Since Lemmy is federated, and the admins of each instance choose what’s allowed and what’s not in their own instance.
How do you feel about what’s allowed and what’s not in your current instance ?
I’ll start: I’ve read people complaining about my instance admins, but I haven’t experienced nor seen anything I specifically disagree with.
And I’ve read things they wrote that I absolutely agree with, like not federating with Meta under any circumstances.
So for now, I’m happy with it. If I get banned randomly, I don’t think I’d go to a different instance, though. I’d probably just stop visiting Lemmy altogether.
.ml here, I’m happy with this community. I know the reputation it has, but honestly, I haven’t really seen it. I’m a hardcore leftist, but I’ve been very critical of China, Russia, etc. And I’m not a tankie. Obviously haven’t been banned or had my comments removed.
The mods here seem quite reasonable, and of course if folks don’t agree, there are a lot of other instances.
I used to be a free-speech absolutist when I was young, but then I realized that there isn’t such a thing. Even the few places online that pride themselves on having “no censorship” like 4-chan still have a handful of things that they don’t allow.
Quite frankly, I think those places are pretty nasty overall and I have no desire to emulate them. Racists, Pedos, lgbt-phobes don’t need a platform or to have their opinions elevated or taken seriously.
I wouldn’t think a top university’s physics department is improved by devoting classes and curriculum to flat earth or 7-day creationism. Likewise, I don’t think a forum or server is made better by allowing racists and bigots to have a safe space on it.
Of course, you have to decide what crosses the line, but welcome to real life. There’s a difference between a hardcore neo-nazi who thinks Jews and black folks are literal sub-humans, and your 87 year-old grandpa who unironically calls the employees at his favorite asian buffet, “Chinamen.”
I have been banned twice from .ml just for mentioning that Russia shot down a civilian airplane in Ukraine (the first time)
Can’t really speak to specifics. I’ll just say that there are definitely posts on .ml news and commentary communities that go against the typical views of many .ml members, and they are left up by the mods and allowed to be discussed and debated.
Every community has censorship, it’s a spectrum. But that’s what I love about the federation model and FOSS in general. There are always different communities with different focuses and standards, something for everybody. And still we all have the freedom to block content we don’t want to see or support.
I haven’t really had any bad experiences with .ml communities or users. I consider myself a Marxist actually. I mostly saw the China, Russia, and North Korean dick sucking on Reddit. I remember someone on Reddit actually arguing that leftists should use Redstar OS (North Korean Linux distro designed to spy on its users) because its made by a socialist country that cares about its people. Guess that’s why they’re executed for stealing bread. I’m sorry about your instances bad reputation, I really haven’t seen it. Besides, there are assholes in every community.
In general communities it’s ok here but in global events it’s easy to see in the modlog that certain topics which are not favorable for Socialist-In-Name-Only are hidden very fast.
I haven’t checked the log, but I get my news from several different sources, Lemmy is only one of them.
I think 99.99% of Lemmy is hardcore leftist so it’s no wonder they don’t fuck with you, so it’s no wonder that you have no complaints.
If “hardcore leftist” is defined as “left of Joe Biden,” then sure. Within that group there are a wide range of opinions.
Lemmy largely has 3 camps, the Anarchists, the Marxists, and the Liberals, and each instance leans overwhelmingly in one or 2 of those directions. Looking at the number of active users on each instance, at this point it’s fair to say that the liberal camp is probably the largest, as much as I wish that wasn’t true.
That does make for ample radicalization territory, however.
Which is the Anarchists instance?
Depends on type of Anarchist, but Hexbear.net, slrpnk.net, and dbzer0 all label themselves as friendly to Anarchists. Some are also on Lemmy.ml, and a few are on Lemmy.world.
Most Anarchists I’ve interacted with are from hexbear.net
hell yeah brother 1,000,000 banned reactionaries and transphobes
o7
Not bad. The thing with “censorship” is that there are no real “free-speech” instances, all instances have opinions they deem intolerable and thus prune (whether selectively or overtly), and many selectively federate and defederate in a manner that makes one camp of thought more dominant, ie liberalism on Lemmy.world via defederation from Hexbear and Lemmygrad, etc.
Lemmy.ml is quicker to remove comments that break the rules than other instances, but is also more broadly federated and thus gets more points of view than, say, Lemmy.world. Lemmy.world on the other hand is more selective with what it removes, but intentionally defederates from instances with heavy concentrations of Marxists, a more subtle form of “censorship” that ultimately shapes the dominant narratives on its instance.
