I came here a few weeks ago after many years of reddit. Altogether I find discussions I enjoy, however, the posts and comments noticeably lean, well, tankie (I didn’t know that term before I came here). It’s not that I am looking for an echo chamber, but I also don’t want to spend my time reading propaganda. I’m really curious about a lot of things outside politics, as well as the opinions and arguments of reasonable people across the political spectrum, but I don’t want to listen to the boring canned lies of fascists and tankies. I realized that people celebrating communist dictators trigger me, and this is something I didn’t have to deal with before I started reading lemmy, I didn’t even know this type existed.
I also notice that accounts created just a few hours in advance come from other instances to brigade political posts. Because of how lemmy works, I can block individual users or communities, but not individual instances. Is there an instance that could be a “safe space” from this kind of brigading and tankie spam? Or a way to use the internet to read interesting things now that blogs died and then Reddit became whatever it became?
Edit: Thanks everyone for the helpful and wholesome comments. Of course, some trolls/wackos showed up as well to say hi.
Nowadays reasonable is radical. Moderate isn’t enough and conservative is poison
Don’t look for a specific moderate instance, instead block extremist instances. I’m not positive but I think that also blocks you from seeing posts by users of those instances even when they post to other instances, but I’m not 100% sure
Real life. If you want moderate, complex opinions. Talk to real people. Not the bots and shills that populate this place.
real moderate or usian moderate?
Schleswig-Hollstein
You want an online community that allows both the right and the far right? That would be ALL OTHER ONLINE COMMUNITIES!
We came here specifically to get our own forum, where the centre left, regular left and far left are all allowed. This is a forum for the working class, not for the capitalists. And you capitalists can’t handle the fact that us workers for once get to have a forum of our own.
Who said this is a forum for the working class? I have not seen this mentioned anywhere. Read the sidebar: this is a generic forum for everyone. I’m inclined to think you are making this up.
Why do you want people with extreme views (left or right) in your community?
(ive been told my writing style is a bit abrasive, but i got a touch of the tism’, and that can effect the “cadence” of how i write. so take that into perspective when reading this inside your head. im not hostile.)
“Who said this is a forum for the working class?”
its implied, considering almost 99% of the worlds population needs to work to make a living and to support their loved ones who cant. and the vast majority of the people who post here arent billionaire oligarchs, or petty bourgeoisie. its statistically unlikely. therefor, fair to say.
“Why do you want people with extreme views (left or right) in your community?”
radicals are at the forefront of change in every conflict. for better, or for worse.
today (in the US) to be opposed to fascism, is to be considered a “far left terrorist” or ANTIFA. another boogeyman made by the fascists to scare people away from “socialism” or the “wokes” or some other nonsense.
the new modern definition of “far left extremism” is a dog whistle used by fascists trying to play the “both sides bad” or “innocent centrist” take that ultimately leads left leaning people and fence sitters further down the road of fascism, for those who take it at face value. overuse of the word “tankie” as well, which has been used as a blanket term for socialists/communists a lot more in recent days. but most people dont understand its roots, or the roots of socialism/communism, and how they have changed since their inception.
unfortunately, the reason so many “far left” voices appear here, is because platforms like reddit started banning people because they called out fascism, and began communicating on how they should stop it. or simply joking about it. i personally am one of those people, i said elon musk did a nazi salute, and was likely a nazi to some degree. and i was perma banned within minutes. for “violent” content. (it wasnt in the slightest) so here i am. and honestly its quite nice, people are more level headed, kind, and willing to discuss things thoughtfully. without the “gotchyas” and hostile armchair intellectualism that is so rampant on platforms like reddit.
this is a platform of the people, each instance essentially ran/hosted by volunteers. working class people, like you or me. thats the basis of the fediverse. anyone can spin up an instance, some bigger/better than others, and choose to link with all/certain instances. some instances can be honey pots, filled with bots, AI slop. or real human beings, making real connections. who knows. its crazy out here. still small, quiet. but growing, and getting louder.
the best thing about the fediverse, is that if you dont like an instance. you can leave it.
but if you dont leave quietly, its always a little bit sus as to your real motivations.
OP seems to be confusing people with a distaste for fascism/general knowledge of communism/socialism, and the history that birthed them, for actual “tankies”
a common mistake made by the misinformed, and a common tactic used by the misaligned.
but id rather not make those assumptions, and assume its coming from a purely anecdotal view/experience of the world that i havent seen reflected in my own use of lemmy.
regardless, at the end of the day, its not left vs right, its up vs down. and i think thats the bigger zeitgeist here on lemmy
sorry for the wall of text. i hope this helps provides a bit more context.
