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.

We are doing fine. Don't overthink lemmy.

People go where they want, Block what they will. Share what they share.

What else do you need? We aren't driven by shareholders to infinitely grow. Instances/communities/users will come and go, but lemmy is forever. It's just going to get better from here till we get a "TikTok ban" from big brother. Enjoy the ride.

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.

This is such a strange take to me.

I was on the broader fediverse for a year or so before lemmy took off, and I got used to the very strong left leaning environment I found there, where compassion for your impact on the people around you was built in to the norms of many of the communities. I wasn't used to it, but I was so glad to have found it.

And then lemmy happened. And unlike the rest of the fediverse, which was largely populated by people escaping twitter because it had been taken over by a fascist, the lemmy population was largely people escaping reddit because they could no longer use 3rd party apps. And the difference in ideology between those two groups is night and day.

To me, the broader fediverse feels left wing and comfortable. Lemmy feels centrist, where half of my time as an admin is banning trolls and bigots spreading hate.

tl;dr - Your definition of leftist is not my definition of leftist.

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.

ETA: just got banned from another Lemmy.world community for pointing out the original NATO commanders were Nazis. There you have it.

@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!

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.

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)

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

I am an independent and politically nonbinary, but people like assuming, almost always incorrectly, what I am thinking. The people on the right think I am left, and the people on the left think I am right. Apparently it is all relative, and the attitude of "if you disagree with me, you must be evil" is way too prominent, both on the left and the right.

I like listening to a variety of viewpoints because I can learn something new about human nature, even if I disagree with their opinion. It allows me to spot patterns that others don't see.

It also allows me to better understand and respond to flawed thinking and dangerous ideas. For example, giving power to someone who is power-hungry is dangerous, no matter what propaganda they are spouting. And there are opportunists and snakes in the grass all over the political spectrum. Just because they say the right things does not mean they do the right things. People don't always like it when that is pointed out. They confuse the leader for the cause.

The problem with remaining in an information bubble surrounded by like-minded people is that you start assuming that everyone thinks like you, which is usually not true at all. Both the right and the left fall into this trap sometimes. And people who have not experienced other cultures also fall into this trap. It creates an unrealistic and inaccurate view of the world. It also results in a shock when they realize that people on the other side of the world or from a different background think completely differently than they do.

It is one of the reasons why the Democrats lost the election in the U.S. They assumed they were the majority because they surrounded themselves with people who agreed with them and they repeatedly blocked or canceled anyone who disagreed. As a result, they shifted further and further away from what the people wanted, abandoned the working class, embraced unpopular views, and then wondered why they lost the swing voters, thereby giving the election to their arch enemies.

Cultivating and remaining in an information bubble is like shooting yourself in the foot and blaming the other side. The more you isolate yourself, the less reach your ideas have, and the less influence you have over society.

To be frank, some people are actually hoping both the far left and the far right becomes increasingly isolationist. It would mean they disappear from the mainstream consciousness since they silence themselves by blocking anyone who disagrees with them. That way they talk to themselves instead of bothering the mainstream middle, who are the actual majority.

The fact is, you don't hear much from the people in the middle because they get attacked from both the right and the left, and most people don't like the drama. Instead, they just go to the ballot box and vote against the politicians they don't like.

In an idea world, we could talk about the issues and come up with some non-partisan solutions. But society has become so polarized, I am not sure that is even possible anymore.