Yep. Conservative opinions are definitely becoming more common across lemmy... I've had so many "I'm not transphobic, but... ' type comments to moderate in the last few weeks
this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2024
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It definitely seems like it. There's also been surprisingly high amounts of upvotes on questionable comments lately. I wouldn't be surprised if lemmy as a whole is getting astroturfed, but I can't say that for certain because I rarely venture out of Beehaw. Don't be afraid to make a report if you see something.
Yeah, the ladybird thread turned into a tech-bro dumpster fire.
It was an overreaction on both sides. Kling's reason to deny the original PR was stupid, but going after him with metaphorical torches and pitchforks, 3 years after the fact, and expecting a civil response is even stupider. Opening issues and commenting just to complain about the noun usage is a lose-lose situation and bound to attract the worst people to defend Kling's "don't bring your political agenda here" point.
Here's another example of unnecessary drama.
That's the one that caught my eye, too.
Yeah. It's frustrating. This sort of thing seems to tend to happen in any online space during U.S. election years, you would hope that a smaller community would be insulated from hateful mindsets. Unfortunately, I think there's just no way to truly know someones intentions until they reveal them through action, so short of being suspicious of everything and limiting instance interaction to invite or application only isn't even the best way of going about it.
Generally, my go to is a humanitarian centered response from the capitalist perspective to meet them at their level. If these are real people, they must have someone they care about. Meet them there first, then meet them with the money mindset. We volunteer for a Healthcare for Everyone organization and my parnter loves talking to conservative businessmen who are against this, because all she needs to say is "wouldn't it be great if the government paid for your employees healthcare instead of having to waste so much money giving insurance coverage to them?". A solid 40% heavily reconsider their previous stance, simply because they realize they can benefit in a way they didn't know about.
I give humanitarian solutions while trying actively to not start attacking their mindset or their character. I vehemently oppose the fascism they follow, but any opportunity we can take to get people to see how awful and unprofitable it is, then I'll take that chance. I've maybe had 15-20% positive interactions from this, but it's also for the people on the fence reading, if there are any. But it is nice when the actual person I'm responding to has a moment of realization that things could be different with just a few changes. Usually they'll ask, "if it's so easy then just how do we do it?". And I tell them we have to get involved locally, because that is the only way to start making changes towards the top. If every small city in America legitimately demanded that their reps make the changes we want, what choice would they have except to be voted out and be replaced by those of us who will make it happen.
Then there's the bots who I mostly just ignore and can hardly give the time of day to. I'll go maybe one responding comment initially if I have the time and energy and leave it at that. Sometimes I do wish this instance had a downvote button for that reason, but overall it's a net positive still IMO.
At least for the turfing-bots; you have the option of a report. IDK so much about the stubborn humans.
I’ve noticed a few things here and there, especially when joining in on news threads on .world
It’s mind blowing how racist I’ve seen people be, and I’ve seen some wild anti-queer stances too.
.world is awful. I honestly think it is legitimately worse than r/All of Reddit, even today.
At least the actual people on r/All are there for entertainment and fun.
Honestly, I agree. I've cleaned up the thread a bit but it still seems pretty nasty.
I've personally had the opinion that we should go for a more isolationist approach with an allow-list when we move away from Lemmy and into Sublinks. I think it's worth trying.
Personally, I really wish we could have an invite system, I feel like it'd be better than asking a friend to fill a form - that feels a bit rough. It would also encourage word of mouth and organic growth imo. And people tend to have likeminded friends so it would probably help form culture.
As a side note, I think we need some new blood in moderation teams, I think some people have moved on.
I've always favored a smaller pool of federated servers. I know it sounds gatekeepy, but I'd go as far as not federating with any server that doesn't require an application to join. There's not that many Beeple, and it wouldn't take very much for someone hostile to our ideals to overwhelm us with sheer numbers. Just adding that little bit of friction should help immensely for maintaining our culture.
Of course, I don't expect this sentiment would be too popular, after all, there's a large contingent of users who want the biggest Threadiverse they can get. Furthermore, we'd get cut off from a bunch of communities if we did this. Perhaps we could consider a few more in house communities should we decide to go more isolationist.
If you go with the invite approach, I would desperately like to join you despite not being on beehaw itself at the moment. I was actually planning to sign up for the ultra-curated experience, after finding that both “uncurated” and “lightly curated” are not awesome for me, but then I came across this info a few days back, and figured I should hold off; Idk what your policy is at the moment for taking new users if you plan to move.
Increasingly I’m disenchanted with Lemmy as a whole, it doesn’t feel welcoming or communal, and would like to go with you when you move to a different fedi platform, but because I’m not part of your server now, I have no idea when that’s going to happen or anything. And I don’t want to miss out :(
I think we would probably keep applications to allow people who may not have friends that can invite them here. We may be more strict with the answers though.
I, personally would still like to allowlist places which I think are pretty good. Though, ideally I would like one-way federation so beeple can still explore places which don't necessarily meet the standard we set for allowlist.
Ah! I seem to have missed the sublinks-chatter. Good to hear there's an alternative in flight. I assumed after the money-related-tomfoolery that the talks to migrate to a new platform were on hold indefinitely.
Along with potential reasons mentioned in this post, right wing folks also have fewer obvious places to go troll now that twitter is just filled with them and Hershey's or whatever. Perhaps they are coming here looking for trouble specifically.
It's also possible they've always been here and have just found more reasons to engage recently. Either way, the amount of bad faith discussion and derisive language is frustrating and upsetting.