I largely use Lemmy because it doesn’t tolerate conservatives.
It’s 2026. There is no such thing as a moderate conservative. They don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. They don’t deserve yet another platform to argue in bad faith on. They’ve gone too far. Every platform they touch turns into a cesspool of bigotry and garbage opinions they think should be taken seriously or they play victim.
I don’t want them on Lemmy.
There is no such thing as a moderate conservative
IDK, I’d think most Democrats in Congress this decade are moderate conservatives (stupid Overton window shift).
i was confused at first when i saw moderate/ or reasonable conservatives. almost every conservative ive encountered just make uniformed rants or opinions about trump. my favorite is when they dont know about trumps actual policies and get defensive over being questioned about it,.
There are a lot of “bipartisan” social media websites (at least they self-advertise as such)
There are also social media apps for mainly conservatives.
Surely there can be one form of social media for leftists to talk to each other.I enjoy reading anarchists and socialists debate their case because I actually agree with points they make. I can see where each side is coming from and even have change my viewpoints at times.
Some edgy highschooler on the side screaming about how “God wants capitalism” would not contribute anything to the conversation. We already established their ideas don’t work, let us actually come up with new ones now.
screaming about how “God wants capitalism” would not contribute anything to the conversation
We have some of those here too
i would but they behave too much like conservatives for my taste especially how to they become defensive, and label everything “lib”
Surely there can be one form of social media for leftists to talk to each other.
Substack.
Substack from my limited experience was a bunch of ChatGPT written sychosis.
Refusing to even talk to people on the opposite end of the political spectrum just makes you another perpetuator of the massive political divide. Do you actually think anyone’s had their vote swayed by someone who refused to even talk to them. You’re not going to bring anyone to the left by demonising the right.
Political divide is things like budget, use of public lands, roads & infrastructure. We’re split on morality, ethics, bigotry, and child rape. A good number of us don’t even bother talking to family members anymore, why would I waste my time trying to converse with the dude who lives up the street from me that has a t-shirt of Donnie surrounded by bikini clad girls and “Chillin’ like a felon”?
Trump is the poster child of chauvinism, bigotry, bravado, greed, deceit, swindle, and zero self-control. His ability to get away with it has emboldened his supports to embrace their worst inclinations and treat their neighbors like Trump does. Granted, they are not Trump, so the average thief, wife beater, or kid diddler still gets arrested, but a lot have figured out they can be blatantly racist, misogynistic, homophobic, or a plain old dick in public and love that there’s no consequences anymore.
I have no interest in winning over people who have no shame, no remorse, and no empathy. Some will come crawling over when the suffering trickles down and finally affects them, but without any self-reflection or moral awakening, they’ll go right back to their old ways as soon as the burden is lifted. Fuck ‘em.
Refusing to even talk to people on the opposite end of the political spectrum just makes you another perpetuator of the massive political divide.
Extremely bold of you to assume I haven’t spent the majority of my life talking to them and trying to understand their extremist views.
I finally stopped because, as I said, they’ve lost the benefit of the doubt due to their own words and actions.
How long would you entertain the opinions and actions of Nazis in the name of getting along?
Also, if you think conservatives are going to start voting liberal if we play nice with them, well, you’re either very young or really haven’t been paying attention.
Bro, we don’t want you guys to come over to the left anymore. We want you to stay over there and preferably go back to Russia where you seemed to enjoy the governance and social structure.
I don’t want them on Lemmy.
Lemmy is open to anyone though. Excluding someone based on what they believe, slides into the very fascism that many on Lemmy proclaim to be against. Intolerance is never a good thing, regardless of what your political outlook is.
You are certainly to welcome block people you don’t want to associate with, but trying to exclude a group of people because you don’t believe them is nothing to brag about.
There is no such thing as a moderate conservative. They don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.
I can assure you that there plenty of moderate conservatives. Your refusal to admit this, is the exact sort of extremism that OP is trying to stay away from.
Again, you are free to believe that and act accordingly, but excluding someone from a platform, purely based on their beliefs, is what you are supposed to be fighting against.
Many on Lemmy think conservatives exclude people based on their beliefs, and are close-minded. Now look at your words and switch use the words “liberal” instead of “conservative.”
If you read a conservative saying the exact same thing you said, but using “liberal” instead of “conservative,” you’d be pretty angry. You are doing the exact thing that you accuse them of doing.
I said it before:
I do not want conservatives prohibited from joining Lemmy, but I do want conservatives to feel unwelcome joining Lemmy.
Not dominance through authority, but through culture.
