It seems the fediverse is continuing and growing again. Line go up is probably good!
https://fediverse.observer/stats&months=50
Total users are huge now.
There are many websites out there that pull data from the fediverse. So take that with a grain of salt. But anecdotally I am seeing a small rise in people using the various platforms as each get more mature and servers somewhat stabilize.
Well then you’re in the minority. I do think it’s a problem that you can’t post what on most other platforms would be viewed as mainstream viewpoints without being threatened by censorship. And I do not agree with these viewpoints but at the same time, if the average person cannot post here without walking on eggshells, the fediverse will never be mainstream.
And I want it to be mainstream because fuck the tech oligarchs.
You can post racist drivel here, it will just be rightfully treated like it is.
What you can’t do on mainstream platforms is post leftist content, which you actually can here. Like Lemmy was pretty much invented because leftists got their comm banned from Reddit. They routinely censor us, like with Meta shutting down countless queer pages and spaces as of late.
Reddit is full of left leaning subs.
just because you lean left it doesn’t mean you are left. It means your ass is still squarely in the center. Being “Leftist” is to have the tacit understanding that the far right means to eradicate progressive thought by any means necessary, and that any threats of violence from “our” side are spoken from a place of self defence. The right does not want “discussion” to lead to compromise, they want it to lead to compliance. Besides, we’ve “been having the discussion” since the 1970’s and as every hostage negotiator knows: if you keep them talking, they aren’t acting. It’s a stalling tactic.
The fediverse is not a safe space, excepting a few instances like blahaj.
People can and should make instances for different philosophies but my concern is that any instance that doesn’t enforce leftist purity is going to be defederated.
People learning what the overton window is and that it can be very much different depending on the place you are in (i.e. instances in the case of the fediverse, but also to a lesser extend the fediverse itself) is a good thing in my view.
They’re not going to learn about it because most people who join the fediverse end up leaving and they don’t recruit anyone else.
The Overton window would be moved by people being exposed to far left ideas and finding them more reasonable than expected. But the community does a very poor job of doing that currently.
It’s far worse than that: after leaving they continue to talk about us, as someone might do for an unfaithful ex, trashing our reputation. We can be toxic AF here, with little to no warning labels about which spaces have what echo chamber policies in place; only people with extraordinarily thick skins can stand this space, especially for long periods of time.
I don’t quite agree. The people that leave silently (the overwhelimingly large majority) don’t leave as an active decision, but rather fail to come back because there isn’t enough interest (or nagging notifications).
And for people to realize their overton window is scewed to the right it is sufficient to be exposed to left wing ideas, no need to find them reasonable. The regular existence of these ideas in discourse is sufficient.
people don’t stay because reddit exists and that’s where the eyeballs are.
It’s probably worth remembering that censorship and moderation are two sides of the same coin.
And they’re not just used to silence viewpoints (like you’re saying about the Fediverse) but also an absence of it is exploited to keep people addicted to ragebait and jealousy (mainstream).
I think it’s a fundamental problem of social media as a technology tbh, and we’d be mostly better off without it.
the majority of fediverse content is already ragebait and echo chambers. it’s been that way for well over a year IME, and it’s escalating day by day.
the problem is people who love ragebait and echo chambers don’t see them as such, they see them as the one true reality and are incapable of acknowledging other perspectives on the world exist, and anyone who doesn’t share in their raging is evil and bad and tacitly supports the evil bad people.
and i won’t even go into the victim complex mentalities that dominate most communities here. the second you suggest anyone has agency over their lives… except a hostile and violent reaction or your comments being reported as hate speech.
Tbf, this is done by extremists on both sides, hence seems a function more of extremism than of anything else.
Moderation should be done with a light hand.
the problem is people confused moderation with their personal opinions and feelings.
they can’t separate the two concepts out, and they act emotionally, and hypocritically.
i cracked a joke once about a popular tourist destination, and got banned from the sub I posted it in… because the mod just visited said destination… basically because I ‘hurt their feelings’. and they openly admitted to it when I asked why… and the other mods all agreed it was a perfectly fine reason to temp ban me for a ‘bad attitude’.
that was 2019. and things only got more insane/worse in that sub and every other sub. got banned a few times in my local city sub for… supporting the mayor that I liked. reason my comments were removed ‘they were sexist/racist’ and I was like ‘how can supporting a non-white female mayor be sexist and racist?’ and banned…
and well, the world has followed suite. nothing makes sense anymore, and everything is twisted and misconstrued by insane people and other insane people believe them and anyone who tries to point out is demonized as ‘the enemy’. folks don’t even pretend anymore to care about objectivity or truth, and if they are ever referenced they are now no longer ideals to guide us, they are ‘oppressive tools of the colonialist patriarchy’ for the leftists, or ‘destroying traditional values’ by the rightoids.
A little power corrupts a lot.
Pretty much. Not everyone is like this, but most people are petty tyrants to themselves, and extend that to others.
It’s always shocked me how many people… can’t self regulate without threat of abuse or punishment, and they project that into the world. Whether it be religion or the government, or whatever. Which tells you a lot about who they really are deep down. And often is how abusive people justify their behaviors. “I wouldn’t hit you if you didn’t make me do it.” type of shit.
yep. you can’t believe in pragmatic sensible middle grounds without being told you should die or get PMs about how they are going to rape you.
Like… what if we had limited and legal and sensible immigration policies?
No, that’s facism and you’re a nazi and you support genocide… lol
and all these dimwits preach how ‘tolerant and loving and accepting they are’ of other people… except they aren’t. they are the nazis they claim to hate so much, and their ‘standard’ is ‘well i’m justified in my violent and rage as long as anyone who is ever right-wing exists’ and will tell you how how that isn’t an extremist position, how they the ‘paradox of tolerance’ means they are the ‘good guy’ fighting the ‘bad guys’.
that said i’ve seen some good discussions of the paradox… but all the good thoughtful takes get down voted and the ‘but we have to kill the nazis’ takes get upvoted. because on lemmy being thoughtful and debating and trying to understand things makes you a nazi. just like doing so on any right wing only space makes you a mentally ill leftist.