I’ve been using Lemmy for a while now, and I’ve noticed something that I was hoping to potentially discuss with the community.
As a leftist myself (communist), I generally enjoy the content and discussions on Lemmy.
However, I’ve been wondering if we might be facing an issue with ideological diversity.
From my observations:
- Most Lemmy Instances, news articles, posts, comments, etc. seem to come from a distinctly leftist perspective.
- 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).
- Discussions often feel like they’re happening within an ideological bubble.
My questions to the community are:
- Have others noticed this trend?
- 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?
- Is this a problem we should be concerned about, or is it a natural result of Lemmy’s community-driven nature?
- How might we encourage more diverse political perspectives while still maintaining a respectful and inclusive environment?
- What are the potential benefits and drawbacks of having a more politically diverse user base on Lemmy?
As much as I align with many of the views expressed here, I wonder if we’re missing out on valuable dialogue and perspective by not having a more diverse range of political opinions represented.
I’m genuinely curious to hear your thoughts on this.
The value is in being accepting that other people don’t see the world in the same way as you, and treating them with respect.
The value is having a society that is tolerant of diversity of opinion.
This is not an universal truth.
Nazism is explicitly deemed unworthy of respect in some legal systems, like Germany or the UK. MAGAs, white supremacists, and alt-righters are objectively too close to nazism, therefore their opinions are unworthy of respect to start with.
There is also the paradox of intolerance. If you let these people in, to respect their opinion, they will take over and deprive people of the right to live. They don’t play by tolerant society’s rules, so they they don’t get tolerated.
Here is the opinion of the scientific consensus on transgender people, which is have been so for years, if not decades.
We have been harassed, bullied, doxxed, and banned for bringing those up in all major social media platforms. TERFs, white supremacists, misogynists, racists, have always gotten away in these platforms with punching down on leftists, African and Caribbean reparations activists, feminists, and queer people. They were protected by equally bigoted moderators under the guise of entitlement to their opinion, at the same time that all these other opinions are bashed and framed as “overstepping”.
This is in line with what the EFF and Techdirt, which are both vocal First Amendment absolutists, have already said that what X and Facebook do now is in fact amplifying hate speech and effectively suppressing the free speech of gender and sexual minorities.
And this has been the situation for years, take for example the online harassment of feminists .
It is a deeply systemic bias, due to centrist indoctrination in broader society, that it is the leftist and inclusive spaces that are called out for lack of diversity for responding to harassment and bigotry, when the voices and lives of people are simply dominated and evacuated in major platforms without an iota of moderation and responsiveness to punch-down harassment.
Let alone that in the light of the most recent developments, which consolidates the above tendencies, makes the timing of the tolerance argument even more ironic and dishonest.
Do you not see the irony here of op being intolerant of sharing lemmy with people who do not share their viewpoint? You’ll note from my other comments here that I’m explicitly not arguing for hate speech. IMO this thread was actually about the lack of moderate alternative views on Lemmy, not about encouraging extremist narratives to take over the federation.
What I am arguing for here is to drop the unhelpful us-versus-them narrative and to argue that Lemmy could well learn to tolerate a wider range of opinions. This is not to say extreme and intolerant views such as the ones you have described should be permitted.
What is it exactly that you’re proposing lemmy mods do differently then? Do you believe that moderate alternative views are being broadly censored across lemmy? If not, and it’s just downvotes and “groupthink” you’re complaining about, then just state your “reasonable and moderate” disagreements and let the votes fall where they may. Your alternative views are not entitled to approval, and downvotes are not censorship.
Ah, the arguments for the defence of the status quo. How disturbingly ironic.
Yep, I’m a total hypocrite for defending a left-wing social media platform from your sealioning and concern trolling while the majority of platforms are undergoing a fascist takeover. If you want more diversity of opinion on lemmy then let it grow and the diversity will grow with it. Just don’t be surprised when a consensus forms among those who are fleeing fascist platforms.
Whatever is going on in this part of lemmy, it doesn’t bear any relationship to the left wing principals that I am familiar with. It appears to be a parody, and although I have previously wanted to deny such accusations, authoritarian and intolerant.
Then that would be an issue with lemmy.ml, not lemmy as a whole, no?
Yes and for some topics thats valid, and for some it absolutely is not. Like this discussion isnt even about being tolerant about other viewpoints, its about a lack of other views being problematic, and i dont consider a lack of hateful bile to be a problem in any way. I also dont consider those hateful ideals to be worthy of tolerating. I asked you for an example of a specifically right wing viewpoint thats not false, is worthy of discussion, and not hateful, and you gave none, so what is the point youre trying to make? And why should we make an effort to platform more right wing views when they are basically all hateful?
I think you’re missing my point.