Censorship

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Yinz who's guessing at what this guy mean by “censorship,” and basing yinz advice to him on your guess, needs learned to read the modlog.

Happy now? There needs to be a non-offensive second person plural. I didn't mean anything by it, I just geniunely don't know what I should say that would be satisfying.

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I don't think this is quite accurate. Without moderation tools this place would be riddled with spam, porn, and so on.

Moderation is a software system. Censorship is culture. You can approve of moderating obviously abusive content, while still objecting to the idea of moderators enforcing a single point of view by deleting comments that disagree with them.

Of course, there's a big grey area there. And some people complain about "censorship" when they are being abusive and being moderated for it, but that's not what OP is doing, as far as I can tell.

[email protected]

Nope

The entire fediverse is built on censorship of thought and opinion because no server is allowed to join the fediverse that allows posts criticizing transgenderism.

This is a reply I recieved from them. Unless your instance allows transphobia, then maybe yeah, I was wrong, you wouldn't "censor" them. Or maybe you're gonna pretend that "criticizing transgenderism" isn't some obvious dogwhistle, and I hope not.

It was obvious they weren't just talking about your typical "lemmy.ml is censoring me" post. They also mentionned mastodon censoring them, which to me is a pretty red flag, since mastodon is not usually known for this behavior unless you're right wing adjacent.

[email protected]

Paradox of tolerance
For Antifa, No Platform for Fascism To prevent ‘Alt-Right’ ideas from being taken seriously, the anti-fascist argument is that you don’t even let them start to have a platform in society.
https://xcancel.com/IamRageSparkle/status/1280892535024619522

I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, "no. get out."

And the dude next to me says, "hey i'm not doing anything, i'm a paying customer." and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, "out. now." and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed

Anyway, I asked what that was about and the bartender was like, "you didn't see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them."

"you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it's always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don't want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too.

And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it's too late because they're entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down.

And i was like, 'oh damn.' and he said "yeah, you have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people."

And then he went back to ignoring me. But I haven't forgotten that at all.

[email protected]

FUTO isn’t open source, and the community in question was [email protected], making FUTO offtopic.

[email protected]

Censorship isn't built in to the fediverse. You're free to create your own instance and publish anything you want, completely exempt from any form of censorship.

[email protected]

Why does it never go the other way and your side screams censorship when there are restrictions saying not allowed to mention climate change, not allowed to mention socialism or Marxism, not allowed to mention covid?

[email protected]

There's a school of thought that if someone is transphobic or similar, that you can still talk with them, and explain why they're wrong. They probably won't absorb it the first time. But, if you forbid anyone in the world from ever having that conversation with them, or for that matter if you approach the conversation from the point of view that the transphobic person is being "bad" when they express sincerely to you what they believe, then all you're doing is making it a lot more difficult for them to ever adopt any point of view other than transphobia.

There's another school of thought that, more or less, we don't give a shit if someone is "sincere" about transphobia, that's messed up, and I don't want it on my network. Particularly since giving people an "innocent" way to express it and talk about it will open the door for right-wing bad actors to "innocently" express bigotry on your network.

To me, both of these schools of thought are valid. I'm comfortable talking with people with a wide range of opinions I really don't agree with, at least for a little while. I actually lean a little more towards the first school of thought, applied to a whole lot of ignorant stuff including transphobia. I think Lemmy is pretty unanimous on the second school of thought. That's fine, and I guess I understand why it has to be that way on an anonymous network that's subject to all sorts of attempted abuse. But I do think the first school of thought is valid, too, as a general rule about dealing with people.

Maybe OP thinks so too. Or maybe they're ignorant about "transgenderism," from Lemmy's point of view. Or maybe it was just an academic example, a pretty accurate one IMO, about a point of view that you cannot express anywhere on Lemmy outside of a few pariah-for-good-reason instances. Or maybe they are a secret right-winger who's cleverly smuggled "transgenderism" and "censorship" into this conversation, and the whole thing of keyboards was just a ruse to be able to start talking about it. I don't necessarily assume that third thing, though. It sounds like everyone else here is. I thought we were talking about keyboards. OP, are you talking about keyboards, or trans issues, or what? What are some examples of stuff you would like to be able to talk about on Lemmy that you can't?

[email protected]

It's not?

[email protected]

At the same time, they do fund open source projects, most notably Immich, which is a fantastic Google Photos alternative. I’m personally okay with using their stuff, and tentatively happy with them as an organization, but I’m keeping a watchful eye on their behavior.

I couldn’t of said it better, I feel the exact same way. I’m not a complete FOSS zealot, if the source code is open and theres no shady business/trackers that’s good enough for me.

I am locking this thread to avoid needing to remove misinformation and advocacy from Futo fans who think they should be allowed to redefine a term which there has been consensus about the definition of since before they were born.

Like I say, it sure sounds to me like OP has a point. I also think this probably wouldn't happen on a server which didn't have a strong tradition of the mods determining what opinions people are and aren't allowed to have.

People also have a point who are noting that OP is ticking some of the boxes of the "right winger complaining about censorship" bingo card. Personally, that's not really offensive to me if it's just someone saying what they think and asking if they're allowed to say it, but it's definitely poking a hole in my "yinz are freaking out, he's just talking about keyboads" theory, I will admit.

[email protected]

I read your post, so don't take my short response as me not reading through it or understanding your point.

But that user clearly passed the point where I could ever give them the benefit of the doubt. They're using a clear right wing dogwhistle, and I don't think they're asking it innocently. I don't think they used the keyboard thing as a pretext, but that the question they asked goes above the keyboard thing and reveals how they think about "being censored".

