Hello, Im kind of new here and trying to get used to Lemmy and I was wondering about if this is true since I am considering donating on this site to support alternative projects but wanted to hear other users before doing so. That being said, what have been your experiences?
“Freedom of speech” is such a fraught concept. Define your terms.
This place has moderation…but it’s not the same as Reddit with their broad autoban system that the sub moderators tend to exploit. It depends on what you say.
I’m pretty new…but it’s apples and oranges. You’re a lot less likely to be baited into disingenuous arguments designed to make you angry to maximize engagement, here. People tend to post and comment in earnest.
I would say, Lemmy (or the Fediverse in general is just like real life. You can say anything you want, but don’t expect anyone to invite you to their party or talk to you, if you are being an jerk.
Meaning, that noone can ban you from Lemmy for anything you say. But they certainly can ban you from their own instance and / or not federate with an instance, you are on if they don’t like what you say.
Also, as a general word of advice, just be a decent, nice person and you’ll probably be fine. Online or offline. A major idea of the fediverse is to imagine and be part of a better world and if we engage with each other respectfully, everyone is better off.
Certainly less aggressive admins and auto mods.
freedom of speech means the government can’t arrest you for speaking up. Neither lemmy nor reddit are the government, so freedom of speech does not apply.
Which word or phrase do you suggest we should use instead for the idea of freedom of speech applied on a private level? Where in this case the instance admin takes on the role of regulating what can or can’t be communicated on their instance.
Freedom from censorship.
Which doesn’t apply to Lemmy either, different instances just censor different trains of thought.
I’d actually consider Lemmy’s freedom of speech to be very similar to the US. Nobody on the network can limit your speech in your own instance but nobody has to platform your terrible speech and everyone is free to ignore your speech and exclude you to just participating on your own instance.
It’s a lot more free than reddit, but the userbase of lemmy is a lot more extremist and tends to harass/insult you more. The issue is they can’t get you banned sitewide like they could on reddit for saying something that upsets them. on reddit i got a sitewide ban for having and outdoor cat. it was absurd, but the idiot mob mentality on reddit has that power. on lemmy they don’t, at worst you would just get banned from one instance.
Absolutely.
It’s not even a debate.
My 13 year old Reddit account was perma-banned without warning for saying “PUNCH A NAZI”. Let’s test that out here.
PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI PUNCH A NAZI
And that was just my first of probably 30-40 Reddit accounts before I finally said fuck it and came here. I’m not some asshole purposefully posting asshole shit I know I’m going to get banned for. Reddit is just that pathetic.
It’s just that I have zero patience for dipshits posting misinformation (as should we all) and I’m not afraid to let them know it. Lemmy gives me that liberty. Thanks Lemmy!!!
RUSSIA/CHINA PUNCH
You are now dogpiled on and banned from Lemmy.ml and Hexbear
Step on an eggshell about gender identity that rubs someone the wrong way
You are vilified and immediately banned from lemmy.blahaj.zone
Let’s be real, your example only works because the mods and admins agree that we should punch nazis.
The big difference is that while you can be banned from one instance, you can still use the rest of Lemmy.
You’re free to say what you want, but individual instances can decide whether they want to platform you. I prefer this over reddit-wide bullshit bans.
You’re free to say what you want
But that’s my point, you’re not free to say whatever you want. Even holding a different opinion can draw the wrong attention in the worst ways. The people who dogpile, vilify, and twist your words see no consequences, and only you end up paying by being excluded from the bigger communities for sticking to your words. You will get banned, and your comments will be scrubbed from the modlog.
What you’re saying only works if you’re ok with dealing in smaller communities with less traffic, which is a major complaint seeing as how Lemmy is already a small social media site, or you’re willing to shell out the money to spin up your own instance, which isn’t viable for the people who would love to do that if only money wasn’t a limitation.
What I’m saying is that regardless of how one cuts it, speech isn’t free here. It’s heavily punished and often enforced.
My point is this: SPEECH IS NEVER FREE. Not in the way you mean, i.e. without consequences. Find me one place in the entire world where you can say whatever you want without any consequences. I’ll wait.
