Why do most reddit alternatives end up becoming shit shows?
For context: I was a much more ignorant person back in 2014 than I am today. My views then do not reflect my views now (tw: Fatphobia, Sexism, Sinophobia, transphobia, Z-propaganda)
This isn't my first rodeo dealing with a reddit migration. My first attempt to leave the site happened back in 2014 when several subs got banned, including several shaming subs when Ellen Pao was CEO of reddit.
Back then, there were a lot of unfounded rumors of the site being taken over by the Chinese government (cause Ellen was Chinese American), and being an ignorant person, I fell for it hook line and sinker.
So around that time, a few reddit alternatives started getting passed around, including a site called Voat. It was basically just like reddit, but the bandwidth and UI wasn't nearly as sophisticated as reddits, thus the site constantly crashed. I spent a bit of time on there before heading back to reddit and never looking back. And the main reason I left was because the overall culture there was mean spirited, unhinged, and basically a reactionary version of reddit (which looking back makes sense considering this reddit migration was basically a reaction from trying to protect people)
Fast forward to now, and I'm starting to get de ja vu from the fediverse. At first I was on kbin, which seemed promising at first until I noticed that any article involving trans issues had a slew of transphobic comments that had a lot of traction. Realizing there was very little moderation being done there, I gave lemmyworld a try, but same issue, plus it seemed any article having to do with Ukraine had a lot of pro-Russian posts. And whenever I bring up this fact, I get a lot of pushback from users and mods. Part of the reason I ended up here is because one user told me "If you need a safe space, you should go over to beehaw with all the other snowflakes."
At this point, I already have a fairly negative view of the fediverse. I hate what is happening to reddit right now, and yet it feels like the alternatives aren't much better in providing a safe environment for its users.
Maybe my problem is with redditors, but at the very least reddit was equipped to keep the dumbest of dumbasses out of visibility. Here, even in supposedly more open minded communities and instances, such dumbassery has just as much weight as thoughtful, upvoted posts.
I don't know. I can't see myself staying involved with this project for long, if it's just going to remain as unpleasant as it is now.
Also, sorry if this isn't the right community to be posting this in. I'll gladly move this where this needs to go if its the case.
Edit: riveting discussion example: @Cat_of_the_Round fuck philosophy. unless you reeeeelly care that much. your behind a kb for christ sake. Oh no. Someone had an opinion. I’m assuming you can in the very least ignore them. Othewise who the fuck cares?
yeah, I think I'm done here.
If having a grand old time on vacation from negativity and bigotry makes me a snowflake, I'll be a snowflake. Beehaw is the bee's knees thus far.
Heheh, I recently just realized that whenever someone says "gone woke" in a sentence, you can substitute that phrase with "doing the right thing" and it genenerally forms the antithesis of their mean views. Similar example here.
💯 I’ve never understood how it’s a bad thing to be kind to people.
I don’t disagree that there are evident growing pains, but I think a lot of people leaving Reddit have their head screwed on ass backwards about what “leaving” implies and demands.
Many of the redditors trying the fediverse aren’t trying the fediverse. They’re looking for Reddit, and nothing is ever going to be more Reddit than Reddit. You have to accept that the technology, terms, and culture may be different.
Many people are leaving Rome expecting to arrive in Carthage. What we have instead is a camp. The fediverse is still very small, new, and under developed. The moderation tools and culture are not established. Reddit went through years of growing pains to get to where it is now.
So yeah, you left something people put a lot of time and energy into, of course it’s going to suck a bit for a while. But it comes back to why you left - was it because of the interface changes, or the implied constitutional changes?
If you left because of Interface changes alone, you will not last. You want to consume, and not build.
Otherwise, If you’re like me, you’re sorta tired of putting effort into communities that get dumped on by corporate interests, and who are only willing to work towards safety so long as it furthers the bottom line. The fediverse kinda sucks right now, but it offers the promise of building something that may actually serve its community rather than a VC.
Like fixing a house you own versus an apartment you rent. Reddit will always be limited by what its share price demands. The fediverse will not be. I think it’s worth fighting for here rather than Reddit or other mainstream platforms.
Very great analogy, too bad op already checked out and rage quit.
Completely agree. Rome is falling and we decided to leave before it's in crumbles. We're sitting outside its walls now in our camp, and some people may look back there and ask where are the theaters, the shows?
But for us we know what we left, and for now we're content with our stories and small band of people making each other laugh. Because we're looking towards what this camp will become.
It's not going to be a 1:1 parity. If there was a clone of reddit everyone would know about it, they'd have a similar valuation. Every alternative is going to be small, until it isn't.
