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…

    • bluGill@fedia.io
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      1 day ago

      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.

      • anotherpos@feddit.online
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        1 day ago

        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.

        • bluGill@fedia.io
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          23 hours ago

          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.

  • Ryoae@piefed.social
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    The stupid karma scoring system doesn’t help matters. When Lemmy and the Fediverse began, I was hopeful that we’d be rid of such things. Sadly, people feel we need to still have them and look where that has gotten us. Are you trying to be Reddit or not trying to be Reddit? Because if you’re aiming for the latter, you’ve fundamentally failed.

    I hear so many excuses why we have scoring systems, but none of them add up. People will upvote anything they feel fits their world view and downvote things they feel doesn’t. It creates artificial engagement. It does nothing for the ecosystem as a whole.

    • anotherpos@feddit.online
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      23 hours ago

      Personally, I think the scoring system itself is fine. It only becomes an issue when the ecosystem turns into an echo chamber where people blindly downvote opposing arguments without providing a reason.

  • 🦇SalviaDivination🦇@lemmy.world
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    Just my opinion but Reddit is so much worse and I’m still glowing from how much right leaning, misogynistic content I’ve freed myself from since leaving it behind and hanging out here instead. Frankly I have no idea what you’re talking about because I see nothing wrong here. It sounds like you’re expecting perfection. You didn’t even acknowledge the work that goes into maintaining and moderating a decentralized platform for free.

    • bluGill@fedia.io
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      1 day ago

      Problem is you are now in an echo chamber of left wing hate. Oi course the hate of the left wing is different form right wing - but just at evil

      • archonet@lemy.lol
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        24 hours ago

        far right: we’re gonna exterminate entire social groups because they’re impure

        far left: we’re gonna get everyone’s basic needs met, and do everything possible (including violence) to stop the far right from exterminating anyone.

        You: I literally cannot tell you two apart

        Incredible, thank you for sharing.

        • bluGill@fedia.io
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          23 hours ago

          You really have bought into the echo chamber if you believe that.

          There are bad people on both the right and left wing. However the majority on either side are not bad. Most (on both sides) have not thought deeply about the effects of if their ideas really were done in the real world. (A few have and have decided the downsides are worth accepting, but if you are not aware of the downsides and intentionally accepting of those as the least bad compromise you are part of the problem) We can disagree on which downsides are not bad enough to ignore - but everything has downsides.

      • Libb@piefed.social
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        20 hours ago

        That is something (too) many will not be willing to hear. See my other comments: they’ve been educated in wanting that echo chamber more than anything else.

        Changing that will take hard work and, even worse in our days and age, a lot of patience as it won’t happen overnight, not even in a single generation’s span…

  • mrdown@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I can tolerate everything except racism, supporting genocide and settler colonialism

  • MyMindIsLikeAnOcean@piefed.world
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    20 hours ago

    Give us an example what you’re referring to…your comment doesn’t mean a lot of without any context.

    “Freedom of speech” is a fraught concept. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean one must accept the views of another, for example. Freedom of speech is also accepting reaction to your speech. Each speaker is “owed” whatever freedom you’re proposing.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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      Yeah, we’ve hand now hundreds, maybe even more low grade trolls butthurt here that they aren’t allowed to be racist sexist piles of shit and whine about free speech. No dudes, we have the right not to host your shit. Not saying OP is one of them, but I’ll throw a link at 90% of the people who post here about free speech are under that umbrella.

      And every time I point it out I offer that they may start their own instance with all the hate they want. So far I have seen almost no one do that.

      • MyMindIsLikeAnOcean@piefed.world
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        18 hours ago

        I’ll preface by repeating what you said: we don’t know what the OP is talking about.

        But, yeah, very often when somebody is complaining about free speech…they don’t mean free speech. What they mean is that their opinion should be accepted without criticism or consequence.

        What this outlook has resulted in, in many places in the contemporary western world (the world I’m familiar with), is that hate speech, aggressive speech and threatening speech are protected - even encouraged - while the speech of those functionally suppressed or intimidated is ignored or attacked.

