Instagram blocked searches related to a number of political hashtags, including #democrats, #democrat, #jan6th, #republicans and a number of other terms Tuesday.
And yet, nobody who trumpets this as an issue really thinks hard about it as a philosophy. They just say stupid things like I am an absolutist, all speech should be free.
Then they turn around and complain about being defrauded lol.
Really? Try making a post supporting conservatism or attacking socialism and see how that goes for you. Most likely it’ll get down voted to oblivion, and in many communities mods will remove it. And it doesn’t really matter if it’s a high quality post either with tons of scholarly sources and whatnot.
The Fediverse is tolerant of leftists and progressives, and a bit less tolerant of libertarians. If there’s any hint of conservatism or centrism, the veneer of tolerance disappears.
I don’t know the solution here, but I think allowing users to choose their moderation is a piece of it.
I’m not talking about intolerant speech, like disparaging marginalized groups or something, I’m talking about even mundane policy. Try agreeing with Trump on something and you’ll get the same tired “Nazi bar” reaction.
For example, try agreeing with the pardon of Ross Ulbricht, who was given a life sentence with no possibility of parole for hosting a website that facilitated relatively safe drug trade. He was a first time offender, there’s no evidence that he actually sold anything illegal or did anything violent, and he acted on the philosophical idea that consenting, peaceful adults should be able to trade things freely (i.e. he wasn’t in a cartel or anything). But because he was pardoned by Trump, people jump to the conclusion that it must somehow be bad. If Biden (or Harris) did the exact same, it would get positive responses and people would likely assume it was somehow good. This has absolutely nothing to do with either side here, and if anything, it leans liberal/progressive, but because a conservative did it, it’s automatically bad (he only did it because he made a deal with libertarians to try to get their vote).
It’s the same kind of tribalist nonsense we see on the right.
And to be clear, this isn’t a “both sides, lol” argument, it’s commentary about tribalism in general. If something sounds sufficiently different from what we’re comfortable with, we reject it without further consideration. This is more extreme on the more popular instances (e.g. Lemmy world), which seem to be a lightning rod for this type of behavior, and my best argument is that people comfortable with group think flock to larger instances, whereas people interested in combating it flock to smaller instances.
You have to be pretty damn naive to think Trump pardoned the guy in a vacuum. That’s not tribalism, but a simple observation that Trump doesn’t do anything unless it benefits himself.
Right. He went to the Libertarian Party national convention and promised to pardon him, and this is him making good on that promise. It doesn’t cost him anything and it potentially gets him a little more support from the libertarian-leaning people in Congress.
Oh, it’s not just that. Trump wants to setup a bitcoin reserve. Ulbrich had 50,676 bitcoins (~$5.3B at the current exchange rate) that were all confiscated as part of his arrest. He doesn’t get those back just because he was pardoned. Good chance it’s now the seed money for the bitcoin reserve.
I guess the solution is for people with conservative values to stop associating so freely with subjugation addicts?
Once conservative identity is dissociated from a wide spectrum of racist and classist bullshit, not to mention that we are entering an extinction level event of our own doing, then maybe the guilt by association will go away.
They can start their own instance. Away from ours. No need to tolerate intolerance. We don’t need that shit here. Just because its open does not mean we want right wingers to wipe their shit on the walls. They can start their own instance in the fediverse and wipe shit on the walls there in their own little community. 🤷
I’m not talking about right wingers, I’m talking about anything that seems different from the majority opinion on a given community. It could have absolutely nothing to do with marginalized groups, if it challenges the leftist/progressive agenda in any way, it gets downvoted or moderated away.
Examples:
Trump pardon of Ross Ulbricht (Silk Road guy) - this was a libertarian agenda item, and completely goes against the conservative “War on Drugs,” yet so many push back on it; if Biden did the same, people would likely approve of it (“that poor kid was treated unjustly”)
try discussing any form of government waste (there’s plenty, not $2T like Musk claims, but probably a few billion)
TikTok - people claimed it was anti-China fear mongering when Trump initially suggested we ban it, then supported the ban when Biden admin supported it, and now are against softening the ban now that Trump is in power (that’s some serious political whiplash)
This isn’t tolerance vs intolerance, it’s tribalism, and the Fediverse just has different sets of tribes vs mainstream social media.
