I experience Lemmy as a reflection of many of the problems in the world; there seems to be little effort to understand and respect different viewpoints. Instead of being curious about opinions one disagrees with, the community often feels almost aggressive. People end up in their own trenches. What about trying to be more open and curious about our differences instead?
Apparently we believe in freedom of speech—so long as the speech is something we agree with…
I posted something on !libertarianism@lemmy.world and got downvoted by many whilst I always upvote my opposition so the discussion doesn’t get buried. Lmao.
There is no algorithyn. There needs to be but the cultrure is opposed and has made downvote not a useful signal. Downvote here means ‘I disagree with this insightful comment’. Most other places downvote means ‘this is trash just one step above so bad the mods should delete it’
some of the mods (.ml) are famious for their delete anything they desagree with.
Most clients will hide down voted posts or comments if they reach certain number, CMIIW. I don’t really care about the down vote counts but when people just blindly down vote without any reason, I can assume people that downvoted me here are not really that open to discussions and only want to hear what they wanted to hear and shows a lack of understanding.
It’s acceptable and understandable for me since this is Fediverse where most people are left-leaning and I was a heavy leftist until I deep dived economics and how the left economic system is unrealistic in my personal view.
I didn’t realize that about clients. (apparently since I last checked some instances have an algorithm as well). That makes downvotes from just annoying and demotivating to active censorship. There is a large number of people who will downvote anything they disagree with, and if clients or instances use that as a signal it really is harming discussions.