        My opinion is that conservative speech has become a huge problem. It’s ironically social media bubbles that make so-called conservatives believe that their once marginalized opinions are more popular or legitimate than they are. I believe that conservatives want everybody to be forced to listen to their opinions until they agree with them or face consequences if they don’t.

        • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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          18 hours ago

          The tolerance paradox. If we let intolerant thoughts through, they quickly become domineering and push for exactly what we see. So, the only thing to be intolerant of is intolerance itself.

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      1 day ago

      Mention anything about veganism and watch the comments pile on. The Lemmy group mind is not a fan of anything that challenges their currently held viewpoints.

      Veganism in particular is hard for some people, because it pokes holes in their current world view and it effectively says you could be doing more, for people who already view themselves as ethical and caring hearing some of those hard truths can feel like an attack.

      And on Lemmy in particular people like to shut down dissenting viewpoints such as those.

      And please don’t hit me with responses on why you think veganism is dumb, I’m merely making an observation as to what is not tolerated on this platform.

      • AskewLord@piefed.social
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        23 hours ago

        Vegans who treat it like a religion are difficult to be around. Vegans who treat it like a personal choice, are not.

        That’s true of any life choice though. People get offended when other people don’t make the same choices or have the same beliefs, because they feel in attacks of invalidates them as a person.

        I mean, I don’t cheat in relationships and I am monogamous. But for many people that’s a controversial statement that I have had a ton of pushback on because it makes them feel attacked if they are cheaters or polyamorous. Usually informing me how ‘ignorant’ I am, or how ‘judgemental’ I am… for simple express my own rules for myself.

        • Anuttara@leminal.space
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          23 hours ago

          Vegans who treat it like a religion are difficult to be around. Vegans who treat it like a personal choice, are not.

          a lot of ppl think that when i say “i’m vegan”, i’m saying “u should be too”. i’ve never told anyone they should be vegan.

          • chunes@lemmy.world
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            19 hours ago

            listen, veganism is inherently a criticsm of anyone who isn’t vegan. People pick up on that and don’t like it.

            You’re just going to have to accept that if you’re a vegan. Moaning about it makes it worse.

          • AskewLord@piefed.social
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            22 hours ago

            Maybe, but I’ve met plenty of vegans who scream in your face about it. And they give a bad name to everyone else, like any extremists do.

            I also am biased because I dated a vegan woman for a year who constantly whined about it, and would eat meat, and then cry about what a bad awful vegan she was and if only I was vegan too I could show her the ‘way’. It was utterly bizarre.

            So frankly, I kind of don’t want to deal with vegans in my life ever again given those experiences. Just like I don’t interact with people who have MBAs.

            • Anuttara@leminal.space
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              22 hours ago

              im sorry for ur experience :( we’re not all like that but obs ur not gonna hear about the ones that aren’t annoying… cuz they aren’t being annoying about it

              • AskewLord@piefed.social
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                20 hours ago

                Yep. I bet many people I have hung out with who are chill and cool are vegans. They just didn’t make it their entire life’s purpose and personality.

      • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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        24 hours ago

        I mean… it’s fine to have a community for that. But don’t expect the rest of the site to not disagree with you.

        But go start a community for that. Ban people who come into your community and are jerks.

        • Iconoclast@feddit.uk
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          24 hours ago

          Disagreement is perfectly fine as long as it’s civil and actually about what’s being said. That’s not what’s happening here - you instantly get accused of having malicious secret motives, as is demonstrated below. It’s just a way to shut down discussion instead of actually engaging with it.

          • Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus
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            20 hours ago

            There are 2 options here.

            • Creating a community for likeminded people, kicking out badly behaved individuals. Noone objects this.
            • Peddling the mindset of christofascists like Mike Johnson, soliciting the point in other communities. Get dunked on, because you deserve it.
          • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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            22 hours ago

            get accused of having malicious secret motives

            Pattern matching does that. And it’s unfortunate. But so many people in that community do have those motives. And as a member of that community, it’d be great if you could help shout them down (and if you already do, thanks!)

            • Iconoclast@feddit.uk
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              21 hours ago

              Not everyone struggling with compulsive porn use is part of the NoFap community.

