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:
- Most Lemmy Instances, news articles, posts, comments, etc. seem to come from a distinctly leftist perspective.
- 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).
- 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.
Conservatism is generally a worthless ideology that makes the world worse, so I don’t feel a desire to spend more time with it. We don’t need to debate “what if women don’t have rights”, “what if gay stuff is illegal?”, “what if you had to pay for health care so if you were poor you’d just die?” or whatever.
Conservative and/or right wing views are ethically wrong and lack evidence to add a worthy perspective to discussions. Capitalism is a belief and should be discussed as other religions.
The phrase “are ethically wrong” is hilarious. According to whose code of ethics? How are their ethics more moral than someone else’s set of ethics?
There’s literally entire branches of philosophy dedicated to the concept of morals and the concepts of good and evil.
Edit: Also, to add on to this, something can be ethically right but morally wrong, or ethically wrong but morally right.
I think you provide the perfect example of what OP is talking about.
In my experience this kind of comments and “far left” views are the norm on Lemmy. I think that in this regard Reddit had (I have not been there since the API shutdown) a much more balanced and wide spectra of political views. Not to mention that everything wasn’t political there. Here I feel like everything takes a “far left”/Marxist turn.
To me, this homogenous political environment turns me off and is one of the primary factors behind me not really using Lemmy that much.
To be clear I do not think that your views should be silenced and whatnot. Just agreeing that this is indeed a “far left” echo chamber.
If a view isn’t based on truth, it just simply doesn’t matter. It’s not a matter of silencing
https://fosstodon.org/@bragefuglseth/113809233797180679
This post appeared in my timeline yesterday. Thought I would share it with you.
To be clear I do not think that your views should be silenced and whatnot. Just agreeing that this is indeed a “far left” echo chamber.
We, just like you, have been bombarded incessantly from birth with the hegemonic bourgeois ideology. It is inescapable. Most people don’t even realize they’re soaking in it, because they’ve never been outside of it. For most people it’s just “common sense.” It’s literally impossible for us to escape to a “‘far left’ echo chamber.”
Who is really in an “echo chamber” those who have seen outside of cultural hegemony, or those who have not?
We don’t cite Gramsci here
We often do. There are 17 pages of hits in the search results: https://lemmy.ml/search?q=gramsci
It pops on on lemmy.ml alone dozens of times: https://lemmy.ml/search?listingType=Local&q=gramsci
In my experience this kind of comments and “far left” views are the norm on Lemmy. I think that in this regard Reddit had (I have not been there since the API shutdown) a much more balanced and wide spectra of political views …
redditors (like most americans) proved that they believe a genocide is acceptable political collateral damage and that facism is a good thing; that’s fucked and not at all balanced at all.
Yeah. Why go through all the effort to cover up the true nature of your actions if your beliefs and views are so much more balanced. While the speech here may be more absolutist, I think other people who don’t factor in these untruths or use them to make their points have much to add to the conversation. It’s just talking points.
Can anyone translate this vaguepost?
I just saw a revised death toll in Gaza. Lots of people have been downplaying this. This is only one example.
I’m not talking about whether the content of an opinion is balanced or not. I’m talking about that if you take into consideration all the different views; are there just a few vs many, are the views leaning heavily in a specific direction (right/left), etc.
And you continue to prove the point that Lemmy has a “far left” overweight. I’ll remind you again that I’m not talking about whether I think you are right or wrong, just that it’s an echo chamber for opinions like this.
And you continue to prove the point that Lemmy has a “far left” overweight. I’ll remind you again that I’m not talking about whether I think you are right or wrong, just that it’s an echo chamber for opinions like this.
genocide is never acceptable and facism is never okay; these are facts, not opinions.
deleted by creator
you’re on the wrong instance
I never alluded to these being ok? I agree with you here
They’re big parts of the American Overton window now; yet you called their consideration
a much more balanced and wide spectra of political views
Not sure what you mean to be honest. What do you mean by “yet you called their consideration”?
