I am exploring Lemmy right now and what I see is very worrying to me, but I also don’t understand wth is going on with some instances here. I don’t know if it’s smart to post this, but here we go.
I am partial to Marxist and anarchist ideology, but lemmygrad looks completely unhinged to me. Is it a parody? Some content is fine and some of it is insane.
On the other hand, beehaw looked super inviting from the outside and I even applied to join them. Then, I looked closer and that instance’s moderation looks totalitarian and rigid in the other way. (I understand why they blocked lemmygrad though…)
I’m seeing this impact other communities in different ways and there’s some kind of witch hunt happening on both sides…
I want to interact with people that can respect each-other and that can hold open-minded discussions about any topics without devolving into some tribal war.
Edit:
I realize my post is not a simple question… Let me clarify some thoughs:
-I do not mean beehaw is far-right. The just seem strict and that’s their right.
-I worry profiles can “inherit” the bad reputation of instances they interacted with and get pre-emptively banned.
-People are used to reddit and tend to centralize. Is the “just switch community” really an option?
-English is far from my first language and I might’ve judged things too quickly/harshly so take my criticism with a grain of salt.
That’s the beauty of the fediverse, a true diversity of opinion.
Reddit and other sites are wary about fringe communities and ideologies, and will ban them if they feel threatened. Just look at /r/ChapoTrapHouse or /r/The_Donald. Regardless of what you think of those groups of people, they have a right to spread their views.
No matter how much you wish to stop the spread of harmful information, it will spread as long as there are people who want it to.
People absolutely do not have a right to push ideologies that harm, dehumanize, or diminish other people.
They do, they just have to deal with people who think their ideas are worthless. You can even make laws against ideas you don’t like, but they’ll be even less effective than drug prohibition. Just look at China for a great example of that.
So in your world it is acceptable for me to say that you’re an evil person for disagreeing with me and should be shot where you stand?
That’s absolutely ridiculous, and actually a crime in a decent number of the countries. And if that’s not what you’re saying I think that you don’t actually know what your free speech maximalism means, because people who believe those things and say those things exist and they want to hurt people.
Yes, what is anyone going to do to stop you? That’s why America has free speech at the very first right defined in the bill of rights.
The fediverse allows anyone to set up their own instances with their own rules and beliefs. It’s simply the consequence of freedom of speech.
Those people and ideas you want to ban will always be there. If you make it so people have to hide them, it just makes it easier for the ideas to spread. It’s better if they are openly criticized and refuted rather than swept under the rug.
Then explain why i cant scream FIRE in a movie theater, or call a mall and tell them I’m going to bomb them, or walk up to someone on the street and say “give me all your money or i’ll blow your brains out”. After all its all just speech isn’t it?
You can, you’ll just face legal consequences for disturbing the peace or threatening others.
Notice how you get in trouble after you say something. The idea that a government can stop you from saying or thinking something is silly. How would you even enforce such a thing?
That’s why the rights in the American’s constitution are considered “inalienable”, because even if there were (illegal) laws made to stop you from saying or thinking something, your right to do so is innate and can never truly be taken from you.
Am I taking crazy pills?
You missed the part of my comment where I pointed out you must have done something to be charged with a crime. The Government did not stop you, they are punishing you for something you did.
Your right to say and do whatever you want is immutable and cannot be taken away from you. As long as you have a mind, you have the ability to think and do what you want.
All that anyone can do to stop you is to threaten you with punishment of some kind, hoping it’ll deter you from doing that thing in the first place.
This is the classic argument of “banning nazis just makes them stronger, we have to debate them away!” No, that’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.
Who said anything about debate? You mock and demonize them openly. You make it not cool to be a nazi. Look at what Chapo Trap House does for example. They aren’t afraid to mock these clowns for their moronic ideologies.
Banning it and taking the “holier than thou” approach just makes it cool and edgy to be extremely far right. It’s extremely easy to get people very upset with almost no effort, so of course that’s going to be what edgy kids gravitate towards. Same reason the edgy kids were “Satanists” back in the 70s and 80s. It wasn’t that they were persuaded by satanism, it was easy to get a reaction from the Christian fundies and took no effort at all.
If you allow people to make a fool of themselves it dissuades others from doing that behavior.
I agree with this, but what you’re missing is that you don’t need them to be here to make fun of them. Screenshot their shit on whatever hole they’ve squandered off to, and mock them with that. You don’t need them to be a part of our spaces to mock them.
It isn’t really a matter of need or wanting something, they exist, and they will spread their views regardless of what we do. That’s the reality of the situation.
You can’t just ban them from the fediverse like you can ban them from a website, because such a capability is not built into the fediverse. It’s like saying we should ban nazi websites. That is impossible because they can simply set up their own websites on their own servers in countries that don’t care or even support their views. The same is true for the fediverse, they can (and already have) setup their own instances which are friendly to those kinds of views.
I think it’s prudent to talk about how things are and what the best way to deal with them is, rather than how things ought to be. Most people can agree that genocide and racism shouldn’t exist.