Is there a more politically and ideologically diverse alternative for Lemmy?

Submitted ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

I know the real answer is reddit but I really don’t want to go back now that I’ve already grown used to life without it. I was hoping for Lemmy to be a viable substitute but it isn’t. I can see how this place is wonderful for the certain type of person but that person is not me. My experience during the past 6+ months has been a net negative and I’m pretty much ready to move on. I just don’t know where else to go.

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ristoril_zip@lemmy.zip ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’m sure this will come if the wrong way but if you’re genuinely concerned about discovering diversity of thought, you’re going to have to tell us what your positions are for example.

I’m all for finding diversity, but so often what people who post these are looking for is an echo chamber. Like if you’re really wanting to be challenged, and you’re a conservative, go to socialistworker.org and read up.

But if what you’re concerned about is the nerds in Lemmy seem to be left leaning, that’s just the nature of smart creative people. We value skills and creativity over hierarchy and structure.

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- Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I like hearing both sides of every argument even when I don’t agree with it. On reddit I could read the top comments first and then sort by controversial to hear the opposing arguements. Here I can’t do that. There usually are no opposing arguments or if there is they’re made in bad faith. It’s almost like I need to choose a team and then subscribe to the ideologies of that team when in reality I’m more of a pick and choose type of person.
  
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  - partial_accumen@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    you’re going to have to tell us what your positions are for example
    
    There are very few “positions” I hold.
    
    The “positions” term is usually a shorthand for the eventual distillation of your values. If you haven’t arrived yet at your positions, have you examined on your values? Values are usually far more primitive in the sense they don’t conform exactly to specific public policy, but there is usually public policy that encompasses specific values.
    
    While its certainly possible for a person’s values to change over time. We usually arrive at what most our values are in our 20s. These are things such as:
    
    Your belief in the value of life; Your own vs everyone else’s in society, in the world.
    
    Your adoption or rejection on any specific religion or faith
    
    Where you decide the right balance is between individualism vs collectivism
    
    Your belief in personal responsibility and autonomy vs societal responsibility and obligation
    
    I believe it is very important for each of us to examine who we are, what our values are, and then use our intellect to decide/craft which positions can be arrived at with guidance from our values.
    
    When it comes to most subjects I’m not informed enough to form strong opinions so I generally float somewhere in between. For most hot topics I see on Lemmy every day I can usually make good arguments for both ways. I may lean to one side or another but I’m often just a few well written comments away from tipping to the other direction.
    
    This is where your responsibility comes in. If you’re not informed enough, become so. Listen critically to arguments, don’t simply accept on face value what other proclaim is true. If you’re hearing a logical argument that seems to contradict your understanding, yet aligns with your values, challenge yourself to explore it. The phrase “steel sharpens steel” applies here. If you have healthy and strongly defined personal values, the arguments of your positions should be equally strong and stand up to scrutiny. If your positions are found faulty by your own examination, adopt all or elements of the argument that knocked your position down because its is the right one for your values and ability to critically apply logic with all the information you have available.
    
    You made other statements about choosing a side, but realistically it isn’t just two sides. Its dozens or hundreds of nuanced views, and every single one could be flawed in some way, or incomplete. Accept that in many situations there isn’t a “right” answer. All sides represented could be wrong and the best you can do is admit this choose the least worse. This constant reexamination and frustration is both the beauty and the horror of being human.
    
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  - GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    It’s almost like I need to choose a team and then subscribe to the ideologies of that team when in reality I’m more of a pick and choose type of person.
    
    This sums up my feelings lately very nicely. I’d say I am generally well aligned with the culture on here, and share most leftist views. However there are certain topics, and even just sub aspects of certain topics, that will net you a lot of downvotes very quick and condescending proselytizing comments if you even slightly differ from the general consensus in your views.
    
    I’m not sure what could be done about this though, I certainly dont want Lemmy to be more welcoming towards alt right bullshit and such. But talking with a bunch of queer leftists about queer leftist things all the time is like that old south park episode where the parents become pretentious wine snobs and start getting high on their own farts. Boring, pointless self aggrandizement.
    