In your daily life you can also say what you want. People might get pissed at you, refuse to talk to you, break off friendships, get you fired from your job if you go too far, whatever. That’s just life. What you say and do has consequences. Even online. Even at Lemmy.
Freedom of speech means your government won’t arrest you and lock you up for your opinions, but any other consequences in your social circle, for example, are just that. When you’re an asshole, people will think you’re an asshole. Sounds normal to me. And if you’re surrounded by assholes, they will act like assholes no matter what you say. If an instance has values so diametrically opposed to yours that they end up banning you, then good riddance, no? Edit: E.g. getting thrown out of a Nazi bar is no huge loss.
Sorry, I meant to say that speech isn’t as free as people are saying in this thread. We have people essentially screaming “punch a nazi” as if it’s a controversial opinion here, when there are other milder opinions that would create some serious outrage and get you banned on a whim.
I think it’s universally understood that there are consequences to what you say, and even how you say it, and when. I think that’s part of my point. I’m not here to argue for absolute free speech. I don’t believe in that.
I’m merely pointing out that the Fediverse as a whole is a lot more policed than people say. It doesn’t take much to create animosity.
If an instance has values so diametrically opposed to yours that they end up banning you, then good riddance, no? Edit: E.g. getting thrown out of a Nazi bar is no huge loss.
I don’t think that’s how it works. You can very much agree with a community the overwhelming majority of the time while getting along fine, and still create some friction by touching specific topics. At least, that’s been my experience in general everywhere, both online and IRL.
Oh absolutely. You can’t agree with someone 100% of the time. Or well, you can, but it’s rare. ;)
You’re obviously right, there is no absolute free speech and there shouldn’t be, imo. I see Lemmy a bit in the same way I see my real life. Everyone has rules in their own house and if you want to be invited in, you’ll have to live by them. If you don’t want to do that, that’s fine, but you can’t expect them to keep inviting you - and you’re welcome to go to another party where another group of people might not be invited.
Does this mean there are instances where I won’t be welcome? Sure. But it also means there are instances where I won’t be forced to see/read things I really don’t want to see. I can’t speak for anyone else, of course, but in my experience it’s perfectly possible (with few exceptions) for me to say what I want, as long as I sometimes go about it with a little tact (but the fact that I don’t want to be a huge asshole probably helps. ;))
Just because you are free to way whatever you want, doesn’t mean, that anybody has to listen or agree with you. If people don’t agree with your opinion and they let you know it, they are exercising their own freedom of speech.
And also, nobody owes you to platform your beliefs uncritically. Either you find a community, that wants to engage with you (and you talk to the other communities that wanna engage with your community) or you create your own community (and yeah, that could cost you a small amount of money and time). My point is, you can’t just expect people to let you use the resources that they pay for to platform opinions that they find harmful enough to not wanna talk to you again. Saying that someone banning someone from their community is impeading on your free speech is just like complaining that someone didn’t invite you to their party because you insulted them.
Disagreeing is one thing, and it’s what we’re doing, right? But there’s a big difference when you’re being dogpiled, vilified, harassed, insulted, and strawmanned all because people dislike what you said, even if it wasn’t offensive or wrong. Then you get your comments removed and your account banned when you merely defend your point of view.
And also, nobody owes you to platform your beliefs uncritically
But that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying quite the opposite, when even the point you’re making is calling something into question. These mods aren’t even paying for the hosting service.
Saying that someone banning someone from their community is impeading on your free speech is just like complaining that someone didn’t invite you to their party because you insulted them.
Oh, come on, these are open forums where everyone is encouraged to participate at first, and you don’t even have to be insulting to get on the wrong side of some people. I have been banned while being perfectly polite and following the rules.
Well, your entire argument is based on very vague anecdotal observations and you didn’t mention any concrete examples, so arguing against your points feels kind of pointless.
What were the exact things you said on which communities, that got you “dogpiled”?
And please just be honest, you are not some kind of politian trying to win a debate by any means possible, I see this more as a conversation.
vague anecdotal observations
Sounds like you’re just trying to wave me off.
What were the exact things you said on which communities, that got you “dogpiled”?
Don’t worry about it. Talking to you seems kind of pointless, too, seeing as you’re not even a mod or an admin.
And please just be honest, you are not some kind of politian trying to win a debate by any means possible, I see this more as a conversation.
