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.
This is such a strange take to me.
I was on the broader fediverse for a year or so before lemmy took off, and I got used to the very strong left leaning environment I found there, where compassion for your impact on the people around you was built in to the norms of many of the communities. I wasn’t used to it, but I was so glad to have found it.
And then lemmy happened. And unlike the rest of the fediverse, which was largely populated by people escaping twitter because it had been taken over by a fascist, the lemmy population was largely people escaping reddit because they could no longer use 3rd party apps. And the difference in ideology between those two groups is night and day.
To me, the broader fediverse feels left wing and comfortable. Lemmy feels centrist, where half of my time as an admin is banning trolls and bigots spreading hate.
tl;dr - Your definition of leftist is not my definition of leftist.
Given that in the US leftist perspectives on anything are few and hard to come by, I welcome Lemmy’s primarily leftist slant on things. Should one want to get a fascist or center/center right perspective, pretty much everything in the mass media in the US will provide that.
Personally, I don’t buy this echo chamber shit. Before social media, you choose your spaces and your company and did not have to put up with random jackasses butting into your conversations to tell you how much they hate gay people or whatever.
The abnormal thing is this expectation that we’re all supposed to meet in the middle with any asshole at all times. I’m happy with a townhall meeting once in a while but I don’t want to or need to put up with bigots and people who are otherwise socio-politically the opposite of me on a daily basis.
I want to be in the company of people that don’t make me feel like shit and who I can see eye to eye with. That’s not being closed minded or wanting an echo chamber, that’s normal.
Lemmy is the definition of a left-wing echo chamber. We all see it and if you downvote me for pointing this out - you are lying to yourself.
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Yes
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Maybe; yes
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It’s a mindset thing. The more you interact with others positively while disagreeing, the better things will get. This only applies to reasonable disagreements.
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People will learn more, but people will be wrong more. Unchecked political diversity drives away normal takes. No political diversity makes people afraid to voice disagreement.
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You sure you’re a leftist? I see more leftism allowed to exist on Lemmy than other platforms, but the majority of it certainly leans neoliberal.
Try criticizing NATO or the Democrats in Lemmy communities. See how fast the powermods and groupthink kick in to put a stop to it.
But of course the rightwing stuff gets targeted, too. The mods here seem keen to mirror the narrow pro-neoliberal Reddit viewpoint of what is acceptable speech. Anything beyond that will result in a strike against the user or instance.
ETA: just got banned from another Lemmy.world community for pointing out the original NATO commanders were Nazis. There you have it.
Since my (leftist) instance is blocked, OP probably can’t even read this comment.
That irony aside, although I disagree that federated Lemmy as a whole is homogenous, it’s only natural that an alternative social network would skew away from the mainstream, and that instances would be relatively homogenous internally.
I believe this is by design, but to expect something else is unrealistic. The only options for Lemmy would be for it to be either further left or further right than Reddit. And there are a couple fascist instances, though they are blocked.
Since my (leftist) instance is blocked, OP probably can’t even read this comment.
That’s lemmy.world for ya
As a leftist myself (communist), I generally enjoy the content and discussions on Lemmy.
This post is a great example of what OP is talking about. OP gave no political opinion on anything and you are calling them out for not being a real leftist?
I have yet to hear anyone irl that identifies as left that actually wants to hear what the right has to say.
Right now it’s all hate and bigotry. Which has no place in society as far as I’m concerned.
The only people I’ve seen concerned with people Hering out the right, are people on the right. “Centrists” are just right wing sympathizers.
So yes, I don’t think they’re actually left leaning.
I agree with the comment your replying to. It’s very fellow kids. It’s not how most people on the left talk.
Note: not the person you replied to.
username checks out
If I saw serious attempts anywhere from right-wingers to advocate for their views as an actual political philosophy I’d be more concerned by this. But we need spaces where people actually discuss how to build a better society, and simply because of that concern these spaces lean left. It’s rare to find right-wingers who are even seriously interested in that question, except as a pretext to vent their unexamined prejudices and personality issues.