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  - 1984@lemmy.today ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I think some mods are a bit too happy to use their mod tools. I’ve seen opinions get moderated away because they angers people, not because they are wrong.
    
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- TheFriendlyDickhead@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The amount of tankies and idiots with idiotic opinions is way to high on here. And in general I realy get what they are saying. Other platforms with a bigger user base don’t have that big of a problem with diversity. It bothered me too, it seems like the whole of lemmy has a very idiotic position on a lot of things and saying anything that is even in the slightest against that gets you down voted. That is something that sadly developed over time. In the early days everyone was way more friendly and less radical people were on here.
  
  that’s just the nature of smart creative people
  
  Well. No. Say that to yourself, but ideology and belive is a lot more complex than: I am smart, so I am left. Your believes mostly stem from influences in your childhood, like parents, friends, people you trust. It’s dangerous to lift yourself above others with different believes.
  
  Like if you’re really wanting to be challenged, and you’re a conservative, go to socialistworker.org and read up.
  
  The problem is that a socialist worker doesn’t realy have a place to go to challenge their own opinion. Lemmy sadly has gone the way of an eco chamber. And for political discourse you need other people that have an opinion like yours that support you in your arguments. Currently it’s more like “this guy has a bad opinion, downvote him to hell”
  
  It’s not enough for me to leave, because in general I realy like it here and with enough comunitys blocked it has become bearable.
  
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  - APassenger@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’ve seen a LOT of strawman attacks. It usually seems to be honest miscommunication, but underneath that… It looks like predisposition to combative and somewhat-dismissive hot takes.
    
    And it works. Certain members have swung entire conversations and down votes by implying a person said something they didn’t.
    
    It’s not unique to online fora, but the concentration seems off here.
    
    Some of this just looks like people feeling like big fish in this small pond and finding a degree of confidence or even righteousness from the voting patterns.
    
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  - msage@programming.dev ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Can you expand more on those idiotic positions?
    
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  - marcos@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    The amount of tankies and idiots with idiotic opinions is way to high on here.
    
    On an internet site?! I’m shocked! Shocked!
    
    I mostly sign jokes and shitposting communities, but the people there are surprisingly calm and diverse. I mean, surprisingly for an internet community; most could pass just as a very weird group in another context.
    
    But if you go signing for politics communities on the internet, you’ll get the expected result.
    
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- fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  You don’t need to know their views to know what a diverse community is. Lemmy is a heavily-biasee echochamber, they want something that’s not a heavily-biasee echochamber.
  
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  - natural_motions@lemmynsfw.com ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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misk@sopuli.xyz ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
If you’re after moderate right flavored discussion I sympathize but you’ll have trouble finding it as the broader right has been consumed by alt right and far right. If your point is that those viewpoints specifically are missing from Lemmy then I’d say it’s a good riddance. I just wish Lemmy was as hard on some immature leftie takes.

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- Roflmasterbigpimp@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’m a pretty “left-winged” European, but I see the lack of a “moderate right” or “conservative” alternative as a real problem! Here on Lemmy and in the real world as well. When there is no place for them, people will feel the need to align with the far-right to at least have some points in common with others. And the only one who profits from this is the far-right. It’s important to have a mixed political Landscape, so Ideas can be exchanged, topics can be discussed in a meaningful way, and we don’t end up in an echo chamber.
  
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  - Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I agree but I also think it’s up to them to build that space.
    
    If your a classical conservative and believe in personal and fiscal responsibility, then it’s your job to create or contribute to a space for this.
    
    I think this is the problem, those people let the crazies in and then turn around and blame the victim.
    
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  - Anyolduser@lemmynsfw.com ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Man, I’m trying to remember the last time I saw a nail get hit so hard right on the head but I’m coming up empty.
    
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dohpaz42@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’ve skimmed some of your comments, and honestly it looks like you’re already getting a diverse experience considering your political and ideological way of thinking. That’s not a condemnation, but a quick observation.

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- Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The thing is that people actually don’t know my politics or ideologies. They think they do and then reply accordingly.
  