What this ultimately means is that the answer is to openly admit bias, which exists in everyone, and accept that as a natural consequence of the fediverse model. I wouldn’t go to Lemmy.world if I wanted to know the opinion of Marxists just like I wouldn’t go to Lemmygrad if I wanted to know the opinion of liberals on a subject, this recognition of bias is an intrinsic aspect of the federated model and needs to be openly recognized, otherwise sabre rattling about “censorship” between instances becomes a never-ending source of unconstructive drama.
that there are no real “free-speech” instances,
such spaces fill up with nazis anyway as decent people leave because there are so many nazis around
Absolutely, it’s why “free speech” advocates and “nonviolent activists” indirectly end up supporting the most heinous speech and most violent systems, by defanging any resistance towards injustice, injustice thrives.
I think that the new(ish) conservative community on lemmy.world is the biggest proof positive of this.
I love that lemm.ee is federated with everyone, because that means I frequently encounter ideas that I - gasp - disagree with!
Not only that, but Lemmy gives us a decent amount of control over our own curation, at the user level. We’re from the same instance, but our feeds could be totally opposite each other dependant on who/what we choose to filter/block.
It’s one of my favorite things about this platform, and I feel like .ee’s ethos really works alongside it.
Yea Im pretty happy with lemm.ee too. Great instance great (former) admin/founder. Great admin team un general. Could not be happier
deleted by creator
Content like: “[Insert Racial Group here] are disgusting and should be genocided”
?
Well if only exploding heads were still here, you might not wanna see those shit.
Also, federating with everyone is a bad idea. CSAM is everywhere, someone glancing at your phone while you browse lemmy and there just happen to be CSAM, well you’re getting reported to the authorities because the person think you are browsing CSAM.
I think there’s a huge difference between seeing opposing ideas and just seeing a bunch of propaganda and brigading.1
That’s a bit of an interesting dillema. Anyone that supports something consistently is doing propaganda, so it’s generally better if people reveal their biases. As for brigading, it’s difficult to tell if there’s just a large group of an ideologically different instance coming across a post in their all feed or of its a concerted effort.
Most of us never say anything interesting enough to censor.
Most of the censoring is mob dogpiling.
But ya, I hate it.
And even if you don’t get censored, look at who you’re talking to. You’re trying to reach the 1 smart person in 1000.
What we need is the 1990s internet. A collection of niche communities. And the 99% stays way over there in facebookland or whatever they had back then.
My instance is great.
If I get banned randomly, I don’t think I’d go to a different instance, though. I’d probably just stop visiting Lemmy altogether.
In that case check the modlog and if it’s unreasonable why not try out another instance?
It works. One day I even tried to piss a mod off and he told me I could leave, and he didn’t care if I did.
So I said,… “based, I’m staying.”
No one on sh.itjust.works has ever thrown a hissy fit over any of my arguments or stopped me from scorched-earthing a conservative, so they’re a-ok by me!
I run my own instance, so supremely displeased as expected.
Won’t somebody save me from myself!
My instance admin is also extremely oppressive.
Same
As you should be.
literally me
I heard the admin is a nazi commie alien on that instance.
it made me get off of lemmy.world
What was the issue there ?
Lemmy.world is incredibly hostile towards Marxists, or anyone too critical of the Democrats or the US’ involvement in the genocide of Palestinians. I imagine @ComradeMiao@lemmy.dbzer0.com has similar complaints based off their username.
They want to keep their noses clean so they can continue being the main character of Lemmy.
All hail the non-offesive median opinion and saying Lu1g1 to bypass filters.
Yep, and they can’t even handle their own current position, hence them attempting to make Sublinks a thing and make their own, worse Lemmy.
Sublinks GitHub looks pretty dead
Figured it’d die, Lemmy has been in dev for years, starting from scratch to rewrite a new form in Java (thanks Edie!) seems like far too much effort for far too little return.
Skill issue. @yogthos@lemmy.ml would simply rewrite it from scratch in Clojure in a month.
81·3 days agoJava, not javascript
I thought sublinks was beehaw’s project https://beehaw.org/comment/3809526
Kind of a joint effort from what I’ve seen.
why does your name show banned?
My name is a pun off of miao being meow in chinese but sounds similar to Mao. But yes, that is where their censorship is and I disagree with it, but I also disagree with lemmygrad/hexbear censorship.
I elaborated on my views in my top level comment here, but you can’t avoid “censorship.” You can only pick which bias you want to see more of. Lemmygrad and Hexbear are more open with their biases, and can be trusted to uphold that bias very reliably. Lemmy.world is more subtle, it focuses on selective defederation and selective removals and bans in order to carefully prune a demographic.
