I’ve been using Lemmy for a while now, and I’ve noticed something that I was hoping to potentially discuss with the community.
As a leftist myself (communist), I generally enjoy the content and discussions on Lemmy.
However, I’ve been wondering if we might be facing an issue with ideological diversity.
From my observations:
- Most Lemmy Instances, news articles, posts, comments, etc. seem to come from a distinctly leftist perspective.
- There appears to be a lack of “centrist”, non-political, or right-wing voices (and I don’t mean extreme MAGA-type views, but rather more moderate conservative positions).
- Discussions often feel like they’re happening within an ideological bubble.
My questions to the community are:
- Have others noticed this trend?
- Do you think Lemmy is at risk of becoming an echo chamber for leftist views, a sort of Truth Social, Parler, Gab, etc., esque platform, but for Leftists?
- Is this a problem we should be concerned about, or is it a natural result of Lemmy’s community-driven nature?
- How might we encourage more diverse political perspectives while still maintaining a respectful and inclusive environment?
- What are the potential benefits and drawbacks of having a more politically diverse user base on Lemmy?
As much as I align with many of the views expressed here, I wonder if we’re missing out on valuable dialogue and perspective by not having a more diverse range of political opinions represented.
I’m genuinely curious to hear your thoughts on this.
Election time was so irritating, Lemmy basically reigned in Harris as the next messiah; I had to end up blocking political keywords to make it usable. Kamala Harris is an absolute joke and the DNC is an even bigger joke. I remember seeing one post where someone basically claimed she has a spotless political career and I’m just thinking, 😮💨, really?
The problem with left leaning individuals on the internet is we have a lot of drive and conviction behind our ideas which is a good thing, but that should translate into real life activism or doing something that will combat the current political system and promote change. But we are beaten down since that’s basically a total pipe dream, we realize what the problem is and feel powerless to fix it. What’s
Now, whats a good way to regain some of the power over your “opponents”? Silence their opinion, whether that be outright censorship or in other ways that are antithetical to getting the point across.
The American political system has us fighting amongst one another to keep people distracted from who is really fucking everyone up the ass daily. And it continues to work. We need to stop this petty squabbling and use all this wasted energy on something useful that could actually bring us together, like maybe instead of just browsing social media all day, you could go out in to the real world.
I am left-leaning and live in a predominantly conservative area. Very red. When I go out, people usually don’t just randomly talk about Trump all day, that’s just not reality. Most people dont make their political views their entire personality. I hear way more about Trump from social media than I am ever do from people in real life. And I assure you, I don’t seek it out.
You have way more in common with the other side than you realize. Social media allows the worst aspects of peoples personality to come out since you don’t have to look at a human being in front of you that has feelings, goals, beliefs, dreams, et al. just like you do. Have some god damn compassion and maybe try to understand why people on the other side have come to the conclusions they have, instead of throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Election time was so irritating, Lemmy basically reigned in Harris as the next messiah
You must have been using a different site than me. My experience was the opposite. Just a flood of bullshit to convince people not to vote for her (or not to vote).
I concur. I got downvoted just for pointing out the left has an issue courting young male voters. I’m so sick of my own party.
Appreciate ya, and agreed there too. Like UltraGiGaGigantic said, it’s unfortunately not a party for the people. Neither are, really. Something American Democrats should consider is dropping the whole “vote Blue no matter who” kind of mentality. The huge base of people with that are part of the reason the DNC is able to maintain status quo and not have to actually do anything people want. If a large enough group of people were able to get together and agree on shit for once, a third-party or independent candidate might be possible. But the parties are basically treated like sports teams. Like, you’re either team A or team B and theres no other option. except it’s just a game at the end of the day. The system is set up to continue to enforce the two-party dichotomy, unfortunately.
It’s not your party.
Seems like lemmy.world already provides plenty of right wing perspectives, we really don’t need me.
.world is modded to be that way… ESP news and politics
Modded, and federated/defederated. They intentionally defed from the Marxist dominated instances because they wanted to erase any real Marxist presence.