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  - msage@programming.dev ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Then express yourself to let them know what you stand for, and what do you expect from them.
    
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  - dohpaz42@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    We can only know what you show us. The rest we have to fill in based on what you’ve said in the past. That’s how this stuff works. It’s a back and forth. For it to work, you actually have to contribute.
    
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  - Alice@hilariouschaos.com ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    👌👌👌👌👌👌💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯
    
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danhab99@programming.dev ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Lemmy is already diverse, you just gotta find the right instance, or multiple instances! The whole point of joining your platform to the federation is for visibility and control

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- Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I don’t quite see how the choise of instance affects much of anything except for which other instances you’re able to interact with.
  
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  - eldavi@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
There’s some irony to how good thread this turned out to be

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Rentlar@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Yeah it’s hard to say. Fark? HackerNews? Bluesky? Tildes? You’ll just have to try a bunch and see what catches on with you. You’re welcome to try Lemmy again anytime, so who’s to stop you from a break from it?

I’ve been saying for a year, Lemmy and the Fediverse is specifically designed to be like a series of echochambers, since the community, the moderation and local userbase are designed all around that. Ultimately, you have the freedom to choose who and what to allow and block yourself.

Personally I think you are subjecting yourself to grief by interacting with hexbear and lemmygrad but I’m not here to scold or police what you choose to do.

I think one major difference that can make your experience negative is that posts on Reddit can’t show below zero, and people here use the downvote button more often because they have strong feelings on a topic. In my experience on controversial topics you would have various threads where both sides of an argument receive downvotes which is a sign there are diverse perspectives. You just have to live with and not be bothered by a negative score, it means nothing. Some examples:

Israel vs. Palestine narratives (Lemmy overall leans a little more toward Palestine but I’ve seen either get downvoted depending on community over the months)

pro-Biden vs anti-Biden (this is a very controversial one and sure some of it is anti-American propaganda and “both sides are the same”-type of sealioning, still both perspectives get downvoted).

Ukraine (this one is easy, you’re either on a community under .ml moderation or not, which determines the overall narrative)

This is all to say that the best way to get ‘diverse’ opinions on Lemmy is to hop around various communities, brace yourself for downvotes and just try to be genuine about it. For non-controversial content we all gotta do our part, speaking of which I haven’t posted much OC lately so I’ll get onto that soon in a couple days.
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- Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I keep post scores hidden so getting downvoted isn’t much of an issue for me because I won’t know unless I go out of my way to check.
  
  The main issue for me is that I can reliably guess what kind of replies certain topics get and what is popular and what is unpopular. It’s kind of like having a friend who never says or does anything that surprises you. Why even bother asking for their opinion when you already know what they’re going to say.
  
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  - PutangInaMo@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Reddit was the same way to be honestly.
    
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  - Rentlar@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I can understand what you mean. The prevailing narratives tend to be America bad, cars bad, capitalism bad, Linux good, on and on. But in the vein of how you assert that you don’t want people to assume what you believe, going into a community painting users with a broad brush is going to fill the gap with your pre-conceived biases, and that isn’t conducive to good discussion. I say give it a chance, even someone that writes along the lines of what you expect may still have a tiny sliver of something that surprises you. I look at some of the more notorious users like FlyingSquid, PugJesus, PP_BOY etc. and I’ve agreed with them and disagreed with them on various topics, even if they were in line with ‘the narrative’. Other users I attempt to converse and sometimes it works out while other times I have to stop at the 3rd reply.
    
    I’m making an effort to be better, trying to curb the ratio of responses I do that have only memes and add more original thoughts or detailed opinions to my newer comments.
    
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  - PumaStoleMyBluff@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’m kind of surprised you think reddit was any different from that!
    
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  - morphballganon@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Having a good idea what opinions you’re likely to see doesn’t mean there’s no point to asking. Certain opinions being prevalent is expected in any community. Any time I make a post, I can be pretty sure there will be certain kinds of responses, but there are typically some that surprise me also.
    