And what if so many came on, that they started to work on making liberals feel unwelcome here? And they would post in threads laughing about it much they wand liberal people to feel unwelcome. How would you feel then? Because look at what you guys are doing here…
How about different opinions can co-exist as long as there is no hate involved? You are an example of the very extremist divider that OP and some others are talking about.
I’m sure that’s what will happen because that’s what always happens. The left makes a cool space and conservatives slime their way in and ruin it. I don’t give a fuck if you call me an extremist, I want you and yours to feel unwelcome.
Nah fuck conservatives.
Paradox of Tolerance my dude
Life and people aren’t nearly as awful as Lemmy constantly paints them to be. Too many users here just doomscroll and get a kick out of pretending the world’s already doomed and deserves it.
I refuse to live like that. My life is about finding joy, helping people, knowing my neighbors, and genuinely loving others. Because of that, the so-called “paradox of tolerance” doesn’t apply to me. I’m not tolerating intolerance; I’m just choosing not to build my world around hate or fear or negativity.
I don’t know I had a dude wake me up at 5 AM every morning for 18 months so he could parade his loud truck and his Maga flag down the street. For me, the paradox of tolerance was broken when the police wouldn’t stop him from breaking the law every day.
You guys let your extremist run wild and terrorize society for the last six years. You have no moderate views you have no moderate inclinations. You have no conservative values. It hits pure regressive politics and hate mongering. The only thing you conserve is hierarchy and perverse incentives.
Please explain “you guys.”
I’m not republican. I didn’t “let” anyone run anything. The US voted, and Trump won. And next election people have the option to vote someone else in.
Are you assuming I’m republican just because I said not all republicans are bad?! Dude, come on…think about that. Fucking Lemmy, man… lol
The paradox of tolerance is real, it has been broken. They wanted to genocide me after Charlie Kirk died because I made meme. Millions of people used their voices to call for violence against the left. Like left of hitler basically.
So yes you have chosen a side. You turn a blind eye to the horrors unfolding across your country and pretend like people are innocent actors. Keep ignoring the calls for violence, I suppose if you don’t feel included in them, then they can’t hurt you 🤣
If January 6th wasn’t enough to rethink your party members, then you chose a side, and you’re with the traitors and oath breakers.
Good for you, must be nice living in a fantasy land like the pyro from TF2.
It’s fucking delusional it’s what it is, and you can’t just choose to ignore the paradox of tolerance, unless you want to turn your favourite bar into a nazi bar
How is it a fantasy world?
Do you realize that the US isn’t a war zone, and that most people just go along their daily lives of dropping kids off at school, hiking, mowing their lawns, going to work, going to the park, going on dates with their significant other, watching netflix, etc?
Most non-Lemmy people don’t make their politics their identity, nor do they talk about politics every single day, nor do they call every single person that disagrees with them a Nazi or a Fascist daily.
Most just don’t care about politics. As we saw in the election.
How is that a fantasy world? Normal society isn’t even close to what the Lemmy-verse is…lol
Lemmy has the worst cases of doomscrolling and negativity that I have ever seen.
A: you assume I’m American. I’m not. That’s an insult where I’m from.
B: it’s not open to everyone, don’t be stupid. It’s a walled and managed garden like every social media, just the walls are guarded by volunteers instead of staff. And instead of single source of moderation, it’s literally hundreds of teams working together (Federation)
C: Right, let’s say that someone says something shitty and bigoted, you saying I should let them stay, in the interest of “balance”? Just answer that
A: you assume I’m American. I’m not.
Then you don’t know how America really is and have no room to talk with any authority about it. All you know is what you have read on news and Lemmy. That’s only accurate for extreme stuff. The vast majority of the US is quiet and boring. Which is awesome.
Lemmy has about 1.366 million registered users worldwide (with monthly active users way lower, around 48,000–50,000). That’s less than 0.0004% of the US population of roughly 343 million.
I’m saying that not every conservative is shitty and bigoted. Lemmy doesn’t want to admit that though. That’s my point.
Lemmy has about 1.366 million registered users worldwide (with monthly active users way lower, around 48,000–50,000). That’s less than 0.0004% of the US population of roughly 343 million. Not even close to representing how the general US population feels about things.
Lemmy is open to anyone though.
Sure is. Doesn’t mean I want bigots/fascists here, fucking up yet another platform.
Excluding someone based on what they believe
How long would you be willing to entertain Nazis? Would you say the same thing about them? That we should just listen to them and give them a chance? That we should tolerate them? Now, American conservatives aren’t Nazis, because Naziism was a specific fascist movement in Germany a century ago. But American conservatives are fascists because they match the definition.
