Fediverse

If I saw serious attempts anywhere from right-wingers to advocate for their views as an actual political philosophy I'd be more concerned by this. But we need spaces where people actually discuss how to build a better society, and simply because of that concern these spaces lean left. It's rare to find right-wingers who are even seriously interested in that question, except as a pretext to vent their unexamined prejudices and personality issues.

If, on internet forums, you push for everyone to have equal say even when their views are not well considered, everyone's energy gets used up arguing with the most offensive right-wing posters. I think it's a good thing to have spaces where that isn't how it goes. As for centrists, I think there's a place for engaging with them because there's more of a chance that they just haven't examined their views but can be brought to. But I'm not going to miss them if they're so put off by a left-leaning space that they won't participate, and I don't think every left space needs to spend its time arguing with liberals.

Frankly, my view of the right wing these days is that there's no particular need to treat a mishmash of selfishness, greed, lust for power, deceit, gullibility, ignorance, insecurity and hatred as if it's a political philosophy at all. Left versus right isn't a helpful picture. Serious vs unserious would be a better one. If someone has serious arguments for a right-wing position made in good faith, then they're not just wasting people's time. But that's not usually what you see, and I suspect it's because there's a lack of serious arguments to be made for it.

I don't miss the right-wing voices. For the most part they just dominate, disrupt and obstruct serious discussion. That said, it's important we don't forget how unrepresentative our online discussions are of society as a whole, and how little impact merely talking about them here has.

There appears to be a lack of "centrist", non-political, or right-wing voices (and I don't mean extreme MAGA-type views, but rather more moderate conservative positions).

They hang out in /modlog.

Reason and Science has always a left leaning bias. Simply because Nature doesn't give a shit about individual feelings or if someone believes if homosexuality is wrong. Nature does it's thing an humans who accept and understand this are not left-leaning but normal.

Corporate Social Media is manipulated like hell to shift the bias. That's it.

I find it interesting that some people are saying "the right is this" and "conservatives are that" and then saying horrible things most people would be opposed to. How would you know if you never talk to them and just assume what they think?

I think most people assume the extreme right is the entire right, just like most people assume the extreme left is the entire left. It's actually a spectrum. Or more accurately, a Nolan chart.

Most people I know are in the center, and they oppose racial segregation, oppose racism, oppose oppression, oppose monopolies, and oppose corrupt officials. But since they are not communists or socialists, some people on the left lump them in with the far right, which the center doesn't like either.

And if you attack the people in the center by falsely accusing them of being the right, all you are doing is alienating people who might agree with you on a lot of things.

1. Yes I noticed this too
2. It already is, which is a shame
3. Yes it's a problem because even if you try to get a balanced amount of all the views in your Lemmy subscriptions it's not possible, at the same time bubbles radicalize people.
4. Let discussions happen, don't delete and ban because you're against the view (as long as it's not continuously spamming)
5. Benefit: You see people as humans even if they are wrong, Drawback: you need to sometimes change your mind in face of new evidence showing up, which it wouldn't if you stay in your bubble.

The thing which I really dislike with a bubble is that people inside of it get more and more radical and ban even their allies because they're not radical enough.

I don’t think having Nazis and Zionists here would make anything better, make anyone sympathize with them, or find common ground. This is a place where we can be safe, why add people who are purposefully being dishonest and spreading disinformation? They aren’t misinformed people, they are real pieces of shit who hold a genuinely wrong position/s; they want to piss you off to ruin your day. I already have enough discourse with these people everywhere else, why here?

@Teknevra
I'm not a part of Lemmy, but I will say this: There are some people with whom reasonable dialog is just not possible. Speaking only for myself, I choose not to engage. That does not mean I'm not aware of what they are saying or thinking. It means that I am drawing a healthy boundary for myself.

Your feelings about it are valid. You should absolutely seek out more mixed spaces, if that is what you want to do.

Cheers!

As a leftist myself (communist), I generally enjoy the content and discussions on Lemmy.

Discussions often feel like they're happening within an ideological bubble.

While this can be true for some communities, I find that users here do still engage with other viewpoints when the discussions are in good faith.

I think the reason why a lot of users lean in a certain political direction is because of

• the origins of Lemmy
• users that choose to leave the older platforms may have done so for social / political reasons
• threadiverse is still relatively small

Do you think Lemmy is at risk of becoming an echo chamber for leftist views, a sort of Truth Social, Parler, Gab, etc., esque platform, but for Leftists?

I feel like we're getting more politically diverse over time. It's only a risk if we force a certain political leaning through moderation.

Is this a problem we should be concerned about, or is it a natural result of Lemmy's community-driven nature?

Worth keeping an eye on to see how it changes over time

How might we encourage more diverse political perspectives while still maintaining a respectful and inclusive environment?

Mainly moderation. If a community or space is intended for a particular group, it's perfectly fine to moderate how you see fit. If it is meant to be a general space, try to limit political biases when moderating and focus on bad faith comments.

If a post/comment was in good faith, it's more effective to let someone explain why it is wrong rather than removing it. Chances are that others can learn from the explanation (or that they were correct to begin with, and you'll learn something)

What are the potential benefits and drawbacks of having a more politically diverse user base on Lemmy?