Couldn’t have said it better. Let’s actually build something for ourselves this time around!
Now I'm thinking about Reddit as England and the Fediverse as North America and wondering what the world would be like if people decided "Shit, this is nothing like home and it's too hard. I'm going back."
Native culture would have thrived. Those who came and made the effort to integrate would have been welcomed and found a place. And maybe the real treasure would be the friends they made along the way.
It was my fear as well when I came over to Lemmy. Which is why I was seduced and ended up applying for Beehaw. It's just the way it is on internet right now, when there is an alternative platform to something that is mainstream, it is most likely to be filled with the worst people on earth.
Remember Bitchute? Remember Odysee? Those YouTube alternatives? Well, who's on there? Nazis. It's just Nazis. Especially the first one. On the second one, Odysee, it's Nazis and Linux people (not saying there is an overlap between the two).
Back when I was still down the alt-right pipeline on YouTube years ago, I remember going over on Bitchute because lots of people were talking about it. And, once I did, all I was met with, were people who were banned off of YouTube. You know, because YouTube had a anti-conservatism bias.. so they said.... Well, in a truly shocking twist: there were good reasons why these people were banned.
I went there and I remember thinking that these people were fucking nuts... And that was quite something, because I would later realize, that the people I was watching on YouTube, were Nazis too. The difference is, they were still pretending not to be, they were trying to catch on a larger audience and also trying not to get banned. Moderation kept them in line. Kind of. But on Bitchute? With basically no moderation, all pretenses were dropped and you could see people being openly Nazis and as antisemitic as you can imagine.
But I believe this time is different.
Until now, a ton of those alternatives to websites, were designed with free speech absolutism in mind. You can come on here, and say anything, and we won't do shit about it. Which basically means, there is no fucking moderation. Which of course is going to result in a bunch of troglodytes saying horrendous shit. Kind of like when Elon, the Muskrat took over Twitter to restore free speech, and the whole site was just spammed with the n-word.
And those types of alternatives still exist, look at Kick, the Twitch
ripoffalternative. Who's on there? Nazis. Crypto scammers. And xQc, now, apparently. Is it going to turn into a shit show? No. It already is!Now, what makes places like Mastodon and Lemmy different? These aren't just alternatives. They're frameworks. Bases on which communities can be built. With their own rules and moderation. Which is why I came here, to this specific instance. It is not just a place to read stuff and that's it. No, the idea is to build an actual community, it isn't just another "Free speech, come say all of your favorite racial slurs" zone.
Beehaw has a clear vision of what it wants to be, and enforces it. The defederation from Lemmy.world is a perfect example of this. "It is turning into a shit show, we don't want that here, therefore, we are branching off and separating ourselves from it to ensure a safe place for our community."
I understand where you're coming from. And I too have worries. However, I do believe in this one. Is it going to be the new Reddit? Absolutely not, it is always going to be somewhat of a niche platform. And you know what? I don't mind it. I don't want this to be Reddit, I want it to grow beyond this and be its own thing. Let it grow into what it wants to be.
I think we are making a huge mistake by coming over from Reddit, and trying to build a new Reddit. It is very much Reddit-like. For sure. But it doesn't have to be just another Reddit. I chose Beehaw specifically for the vision it has for what it wants to be. I didn't pick it because it sounded nice and the other instances were full, I chose it because of it's rules and ideals, and what these meant to me.
To me, this is something new. Not just an alternative platform. And I think you should look at it this way.
You got my thoughts on the question worded pretty well.
OP’s mention of Voat and your mention of additional platform alternatives that have gone sour remind me of a key thing: there’s often more to why and for whom these platforms were made for. Even if these platforms have some broad thread along the lines of “independence from [established company],” the devil’s in the details.
What prompted the migration to Voat around 2014? It was an issue with content restriction, but what kind of content was being restricted? Likewise can be said about Bitchute and Odysse: they cater to issues around content restriction, but what kind of content was being restricted to encourage their development in the first place?
This might be a big strong of a comparison for the subject, but it kind of reminds me of arguments around what started the American Civil War, of all things. Sure, some may frame it incorrectly as solely caused by restricting state rights. But a state’s right to do what? There’s probably a name for this kind of logical issue that’s not coming to mind.
