the freedom to not be forced to listen to assholes ad nauseum. “Free Speech” does not mean “Free (from the consequences of your) Speech” or that other people should be forced to listen to you.

      • maporita
        11·
        2 years ago

        It’s not about my right to be an asshole, it’s about the fact that others feel they should be able to dictate what I can and cannot see and read. I don’t agree with that … one of the foundations of liberal democracy is the ability of each of us to decide these things for ourselves. The argument that I can just leave and go somewhere else applies equally in reverse. If you don’t like what you read here you can go elsewhere.

    • Justin@lemmy.jlh.name
      7·
      2 years ago

      The EU definition of free speech online includes platforms. https://slate.com/technology/2022/10/digital-services-act-european-union-content-moderation.html

      Platforms meaning major internet giants.

      The reason why Lemmy encourages free speech better than the major platforms is that people can just start their own Lemmy.

      The argument that people gave for supporting suppression of political speech on platforms was that “you can just start your own site, you don’t have to use twitter/fb/etc”. With the death of reddit, we can clearly see that is much easier said than done, but I think Lemmy is making progress in that direction.