Oh no, Lemmy supports images like this? Garbage.

Also reductionist garbage anyway. How about the freedom of religion and being censored for protesting government mandated closure of places of worship while alcohol stores were allowed to remain open? Is that conservative? It’s just one example.

I have Twitter blocked at the network level. Whenever I see a screenshot of a Twitter post I know it’s literally the stupidest thing you could imagine. You didn’t let me down. Also the whole screen shotted Twitted posts making a claim about conservatives that is easily refuted if conservatives were actually allowed to talk is peak Reddit.

Feel good, makes you laugh, hate your neighbor content. Just be sure you don’t show it to your neighbor they might say some things that confuse you. Believe me this isn’t unique to Democrats the same Twitter screen shot psy ops are run against conservatives. Look, some random person said this, let’s talk about it like that is what all X’s say and believe. Look, some random person said this, let’s talk about it and how it’s so true.

Screen shots of comments on Twitter being reposted is… very disturbing. For reasons that go far beyond the stupidity of American politics.

Not at all, that’s why it is a platform question. Obviously the users are biased that isn’t my question.

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.

I’ll let you in on a secret. No one likes Trump or Biden.

Your comment is childish.

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.

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.

Awesome thanks for answering. I knew this would turn into a political hate fest but hoped someone like you would understand the true question.

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.

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.

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.

There is no shadow banning, no time locking comments based on karma, and all that?

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?

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 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.

No, it’s more like walking into a room and asking, “Hey, is this a place where we can have free open discussions or are you a biased group of people who rely on authoritarian control to promote your views?” then getting the door slammed in your face and told something like the commenter who said “There aren’t two sides to every issue, reasonable people can’t differ on everything.” A sort of smarmy response implying that there is no bias, only the truth, and this group is just reasonable people who accept the truth and anyone who won’t accept their truth isn’t reasonable and therefore isn’t welcome.

That’s fine and it answers the question. It is a group of people who rely on authoritarian control to promote their views. They do not want free and open discussion. They are happy to suppress and censor speech they deem “unreasonable” or similar.

Thanks, I didn’t want to point it out, but yes. The mass downvoting with no response is a hallmark of Reddit and makes me think that yes, Lemmy is modeled almost identically after Reddit, and it will function in the same way as a result.

I remember back when downvoting was considered bad behavior because it was only supposed to be reserved for people breaking rules, spam, etc it wasn’t supposed to be used to bury people that said things you don’t like. Now not only is burying people with downvote brigades considered the thing to do but the site owners and algorithm actively uses that as a signal to terminate further participation by those users.

This is exactly proving my point. Algorithmically Reddit was designed to produce a biased echo chamber. Not from the start but slowly over time. Lemmy is just copying that design and sure enough it already appears to be a biased echo chamber. What I wonder though is algorithmically how much will this impact a user? Will I be unable to post as freely and as often now that I’ve been targeted by the hive mind?

I think that without those censorship aspects built into the algorithm impacting individual users then the bias actually can be reversed. It’s hard to call people biased and bury them if they can freely respond and defend their positions and cite sources. Reddit relies on burying people so they can not defend themselves or cite sources which is what results in the echo chamber building in intensity.

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?