this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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Asklemmy
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Censorship. All the major subreddits became political echo-chambers. Reddit was founded on free speech and open discourse, especially when it was really uncomfortable. I'd love to see the same for Lemmy. Over the years I've seen authoritarianism creep into the moderation policies of most major subreddits. Today, even posting on the wrong subreddit is grounds for being banned from dozens of major subreddits. Even having a polite disagreement about, for example, anything to do with "trans," is grounds for being banned.
So the one thing on Reddit that you wish to leave behind is mods deleting transphobic comments? Lol
Would you please quote where I wrote that?
No problem. I quoted it below. If you need something even more specific, I am referring to the part where you say something that's obviously not true and put the word trans between quotation marks in order to further emphasize the impolite nature of your "disagreement":
Can you be more specific about the type of authoritarianisms you wish to avoid?
Many centrist are closet transphobes and often use the verbage of authoritarianism as a dog whistle.
I'm a centrist with a trans kid and no issues beyond worrying how they'll be treated by transphobes
Being a centriphobe is still bigotry
"Being a centriphobe is still bigotry"
Generally it's not bigotry when your critizes peoples choices. It's usually reserved for things people can't change. Like their race.
Example
"Centrist ideas are usually not well thought out"
See this isn't bigotry because you could have better ideas.
I'm glad your good with your trans kid tho.
Hatred of proponents of political affiliations generally isn't viewed as bigotry because it is quite easy to stop being a proponent of a political affiliation. It is much more difficult (or impossible) to stop believing in your religion, to not be gay, to not be black.
I don't like bigotry and centrism is, depending on your interpretation, either support of the wretched status quo or support of a mixture of progressive and backwards policy. Neither position is respectable.
I definitely get what you mean and I think the idea that you can get away with no censorship is naive. However, they could just as easily be talking about r/conservatives use of conservative only posts and their banning of anyone sharing opposing viewpoints.
Anything to do with "trans"?
I'm sorry I'm not sure how else to describe it. Trans people are those who believe their sex doesn't match how they feel inside.
I am aware of the concept of being transgender I am just wondering what your "polite disagreements" are with it
Are you genuinely interested or just looking to start a fight? I know recreational outrage is a thing on Reddit and I had hoped to leave it there.
No I'm genuinely interested to hear your perspective and why it was a point of contention
I'd say that a fairly debated topic related to transgender people, which isn't just transphobes attacking people trying to live their own life, is the presence of transgender athletes in competitions. Some will take it as a personal attack whether you take a side or sit on the fence. I'm not looking to start that conversation here, but yeah. It's definitely possible to hold a polite conversation about this while disagreeing on parts of the question. In a healthy space.
I think that after HRT the difference is not that big. Trans athletes may even be at the disadvantage since there are some cis woman that have higher than average amount of testosterone.
In the long shot I think it would be for the best to abolish gender based separation altogether and replace it with something more like weight categories.
Consider two 5'6" 65kg athletes, one man and one woman, are you saying that the man doesn't have an advantage?
I used to believe the same until I saw the recent Women's Premier League in Cricket. They had to reduce the size of field and the weight of ball. Even with that, the fastest bowl in the tournament was 130kmph while that speed is considered a "slower ball" in men's cricket.
Now some of these female cricketers earm more than any Pakistani male cricketers. Which is fair, bigger market, bigger payout. But female cricketers don't stand a chance against the male cricketers
Okay thanks for the input
All good! Sorry for the paragraph. I'm just bad a writing short messagesβ¦ π
I disagree, that isn't a "polite disagreement" and is, absolutely, "just transphobes attacking people trying to live their own life" as you put it. Every time that "Argument" happens it's openly done in biologically unfounded ways by people who simply don't understand how our bodies actually work- yet those arguments get mass upvoted by people who also don't understand how biology actually works and who believe that trans athletes get some insane, unfair advantage.
If you want to pass laws to restrict trans people from sports, then you want to pass laws to discriminate against trans people. That's not really up for debate IMO, it's a straight up fact; it's what you're doing when you advocate for laws that are not founded in science, that are specifically targeting a tiny minority for the chance that one of that tiny minority might beat cis athletes in an "unfair" way, you're advocating for bigoted laws.
Such arguments are also inevietably filled with people misgendering trans people, deliberately calling trans women "men" and hiding behind the "I'm talking about biology" argument to do so.
Replace the word "trans" with "black" and you'll find that people are making literally identical arguments to those against desegregating professional sports leagues 80 years ago. Literally word for word.
That's the same here unfortunately.
It also sucks when you're not American, like Reddit auto-banned a load of Irish and Brits discussing stopping smoking due to the colloquial term there.
Unfortunately all these American-based websites really force the American views and positions on everyone.
Well that explains it. I'm not American either and I really feel like I'm being forced into their weird social war. I just want to talk about cool gadgets without some culture warrior banning me everywhere because I didn't show the requisite fealty to whatever the current thing is.
Yeah, one thing I hope to leave behind with Reddit is every major subreddit farming outrage w.r.t. American politics.
It just became exhausting and made me unsub from a lot of the big subreddits. So far, Lemmy has been quite positive! It's refreshing.
I don't know if it is true but I feel like Lemmy is not really USA centric at the moment. More like assuming that a user could be from any country. I think that we should keep it that way.
Yeah, I got banned from loads of random subreddits for posting in /r/LockdownSkepticism just supporting the policy of where I live (in Sweden). It was bizarre.
Likewise if you dared oppose the US-specific policy of forcing toddlers to wear face-masks. Wasn't a thing anywhere in Europe, but you'd get banned for misinformation on Reddit.
A subreddit I moderate, /r/moderatepolitics, has had to do a delicate balancing act around this. There are site-wide rules banning many statements around trans people, and the red lines are not well defined. Reddit's "Anti-Evil Operations" (site-wide moderation team) frequently swoops in and deletes comments that are offensive to trans people, but well within current political discourse in the US. That has undermined our mission of being a forum for diverse voices to hold productive but difficult discussions. At a certain point, we entirely banned the discussion of trans issues because one side was able to speak freely and the other side was walking on egg shells. I'm solidly pro-trans, but that's no way to have a conversation.
This likely was done to try to keep Reddit from becoming a cesspool like the "free speech" sites like Gab, but it has turned out to be a lazy way that short circuits necessary conversations.
There is only one necessary converation around trans people, in which trans people say, Let us exist without being harassed or persecuted, and everyone else says, OK. Anything else is just allowing bigots a platform.
I wish the world worked that way, but in practice there are just too many ignorant people out there. They can walk out their front door and talk to their neighbors who are more than willing to pass on the latest slander about trans people. Our sub's mission is to provide a space where they can try to pass on something resembling the latest slander and get push back. As-is, too much of the US is so segregated by ideology that people may not ever meet an out trans person. We want to foster those human-to-human connections instead of letting them rely on Tucker Carlson's latest Very Concerned mouth diarrhea.
Edit: I value safe spaces for their function as a reprieve for trans people, and I don't think every platform should provide a space for unrestricted speech. But at the same time, I think it's beneficial to have some spaces that require a bare minimum of good behavior so that society can talk about these topics and move forward into a better future. There's too much ignorance of trans people as-is.