The benefits are easy, I can't think of many drawbacks. Maybe:

• More people = higher moderation costs (which can be dealt with by having bigger teams)
• More drama (we have drama already)

Since my (leftist) instance is blocked, OP probably can't even read this comment.

That irony aside, although I disagree that federated Lemmy as a whole is homogenous, it's only natural that an alternative social network would skew away from the mainstream, and that instances would be relatively homogenous internally.

I believe this is by design, but to expect something else is unrealistic. The only options for Lemmy would be for it to be either further left or further right than Reddit. And there are a couple fascist instances, though they are blocked.

Election time was so irritating, Lemmy basically reigned in Harris as the next messiah; I had to end up blocking political keywords to make it usable. Kamala Harris is an absolute joke and the DNC is an even bigger joke. I remember seeing one post where someone basically claimed she has a spotless political career and I'm just thinking, 😮‍💨, really?

The problem with left leaning individuals on the internet is we have a lot of drive and conviction behind our ideas which is a good thing, but that should translate into real life activism or doing something that will combat the current political system and promote change. But we are beaten down since that's basically a total pipe dream, we realize what the problem is and feel powerless to fix it. What's

Now, whats a good way to regain some of the power over your "opponents"? Silence their opinion, whether that be outright censorship or in other ways that are antithetical to getting the point across.

The American political system has us fighting amongst one another to keep people distracted from who is really fucking everyone up the ass daily. And it continues to work. We need to stop this petty squabbling and use all this wasted energy on something useful that could actually bring us together, like maybe instead of just browsing social media all day, you could go out in to the real world.

I am left-leaning and live in a predominantly conservative area. Very red. When I go out, people usually don't just randomly talk about Trump all day, that's just not reality. Most people dont make their political views their entire personality. I hear way more about Trump from social media than I am ever do from people in real life. And I assure you, I don't seek it out.

You have way more in common with the other side than you realize. Social media allows the worst aspects of peoples personality to come out since you don't have to look at a human being in front of you that has feelings, goals, beliefs, dreams, et al. just like you do. Have some god damn compassion and maybe try to understand why people on the other side have come to the conclusions they have, instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water.

There are plenty of people on the fediverse that are clearly free and independent thinkers - as in not operating from inside a bubble where they get fed opinions and views from others and them regurgitating those views ad nauseam. On Lemmy, I see a lot of curiosity and a lot of people who were probably censored or effectively buried by downvotes on other platforms, despite their good faith and interesting (and sometimes radical) perspectives.

Discussion flows well, there's less focus on upvotes/downvotes and there is no karma. There doesn't seem to be a tradition of dog-piling people who wrong-think according to the group consensus (or whatever neoliberal narrative is prevailing) as there is on Reddit. Moderation is much less heavy-handed and there are no shadowbans/comments that don't show up for others (but only for yourself). There are significantly less bots and almost zero astroturfed content, as well.

Worry less about the labels, I say. If you want mainstream or conservative opinions, it's very easy to seek them out - the internet is full of those perspectives. If you're curious, you could play devil's advocate and discuss current events or other hot topics from a mainstream perspective and ask others why they think differently to better understand the userbase on the fediverse and how things generally go down here. I'm sure plenty of people would be happy to weigh the pros and cons of different viewpoints and perspectives and entertain a discussion about certain issues in good faith.

Not everybody is filtering everything out from a polarized lens and is focused on being an absolutist or purist with their preferred ideology.

Using Lemmy requires some modicum of understanding in technology. Most conservatives I've encountered tend to be technology-ignorant at best, and technophobic at worst. You don't see as many differing political views on Lemmy cause some/most conservatives are too inept at technology or can't be bothered to figure it out.

Reddit was just easier to get into, and as much as I personally like Lemmy, it's a hard sell to some from the outset. If the signup could be simplified (which I understand federation and why it can't be that easy), we could see an influx of more outdated viewpoints on the platform.

I also agree with others who have stated that most "conservative" philosophy involves denying rights to those who have only recently (last 50 years or so) been afforded rights equal to their own. I'm also growing increasingly suspicious of how much lead was actually used in the products consumed by boomers and some Gen-x before its use was known and most of it banned or removed from products. It seems too many in their late 40+ are going from normal human being with empathy towards others to RAGING MAGA CONSPIRACIST, seemingly overnight.

I dunno. I'm fairly far left, and moderately radicalized, and I get plenty of pushback. And from both those further left, and those that are US left (which is more centric overall).

Yeah, you don't get as many right wingers, but they do exist, and they tend to be willing to speak up. On the less crazy instances, they don't even get shut down by admins/mods, though they'll get down voted all to hell.

But I can't say that lemmy as a whole is that echoey. It just leans more left than any other form of social media.

You sure you’re a leftist? I see more leftism allowed to exist on Lemmy than other platforms, but the majority of it certainly leans neoliberal.

Try criticizing NATO or the Democrats in Lemmy communities. See how fast the powermods and groupthink kick in to put a stop to it.

But of course the rightwing stuff gets targeted, too. The mods here seem keen to mirror the narrow pro-neoliberal Reddit viewpoint of what is acceptable speech. Anything beyond that will result in a strike against the user or instance.

Yes it's very important to accommodate genocide and climate denialism. 🙄

Lemmy is the definition of a left-wing echo chamber. We all see it and if you downvote me for pointing this out - you are lying to yourself.