“Oh no theyre bRiGaDiNg us!!!11”
Lemmy.ml being extremely broadly federated but removing rule-breaking comments: scary and bad
Lemmy.world defederating Marxist-aligned instances so no one on those instances can ever offer input: wholesome and liberal
I really wish we took some more precautions before the reddit exodus. We saw it coming but I definitely didn’t do anything to plan for it. I guess I’d just not been there for such a long time that I forgot just how bad that userbase had gotten.
Hindsight is 20/20, we know more now than we did then and can better prepare for next time.
There is the same kind of special snowflake attitude on here that ruined Reddit. You people only want to have your exclusive social bubble where you can sniff each other’s farts. I’m not interested in that.
Given how likely right wing conservatives tends to spread misinformation and cite low quality sources, I honestly don’t mind the lack of right wingers.
Given the recent right wing takeover of other social media sites and the glorification of hate speech I am fine not seeing that bullshit spread here.
This is bad for the health of lemmy though, I think. A discussion board/framework should be politically neutral, while still employing rules on hate speech based on the voice of the masses.
If you want to talk hate speech, I’ve seen numerous accounts on lemmy instances of people advocating for murder or other violence against “billionaires” or anyone with a significant wealth. Or same with right-wing ideals, I’ve seen users advocating similar broad calls for violence based on pretty poor assumptions against the entire right-wing USA block.
there’s no such thing as politically neutral
If someone wanted to make a well-formed right wing argument I doubt they’d get too much backlash. But it’s all bigotry and lies and conspiracy theories at this point so they get shitcanned.
Fighting back against the ultra wealthy who are killing our people and our planet is not the same as punching down on minorities who are just trying to exist.
I like science. Science has shown that communism (for proletariat) and neoliberalism (for bourgies) are most effective and I dont see a lot of bourgies here.
Liberalism and stuff are like miasma theory or newton physics, outdated and incorrect.
(I think the left-right stuff is a distraction. Where is communism? On the left with the radlibs? No. On the right with the monarchists? No. There is no sliding scale between liberalism and communism as they are completely incompatible with each other.)
Communism as the praxis (marixism, etc) it’s auth-left whereas the end goal is lib-left (stateless).
Liberalism is auth-centre-right.
They are incompatible because leftism is anti capitalist.
This is actually misleading, you’re getting how statelessness functions for Marxists and inserting the Anarchist goal. That’s why you see a misalignment between theory and practice.
The foundations of the Marxist analysis of Capitalism are in its centralizing and socializing character over time through competition. The Marxists want to take this to a higher level, public ownership and central planning. This is not supposed to go away, but continue developing.
The State, for Marxists, is separate from governance. The State are elements of Class Oppression, like “special bodies of armed men” and things like Private Property rights. When all classes are gone, and they will all be gone when all property is in the public sector, the state ceases to have a reason to exist and withers away. This is a global process, you can have socialism in one country but Communism is global.
Marxism in practice operates on these ideas.
Anarchists have a similar critique of capitalism but see it being solved through horizontal and voluntary means so I’m not sure how it’s misleading.
It’s misleading because you call the “end goal” of Communism “lib-left,” when it would have full public ownership among the entire world and economic planning. The means of Marxism isn’t to get more “authoritarian,” but to turn the balance of power on its head so that the Working Class is on top. In this manner, the means are not “authoritarian” either, compared to Capitalism. Authoritarianism and Libertarianism are misleading at best and distractions at worst, which is why it’s important to judge based on actual policies and ideological frameworks.
Goal is to get less authoritarian over time though?
See, this is why the political compass is ruining your own perception of ideology. The goal is not to get “less authoritarian.” The goal is to collectivize all Private Property globally, this is the purpose. By folding all property into the public sector, there is the abolition of classes, and the state as a special mechanism of class oppression withers away, ie no private property rights because of no more private property.
Communism, a Stateless, Classless, Moneyless society, is a fully centralized system where everything is controlled by a democratic administration. This is the most centralized possible, yet also the most democratic. It doesn’t fit on the political compass. The goal isn’t to abolish authoritarianism, but classes.
Well goal is maybe the wrong word but objectively it does get less authoritarian over time if it goes as planned.