Now, I’m not sure if you possess eyes or ears, but fascism is now here, in America, due to conservatives. I’m done giving them the benefit of the doubt. They do not deserve it. They do not care to argue in good faith.
but trying to exclude a group of people because you don’t believe them is nothing to brag about.
Words placed into my mouth. I’m not making some concerted effort to exclude conservatives from Lemmy. Never said I was. I said I don’t want them here. That’s my personal opinion. You seem to really care about people, even fascists, getting to have their opinions, so let me have mine.
Now look at your words and switch use the words “liberal” instead of “conservative.”
Ah. I see. You are a “bOtH sIdEz” advocate. One of those that believe everything is equal. Well, I’m here to promise you that is false. Both sides do no want the same thing and do not go about getting what they want in the same manner. Not even close. Your entire argument is based on all things being equal. That simply isn’t true, so your argument is weak.
The right side of the aisle uses violence and intimidation to get what they want FAR, FAR more often than the left side does. And that is a fact supported by a shit ton of data. So why should we give a side that uses those tactics regularly the same benefit of the doubt that we’d give a side that doesn’t? That’s nonsense.
NOT. THE. SAME.
You’ll still be singing Kumbaya while you’re being gassed.
You are a “bOtH sIdEz” advocate.
Yep. Both sides have their share of idiots and extremists.
You clarified and said that conservatives should in theory be allowed here, and that’s exactly the point I was making. So we’re good.
They should be allowed, even when we disagree with them. I don’t buy the line that all conservatives are fascists, the way so many on Lemmy love to claim.
I’m really glad the real US isn’t anything like the nightmare version most of Lemmy seems convinced it is. lol
Quick question: Are you a cis, white, heterosexual male with Christian/agnostic beliefs? Or at the very least, could you be mistaken for somebody like that? And do you live in an urban area, or a suburban or rural area?
Because as a bi trans woman who grew up in a relatively red part of one of the deepest blue states in the country and spent a LONG time being able to hide as a cis white male, it is two very different experiences of life in the US before and after transitioning and what kind of area that I’ve lived in. Cities are natural melting pots of diversity and run very liberal/leftist as a result, suburbs can be a mixed bag depending on where they are (though like often follows like and you tend to get concentrations of similar beliefs close together due to socio-economic factors), and rural areas are often very group-think oriented and form cliques like it’s highschool. I also spent a lot of time listening to what conservatives say when they think they’re in like company. And it’s very political.
You know how people say that the two things you should never bring up at work are politics and religion? Every place that I’ve worked, the people who cannot stop talking about politics have always been conservatives. From hating on immigrants or trans people to the guy yesterday who went on and on about how people only hate Teslas because they’re liberals who hate Elon and how great Teslas are while we all side-eyed each other (somebody said that the cyber truck is dangerous and looks ugly), they are constantly either trying to convince you that they’re right or just assume that you agree with them in the first place. I had a “both sides” so-called “centrist” trap me and another coworker in a conversation about another one of our coworkers after he found out that they were a trans man and just kept going on and on about how they had trans friends but our coworker would never be a “real man,” just like his trans friend would never be a “real woman.” Didn’t stop talking about it for over an hour, just talking in circles with barely a moment to take a breathe before he started talking again. I would’ve thought he was gonna pass out if I didn’t already know that he’s one of those people who would probably die if they ever stopped talking. He would also go on and on about the “violent left” but would get oddly quiet whenever a right-winger or MAGA voter would shoot up a place or something. Despite the fact that the US accounts for something like 95% of all school shootings in the world, and all but a couple of those have been committed by white men who either traditionally voted for Republicans or grew up in a conservative household, and that in the past 10 years something like 80% of mass shooting victims were shot by people (most often men, and usually white men) who also either traditionally voted for Republicans or grew up in conservative households
It’s only been in about the past 6 months that I’ve mostly stopped seeing MAGA flags outside people’s houses or on people’s trucks. Though there is one pickup at work that the owner stuck a “MAGA Edition” label onto just above the branding, and there is one guy who up until recently would wear a Trump 2024 shirt occasionally. He might still, but I haven’t seen it in awhile.
There are now about 20 states where it is either unsafe for me to travel due to state laws or where my existence is outright illegal in some way. Trans people were having their passports, driver’s licenses, birth certificates, and other forms of identification confiscated by the DMV after the election but before Trump even entered office. A law in Utah banning trans girls from school sports got overturned because it affected a total of 3 girls in the state and it was therefore considered a law targeting specific individuals, which is illegal. You can make it illegal to turn right on a red light at a particular street corner, but you can’t make it illegal for Tom, Larry, and Diane to turn right on a red light.
