Hi new user here. I’ve been checking out Lemmy but the amount of bias is ruining it for me. For example the front page right now has 7 out of 20 submissions that contain the word Trump in a negative context. I don’t care about Trump but when the front page is all political posts attacking Trump I have to wonder about the health of the site.
In the most simple sense, could Republican submissions survive on Lemmy politics community ignoring the voting behavior or would the site and moderators itself actively suppress it to “keep the peace”? I think this gets to the heart of the question and again, this isn’t political to me, it’s purely mechanical. I think that if a social media site has a community called “politics” that is solely made up of stories promoting one party while shitting on the other then the entire site is inherently flawed. It isn’t being genuine in what it offers and is incapable of providing it.
It’s like if you had a community named “cars” but you’re only allowed to talk positively about certain manufacturers. Imagine most people either like Ford or Chevy but on the “cars” community it “just so happens” that everyone there likes Ford.
You can post about Chevy but you have to be careful about how reliable the information is. You have an article that says Chevy’s new SUV produces 500 horsepower? Well, that source isn’t reliable. In fact this Ford biased source did a study showing it only produces 400 horsepower. You think that isn’t a reliable source? This Ford biased bias checker agrees that your Chevy source is biased but our Ford source is not biased. No, we can’t just give people information and let them decide for themselves. That’s dangerous. We can only give them our rock solid Ford sources in order to protect humanity.
Did you comment that you sometimes prefer Chevy for certain things? Well, in this Ford biased community that’s not going to go over well. Now you have 1000 downvotes and 100 comments calling you an idiot. Try to defend your opinions? Too bad, you can only respond every 15 minutes. You have too many downvotes. Well, look at that, the dumb Chevy poster realized he is a moron and had nothing to say in response. Clearly the Ford posters were right again. After all, just look at all those downvotes and comments and the Chevy poster didn’t even reply.
So what do you end up with?
You get a “cars” community, a “ford” community, and a “chevy” community but you’re not allowed to talk about Chevy in cars. You can only organically talk about Chevy in the Chevy community. That is until the site administrators start getting involved and deciding that really it isn’t safe for humanity to let Chevy people talk about Chevy in the Chevy community. They’ve been posting unreliable sources in there, using bad language towards Ford posters, and so on. It’s a dangerous hate community so we’re going to shut it down. You can talk about Chevy in the cars community if you want.
Then you get biased Ford stories under the “cars” community showing up on the front page. Anyone who prefers Chevy will never have their submissions seen because it is relegated to a smaller community that algorithmically won’t show up. If it somehow does get big and popular enough the admins step in and boot it or artificially step on promoting it.
Again, I don’t care about politics and you can substitute Biden for Trump and make comparisons to other social media sites. I’m simply asking if Lemmy is offering anything different with regards to this situation.
Can someone explain how it is different from the Reddit moderator and suppression rules? So far Lemmy is producing the same biased garbage I see on Reddit so I’d like to know if this is a function of Lemmy itself like it is on Reddit or if it’s just echos of Reddit that could one day go away. Is Lemmy something new or is it just for people who loved NuReddit but are mad about the API changes?
“I don’t care about politics, but it really bothers me that you guys don’t like Republicans” lol
Maybe don’t cry about people shitting on the party trying to erase people from existence and force women to make health choices they don’t want?
Dehumanising your “enemy” is the first step to be able to kill them
I can’t tell if you’re saying I’m dehumanizing the GOP or agreeing that the GOP is trying to dehumanize and erase trans people from existence.
Me no American, me no weird acronyms, making sure trans people really meant it before transitioning is not a genocide
Excellent concern trolling!
Yeah and that is what I’m talking about. It is frankly disgusting to have to read all this dehumanzing one sided garbage. The comments in this thread are perfect examples of dehumanizing people and using that as a justification for bias. “No reasonable person supports Republicans” and “Republicans have never done anything to garner support from rational people.” It is the shift from “we disagree about things that impact our lives” to “you are completely crazy and wrong about everything so you deserve whatever I do to you.”
erase people from existence and force women to make health choices
Biased Republicans would say similar things. That you shouldn’t complain if Republicans are shitting on Democrats because they’re the party that wants to let drag queens molest children and start WW3 in Ukraine or whatever. Normally when two people talk they can realize that the other person is in fact just a person like them and you can be empathic towards each other. This isn’t happening though because the people working themselves into a frenzy about “the other” are kept isolated and encouraged to keep going down that path of irrational hatred.