If, on internet forums, you push for everyone to have equal say even when their views are not well considered, everyone’s energy gets used up arguing with the most offensive right-wing posters. I think it’s a good thing to have spaces where that isn’t how it goes. As for centrists, I think there’s a place for engaging with them because there’s more of a chance that they just haven’t examined their views but can be brought to. But I’m not going to miss them if they’re so put off by a left-leaning space that they won’t participate, and I don’t think every left space needs to spend its time arguing with liberals.
Frankly, my view of the right wing these days is that there’s no particular need to treat a mishmash of selfishness, greed, lust for power, deceit, gullibility, ignorance, insecurity and hatred as if it’s a political philosophy at all. Left versus right isn’t a helpful picture. Serious vs unserious would be a better one. If someone has serious arguments for a right-wing position made in good faith, then they’re not just wasting people’s time. But that’s not usually what you see, and I suspect it’s because there’s a lack of serious arguments to be made for it.
I don’t miss the right-wing voices. For the most part they just dominate, disrupt and obstruct serious discussion. That said, it’s important we don’t forget how unrepresentative our online discussions are of society as a whole, and how little impact merely talking about them here has.
Yes, exactly this.
It’s rare to find right-wingers who are even seriously interested in that question, except as a pretext to vent their unexamined prejudices and personality issues.
Because those that actually are interested in that question end up moving to the left when they see the “answers” that the right has to offer.
I have noticed this trend. On the one hand, “Truth has a liberal bias” has always been true. If a community is geared towards truth and evidence, like as not it will lean left. There is copious evidence for this, for any random topic.
On the other hand, it has resulted in a lot of “I downvote complexity” behavior, which is, in my view, problematic. It is very easy to take stances of ideological purity online, and behave as if any recognition of greater complexity is EVIL!!1! I see this again and again. This is a way to make your ideological movement irrelevant and unworkable.
As much as folks decry the rigor of the MAGA right, where fealty to Trump is the only virtue, the Progressive left exhibits the exact same rigor, the exact same intolerance for deviation from its allies. Both Progressives and MAGAts see this as a virtue, but it very much is not: it locks you into a worldview that eliminates important complexity and any ability to see things from alternate perspectives. If you have a belief that your perspective is the only correct one, then the vast majority of the time, you’re wrong.
I think the idea that all viewpoints are equally valuable and need to be given equal weight or volume in discussions is incredibly fallacious. Left wing ideals are backed by a multitude of research as well as ethical and moral philosophies. I don’t know how you could be a leftist and say “what this place really needs is more right-wing voices” with a straight face. The whole “im just asking questions, everyone deserves to be heard, i just want to hear both sides of the argument” is a common tactic the right uses to try to seem reasonable and propagandize more people. Some ideas aren’t worth hearing out and can only do damage to those who listen.
A lack of opposing viewpoints is a fast-track to a closed-minded approach to interactions. I see far too many people, of all backgrounds, enter into engagements with a “you’re wrong and I’m right” mindset born from only entertaining their own ideals. Day after day of “other side bad” comments that entirely miss why that other side believes what they do in the first place. I don’t see how that helps anyone unless your goal is to pat each other on the back while the country drifts farther apart. Personally speaking, reading entire threads like this gets tiresome and while I am glad we don’t have the same level of bad faith right-wing spam that other platforms do, I wish we had a more open atmosphere.
I like this comment most.
Casualy defined leftist as brainwashed lol. You guys seem to love the “How to hate freespeech 101” course.
I would argue that wider community cohesion and thus tolerance of other viewpoints is important. Without hearing and understanding why these other points of view exist, understanding and accepting these people is hard.
Branding someone’s point of view as inherently or even ‘factually’ wrong is pretty blunt, alienating and invalidating IMO. I prefer a left-wing world view that tolerates people who don’t have the same understanding as me.
