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.
Participating in this thread had left me feeling like lemmy is much more of an echo chamber than what I thought before.
I like being disagreed with on occasion, but don’t feel like anyone really listened here. That is very internet but also pretty concerning.
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?
Liberals are not leftists.
yeah, liberals are conservative scum lol.
liberals are literally on the left wing of the spectrum, but apparently that’s not good enough for ‘arbitrary decider of who’s a leftist’ here
You have to be at least anti-capitalist to be a leftist. That’s the bare minimum.
Lemmy liberals are centrists. They favor capitalism with regulations and social welfare.
You have to be at least anti-capitalist to be a leftist.
oh I must have missed the “YOU MUST BE AT LEAST THIS ANARCHO-MARXIST TO RIDE THE LEFTIST LABEL” sign at the front of the line.
damn is this really how you think? are these really the thoughts that just bubble up in that grey matter?
way too much time on your hands if so
you’re so fucking busy delineating who’s not a good leftist that the conservatives are going to destroy you all and you’ll be quibbling about who was a real one and who’s faking being in the concentration camp.
These are well established political definitions, not something we just up and decided a few days ago. Political position along a left and right axis, defined in the context of the economic present, with a pro- or anti-capitalist stance on either side. “The Left” has more or less been defined by an anti-capitalism - pro-socialism stance for a long time, despite whatever labels some news outlets choose to use to demonize liberals and Democrats. They restrict definitions to the Overton window, just a sliver of the full political spectrum, which is firmly planted rightward, and promote the idea that the left side of the window is “The Left”. It isn’t. Many iberals in America and the democratic party are firmly pro-capitalist. It isn’t that they are good or bad leftists, they just aren’t leftists at all. We aren’t too busy figuring this out, we’ve been clear with these definitions for forever.
It isn’t a purity test, anticapitalism starts at some form of Socislism.
The liberal wants to preserve some parts of the capitalist tradition while enacting some social reforms. That puts them in the center.
You want to talk about concentration camps? The US has the largest incarcerated population in the world, and it has my entire life, since Clinton introduced the Crime Bill. The prison population almost doubled from 1990 to 2000. That’s liberalism.
Yeah, in the interest of not having a bloody, civil war, I’d rather try to correct the economic paradigm that we have rather than instill a new one that will have its own set of unique and terrible problems (for example, see nomenklatura).
The chaos that will arise from the transition will be deadly, terrifying, and profound. It is not something I wish my children to have to go through. So, yeah…of course I’d rather work to fix the system that we have.
Okay, but that’s why you aren’t a leftist.
Personally, the reason I have an .ml account instead of an account on one of the farther left instances which aren’t federated with .world is because I want to argue with people like you. I welcome the diversity of opinion between leftists and liberals, I deliberately expose myself to it. Liberals keep me sharp without being emotionally exhausting the way people farther to the right are.
(for example, see nomenklatura)
We have nomencultura at home, in the Professional Managerial Class: the college educated labor aristocracy that serves the capitalist class.
But literally, you do need to be anticapitalist to be a leftist.
Where did you learn your stance from? Its wild.
That’s the problem with labels. They often mean different things to different people.
Yeah, there’s the academic record and then there’s random forum posters. Different meanings, sure: with one worth discarding.
This is the result of a century of communist/socialist purges and of cold war propaganda in the US. Most Burgerstanians haven’t known their asses from their elbows politically for generations.
No, liberals just aren’t leftists.
Liberals support capitalism, ergo they are on the right.
liberals are literally on the left wing of the spectrum
They literally aren’t
Leftists are socialists. Liberals are not socialists, they are liberals. Liberalism is founded on the right to private property, otherwise known as private ownership of the means of production, while socialists call for the abolition of private property (not to be confused with personal property).
Liberals are auth right on the political compass.
Leftism is anti-capitalist.
The Political Compass is generally a terrible way to view politics, I wouldn’t put any stock in it.
It’s an oversimplification and has its limitations but that’s often what’s needed to reach mass appeal and be useful in discourse.
No, the political compass is an oversimplification of political ideologies that is extremely biased towards liberal viewpoints of the world. It is not useful and only actually harms political discussion.
On the contrary, it makes little sense at all. Ideologies csn’t be put on a compass like that.