              I’m not, and I shouldn’t have to answer for the “crimes” of anyone else just because they’re dealing with a similar issue as I am. They don’t represent me, and I don’t represent them. It makes zero sense to take the views of the loud extremist minority and slap them onto the entire group. Most people who self-diagnose with the “porn addiction” label just want help sorting out their own life - they couldn’t care less what anyone else does with theirs.

              • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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                21 hours ago

                I call into question your claim that most aren’t like that. But even if most aren’t, it’s what the community is known for.

                If you don’t like what the community is known for, you have options. You can try and fix the reputation, you can deal with being stereotyped, or you could just be a person who doesn’t masturbate, and not part of a specific community.

                I don’t think there’s a fourth option where you get to be part of the community, which is known for being horrible, but everyone just magically knows you’re not one of those ones.

                Personally, I’ve chosen option 3 for most of my proclivities. I don’t drink, but I’m not part of AA because of their religious craziness. I don’t eat meat, but I’m not out here supporting PETA.

                • Iconoclast@feddit.uk
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                  21 hours ago

                  I explicitly stated in my previous response that I’m not part of that community. I’m just an individual dealing with an issue, and I have compassion for all the other individuals facing the same thing - people who are too ashamed or afraid to seek help or even tell anyone about it. Seeing the response it gets here, even from folks who probably pride themselves on being empathetic and compassionate - yeah, I don’t blame those people for staying silent.

                  This isn’t about supporting a community or pushing some ideology. It’s about raising awareness that real people struggle with this stuff. It’s not sexual shaming or defying God - it’s about taking back control of their own lives. As with anything, the dose makes the poison. Nobody I’ve talked to about this thinks porn or masturbation is inherently bad - they’re just the kind of person who takes it too far, to the point it starts causing real harm in their life. They don’t have an agenda. They need help, and I feel for them.

                  If even a single person feels seen by my comment - the one that gets downvoted into oblivion by the haters - and gets even the tiniest sliver of help or hope from it, then it was 100% worth it.

              • Paen@piefed.europe.pub
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                19 hours ago

                Sorry to interject, I just want to check if I’m understanding this sub-thread correctly. I was skimming and didn’t immediately realize what you were talking about:

                So someone asked what kind of discussion isn’t tolerated.

                You brought up people discussing wanting to cut down their personal porn consumption.

                You get downvoted and people imply you’re just some conservative wanting to preach about the evils of masturbation. Which is a complete mischaracterization of what you’re saying.

                I don’t follow nofap discussions etc. as it’s thankfully not a problem for me personally but I know porn and masturbation addictions are very real and detrimental to one’s well-being. I’m a bit stunned to learn that you get this much flak for acknowledging it here. I’m sorry to hear this :/

                • Iconoclast@feddit.uk
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                  20 hours ago

                  The hostility toward anyone even talking about this caught me off guard too. I would’ve thought Lemmy would be the exact opposite - a place where people opening up about personal struggles get met with compassion. Boy was I wrong.

                  Here’s the thread where I discovered it yesterday, though I don’t recommend reading through it. It’s quite awful.

          • AskewLord@piefed.social
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            22 hours ago

            why do you assume they want to engage with it?

            they are shutting it down because they want to shut it down. they want to ridicule and belittle and harass.

      • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
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        19 hours ago

        No-fap and anti-fap communities have historically been breeding grounds (irony unintended) for right-wing ideology. That’s where a lot of the distaste for that kind of talk comes from; when someone starts moralizing about “porn addiction” it is so frequently followed by blatant misogyny and incel rhetoric that people have learned to immediately respond with derision.

        • Iconoclast@feddit.uk
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          18 hours ago

          But who’s moralizing about it here? The mere mention of struggling with compulsive porn use - or even just noting that others do - gets immediately met with vicious hostility and completely baseless accusations. It’s totally unreasonable to dump that massive pile of imagined baggage onto someone and then treat them as if it all applies to them.

          You literally cannot get some people to acknowledge that there are tens of millions of (mostly) young men who genuinely struggle with this. It’s not about thinking porn or masturbation is bad. It’s about having taken it to such an extreme that it’s actively harming their life - and many of them seek help online. Unfortunately, these toxic communities are among the very few places available for advice and peer support.

          • AskewLord@piefed.social
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            18 hours ago

            It’s all guilt by association.