I feel like I see a wide variety of opinions on Lemmy. In Reddit, there are such large audiences that major opinions get upvoted and drown out niche ones. And no, I don’t like sorting by New or Controversial, lol
On Lemmy, I can easily scroll through an entire comment chain and see niche opinions, sometimes without having any idea how niche it is because it’s sitting at +2, and the top comment is at a whopping +11, lol
As for your examples, I’ll share my opinions because that’s fun for me…
I’m against the “War on Drugs” (because I like evidence-backed measures), but I’m not libertarian about it. I want drug usage to be legalized, but sale and, uh, “delivery” to be regulated. So I’m against this pardon, and I don’t care who did it. I’m leery of Biden’s mass pardons. And Trump’s. I think the US judicial system is pretty fucked up for this.
I’d rather have government waste than people who can’t get what they need. Businesses have all kinds of water and bloat too…and it’s not government jobs that are creating people like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk. So I guess you “got me” there!
I’m really confused about the whole TikTok thing. It seemed odd that Trump wanted to ban it. It seems odd that Trump wants to reverse it. I understand both perspectives in general, but I don’t have a wholesome understanding to have a firm opinion
The only range I see is on the leftist end of the spectrum. So you have everything from socialists (far left) to big government progressives (middle left?), with a handful of people on the mainstream left (left leaning?). I don’t see anyone really on the right end of the spectrum, i.e. anarcho capitalists (far right, but not Nazis) to mainstream conservatives (e.g. Mitt Romney, John McCain, etc).
I found a “conservative” community complete with a Gadsden Flag, but it’s just lefties poking fun at conservatives. It really is leftists all the way down here, and the most common perspective I see is that conservatives are all literally fascists. I’m certainly not conservative, but my family and neighbors are, and I honestly have to look really hard to find someone who is actually intolerant (assuming it’s not election season, that is, otherwise they out themselves). In fact, I see more rainbow flags than Trump flags here, and my district votes 70-80% for Republicans (many local seats are uncontested) and my state almost always goes to the GOP w/ >65% of the vote for statewide offices. In fact, my governor is openly protective of trans kids (but he doesn’t actually fight for anything, he’s a disappointment)…
The only time you’ll see someone right of Biden on this site is a half dozen comments down a chain or downvoted to oblivion, because Lemmy is even worse about using the downvote as “disagree” instead if “not constructive” than Reddit, and it was a huge problem there.
I’m leery of Biden’s mass pardons. And Trump’s.
I’d certainly rather correct the bad laws than rely on pardons (which can absolutely be abused, e.g. Hunter Biden), but in general, I prefer to err on the side of not locking people up in jail. If I were President, I’d absolutely pardon all non-violent drug offenders, for example, because police unfairly enforce that law to target POC, while at the same time working to revise the law to make those pardons unnecessary (I think jail time for victimless crimes like drug use is “cruel and unusual” and therefore a violation of the 8th amendment).
I’d rather there be a few more murderers and rapists out there than a few more innocent people locked up in prison. That’s why I’m against the death penalty, and why I’m in favor of Ross Ulbricht being released (he was made an example of, instead of receiving proper justice). Ross Ulbricht was first and foremost an activist, and IMO that should never come with a life sentence, especially when there’s no violence whatsoever.
I’d rather have government waste than people who can’t get what they need
Sure, but that doesn’t have to be the only two options.
Government agencies have no motivation to be careful with money, provided they don’t run out. In fact, many budgets are “use it or lose it,” so there’s actually the opposite incentive. IMO, we shouldn’t even need to do a budget at all, here’s how I think it should work:
Budgets are automatically adjusted for inflation every year
Unused budget rolls into a surplus, which can grow up to some fixed percentage of the overall budget (say, 50%)
Surpluses can used as needed, like to pay for large cap ex items
If an agency exceeds the surplus cap, the budget is reconsidered (i.e. cut) and the excess is paid out as a one-time bonus to employees in the agency
If an agency cuts costs while meeting objectives, a portion of the excess (say, 50%) should be paid out as a bonus
Basically, we should be encouraging spending cuts within the org. The approach Musk and Ramaswamy are taking is dangerous IMO, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make painless cuts.