    If you find that the community mentality is so entrenched that people are hostile or disparaging, just block the most offensive profiles and move on with your day.
    
    I block quite a few profiles every day. That’s just how it is these days, when charlatans can convince millions of people to vote and vehemently influence against their own self interest.
    
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  - Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    I keep post scores hidden so getting downvoted isn’t much of an issue for me because I won’t know unless I go out of my way to check.
    
    On some conversations you might be better off seeing the score. Some people will agree in terms of a vote but aren’t going to back you up in the comments. I’ve had a few conversations where the comments are demoralizing and the score shows me I’m reaching at least some people (or vise versa).
    
    Also, something I learned from Twitter and Reddit after engaging with people too much … sometimes the right answer is just to use the block button liberally and call it a day. Some people are not interested in discussion or good faith debate they just want to yell at people on the Internet and feel smart.
    
    I had a person I bumped into saying (all of this paraphrasing) “the press has gone to shit because of a headline” and I was like “can we not be so dramatic this is a small website, surely a bad headline from a small operation is not a new thing” then they responded with “how many headlines do you see with X Y or Z even in those mainstream outlets? It’s all gone to shit.” I ran a few searches and found a rate of about 1 article per paper per year that met their alleged example… And then they said that was malicious compliance, I’d ignored their argument, and I wasn’t acting in good faith… Like mate, I just literally took 15 minutes to check your claim out and came back to tell you; how much more good faith do you want? That was a block, that person is clearly a total waste of time, and I don’t want to interact with their “doomerism.”
    
    In a sense it’s a blessing lemmy is kind of small because blocking one loud person that has a lot of opinions that irritate you can go a long way.
    
    The main issue for me is that I can reliably guess what kind of replies certain topics get and what is popular and what is unpopular. It’s kind of like having a friend who never says or does anything that surprises you. Why even bother asking for their opinion when you already know what they’re going to say.
    
    I was definitely feeling this way a couple weeks ago … ironically the worst was the weekend my birthday fell on. It just felt like everything I came across was a hot take lacking nuance.
    
    It comes and goes… Some weeks people can/will surprise you. Some topics… I think it’s better to just leave the mob alone and let them have their echo chamber.
    
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DavidGA@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Lemmy is a federation of servers. “Lemmy” is not one political group with one viewpoint. If you’re looking for different viewpoints, try different groups, or different servers.

In another comment you said this about the comments you read:

they’re made in bad faith

I don’t think this is true. I think that what you think is “bad faith” is actually “people who disagree with me”. So far, most users of Lemmy appear to trend politically left by American standards, but that’s only because American standards are so absurdly skewed to the right that it appears to stand out. By American standards, “truth” is left-wing.

Ask yourself what you’re actually looking for.

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- msage@programming.dev ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Also, I’ve spent time on Reddit, it was only bad faith arguments in controversial. Like bots pushing propaganda bad.
  
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  - someacnt_@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Agreed, I recall this.
    
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- XEAL@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The problem is that all of the big instances sorta line up the same way and anything that doesn’t please them gets defederated at the speed of light and comments and posts get removed. They have the control.
  
  It seems OP was getting some comments removed (Rule 1 = bigorty) by simply expressing opinions that don’t please the “gods”.
  
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  - willya@lemmyf.uk ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Pretty ridiculous the comments that were removed.
    
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Wrench@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Tildes might work for you. Politics is a banned subject, but you’ll get polite discourse on most subjects.

I found it stifling, personally. But if you like overly verbose, overly polite discussions where all opinions are respected as long as it’s long winded and politely communicated, well, that’s your place.

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FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
How the actual fuck is the answer Reddit?

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- Woozythebear@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Because there is enough people to drown out all the people being paid by political parties to post here and offset the upvotes they buy.
  
  The DNC has dozens of paid people on this platform and Because a post may only get 100 comments the people being paid can make it look like their opinion is the popular opinion.
  
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  - tourist@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’m not sure if Lemmy has a large enough userbase to warrant paying shills to sway opinion.
    
    What would the purpose of that be? Get 20-30 politically inactive Arch Linux users to vote for Biden?
    