What I meant earlier was that the way that you express
redditors (like most americans) proved that they believe a genocide is acceptable political collateral damage and that facism is okay; that’s fucked and not at all balanced in any way.
is (in this case left?) misrepresentation what others (or most other) believe. I don’t know if this is in bad faith or if its because of “echo chamber radicalization”. I do have a hard time believing that “most americans” or “redditors” (as in most redditors?) approve of genocide or facism. They might have other/more nuanced ideas on some issues than you. But for the record I’m not American.
I do believe that you will be able to provide examples of crazy comments on some issues. But in my experience, when you leave the internet and talk to people in real life - most people are sane, moderate and do not hold far left/right opinions on most of the issues discussed like this on the internet.
lack evidence to add a worthy perspective
That’s exactly the point. “Conservative” most of the time means rollback to segregation and discrimination whereas the only chance of humanity lies within compassion and cooperation.
I think there are some conservative opinions that are worth discussing. For one example, I’ve seen conservatives talk frequently about protecting children from an increasingly secular world. Comparitvely, that topic rarely comes up in normal lemmy topics.
Truth be told, I generally am progressive on this, but I sometimes wish I could discuss this with someone whom I may disagree with, so I could better understand where I would stand
Protecting them from what now? Exactly what are we protecting them from in a ‘secular world’?
I don’t think having Nazis and Zionists here would make anything better, make anyone sympathize with them, or find common ground. This is a place where we can be safe, why add people who are purposefully being dishonest and spreading disinformation? They aren’t misinformed people, they are real pieces of shit who hold a genuinely wrong position/s; they want to piss you off to ruin your day. I already have enough discourse with these people everywhere else, why here?
amen.
go back to Reddit nerd
Since my (leftist) instance is blocked, OP probably can’t even read this comment.
That irony aside, although I disagree that federated Lemmy as a whole is homogenous, it’s only natural that an alternative social network would skew away from the mainstream, and that instances would be relatively homogenous internally.
I believe this is by design, but to expect something else is unrealistic. The only options for Lemmy would be for it to be either further left or further right than Reddit. And there are a couple fascist instances, though they are blocked.
Since my (leftist) instance is blocked, OP probably can’t even read this comment.
That’s lemmy.world for ya
- 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).
I see plenty of them. They’re just mostly on other instances to me (like your home instance).
Furthermore, while it’s tempting to see the so-called ‘left’ and ‘right’ as equivalent mirrors needing to be balanced for diversity, the reality is far from it. After seeing Wolfballs in action (that instance died before the reddit API fiasco), I can tell you we don’t need to be balanced out by ‘white genocide’ discussions and more open anti-semitism. I know that’s not what you proposed, but it’s to illustrate that sometimes there isn’t value in arbitrary balancing the ‘left’ and ‘right’ on these websites.
is it a natural result of Lemmy’s community-driven nature?
It’s also a result of Lemmy’s history and appeal. When reddit went on sprees of deleting subreddits, the right-wing hate groups made their own reddit clones, anarchists typically went to Raddle, and when GenZedong and ChapoTrapHouse went down, they went to Lemmygrad.ml (as a result, it became the largest instance) and created Hexbear respectively. So there is a long history of larger communist communities from day one which was the status quo until the reddit API fiasco.
The Fediverse also tends to attract anarchists and other socialists by the appeal of its decentralized nature, along with a few right-libertarians who see it as an anti-censorship tool. So one could say there’s a bias there.
How might we encourage more diverse political perspectives while still maintaining a respectful and inclusive environment?
That’s tough, because you inherently limit which political perspectives you can encourage.
It is just an extension of the “Paradox of Tolerance.”
It is not a paradox at all, it’s just intolerance that doesn’t deserve a platform.
Conservatives can quite frankly go somewhere else.
Their policies are terrible and the only redeeming qualities of most countries we live in are socialist.
