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How is this about free speech? People on this server can say whatever they want as long as they follow the server rules. If you go to another server, there are other rules.
In the real world, you also have freedom of speech (optimally), but if you go to another man's house and insult his wife, you don't have to be suprised if that man tells you to leave..
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Your example doesn’t fit bc you are trying to use a private space as an example of a public forum.
But it's not a public forum, at the end of the day it is a private space.. The server is rented by somebody, that somebody is paying for that server and that somebody can choose to do with that server whatever they want.. If somebody choose to host a private lemmy server where only they themselves are allowed, that's their right.
But if you open a place, real or digital, with the express purpose of having freeform or political discussions with large groups of people that you don’t personally know, e.g. a public forum/townhall/etc
But that's not even remotely what lemmy.world is supposed to be.. They choose to allow anyone who follows the rules, but they are very very clear that they are not "a free speech zone." and the rules are very strict, much stricter than twitter, reddit or most other social media sites, so I seriously don't understand how you can make the argument that lemmy.world is supposed to be a "townhall"..
I would argue that suppressing that kind of language
Nobody is suppressing your language.. You are free to say whatever you want on instances that support it.. Nobody is shutting down exploding-heads, but you can't expect somebody else to host content that they don't want to host on their servers, just as they cannot force this sites' admin to host content they don't want...
You have an argument when it comes to centralized social media, such as twitter, reddit, etc. where you are dependent on the company that runs the site. But with lemmy, you have free access to the code and are free to run your own server however you choose.
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Maybe this is a language semantic thing. Would it be better if I called it a ‘privately-owned townhall’? The idea is that, yes, there is private ownership but they are inviting the public at large.
A townhall is a public institution owned publicly. A privately owned townhall is an oxymoron as far as I see it.
But for argument's sake, I could somewhat see twitter, facebook or the internet overall as a privately owned public townhall to a certain extend.
And maybe lemmy or the fediverse overall could be considered somewhat of a townhall too.
But individual lemmy servers are not townhalls, they are more like privately owned pubs.
It’s not restricted to family members, people who are in a certain line of work, people who have been screened, etc
Well that depends entirely on which lemmy server we are talking about. I'm sure there are lemmy servers that are restricted to family members or people who are in a certain line of work. And there certainly are lemmy servers that only allow people who have been screened.
I don’t think comparing it to a person’s home is accurate either
Fair enough, maybe comparing it to a privately owned bar or pub would be the better analogy. Bars and pubs are privately owned, but in general, anyone who follows the rules can enter them. But if the bar owner feels like you have violated a rule, they can throw you out or even ban you.
However, due to the nature of private ownership, they are allowed to ban/censor as they see fit.
Right, but on a positive note, the code to lemmy is not privately owned, it is public. So while servers can control their own server like a dictator, they don't have any control over other servers.
that is still censorship, which by definition is restricting free speech.
You can certainly see it like that, yes. But I don't see a huge issue with it as long as this is openly stated in the rules of the server and as long as alternatives are allowed to exist.
Online, technology changes that to an extent. Not saying all the functionally exists currently or that kicking them out isn’t still an option. But lemmy is open-source and it is certainly within the realm of possibility that for text-based comments/posts/etc, a screening process to disallow words you don’t want could be added.
As far as I see it, the technical aspects seem to be a big obstacle at the moment. I think with better mod tools and block tools, some servers will probably reconsider re-federation. At the moment, the de-federation reflex seems to be chosen more due to practical reasons (they don't want/can't deal with the additional moderation).
Just that it is short-sighted and petty to do so if the reasons are political ones.
I personally do see the appeal of a "nice" anti-toxic community, it reminds me of the "good old" internet forum days where your comments were removed for the simplest of reasons, like calling somebody an idiot, or posting in the wrong place, or posting something that has been posted before. Many say people nowadays are too sensitive when it comes to what content is tolerated, which does have some truth to it, but many nowadays are also very sensitive when it comes to moderation where they almost believe that any moderation or censorship is inherently bad.
Now I also enjoy free-speech forums from time to time, but I do see the appeal of a heavily moderated "clean" space if I'm being honest. And I don't see how there cannot be both existing at the same time.
But considering user controls exist, I think it is a bit of a control freak move myself.
I can certainly understand that, although I also can understand that constantly blocking people can get annoying.
IMO a lot of the so-called “racist” and “transphobic” (the correct term would be “transmisic”) feelings that exist online today are not true hate of minorities but strong annoyance with political correctness and language control.