Patience and willingness to educate people is necessary in any community, as is a certain amount of tolerance for disagreement, in topics that aren’t harming anyone or restricting anyones roghts. In our current political environment, the predominent viewpoints of many people are outright dangerous and violent towards dissenters or outsiders, and those views do not deserve to be platformed. This is all based on context obviously, as everything is. If my neighbor is adamant that an unregulated free market society benefits everyone and is the best option despite all evidence to the contrary, and won’t be swayed by any argument or proof i offer, then fine. I just wont talk about the economy with them. But if my neighbor starts to say that trans people are mentally ill, and mexicans are subhuman, and palestinians deserve to be eradicated just for being born, thats a whole other matter. In the world we live in now we have to be very careful about what information is being propagated and consumed and absorbed by people who may lack the skills or understanding to resist it. As i said, some ideas are not worthy of repetition.
Yeah but this thread was supposed to be about whether ideological diversity is important, not whether hate speech is important.
It was about a lack of right wing viewpoints being problematic. Can you give me an example of a right wing viewpoint that is worth discussing, not scientifically unsound, not hateful, and is currently missing from lemmy? Cause if there is value in these ideas being discussed you must be able to give at least one example right?
@emeralddawn45 It depends on whether we are talking about the hateful far right or conservatives.
Some things frequently talked about by conservatives, classic liberals, and centrists include:
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Limitations on government power, including how to prevent a politician from becoming a dictator. This includes checks and balances on power, separation of power, and the dynamic between the states and the federal government.
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Protecting peoples civil rights, including the rights of minorities. Opposing police brutality, protecting free speech, protecting the right of association, protections against illegal search and seizures, etc.
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The right of people to own firearms, as allowed by the second amendment. This includes minorities and black people, who have the same rights under the Constitution as everyone else.
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Health care reform. They want health care reform as much as the left does, but they usually disagree on how to reform the health care system. For example, the left usually wants to create a government monopoly, while the right usually wants to break up monopolies and distrusts the government.
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How to give the power back to the people, since corporations and the elite seem to have taken over this country. Like #4, they agree that things need to change, but often have different ideas on how to change it.
I could go on.
Don’t confuse the hateful right with the moderate centrists and right-leaning voters. Most people have the same concerns the left does, but have a different perspective on it. And most people aren’t hateful. Maybe misinformed, but not hateful.
Remember that they asked for things that are currently missing from Lemmy. Do you think any of those are?
Yeah, this is it. There is no moderate conservative anymore. The moderate conservative has become the moderate democrat. The only way republicans win is by strangling human rights and stirring discord.
Try going into a conservative subreddit and argue for any of the things above. You’ll get downvoted to hell or even banned.
Anarchists discuss basically all of that and aren’t right wing
Very well put. The general summaries are spot on.
Too frequently are the concepts overlooked and some specific detail (often trivial) becomes the focus and divisive point preventing discussion or understanding.
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The value is in being accepting that other people don’t see the world in the same way as you, and treating them with respect.
The value is having a society that is tolerant of diversity of opinion.
This is not an universal truth.
Nazism is explicitly deemed unworthy of respect in some legal systems, like Germany or the UK. MAGAs, white supremacists, and alt-righters are objectively too close to nazism, therefore their opinions are unworthy of respect to start with.
There is also the paradox of intolerance. If you let these people in, to respect their opinion, they will take over and deprive people of the right to live. They don’t play by tolerant society’s rules, so they they don’t get tolerated.
The value is having a society that is tolerant of diversity of opinion.
Here is the opinion of the scientific consensus on transgender people, which is have been so for years, if not decades.
We have been harassed, bullied, doxxed, and banned for bringing those up in all major social media platforms. TERFs, white supremacists, misogynists, racists, have always gotten away in these platforms with punching down on leftists, African and Caribbean reparations activists, feminists, and queer people. They were protected by equally bigoted moderators under the guise of entitlement to their opinion, at the same time that all these other opinions are bashed and framed as “overstepping”.
