This seems to be becoming the hot topic, the elephant in the chatroom - the balance between censorship / freedom of speech on lemmy. There are solid arguments for both ways, and good compromises too.
IMO the FAQ makes it quite clear what the devs have built here, and why. But recent discussions, arguments, make it clear that a lot of the most vocal users object to it.
I’m very curious. Many active users feel this way? Please vote using the up arrows in the comments.
People who complain about “censorship” and “authoritarianism” while espouting the benefits of “freedom of speech” are exactly the type of people you don’t want around.
If there’s been discussion on lemmy.ml about this topic, I haven’t gotten around to seeing it. But from what I’ve noticed from witnessing this type of discussion all over the web is that these calls always come from either the most reactionary users or enablers i.e. those that would rather sit on the sidelines and either let it happen or put up a weak front because they have a right to “free speech.”
Unfortunately, this libertation-esque ethos runs deep in so many online spaces, where they’d rather have vague notions of freedom that obviously benefit them at the expense of others. Spaces like lemmy are not for them, and while there’s nothing lemmy can do about it, going against the grain and purging that type of vitriol is the best way to keep it from turning into the shitholes ranging from Reddit’s “enlightened centrism” to outright fascist spaces like *chans or gab.
Completely agree. Too often you see pledges to celebrate free speech from right wing spaces that are interested misconstruing valid criticism as suppression of speech. One of the most insane things I remember seeing were threads across reddit related to Charlottesville, where tons of commenters defending violence in Charlottesville by talking about free speech.
And then these same people pull back and act like they are talking about these ideas in the abstract, sanitized of any need to engage with the practical problems that motivate efforts to protect online spaces from violent incitement. I have never, never never never ever, seen people making these free speech arguments engage with this problem in a serious way at all. I have never seem someone stop and say “hey, I really care about free speech BUT I also realize that right wing mobs that spread violence use that argument as a cover, and I want to make sure I’m not inadvertently supporting their growth!”
I have never seen these people talk about how the modern internet, starting with gamergate in 2014-2015 and then spiraling out from there, created new, unprecedented problems related to swarming, massive bad faith engagement, etc. that poisoned and took over online spaces if left unchecked. I’ve never seen them look at that and say “I agree that those are problems, and I don’t want to gloss over them when I talk about free speech so my solution is _____” and they fill in the blank with something that isn’t completely crazy.
They never talk about laws passed to prevent BDS, a major free speech issue. They never talk about how to raise funds for the ACLU. Or supporting local media either through online or offline platforms. They never talk about legal funds supporting reporters who are caught up in court for their reporting.
Generally, all they ever talk about is online message boards. If you ask them to engage with any of this, either the mask falls completely off, or you realize they have never thought about any of it at all, and the responses you get are them reacting in real time to information that’s completely brand new to them.
There’s a saying I’ve recently encountered, that I’ve found helpful. It’s the notion of being in the wrong room with the wrong person. If you are talking to someone about free speech, who wants to frame it in a way that erases every problem that moderation has been fighting, that’s not a person prepared to have the conversation they are trying to have, and, in short, you’re in the wrong room with the wrong person.
You put it perfectly. The kind of people that are obsessed with getting that last little bit of “freedom” to drop slurs are not the people you want on the site.
It’s a bit more nuanced than that. There seem to be quite a few people (often also with mental health issues) that completely swallowed the memified argument that you describe, without really realizing with whom they bed themselves (or delude themselves that those are the lesser evil).
It’s one of those rogue memes that mess with some peoples’ reasoning capacity.
(And calling everyone you disagree with or don’t understand a fascist really doesn’t help).
I’m not sure the characterization is fair. Both extremes of the “free speech” vs “censorship” argument are toxic and illiberal.
It’s a classic paradox of tolerance. You can’t have open discussion (read: discussion without fear of retribution for what an authority or mob consider “dangerous” ideas), without balancing censorship and free speech. Anywhere outside of that balance is either authoritarian rule or mob rule and defeats the purpose of an open forum.