On the contrary, it’s is a useful heuristic, even if it’s not perfect. While ideologies are complex and multifaceted, it provides a framework to map tendencies. It simplifies ideologies, sure- but that’s precisely its value & the social/cultural dimension and is harder to map
When you simplify ideology too much, you ceate more confusion, like elsewhere in the thread when you categorize Marxist means as auth left and ends as lib left, despite Marxism being consistent in means and ends. There are far more issues with it than it solves.
But that’s just it - it’s not a useful heuristic, it’s a delusional framework, even more than the geocentric model was. We were mapping the planets onto that, but that didn’t make it useful.
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.
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’?
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.
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
If a view isn’t based on truth, it just simply doesn’t matter. It’s not a matter of silencing
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.
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.
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.
The facts are so, but reddit and fediverse turns a blind eye to calls of genocide, mass murder and inciting violence when the genocide and fashcism is in the name of “class struggle.”
you’re on the wrong instance
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.
Yes it’s very important to accommodate genocide and climate denialism. 🙄
Theres tons of calls to violence from the auth left. Kill all ceos, kill all landlords etc.
That’s just the left, lol
Have you spent any time at other places on the Internet?
Seems like lemmy.world already provides plenty of right wing perspectives, we really don’t need me.
.world is modded to be that way… ESP news and politics
Modded, and federated/defederated. They intentionally defed from the Marxist dominated instances because they wanted to erase any real Marxist presence.
“Oh no theyre bRiGaDiNg us!!!11”
Lemmy.ml being extremely broadly federated but removing rule-breaking comments: scary and bad
Lemmy.world defederating Marxist-aligned instances so no one on those instances can ever offer input: wholesome and liberal
I really wish we took some more precautions before the reddit exodus. We saw it coming but I definitely didn’t do anything to plan for it. I guess I’d just not been there for such a long time that I forgot just how bad that userbase had gotten.
Hindsight is 20/20, we know more now than we did then and can better prepare for next time.
Two big problems are
, when you talk with the Right, you don’t have to dig very deep before you encounter dishonesty.
When you talk with Liberals, they are not politically aware at all
I find it interesting that some people are saying “the right is this” and “conservatives are that” and then saying horrible things most people would be opposed to. How would you know if you never talk to them and just assume what they think?
I think most people assume the extreme right is the entire right, just like most people assume the extreme left is the entire left. It’s actually a spectrum. Or more accurately, a Nolan chart.
Most people I know are in the center, and they oppose racial segregation, oppose racism, oppose oppression, oppose monopolies, and oppose corrupt officials. But since they are not communists or socialists, some people on the left lump them in with the far right, which the center doesn’t like either.
And if you attack the people in the center by falsely accusing them of being the right, all you are doing is alienating people who might agree with you on a lot of things.
I have spoken to them all, for years. In all shapes and sizes.
They are all driven by fear and tribe mentally. Reality does not matter to them only emotions.
I’m not a communist or socialist btw.
As opposed to you because you are not tribal and never make emotional decisions.
Reducing people like this is itself an emotional defense mechanism. We are fallible to the things you describe. All political bubbles have people who make this same exact claim about all the other bubbles.
There intelligence in recognizing this. Neither you nor I are in the one true bubble.
I’m not tribal at all and non-conformist to a fault. Of course I make emotional decisions - but when presented with clear evidence I can adjust my views as neccessary. I love to be wrong, the entire concept of how right-wingers react to information is so foreign to me I’ve spent years trying to figure out if they’re lying or are they actually believe it. Unfortunately it’s the latter. Giving those eejits air-space only pushes the centrist NPCs who have the same inherent flaws in how they process information to the right.
NPCs? Yikes.
It’s okay they can’t hear us.
Listen to yourself speak and tweak a couple of words to make it a right winger saying it. Perhaps you might realise how similar you sound.
the entire concept of how liberals react to information is so foreign to me I’ve spent years trying to figure out if they’re lying or are they actually believe it.
Sounds exactly like what I’d read on r/conservative.
Well yeah they’re right into projection but doesn’t make it not true does it?
Is the concept not foreign to you? I’m all ears if so please. How do you deny that your guy tried to steal the election when his own VP came out and said it. Ignoring the fact he done it all out in the open blatant af.
You probably have not talked to moderates much. They don’t like talking about politics because they get attacked by both the left and the right. But they are the swing voters, and they oppose the hate they hear everyday.