It seemed odd that Trump wanted to ban it. It seems odd that Trump wants to reverse it.
I don’t think it’s that complicated:
ban - China = bad, and TikTok is Chinese; owning the Chinese = good
unban - turns out people like TikTok, so banning is bad PR; let’s “pause” the ban so people like me
He didn’t reverse the ban, just delayed it, so he’s trying to appeal to both sides of the issue. It’s just typical populist nonsense.
Yeah, what I was getting at is that I can still easily see downvoted comments here. It’s easier when a post that explodes has like 100 comments. A Reddit post that explodes could have four or even five figures worth of comments.
I get where you’re coming from with drug crimes, but I don’t think I agree. Non-violent doesn’t mean harmless…as with the Cash for Kids situation.
I’m all for using money efficiently. I’m sure you can understand my skepticism though – usually when people talk about government cuts, they tend to talk about/favour cuts for things they don’t like or understand.
oh, I definitely get that Trump’s TikTok flip-flop is a PR stunt. So it’s the actual justification that I’m not really following.
Also “Trump’s TikTok Flip-Flop” is perfect for a headline. Some news writer person, please take it and use it!
I consider kidnapping people to be “violence.” Knowingly putting someone in jail longer than necessary is kidnapping in my book.
If I can point to a direct victim, it’s “violent.” You cannot be your own victim, so using or possessing drugs should never be a jailable offense. IMO, jail should only be used to protect the public from an offender, it should never be the punishment itself, and as soon as a prisoner is no longer a threat to the public, they should be released. Ross Ulbricht wasn’t a threat to anyone and his platform was completely consensual, so jail makes no sense.
And it’s totally fine to disagree, that’s what I look for in platforms like this.
I’m sure you can understand my skepticism though
Absolutely, in fact I share it.
So it’s the actual justification that I’m not really following.
You mean the stated reason? It’s pretty simple, he’s giving TikTok more time to come to an agreement. He doesn’t want TikTok to go away, he just wants the US government to control it like it does Facebook (i.e. comply with data access requests for things like law enforcement).
But the real reason is just populism. He’d probably embrace universal healthcare if he thought his base would be okay with it and it would spike his approval rating among the left.
I’ve been there and it’s way worse. In fact, I almost left Lemmy entirely when it seemed Lemmy.ml was going to remain the dominant instance, but the still bad but much less bad Lemmy.world seems to have taken over.
I really should have added a /s lol. I have experienced what ur talking about first hand but then again I don’t fucking give 2 shits if I get downvotes.
I banned from the news communities so I made my own !news_summary@lemmy.dbzer0.com with blackjack and AI summary hookers. And a moderation policy that’s chill AF allowing real discussion.
Whether you care about down votes on your own posts is irrelevant. But down votes on topics/categories absolutely steers the conversation and is precisely the concern we’re discussing here.
People love to rail against big tech companies for silencing certain groups through moderation or tweaks to the algorithm, but look the other way when we have tyranny of the majority doing the same thing through down votes and general pressure from the community to drive away dissent. It’s the same idea, just different groups of people doing the silencing.
I don’t care about down votes on my posts either, but I do care about systematic down votes on posts with ideas that are not dangerous, just unpopular. We won’t progress without challenging the status quo, yet we humans love to group ourselves into tribes and cast out anyone who doesn’t conform.
My point is that Lemmy isn’t any better than other social media, it has the same problems, just a different status quo.
What’s the alternative? U need some way to sort the marketplace of ideas and I would argue that democracy is the beat system we have.
I think this applies:
“No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” - Winston Churchill
The Fediverse isn’t a democracy though. Admins self-select, and moderators are merely those who made the community first or were selected by those who made the community (or maybe replaced by the admins). Hosting a big instance costs quite a bit of money, so it’ll naturally attract people with some kind of agenda. Those in charge will self-select their users whether intentionally or unintentionally.