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  - FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Bro if you think the DNC even knows what Pemmy is, letalone is teying to influence it, then you need to check yourself into inpatient psychiatric care ASAP.
    
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  - FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Lol you mad.
    
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frankPodmore@slrpnk.net ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I don’t think there is one, unfortunately. I agree that lack of ideological diversity is a problem with the Fediverse in general, but it’s a problem that likely won’t go away unless the Fediverse becomes mainstream.

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- Valmond@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  What kind of ideology would you like to see more? I mean I’ve stumbled onto the whole left-right spectrum here? Few/no fascists, ultra conservatives I guess?
  
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  - frankPodmore@slrpnk.net ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Not really interested in discussing things with fascists, but I’ve rarely seen anyone here who’s to the right of, like, a milquetoast social democrat.
    
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- 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  And if that eventually happens, other problems will follow.
  
  I kinda like it the way it is. I also use Reddit, so that kinda balances things out I guess.
  
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- Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It’s a problem with humanity.
  
  We naturally silo ourselves into separate groups.
  
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  - frankPodmore@slrpnk.net ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That is true, but I did find a lot of people on Twitter and Reddit who I could have productive and interesting disagreements with, even though I naturally mostly followed and subscribed to people and things I did agree with.
    
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- XEAL@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Nah, anything else (even free speech instances) will always get defederated from the “popular” ones.
  
  We’re stuck like this forever.
  
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jaspersgroove@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Reddit: everybody sucking Trump or Biden’s dick.

Lemmy: everybody sucking Putin or Xi Jinping’s dick.

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- partial_accumen@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I too enjoy that Lemmy has a more global audience and isn’t as USA centric.
  
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  - jaspersgroove@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Oh it’s still incredibly USA centric, the userbase just gets their talking points from Russian bot farms instead of US media outlets lol
    
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- fah_Q@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Jasoergroove: sucking everyones dick.
  
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GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Honestly? It’s tricky to find communities that give you a spread.

I can recommend picking a community that has a secondary alignment with you (for example, country/state), as they’ll tend to pick up posts in All that may be of interest other than politics.

(Though tbf, our instance still leans left on whole. Just not so crazily)

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fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I feel your pain. The fediverse has been disappointing because of the extreme bias and propaganda.

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jj4211@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
While I see a lot of posts that would have this problem, at least the discussion are a bit more balanced compared to when the same stuff would happen on Reddit. So for example fuck cars is about the same in terms of posts, but here I tend to see a bit more back and forth and a balanced perspective on how the comments are up voted. On Reddit, any comment vaguely questioning the circle jerk will be down voted into oblivion and receive nothing but angry replies.

The amount of apolitical posts is a bit disappointing though.

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atro_city@fedia.io ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
What have you tried? There are communities of all types on here. If you say something, there are definitely people who will agree and others who will disagree. Most will express it quite badly and few will give a thoughtful response. Reddit, I find, was much worse at nuance.

/r/askmen for example was open to anybody asking questions while /r/askwomen was heavily heavily moderated and didn't allow diverging views. /r/science turned into a place for science memes. /r/politics was just a battleground for left and right wingers calling each other names, and places about men's health were consistently attacked by other subs. Reddit seemed like twitter's second coming - with communities.

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- Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  /r/askwomen was heavily heavily moderated and didn’t allow diverging views.
  
  Oh my god yeah, that one was a bit ridiculous. I have a vague recollection of trying to help someone in a thread with like a domestic abuse situation or something and the mods quashed my comments because they had an opinion and I’m not a woman (mind you nothing I said was remotely sexist and it was a comment thread on an existing comment).
  
  /r/signal was also a bit ridiculous. Rather than having a discussion on the merits of Telegram’s design vs Signal’s design for the average person, I got temp banned for “intentionally trying to compromise people’s security” or something like that.
  