Moderate conservatives? You’re right they’re normally older techno phones so I don’t. But I know they didn’t put up much resistance to trumps antics. And many were happy to sacrifice reality to own the libs.
I’ve seen the radicalisation of anti authoritarian spaces by the right wing hate machine in real time though. Ancaps in 2006 terms would be leftists today. Classic liberals with economic backgrounds jumping on the MAGA train after being fed the right fake news memes.
All subconsciously which is the worst thing about it.
I said moderates. This includes left-leaning centrists.
My comment was about conservatives so wasn’t clear. Spoken to plenty of moderates.
I think the idea that all viewpoints are equally valuable and need to be given equal weight or volume in discussions is incredibly fallacious. Left wing ideals are backed by a multitude of research as well as ethical and moral philosophies. I don’t know how you could be a leftist and say “what this place really needs is more right-wing voices” with a straight face. The whole “im just asking questions, everyone deserves to be heard, i just want to hear both sides of the argument” is a common tactic the right uses to try to seem reasonable and propagandize more people. Some ideas aren’t worth hearing out and can only do damage to those who listen.
I hope you’re not being serious but if you are try to get out your bubble while you still can
I absolutely am. Im happy to discuss and debunk any right wing viewpoint thats brought up, but beyond that, having it repeated ad nauseum is in no way useful. Some opinions are not valid and don’t deserve the space for argument beyond potentially educating people.
The idea that every left wing viewpoint is perfectly aligned with science and critical thought is over reaching
I didn’t say that, and im open to discussion on any viewpoint to an extent. Theres a lot of things i dont agree with even my most leftist friends about. But constantly giving voice to ideas that have been proven wrong, either scientifically or historically, is not helpful in any way. For some things there is a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ answer. Gender science, economics, racial discrimination, the predominant roght wing ideas about these topics are just false, scientifically. And they shouldnt have to be disproven constantly in a public forum when that work has been done elsewhere.
I like this comment most.
I would argue that wider community cohesion and thus tolerance of other viewpoints is important. Without hearing and understanding why these other points of view exist, understanding and accepting these people is hard.
Branding someone’s point of view as inherently or even ‘factually’ wrong is pretty blunt, alienating and invalidating IMO. I prefer a left-wing world view that tolerates people who don’t have the same understanding as me.
Patience and willingness to educate people is necessary in any community, as is a certain amount of tolerance for disagreement, in topics that aren’t harming anyone or restricting anyones roghts. In our current political environment, the predominent viewpoints of many people are outright dangerous and violent towards dissenters or outsiders, and those views do not deserve to be platformed. This is all based on context obviously, as everything is. If my neighbor is adamant that an unregulated free market society benefits everyone and is the best option despite all evidence to the contrary, and won’t be swayed by any argument or proof i offer, then fine. I just wont talk about the economy with them. But if my neighbor starts to say that trans people are mentally ill, and mexicans are subhuman, and palestinians deserve to be eradicated just for being born, thats a whole other matter. In the world we live in now we have to be very careful about what information is being propagated and consumed and absorbed by people who may lack the skills or understanding to resist it. As i said, some ideas are not worthy of repetition.
Yeah but this thread was supposed to be about whether ideological diversity is important, not whether hate speech is important.
It was about a lack of right wing viewpoints being problematic. Can you give me an example of a right wing viewpoint that is worth discussing, not scientifically unsound, not hateful, and is currently missing from lemmy? Cause if there is value in these ideas being discussed you must be able to give at least one example right?
The value is in being accepting that other people don’t see the world in the same way as you, and treating them with respect.
The value is having a society that is tolerant of diversity of opinion.
Yes and for some topics thats valid, and for some it absolutely is not. Like this discussion isnt even about being tolerant about other viewpoints, its about a lack of other views being problematic, and i dont consider a lack of hateful bile to be a problem in any way. I also dont consider those hateful ideals to be worthy of tolerating. I asked you for an example of a specifically right wing viewpoint thats not false, is worthy of discussion, and not hateful, and you gave none, so what is the point youre trying to make? And why should we make an effort to platform more right wing views when they are basically all hateful?
I think you’re missing my point.
This is not an universal truth.
Nazism is explicitly deemed unworthy of respect in some legal systems, like Germany or the UK. MAGAs, white supremacists, and alt-righters are objectively too close to nazism, therefore their opinions are unworthy of respect to start with.