We have social media platforms actively separating people and promoting their thinking that the other side are deranged lunatics who need to be exterminated or severely restricted using the power of the government. This is really wrong and I’m hoping Lemmy can offer an alternative similar to the origins of social media where people could share and talk, that’s it, we didn’t have heavy handed moderators, admins, and algorithms getting in the middle of everything and creating isolated bubbles of people dehumanizing each other.
Explain to me how a Republican would say Democrats are trying to erase people from existence.
Democrats are trying to groom children into being gay by letting drag queens molest them Democrats are trying to start WW3 in Ukraine
You do remember that our Democrat administration is pushing for cluster bombs in Ukraine? How does that compare to transgender rights in America?
This is a common tactic to demonize your opponent and it was widely demonstrated during the BLM protests. It was repeated all over the nation at these protests whenever anyone criticized something like burning down buildings. “How can you care about burning down buildings when black bodies are being killed in the streets?”
This emotional appeal to DEATH. People are DYING. We can’t be RATIONAL because people are DYING and THEY are the ones causing it! Meanwhile the people saying this turn a blind eye to the forever wars America is engaged in resulting in millions of death. Literally cluster bombs are being rolled out and you don’t hear a beep suddenly about “people are dying.”
If I point things out like this I become a Republican in the mind of the deranged Democrat biased poster. That’s fine but it works the same for biased moderators and admins who start to thumb the scales. It also works the other way if you go point out legitimate criticism of Republicans in biased Republican forums.
This is a discussion of bias not political beliefs.
Except democrats are not trying to groom children, whereas the GOP has enacted anti-trans and anti-healthcare policies. One statement is a conspiracy, the other is based on facts. You’ll find more facts on Lemmy
Also, the GOP is traditionally the more hawk-ish party lol. Just because a few loud voices are pro-Putin doesn’t make them doves.
Because I’m right and they’re wrong. Also even though Democrats are committing war crimes usually it is the Republicans.
There is one party from where I stand partner.
It’s a false equivalency to compare Republicans saying Democrats support drag queen child molestations or WWIII in Ukraine or whatever and Democrats claiming Republicans want to force women to make health choices.
Because Democrats haven’t passed any laws which would allow drag queen child molestation or induce WWIII in Ukraine, while Republicans actively campaigned for and managed to successfully repeal Roe vs Wade.
Like, do you see how one side’s accusation has more concrete evidence than the other?
No. What I said is I don’t like biased stories on my front page. If I see 7/20 stories hating on Trump I have to wonder, where are the Biden stories? I’d prefer to see 0/20 stories hating on Trump and 0/20 stories hating on Biden. I’d tolerate seeing 4/20 stories hating on Trump and 4/20 hating on Biden (or some ratio that isn’t 100% biased in one way). I do not want one sided political propaganda being intermixed regularly into my feeds.
Lemmy is not a single site owned by a single group. Each Lemmy instance is in effect its own website and they can communicate with each other which Is the federation part. Some instances cater to certain kinds of people and communities will skew towards a political direction.
If you are a hardcore right winger there are instances full of right wing extremist waiting for you to join their echo chamber. Same with the left wing nuts, there exist Lemmy instances specifically for them to congregate together. You can do some hunting and find them easily.
The only thing is that most other Lemmy instances will defederate from these kinds of instances since political extremist on either side tend to be hateful and zealous individuals who vocally express their violent fantasies of lynching anyone who doesn’t 100% agree with them. Most lemmyverse instances deem this kind of hateful speech unacceptable and will block them from cross - communicating.