  Reddit seemed like twitter’s second coming - with communities
  
  I will say Reddit never topped some Twitter Trumpies calling me a caribou diaper baby … that was particularly deranged and such a strange insult lol
  
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  - gimpchrist@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Rofl 🐮
    
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  - atro_city@fedia.io ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    caribou diaper baby ... that was particularly deranged and such a strange insult lol
    
    That made me laugh. It's more hilarious than an insult. Maybe they are comedians in their free time?
    
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- WldFyre@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Lol are you complaining about men’s rights subs??
  
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  - gimpchrist@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I mean, my eyeballs read ‘Men’s Health’…
    
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DandomRude@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’m not sure whether there can be an ideologically neutral social media platform at all. I think there will always be a significant proportion of users who are not interested in discussion, arguments and open minded exchange, but rather in seeing their world view confirmed by others or simply being part of a perceived in-group.

What’s more, the sheer mass of content makes an attention economy necessary so that one can deal with this flood of information. In my opinion, the content that is easy to consume will always prevail over content that looks at a topic in all its complexity (hardly anyone is willing/has the time to read up on it). So it’s often not about who has the better arguments or actually knows something about a topic, but about who sells their posts better. In this sense, it seems to me that social media in general is not really social, but to a large extent a competition for attention.

I am not aware of any platform that could solve these problems. In my opinion, this is not really the aim, as pretty much all platforms are not really about objective information, but rather about passing the time and entertainment. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you can’t find good discussions and serious information. But I think that this kind of content will never be the main focus of any social media plattform. The fediverse approach seems like a good try to me tho, because there can be “special interest instances” that can make their own rules to focus on whatever they are about.

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- FaceDeer@kbin.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I think there's a significant difference between "neutral" and "diverse".
  
  For example, Reddit is big enough that if you find yourself holding an unpopular opinion in some particular subreddit and you're getting battered with downvotes, you can probably find some other similar subreddit that's more friendly to whatever view you've got that's drawing ire. People speak derisively of "bubbles" and "echo chambers", but really, why should I stick around and try to engage with people who just don't want you around? Communities naturally tend to segregate themselves along ideological lines like this.
  
  Here on the Fediverse the population's too small to support quite so many diverse communities yet, unfortunately. So if you've got an unpopular minority view you can end up stuck with either routinely finding yourself serving as a punching bag or just not posting. That's no fun.
  
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  - DandomRude@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yes, that’s probably true. For me, however, neutrality presupposes diversity - at least to a certain degree. As in the maxim of quality journalism: the assumption here is that a journalist can never be truly objective. This is why an attempt is made to allow opposing perspectives on a topic to have their say, so that the reader or viewer can form their own opinion.
    
    Of course, this principle does not work in an environment in which differing opinions or perspectives are generally unwelcome. This is probably the case with Lemmy and other Fediverse applications for some topics. But I think that this doesn’t just apply to the Fediverse, but to social media in general. It seems to me just as you say: if you only encounter rejection on a platform, in a community or on an instance if you disagree with the majority, you will move elsewhere - which in turn will probably lead to you eventually finding yourself in an environment where the majority of others are of the same opinion.
    
    Of course, it would be highly desirable if people were more open-minded, but I’m afraid that’s a utopia. In any case, I don’t have the impression that the advent of social media has fundamentally brought open exchange forward.
    
    On the contrary, I have the impression that political discourse in many countries, for example, is now characterized by the very strategies that make social media posts successful: the abbreviated presentation of complex contexts, the invocation of enemy images, sometimes even straight-up trolling. But perhaps this is just a perception error on my part.
    
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Ziggurat@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
What made your experience negative ?

I’m on an large instance which doesn’t federate with Grad, so I don’t see the Right-winger playing to be leftist by supporting right wing dictators

Tons of communities don’t get that much political beside the respect basic human rights and sometimes comment the news

Even with the European election ongoing, I don’t see much political discussion on European communities

So may-be try more “casual/fun” communties than the political one.

If you use the “local feed” it may be worth checking another instance. I heard good stuff of Blahaj Lemmy which as no downvote and act mostly as a safe/relax space for queer but is open to non queer people
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jeena@jemmy.jeena.net ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I thought we have quite a diversity here with extreme right wing on hexbear, extreme left wing on lemmygrad, center with lemmy.world, (clasic) liberalism on dbzer0, and everything between like blahaj, beehaw, redhat, slrpnk, etc.