Yes it’s very important to accommodate genocide and climate denialism. 🙄
Theres tons of calls to violence from the auth left. Kill all ceos, kill all landlords etc.
That’s just the left, lol
Have you spent any time at other places on the Internet?
There appears to be a lack of “centrist”, non-political, or right-wing voices (and I don’t mean extreme MAGA-type views, but rather more moderate conservative positions).
They hang out in /modlog.
Conservative and/or right wing views are ethically wrong and lack evidence to add a worthy perspective to discussions. Capitalism is a belief and should be discussed as other religions.
lack evidence to add a worthy perspective
That’s exactly the point. “Conservative” most of the time means rollback to segregation and discrimination whereas the only chance of humanity lies within compassion and cooperation.
I think there are some conservative opinions that are worth discussing. For one example, I’ve seen conservatives talk frequently about protecting children from an increasingly secular world. Comparitvely, that topic rarely comes up in normal lemmy topics.
Truth be told, I generally am progressive on this, but I sometimes wish I could discuss this with someone whom I may disagree with, so I could better understand where I would stand
Protecting them from what now? Exactly what are we protecting them from in a ‘secular world’?
The phrase “are ethically wrong” is hilarious. According to whose code of ethics? How are their ethics more moral than someone else’s set of ethics?
There’s literally entire branches of philosophy dedicated to the concept of morals and the concepts of good and evil.
Edit: Also, to add on to this, something can be ethically right but morally wrong, or ethically wrong but morally right.
I think you provide the perfect example of what OP is talking about.
In my experience this kind of comments and “far left” views are the norm on Lemmy. I think that in this regard Reddit had (I have not been there since the API shutdown) a much more balanced and wide spectra of political views. Not to mention that everything wasn’t political there. Here I feel like everything takes a “far left”/Marxist turn.
To me, this homogenous political environment turns me off and is one of the primary factors behind me not really using Lemmy that much.
To be clear I do not think that your views should be silenced and whatnot. Just agreeing that this is indeed a “far left” echo chamber.
https://fosstodon.org/@bragefuglseth/113809233797180679
This post appeared in my timeline yesterday. Thought I would share it with you.
To be clear I do not think that your views should be silenced and whatnot. Just agreeing that this is indeed a “far left” echo chamber.
We, just like you, have been bombarded incessantly from birth with the hegemonic bourgeois ideology. It is inescapable. Most people don’t even realize they’re soaking in it, because they’ve never been outside of it. For most people it’s just “common sense.” It’s literally impossible for us to escape to a “‘far left’ echo chamber.”
Who is really in an “echo chamber” those who have seen outside of cultural hegemony, or those who have not?
We don’t cite Gramsci here
We often do. There are 17 pages of hits in the search results: https://lemmy.ml/search?q=gramsci
It pops on on lemmy.ml alone dozens of times: https://lemmy.ml/search?listingType=Local&q=gramsci
If a view isn’t based on truth, it just simply doesn’t matter. It’s not a matter of silencing
In my experience this kind of comments and “far left” views are the norm on Lemmy. I think that in this regard Reddit had (I have not been there since the API shutdown) a much more balanced and wide spectra of political views …
redditors (like most americans) proved that they believe a genocide is acceptable political collateral damage and that facism is a good thing; that’s fucked and not at all balanced at all.
Yeah. Why go through all the effort to cover up the true nature of your actions if your beliefs and views are so much more balanced. While the speech here may be more absolutist, I think other people who don’t factor in these untruths or use them to make their points have much to add to the conversation. It’s just talking points.
Can anyone translate this vaguepost?
I just saw a revised death toll in Gaza. Lots of people have been downplaying this. This is only one example.
I’m not talking about whether the content of an opinion is balanced or not. I’m talking about that if you take into consideration all the different views; are there just a few vs many, are the views leaning heavily in a specific direction (right/left), etc.
And you continue to prove the point that Lemmy has a “far left” overweight. I’ll remind you again that I’m not talking about whether I think you are right or wrong, just that it’s an echo chamber for opinions like this.
And you continue to prove the point that Lemmy has a “far left” overweight. I’ll remind you again that I’m not talking about whether I think you are right or wrong, just that it’s an echo chamber for opinions like this.
genocide is never acceptable and facism is never okay; these are facts, not opinions.