Here is an example of a right wing Lemmy community:
Which Lemmy instance is not biased? Also, algorithmically, how much is Lemmy going to produce bias? Like I said that is my primary concern. Reddit is designed to produce bias and suppress unpopular opinions. Is Lemmy modeled after this design or did it ditch the stuff like shadow banning and time locking commenting based on “karma”?
There is no algorithm on Lemmy. Your fears are misplaced.
There is no shadow banning, no time locking comments based on karma, and all that?
Nope. The mod logs are public ally available on every Lemmy instance too so if a post is deleted or user banned you can check and see why. To find the mod log scroll to the bottom of an instance and you should see a link at the very bottom. There Is no need or incentive for shadow banning since Lemmy instances are hobbiest run projects not backed by any corpo or investors that want a squeaky clean image. If you are an ass and the community wants you gone and the admins are inclined to agree, you will be banned in the normal manner given a proper reason. No weird backdoor shennanians, this is a normal internet form run and funded by every day joes. If you are so inclined and have the knowledge you cab skim through the source code.
Awesome thanks for answering. I knew this would turn into a political hate fest but hoped someone like you would understand the true question.
No problem I am happy to have helped you out a bit. It is a shame that being mauled by political type people is one of your first experiences here. I hope that you find Lemmy a good fit and find some communities you really like. Be well and have a good one!
There aren’t two sides to every issue, reasonable people can’t differ on everything. Your trump example illustrates this perfectly: at this point no reasonable person has a positive view of him.
That may be but I do know that many reasonable people are sick of hearing about him. This isn’t really about Trump it’s about how Lemmy functions algorithmically being too closely modeled on Reddit resulting in a biased platform. The destruction of Reddit’s politics subreddit occurred many years after its’ launch and with a lot of active interference from the site owners and moderators whereas on Lemmy it is starting in a biased state. It also doesn’t have to be about politics, it can be any number of contentious topics. My concern is that Lemmy is just copying Reddit and therefore will end up in the same place. What is new here? Why is Lemmy not going to turn into bought and paid for shill posts and comments astroturfing everything like Reddit?
You’re observing the current state of american politics manifested in a discussion platform - one side is saying “hey maybe there are things more important than shareholder value?” and the other is banning books because they were written by minorities and taking kids away from their parents for providing them healthcare.
Regardless, you’re the one who brought up posts mentioning trump. He’s in the news a lot because it’s finally looking like he’ll see some consequences for all the criming he did.
That’s just your bias. Everyone is biased but social media platforms don’t have to be designed to kettle people and feed their biases as correct. Let me put it this way using your own words…
current state of american politics manifested in a discussion platform
If that is true, can you show me the people talking about banning books because they were written by minorities and taking kids away from their parents for providing them healthcare? Even further, can you show me them talking about it in the POLITICS community?
I’m willing to bet that you can’t because this isn’t representative of the current state of American politics. It’s a one sided biased discussion absent this “other side” you’re referring to yet that “other side” is equal in numbers so where are they? Why are they so completely absent?
If I do post anti-Biden stories in politics or make anti-Biden comments in politics how long until I’m limited in some way compared to anti-Trump users? That is what I’m getting at. Does the platform support functionality to bias communities or does it actually rely on the users like old social media? Will my comments be time restricted? Will I be shadow banned? Will people have to click to expand my comment? How much will the platform itself interfere in these ways that create echo chambers?
I can tell you’re a trumper because you think we have the same cult of personality around biden. I’ll let you in on a secret: none of us like him that much.
I’ll let you in on a secret. No one likes Trump or Biden.
Your comparison is horrible tbh.
But what you’re asking underneath it all is simple enough.
Lemmy isn’t a single entity. It’s dozens of instances (well, dozens of public ones big enough to notice), with multiple communities on each.
There is a bigger section of users that reject alt-right matters, which is an “oh no. anyway” situation because most instances also reject the left equivalent (tankies) with similar fervor. But there’s communities that are quite friendly to non extremists that are what you’d call conservative overall, if you go looking. But the major instances are run by folks that lean liberal, progressive, and/or socialist. It’s just a fact.
