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.
like bluesky is rightist , lemmy may be leftist . it also depends on the server , left has blocked right and vice versa . try to find a right one
Since when is Bluesky rightist?
Bluesky is very liberal.
Economically rightwing or socially?
Liberalism as an economic ideology. It seems fairly progressive socially.
Ah shit, want to hear my economic hot takes? Haha
Sure, why not
I want to have private schooling preserved
@Teknevra
I’m not a part of Lemmy, but I will say this: There are some people with whom reasonable dialog is just not possible. Speaking only for myself, I choose not to engage. That does not mean I’m not aware of what they are saying or thinking. It means that I am drawing a healthy boundary for myself.Your feelings about it are valid. You should absolutely seek out more mixed spaces, if that is what you want to do.
Cheers!
Yeah this mirrors my approach to it.
People can like Trump/Musk or dream of Marxism in practice. I am so far from both ideologies that I find it difficult to relate to either, and end up being called a traitor by the left and a triggered lib/loser by the right. Lemmy is in my experience quite left.
The political differences have become so extreme that I just avoid any debate at all and stick to the technical stuff and hobbies. My sanity is more important to me than trying to convince someone over the pond that they are wrong.
Honestly, I just try to live my life as the best person I can be. I’ve gotten to old to try to change anyone else. And I have had some great encounters here, so I am not going back to Reddit anytime soon.
Stay awesome, people!
I feel like we have come to a point in time where the Internet in general is becoming more separated like this in general. I enjoy Lemmy because I get a lot of the other perspectives in my day to day work life, and I like coming to this place to read and engage with people who share my views and ideas on topics. 🤷🏼♀️ Maybe that is pretty close to an echo chamber, but it is what I am seeking after spending every work day with conservatives.
It is the definition of an echo chamber. If every thread/comment w/e not following the trend gets censored or w/e else, it’s not a diverse website and more likely propaganda/echo chamber.
@frankspurplewings Exactly.
Conservatism is generally a worthless ideology that makes the world worse, so I don’t feel a desire to spend more time with it. We don’t need to debate “what if women don’t have rights”, “what if gay stuff is illegal?”, “what if you had to pay for health care so if you were poor you’d just die?” or whatever.
As a non-American the issue as I see it is that too much of Lemmy is dominated by Americans and therefore American politics. I scroll through and read a ton of comments about how monstrous and vile the right wing is, and that’s just simply not true where I live. The popular American right is incredibly authoritarian and seeks to control all aspects of ones life. The right wing in my country is purely economic. You can debate capitalism vs communism I guess but no part of my countries right wants to remove the rights of women or the lgbt. Its all just a matter of where you live. And most people here live in the States.
Feel free to redirect those posts to !AskUSA@discuss.online
Why? My point wasn’t that we should quarantine it. Just laying out the facts as I see them.
Sadly I see that shifting as billionaires in other countries see the success of American billionaires. Hoarders of money and power exploit society to their gain any way they can get away with. The orthodoxy and social norms of your country may keep their power grabs in check to date, but be vigilant. The resources and power of billionaires allows them to play the long game on whittling away at anything that stands in the way of their egomaniacal lust for more. I hope for all of our sakes, this billionaire undermining movement that is spreading can be beaten back. What’s happened in America was not organic. It was a strategy engineered by idealogical confederations of billionaires pooling resources.
For now. Most countries are realising how well this is working and following suit. The Tories in the UK used to be mostly sensible and fiscally conservative. Then last election cycle they pivoted to talking about the tofu eating wokerati and attacking trans people. Support for things like abortion or LGB is generally more established but they’re chipping away at that too.
Everywhere else in my life is centrist or rightwing. I enjoy having somewhere to escape it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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
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’?
I don’t think having Nazis and Zionists here would make anything better, make anyone sympathize with them, or find common ground. This is a place where we can be safe, why add people who are purposefully being dishonest and spreading disinformation? They aren’t misinformed people, they are real pieces of shit who hold a genuinely wrong position/s; they want to piss you off to ruin your day. I already have enough discourse with these people everywhere else, why here?
amen.
I think this is the case, yes. From my pov the technical ability to block others and defederate leads to this left leaning trend. This is the only place I know that is really left leaning.
But the important part here is: the distinction between left and right is arbitrary. There is no left and right. There are certain beliefs and ideas which usually get attributed towards left or right.
The idea of freedom - in most of the world - isnt really left or right, or at least used to be.
Especially the fascist turn of the us, the fascist turn of germany and others are a sign of the world turning, not lemmy.
Because freedom, flow of ideas and identity are still typical topics on lemmy. Same as they used to be. I think the right wing nuts just left since they are more welcome on xitter and fascbook.
Is that good for critical discourse? No. Can we change it? No idea. Should we change it? No idea.
My instance has conservative and anti-leftist communities. They’re more the personal playgrounds of a few people with humiliation and persecution fetishes though.
There is no such thing as a “moderate conservative” any more. IMO the difference has always been mainly, how mask off they were prepared to go. Trump has shown them that you can go fully mask off without any negative consequences.
The size of my block list tells me there are plenty of right-wing voices on the platform. No everyone on that list is right-wing, but I’m fairly certain a majority of them are.
It is very rigid in its ideologies, even more so than reddit.
Wait you’re saying that calling people nazis if they have a different viewpoint than you doesn’t foster diversity? Who would have thought.
Booooooooo
It’s important though to not fall into the trap of creating false balance, i.e. giving the same weight to a false or harmful statement than to a truthful or good idea, in the name of “fairness” or “objectivity”. Also, conservatives tend to shift to the right currently.
This meme basically:
To OP’s point tho, I think the fediverse is a lot more ideologically diverse than reddit or other corporate platforms. The fact that you can say something positive about the Palestinian resistance without getting banned, or say something positive about a country on the US-enemy list, is a testament to that diversity.
Sure, there are many servers on the fediverse that are anti-communist, and orientalist / western supremacist, and block leftist ones. But on corporate platforms, you aren’t given any option: that’s a non-negotiable default that you must accept. Here you can always join a server that’s willing to federate with leftist ones, and is okay with ideological diversity, even if you don’t consider yourself one.
Its not just about not getting banned, its also that were not dogpiled by Zionists calling us anti Semites (for the most part).
Those people seemed to give up once they realized no one was paying attention to their flameposting outside of the fediverse. The media doesn’t pick up on it (which is what they really want) unless you’re on one of the corporate social media sites where they can leverage their legal/monetary powers to amplify/silence the discussion per their will.
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This is one of the reasons why the US federal government wants to ban TikTok, a highly unpopular among the US general public. TikTok isn’t moderated in ways that suit US ideologies and propaganda, which means more leftist content leaks through to the masses.
