The alt social media are a good place to run away from algorithms and explicit mass manipulation from other big tech, be more free, independent, and spread ideas, but I also think that the fediverse is being filling with people with radical political ideologies, some kicked out of traditional social platforms for this same reason. I’m not saying that we can’t have discussions, but I think that many people are making their own echo Chambers in the fediverse.
Fedi attracts anarchists, socialists, and communists because the administrative style is one of community responsibility, personal safety, and a more active system where you get out what you put in. Fedi mods are often pretty responsive and most of them are chill knowledgable people with leftist tendencies, so like attracts like. But in order to feel comfortable in a fedi space you have to research your server, communicate regularly with local users, stay on top of blocks, and get to know the meta a bit.
Liberals like mainstream services like reddit/instagram/etc because they incentivise turning your brain off. After signing up, the system is designed to feed you content and only show you concerning ideas if they’re trying to bait you into ‘engagement’ as a kind of free advertising.
Fedi conflict is more similar to real life conflict where you see a lot of the same people all the time and sometimes have to figure out how to solve problems together. This is why things like mutual aid are common on mastodon. This is also why I think lemmy could have only been created by communists. You have to be commited to the slog for the good of your community.
Conservatives and fash, conversely, try to create social networks where no trust is involved. They make crypto-based apps, chan sites, and fedi forks where anonymity trumps all else, communication is only entertainment, and blocking is an annoyance because they would rather troll than feel the slightest bit of rejection.
Sure, as a radical, you can thrive in the fediverse, but what’s the alternative really? Censorship, catering to advertisers, closed systems… it’s your choice.
I don’t see being radical - thinking differently, behaving differently - as a bad thing per se. We don’t all want to plant bombs at the last night of the proms (sorry, Billy), or even hate people who don’t think/behave the way we do.
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To be honest, I find alternative media platforms a little disappointing. Like it feels as if a platform doesn’t have a progressive code of conduct then it just becomes a hub for far-right politics, conspiracy theorists, and then some linux users who are like “it’s not just for neonazis! I’m here too!” when the majority of the content is the other things.
This isn’t necessarily a criticism of federated services, I mean Lemmy doesn’t have that specific issue and I haven’t used mastodon that much but as far as I’m aware it doesn’t really have this problem either, so maybe there’s something specifically about federation or the communities behind federated software that creates specific outcomes?
In general, I just wish the left would adopt more of these platform, it seems like most leftists have become very comfortable on mainstream platforms because most of our social views are in line with the tech companies behind these platforms (which isn’t a bad thing of course), and we don’t really have the influence/organization to threaten them where we disagree.
Also what’s meant by echo chamber? I don’t really like the term that much because it’s often pretty vague and reduces human experiences to just their interaction on a specific platform. For instance, a place that’s only for socialists isn’t necessarily an echo chamber. For one, there’s a lot of internal variety there and also when you live in a world that’s predominately capitalist you’re inevitably going to be exposed to and have to interact with capitalism supports and capitalist ideas.
An echo chamber is a “safe space” where, in general, no one disagrees with some core idea/ideology. Thus with no differing opinion, people build on each other and strengthen their opinion that they are right.
Example: a nazi forum. Only nazis are allowed, anyone else gets banned. This removes the mere thought they could be wrong, and makes its nazi members more emboldened.
The same thing happens for all crap online - communists, leftists, white suppremists, pedophiles, dog fighters, BSD evangelists, whatever. Whether you are “right” isn’t important, just removing any alternatives closes off your mind to the possibility of more.
TLDR: groupthink bubbles bad. Interacting with people of differing opinions is good. It’s how we grow as people.
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The fediverse isn’t really a special entity in this regard. By it’s very nature, the Internet itself can be used to build & operate silos of just about any sort, and people have been dreaming up ways to do so for quite some time.
Most of the fediverse platforms have ways of dealing with radicals, or dangerous people, misinformation spreaders, white supremacists, what have you, which are pretty effective, especially if administrators and moderators do their thing in bulk. There’s obviously some challenges where people put up their platform, allow everyone and their dog to use it, and then abandon managing it, leaving it to rot in the hands of spammers, criminals and low lifes.
On the whole, though, I don’t think “the fediverse” is necessarily making for a safe space for such nonsense - those types gets blocked, filtered, shunned, isolated, etc, just as moderation intended. If they’re criminal, they can be reported to their respective network, web and DNS service providers just like any other entity online.
Anything that isn’t moderated can be and “is”. Its not our responsibility to make sure people aren’t breaking the law. Hopefully that won’t happen on Lemmy but at some point it probably will. Its a double edged sword. Lemmy is meant to be used for good but will inevitably be used for “evil”. There’s not much we can do to stop it
Sadly I kinda aggree. Many people don’t like censorship, but many don’t really care , they just got banned somewhere else and they move to a Free platform- and here they’ll be much more % of all ‘normal’ users, meaning for us who don’t share their often ‘extremist views’ it won’t be so nice content on Lemmy and they’ll abandon it sooner and even more % of all users will be ‘them’.
That’s the problem with freedom. But it’s the wrong thing to restrict freedom for everyone in order to accommodate for such people. In a democracy you also put up with right, extreme and or stupid people. and for a good reason. I believe the correct way to handle this is to moderate, write good tools to assist with moderation, block them / don’t federate with these instances. But it’s probably alarming that alternative platforms could be associated with those people.