You can have reasonable discussions with conservatives, but because conservatism largely consists of the belief that there are groups that the law should protect but not bind, and groups that the law should bind but not protect, it can very quickly fall into arguing what kind of people do or don’t deserve to be treated like humans. Very often with them, respect means “respect my authority or else I won’t treat you like a person.” Back before 2001 and the rise of right-wing extremism these past 20 or so years, there were much more mild discussions between Democrats and Republicans, but that’s because the US largely has no true leftist institutions. The Democrats are largely a moderate conservative to left-leaning centrist party with a few moderate leftists thrown in (who are unpopular with the party leadership but usually popular with voters). So debates were largely about whether or not the tax break for corporations should be 5% or 7% higher than last year. Both parties largely agreed on policy.
In the US, there are two genders: Man and “political.” Two races: White and “political.” Two sexualities: Straight and “political.” Two religions: Christian and “political” (and which flavor of Christian you are can be considered “political” based on the region of the country that you’re in). If you can fake being in the former group in any way, you’ll have a very different experience living in the US than you would otherwise.
The difference between a Lenny communist is: no one takes them seriously, they do not control the entire government, they are not using the government to shoot dissenters in the streets.
Some of those crazy bastards probably would if you gave them control of the government, but that’s beside the point because no one has done that yet. But when they do, I am going to support whatever they decide to do to the Nazis.
I agree with your broader point but the bit about supporting auth-left fighting Nazis is a risky bet. I don’t think we’re close to having a marxist-leninist vanguard party overthrow the regime here in the US, but historically when they have been empowered to enact violence against fascists they end up taking the state monopoly on violence for themselves and turning it on anarchists and other socialists with slight disagreements.
But Iike you said, they’re not the ones controlling the state at the moment. It’s just something to keep in mind for the future in case an ML vanguard party leading a revolution in the US actually ends up being on the table. Depending on how bad things get a lot of people might consider it worth the risk.
Fuck all of that. Conservatism is a cancer. Every one of them can go to hell.
Cool. You are the exact extremism that OP is talking about trying to avoid. Congrats.
I’m not interested. You don’t compromise on this. You don’t tolerate it. It’s a cancer. If his preference is to help it metastasize, he is the one to be avoided.
Ok, well good luck and hope ya do better in the next election than you did in the last one.
Wait, I thought you weren’t a conservative? Who’d you vote for then?
but not individual instances.
You can. If you’re using a Lemmy home instance, as you are currently (lemmy.world), in the Web UI, go to your user menu in the upper-right corner, click “Settings”, click the “Blocks” tab, and then you can choose instances to block in a panel there.
If what you want is “I don’t want auth-left stuff”, avoiding hexbear.net, lemmygrad.ml, and lemmy.ml can help. You aren’t going to get some kind of ironclad avoidance, but that’ll avoid the great bulk of it. Your home instance is lemmy.world. lemmy.world is defederated with lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net for exactly the reason you mention (in fact, I see people who don’t like lemmy.world because they consider it liberal, which they don’t like) so you already won’t be seeing stuff from the first two instances.
I don’t think I’ve personally seen fascist material on the Threadiverse (though there are some people with quite broad definitions of the term), though there are or were some far-right instances out there, based on defederation lists. Most of what little I’ve seen on the Fediverse seems to me to be on Pleroma, though I haven’t spent much time on non-Threadiverse Fediverse stuff.
moderate conservative
The home instance that I use, lemmy.today, has one user (@DonaldJMusk@lemmy.today) that posts a bunch of Trump stuff and a conservative community, !conservative@lemmy.today. I don’t know if your definition of conservative and his match up, but maybe you’d find it to your taste; it’s probably the closest to mainstream US, Republican material that I’ve seen with much activity on the Threadiverse. The instance isn’t going to be just moderate conservative and moderate liberal users though. But, if that’s the kind of community that you might be participating in, I’d imagine that he’d like to have more users.
EDIT: My own personal take is that the long term solution to having people with disparate positions on what content they want to see, above-and-beyond use of moderated communities and admin activity on instances, is to have “curator lists”, where people can basically “share” lists of blocks/subscribes/votes or something like that, and other users can subscribe to them. Then you have a list that — for example — excludes or includes content on various grounds without requiring effort on a per-user-who-wants-curated-content basis. I think that Usenet pretty much established that killfiles don’t really scale well in combating spam and stuff like that, because there was never a mechanism to share killfiles among users. Anyway, today, there isn’t support for something like that on the Threadiverse. I understand that BlueSky has something along those lines.