The discourse on Lemmy (don’t know about the rest of the Fediverse) largely happens on a handful of instances, and I think that’s to be expected from the above. We’d probably be better off if we actually has democracy, but I think that’s the wrong metaphor to use since we’re not restricted to a geographical area like we are on real life.
I think the solution is distributed systems. Instead of a handful of people running things, everyone should take part in running things. Instead of a handful of people moderating things, everyone should be a moderator, and users should be able to select which moderators they trust and which they don’t. Internet services can do things that physical services can’t, and I think we should while explore that (and I’m doing just that on my own projects).
Free speech my ass.
Thankfully the fediverse is tolerant of people with descenting opinions.
I’m picturing descending opinions. Ones that start off alright, but just keep on getting worse the more you think about them…lol
That’s not what free speech is. Freedom of speech prevents the government stopping you speaking, not private organizations.
Ahh yes free speech invented by the American constitution. I forgot that its not a philosophical ideal how stupid of me to assume that.
Stfu
And yet, nobody who trumpets this as an issue really thinks hard about it as a philosophy. They just say stupid things like I am an absolutist, all speech should be free.
Then they turn around and complain about being defrauded lol.
That’s the american legal version. If you think about the philosophical concept, it’s waaaayyyy more broad than this.
There is no interpretation of “freedom of speech” that forces a 3rd party to amplify your voice.
Hahaha, the Fediverse has very little tolerance for “wrong” opinions. As if opinions can even be wrong
Also, the obligatory: *dissenting (sorry)
Opinions are often based on premises or observations or claimed facts, which are sometimes very objectively wrong.
I get what you’re complaining about but the ‘sanctity of opinion’ isn’t a strong argument.
I’m glad everyone is missing my irony lol.
Also fucking grammar nazi (apology accepted)
Haha, I wondered if that was sarcasm. Looks like I’ve been fooled!
In my opinion, you’re a worthless blight on humanity we’re better off without.
But that can’t be wrong, can it? It’s an opinion, and my right to it is also the same thing as a right to be correct.
LOL no, it isn’t.
Really? Try making a post supporting conservatism or attacking socialism and see how that goes for you. Most likely it’ll get down voted to oblivion, and in many communities mods will remove it. And it doesn’t really matter if it’s a high quality post either with tons of scholarly sources and whatnot.
The Fediverse is tolerant of leftists and progressives, and a bit less tolerant of libertarians. If there’s any hint of conservatism or centrism, the veneer of tolerance disappears.
I don’t know the solution here, but I think allowing users to choose their moderation is a piece of it.
It’s the paradox of intolerance.
Conservatives are generally intolerant nowadays, towards marginalized people.
It’s ok to be intolerant of intolerance.
I’m not talking about intolerant speech, like disparaging marginalized groups or something, I’m talking about even mundane policy. Try agreeing with Trump on something and you’ll get the same tired “Nazi bar” reaction.
For example, try agreeing with the pardon of Ross Ulbricht, who was given a life sentence with no possibility of parole for hosting a website that facilitated relatively safe drug trade. He was a first time offender, there’s no evidence that he actually sold anything illegal or did anything violent, and he acted on the philosophical idea that consenting, peaceful adults should be able to trade things freely (i.e. he wasn’t in a cartel or anything). But because he was pardoned by Trump, people jump to the conclusion that it must somehow be bad. If Biden (or Harris) did the exact same, it would get positive responses and people would likely assume it was somehow good. This has absolutely nothing to do with either side here, and if anything, it leans liberal/progressive, but because a conservative did it, it’s automatically bad (he only did it because he made a deal with libertarians to try to get their vote).
It’s the same kind of tribalist nonsense we see on the right.
And to be clear, this isn’t a “both sides, lol” argument, it’s commentary about tribalism in general. If something sounds sufficiently different from what we’re comfortable with, we reject it without further consideration. This is more extreme on the more popular instances (e.g. Lemmy world), which seem to be a lightning rod for this type of behavior, and my best argument is that people comfortable with group think flock to larger instances, whereas people interested in combating it flock to smaller instances.
You have to be pretty damn naive to think Trump pardoned the guy in a vacuum. That’s not tribalism, but a simple observation that Trump doesn’t do anything unless it benefits himself.