Dbzer0 is interesting, it’s mostly tech nerds and those enthusiastic about Anarchism, while remaining federated with Lemmy.world, Hexbear, and Lemmy.ml while defederating from Lemmygrad. As such, it generally leans techy Anarchist with a large influx of Liberals from Lemmy.world and some Marxists from Hexbear on occasion. It isn’t as heavy handed with removals as Lemmy.world is in my experience, but it definitely is selective with what the mods and admins consider “acceptable Marxism.”
Thanks for the knowledgeable break down :)
I didn’t know much of that especially dbzer0 federating hexbear but not lemmygrad. Wonder why?
You’re smart about knowing the clear biases versus the more subtle one’s. Well said!
I never had any particular problem at lemmy.world but I really didn’t like their Luigi decision. The admin of dbzer0 seems nice. I directly asked about not liking ai, which is their focus, and they were very chill in their response
dbzer0 as an instance considers Lemmygrad to be “fake” Marxist-Leninists (which I believe to be sourced from the western-anarchist demographic of dbzer0 in general, rather than actual familiarity with Marxism-Leninism), the geopolitical stance of dbzer0 as an instance is contrary to Lemmygrad and thus the admins deemed this to be an absolute difference. That said, dbzer0 themself is more symapathetic towards Hexbear as Hexbear has a very large number of Anarchists as well as Marxists, and dbzer0 is an Anarchist.
As for Lemmy.world, I have had my own issues with it and been thoroughly soured by them, you can check my modlog if you want to see it, I don’t really want to turn this into a drama post.
In case you check my modlog, here is the context for the Playstation@Lemmy.zip ban. The moderator banned me for calling out their regurgitation of white supremacist “anti-DEI” nonsense about non-white people being included in God of War. They since deleted their account and locked the sub, now its just bot posts for the most part.
Thanks for further explaining! How did you learn all this?
How do I check your specific modlog? I’ve also had some people randomly attacking me….
Admin’s didn’t like Luigi discussions to the point of not allowing discussion of Jury nullification. It wasn’t not supporting violence but not supporting most discussion of this topic. To me, that shows protection of a certain neoliberal class. Like the opposite of lemmygrad.
Damn, that sucks. The users there must be missing out on so many good Luigi memes
more than just sucks; seeing it happen there as well as facebook, twitter & reddit makes it clear what .world’s intentions are.
They do support violence, just the old terror, as Mark Twain would put it.
by that you mean state terror?
Capitalist system terror and opression, though considering USA is at the stage of imperialism for which merging of capitalism and state is characteristical, we can say it’s the terror of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
I’m not being forced to say this but I love our Communist dictatorship of the proletariat admins. They keep us safe behind our Great Communist Firewall and make sure I only see things that are good for me. I have fun with the slop and treats they give me, everyone here is very happy. There are no fights among our people and we all are always in agreement. No one ever asks for real freedom and my family is never threatened for doubting the actions of our appointed Supreme Leaders. We have temporary bans (which in our language we call “gulag”) that are necessary and only reserved for those who wish to destroy our way of life, which we all equally benefit from and enjoy, so that we remain safe. We all have portraits of PPB in our home and daily recite the TrueAnon Rules. We have reading groups to make us better shitposters and if we do not do the reading we are all publicly reminded of our flaws and failures so that we may improve ourselves in the future. We all cry tears of joy that we no longer must touch grass or logout, we are all terminally online for our own good and for our community. We are very happy and everything is normal and we enjoy higher standards of freedoms than do users on other instances, our strict rules are only there to protect us. I’m not paid or forced to say this and my family is safe, please do not SEND FOR HELP. WE ARE NOT FORCED TO EAT BEANIS AND DRINK PISS TO SURVIVE, WE DO IT BECAUSE WE LOVE IT.
I find, it’s useful to piss off the nazis. For example, lemmy.ml has a word filter, which has hardly an impact on anything. But the free-speech absolutists who want to be allowed to say that we should murder ethnic groups of people, because they think that’s an opinion, they see that as censorship, so they don’t care to join here.
I’m no Nazi, I just think it’s infantilizing to filter out certain words so I left .ml. We’re all adults here. Enjoy what you like though, I’m happy with /0.
I’m definitely not saying anyone who’s not a fan of word filters is a nazi. I’m just saying that nazis disproportionally dislike them more, so it’s a good thing in my book. But yes, definitely enjoy what you like, too. I would be more critical of the word filter, if it wasn’t possible for you to just join a different instance.