I think a lot of it is people being overwhelmed with how fast things are changing nowadays. 15 years ago, about 50% of the people in the US believed that homosexuality should not be accepted. This has changed very very rapidly, so it's natural that a lot of people have issues with that. I also think that equating "racism" and "transphobia" with "hate" is reductive.
During BLM, people are told that in addition to obvious slurs, they can’t say “blacklist” and “whitelist” (despite those terms having nothing to do with race if you study their origins) or “master” and “slave”
That's just liberals doing liberal things.. They don't want to do actual change, they just want to make PR moves. And I think saying "maybe we shouldn't use terms like master or slave anymore" is not exactly the same thing as saying "you can't use the term master or slave".
There’s also some people that get offended bc you refuse to acknowledge their beliefs (e.g. no injecting hormones and mutilating your body, does NOT make you a woman).
Well yeah, when you are convinced that you are a man born in a woman's body, you don't want to constantly be told that you are not a real man. People can disagree if they want, but I understand that people don't want to have this endless debate that will never ever be resolved because those kind of endless debates inevitably end up becoming toxic.
And you will always end up offending someone.
I think this is where my opinion differs to the opinion of many right wingers. Right wingers always think it's about offending people. To me, it's about creating a non-toxic community. In order to do that, you need moderation. This has always been the case, otherwise you end up in a COD MW2 lobby situation where everyone is just screaming insults and slurs into the mic. And I'm not against that because I'm offended by that, I just don't find it appealing as it hinders constructive conversations.
A townhall is a public institution owned publicly. A privately owned townhall is an oxymoron as far as I see it.
Fair. My fuck up there and I'll own it. That said, I'm not sure if there is a better word or not. Everything else I can think of also fails at some aspect or another. Comparing online things to irl things without losing nuance is hard sometimes.
maybe comparing it to a privately owned bar or pub would be the better analogy. Bars and pubs are privately owned, but in general, anyone who follows the rules can enter them. But if the bar owner feels like you have violated a rule, they can throw you out or even ban you.
Certainly fits better than private home, is closer for sure. But it is a business. Its main purpose of a pub is to sell drinks/food. For reddit/twitter, in a way, we could say that their main purpose (at least from the point of view of the board of directors) is to sell ads. But to my thinking that analogy completely falls apart when you have something like lemmy/kdin/mastodon or even private matrix/etc.
Maybe something more like a privately held auditorium that you let the public use free of charge? I'm sure that isn't perfect either but anyway
Well that depends entirely on which lemmy server we are talking about
Fair point as I didn't clarify. I meant those that open the doors to everyone. Obv a "family only" or "private clubhouse" style community doesn't fit the bill for what we're talking about at all (never intended to be wide open to public).
Right, but on a positive note, the code to lemmy is not privately owned, it is public. So while servers can control their own server like a dictator, they don’t have any control over other servers.
Yup, and kudos to them on that point. I have a lot of respect for them doing that, despite disagreeing with devs on Russia and China in particular.
You can certainly see it like that, yes. But I don’t see a huge issue with it as long as this is openly stated in the rules of the server and as long as alternatives are allowed to exist.
You're not wrong on the small level (e.g. if you are just considering one server), though in some case I wish that ones that were going for a curated community would not beat around the bush and would just directly come out and say things like "we're a [left/right/center] instance. don't like it, there's the door." - personally, having something like that right up front that you can see before even signing up would be great (some do this more or less but some have very vague language like "don't be an asshole" and everyone can draw the line on that one differently to some extent).
I do think there is a bigger free speech issue when you look at instances collectively though. Essentially, more instances have a liberal lean and strongly push this. I believe that this is bc a higher demographic of liberals get into IT due to colleges tending to be fairly liberal and most formal IT roles requiring a related degree from a college. Could be mistaken. But anyway, when the majority of instances start doing this, it effectively takes away from free speech on the web as a whole, despite each individual instances (fediverse) or site (twitter/reddit/facebook/etc) being privately owned.
I don't know what the right answer is here. Maybe making self hosting easier, cheap, and more anonymous to promote lower tech hurdles for people running instances? Maybe fixing colleges? Maybe something else.
the technical aspects seem to be a big obstacle at the moment. I
I can see that aspect of it too. I assume you mean things like if instance A is federating with B, then give A the ability to auto-hide content that does not meet their own community rules. Yeah, I think the lack of tools like that definitely contribute to the defederated instances.
That’s just liberals doing liberal things… They don’t want to do actual change, they just want to make PR moves.
Maybe some of it. Some people online definitely take it as almost word of God tho. Like I'm a developer and I've seen some github issues in the past when that stuff was going on and some of it was just full on hysterical idiocy and raving entitlement.