I enjoy that you gave a serious and helpful answer.
Posts like that are the ones that keep me here. There are some really dope people here who want to help and inform other people.
What’s sad is often content like this gets labeled as ‘evil’ and then brigaded by users who perceive it as a threat to furthering their political agenda, because anyone who isn’t on their side, or is remotely nice to anyone on the ‘other’ sides, is evil.
By lemmy.ml logic, if I help my elderly Trump-voting neighbor take out his trash, I’m also a Trump supporter. Apparently I’m if I was a ‘good person’ who was really anit-Trump, I’d beat him or slash his tires or something.
It would be important for people to understand that what separates good people from bad people is decency and basic human kindness, not political ideology. In reality, the good people are in the center, and the bad people are on the extremes. Yet, due to the polarization of public discourse, a left leaning person may be convinced that the good people are to the left, and the bad people are to the right from them. If they keep drifting towards the extreme, and keep thinking that everyone to the right is a bad person, eventually they will hate all the decent people in the center, while everyone still to the left from them is an actual monster. Needless to say, the same goes for people who start right leaning and keep drifting to the right. I wish more people realized that the enemies are the crazies on either side, not the moderates on the other side.
Not just lemmy.ml logic. A lot of people on Lemmy would call you a Trump supporter simply because you helped that neighbor. lol The extremism here has been getting really nasty lately.
In mod logs I am seeing a lot more banning for “advocating violence.” I guess the good news about that is that mods are banning people for advocating violence, so there’s that.
Pretty sure that Donald J. Musk is a Russian Z astroturfer banned from half of Lemmy with multiple accounts under different aliases.
Wow, thanks, such a helpful response! I’ll try the web interface for instance blocking. Another sus instance I saw today was blahaj.zone. To clarify, I also didn’t see fascist stuff, I just mentioned it because I felt it important to point out that I also don’t want to see that kind of content. I guess I saw one too many “so you are not a fan of Stalin, you must be fascist” comment today.
hey, just so you know blahaj.zone is not a tankie instance, it’s an instance aimed at protecting oppressed minorities (it hosts a women-only community, protects LGBT+ users from bigotry, etc.).
I think technically the instance doesn’t take sides in terms of political ideology and is thus not a “political instance”, but the top community on blahaj.zone is vehemently anti-tankie, so I would say they’re the opposite of the people you’re worried about
You can read more about blahaj.zone’s intentions as a space here:
https://lemmyverse.link/lem.lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/14736607
First and foremost, blahaj zone lemmy exists to give a space for queer folk to exist, with their needs explicitly protected as the highest priority, and with a particular focus on the needs of gender diverse folk. Most lemmy instances are not run by trans folk, and whilst many are still inclusive, they don’t always prioritise our needs. Others barely consider trans folk, and react only to the most blatant of bigotry.
We are not a political instance, however political communities have a space here, as does any community that is actively protective of the needs of queer and gender diverse folk. Given the impact of politics on gender diverse folk, that means lots of dialogue and strong opinions exist, and as long as those opinions are honestly held, and not bigoted or exclusive, people are welcome to have and express those opinions here.
For what it’s worth, I am a member of the Greens Party in Australia. I have no time for the middle ground politics of the Australian Labor party, let alone the right wing beliefs of the Australian Liberal party. Yet a community of queer Labor Party aligned folk would fit on blahaj lemmy, because the parties ideologies, are not explicitly anti queer. A community aligned with the Australian Liberal party likely would not have a place here, unless the goal of the community was to work at actively challenging the anti queer policies of the party.
basically you’ll only have issues with blahaj.zone if you’re transphobic, homophobic, etc.
got it, thanks for the explanation. I know nothing about the content and the general crowd over there, but some accounts registered there were definitely brigading political posts over .world, and not in a tasteful way. I don’t have screenshots or names because I blocked them. I’m not saying this is the instance’s fault.
What’s sus about Blahaj Zone? I’ve always found them to be nice people.
Well he’s looking for conservative content, and we’re a queer instance, so…
There are gay conservatives though. And there are conservatives who support LGBTQIA+ causes.
OP sounds like he’s just tired of the extremism of everything, not just left or conservative. So maybe he’s just a centralist or something.
I tend to not block instances FWIW. I have blocked several communities and found that it works pretty well. For now, browsing /all in lemmy is my preferred view because we just don’t have that many people to keep content coming in the communities I have subscribed to. Plus, it’s more fun to see the variety. Lemmy is small enough still where it’s easier to “opt-out” than there is a need to “opt-in” to limit the noise.
Can do it through apps too.