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One thing that makes me more optimistic about this recent Reddit Drain is the nature of it. The previous drains that I can immediately think of stem from less than admirable root causes. I’d be willing to wager that a substantial sum of those who left and stayed out in those circumstances were not good company, to put it politely. But this latest intrigue seems to be casting a wider net and it seems to be appealing across sensibilities. Hopefully that averages out the demographic inclined to leave Reddit, and hopefully that’s for the better. Worst case scenario: the Toxic Sludge of the drain is turned off by instances like Beehaw or even lemmy.world and naturally corrals itself to instances more receptive to their company.
One of my Linux people left Odysee recently. Can you guess why? He got sick of all the Nazi shit.
You've got a thread full of helpful messages and you're leaving because one of them was mean? And you're going back to Reddit of all places? Good luck I guess.
Yeah... I mean I never had a negative reaction on Reddit.....
For real though there are assholes everywhere. Fediverse just means it's a bit more on us to choose what we want to see. If people are being assholes on kbin then block that instance for a while.
I agree with most of your post and can relate to the sentiment but I'm very lost on why you actively looked for a negative comment in a sea of positivity just to say you're leaving? no one is forcing you into these spaces, if you wanted to use reddit that is ok 🫤 but beehaw so far has been overwhelmingly positive in comparison and I feel that edit is doing it an injustice (again just my opinion)
Yeah I agree with your comment too. I feel like most communities are really pushing for positive interaction even in the case of disagreement. I've seen only positive interactions so far.
Either way OP appears to have just posted this and left Lemmy unfortunately.
I wish you provided specific examples of this behavior because otherwise it just sounds like a doom and gloom post. I'm personally having lots of fun and while I've run into some people that obviously aren't here to build a community, generally I like the vibe and overall excitement in the air. If there really is a bunch of people trying to ruin it, I think it's in everyone's best interest to stop it before it gets out of control.
I have yet to see any anti trans stuff on kbin and I'm on it all the time, so I think OP is full of shit.
I don't necessarily think OP is FOS. I'm just having an entirely different experience. That could be because I signed up with kbin.social and am subscribed to non-political magazines. It's been a very chill experience so far.
I asked him for examples, because my suspicion was that he signed up on kbin, but saw a post from lemmy or exploding heads or something. And he was new to the fediverse so he didn't realize that just because he's seeing it on kbin, that doesn't mean it's fron kbin.
But he didn't reply.
Yeah, the only pisstakes I've seen on lemmy/kbin (which I've probably been actively scrolling through for about 15-20h by now), have been downvoted to oblivion. And I only think I've seen two.
Imo the community so far has been great, dunno if it's because it's still new and exciting to people, but I feel like there's a huge difference in positivity in communities/magz compared to their subreddit equivalents, and more helpful/interesting comment sections.
Voat became such a garbage site. It was (barely) tolerable in its early days but with the influx of the reddit refugees from the FPH and "Chimpire" subs, it started down the path to trash fire. My favorite (sarcasm) part was how the racists even attacked the Voat creator & original boss because he was Muslim. Yet the owner was such a tool that he shrugged it off with "Free Speech."
By the time it failed -- and yes, I know that there's a version of Voat still around but it's like 300 white supremacists all doing a giant circle jerk -- there wasn't a place on Voat that wasn't a toxic cesspool.
I recently told this tale but I'll tell it again: There was a short lived Reddit alternative that closed down for, as best as I can tell, mostly trying to run at just the wrong time. They sounded a lot like Beehaw: Open communication but no hate speech allowed.
They started growing around the time that Reddit was cracking down on the alt-reich subs that were doxxing people and making actual threats of violence, like the_dondon (You know what I mean) and its ilk, plus stomping out the incels. Both groups went crying to Voat. Voat, amusingly, called them all poseurs and downvoted them off the site. So they - especially the alt-reich kids - went to the new site.
The new site handled them with such grace it still boggles my mind. They told them all, basically, "Thanks for coming! It's so nice you want to be here, but, sorry, you're breaking our rules. Here's your hat. So sorry you can't stay with us! We wish you all the best. Bye bye, now!" and deleted all their accounts and the communities they created, and that was that.
It was a cute site and it could have been something nice, but it just didn't fully get off the ground. I feel bad that I cannot remember the name of it.
Are you referring to Imzy?
Yeah, probably. That site has a problem with racism/sexism/queerphobia because the admins have consistently refused to properly deal with the site's problems for basically its entire existence. I still recall CNN having to goad Reddit into banning the jailbait subreddit.
lmao, I wish mate. It's less of an issue in smaller niche subs, but the defaults/large subs have been garbage for a long time.