This is in line with what the EFF and Techdirt, which are both vocal First Amendment absolutists, have already said that what X and Facebook do now is in fact amplifying hate speech and effectively suppressing the free speech of gender and sexual minorities.
And this has been the situation for years, take for example the online harassment of feminists .
It is a deeply systemic bias, due to centrist indoctrination in broader society, that it is the leftist and inclusive spaces that are called out for lack of diversity for responding to harassment and bigotry, when the voices and lives of people are simply dominated and evacuated in major platforms without an iota of moderation and responsiveness to punch-down harassment.
Let alone that in the light of the most recent developments, which consolidates the above tendencies, makes the timing of the tolerance argument even more ironic and dishonest.
There is also the paradox of intolerance. If you let these people in, to respect their opinion, they will take over and deprive people of the right to live. They don’t play by tolerant society’s rules, so they they don’t get tolerated.
Do you not see the irony here of op being intolerant of sharing lemmy with people who do not share their viewpoint? You’ll note from my other comments here that I’m explicitly not arguing for hate speech. IMO this thread was actually about the lack of moderate alternative views on Lemmy, not about encouraging extremist narratives to take over the federation.
What I am arguing for here is to drop the unhelpful us-versus-them narrative and to argue that Lemmy could well learn to tolerate a wider range of opinions. This is not to say extreme and intolerant views such as the ones you have described should be permitted.
Yes and for some topics thats valid, and for some it absolutely is not. Like this discussion isnt even about being tolerant about other viewpoints, its about a lack of other views being problematic, and i dont consider a lack of hateful bile to be a problem in any way. I also dont consider those hateful ideals to be worthy of tolerating. I asked you for an example of a specifically right wing viewpoint thats not false, is worthy of discussion, and not hateful, and you gave none, so what is the point youre trying to make? And why should we make an effort to platform more right wing views when they are basically all hateful?
I think you’re missing my point.
If your goal is to solve society’s problems, you have to listen to everyone, even people you disagree with, in order to identity the underlying problems.
And sometimes you have to read between the lines because they are not politically and economically literate. And unfortunately, that means people often latch onto ideas that sound good to them, but may or may not be a good idea in real life.
For example, some people may blame immigration for their problems. But that is not the real problem. That is just a scapegoat that the politicians use. The real problem is that they are struggling financially, and don’t know how to fix it, most likely because someone is taking advantage of them and/or they don’t have what they need to be successful.
If you fix their economic problems, and educate them on what the real problems are, they will realize that the immigrants were never the problem. This will reduce the tension and hate, and expose the propaganda for what it is.
But you can’t change anyone’s minds if you label them as enemies and refuse to listen to them. And you can’t solve problems if you can’t identify the underlying issues people are concerned with.
I hope you’re not being serious but if you are try to get out your bubble while you still can
I absolutely am. Im happy to discuss and debunk any right wing viewpoint thats brought up, but beyond that, having it repeated ad nauseum is in no way useful. Some opinions are not valid and don’t deserve the space for argument beyond potentially educating people.
The idea that every left wing viewpoint is perfectly aligned with science and critical thought is over reaching
I didn’t say that, and im open to discussion on any viewpoint to an extent. Theres a lot of things i dont agree with even my most leftist friends about. But constantly giving voice to ideas that have been proven wrong, either scientifically or historically, is not helpful in any way. For some things there is a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ answer. Gender science, economics, racial discrimination, the predominant roght wing ideas about these topics are just false, scientifically. And they shouldnt have to be disproven constantly in a public forum when that work has been done elsewhere.
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
Considering the Overton window, there’s also the fact that what is left and right varies from country to country and culture to culture. For example, a centerist in America would be considered right wing when compared to a centrist from Vietnam or Cuba.
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.
We are doing fine. Don’t overthink lemmy.
People go where they want, Block what they will. Share what they share.