ML is definitely everyone’s first and fav instance to block, and it sounds like it’s time for you too. A lot of the dumb shit will cut down very quickly just by getting rid of that one.
It’s so funny that the first instance Lemmy users ban is the one of the Lemmy developers lol
the lemmy devs are very clear about their political views.
anytime you are clear about your political views, you are going to invite others to ban/hate/dismiss you on princple, because most people do not believe in a plurality of viewpoints in 2026. Increasingly folks just want to silence and other perspective than their own and create their own instances where they can fully police the views of others and have that instance be specifically for their political persuasions only.
Funny in a way, not the first thing I’d say about it though. Makes complete sense, the whole idea of Lemmy and the fediverse aligns way more with leftist ideology. It was the first instance I blocked too, it’s very nice to be able to have a nice space with varied opinions without the one big extreme that’s objectively (IMO) bad.
It’s not really “funny” but ironic perhaps.
Funny haha vs funny peculiar
thanks, I found it now. fwiw, I asked Perplexity if I can block instances and was told it can only be done by the admin defederating with them. can’t always trust that thing!
I agree that blocking these instances will dramatically improve your experience.
I barely can go a day i the fediverse without my pro-peace socialist democratic views being classified as facism or nazi-apologia.
There are a lot of users who are ‘eternally vigilant’ and think anyone who isn’t with them, is automatically their enemy.
Could it be cause you say shit like this?
It might be worth adding that there is some backlash on BlueSky for their shared blocklists recently because they can accidentally catch reasonable people or be militarised to deliberately grab extra people. Or at least that’s my take. Personally I now consider a lot of social media along the lines of “if I might not feel comfortable with you around the wife and kids, then a block is reasonable like not inviting you to the next dinner party” and that having a block that you can click through removes a lot of these issues (collapsed post /comment with no title unless you click type thing)
Yeah, that’s why I mentioned votes — I think that it’d make sense to be able to maybe do something like build a score aggregated from multiple lists or something.
Another thing I’ve mentioned in the past is using this as a mechanism for tagging. The NSFW flag was a hack that Reddit put in because some people wanted to browse Reddit at work and some people wanted to post stuff that wouldn’t be considered acceptable in most work contexts. There are many, many different categories that someone might want to “tag” things on. Some people are fine with nudity. Some people are fine with gore. Some people are fine with suggestive content. Some people object to specific items in the above. I think that it will never be the case that everyone will manually tag their own content in all the same areas, but it could be the case that someone could create “lists” that one could subscribe to that could permit that sort of tagging; same mechanism.
Yeah, tags/labels are useful but do run into:
-
scaling issues
- you can end up with an overwhelming amount of tags
- if moderator adds tags then the post quantity can be overwhelming
-
abuse
- if poster side then not adding the tag
- if viewer side then adding it when the poster disagrees
-
disagreements
- what constitutes a given label - so most moderation arguments
Still, agreed they’re a useful addition
-
Great answer! Good to see a balanced take.
Lemmy has developed a habit of branding anything it dislikes as “fascist” or “nazi,” even neutral reporting from outlets like AP. I’ve even seen news articles from AP get called fascist propaganda simply because they reported facts in a neutral tone instead of demanding that all Republicans be removed from society.
Nuance isn’t a strong point for a lot of Lemmy ragers. Many users came from Reddit after bans or because they found Reddit insufficiently leftist. Lemmy calling Reddit “conservative” is wildly out of touch.
So it’s especially nice to see a reasonable, level-headed reply here.
From what I can tell, Lemmy started as wildly left but if you avoid the .ml areas, you’re going to get a much broader mix of views.
goes on communist website
built by communists that got kicked out of reddit
i like this, but what about all those communists???
I’m still gonna pick on you communist but that’s after we’re done with the Nazis.
Friedrich Engels once said: “Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism.” What does “regression into barbarism” mean to our lofty European civilization? Until now, we have all probably read and repeated these words thoughtlessly, without suspecting their fearsome seriousness. A look around us at this moment shows what the regression of bourgeois society into barbarism means. This world war is a regression into barbarism. The triumph of imperialism leads to the annihilation of civilization. At first, this happens sporadically for the duration of a modern war, but then when the period of unlimited wars begins it progresses toward its inevitable consequences. Today, we face the choice exactly as Friedrich Engels foresaw it a generation ago: either the triumph of imperialism and the collapse of all civilization as in ancient Rome, depopulation, desolation, degeneration – a great cemetery. Or the victory of socialism, that means the conscious active struggle of the international proletariat against imperialism and its method of war. This is a dilemma of world history, an either/or; the scales are wavering before the decision of the class-conscious proletariat. The future of civilization and humanity depends on whether or not the proletariat resolves manfully to throw its revolutionary broadsword into the scales. In this war imperialism has won. Its bloody sword of genocide has brutally tilted the scale toward the abyss of misery. The only compensation for all the misery and all the shame would be if we learn from the war how the proletariat can seize mastery of its own destiny and escape the role of the lackey to the ruling classes.