The Reddit-like portion is dealing with a bunch of bullshit right now due to the protest and exodus bringing in tens of thousands of users from a website that has a fairly reactionary baseline in the first place. The rest of the Fediverse has largely not been impacted, though. You should try Calckey; it's a Twitter-like platform, but it also has threaded comment replies (it displays differently than Reddit's, though). It'll give you something to do while the dust settles and content moderation on Lemmy/kbin can get sorted.
Yeah, I'm really lost as to what OP is talking about? I've been here since the blackouts and have seen nothing like what they're talking about. The difference between here and Reddit is day and night. I literally saw a post about the former president and people weren't arguing in some knockdown drag out like they would on literally any other social media platform. If there is any toxicity, which of course it's ridiculous to say that there's none, then it be must be rare because I have seen downright amazing interactions and honest and constructive discussions on Lemmy and Kbin. I'm sure there might be cracks in the fediverse and I might see them after the honeymoon phase is over but honestly I think the fediverse is the step in the right direction for the internet as a whole.
I'm **really ** wanting to be nice and approach this site differently so please pardon me if I sound rude but OP sounds like a drama queen. We don't need any of that on this site. I'm glad their gone. People like that are never happy anywhere and just suck the life out of the room like a power vacuum and spit out negative attention right in our faces. They bring it on themselves. Please let me know if I'm off my rocker on this one guys, and gals. I'd love to hear your side of this whole thing but that's just my general gut feeling.
yeah, I think I’m done here.Okay, bye! ;)
Are you a member of a group that is constantly marginalized in our society? If you are, then it shouldn't surprise you that it gets incredibly exhausting just trying to live a normal life. If OP is also a member of such a group, then what they're experiencing here is not only believable, but it is people like yourself - denying what they see is real - that make it worse by calling them names.
Want to be nice? Then don't make bullshit smooth brain comments like this. You were just fine until your second paragraph, at which point you became part of the problem.
Thank you for your feedback, but I disagree. I feel you're making a lot of assumptions. You're assuming that OP is a part of a marginalized community which is quite possible but not confirmed, and you are also assuming that I am not a part of one myself, which I am.
I have faced severe discrimination, emotional, and physical abuse simply for being the racial minority in school growing up, both by teachers and students based for the color of my skin. I'm also a member of the LGBTQIA+ community and an open bisexual in a regressive red state. I was literally just told I am unbiblical by my skills coach. I'm super worried about basic things like PDAs with my partner for fears we might be harassed in public. It shouldn’t surprise you that it gets incredibly exhausting just trying to live a normal life, you denying what I see is real - that makes it worse by calling me names.
It is not my opinion that this person is a drama queen because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or political beliefs. I just believe they are very pessimistic and doom and gloom and I'm having a hard time confirming what they've said as real. I'm on Kbin a lot and have not ever seen anti-trans posts, or ones that weren't met with absolute vitriol and down voted into oblivion to be shortly removed by the mods.
In fact if you look at one of these comments, someone had a theory they weren't actually on Kbin but on another site connected to Kbin? You should go look for that comment I can't find it so please it with a grain of salt. Many other people are calling out OP for being severely negative and doom and gloom, and also saying that they've never seen this type of content before.
And I think being a part of marginalized community or not would have no effect on whether it is seen. Bigots and hateful people want to spread their hate to every knook of the internet they find. And me and many other people (including LGBTQ and few trans folks in the comments) haven't seen this stuff. Although there is apparently a Lemmygrad instance, so that pro-Russia which sucks. I am not denying it existed but I find it weird that they are seeing all of this bad, hateful stuff when me and other marginalized folk haven't.
Yes it was rude to call them a drama queen, but I'm not going to apologize for it anymore than I have. It is my opinion that they are. Just like it is yours that I am making bullshit smooth brain comments. I think we should just disagree and go our separate ways.
So because you haven't personally experienced something they're reporting, then it's not real? That's not intelligent at all, especially given what else you just said.
Don't pretend you're trying to be nice while insulting people. That's some pure reddit-style bullshit. We'll go our separate ways, just know that I will call this sort of hostile garbage out each and every time. This is supposed to be a nicer place to be, but comments like yours aren't making it one.
Yes, Lemmy is rather notorious for its tankie problem. Best to avoid instances that allow that behavior.
I've noticed that people who call others “snowflakes” are usually projecting.
I strongly disagree with this point. On Reddit, running into awful people was a common occurrence, and I was unable to block them for some reason. On Beehaw, I rarely encounter them and am not forced to tolerate their awfulness. It's a major improvement.
Voat was always designed to be a refugee for the lowest type of scum of Reddit. It never turned into anything that it wasn't meant to be from day 1.