I’m sorry, what? Aren’t we doing exactly that? How am I being a politician? I think you have the wrong idea about me and are trying to steer the conversation back on the track that it’s already on for some reason. lol
Honestly, I’d rather not deal with these annoying mischaracterizations. I’ve said my peace, I think I’m done.
Whoa whoa whoa there.
On Reddit you can say whatever you want.
As long as everyone likes what you say.
Fuck that insipid septic tank to death.
Ive made many comments that go against the general view of the user base. It gets downvoted but never deleted or banned. So I would say its pro free speech.
Not in my experience. I’ve gotten into an argument while specifically pleading against sharing screen-wide, zoomed-in images of common phobias like spiders without a spoiler/NSFW out of basic consideration.
Not only did people go out of their way to misunderstand what I was saying, but I got too many wholly nasty replies, and then got banned for reporting someone else for actually breaking the sub and site-wide rules, and was accused of being a “well-known troll” in the modlog. The fuck?
Needless to say, I got the mod to unban me when I called them out in another thread, and they eventually apologized.
But the knee-jerk reaction, close-mindedness, and immediate hate that I got felt a lot like the prejudice I’ve seen with homophobia. It’s so exhausting to see these prejudices and attitudes so readily prop up in unexpected places, especially in a forum where you’d think people know better.
Well lemmy hasn’t banned me for pointing out that a prisoner who is still alive hasn’t finished serving their life sentence
Best to donate to another project besides lemmy.
The main dev for lemmy is kind of a shitty person who is not shy about their shitty beleifs.
He supports authoritarians and dictatorships and bans anyone who doesn’t excuses the human rights abuses of dictatorships.
There is three questions to consider.
One is the site itself. Reddit inc has their own policies that apply site-wide no matter what. Lemmy has no central organization like that, although each individual server operator has their own acceptable use policy for what they allow on their server. This means it is both more free and more confusing- if you want to post potentially objectionable content like porn, there are plenty of servers that allow it or you can always run your own, but you have to make sure you are on one.
Next is individual group moderation. Both Reddit and Lemmy have this, community level moderators that apply whatever standards particular community requires. There is much less of the ‘power mod on a power trip’ situation than on Reddit currently, at least in my experience. I think some of that is because the overall traffic level is less, so it will be interesting to see what happens as Lemmy grows.
Finally there is culture and self-moderation. You see this on mass market platforms like Instagram and TikTok, where someone will say like they were roped at a party and want to buy a pewpew to unalive themself or some other such bullshit. Unfortunately that brain rot is spreading into Reddit, even though it is not at all required. Fortunately Lemmy seems pretty free of that so far.
corn, seggs, etc too. so absurd that stuff. esp because so much tiktok content is just lead-ins to porn/onlyfan accounts.
That’s a good point actually. An extra level of ridiculousness and hypocrisy to this trend of self censorship.
You know what worries me though? It was about 2008ish when I first heard someone say “lol” verbally as a response to a witty comment, and it was a really weird moment for me. She didn’t laugh, she smiled and said “lol”, because she was so used to speaking online. Now it’s pretty normal to hear that. I even do it without realising it.
What worries me is that these awful censorship words will creep into spoken English and people will start saying then out loud. I think I will unalive a little inside when that happens.I have already heard things like “unalive” defended as youth slang rather than Orwellian doublespeak.
I mean, on the one hand, no. It’s not even slang, it’s just a pathetic phenomenon where the users feel forced into using words they don’t want to, even though they aren’t being forced but they still do it for some reason. But then, on the other hand, my generation’s youth slang includes things like douchecanoe and heckin and live, laugh, love, so I don’t feel in a superior enough position to judge gen z on theirs.
Yup all those too.
I wish Reddit would put up a banner like ‘you are on the grown up internet now, please act like it’.
There is nothing inherently built into Lemmy that protects freedom of speech over Reddit other that being able to host your own instance.
I agree, but I do think that’s the most important thing.
I don’t think it is. Unless you are the host of a major instance, most of your interactions are going to be on other instances; these instances can do whatever mod actions they want against you.
If there are people interact on your instance, then you have the ability to restrict their speech.
