I was recently talking to some friends about Lemmy and the whole Fediverse idea, as it seemed like a really cool part of the Internet. As I was talking about it, though, I realized how unusually friendly this whole place is, and I joked that I “surprisingly haven’t found any bigotry.”
I’m wondering if anyone has come across that, by any chance. If it’s rare, my guess is that even though it’s decentralized, each instance has a set of rules and values that are shared throughout the Fediverse, and I’m guessing it’s easy to defederate with any seedy communities haha.
There is plenty of rudeness, hostility, and general toxicity and bigotry to go around. But there is also a lot of kindness, thoughtful consideration, and people who want to do the best for the platform and communities forming here.
I feel like the amount of more challenging or unwanted behaviour has gone up just in the time I’ve been here (hopefully not because of me!). From hardly seeing much of that in the first week or so, to then gradually seeing more and more as presumably more people move over from Reddit.
There are also a number of people who are moderating a large number of unrelated communities, and there are potentially issues with that and their behaviour and motives. There has been at least one support thread about it.
Be interesting to see how instances and communities respond, and if a more firm line will be drawn around these things.
I see that too, but I attribute that to the growing number of users here. It’s an unavoidable part of growth, sadly.
Absolutely! I think it will be good to keep an eye how users, communities and the mods and admins of different instances respond - because where the line is drawn or isn’t, or when people stay silent on important issues happening on their servers or in their communities can speak volumes. (I’m not saying I have seen anything like this yet, not implying anything - just interested to see how things will unfold over time and hopeful for the future!)