I’m done, I’ve been banned for expressing a different opinion (without insulting or personally attacking anyone), I’ve been accused of evading a ban with multiple accounts (this is my only account I’ve ever had on any lemmy instance), I’ve had people selectively ignore my comments and accuse me of things which I never said, and I’ve had people ignore valid criticisms and keep attacking me.
Reddit has many issues with trolls, one-sided discussion, and just general bullshit, but many Lemmy instances are way worse. The newfound freedom of Lemmy has attracted many extremists, from both sides, and many of them are moderators, who are more than happy to remove any contrarian opinions. This results in discussions being echo chambers
I just got banned from blahaj for suggesting we should show understanding to rightwing people, because they view the left in the same way as we view them. It creates more division for no reason other than being unwilling to communicate.
Reason: Bigot
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s not the same view if one is defensive and the other is offensive. You don’t communicate a Nazi out of being a Nazi, it takes a willingness to hear things that are hard to hear. It’s commonly referred to as the just world fallacy and they don’t just need to be communicated with, they need therapy.
Well precisely. But how can you expect them to become willing if you just hurl insults back at them. They will assume you are exactly the person you think they are and isolate themselves further in that community. I’m not saying fight hate with love, but no progress can be made without a willingness to communicate.
They will think people are what they think they are regardless because a demagogue told them to. Like covid is a hoax while they watch people around them literally die from it. We’re not talking about rational or reasonable people here, we’re talking about people who are so lost they need professional help.
But that’s just the thing. It is entirely reasonable in their worldview. They don’t hate just because they love hating, at least not on a conscious level. They have a whole lore about their ideology too. The problem js lack of ability to think critically and echochambers to reinforce their views. Now imagine an open community, where everyone can have an opinion left, right, or center, but only get banned for being intentionally hurtful. We can save the people who have not yet come to a conclusion, rather than their beliefs essentially being validated through hostile responses.
We have gone so far goddamn south to the point people on the left think free speech is nothing more than a right wing dogwhistle.
How long you decide they just need professional help too.
It’s the inevitable bubbling of echochambers that’s so harmful, but so atteactive for people to take part in that i believe to be the reason for a lot of the world’s problems today. Including covid deniers mind you. If they were exposed to proper evidence before they got dragged into an echo chamber, do you think they still believe what they believe?
Most of them are normal people, not deranged monsters, but we cast them as such to make ourselves feel better and give an easy explanation as to how someone can end up like that.
I’d just like to point out that this entire comment chain is proof against OP’s point. Both of you are having a conversation about a politically heated topic, and since you are both being reasonable in communication with each other, neither of you are getting up or downvoted into oblivion. I get where you are coming from Wathek, I in fact even agree with you, but blahaj is likely a safe zone instance, the people there are there to have an escape/reprieve from the harsh realities of the real world. So it isnt the place to argue communication with people who are actively causing problems for that community. Its why I blocked twox as soon as it migrated here to lemmy, I’m not the target demographic and I dont particularly want to see the ugly side of their venting. Going into their instance to argue with them isn’t the right play
I think the mod glanced over the comment and was a little triggerhappy. It was not in a blahaj thread, and the post (along with the rest of the comment chain) first got removed for being off topic in that sub by the mods of thst instance. Which i guess is what got the blahaj mod’s attention.
I didn’t come to blahaj to be a contrarian. I like the place. That’s why i made my account there. I didnt go there to argue about politics, but if it keeps popping in my feed, i see someone with a bad take, i’m going to respond. If that’s what they decide to ban, so be it. ill find another place to call home in the fediverse.
Step 1: go to a trans instance.
Step 2: Tell them that the supporters of a party that wants to erradicate them aren’t so bad.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Whine about how they banned you.
Read the room smart guy. It ain’t a site wide ban anyhow.
Yeah, this is a baffling take. LGBTQ+ folks and lefties are not actively using legislation and direct violence to eradicate the conservative bigots. I’ll call them bigots and detest their existence and fight against their power grabs…but I’m not actively trying to commit ethnic/societal cleansing.