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- gerryflap@feddit.nl ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Hexbear are also far left. They’re just so far left that they hate the west more than China or sometimes even Russia for some reason. Afaik all far right instances are luckily defederated. Most of Lemmy leans heavily left. I considered myself left wing, and I’m also very much left wing nationally speaking, yet here on Lemmy I constantly encounter people who are so left wing that I pretty much completely disagree with them.
  
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- aleph@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Hexbear are not right-wing in the slightest. They’re basically Lemmygrad with even more shitposting.
  
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  - jeena@jemmy.jeena.net ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I see, that En I misunderstood that and OP might have a point?
    
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- otp@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I don’t know much about hexbear, but why’s it extreme right?
  
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rufus@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I can’t tell if you’re the problem or if it is Lemmy.

I don’t think there is an alternative as of now.

However: I think Lemmy will grow. As of now it doesn’t due to the limitations of the software developers… Which is my personal little pet peeve. But it’s currently in the process of diversifying itself. New projects like Piefed and others are being developed to tackle the current issues and limitations that don’t get addressed by the Lemmy developers. I think there is a good chance that Lemmy is going to change in the near to mid future.

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Doll_Tow_Jet-ski@kbin.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Kbin interacts with Lemmy and seems to me to contain reasonable people willing to have respectful discussions

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- metaStatic@kbin.social ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  speak for yourself nerd
  
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- Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah that too, though this issue is the most prevalent on certain .ml instances and can be avoided by not commenting there to begin with.
  
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FoD@startrek.website ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I agree and started putting effort into Mastodon. It took a week or two of filtering and browsing to find users and content but I’ve definitely found a more base of content to interact with that is nice.

I agree though and Lemmy. I was an engaged redditor who switched 100% to Lemmy and I do not feel quite satisfied with the comments and content.

I’ll stick around, but I find myself on Mastodon and using Ground News more often.

Btw I have comments in my history of how frustrated I was about finding content on Mastodon, and suddenly it clicked after I spent a bunch of time on it. Not a raving endorsement but ultimately I do enjoy it.

Another side note, I was looking for too users to follow and some have 10k followers, cool. Then I find some federated threads accounts with millions and realize how small we are in comparison. I know why, and I understand it, but it’s truth that small user bases have less ideas.

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- LyD@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Can you give some tips on how to do that? I want to start using Mastodon but right now my feed just isn’t great.
  
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DarkThoughts@fedia.io ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Imo it is fine as long as you stay away from Lemmy.ml, Lemmygrad and Hexbear.

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- fuckingkangaroos@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  There’s a lot of extremism and censoring perspectives even on Lemmy.world
  
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Alice@hilariouschaos.com ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Check us out hilariouschaos.com and let me know. Our premise is to shoot the shit,talk shit, shit post, post content you create, talk and have fun.

We’re not interested in turning being like what you’re experiencing. We’re here to have fun. Shit doesn’t always have to be about politics. I hope you check is out. Thanks

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fah_Q@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Congratulations this is a actually a very stupid question. Please return to Reddit where you belong.

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Skullgrid@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Go to truth social for all your “political diversity” needs, or shut the fuck up about “left wing bias”

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- Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  How’s going from a far end to another going to solve anything? There’s no need to be so hostile
  
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Feathercrown@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Be the change you want to see in the world!

And/or block certain extreme communities/instances.

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Anticorp@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I have been thinking about this for a few weeks now myself. I honestly don’t think there is anywhere on the internet. Everything eventually morphs into an echo chamber, and then an echo chamber of extremism. If you find something, please let me know. I’m so tired of being constantly surrounded by extremists on either side of the political spectrum.

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nikita@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Though it’s only tangentially related to your inquiry, you should check out improvethenews.org

It’s basically what you are looking for but with news stories, though it’s primarily focused American news. It allows you to read the different narratives without actually visiting cancer news sites like Sky news.

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