In a democracy you also put up with right, extreme and or stupid people
Personal freedom stops where everybody elses freedom begins. Extremists don’t have a place in a (modern) democracy as soon as they try to hurt other peoples freedom that doesn’t infringe on theirs in any way. Same sex marriage opposition, racial segregation, anti-secularism, etc. are not to be “put up” with. They are not democratic in any way shape or form, even if they claim to be and even if they are in the majority.
But it’s probably alarming that alternative platforms could be associated with those people.
For some reason fediverse stuff (esp mastodon) has in-your-face branding that can only be replaced by editing templates. So instances are automatically associated with the project. Nobody would associate a specific forum software with an instance of it because they usually restrict the branding to the footer and let admins edit the theme from the control panel at least a little bit.
It’s rando,m. It’s what the internet was in the late 90’s.
is
rando,man acronym or a misspelling ofrandom?deliberat,e
I always thought it stood for “It’s rando, m’friend.”
“,” is next to “m” on the keyboard. I’ll let you guess.
Fair point
Yes but it is because here is a safe space where you can share your ideas no matter what they are
No, no you can’t. That suggests there’s no policies dictating what’s acceptable or not on the platform, which there definitely are.
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Were you downvoted? That seems odd, since you’re absolutely correct.
Yes but it is because here is a safe space where you can share your ideas no matter what they are True but “politically radical” people are allowed on some instances
I quite hope not. Although I lean left and socio-liberal I come to social platforms such as Lemmy to take a break from the usual politics.
yes, “free/libre” software usually attracts nazis, especially gpl licenses. that’s why lemmy should start using an ethical open source license and get serious about getting rid of right-wingers
facepalm There’s GPL code in just about every technology you use, and it has nothing to do with the type of person that uses it. Do you think most people understand or care what licenses are being used in the online platforms they use? It really has nothing to do with OPs question.
reddit is gpl licensed and is one of the most bigoted social media out there
Reddit was*
Reddit freed it and then closed it again.
reddit is not everything… what’s your point? Again, GPL is used in software all over the place. It has nothing to do with the sort of community that develops around an online service.
It’s like saying the brand of motor oil you choose makes you a good driver or not.
the license is what makes open source (ethical source included) what it is, using a license that doesn’t allow bad people to use your software is a basic human right
You have typed out some words but haven’t organized them in a fashion that makes sense. You’re trying to make some point about code licenses in a discussion about communities and certain types of people.
Also, you seem to be completely misinformed on random tidbits you’re throwing out there. At what point was Reddit ever GPL? Prove it.
can’t find the proper repo but here is something: https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit
reddit being open source but not ethical source lead to people making their own reddit to spread even more bigoted ideas, thankfully reddit is closed source nowadays
Yes, I know where their code repos, including their archived ones, are. Not GPL.
It would be interesting to see if you can explain how you make a connection between software license and bigoted ideas of end users of products.
Not really. GPL is a left wing license. It literally enforces cooperation, and collaboration, which’re communal values, rather than individualism.
the gpl was created by richard stallman, a well known nazi, because of that it tends to attract like-minded people
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the gpl was created by stallman and he believes the “free/libre” software movement to be an ethical movement, they have everything to do with each other
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I dont know if you are trolling or not, but either way you need to stop calling everyone nazi. You have been warned.
bigotry needs to be called out, the fight against hate never stops
Your trolling wont do anything against bigotry.
wrong, my efforts to combat hate have lead to many hateful subreddits being banned, i’m still not on the level of r/AgainstHateSubreddits moderators but i done quite a lot of activism (compiling subreddits for AHS helps a lot, definitely do that if you want to fight hate)
compiling subreddits for AHS helps a lot, definitely do that if you want to fight hate)
That sounds useful, but trolling Lemmy and calling everyone you dislike a nazi is completely useless. If you dont stop it, you will get banned.
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A toe jam eating pedo, yes. A nazi I dont think so.
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Okay I know people think it’s below the belt very frequently, and I understand the desire to give people reasonable doubt. No one wants these allegations levied on them. So we expect a lot of evidence before such an accusation. I have listened to recordings of Richard talking about pedophilia I will not be able to produce for you here. However if you go to stallman.org go to the search bar and type in pedophilia go and read his writings. Go and read the redacted reports from the MIT public mailing list.
Mind you I’m not saying he abused children but he certainly has tried in the past to normalize sexual advances to minors.
This was a bit out of pocket though I was trying to be edgy. Another thing I would like to say is that pedophiles are not morally bankrupt by virtue of being pedophiles. They are morally at fault when they normalize touching children, they are morally at fault when they assault children.
Sorry this got a lot darker than it had to.
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open source is the future, freedom inevitably leads to fascism and must be stopped at all cost
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yikes, go read on the paradox of tolerance and then come back
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This is interesting I like it. Fuck the haters. Although I think FOSS has a nazi problem, I don’t think it inherent to foss, just admins and moderators want to be reasonable by tolerating the unreasonable to have a bigger platform/reach. I also dont think lemmy never took it serious. I like the content of what you are preaching.