If you see transphobic comments in trans positive communities then I'd just report them. All instances of the fediverse, especially the major ones like kbin and Lemmy, have seen a very large influx of new people, postings and comments, as well as the odd performance issues. Those things will settle down with time. So far I cannot really say that I see kbin to be particularly hateful. There's a lot of lgbt friendly magazines popping up on the main page and generally the tone has been overall friendly.
fediverse is dealing with a large influx of users thats way bigger than anything theyve had to deal with so far
this coupled with the fact that you can join in on from any of the sites if you are banned from a specific instance means moderation has not been able to keep up
the devs of the various sites are working in improving their teams and tools to better deal with the moderation required, its likely a temporary issue
for now make as much use of the block button as possible, both for specific people and whole communities that seem to exist solely to be assholes
on top of that, beehaw has recently defederated with two of the biggest instances, lemmy.world and shitjustworks, meaning that moderation will probably be able to keep up more again
Personally I think it is a couple of things. My experience while being on the net for 35 years or so is that moderation on one hand and on the other hand a bit of a thick skin and a "Do Not Feed the Trolls" attitude is required. I have encountered trolls on Reddit and on Usenet which was way before Reddit. Yes I was on Voat awhile with you too... so I know what you mean.
Why? One it is a number of things. Good communication only happens when both parties are trying. So bad communication is more probable then good out of the gate. Plus the numbers game again. One troll can ruin the day of 100 other people. There always seem to some people that actually enjoy the trolling thing. Plus most of us are better at talking then listening. The internet is mostly a safe space for talking. Not so much always for listening.
Finally with all of its issues places like Reddit and other moderated forums are pretty effective. The people that do not like them are the Trolls. They will tend to leave and go to the free speech places which means those places have a much high density these days.
I also wonder if this has something to do with the breath of society and ways of being. There has always been part of society with this rough and tumble male culture where might makes right. Maybe it is some of that and how that part of society struggles with modern sensibilities.
Anyway my theory.
I was on voat since when it was called Whoaverse. It had so much potential, but then all the nazis showed up and ruined it. Here's hoping that does'nt happen here.
Hate to be that guy, but general reminder that Lemmy and Kbin are not the whole of the fediverse. This is definitely the most growth that either Lemmy or Kbin have seen, though.
my saying fediverse instead of specifying lemmy and kbin wasnt to imply that those are all of the fediverse, i did so because federation tends to mean that an influx of users to any of the federated sites means an influx of users to nearly the whole network
That's true, though the ratio is relatively weak. The microblogging services in the fediverse have seen much larger influxes than what Kbin and Lemmy are going through, and while I'm sure both Kbin and Lemmy saw some growth from those influxes, it was probably pretty minimal. I have seen some new users on Mastodon as a result of the Reddit issues, but obviously it's just been a fraction of the new users on these platforms.
So the statement "fediverse is dealing with a large influx of users that's way bigger than anything they've had to deal with so far" is either inaccurate in the definition of the fediverse, or inaccurate in the relative size of this influx.
thats fair
Why did beehaw defederate from these two instances in particular?
They claimed it was volume of posts and the free registration. It costs nothing to make a new account on shitjustworks and completely flood a beehaw post full of just plain mean comments. Beehaw wants some ability to decide who posts. For their own site you have to submit a tiny application, but they would prefer that problematic instances be limited in only posting. They don't mind sharing posts, but federation is explicitly two way. Until moderation tools fill the gap they are doing it in defense.
That makes sense, but why isn't kbin defederated then? I didn't need to do anything other than supply an email when signing up for kbin.
Because they haven't had issues moderating kbin users. The big issue is they felt that the amount of time they way too much spent modding those two instances
Because those two instances are pulling in huge traffic now and unlike beehaw you don't need to be approved to sign in. So their influx of new users are making it very hard for beehaw team to moderate (not that I am supporting their decision but I understand the reasons behind it.)
Beehaa literally defederated from other instances because of negativity so I think this has the best chance of working in terms of positivity. Also most people switching to voat did so due to "free speech" which was just another way of being mean. Voat was also a mere copy, the fediverse is a completely different tech
Oh god I remember voat... Like OP I had an account there, but it was full of racists extremist! Far right.
Lemmy ml are Marxists Leninist, the other extremists, far left...
Beehaw is cool and the right place
The Alternative Social Media version of the Goldilocks story.
yo what am I missing with that edit? you tagged yourself and then engaged the Universal Reactionary Pushback Defense. What were you trying to do with that?