Right. He went to the Libertarian Party national convention and promised to pardon him, and this is him making good on that promise. It doesn’t cost him anything and it potentially gets him a little more support from the libertarian-leaning people in Congress.
Oh, it’s not just that. Trump wants to setup a bitcoin reserve. Ulbrich had 50,676 bitcoins (~$5.3B at the current exchange rate) that were all confiscated as part of his arrest. He doesn’t get those back just because he was pardoned. Good chance it’s now the seed money for the bitcoin reserve.
I highly doubt the two are related. He could just leave the guy in prison and still get the money.
I guess the solution is for people with conservative values to stop associating so freely with subjugation addicts? Once conservative identity is dissociated from a wide spectrum of racist and classist bullshit, not to mention that we are entering an extinction level event of our own doing, then maybe the guilt by association will go away.
They can start their own instance. Away from ours. No need to tolerate intolerance. We don’t need that shit here. Just because its open does not mean we want right wingers to wipe their shit on the walls. They can start their own instance in the fediverse and wipe shit on the walls there in their own little community. 🤷
I’m not talking about right wingers, I’m talking about anything that seems different from the majority opinion on a given community. It could have absolutely nothing to do with marginalized groups, if it challenges the leftist/progressive agenda in any way, it gets downvoted or moderated away.
Examples:
This isn’t tolerance vs intolerance, it’s tribalism, and the Fediverse just has different sets of tribes vs mainstream social media.
I feel like I see a wide variety of opinions on Lemmy. In Reddit, there are such large audiences that major opinions get upvoted and drown out niche ones. And no, I don’t like sorting by New or Controversial, lol
On Lemmy, I can easily scroll through an entire comment chain and see niche opinions, sometimes without having any idea how niche it is because it’s sitting at +2, and the top comment is at a whopping +11, lol
As for your examples, I’ll share my opinions because that’s fun for me…
The only range I see is on the leftist end of the spectrum. So you have everything from socialists (far left) to big government progressives (middle left?), with a handful of people on the mainstream left (left leaning?). I don’t see anyone really on the right end of the spectrum, i.e. anarcho capitalists (far right, but not Nazis) to mainstream conservatives (e.g. Mitt Romney, John McCain, etc).
I found a “conservative” community complete with a Gadsden Flag, but it’s just lefties poking fun at conservatives. It really is leftists all the way down here, and the most common perspective I see is that conservatives are all literally fascists. I’m certainly not conservative, but my family and neighbors are, and I honestly have to look really hard to find someone who is actually intolerant (assuming it’s not election season, that is, otherwise they out themselves). In fact, I see more rainbow flags than Trump flags here, and my district votes 70-80% for Republicans (many local seats are uncontested) and my state almost always goes to the GOP w/ >65% of the vote for statewide offices. In fact, my governor is openly protective of trans kids (but he doesn’t actually fight for anything, he’s a disappointment)…
The only time you’ll see someone right of Biden on this site is a half dozen comments down a chain or downvoted to oblivion, because Lemmy is even worse about using the downvote as “disagree” instead if “not constructive” than Reddit, and it was a huge problem there.
I’d certainly rather correct the bad laws than rely on pardons (which can absolutely be abused, e.g. Hunter Biden), but in general, I prefer to err on the side of not locking people up in jail. If I were President, I’d absolutely pardon all non-violent drug offenders, for example, because police unfairly enforce that law to target POC, while at the same time working to revise the law to make those pardons unnecessary (I think jail time for victimless crimes like drug use is “cruel and unusual” and therefore a violation of the 8th amendment).
I’d rather there be a few more murderers and rapists out there than a few more innocent people locked up in prison. That’s why I’m against the death penalty, and why I’m in favor of Ross Ulbricht being released (he was made an example of, instead of receiving proper justice). Ross Ulbricht was first and foremost an activist, and IMO that should never come with a life sentence, especially when there’s no violence whatsoever.
Sure, but that doesn’t have to be the only two options.