I hate to break this next part to you though. Any political based community, subreddit, or forum is going to be a dumpster fire of biased bullshit. And that goes for any segment of political ideology. That’s because people that are emotionally invested in identity politics are nigh unto religious zealots. And they’re the most likely to make posts and comments in those places. They’re also the ones most likely to shoehorn in political bullshit where it doesn’t belong.
That last part is a much bigger issue because it’s harder to avoid.
But, dude, don’t get it twisted. The whole trump part is to be expected. Anyone not expecting high vitriol regarding him is silly. Like, he’s divisive intentionally. He just got indicted, so it’s current news everywhere. This means the posts about him are certainly going to focus on the crimes he’s accused of, which is going to be “negative” if you’re a supporter. If you’re neutral regarding him, it’s still going to read negative because the shit he’s accused of is pretty fucking negative lol. You can’t report on someone accused of serious crimes and it not skew negative unless you ignore anything about the news that’s factual.
But I’m not going to get started on the whole “moderator and suppression” bullshit because it’s utter bullshit.
Heavy US bias on the site. There is nothing Republicans have done over the years to garner any support from rational humans. Sometimes things seem very one-sided because they fucking are.
That said, I installed the lemmy keyword filter userscript which has been doing a decent job of keeping shit I don’t want to see (god damn reddit posts) off my feed.
There is nothing Republicans have done over the years to garner any support from rational humans.
This is the kind of over the top laughable bias I am talking about. That’s fine if you’re biased as a user because I’m talking about algorithmic and moderator/admin bias. This is a perfect example of the crazed bias I am referring to.
Honestly, it simply reads like paid political shilling. Who really says stuff like this? Who is so far down the political party rah rah that they couldn’t even admit their opponent political party has done a single thing a rational person would support? It just reads like dehumanizing tripe.
I don’t want to use a social media platform that exposes me to this kind of nonsense under the guise of being general political discussion and plasters the front page or my feed with it. Like I said, 7/20 stories attacking Trump on the front page. That amount of energy being expended to bias people in these extreme ways smells like paid advertisement not organic social media.
That’s even fine to me. Feel free to pay people to shill your politics BUT I want a platform that isn’t secretly biased in favor of this and putting their thumb on the scales anytime decisions get made. Not to mention invested in exposing me to this garbage in the hopes of vacuuming up political ad spend and working users into a hate frenzy because it increases page views.
Hey, you do you. For me, a party who backed a twice impeached president; the party who continues to back a thrice indicted ex-president; the party who takes away women’s rights; the party who champions white nationalism; a party who backs anti-science rhetoric, and I could go on but you get the point. A party like that has nothing redeemable. Don’t get me wrong. I used to disagree with conservative friends and we’d have great discussions over beers. But that was decades ago. If someone says they are conservative, OK, let’s talk about things. A person who says they are Republican is no longer worth talking to. To be a Republican means you’ve swallowed all the nationalistic fascist bullshit.
And to be honest, that really sucks. The Dems suck. I hate the Dems. Just corporate stooges who only seem to pay lip service to the average Joes in the country. It’s awful. As long as we are stuck with a two party system, it is much better to have dynamic, reasonable people leading those parties. That’s not what we have.
So, finally, what have Republicans done over the past few years that should garner any support from rational humans? I’d be interested in hearing. Perhaps I am being overwhelmed by the crime and hate, and just missing the jewels in the rough. If you don’t have anything, it’s like getting mad at people saying shit smells, when you may be one of the few who actually enjoy the smell of shit.
It feels like you’re fishing for a “go fuck yourself, and your poorly disguised concern trolling” comment. Congrats, you’ve caught one.
Actually I’m asking what I asked and interacting with Lemmy for the first time. Did I know it would be contentious? Yes, but that is part of the point. I wanted to see how contentious content is treated so you’re somewhat right.
It looks pretty good actually. I was able to post and comment with a new account without being restricted 100 different ways even while posting something that might upset some people. I don’t want platform level restrictions being driven by stupid group think and brigade activity. That’s about it.
Borderline comment. I’ll leave it here, but tone it down please.
