politics
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Because you're polluting the community.
If someone's yelling with a megaphone on a street corner, and a lot of it is false and dangerous material that's clearly in service of a threatening development in my government, putting on noise-cancelling headphones is not a solution.
When did I do either of those things?
Are you talking about me quoting your fake-friendly style of messaging back to you? I did feel a little bit dirty about doing it. Why would that be an offensive type of message for you to receive, though? I want you to explain to me why me reacting to your message with that type of cheerful dismissiveness would be a bad thing for me to do.
They're two distinct issues. If someone's being uncivil to you, that might be against the community rules. If you're posting things at an unbelievable volume, from dishonest sources, for a dishonestly partisan purpose, then I think that should be forbidden, although it may or not not be against the current community rules as interpreted by the current moderators. I do think the latter leads to the former, but in terms of everyone behaving and following the rules, they're simply two separate actions. Certainly the latter doesn't justify the former.
That sounds completely plausible. That, to me, is gross negligence in moderation. I think I've explained why already.
Dude, the number of pro-Harris articles far outweigh the ones I post, and I only share from legitimate news sources. Like I’ve said before, if the mods find any of them unreliable, I’ll stop posting from those sources.
Seriously?! You're saying that me posting articles from Newsweek to Lemmy—a platform with a much smaller audience than the original sites—is "threatening development" in your government? Do you even realize how tiny the Lemmy audience is? Do you actually think Newsweek, Reuters, AP News (the sources I often use) are all publishing false and dangerous material? Come on! I thought you were serious at first, but now it’s hard to take you seriously. Sorry, guy.
Oh I wasn't offended. I think it's a legitimate response. People think I'm being fake when I do that, but I'm not. It was just ironic you were there talking about how I am terrible for the community, and then you mimicked me when I asked you something. So I thought it deflated your argument a bit. But no, I didn't mind it.
Again, you brought your point up about Newsweek to the mods. They haven't said they no longer count it as a reliable source. The HAVE said that they are not against biased, partisan sources though. And if they say Newsweek isn't reliable, then I won't use it. And I'm not conservative, so I'm not being partisan in that sense. I've posted articles with all different kinds of political viewpoints--all equally downvoted by the way.
Actually it's not gross negligence in moderation. They are removing comments of people trolling me and being uncivil. As they do for everyone. The mods here do great work and they put up with a LOT of nonsense. My comments and articles are the least of their worries. Have you seen some of the racist and violent stuff they have to remove every day?!
Friend, your complaints about me are minor in the scheme of all the crap they have to wade through.
So again, why aren't you blocking me since my posts annoy you so much? I'm not being a dick, I am honestly curious of why you would put yourself through the aggravation of seeing my posts if they bother you so much. You said it was because I was "polluting" the community, but how is you not blocking me solving that problem?!
Also, I disagree. I don't think I'm polluting anything. I am posting interesting articles from legit sources. Feel free to DM me too if there is something you don't want to say publically. I'm fine having the conversation either way. Thank you! :)
[sealion noises]
You're asking me questions, and you don't like the answers. You've got a right to your opinion, but I think I've explained sufficiently why I would like to see you banned. I'm not interested in a debate about it.
I do want to address this:
I think the impact of this particular pollution will be small, but I value the idea of being a part of a little community where this type of pollution is minimized, and I think that in the aggregate across many different types of social media, the impact is large. I think that social media large and small are subject to a huge amount of manipulative content of some kind, and I think that does incalculable harm to the exchange of information that's essential to a functioning democracy. It's why democracy is on such a back foot in so many different places right now. The old model of journalism with high standards, whatever its numerous flaws, has been replaced by standards-free anarchy which carefully engineered propaganda is free to flood into at scale, and it's happening to a huge degree, and we're not well-equipped to deal with it. Whatever your intentions in being here, whether or not they are well-meaning, you're participating in that flood.