            You can’t talk about anything here without some significant number of crackpots telling you how you are evil for acknowledging it’s existence, and how we must destroy anyone who says anything they find uncomfortable to acknowledge.

        • Iconoclast@feddit.uk
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          21 hours ago

          And I don’t want to take that away from anyone. I just wish it didn’t affect my own life to the extent that it has for the past 20+ years.

      • remon@ani.social
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        1 day ago

        Unless these people are mute they don’t need you to speak for them.

    • bsit@sopuli.xyz
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      1 day ago

      Discussion about anything spiritual. Mention the word and people automatically assume that you’re an extreme right-wing fundamentalist Christian ready to host a sermon about how much God hates homosexuals.

      • Libb@piefed.social
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        18 hours ago

        Discussion about anything spiritual.

        As an atheist and a Bible-reading dude (as well as a few other ‘spirituality’ books, among many other types of books), the hate towards anything spirituality-related and religious around here was one of those things I almost immediately noticed after joining, it’s even worse regarding anything Christian. The worst for me was not that hate, it is the fact that almost all of it rely on nothing but a desire to do like the others. And very rarely on actual knowledge of what is being hated.

        It is one of those things that made me question if I should stay, if the Fediverse was a place one could really expect to have enriching discussions, or merely the exact opposite of those corporate-owned social media platforms that are populated by right-winged haters: collectively-owned social media populated by left-winged haters. Hate is a poor choice. It doesn’t matter what one hates.

        The one thing that made stay is that, thx to the tools available, it’s also very easy to filter out most of that hatred and to suddenly realize that, hidden under that now gone noise, there are indeed quite a few persons wanting to have civilized conversations and that are able to not hate on anyone they disagree with. Not a large crowd, but enough to make it worthwhile to stay and from time to time have an interesting discussion.

        That option to filter out the hate, even if it’s not perfect, makes the Fediverse quite unique, imho.

          • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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            22 hours ago

            Yes. If your point is that you want to have an opinion and not be teased or disagreed with, that is not a thing you can have. At least, I can’t imagine how that’d work.

            • bsit@sopuli.xyz
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              22 hours ago

              There’s a world of difference between disagreeing with someone and mocking them. Especially if the mockery is based on a complete misrepresentation of what is being said.

              • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
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                21 hours ago

                Sure. And boy do I wish humans didn’t do that all the time. But they do. And so to expect otherwise seems silly to me.

                Maybe I’m just more jaded than I should be.

                • bsit@sopuli.xyz
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                  21 hours ago

                  Not saying if you should or should not be jaded but I would ask you: please, please don’t give into the jadedness.

                  I do understand the impulse and I used to be that way myself. But it’s something that eats at you more than it helps you. Online you can always step away from the strife and in the offline world you can find truly good and caring people who do listen to reason. I realize it might be easy for me to say but I really don’t want to see any more people turn to hopelessness and cynicism. It only helps people who would add more misery to the world.

                  I’m not the best person to say this and it’ll sound weird on this platform but I do mean it with all my heart. I hope you can find enough good in your life to protect it without despair.

      • AskewLord@piefed.social
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        23 hours ago

        Yeah. The anti-theism thing here is wild.

        I usually just assume they are into healing crystals or yoga, but that’s my own bias.

        People here love ot hate on bigotry, but are totally blind to their perpetuation of it themselves. Because when they massively overgeneralize anyone who is remotely religions or spiritual based on a tiny extremist minority… it’s good! It’s fighting injustice and bigotry! But if other people do it, it’s bad and evil, and wrong!

        • bsit@sopuli.xyz
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          Hehe, the funny thing is that on me, your assumption would actually more correct than the fundie Christian assumption.

          Very specific yoga philosophy, and “healing” crystals in the sense that I’m fine with people saying that looking at pretty rocks makes them feel better. Wouldn’t generalize that into a cancer cure though.

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      Their post history includes anti-immigration views and comments in favor of AI copy-paste posts. I guess that answers it…

      I didn’t even bother scrolling past that.

      To the downvoters:

      What makes you disagree? Did OP make some sort of clear point in a different post in their history, or what did I miss? Because right now by downvoting you’re just proving OP right. Downvoting without clear cause and interaction. The reply to this comment is a nothing burger.