Why is telling a troll to go fuck themselves borderline? That’s exactly what everyone should do.
Will do. My apologies.
“is email a biased platform?”
If you’re on a Lemmy instance that federates with ExplodingHeads, you would probably see the opposite results (since they are very pro-Trump).
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That is what worries me about this concept.
That now not only do you need a different community within social media but an entirely different site catering to your in group. It is further fracturing people into small groups that refuse to interact with each other and are becoming unhinged and paranoid as a result.
Is it really so hard to have a social media site with politics discussion that is moderated without bias? Everyone seems to just accept that the bias is a given and you just have to find your own little bubble to be happy in. No. I want to discuss with people different than me. Not circle jerk people who already think like me.
This means whereas you used to have a biased politics within a social media site you at least had political groups interacting outside of politics there but fracturing across sites will speed this up rather than reduce the group think. Hopefully social media just dies.
The problem you’re describing is different than the one Lemmy solves. Lemmy is just a federated, open source alternative to Reddit. It doesn’t try to be anything else.
But the good news is this: If somebody wants to create “a social media site with politics discussion that is moderated without bias”, they can just use Lemmy and make it happen. They no longer need to create a 50 person company to develop the software the runs the network. It can be done by a handful of people now, and that wasn’t possible before.
Also, your car analogy isn’t great. I can objectively say that the PT Cruiser is unsafe. That is hard to debate me on. I can objectively say Trump is a narcissist who throws his food on the wall and who is being indicted for multiple crimes both federally and in 2 other locations. It’s hard to deny those things.
Your comment is childish.
How so? I made 2 objective statements. One about PT Cruisers and one about Trump?
Why do you feel that you’re entitled to centrism?
You will never be able to stop people having biases, I think we have learned that thus far. It is really hard to prevent no matter where you go. What Lemmy allows the individual to do is remove those constantly negative hate groups from being visible for them. Lemmy gives us options, you can block users, communities, and instances. Well that’s great and all, but maybe you still want to see political content, just not negative stuff constantly.
Part of being federated is that we can have multiple politics communities of the same name on many different instances. If you have a power mod suppressing one community, you can go to another or create your own under your rules that you see fit. Some moderators and user dynamics do a really good job at removing biases as best they can for the sake of good journalism.
It is no easy feat to accomplish that, but Lemmy (and the fediverse in general) makes it possible to accomplish. You can’t say that for many other social networks.
That’s right. I’m not sure if anyone federates with them, but Gab runs Mastodon, which has some ActivityPub compatibility with Kbin on toots / microblogging.
Yeah, stay out of political communities. Based on my experience in political communities. Lemmy is biased.
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Because of Rule 1.
Lemmy isn’t a platform at all. It’s a piece of forum software.
The platforms are the individual instances - lemmy.world or lemmy.ml or lemm.ee or whatever. There’s well over 1,000 of them total. And they range all the way from extreme left to extreme right, and from rigidly constrained to entirely open.
And since it is the case that there are well over 1,000 instances, each of them privately owned and managed by whatever standards the owners prefer, there is no mechanism by which any particular bias can be maintained at anything above the instance level. That necessarily means that any lemmy-wide bias you might see can only be organic.
You might honestly think about that, and what it says about the ideology you’re trying to pretend you’re not defending.
Nah. It says a lot about the largely tech-aware user base, virtually all of which votes in a single direction.
I always wonder about these ‘omg bashing on trump’ questions. It’s because he’s a highly confrontational jerk who makes a living from being controversial. To extend your analogy, yeah, if Chevy uh, was constantly insulting 60% of the country while ripping people off and tried to overthrow the government, people would probably be complaining about them in the same way.
Well…Chevrolet does use patriotic imagery to sell (excluding their full-size vans and the Malibu) crappy cars, thus ripping people off. Their parent company, General Motors
CorporationCompany also did a sleight-of-hand trick that took all kinds of money from the American taxpayer we’ll never see again. So that’s a large contribution to our eventual default on the national debt, which will lead to an eventual overthrow of the government.
