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.
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
I think that the new(ish) conservative community on lemmy.world is the biggest proof positive of this.
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 love that lemm.ee is federated with everyone, because that means I frequently encounter ideas that I - gasp - disagree with!
Yea Im pretty happy with lemm.ee too. Great instance great (former) admin/founder. Great admin team un general. Could not be happier
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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.
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.
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Not my instance, but hexbear is so lame. They are supposed a political instance, but you are not allowed to debate any point they dont agree. So whats the point of debating? Also, they want a revolution but are also afraid of meat and offensive words.
The point of politics isn’t to debate, debate is largely useless as people largely license themselves to believe what they want to believe based on their own class interests, changing minds comes from internal investigation. Believe me, I know (and am trying to be better about that). Hexbear is an openly Left-Unity community for Marxists and Anarchists to hang out in, it isn’t a revolutionary organization.
Further, Hexbear isn’t “afraid” of meat, they take a firm pro-vegan stance for ethical and environmental reasons, this is not contradictory to being pro-revolution. Moreover, there isn’t a “fear” of offensive words, but a desire to root out bigotry and chauvanism. This framing of their stances as being based on “fear” and not due to being principled is wrong.
Doesn’t impact me so fine with it.
I feel OK about it, for the most part. I can say "genocide is always wrong" and not get banned here.
But ya can’t see the word bitch (or a bunch of other swears)
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.
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good. not everyone wants to deal with misogyny.
How will I ever decide whether or not to make this tradeoff???
Scientists working to end West Nile virus by eliminating mosquitos ability to reproduce.
Until you get specific
I have encountered very little if any at all
Lemmy.ml does censor a lot of profanity, but other than that it doesn’t seem any more or less overtly heavyhanded on censorship than other instances.
That being said, I suppose self-censorship among the community is another factor to consider as well, as I’ve seen a lot of instances purge their own versions of wrongthink depending on which mod is on a power trip.
Yeah the profanity censorship can be a bit weird but its nice that I don’t see slurs
From what I’ve read, in our instance, it’s being critical of China that gets you banned.
But I don’t know how much of that is people being straight-up racist/xenophobic and then conflating it with being critical.
Why don’t you try saying something critical of China but not racist, and see if it gets removed?
Why don’t you try saying something critical of China but not racist, and see if it gets removed?
Me? Sure.
The Tianamen Square Massacre was shameful.
And look at that, it didn’t get removed
The brave Tianamen Square posters here envision themselves as their mythological ideal of Tank Man, which they invented without so much as even watching the video of the guy and the tank.
It sure was, those American backed separatists that stole military weapons should be ashamed of themselves for killing that many people before the army could respond.
You guys are so obsessed with America.
Stop trying to be the centre of the world for five minutes.
No but literally the CIA infiltrated the college at the square, lead the assault, and provided the weapons.
It’s the second IME. We talk all the time about our concerns with the CPC, our hopes and disappointments with their foreign policy, and our thoughts on their political/economic situation. Critically discussing China is pretty much half of what we do in the news comm.
The people who say “I was banned just for being critical of China” never seem to want to specify what those criticisms were, but every time you go looking through the modlog you find the same shit: Commie hivemind spy balloon Winnie the Pooh uyhgur tinyman square. It’s like going up to some people talking about Korea and saying “don’t you weirdos know that they eat rats and push the trains by hand”? It’s not just the propaganda that gets them banned; everyone starts out full of propaganda, and most people here will paitently clarify things for you if you ask. No, it’s the smug doubling and tripling-down on ignorance at every turn that gets them the boot. Then they run back to their home instance to tell the story of how the tankies murdered them, and the mythology builds.
Example of someone being banned from Hexbear pretty much for saying “somehting is going on with the Uyghurs” – https://hexbear.net/modlog?page=1&actionType=All&userId=13910
Americans are so heavily inundated with anti Chinese propaganda that they consider not being rabidly against China to be blind allegiance to the CPC.
I’m not a huge fan of the pro-China stuff in lieu of the pro-US stuff on other servers, but its mostly chill
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.
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
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 just had all of my comments deleted by the mod of a vegan group because I questioned one person. Seems lemmy is bringing over mods from reddit and their attitudes.
I’m thinking it’s just normal human power tripping. Which is why we need to find something better than the present system.
I haven’t had a single issue with feeling censored at DB0. If anything, it is users from other instances acting like they own the whole Fediverse that I have occasionally had a problem with, but I don’t think any of them were moderators.
Yah, moderation on db0 is fantastic. I have zero complaints.
I honestly feel like parasocial friends with DB0 at this point, and he is a really standup person in my opinion. Definitely the kind of intelligent nerd I admire.
I’m happy with my instance, no complaints!
Is it because you are free to talk strange? Or is it because you don’t talk strange?
“Censorship” has become a buzzword and lost all of its meaning
The line is at least very blurred with moderation. One person’s moderation is another person’s censorship.
It simply means that somebody stopped you from talking.
That’s it.
It’s meaning in abstract is simple, but it’s actual manifestations are usually quite complex. Self-censorship for example: If you self-censor out of fear of a negative social reaction, to what degree is that actually someone else stopping you from talking? Everyone else, or the idea of everyone else? I would say that any view that’s held by a group of people that’s pervasive enough to cause others to calibrate their words towards them, any cultural context strong enough that visitors feel a need to adjust for it, automatically and unconsciously practices censorship.
My experience with it has always been “they don’t like me talking so they stopped me”. Pretty simple. I speculate that this is the general case.
But yes, I have encountered the odor of that second variety a few times. Just the odor tho. I am not one to restrain my speech for fear of offending. On social media anyway.
I run my instance so I am perfectly happy with the level of censorship.
Said instance is narrowly focused on free software and free culture issues, so unrelated politics would be off-topic. That said there is a fairly bog standard code of conduct prohibiting bigotry, nazism and the like.