      • Voidian@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        I actually did scroll past that.

        You are the problem, and so are the people who upvoted you without at looking for themselves at all.

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        1 day ago

        op: lemmy is so intolerant against my views!

        insert untitled goose with a knife chasing op: what views, fucker?

        it’s not always like this, but it happens so often i’m not surprised

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          This accurately represents every time someone posted something like this and I saw it lol

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          How dare you persecute me for encouraging the persecution of immigrants!!!

  • Libb@piefed.social
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    1 day ago

    Apparently we believe in freedom of speech—so long as the speech is something we agree with….

    As already mentioned, it’s not exclusive to Lemmy/the Fediverse and then, thx to the Fediverse itself, we still can resist:

    • the most important thing is that we’re not into some centralized platform whose owner can easily shut out anyone. Banning is still a thing obviously (I regularly hear about admin abusing their power) but one always has the ability to change instance or even to create their own which i is not even an option, say, on Reddit or X.
    • Freedom of expression should not mean one should be required to listen to trash ideas. Here again, the Fediverse/Lemmy/Piefed already offers great tools to filter out what and who one doesn’t want to hear… without limiting their freedom of expression. Meaning that I, for example, am not forced to see the huge amount of low quality posts that are posted (politics and most memes, stuff like that) and that I can also easily block anyone I consider a pain in the butt or that is trying to troll me. Which I do without any hesitation and without ever threatening their own freedom to express themselves. Something I find a lot more friendly to freedom: theirs as well as mine ;)

    The issue runs much deeper as, for most people, it seems to not be enough to be able to mute/block someone or some content they disagree with. They want it to vanish for anyone else too. The most… excited even want their author to be removed from the community. So they like to campaign for ban, or worse.

    But here again, it’s a much wider issue than with the Fediverse.

    It’s people not being educated anymore to tolerate divergence of opinions and, a lot more worryingly imho, not being able, because of that lack of proper education, to listen to nuanced thoughts and ideas and to be able to understand that we can disagree without having to hate on one another. They seem to live in a black or white world, populated with two groups of people: friends, those that are liking the same things and the same ideas they do, and foes, those who dare not like one or more of those things and ideas the ‘friends’ like.

    As long as that ‘logic’ is not challenged and put back in its place (trash reasoning) the intolerance to what is different, which hating on one’s values and ideals is, won’t go away. Around here, like everywhere else.

    • tea@lemmy.today
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      23 hours ago

      Well said. It is so frustrating when people don’t understand that people disagreeing with them does not mean their freedom of speech is being violated.

      Even the banning example, which is commonly pointed to as violating freedom of speech, is typically (not saying it is always) used when the user is breaking civility rules or rules established by the community which the user assented to by participating in the community discourse.

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        23 hours ago

        When people try to bully you into silence and complicity, it is very much being violated.

        The vast majority of my replies on lemmy here are rarely more than name-calling and threats.

        • tea@lemmy.today
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          20 hours ago

          Your free speech is not violated when someone disagrees with you. Your free speech is violated when the government stops you from speaking your mind. “Bullying” may be not nice, but it’s not a free speech issue. That’s just two people having a disagreement in an uncivilized manner.

          • AskewLord@piefed.social
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            19 hours ago

            Right, so when I pull a gun on you, it’s just free speech?

            No dude, it’s assault. Lots of people control speech in online spaces by taking out virtual guns. Threats of banning, harassment, doxxing etc.

            I don’t know about you, I was involved in a subreddit years ago where members would stalk and harass people over online comments. Like drive to their house and take photos then post them online. That’s not disagreement, that’s bullying and being a psychopath who think they have every right to abuse and silence someone else for what they said.

            • tea@lemmy.today
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              18 hours ago

              Here’s a little guide:

              • Threats of banning, having unpopular views, being mean, uncivil discussion <-- Not against the law. “Free speech” discussion doesn’t apply. Just two parties having a disagreement.
              • Assault, legit harassment, libel, doxxing, etc <-- Against the law and you can be arrested/fined/sued. “Free speech” discussion applies, but in the case of these, the government has indicated that the speech is not protected under free speech. It’s about the government enforcing which speech is allowed and what is not.