Government agencies have no motivation to be careful with money, provided they don’t run out. In fact, many budgets are “use it or lose it,” so there’s actually the opposite incentive. IMO, we shouldn’t even need to do a budget at all, here’s how I think it should work:
Basically, we should be encouraging spending cuts within the org. The approach Musk and Ramaswamy are taking is dangerous IMO, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make painless cuts.
I don’t think it’s that complicated:
He didn’t reverse the ban, just delayed it, so he’s trying to appeal to both sides of the issue. It’s just typical populist nonsense.
Yeah, what I was getting at is that I can still easily see downvoted comments here. It’s easier when a post that explodes has like 100 comments. A Reddit post that explodes could have four or even five figures worth of comments.
Also “Trump’s TikTok Flip-Flop” is perfect for a headline. Some news writer person, please take it and use it!
I consider kidnapping people to be “violence.” Knowingly putting someone in jail longer than necessary is kidnapping in my book.
If I can point to a direct victim, it’s “violent.” You cannot be your own victim, so using or possessing drugs should never be a jailable offense. IMO, jail should only be used to protect the public from an offender, it should never be the punishment itself, and as soon as a prisoner is no longer a threat to the public, they should be released. Ross Ulbricht wasn’t a threat to anyone and his platform was completely consensual, so jail makes no sense.
And it’s totally fine to disagree, that’s what I look for in platforms like this.
Absolutely, in fact I share it.
You mean the stated reason? It’s pretty simple, he’s giving TikTok more time to come to an agreement. He doesn’t want TikTok to go away, he just wants the US government to control it like it does Facebook (i.e. comply with data access requests for things like law enforcement).
But the real reason is just populism. He’d probably embrace universal healthcare if he thought his base would be okay with it and it would spike his approval rating among the left.
You could always go over to the tanke side of Lemmy
I’ve been there and it’s way worse. In fact, I almost left Lemmy entirely when it seemed Lemmy.ml was going to remain the dominant instance, but the still bad but much less bad Lemmy.world seems to have taken over.
I really should have added a /s lol. I have experienced what ur talking about first hand but then again I don’t fucking give 2 shits if I get downvotes.
I banned from the news communities so I made my own !news_summary@lemmy.dbzer0.com with blackjack and AI summary hookers. And a moderation policy that’s chill AF allowing real discussion.
Whether you care about down votes on your own posts is irrelevant. But down votes on topics/categories absolutely steers the conversation and is precisely the concern we’re discussing here.
People love to rail against big tech companies for silencing certain groups through moderation or tweaks to the algorithm, but look the other way when we have tyranny of the majority doing the same thing through down votes and general pressure from the community to drive away dissent. It’s the same idea, just different groups of people doing the silencing.
I don’t care about down votes on my posts either, but I do care about systematic down votes on posts with ideas that are not dangerous, just unpopular. We won’t progress without challenging the status quo, yet we humans love to group ourselves into tribes and cast out anyone who doesn’t conform.
My point is that Lemmy isn’t any better than other social media, it has the same problems, just a different status quo.
I’d far prefer tyranny of the majority to being dictated to by an oligarch.
I refuse to accept the false dichotomy. I hope I’m not alone.
What’s the alternative? U need some way to sort the marketplace of ideas and I would argue that democracy is the beat system we have.
I think this applies: “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” - Winston Churchill
The Fediverse isn’t a democracy though. Admins self-select, and moderators are merely those who made the community first or were selected by those who made the community (or maybe replaced by the admins). Hosting a big instance costs quite a bit of money, so it’ll naturally attract people with some kind of agenda. Those in charge will self-select their users whether intentionally or unintentionally.
The discourse on Lemmy (don’t know about the rest of the Fediverse) largely happens on a handful of instances, and I think that’s to be expected from the above. We’d probably be better off if we actually has democracy, but I think that’s the wrong metaphor to use since we’re not restricted to a geographical area like we are on real life.
I think the solution is distributed systems. Instead of a handful of people running things, everyone should take part in running things. Instead of a handful of people moderating things, everyone should be a moderator, and users should be able to select which moderators they trust and which they don’t. Internet services can do things that physical services can’t, and I think we should while explore that (and I’m doing just that on my own projects).
👀