The facts are so, but reddit and fediverse turns a blind eye to calls of genocide, mass murder and inciting violence when the genocide and fashcism is in the name of “class struggle.”
you’re on the wrong instance
I never alluded to these being ok? I agree with you here
They’re big parts of the American Overton window now; yet you called their consideration
a much more balanced and wide spectra of political views
Not sure what you mean to be honest. What do you mean by “yet you called their consideration”?
What I meant earlier was that the way that you express
redditors (like most americans) proved that they believe a genocide is acceptable political collateral damage and that facism is okay; that’s fucked and not at all balanced in any way.
is (in this case left?) misrepresentation what others (or most other) believe. I don’t know if this is in bad faith or if its because of “echo chamber radicalization”. I do have a hard time believing that “most americans” or “redditors” (as in most redditors?) approve of genocide or facism. They might have other/more nuanced ideas on some issues than you. But for the record I’m not American.
I do believe that you will be able to provide examples of crazy comments on some issues. But in my experience, when you leave the internet and talk to people in real life - most people are sane, moderate and do not hold far left/right opinions on most of the issues discussed like this on the internet.
Liberals are not leftists.
yeah, liberals are conservative scum lol.
liberals are literally on the left wing of the spectrum, but apparently that’s not good enough for ‘arbitrary decider of who’s a leftist’ here
Leftists are socialists. Liberals are not socialists, they are liberals. Liberalism is founded on the right to private property, otherwise known as private ownership of the means of production, while socialists call for the abolition of private property (not to be confused with personal property).
Liberals support capitalism, ergo they are on the right.
You have to be at least anti-capitalist to be a leftist. That’s the bare minimum.
Lemmy liberals are centrists. They favor capitalism with regulations and social welfare.
You have to be at least anti-capitalist to be a leftist.
oh I must have missed the “YOU MUST BE AT LEAST THIS ANARCHO-MARXIST TO RIDE THE LEFTIST LABEL” sign at the front of the line.
damn is this really how you think? are these really the thoughts that just bubble up in that grey matter?
way too much time on your hands if so
you’re so fucking busy delineating who’s not a good leftist that the conservatives are going to destroy you all and you’ll be quibbling about who was a real one and who’s faking being in the concentration camp.
These are well established political definitions, not something we just up and decided a few days ago. Political position along a left and right axis, defined in the context of the economic present, with a pro- or anti-capitalist stance on either side. “The Left” has more or less been defined by an anti-capitalism - pro-socialism stance for a long time, despite whatever labels some news outlets choose to use to demonize liberals and Democrats. They restrict definitions to the Overton window, just a sliver of the full political spectrum, which is firmly planted rightward, and promote the idea that the left side of the window is “The Left”. It isn’t. Many iberals in America and the democratic party are firmly pro-capitalist. It isn’t that they are good or bad leftists, they just aren’t leftists at all. We aren’t too busy figuring this out, we’ve been clear with these definitions for forever.
It isn’t a purity test, anticapitalism starts at some form of Socislism.
No, liberals just aren’t leftists.
But literally, you do need to be anticapitalist to be a leftist.
Where did you learn your stance from? Its wild.
That’s the problem with labels. They often mean different things to different people.
Yeah, there’s the academic record and then there’s random forum posters. Different meanings, sure: with one worth discarding.
This is the result of a century of communist/socialist purges and of cold war propaganda in the US. Most Burgerstanians haven’t known their asses from their elbows politically for generations.
The liberal wants to preserve some parts of the capitalist tradition while enacting some social reforms. That puts them in the center.
You want to talk about concentration camps? The US has the largest incarcerated population in the world, and it has my entire life, since Clinton introduced the Crime Bill. The prison population almost doubled from 1990 to 2000. That’s liberalism.
Yeah, in the interest of not having a bloody, civil war, I’d rather try to correct the economic paradigm that we have rather than instill a new one that will have its own set of unique and terrible problems (for example, see nomenklatura).
The chaos that will arise from the transition will be deadly, terrifying, and profound. It is not something I wish my children to have to go through. So, yeah…of course I’d rather work to fix the system that we have.