I think this is where my opinion differs to the opinion of many right wingers. Right wingers always think it’s about offending people. To me, it’s about creating a non-toxic community. In order to do that, you need moderation. This has always been the case, otherwise you end up in a COD MW2 lobby situation where everyone is just screaming insults and slurs into the mic. And I’m not against that because I’m offended by that, I just don’t find it appealing as it hinders constructive conversations.
I can partway see your point here. I think lemmy world quoted our main dude here calling someone "trannyfaggot" or something like that as one of there points for justifying the defed. Personally, I remember irl when people would call each other faggot all the time just for the fuck of it. Like you, I'm not offended by that kind of thing in the slightest. But I get what you mean not wanting a COD lobby (or any xbox lobby or pretty much anything with preteens not being actively watched by adults). Sometimes you just don't want the stupid bullshit, especially when something more important is going on and you don't want the distraction.
Anyway, been fun chatting with you. You make some good points and interesting convo. I need to get my ass back to work tho, so catch ya later.
But it is a business. Its main purpose of a pub is to sell drinks/food.
I don't think that matters too much, but we can also use some sort of association, like a book club, a boardgame group, etc. The underlying principle is free association and one of the necessary principles behind free association is that you can freely choose to not associate with somebody.
say things like “we’re a [left/right/center] instance.
Politically charged terms like left/right/center are, in the broader context, very vague. To some on the right, somebody like Joe Biden is a extremist leftist. To some on the center he is center to center left. To some on the left, he is a right winger. Similar story with rules such as "respect everyone regardless of identity, gender, race, etc". To some on the right, this would be seen as left wing. To some on the left and center, this is not inherantly political.
So for that reason, I prever servers to just explain their rules and let the users themselves classify those rules as "right-wing" or "left-wing" if they want.
vague language like “don’t be an asshole”
Yeah in my view that would be a bad rule because it's too vague. But something like lemmy.world's rules is pretty clear without the need of placing it left/right:
"Provide a friendly, safe, and welcoming environment for everyone regardless of gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality, political affiliation, or other similar characteristic."
Essentially, more instances have a liberal lean and strongly push this.
This is true, with modern social media in general, but especially with lemmy. I think there are multiple reasons for this. One is that lemmy especially is used right now by young western tech enthusiasts, and they tend to be left leaning. I also think another issue is that right-wingers seem to have a very confrontational and uncompromising attitude.
There was a little mini-drama on lemmy.world where some users wanted to create a conservative "free-speech" community. Due to the low numbers of conservatives and due to the stated idea that "everyone should be allowed to participate", the sub was mostly looking like 5 conservatives vs 200 non-conservatives making fun of them. Within hours, the mod turned around and started removing comments (which is understandable) he didn't like at random and basically only allowed posts/memes about how "dumb the left is" (which seems to be 95% of what right-wing memes are about). He was informed that personal attacks were not welcome on the lemmy instance, but he just cried about "free speech" and "censorship" and continued to post the same stuff until he was banned.
a higher demographic of liberals get into IT due to colleges tending to be fairly liberal and most formal IT roles requiring a related degree from a college.
This could certainly be one of the reasons. In my country, education is still strongly dependend on non-college education such as apprenticip programs. I work in IT as well, but me and most of my collegues and friends from the field have never been to college. And I do have some right leaning friends, but I would say most are center left to left leaning. But this doesn't just apply to IT, it is just younger people in general tend to lean left.
I believe this is because of the extreme changes that our society has been going through in the past decades and continues to go through. IT especially is a field that is constantly changing and progressing. This is pure speculation, but maybe people with conservative political leaning also tend to be conservative leaning in terms of profession and don't prefer fields that constanly require new approaches.
it effectively takes away from free speech on the web as a whole
I don't see that happening as long as there are still enough spaces for free speech to exist. Your freedom of speech is not a freedom to speak to everyone and anyone. People who don't want to listen to your speak don't have to listen.
I remember irl when people would call each other faggot all the time just for the fuck of it.
Well yeah, back in school. But the web isn't a boy's lockerroom, this is supposed to be an internationally active forum. Maybe this is also a cultural issue, but I couldn't imagine hearing a radio talk show or serious TV program where people casually call eachother "faggot". And I don't mean to give an online platform more meaning than it has, but I think basic respect for eachother is at the very least something that a platform host/admin should not have to justify enforcing if he chooses to do so.
Thanks for the conversation, I think I will look around from time to time, conversations with right leaning people is one of the few things I miss from the mainstream instances.
You’re wrong and will always be