And why do they think like that? The only thing they see in their bubble is the most extreme and annoying propagandized depiction of us. And the solution somehow is to push them even further away? There’s plenty of people out there who held extreme beliefs and have been humbled through mere interaction with someone of the opposing group.
What we’re doing here is the same as what they do. Portray them all in the same horrible light. Someome who thinks “as long as they keep it in the bedroom” 10 years ago, will now be much more likely to be more extreme because of echo chambers.
Someone who think “as long as they dont force their religious values on us” is now much more likely to think they all want to eradicate us, because of echo chambers.
We/they (I’m a leftist, but not really LGBTQ+) don’t think they want to eradicate us, we know that they want to eradicate us. Their penchant for violence and bigotry was the initial violation of the social contract and our rejection and intolerance of their hatred is the consequence. I can present a polite face to someone and hate them without wishing for their death or attacking them directly. I attack their ideology, actions, and effects, but I do not attack individuals, physically, verbally, or otherwise.
So you’re saying their methods are more aggressive. You’re not describing your average trump supporter, right? You’re describing the extreme, just like they describe the extremists of the left in their propaganda. I’m not suggesting we waste time on extremists. I’m suggesting there is hope for the rest of them.
The “average” ones that I’ve encountered don’t endorse outright violence, but they would very much like for all the “undesirables” to just disappear somehow…they’re just not too troubled about how that happens, so they turn a blind eye to the more extreme/more violent ones.
Okay, which brings me back to, why push those people further away, so they only strengthen that worldview rather than trying to communicate with them and show them who we really are? It’s not like you don’t want the undesirables to go away somehow as well, right?
It’s rather hard to push someone further away than them wishing for your death because they don’t agree with your identity or ideology. There are people closer to center that I have had successful conversations with, but the ones that firmly believe that leftists or LGBTQ+ folks are subhuman are too far gone. I don’t want those bigoted people gone, but I do think that I am not responsible for putting myself in the position of being the target of their ire. I can’t change their minds and subjecting myself to their hatred only serves to harm me.
I don’t want them dead. As awful as they are, they are still human. I just don’t want them to have any power or influence over my life or anyone else’s. They can live their lives in accordance with their beliefs, but the second they try to apply their beliefs to anyone else, they have gone too far and need to be stopped.
Not at all what i said here or in the post. I speak from experience on this, there are a lot of people being influenced by the extremists that can still be communicated with. This attitude is exactly what i’m referring to as well. You put them all under the same umbrella, which, if we keep doing this, will only make the problems for people on both sides worse.
I don’t mind the ban much, I can just make another account. But I think it is representative of an issue larger than Lemmy.
This is what I imagine American politics discussion online looks like.
There are just NO nuance. Not even a little bit. Too many extremists on ALL sides.
The problem is that we do not want to spend our entire life “influencing” others. The admin of Blahaj specifically made the instance in order to be a place where we don’t have to deal with that burden.
If you want to go deal with transphobic fucktards and try to advocate for tolerance then you go right ahead. No one is stopping you.
First, i want to make it extremely clear that i am NOT advocating for “tolerance” with these people. I am advocating for communication and education. We should not simply tolerate having people hate us, especially with the level some extremists are willing to go to.
I understand the need for a safe space. It’s a good concept. But there’s a fine line between safe space and political echo chamber. Once you start banning people for advocating for an option other than hate, it becomes problematic.
I have successfully disageed with the Blahaj admin about this issue and I remain unbanned.
Well that’s a good sign at least. I think i just ran into a triggerhappy mod.
I try to avoid politics in Lemmy whenever I have an opinion that doesn’t match the community’s agenda because I know I’ll get banned in a second.
… And then they complain about Elon Musk doing the same in Twitter.
It’s like their irony detection system is faulty.
I wouldn’t be surprised if I get banned for this comment.
It wasn’t even in a blahaj sub. But they did nuke the account. I’m not about to censor myself regardless though, if I can’t have the less restrictive reddit I was promised on lemmy, i might as well be back on reddit. I refuse to contribute to more echo chambers. If something is a bad take, i will point it out. if someone points out my reasoning is faulty, i learned something. If we can’t have that, we’re just sitting behind our computers, patting ourselves on the back about how right we are about everything.