This was Rosa Luxemburg in 1915. The regression into barbarism was brutal. Lets not lose sight of “the only compensation for the misery and all the shame”
It appears our bourgeois have decided barbarism is the way. Good Quote.
No, you got the wrong message
“Bourgeois society” is a society that has the “proletarian <-> bourgeois” contradiction, not “the society of the bourgeoisie”.
The bourgeoisie don’t have the option to decide. They have to go with barbarism or there won’t be a bourgeoisie anymore. They cannot choose socialism ever, it’s scientifically impossible. They’d have to become class traitors first. Commit class suicide. Only then, when they are no longer bourgeoisie can they choose. Here is great excerpt of “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific” by Engels that talks about Robert Owen who experienced this first hand (and who eventually committed class suicide very much to his credit) https://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/o/w.htm#owen
Thank you for the explanation. I hadn’t had my first coffee yet. I catch your drift now.
oh not at all, it’s an easy mistake to make when someone isn’t versed in communist terminology.
I might have skipped the majority of communist theory except a few excerpts here and there. But I’m here to learn.
It’s a federated platform, it doesn’t operate by the same rules as traditional social media. This is like getting angry that people you don’t like use E-Mail.
You don’t typically see messages from people you don’t like on email.
Then see people in Lemmy, mostly the .ml type crowd, who rage on about how Piefed is bad and should be avoided for being full of liberals.
Oh
A new user on my blocklist
I know of no one who actually esposes conservative principles to me. pay as you go, rainy day funds, infrastructure investment, efficient social safety nets, rule of law (constitution and founding principles respected even seperation of church and state), middle of the road (balancing state power [regulations] and private power). This is a us centric view though were our conservative party has seem to have thrown out all conservative principles. I do see plenty of generally left of center moderate liberals (don’t get me wrong a lot of ultra left too) although again often presented nowadays like ultra left views. Folks who don’t want to see an end to all capitalism but want to limit wealth disparity and the effect of money on politics, have social safety nets like universal healthcare and equitable public education, sensible regulation, progressive taxes, efforts to limit global warming fallout, etc.
Probably because none of those are exclusively conservative values, they’re if anything, generally liberal ones.
It’s looking very much like exclusive conservative values are those of exclusion and prejudice.
today but its been this fall the party has taken over time. go look what teddy roosevelt did and this was not one of those congress just happened to do it during his presidency. He was fully behind and putting forth a lot of it. This is what they mean by democrats being right of republicans. you go back far enough and republicans actually had some stuff besides lower regulation and taxes on the wealthy. they actually were behind tax increases because of the pay as you go thing. Really nixon sorta started the fall even though he did some stuff that was do to pressure on him along with stuff he wanted to do but abandoned or reversed course due to pressure. Then you get reagan who through out a lot of thier financial stuff and that was pretty much the lower regulation and lower taxes on weatlhy were all that mattered. They still gave some lip service to things like moral stances or trump to get the religious folks on their side but even that is going out the window. its crazy when you look at the changes in the party from roosevelt to nixon to reagan to bush jr. to trump.
You can block individual instances, I have a long list of instances that I have blocked.
What I first did is to limit my home feed to ‘subscribed’ only. Doing so, I don’t see anything from communities I’m not already subscribed to. And since I’ve made a rather… careful selection of those communities (from various instances), I seldom have have to deal with low quality content/noise. Making it a lot quicker to remove the occasional nuisance that passes through.
I’m a big fan of the subscribed only home feed. I see so much less hateful things since I started doing that.
I joined about two years ago, and to get the most content I have kept browsing All, however that is annoying when some new guy decide to set up a new NSFW community outside of the NSFW branded instances and I have to block them individually.
When lemmynsfw existed most people went there to post, but some either didn’t like the instance or didn’t know about it and posted on generic instances.
I don’t want to turn on NSFW filtering in general, as it is used in memes and jokes, but I don’t want porn on my main account, that is what my alt is used for.
You’re not alone in this. Just keep blocking the offending communities or instances until your feed’s balance suits you.
.world is the answer as long as you remove the reasonable part.
“reasonable is not what i describe conservatives, they are everything but that” they are immediately blocked.