I have just been blocking individuals if I find myself getting frustrated, but I also took a long break from social media because I felt like the discussions about Gaza were bordering toxic, so I'm not sure my approach is sustainable.
I'm so glad I'm not the only one who noticed... it's disheartening and frustrating.
The most recent example I’ve noticed is around the stuff with the Ladybird devs being weird about being asked to use inclusive pronouns, but it seems like a pattern.
You mean the thread where you out of nowhere called the maintainers "incels, transphobes, and racists" over singular instance of them using "he/him" as a gender-neutral pronouns in documentation and refusing to change it?
Bringing this topic back up here in this manner is really inappropriate.
Both threads appeared on my feed near one another and I figured it was on topic given that the other one is directly referenced in the main post here. If OP can reference another post to complain about hate, I think it's fair game for me to truthfully add that their conduct in the very same thread was also excessively hateful - how else are we to discuss the main subject of this post at all otherwise?
Two wrongs do not make a right. Ad hominem is not a discussion.
This isn’t about establishing a right, but providing information on a possible path out of the hatred: self reflection and self improvement, to start with one’s own hatred.
It’s the most reliable path out, because a person actually can change themselves.
See this post? This post is what I'm talking about. This is weird.
When I created an account here, I thought Beehaw is specifically a platform where throwing vitriol unnecessarily is discouraged.
Non-native speaker being stubborn about not using "they/them" in gender-neutral contexts (especially when most if not all of these weren't even about people) is not enough to label them as neither incel, transphobe, nor racist.
Intentionally mischaracterizing other human beings and calling them derogatory names that they don't deserve is, in my opinion, against the spirit of the platform.
I'm not intentionally mischaracterizing anyone, or for that matter unintentionally mischaracterizing them.
My takeaway from reading the post and looking at their comments on Github is that the developers have a disdain for women, a disdain for trans folks, and a disdain for anyone who doesn't look like them. They do not want to have to think about anyone else at all, and they make it very clear.
I don't know what to tell you other than go read it yourself. If you don't come to the same conclusions, we're probably very different people who see the world very differently.
Personally, when I see the kinds of responses yourself and others have made to that topic of discussion, it feels to me like you haven't actually done any of the reading.
I have read the blog post that you've linked, which is full of exaggeration.
The developer rejected PR that changed documentation to use one instance of they/them instead of he/him, responded "This project is not an appropriate arena to advertise your personal politics.", and then promptly got brigaded. Similar PRs were appearing and getting closed from time to time.
A satirical PR has been opened and closed for being spam - despite the blogger's commentary, it's abundantly clear that the developer didn't call the person opening the PR a "spam" (what would that even mean?).
The project also had code of conduct modified, probably due to the brigading, to essentially include the aforementioned "not an appropriate arena to advertise your personal politics or religious beliefs" line - I don't know what part of this is for the blogger a "white supremacist" language.
From what I can tell, this is all they've done. No racism, no sexism, no white supremacy. Would it be better if they just accepted the PR? Yes. Does it make the developer part of one of the worst groups of people that ever existed? No.
If you want to discuss the merits (or dismerits) of the Ladybird dev, I ask that both of you please keep it in the other thread. You're getting off topic here.
I think it might just be lurkers who have finally found something to post on, but who knows. But with the ladybird posts it does feel like outside influence. A lot of replies in my post were from brand new accounts.
Yeah I just blocked the free and open source software page because of the type of conversations they are having and the amount of people "dunking" on boogeymans like SJWs and "wokeness". Yuck.
I don't like the idea of blocking a Beehaw community, especially one I actually use, but honestly I might do the same if it keeps up. It's a bummer.
I agree, it is unfortunate it came to that. I really wanted to keep that community in my feed because there is a lot of content worth checking out from there. Ultimately I operate on a 3 strikes policy, and they crossed it so out they go.
It's ramping up absolutely everywhere.
Even in niche hobby subreddits (the only subs I still use) keep shoehorning political takes. The trolls and bots are cranking it up everywhere, it's like they want it to be inescapable
I made !pleasantpolitics@slrpnk.net for this exact reason. I wouldn't describe the influx of shit opinions as exclusively conservative, but it's definitely an influx, and it definitely requires some type of different reaction than the four unsatisfying horsemen of blocking, defederating, replying to each one until your fingers start to hurt, or seething silently. And every so often having a moderator delete one explicitly racist comment isn't the answer.
The model I am trying to make is that if you're consistently getting downvotes from trusted members of the community, out you go. The theory is that that will make the whole thing less excruciating. You can look more about it at !santabot@slrpnk.net. I don't know if it it going to work. But something must be done.
Edit: Fixed the link. There is no Pleastant Politics.
Oh that's an interesting tool. I've been thinking of working on something like that, but it seems someone has put in the work already, neat! I will be paying attention at that experimental community, seems promising.
As an outside instance member, I've noticed it too.
I really would be disappointed to see every single thread here slowly inundated with pettiness and hate.
Then maybe reconsider your default response to outside views of:
blocking them all individually or reporting particularly grievous examples
Just a thought
honestly, it feels like the Threadiverse is slowly turning into Reddit (in a bad way). There's so much toxicity and right-wing talking points all over the network. You can see it in nearly every community, on many different instances.
As the original poster for the ladybird post, I never expected the conversation to get so far off track from "this open source project receiving funding and thus have a better chance of success"
Yet here we are
Maybe it's appropriate and not just coincidence that I saw this post https://beehaw.org/post/14861248 so close to yours. Maybe it's an explanation for what you think maybe it's not who am I to know