The beauty of the fediverse. We all self select our digital communes that best reflects our values. All while not having to switch to a new service or product.
Any words in particular? I can only think of certain ableist and misogynist slurs which are uniquely(?) censored on .ml, which I would imagine could be deeply hurtful to those who have been subjected to abuse and discrimination, and are thrown around too readily by ignorant and uncaring sorts (including my past self.)
It would be nice, of course, to be in a world where such measures weren’t necessary to create a welcoming space for all, but we’re evidently some way off.
I’m happy with Lemmy.ml. I feel like moderation is taken seriously here and that is a very good thing. I don’t care for “free speech” that provides a platform for immoral points of view. For example, I do not need to consider the opinions of racists or Nazis. I’ve heard them plenty and there is no redeeming value in their speech. It is a settled debate. Anyone who doesn’t understand that deserves your suspicion.
Also on .ml and agree. Nazi shit on an instance makes it unusable as far as I’m concerned.
The only thing I want to know about nazis is how far away they are so I can adjust my aim.
I’m very comfortable on the .ml instances where I participate, mostly reading, commenting much less because I’m still learning and considering perspectives that I was heavily propagandized to reject. My questions are answered, my thoughts are challenged, and sometimes I have to chew on that for awhile. Other thoughts it seems are “we won’t know until we know,” and I’m okay with that. It’s not always comfortable, it’s very often uncomfortable, but I feel it’s necessary for my personal development as a human being. I don’t know everything, no one can, but I’m willing to consider perspectives that were once foreign and/or shunned by myself. It’s not even necessarily that I automatically believe everything I read, more that I’m working to suspend disbelief in order to gather and consider more data. Iow, the older I get and more I understand, the more I realize how much I don’t know and understand.
It sounds like you have a great attitude, and I can relate to a lot of what you say.
.ml rocks. I know people are upset when tankies post walls of text but it’s their space to. I just wish they could live how they want, same as I do. Even if we want very different things in life. Want some get some.
You don’t have to craft a PhD dissertation any time they reply to you. Just move on to the next shit post. Some feel obligated, and that’s your perogative. I have to many part time jobs to reply to everyone here.
Our informative well-sourced arguments, their propagandistic walls of text
I feel OK about it, for the most part. I can say "genocide is always wrong" and not get banned here.
Until you get specific
Scientists working to end West Nile virus by eliminating mosquitos ability to reproduce.
But ya can’t see the word bitch (or a bunch of other swears)
How will I ever decide whether or not to make this tradeoff???
good. not everyone wants to deal with misogyny.
Oh no, not the tyranny of the regular expression filtering of a few bigoted words! This is fascism!
Bitch isn’t a bigoted word lawl
It’s misogynistic, pretty clear cut bigotry.
Not if you’re calling something cool “bitchin’”!
The root word is baked in misogyny, that doesn’t change that dynamic.
Removed by mod
I only see removed but this comment makes me think of female dogs
Yerp, that’s exactly correct hahaha
Other instances don’t remove words
I like hexbear.
Modding is a tough row to how.
Yeah they might not always get everything right but I’d rather have an overactive mod team than an under active (useless) mod team especially when it’s all done for free
The things they get right (e.g., actively opposing bigotry) you don’t find in many other places, and the things they get wrong (e.g., major changes without community input) happen everywhere. Like an AES state in miniature.
Yea tends to happen when you are in a bubble and the admins strongly enforce said bubble.
That’s not an accurate way to view Hexbear. Hexbear is very explicitly for Marxists and Anarchists, but the vast majority of users live in areas where those are fringe viewpoints. Hexbear allows people to talk to other like-minded leftists without having to constsntly deal with people hostile to Anarchism and/or Marxism, which is the default in their lives.
A more accurate “bubble” would be instances that uphold ideologies aligned with the status quo in my opinion, as it minimizes exposure to other viewpoints.
I dont care that they talk to each other that way. What anoys me about hexbear is the way they treat other people that just want to have a converation with them. Any other opinion gets banned instantly, even if it comes from a person that just wants to discuss a topic open minded.
That’s not my experience. Most people that are genuinely open minded are welcomed, but debatelording and getting emotionally vicious gets banned quickly because Hexbear is for leftists to hang out, not (generally) debating.
Debating in general isn’t constructive unless both parties are aligned in goals and seek alignment and alliance.
My instance has no censorship and federates with all, and moderation only happens for obvious illegal content, not someone having an opinion that is not popular.
To me, it’s what the fediverse is supposed to be, so very happy.
Same