(for example, see nomenklatura)
We have nomencultura at home, in the Professional Managerial Class: the college educated labor aristocracy that serves the capitalist class.
Okay, but that’s why you aren’t a leftist.
Personally, the reason I have an .ml account instead of an account on one of the farther left instances which aren’t federated with .world is because I want to argue with people like you. I welcome the diversity of opinion between leftists and liberals, I deliberately expose myself to it. Liberals keep me sharp without being emotionally exhausting the way people farther to the right are.
Liberals are auth right on the political compass.
Leftism is anti-capitalist.
The Political Compass is generally a terrible way to view politics, I wouldn’t put any stock in it.
It’s an oversimplification and has its limitations but that’s often what’s needed to reach mass appeal and be useful in discourse.
On the contrary, it makes little sense at all. Ideologies csn’t be put on a compass like that.
On the contrary, it’s is a useful heuristic, even if it’s not perfect. While ideologies are complex and multifaceted, it provides a framework to map tendencies. It simplifies ideologies, sure- but that’s precisely its value & the social/cultural dimension and is harder to map
But that’s just it - it’s not a useful heuristic, it’s a delusional framework, even more than the geocentric model was. We were mapping the planets onto that, but that didn’t make it useful.
When you simplify ideology too much, you ceate more confusion, like elsewhere in the thread when you categorize Marxist means as auth left and ends as lib left, despite Marxism being consistent in means and ends. There are far more issues with it than it solves.
No, the political compass is an oversimplification of political ideologies that is extremely biased towards liberal viewpoints of the world. It is not useful and only actually harms political discussion.
liberals are literally on the left wing of the spectrum
They literally aren’t
- Yes I noticed this too
- It already is, which is a shame
- Yes it’s a problem because even if you try to get a balanced amount of all the views in your Lemmy subscriptions it’s not possible, at the same time bubbles radicalize people.
- Let discussions happen, don’t delete and ban because you’re against the view (as long as it’s not continuously spamming)
- Benefit: You see people as humans even if they are wrong, Drawback: you need to sometimes change your mind in face of new evidence showing up, which it wouldn’t if you stay in your bubble.
The thing which I really dislike with a bubble is that people inside of it get more and more radical and ban even their allies because they’re not radical enough.
MAGA is a perfect example. On a national stage even! Hey, where’s that Pence guy?
so you’re suggesting, what, exactly?
say I’d observed this trend as well, and agreed there was a risk (I don’t but let’s follow your chain of thinking) - what then?
Because I’m sure there’s a desire for conservatives to have alternatives to reddit, but I as they can federate their own instances and have damn near free reign over whatever communities they want to create, I don’t really understand what’s to be gained from any actions that might be taken. We won’t convince them it’s a conservative haven, and that’s genuinely what they want, a safe space where no one questions their conservatism.
so what is it you’re thinking?
I dunno. I’m fairly far left, and moderately radicalized, and I get plenty of pushback. And from both those further left, and those that are US left (which is more centric overall).
Yeah, you don’t get as many right wingers, but they do exist, and they tend to be willing to speak up. On the less crazy instances, they don’t even get shut down by admins/mods, though they’ll get down voted all to hell.
But I can’t say that lemmy as a whole is that echoey. It just leans more left than any other form of social media.
Not counting lemmygrad and hexbear most of lemmy instances is completely liberal, at best radical liberal. I seriously doubt your statement about being communist if you call for more centrism and think we need more rightwing info.
You want more rightwing? Go anywhere else in the internet, there’s full of it everywhere. What is lacking everywhere else, is communist point of view.
There appears to be a lack of “centrist”
“Progressive” liberals in fact the centrists—they’re center-left at best—and there are plenty of them here.
right-wing voices (and I don’t mean extreme MAGA-type views, but rather more moderate conservative positions)
These people are liberals as well, but because they usually break Lemmy’s code of conduct regarding various bigotries, they get usually quickly the boot.
non-political
Everything social is political, and the fediverse is social media.
These people are liberals as well
Linking to the general page for liberalism instead of classical liberalism when talking about right wingers… huh sloppy