I don't really care how the mods are currently defining good behavior and bad behavior. Whatever they're doing as pertains to you, it's leading to a massively unpopular reaction in the ordinary members of this community, and I think we've all spent enough time explaining our reasons for that reaction at this point. You can hide behind the mods if you want. I've observed your openness level to what people are telling you, and at this point I've mostly given up on talking with you, and am simply aiming my conversation at the moderators, arguing for why their current approach to moderating you is wrong, and you need to be banned.
If you were just coming in with an unusual point of view, that would be one thing. Honest criticism of the war in Gaza, honest criticism of the Democrats' economic policies, honest critique of the whole idea of capitalism in general, is all fine. They're far from un-heard of. Lemmy is far, far, far from some kind of DNC circle-jerk where you're the only one who's got any kind of rebellious viewpoint. The problem with your content is that, like this article, it is wildly and deliberately misleading, and repeated at a scale that's offensive. You post all this stuff blaming Kamala Harris for the massacre in Palestine, but you voted for someone who wants to accelerate the massacre and is angry at the Biden administration for not doing enough to support and enable it. You claim not to care who wins the election, but you constantly post attacks against one side like it's a part-time job. You claim to want third parties to be viable, but you spend very little time supporting the exact reform that would make them viable at doing anything other than spoiling the election for the other side.
If you don't want me criticizing you, and it seems that you don't, then be straight about what you believe. People respect plenty of minority and counterculture views here. Pretending that you're getting this reception because people love Kamala Harris is precisely the problem. Recognize that other people have valid reasons for their criticism. Respect their time and opinion enough to cool it with the megaphone, and engage directly with what people who disagree with you are saying, instead of pretending they said something else. If you refuse to do any of those things, you're going to receive criticism from the community, and when that criticism is ignored, you're going to receive insults in kind to the disrespect you are showing to everyone else. That's how humans function.
Yes, sometimes. Absolutely. The badness of the mainstream press is a big part of the problem as well. We're currently discussing Newsweek, which it seems like has been taken over by an explicit propaganda operation to some extent, but almost all of the US press is subject to the corruption to at least a certain degree.
I'll have to try to carry on, somehow.
I don’t have any issues with you disagreeing with me—that’s your right. But it seems like you’re treating Lemmy as a small, unchanging community, and you’re viewing my posts, which you even admitted are “minor" pollution, as a reflection of bigger societal issues like social media.
I think you’re focusing on me because I’ve become an outlet for your frustration about those larger problems.
Here’s the thing: I’m not the cause or the solution to that. Wanting me banned because you don’t like the potential changes my presence might bring to your idea of this community is unreasonable. There are far worse people online deliberately causing problems, and I’m not one of them.
Despite your assumptions about me, you’re wrong. I’ve always been open about my interest in political news, and I’ve posted articles from all perspectives. This community doesn’t need more pro-Harris content because it’s already overflowing with it.
So, no, I don’t take your accusations to heart. You’re afraid of change, particularly what you see as negative change, and I’ve somehow become the face of that for you. But banning me or seeing me leave isn’t going to fix anything.
And honestly, if everything you said were true, you could block me.
But here’s my theory—and it's just a theory, not an accusation: You’re so annoyed by me that you won’t block me because you secretly enjoy watching people jump on me. You’re waiting for that big moment when I get banned or called out, or better yet, give up.
But, like those who think I’ll disappear after the election, you’ve got me wrong.
I enjoy using Lemmy and I’m here to stay. I value its potential to avoid becoming an echo chamber. I like hearing dissenting voices, even if I don’t always agree.
In my view, you’re longing for the "good old days" of Reddit, where niche communities felt untouched by the general public.
You might see me as someone mucking up what you love, but I disagree. Lemmy is more than just this one community, and I plan to keep using it across different communities and I'm on many different instances.
Whether you like it or not, change is coming—but I’m not the one bringing the negative aspects of it.
Thank you, friend! :)