There is also the paradox of intolerance. If you let these people in, to respect their opinion, they will take over and deprive people of the right to live. They don’t play by tolerant society’s rules, so they they don’t get tolerated.
The value is having a society that is tolerant of diversity of opinion.
Here is the opinion of the scientific consensus on transgender people, which is have been so for years, if not decades.
We have been harassed, bullied, doxxed, and banned for bringing those up in all major social media platforms. TERFs, white supremacists, misogynists, racists, have always gotten away in these platforms with punching down on leftists, African and Caribbean reparations activists, feminists, and queer people. They were protected by equally bigoted moderators under the guise of entitlement to their opinion, at the same time that all these other opinions are bashed and framed as “overstepping”.
This is in line with what the EFF and Techdirt, which are both vocal First Amendment absolutists, have already said that what X and Facebook do now is in fact amplifying hate speech and effectively suppressing the free speech of gender and sexual minorities.
And this has been the situation for years, take for example the online harassment of feminists .
It is a deeply systemic bias, due to centrist indoctrination in broader society, that it is the leftist and inclusive spaces that are called out for lack of diversity for responding to harassment and bigotry, when the voices and lives of people are simply dominated and evacuated in major platforms without an iota of moderation and responsiveness to punch-down harassment.
Let alone that in the light of the most recent developments, which consolidates the above tendencies, makes the timing of the tolerance argument even more ironic and dishonest.
There is also the paradox of intolerance. If you let these people in, to respect their opinion, they will take over and deprive people of the right to live. They don’t play by tolerant society’s rules, so they they don’t get tolerated.
Do you not see the irony here of op being intolerant of sharing lemmy with people who do not share their viewpoint? You’ll note from my other comments here that I’m explicitly not arguing for hate speech. IMO this thread was actually about the lack of moderate alternative views on Lemmy, not about encouraging extremist narratives to take over the federation.
What I am arguing for here is to drop the unhelpful us-versus-them narrative and to argue that Lemmy could well learn to tolerate a wider range of opinions. This is not to say extreme and intolerant views such as the ones you have described should be permitted.
@emeralddawn45 It depends on whether we are talking about the hateful far right or conservatives.
Some things frequently talked about by conservatives, classic liberals, and centrists include:
-
Limitations on government power, including how to prevent a politician from becoming a dictator. This includes checks and balances on power, separation of power, and the dynamic between the states and the federal government.
-
Protecting peoples civil rights, including the rights of minorities. Opposing police brutality, protecting free speech, protecting the right of association, protections against illegal search and seizures, etc.
-
The right of people to own firearms, as allowed by the second amendment. This includes minorities and black people, who have the same rights under the Constitution as everyone else.
-
Health care reform. They want health care reform as much as the left does, but they usually disagree on how to reform the health care system. For example, the left usually wants to create a government monopoly, while the right usually wants to break up monopolies and distrusts the government.
-
How to give the power back to the people, since corporations and the elite seem to have taken over this country. Like #4, they agree that things need to change, but often have different ideas on how to change it.
I could go on.
Don’t confuse the hateful right with the moderate centrists and right-leaning voters. Most people have the same concerns the left does, but have a different perspective on it. And most people aren’t hateful. Maybe misinformed, but not hateful.
Anarchists discuss basically all of that and aren’t right wing
Remember that they asked for things that are currently missing from Lemmy. Do you think any of those are?
Yeah, this is it. There is no moderate conservative anymore. The moderate conservative has become the moderate democrat. The only way republicans win is by strangling human rights and stirring discord.
Try going into a conservative subreddit and argue for any of the things above. You’ll get downvoted to hell or even banned.
Very well put. The general summaries are spot on.
Too frequently are the concepts overlooked and some specific detail (often trivial) becomes the focus and divisive point preventing discussion or understanding.
-
If your goal is to solve society’s problems, you have to listen to everyone, even people you disagree with, in order to identity the underlying problems.
And sometimes you have to read between the lines because they are not politically and economically literate. And unfortunately, that means people often latch onto ideas that sound good to them, but may or may not be a good idea in real life.
For example, some people may blame immigration for their problems. But that is not the real problem. That is just a scapegoat that the politicians use. The real problem is that they are struggling financially, and don’t know how to fix it, most likely because someone is taking advantage of them and/or they don’t have what they need to be successful.