[email protected]

There is a whole network of conservative fediverse instances and you're free to go to them. They also allow CSAM and outward racism, which is why this side of the fediverse doesn't federate with them. Hope that helps

[email protected]

What are you even talking about? I'm on lemmy.ml because it's still federated with y'all, I just prefer to post in their instance because I don't always feel like arguing all the fucking time.

[email protected]

What is the point of the fediverse having built-in censorship to ban ideas, views, and opinions?

Because that's what normal people want?

[email protected]

Fair. The "Your side screams censorship" comment was something of a tactical blunder, too, if they wanted to be able to make the claim that this is all about keyboards. It does make it sound like they're trying to back their way into making a political point primarily.

I also didn't really read their whole post initially, I saw the basic gist and looked up the history, because I was mostly interested in the reality of how they were "censored" more than what they had to say about it. Then what I saw in the comments looked like the most knee-jerk of knee-jerks. But reading their post in detail definitely makes it sound a lot like they want to be racist but can't. Whether that was their intent or their desire or not, I don't know.

OP: If you pick a fight with the whole room, you'll be in a fight with the whole room. There's actually a significant sense in which I agree with you, probably putting me vastly in the minority on Lemmy, but you being deliberately disagreeable is going to make it harder for you to be able to succeed making your point, and also make a challenge for anyone who agrees with you to any extent.

It will also cause a bunch of conflict, though, so if that was your goal, you are succeeding.

[email protected]

You don't "all the fucking time" have to start a hugely intense argument when you see an opinion you disagree with. The mods don't have to remove it. It can just be an opinion you disagree with. Or, even better, you and the person can sometimes be able to have a conversation about it. That kind of thing can be really valuable if you both approach it the right way. One or the other of you might be wrong, or you might see different aspects of a wider whole that's more complex than one person's preexisting models were accounting for. It's how people get to understand the world. No one person already has all the answers.

That precise "arguing all the fucking time, any time I leave lemmy.ml" behavior being the majority culture on lemmy.ml has kicked most of their communities having a kind of "don't go there" reputation, at least from the POV of most of Lemmy. That's what I'm even talking about.

Lemmy is really good software, honestly, and it's something the world needs more of, and regarded well and working well. Lemmy.ml "should" be a flagship instance. I think, much more so than the politics (which are far from unpopular, at least on the left/techie internet), the insularity and yelling / "I'm right you're wrong" type of culture on lemmy.ml does a lot of reputational damage.

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Yeah, over stuff like what to have for dinner. Not whether some people don't deserve human rights.

And let me make this perfectly clear: all people deserve human rights.

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I guess I should just let you beat up on a strawman and ignore it?

That precise “arguing all the fucking time, any time I leave lemmy.ml”

But I don't! I really enjoy posting on lemmygrad and hexbear too. It's just whenever I have to interact with reddit.world and other such liberal instances it turns into arguments because we disagree so fundamentally on issues that I am passionate about.

I'm not too stupid to understand the complexity of the wider world. I'm not so arrogant that I think my instance's moderation should be the standard on all lemmy instances. I'm not so arrogant to think people shouldn't be allowed to disagree with me. Again, what are you even talking about? I'm happy that you libs have your own instances! That's why I'm on lemmy.ml and not one of the instances that .world defederated from - I want to talk to y'all sometimes, even if we disagree on so many things.

So maybe stop beating up on this strawman?

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It’s just whenever I have to interact with reddit.world and other such liberal instances it turns into arguments because we disagree so fundamentally on issues that I am passionate about.

When someone seemed specifically interested in the conversation, I posted on Hexbear some specific things that I thought Biden did a good job on, with citations, and they threatened to stab me with an icepick and then instance-banned me. I actually abandoned the effort to do any kind of "debate," seeing it wasn't going anywhere, and only later realized that I was banned.

I’m not too stupid to understand the complexity of the wider world. I’m not so arrogant to think people shouldn’t be allowed to disagree with me.

Fair enough. I'm mostly just going by what you said, that you prefer lemmy.ml because you don't want to be in arguments all the time. The way I interpreted that was that any time you see a viewpoint that isn't the lemmy.ml viewpoint, you get in an argument, and it's exhausting, which I can understand.

Lemmy.ml thinks some things that, to me, are objectively wrong. "Tienanmen Square wasn't a massacre, that's just Western propaganda," being a good example. That's fine if we think differently about that, but if you think people should be allowed to say that to you, and you say something back to them, as long as you and they are both consenting to the conversation, you're at odds with the lemmy.ml moderation and administration team.

Actually, OP's conversation is also a perfect example of what I'm even talking about. People are genuinely asking what's going on with a particular keyboard app. I had never heard of FUTO before this. I was curious. My model is, I'm allowed to read what people think about it and make up my own mind. The mod's model is that his viewpoint is correct, and he's allowed to remove "misinformation" that conflicts with his model, and it isn't relevant what people think who are not him. Even though, in my view, some of his view is objectively wrong ("futo does not create open source" - https://immich.app/blog/2024/immich-core-team-goes-fulltime/).

That's part of what I mean about the wider picture. I'm not saying the mod is "wrong" in their view of FUTO. I'm just saying that, certainly, the counterpoint that FUTO funds important FOSS and that's an important thing for the conversation, isn't "wrong" either. You can't have someone going HAM about only their view, and no other, being allowed. It's just silly. You have people really wanting to educate themselves, and the mod saying "no no no stop educating I already gave you the answer stop reading and talking to each other." It just bugs me. That's not my culture and my expectation of a social network.

I'm not saying you, or either of them, is "stupid," like anyone who doesn't grasp everything in the world is some kind of moron who needs to be educated. I'm just saying the world is a big and complex place. As soon as you start shutting down anything that doesn't match "the model," you're shutting down some true stuff. In almost all cases. Not everything that doesn't match lemmy.ml is "libs" that can just be glibly discarded.

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Don't worry! I got you.

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Censorship