Lemmy should reflect the actual political spectrum which is (IMO) Social Democrats on the far right and Tankies on the far left.
As a leftist myself (communist), I generally enjoy the content and discussions on Lemmy.
This post is a great example of what OP is talking about. OP gave no political opinion on anything and you are calling them out for not being a real leftist?
username checks out
I have yet to hear anyone irl that identifies as left that actually wants to hear what the right has to say.
Right now it’s all hate and bigotry. Which has no place in society as far as I’m concerned.
The only people I’ve seen concerned with people Hering out the right, are people on the right. “Centrists” are just right wing sympathizers.
So yes, I don’t think they’re actually left leaning.
I agree with the comment your replying to. It’s very fellow kids. It’s not how most people on the left talk.
Note: not the person you replied to.
There’s a lot of stuff written on this topic, but I haven’t seen this mentioned yet: there are conservative instances on Lemmy, as a platform. Most of them are widely defederated, not necessarily for the views of the majority (though in some cases, yes), but because of asshats deliberately causing trouble.
Unfortunately, this is also a product of a wider shift in discourse by the right (understood in a North American context), which appeals mostly to edgelords rather than the (rapidly shrinking, already shrunk to the point of irrelevance/non-existence one could argue) thinking, at least ostensibly humanistic conservative.
There’s self-selection in action here. Which makes sense, even if I also find it troubling (there are people who can be reasoned with drowned out by Nazi assholes, who are willing to hear people out on the not-Nazi stuff, give positive reinforcement and with it a home to get radicalized).
I don’t have a good answer, and if I did I’d probably be up for a Nobel Prize given how wide and damaging the problem is. It ain’t just here - it’s pretty much anywhere anyone expresses any idea. I just happen to like this side of the Threadiverse much more, so it’s where I hang out.
Only real hope is meatspace, imo. And even then, not everyone has the privilege to engage this way in meatspace without a direct risk to their personal safety (see POC, our trans brothers and sisters, LGTBQ+ folks, etc.).
Given that in the US leftist perspectives on anything are few and hard to come by, I welcome Lemmy’s primarily leftist slant on things. Should one want to get a fascist or center/center right perspective, pretty much everything in the mass media in the US will provide that.
Reddit is mostly left
I fucking wish
Reddit is mildly left of center as a whole. It is not leftist. You do not find many people there who are genuinely anti-capitalist, which is a prerequisite for any flavor of leftism.
Reddit leans progressive liberal, and that, in America speak, is the left
Americans talk Newspeak thanks to a century of socialist purges and red scares. Their “left” is so far right that the actual left is silenced, is outside the Overton window. In terms of political vocabulary, Americans don’t know their asses from their elbows.
Thank you! This is how I have felt, as an American, for a very long time!
The BIGGEST issue we have here, IMO, is APATHY. So many Americans “don’t watch the news” or “didn’t like to talk about politics” or can’t handle anything being talking about the weather and other bland topics. I find it depressing and annoying.
Booooooooo
There is no such thing as a “moderate conservative” any more. IMO the difference has always been mainly, how mask off they were prepared to go. Trump has shown them that you can go fully mask off without any negative consequences.
Someone asked this same question a while ago related to also Linux users present.
Basically seems to come down to techies being mostly left winged more frequently which makes up the vasg majority of Lemmy.
I don’t miss the global echo and it’s kinda nice to read civil discussions or talks.
Though i dont really focus too much on the political topic or consider people such to make it my concern when I read.
Just generally enjoy the good talks, advice and things like I remember how the internet started when it also had 0 political interest.
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
Moderators shouldn’t be allowed to post to their own groups. How do you question a post by a mod without getting deleted/banned?
Multiple moderators i guess, why mod a group you can’t engage in
I wish lemmy had more niche interest groups, like marvel champions card game. Then there’d be something to talk about that isn’t how we should force others to give a percetage of their earnings to the goxernment.
