Comment on The one drawback to walking at night
_lunar@lemmy.ml 14 hours agoCould it possibly be that we both have deeply subjective views of the other large instances, because humans fall to tribalism faster than a kitten on a sock full of catnip?
nope, it’s because your instance is operated by people who refuse to moderate disinformation under some naive belief that enough debate bro-ing is all it takes to defeat it, failing to understand that the effort it takes to proliferate hate and disinformation is much smaller than the effort it takes to refute it. as such, lemmy.world is becoming overrun with some of the most toxic motherfuckers on the entire platform because all the sane people are being driven away.
Warl0k3@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Ah, a blanket denial of everything I said. How glad I am that I’m above petty things like pointing out the stereotypical behavior of users from other instances. It’s nice up here, on the Mountain of Sarcastic Moral Superiority.
As an actual counterpoint, the primary way that new users get onto lemmy is always going to have the highest concentration of toxic users. Society is, if you haven’t noticed, incredibly toxic. Commonly espoused ideas, like trans people being human or civil rights being important, aren’t commonly supported by society at large (source: the entire world right now). The easiest way for people who support those things to find their way to instances where those ideas are popularly held is to join the most popular instance and see both the need for other instances with heavier moderation, and what those instances are. How many people hear about blahaj or sh.itjust.works before signing up to lemmy, vs. sign up there as their second account?Personally, I’m pretty grateful that the most toxic opinions are largely self-segregated into a place where people aren’t required to interact with them. It’s less pleasant, sure, but it’s also the best place in the fediverse to get an accurate idea of what the real societal opinions are. And if it gets to be too much, I can always just flee like a base coward and spend time under one of my alt accounts on a more heavily moderated instance like .ml.
_lunar@lemmy.ml 12 hours ago
that isn’t necessarily true though: you don’t see other popular instances of fediverse platforms having these problems when they actually put effort into enforcing rules that protect the community and discourage disinformation and hate speech, and it doesn’t make them any less of a gateway for new users.
the staff on lemmy.world promote disinformation, and that does not benefit any of us, especially when disinformation has a way of spreading that the separation of instances alone isn’t enough to prevent. most are still either directly federated to lemmy.world, or federated to instances that are federated to lemmy.world.
toxicity itself isn’t inherent to society but a consequence of how our current society is set up, and social media platforms that deliberately proliferate disinformation play a role in that. if you want to actually counter hate and disinformation the first step you should take is to stop outright encouraging it and fight it at the source.
also, implying people are cowards for wanting to flee your hate instance is despicable and privileged-ass take. fuck you.
Warl0k3@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
That was pretty clearly self deprecating. Who in the hell calls someone else a ‘base coward’, anyways? For that matter, who would even take seriously being called a base coward? I think you might genuinely be treating everyone else as hostile as a means of self defense, which while understandable is in itself incredibly toxic to interact with.
I have real comments here, along the lines of what you mean by promoting disinformation and the moderation standards you would prefer to see here. But come on, what’s the point in trying to have a discussion when you treat everything like an attack on you & yours?
_lunar@lemmy.ml 12 hours ago
it’s self-deprecating but has hostile implications toward the many users who really did leave to escape ill treatment toward them. marginalized people get enough of that in real life after all. i don’t think they should have to endure it at all, nor do i think it’s cowardly to want to avoid it. if i’m reading too much into this and that wasn’t your intention, i’m sorry. though i’m really not sure how else to interpret that.
when i say lemmy.world promotes disinformation, i’m referring to their recent announcement that they would require community moderators to entertain disinformation in the name of having open debate. they redacted that announcement following the backlash if i recall correctly, but it is nonetheless reflective of how they have been moderating things on their instance, which is apparent in threads like this one that stir the pot and bring out all the rabid misogynists that have been tolerated and continue to be tolerated on here. the lack of moderation toward these things aligns with what they stated in that announcement, that these are ideas we should be open and fair to.
the problem of course is that being open to disinformation alienates the marginalized people affected by it, harms the people who would be deceived by it, and only serves to benefit the people who would spread it. it’s a lot easier to fight disinformation and bigotry by stopping it at the source rather than letting it fester and then trying to take it down with debate. we all know how difficult it is to argue in good faith against those arguing in bad faith. it takes no time and no effort to just make something up, but more time and effort than most people even have the energy to give to refute it with fact-based evidence.
we’re in the midst of a social crisis with the rise of the incel movement and MRA influencers. those who follow these things are more emotionally invested in them than logically, and near impossible to get through to. you might be able to convince a few undecided readers if you put sufficient effort into your replies, but ultimately the spread of these movements are much faster than the handful of individuals who make an effort to stand against them. a lot of us just don’t even have the time. we need support from those who are in the position to actually take preventive measures against them.