You can look at the modlog and see that lemmy.ml has also banned people for criticism of authoritarian governments. The reddit post I linked to in regards to Tiananmen Square was posted by one of the moderators of lemmy.ml.

On the main instance they’ve banned a few accounts for comments about human rights abuses in authoritarian-left governments. But it’s true, that’s instance specific. I know that on Mastodon the original instance, mastodon.social, has kind of set the tone for the other instances, so there could be an effect of that sort. Other than that? I’ll just be honest and tell you that I’m not sure. It’s hard to predict these kinds of things. But I agree with feditips that it could be a cause for concern.

Yeah. That’s one of the things I like most about fediverse. You can always move around if you feel like you need to, and you’ll still be able to interact with the communities you were interacting with earlier (in most cases). We’ll see what happens. I think the instance I joined seems genuinely well-meaning (although like most users, I’m still mostly just dipping my feet in here). I just wanted to put out there that the lead developers could have some problematic views.

Tears of the Kingdom has kept me busy enough.

Unfortunately we may just be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. The developers (and moderators of this instance) are unapologetic authoritarians, and on their own instance they ban people for criticizing authoritarian governments. Take a look at this post from their own reddit account in regards to Tiananmen Square.

I want the fediverse to succeed. I love the idea of a less centrally-controlled approach to social media, because we’ve all seen the problems that can create. But I’m worried that the influence of authoritarian-leaning developers could be a serious problem.

I really like the fediverse. I made a Mastodon account after Elon bought Twitter, because it was pretty clear he was disingenuous. On one hand, he said he wanted to “promote free speech” but on the other hand it seemed like he was focusing on one particular kind of speech (i.e. bigotry). It’s nice to see posts like this saying that lemmy hopes to be a different form of social media.

But… I can’t help but feel like there may be a similar disingenuous story going on, as much as I hate to say it. I want the fediverse to grow into a safe place for anyone to express themselves. And it’s hard to see that happening when the developers (and moderators of the original instance, lemmy.ml) are unapologetic authoritarians. When they say they want people to be respectful, there seems to be a double meaning. After all, banning people for talking about human rights violations doesn’t seem to be conducive to an open, honest platform where people can express themselves. The developers of lemmy are, sadly, committed to the ideas of old-school authoritarian governments. And I worry that’s going to be a damaging force in what could have otherwise been a wonderful platform. Just my two cents.