feddit.org

10 points

10 days ago

The type of anarchism that says, “You must agree with my anarchism, and if you have some incorrect view, I’ll use my powers to remove you from the space” is not actually anarchism. It’s actually strikingly reminiscent of how the Russian implementation of communism had nothing to do with worker-led socialism that it was branded as. They implemented freedom by declaring themselves the arbiters of what were the allowed types of freedom and ruthlessly repressing anything else, which isn’t how it works.

In general, I think it’s a myth that if you disagree with liberal orthodoxy on lemmy.world, you’ll be banned. Plenty of people on lemmy.world constantly criticize the liberal orthodoxy and it’s fine. The people purporting the myth are either:

Being flaming cocks and then claiming they were banned for their factual beliefs when they get banned, when that wasn’t the issue
Or else trying to make themselves feel better about the censorship of liberals that happens on their own instances, by claiming lemmy.world is doing the same to their “side” when they aren’t.

The occasional whining about how unfair it is that you can’t post anti-Israel stories on lemmy.world, for example, is nothing to do with reality, but is instead a disguised yearning for a space where you can’t post pro-Israel stories, and the mods will enforce that political viewpoint using their powers so the speaker can feel comfortable because all they see is things that they already agree with.

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fxomt@lemm.ee

6 points

10 days ago

I’ve skimmed the lemmy.world modlog, and it seems you seem to be right. That was a bad example.

But my point was moreso on the stubbornness of mods. For example, if i suggest that China is bad on lemmy.ml, that’ll get me a ban under the guise of “rule 1”. Why? it’s not against the rules, it’s not bigoted or racist.

If i write controversial, or even bigoted comments, then that’s another story. I was criticizing power tripping mods that ban users if they personally disagree with them, instead of actually break the rules

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2 points

10 days ago

Yeah, those mods are bad, and they definitely exist including unapologetically on the tankie instances. I was just saying that the mirror-image bad mod, who will delete anything anti-Israel, is almost entirely a self-serving myth by a selected group that likes to pretend.

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OpenStars@piefed.social

1 point

9 days ago

On the other hand, if someone repeats a lie often enough, doesn’t that make it true? :-P

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1 point

9 days ago

I absolutely think that’s the idea, yes.

The world is a complicated place. Part of the optimization our brain does, to even be able to make sense of it at all without being overwhelmed, is to absorb things that you see other people saying to each other, and incorporate them into how you see the world. So I’m always interested when I see a variety of people all saying the same thing, even though that thing is demonstrably not true if you think for yourself for a few seconds.

In this case I think it’s just some kind of internal cope that they’re doing for themselves, and the repetition leading to other people potentially absorbing it is purely accidental, but it’s still a dangerous pattern.

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OpenStars@piefed.social

1 point

9 days ago

I tend to love reading your comments - they are insightful and deep:-).

When people behave identically as a “bot” would - passing along what it has heard, without thinking twice or even so much as once about it - they can act as part of that same, dark anti-pattern. Except the danger is so much more real then b/c they “genuinely” hold their belief?

I thought that a lot of it was due to enshittification reasons to maximize profit incentive, e.g. making it hard to “search” on Reddit, yet exceedingly easy to “post”, while at the same time making it harder to read the community rules prior to doing so, all to maximize “engagement”. But it seems more related to human nature, which will never change.

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1 point

9 days ago

Hey, thank you! Yeah. The nature of the network can induce people to behave nice or behave mean, and to put a lot or a little effort into the stuff they are posting. I think a lot of the anonymity and ease-of-getting-on of the modern Lemmy-type internet means that you get kind of the lowest common denominator of human nature. It’s unfortunately true of commercial networks as it is of free ones.

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