              In the cases presented:

              • What OP talked about in the initial post was not a free speech issue. The government isn’t involved unless a law was broken, which I don’t think it has.
              • What you’re talking about here regarding harassment/doxxing IS a free speech issue because the law will stop the harasser and technically infringe on their right to “speak.” However, in this case, at least in the US judicial system has said that harassment falls outside of the allowable speech covered under the law and so it’s okay for the government to infringe on that right for this case.

              Does that make sense?

      • Libb@piefed.social
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        21 hours ago

        Well said. It is so frustrating when people don’t understand that people disagreeing with them does not mean their freedom of speech is being violated.

        Thx.

        Quite a few of them will remain incapable to understand that, no matter what we can try too encourage them, but I want to think the vast majority can’t because they were not educated to understand it.

        Schools (as well as many parents, I’m afraid) have failed many of the younger people/generation. Being old myself, as a teen in the early 80s I started witnessing that failure spreading like fire in the few public schools I had friends in (I was lucky enough to be in a private school, a religious one where they insisted on using a… stricter approach to teaching, a more demanding one too).

        Public schools have failed so badly it’s hard to realize parents have not been on the streets demanding an urgent reform. But they obviously don’t manifest much for that, like if not educating their kids was no big deal. Those kids, if they were given the opportunity to access some proper education (and to the more… radicals out there: ‘proper’ should not be understood as ‘perfect’ or ‘faultless’) they would quickly learn to accept difference of opinions, and even extremely conflicting ideas. Even more, I have little doubt many would start to value it, realizing it’s an opportunity for everyone.

        Alas, we’re far from that. And, as an older person (I’m nearing my 60s), when you try to point out the issue, that catastrophic and dramatic failure of school and adults towards kids… Most will either refuse to listen, disqualifying the remark as mere nostalgia from someone too old to understand the modern world and its many new problems (which is another interesting demonstration of prejudice, btw). Entirely missing the point. Alas.

        Even the banning example,

        Being banned from a private space (online or IRL) is not a violation of the freedom of speech (which BTW is mostly an US-based thing, while a lot of the fediverse is not from there), it’s the right of the owner to decide who can and cannot enter in and stay to their place, and what they can do there.

        The issue is when that legit right is used to silence dissent ideas and thoughts. Like it can easily be done on X or Reddit, or any other centralized platform. Hence me pointing out that the Fediverse is more resilient to that kind of abuse… even if it is not immune to it and to admins abusing their powers and behaving like miniature wannabe dictators. At least, like I said, one can always switch community or create a new one. Even a whole instance.

    • Voidian@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      23 hours ago

      It’s people not being educated anymore to tolerate divergence of opinions and, a lot more worryingly imho, not being able, because of that lack of proper education, to listen to nuanced thoughts and ideas and to be able to understand that we can disagree without having to hate on one another.

      What’s most worrying to me is that people don’t even know why they AGREE with the opinions they agree with. For example, most people would agree that bigotry is bad (which it is), but they don’t know how to argue about it.

      They’ve got the moral instinct, sure, but zero intellectual grounding. And that’s a problem. Because when people don’t understand why something is wrong, they’re just one propaganda push away from accepting a new definition of “bigotry” that serves whoever’s in power.

      We’re seeing it happen in real time. People repeat opinions like they’re reciting scripture - no thought, no critique, just blind agreement. And now, even asking people to think critically about why bigotry is wrong is seen as suspect. It’s an immediate failure of purity testing. You’re not supposed to arrive to the conclusion that bigotry is bad by thinking for yourself, you are just supposed to keep repeating the correct slogans. That’s not just lazy, it’s anti-intellectualism, the exact kind of mental rot that populism and fascism thrive on. That’s exactly the kind of bullshit that got USA in the state it is right now.

      I have literally been called a fascist for telling people to think for themselves.

      • Libb@piefed.social
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        21 hours ago

        They’ve got the moral instinct, sure, but zero intellectual grounding.

        And since we should not trust ‘moral’ anything without at least some understanding of it… that’s not a good situation. At least, that’s how I see it.

