this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2025
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Fediverse

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A community dedicated to fediverse news and discussion.

Fediverse is a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe".

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I've been using Lemmy for a while now, and I've noticed something that I was hoping to potentially discuss with the community.

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

However, I've been wondering if we might be facing an issue with ideological diversity.

From my observations:

  1. Most Lemmy Instances, news articles, posts, comments, etc. seem to come from a distinctly leftist perspective.
  2. 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).
  3. Discussions often feel like they're happening within an ideological bubble.

My questions to the community are:

  • Have others noticed this trend?
  • 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?
  • Is this a problem we should be concerned about, or is it a natural result of Lemmy's community-driven nature?
  • How might we encourage more diverse political perspectives while still maintaining a respectful and inclusive environment?
  • What are the potential benefits and drawbacks of having a more politically diverse user base on Lemmy?

As much as I align with many of the views expressed here, I wonder if we're missing out on valuable dialogue and perspective by not having a more diverse range of political opinions represented.

I'm genuinely curious to hear your thoughts on this.

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago

It is very rigid in its ideologies, even more so than reddit.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

Yeah, it's not necessarily bad but it affects my point of view

Some might deny it, some might agree but decide it's for the best and apparently, others will just denote the least left of the leftists as conservative scum

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I don't consider myself leftist or rightist. I flip both ways on different issues and the middle on other things.

How ever Lemmy is becoming less tolerant of jokes and any view that doesn't line up with a moderator's view on the world.

It took a long time for me to get a ban but it's happened a couple times now.

Admittedly they're from .ml

Though some more left leaning communities have gone full on dog like as though it's Reddit

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

so you're suggesting, what, exactly?

say I'd observed this trend as well, and agreed there was a risk (I don't but let's follow your chain of thinking) - what then?

Because I'm sure there's a desire for conservatives to have alternatives to reddit, but I as they can federate their own instances and have damn near free reign over whatever communities they want to create, I don't really understand what's to be gained from any actions that might be taken. We won't convince them it's a conservative haven, and that's genuinely what they want, a safe space where no one questions their conservatism.

so what is it you're thinking?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

I think this is the case, yes. From my pov the technical ability to block others and defederate leads to this left leaning trend. This is the only place I know that is really left leaning.

But the important part here is: the distinction between left and right is arbitrary. There is no left and right. There are certain beliefs and ideas which usually get attributed towards left or right.

The idea of freedom - in most of the world - isnt really left or right, or at least used to be.

Especially the fascist turn of the us, the fascist turn of germany and others are a sign of the world turning, not lemmy.

Because freedom, flow of ideas and identity are still typical topics on lemmy. Same as they used to be. I think the right wing nuts just left since they are more welcome on xitter and fascbook.

Is that good for critical discourse? No. Can we change it? No idea. Should we change it? No idea.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (4 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

The size of my block list tells me there are plenty of right-wing voices on the platform. No everyone on that list is right-wing, but I'm fairly certain a majority of them are.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 day ago

go back to Reddit nerd

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

I have been saying a number of times over the course of my time here, that I think the "echo chamber"-ness of Lemmy is by design.

Each instance is moderated by a different team of people who run their server under a different philosophy. You can see clearly in this thread many from the lemmy.ml instance express mild disdain for "liberals", whereas other instances like lemmy.world and lemm.ee don't hold such animosity to that collective extent, but admins hold other expectations for what should be the norm. The way I view the Fediverse is that it's a collection of echo chambers, which within them help foster discussion between like-minded individuals. However these are networked with each other so you can wander outside that bubble to other instances when you feel like it. You also have control to block groups and instances you don't vibe with.

I know some instance moderation policies remove posts and comments that go far against the grain, but in other instances, unpopular takes just get super downvoted but left for people to see.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 days ago

lol posting this on the most notoriously censored instance, on a platform intentionally removed from the fediverse for this very reason.

Echo chambers are the flavour of lemmy. Think wrong is quickly censored.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 days ago

There is the same kind of special snowflake attitude on here that ruined Reddit. You people only want to have your exclusive social bubble where you can sniff each other's farts. I'm not interested in that.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago

Holy mother of superiority complex in this thread.

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