Yes. And why is this wrong? You can also kick someone out of your house if they say crap you don’t want to hear. This is not the government, there can still be consequences to what you say.
You are free to still use Lemmy though, which is infinitely better than a site-wide reddit ban. You are free to say what you want and individual instances can decide whether they want to platform you. I don’t see any issues with this.
And if you really get banned from so many instances that using Lemmy becomes impossible, then might I suggest a fucking mirror so you can see the irredeemable asshole looking back?
It has just as much freedom as any other platform. It all depends on who the admins and moderators are. We do have better tools of keeping those in check, with the modlog being publicly available tho.
The modlog can be scrubbed, though. Afaik, if a mod bans someone and removes the user’s content at once, the modlog only logs the ban but all the comments are removed without a trace.
It depends on which instance are you using.
Technically, yeah. Some instances are run by tin-pot dictators with delusions of godhood, but if you get banned from one of those just switch to another one.
The communities tend to be bubblier, though, since they’re small. So if your opinions don’t match you’ll get shouted down harder.
The hive is a lot more arrogant here.
the superiority complex here is very high. apparently everyone is a genius because they use Linux.
And because they’re Communarchyalists. Don’t forget that.
Please stay on reddit. You’re a perfect fit there, here we’re all horrible baby eating communists so you wouldn’t like it.
There is one nice feature that pushes back against hive-mindedness here that Reddit lacks, at least; you can see your upvote and downvote totals rather than just the single aggregate total. Reddit used to be like that years ago but they got rid of it.
That means that if you say something that gets a ton of both downvotes and upvotes you can at least know that there were a significant number of people who liked it it. Over on Reddit saying anything that netted negative karma felt like screaming into the void.
Oh, and the small population means that downvoted comments are still likely easy to see. That helps too.
Still, the Fediverse does feel more strongly bubbled than Reddit does, from my subjective and anecdotal position.
deleted by creator
Yeah. Basically, I go to Reddit for independent information. I come here to essentially get yelled for having a nuanced take.
A nuanced take on Reddit is pretty much a guarantee of downvotes and arguments against things your weren’t saying
That’s not been my experience. Perhaps it’s the subs I tend to post in? Either way- a nuanced take is FAR less likely to be accepted here.
which bubble am I in now?
10 hours ago over in lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world you saw a picture that you rather liked but that was getting a lot of downvotes and you didn’t know why. You were told by @breadleyloafsyou@lemmy.zip that “lemmy doesn’t like AI”
Also 10 hours ago over in nostupidquestions@lemmy.world you said “I know its an unpopular opinion, but I don’t agree with punching Nazis. It makes them look like a victim, and violence never works.” You got a bunch of downvotes for that yourself.
Just a couple of examples of situations where an opinion that was against the consensus view of the community got “punished.”
Lemmy.world, so the largest general ‘bubble’ so to speak. You’re on the generalist, relatively moderate instance.
I feel like when people describe anything as moderate on the fediverse, they’re really taking about the middle ground between centrism and true communism. And somehow that’s still icky for some people’s tastes. Lol
I would never in a million years describe myself as moderate and I find myself agreeing with the great majority of opinions I come across. That’s how the general vibe of the entire instance feels, and it’s still not leftist enough for some folks, somehow.
Yes, moderate here is a relative term in the context of the wider fediverse.
Yeah, I’m not commenting on whether it’s a relative term, but where that line falls. It’s already quite left, and somehow people are still clutching their pearls.
the point of being a extremist is nothing is good enough for you. it’s a quest for ever more extreme views to feel superior/purer than the unwashed non-ideological masses.
the ‘drug’ of extremism is that it makes feel people feel ‘special’. ONLY they know the TRUTH.
Okay “centrist”.
I’ll go be extreme in my belief that people should be able to live without being harassed and murdered for who they were born.
lbgt+ extremists are 100% for harassment, murder, and assault when it’s someone they disgaree with. lots of them don’t think heterosexuality should exist, and many of them are anti-bi, anti-trans hate groups who have these weird ‘queer is supreme’ mindsets and feel they have the right to tell everyone else how to live.
charlie kirk murder is one of them. very popular view here on lemmy that his death was 100% justified because of what he said, while harming nobody.