If you fix their economic problems, and educate them on what the real problems are, they will realize that the immigrants were never the problem. This will reduce the tension and hate, and expose the propaganda for what it is.
But you can’t change anyone’s minds if you label them as enemies and refuse to listen to them. And you can’t solve problems if you can’t identify the underlying issues people are concerned with.
A lack of opposing viewpoints is a fast-track to a closed-minded approach to interactions. I see far too many people, of all backgrounds, enter into engagements with a “you’re wrong and I’m right” mindset born from only entertaining their own ideals. Day after day of “other side bad” comments that entirely miss why that other side believes what they do in the first place. I don’t see how that helps anyone unless your goal is to pat each other on the back while the country drifts farther apart. Personally speaking, reading entire threads like this gets tiresome and while I am glad we don’t have the same level of bad faith right-wing spam that other platforms do, I wish we had a more open atmosphere.
Casualy defined leftist as brainwashed lol. You guys seem to love the “How to hate freespeech 101” course.
I think a lot of the responses you’re getting (and their upvotes) are pretty good reflections of the problem you’re addressing.
I imagine the user base is a bit more diverse than the comments etc let on. It is just exhausting to even try to explain a conservative perspective viewpoint t here so I think a lot of folks just keep their heads down on anything political.
While a lot of folks have zero interest in venturing outside of their ideological comfort zones, I wonder if there sre enough of us that we could make some /community work. There were a few on reddit that were private or super tightly moderated that were pretty interesting for stuff like that…
I’m not sure if there are any socially rightwing people in Lemmy (they would have to be very accepting of things they hate to remain) but there are definitely moderates in the economic stance
Even then, it’s only 10% v. 90% from what I’ve seen, most are fully against private establishments within generally government ran departments
Even if someone did it, it would take a lot of people to move there and for what? I definitely wouldn’t go, and I don’t really care my opinions about the economy is hated
This guy clearly hates lgbtq
Rheee🤡
Discussions often feel like they’re happening within an ideological bubble.
While this can be true for some communities, I find that users here do still engage with other viewpoints when the discussions are in good faith.
I think the reason why a lot of users lean in a certain political direction is because of
- the origins of Lemmy
- users that choose to leave the older platforms may have done so for social / political reasons
- threadiverse is still relatively small
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?
I feel like we’re getting more politically diverse over time. It’s only a risk if we force a certain political leaning through moderation.
Is this a problem we should be concerned about, or is it a natural result of Lemmy’s community-driven nature?
Worth keeping an eye on to see how it changes over time
How might we encourage more diverse political perspectives while still maintaining a respectful and inclusive environment?
Mainly moderation. If a community or space is intended for a particular group, it’s perfectly fine to moderate how you see fit. If it is meant to be a general space, try to limit political biases when moderating and focus on bad faith comments.
If a post/comment was in good faith, it’s more effective to let someone explain why it is wrong rather than removing it. Chances are that others can learn from the explanation (or that they were correct to begin with, and you’ll learn something)
What are the potential benefits and drawbacks of having a more politically diverse user base on Lemmy?
The benefits are easy, I can’t think of many drawbacks. Maybe:
- More people = higher moderation costs (which can be dealt with by having bigger teams)
- More drama (we have drama already)
Not counting lemmygrad and hexbear most of lemmy instances is completely liberal, at best radical liberal. I seriously doubt your statement about being communist if you call for more centrism and think we need more rightwing info.
You want more rightwing? Go anywhere else in the internet, there’s full of it everywhere. What is lacking everywhere else, is communist point of view.
Given how likely right wing conservatives tends to spread misinformation and cite low quality sources, I honestly don’t mind the lack of right wingers.
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
- Yes I noticed this too
- It already is, which is a shame
- Yes it’s a problem because even if you try to get a balanced amount of all the views in your Lemmy subscriptions it’s not possible, at the same time bubbles radicalize people.
- Let discussions happen, don’t delete and ban because you’re against the view (as long as it’s not continuously spamming)
- Benefit: You see people as humans even if they are wrong, Drawback: you need to sometimes change your mind in face of new evidence showing up, which it wouldn’t if you stay in your bubble.
The thing which I really dislike with a bubble is that people inside of it get more and more radical and ban even their allies because they’re not radical enough.
MAGA is a perfect example. On a national stage even! Hey, where’s that Pence guy?