        We’re seeing it happen in real time. People repeat opinions like they’re reciting scripture

        Which is funny realizing how most of them are so hostile towards the Bible or anything religion-related while they’re at the same time mindlessly repeating/mimicking (what I consider) the worst of all the religious traits: blind adherence to an ideology/ideal, as well as the refusal to listen to critics.

        That’s exactly the kind of bullshit that got USA in the state it is right now.

        Can’t talk about the USA myself: the world is a tad larger and also includes a few foreign countries, including my own: France ;)

        I have literally been called a fascist for telling people to think for themselves.

        I have been called many names during my almost 60 years on this planet (fascist not even being the worst), and I learned to not bother: hateful believers will remain hateful believers no matter what, even those who only believe in ‘social something’ instead of ‘god’. They won’t change, or just maybe their believe switching from one to the latest trendy one. Meanwhile, I will keep on refusing to blindly adhere to any type of faith, with or without a god ;)

      • AskewLord@piefed.social
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        23 hours ago

        Yep. the motto here for most ‘free thinkers’ is ‘agree with me or you are a bad person’. They don’t really want to discuss things, they just want to browbeat/bully other people into agreement. They refuse to acknowledge things are complex and that their are various legitimate viewpoints… there can only be their pure and true version of whatever ideology they believe in and anyone who questions their interpretation it is a ‘false’ believer.

        It’s idealism and egotism running into each other. So they just feel like going around labeling everything bigotry makes them some paragon of morality and truth and justice. Meanwhile they have no understanding of their own bigotry.

  • swelter_spark@reddthat.com
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    17 hours ago

    This is the thing I like least about Lemmy. So many people have no friends or life experience, hate everyone, and want to constantly argue or insult others that it’s difficult to avoid them. I block as many as I can, but it takes a lot of the fun out of meeting people and having discussions.

  • MagicShel@lemmy.zip
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    19 hours ago

    I don’t come here for friendly debate or to enrich my worldview. It happens from time to time but there are two many bad faith actors to waste time debating with people that don’t already largely align with my priorities and morality.

    Within those boundaries I’m happy to rethink things and have nuanced conversations and debate with people I already can largely agree on foundational thinking. But frankly at this point in my life if someone comes on here with “but what if Trump is good,” I block. Like in order to get to that point, there has to be extremely little common ground to agree on. There is no hope of reasonable conversation.

    Likely some people feel the same about me.

  • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Apparently we believe in freedom of speech—so long as the speech is something we agree with…

    Freedom of speech isn’t freedom from response. Some people have shitty opinions, and are too fragile to accept that people don’t like them or their opinions.

    And some people get upset when other people don’t like AI and don’t want it to do everything for them.

  • SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip
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    23 hours ago

    Now this is some S-tier trolling, the kind of thing that could’ve incited a weeks-long flame war back in the Usenet days. The key here is the lack of any specifics, so each reader can interpret the issue differently by filling in the details from their own experiences. And it’s framed so that either I agree that Lemmy users have bad attitudes, or I disagree and prove it. *chef’s kiss*

    • Iconoclast@feddit.uk
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      22 hours ago

      lack of any specifics

      Bringing up specific examples would be counterproductive - the whole thread would just turn into a debate about those examples instead of staying on the actual point. The discussion isn’t about what the disagreement is over; it’s about what that disagreement looks like.

      • SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip
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        22 hours ago

        Yes, I agree, since the actual point is to generate lots of heated discussion without any resolution. Without any specifics, all that’s left is vibes, and vibes are the best way to rile people up.

  • TachyonTele@piefed.social
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    1 day ago

    Apparently we believe in freedom of speech—so long as the speech is something we agree with….

    Nothing here has anything to do with freedom of speech.

  • HubertManne@piefed.social
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    22 hours ago

    its there. I have seen it. its also not there. use the block. make the experience you want.

    • jeffep@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      This. It got notably worse recently, so don’t be too picky with that block button.

      • HubertManne@piefed.social
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        22 hours ago

        yeah I mean that being said don’t block somone just for disagreeing and check thier profile and post and comment history to verify. There are some who were being rather dickish at times but I looked over and you know maybe they were having a bad day as their history was not like that all the time.