I believe that edit is the now deleted comment deleted
Can you see what instance these transphobic comments are coming from? I have an inkling it might be some cesspit like exploding-heads.... they probably need to start getting defederated.
I'm on Kbin and haven't been seeing anything like that. And yeah there's always the possibility it was coming from another instance
I'm on lemmy and haven't either, to be fair.
Though I probably just don't go into threads with that topic.
I've seen nothing like that on kbin either
I'm still just wrapping my head around the fact that we're all on different sites talking. I'm on kbin and it's weird to see people be like "it's not like that over on kbin" and i'm like... why are you saying that haha
Yeah I've got to agree that's a weird thing for me too.
There is a greasyfork script that allows you to see the instance each user is commenting from check @kbinmeta
One of the first posts I clicked on lemmy was about AI or something like it in the technology magazine on beehaw. It's was a normal text but underneath the text illegal images popped in. That was a harrowing first experience. I just reported it and it was purged and the user banned. I wont the trolls win, I'll rather help keep communities clean.
Dude it seriously fucks me up that the Voat thing was almost 10 years ago. It feels like it was just a couple of years ago.
Could you point me to the anti trans comments on kbin? As a kbinaut I'd like to do my part and downvote & report them.
I've found that kbin is a pretty chill community, personally, but I must have missed that thread.
Anyway, yes, I think beehaw could be an excellent place for you. They actively try to keep assholes out, and they try to foster a community that's thoughtful and insightful. I think they're doing a pretty good job so far.
I haven't noticed any anti trans stuff though I wonder if I'm the person they're talking about lol
I think you're pretty vocal about disagreeing with some aspects of the modern trans(gender) movement, but imo that's very different from being "anti trans".
yup. people often see it that way though. I try not to hate anyone even if I can disagree quite strongly with stuff. I'm vocal about what I think and unapologetic about it, but I try to avoid creating strife/hate/conflict.
I'd say it's fine as long as you know where to draw the line and stop. Not everything can be rationalized or argumented away, sooner or later you're going to hit someone's emotional weak spot and make them uncomfortable since they won't be able to separate it like you do.
This doesn't apply to you specifically since I don't know you well enough, but in my experience people who say "I have no filter, I say it the way it is and I will never apologize for it" are not doing it because it's the right thing to do but rather because they can't help themselves and it's easier not to bother about how other people feel. I think we'd be all better off if we had a filter and weighted our words more carefully, especially on the internet where it's so easy to just lash out. That doesn't mean keeping your opinion to yourself and never speaking up of course.
Ah I see what you mean. I do have a "filter" but I meant more in terms of beliefs/views. I'm not gonna apologize for what I believe, but I'm not gonna throw stuff out that I know will hurt someone if it's unwarranted. I know when and how to bite my tongue if need be to keep peace.
A lot of refugees from major platforms are alt-right trolls, so they are going to want to be in whatever space they can claim. I'm hoping there will be enough non trolls with this exodus, but time will tell.
This is the real answer. Previously, most exodus events from Reddit were because shitty people wanted to post shitty things and got told to leave.
As OP themselves said, a decade ago they tried to go to Voat because it was going to allow hateful comments while Reddit was banning those communities. A website full of people who all want to make hateful comments turned out to be a hateful place to be. Who would have thought?
This time is hopefully different because Reddit isn’t specifically telling shitty people to leave. Instead, it’s basically forcing a ton of its power users to leave. People who want to have good discussions and not just be fed ads constantly. Places like Beehaw and Tildes and some others are forming positive communities. And I’m hopeful to see them grow.
Since having left Reddit I've been spending a lot of time on Kbin reading through all kinds of posts. While I'm sure that there are bad eggs everywhere you go, I haven't seen much hateful posts/comments. But then again, maybe I've just missed those
Still we need to stay vigilant and report content that does not belong here
Not condoning bigotry, but it kind of sounds like you are saying you prefer echo chambers. It is healthy to see opinions you disagree with, even from bigots. Seeing opinions you disagree with allows for critical thinking about why you disagree. Even though ignorance is bliss, it is still ignorance.
I also think the sample size fallacy may come in to play here. i.e. comparison of billions of users (reddit) to tens of thousands (lemmy - post migration, if I understand correctly, previously lemmy was in the thousands user pre migration from reddit).
It’s healthy to see good faith opinions you disagree with from reasonable people… It’s not at all healthy to see opinions from bigots and trolls. There is a big difference there
Whilst I agree in principal to "healthy to see opinions you disagree with", I don't want to see things like "trans people are mutants" (which is disgusting rhetoric).