What else do you need? We aren’t driven by shareholders to infinitely grow. Instances/communities/users will come and go, but lemmy is forever. It’s just going to get better from here till we get a “TikTok ban” from big brother. Enjoy the ride.
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.
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.
It’s not your party.
Yeah… True enough.
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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.
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).
obligatory reminder that us-american domestic politics are so skewed to the right that what appears “moderate” in the usa is right to far-right anywhere else
your “liberals” are right-wing
your “conservatives” are right-wing
both are liberals
I would say that what is considered “liberal” in the US is more “center-right”.
Your comment leaves no room for nuance, and anyone who has paid attention to US politics at all for the past 2+ decades knows that there is a massive gulf between how Democrats govern vs. Republicans. Anyone who suggests otherwise is full of shit.
I hate how it feels like I have to defend Democrats on this site, because they are pretty shit as a party, and yes they are liberal.
democrats are enthusiastic supporters of US imperialism and neoliberalism. they’re right wing. end of story
the only difference between republicans and democrats is that they sell US imperialism to different portions of the population. republicans are more honest about their intentions, but if there were only republicans, that would risk massive revolts from the more progressive-leaning portion of the population. this is why the democratic party exists: it allows the us govt to sell the same underlying project with a different face that’s more appealing to the average progressive voter
edit: to really drive my point home ask yourself: what is the official stance of the democratic party regarding free and public healthcare, free and public education (including higher education), progressive taxation, public transportation, labor legislation (especially regarding maternity leave), etc? not what some more left-leaning factions of the party say, i mean the actual official party stance. because these are absolutely uncontroversial among the left-leaning parties worldwide
Yeah, this is the shit I’m talking about. You’re clueless.
If you lived in the US, you would understand, on a very real, tangible level, the difference between living in a state with a Republican governor vs. one with a Democratic governor. Or for those in big cities, a Republican mayor vs. a Democratic mayor.
Any person older than 30 in the US that is not all of the following: white, cis-gendered, heterosexual, will tell you just how wrong you are.
You make leftists look bad, and I wish you’d stop. Use some critical thought. Recognize nuance. Don’t let ideology cause you to ignore objective reality.
If you lived in the US, you would understand, on a very real, tangible level, the difference between living in a state with a Republican governor vs. one with a Democratic governor.
And if you lived outside the US, you would understand that it doesn’t make a difference if the bombs leveling your city are painted red or blue, and the minor difference in domestic policy between the two factions of the genocidal empire really don’t matter to the people you’re exterminating.
Yeah, it’s not a minor difference. A fact that people are about to wake up to in a week or so…
Yeah, I know Americans have trouble believing that foreigners are people, but believe me: for us, the difference is negligible.
I know you love to get to make a snarky reply, but no.
You are in for a rude awakening.
The differences between the two are NOT minor, but I support your second point completely.
Or foreign policy families have been staggering, no matter who has occupied the White House.
For you the difference may not seem minor, but when your entire country has been leveled by American bombs, the slight difference in social issues that applies only to comfortable Americans who are not living in refugee camps being hunted by sniper drones seem basically negligible.
@BrainInABox
I get what you’re saying. We have been very fortunate here, but that has been the limit of our lived experience, so to us, it is not minor. In the big picture, you are correct.
“less” right wing is still right wing
i’ve been made aware of how miserable living in a red state is. but being not as rabidly misogynistic and racist as republicans doesn’t make the dems “not right wing”. implementing better domestic policies doesn’t either. at the end of the day, both parties represent the interests of corporations, will implement austerity measures that widen your already massive wealth gap, and will make sure the us-american empire keeps the rest of the planet in a stranglehold
edit: as for you saying i’m ignoring reality, again, i’m aware republicans are worse for you, but i need you usians to truly grasp the reality that, unlike most other democracies, your two major parties are right-wing and ultimately uphold the same project. any right-wing politician for europe or latin america would feel at home in the democratic party
This guy gets it.