I don't think this necessarily brings around "ignorance is bliss". News articles of Trump blaming "mutants" are enough to remind me why I formed these opinions, without having to debate it with people of dissenting opinion.
Yeah, there is a huge difference between level-headed differentiating of opinions versus those who basically push their opinions as facts.
For example, in the dev world there's always "language wars" of which programming language is "better" - I'm okay with people advocating for a language and giving their reasons why they believe this to be the case. Sometimes in those instances I learn something new about a language and it motivates me to learn more about it and consider using it in a new project.
What I'm not okay with is if I say "I like to use Java, as its one of the first languages I started with" and am just told "Why would you ever consider such a thing! Java is horrible!" and then provide either no reason why, or its just complete nonsense.
Or, I personally do not like pineapple pizza - but that is just my preference. I don't go around telling people that pineapple pizza is awful, and I surely do not condemn those who do like it.
Nuance is usually the missing thing when it comes to this sort of thing.
That being said, there are some topics where I do not think there could ever be anyone who can (and its very rare that I see things as absolutes) convince me there will be a genuine opposing opinion for, such as trans rights. There's not a single force that exists in our universe that would have me believe in anything but the rights of others. If there are bigots who want to believe that I'm evil because of this, oh well, I won't lose any sleep over that. Those topics are just not up for debate, and never will be.
There's a limit though. It's dangerous to approach nazis, tankies, fascists, etc in good faith. I don't think anyone making pro-Russia posts deserves a seat at the table. Personally.
It's the classic paradox of tolerance. Tolerating everything equivalently is just a recipe for disaster.
It's only healthy to hear opinions that you disagree with when those opinions don't include the dehumanization of others.
Either you are misguided or you know what you want to say would be considered bigotry and expect to have your voice heard by everyone.
Trans people don't need to "think critically" about why they disagree with anti-trans comments. It's not "healthy" for trans people to be constantly reminded that there's a % of the population that want them gone. It's not ignorance, it's a done debate. It's a waste to debate people who's aim is to open the dialogue up to extremist viewpoints.
I wrote up a long thoughtful response that seems to have not made it through (prob growing pains) and don't have time to rewrite, so here is a shorter version; as best I can.
Not sure what your first paragraph means. I am not trans so hesitate to speak on the trans experience, but will do my best.
Others pointed out good vs bad faith, which I did not specify, but I was thinking of good faith discourse (even from bigots). "Trans are mutants - full stop" comments are not what I'm thinking. "Trans are mutants because they mutate their body" comments are more what I'm thinking. I do not jump to assume that person is trolling or (intentionally) pushing propaganda, but moreso full of, and operating off of misinformation and don't understand the difference between "mutant gene" and "body mutation".
"Piercings, tattoos, and really all surgeries are body mutations. Are you saying you think that women with breast cancer shouldn't be able to have breast removal surgery, if necessary, just so that trans men can't have breast removal surgery?" is the thought path I go down for a comment like that. I think it is important to say those things to the person, so they also have a chance to critically think about the topic, rather than have Fox news tell them what to think. Pretty easy to discuss and defend the pro-trans side of that IMO.
If the debate was done, we wouldn't still have anti-trans legislation being shoved down our throat. Debate being done in one community (leftists), does not mean the debate is over. Acting like the debate is over is ONLY detrimental to the trans community, as this can lead to the trans community not having a spot at the debate table, and you can be guaranteed the bigots WILL BE at the debate table. The trans community should have a spot at the debate table.
I was raised in a cult, your second paragraph is almost exactly what they teach their youth as a means to silence facts about their history and dissenting opinions, keeping the echo chamber what they want.
To be very clear, I am comparing echo chambers, not saying trans community = cult.
Here is your second paragraph slightly edited:
Mormon people don't need to "think critically" about why they disagree with anti-mormon comments. It's not "healthy" for mormon people to be constantly reminded that there's a % of the population that want them gone. It's not ignorance, it's a done debate [look at all our official Mormon church resources which say so (echo chamber)]. It's a waste to debate people who's aim is to open the dialogue up to extremist viewpoints [like separation of church and state and approval of anti-family communities (this is what they call LGBTQ+ to sound less bigoted)].
Dangerous game.
I am all for safe spaces, as long as the people participating in them don't act like the content in the safe space is the only content/opinions/facts that exist, as does the Mormon church.
Trolls and propaganda bots should be curtailed, I consider this part of growing pains. However, dissenting opinions (in good faith), belong and deserve proper discourse to give the OP the chance to see facts and context that would NEVER come through Fox news.
I was concerned about entering an echo chamber but then I remembered that I wouldn’t sit and drink in a skin head bar, or hang around a nazi rally. There’s something to be said about looking around the local environment and thinking “this isn’t for me”.
I can’t say that I’ve had many issues on other instances but there’s been a few posts where I’ve wandered in, then promptly noped back to the main feed because it was beyond “dissenting viewpoint” and more akin to walking into a room full of wasps.
If I want dissenting views I can go anywhere on the internet, but sometimes it’s nice to be able to discuss something you care about without being called names and dog-piled on. Kinda like walking out of the religious rally and into a library. It’s just a different environment.
Helping everyone according to their needs and letting them live as they like vs using any means necessary to establish hegemony over people not in your group, isn't a difference of opinion.
It's a quite literal life vs death struggle.
This will sound very pessimistic, but I think what you are witnessing is a more accentuated version of reality.
It's more intense for a number of reasons (it takes less dedication to spread hate online, these communities are small so moderation isn't as effective, the userbase is small so a few users make a bigger splash, communities of this technical nature have a historical lineage that selects for a certain strain of uncritical laissez-faire individualism, etc), but they are nothing that is totally alien to the rest of a given society.
Reality won't let us catch a break, we are forced to actively maintain the good stuff at any given moment.
Any place where anyone can register for an account without much of a background check and anonymity is doomed to become full of shit in due time. Hence active moderation is a very important aspect of Reddit or any social media platform.
Unfortunately it is still early days for lemmy or kbin and the moderation tools are yet to mature. There are a few bad post on this account but I don’t think it is full doom and gloom.
I am more in a wait and watch situation and will see how it goes in a few months before taking a call.
I think it just needs to grow and you need to find a community that fits for you and your values.
Maybe beehaw could be it for you, they defederate a lot of stuff that is more "mean".
The defining characteristic of these failed Reddit alternatives like Voat is that the communities that drove their growth were very polarized and often hateful. If your hate sub gets banned and your community moves somewhere else as a consequence, your platform is going to end up with a toxic core audience that are not inclusive and make it impossible to grow.
The growth of Lemmy (and Beehaw) being a reaction to Reddit's shutdown of third party apps is exactly why it has a chance of taking off. It's not a couple of fringe Reddit subs that moved to Lemmy, but rather users from all sorts of subs. The polarization isn't there because 3rd party app users are a diverse audience that are probably representative of all Reddit users. This could actually be a huge problem for Reddit in the long run. If Lemmy and Beehaw end up having better vibes and communities with less astroturing, they'll continue to draw more people in.
Well i mean voat was a non-starter. I was there. Its creation was the tale as old as time, whiny toxic users complaining about "censorship" as whiny toxic people tend to do. I feel like comparing the fatpeoplehate lynch mob calling ellen pao "chairman pao" to the community's hatred of reddit's IPOification very bad faith. Lemmy is incredibly young which means its tools arent robust yet. It also means the devs(which given they had a slur filter is streets ahead of early reddit admins philosophy) have to battle bad actors and develop weapons and policies to combat them. I've done it before, it's difficult. Give it time.
It is my understanding that the kbin admins are working now to form / strengthen a moderation team.
I just block communities that is to spammy or annoying, the thing with a open source decentralize platform is that you need to drag the sliders yourself to your liking.
Cool story bro. You gotta be a part of something to make a change. Decisions get made by people in the room. If you don’t want to be here cool and sorry this wasn’t for you. It’s the equivalent of giving everyone in a crowded bar the finger and going home. Cool mate, a bit dramatic but yeah. Peace.
Communities like Reddit are difficult to replicate in the first place. I love Reddit, but the transphobic, hateful, ignorant comments are surely also made on Reddit as well. Perhaps you see them less because it's less concentrated, as there are so many subs and people.
Someone has to pay for the software, and servers and moderation. Autocratic governments have all the insensitives to take over Redditors. I don't have evidence, but woudn't be surprised if they're indeed sending admins and mods. Lemmy devs are known as Tankies indeed.
I haven't seen anything like that, I don't even see whatever response you're quoting
Personally I don't think social media must be safe. I actually enjoy more diversity and freedom of speach more than "safety" however you define it.
FYI some people are transphobic and they still should have the same right to use social media as you and me. That's why I love fedi. If you want to make your own transphobic server you should be allowed to do so but also accept that other servers won't connect with you. It also work the other way around.
If you want to have healthy fedi communities you need to moderate and educate them what is allowed and not allowed. You can also create your own instance and moderate it yourself.
But that's just my opinion. I understand that not everyone agrees with it.