Agreed. When I first came here I thought Lemmy would be open to all points of view.
Lemmy already experienced Wolfballs, the de-facto right-wing instance, which their admin closed once they realized they were hosting a Nazi bar who were actually serious about White Nationalist nonsense and not just joking to “troll the lib snowflake”. We tried it, it wasn’t fun. Free speech absolutism is a pointless idealist approach to society - building a community where anyone can express anything will drive away people who want useful discussions and don’t want to be regularly dehumanized for their existence (not their opinions or acts, but their existence). Diversity of opinion and the freedom to express is productive and constructive, but only up to a point. If someone came on here and persistently and seriously advocated that everyone whose name begins with an “M” should be publicly executed… what’s the point in tolerating that point of view? It brings none of the benefits of free expression. It’s a waste of time that doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously. And if it weren’t so silly and people actually did get lynched for having a name starting with “M”, it would be threatening and make people uncomfortable being here. If this “M” example seems too ridiculous, replace it with something equally pointless like “not being straight” or “not being white”, which people do get killed for.
If this site were sprinkled with literal neo-Nazis and child abuse advocates (this isn’t a mythical “what if”, one can go to plenty of “free speech extremist” forums to see these people in action), then would you stick around? I’d go to somewhere else where I wouldn’t have to see that pointless trash. And this isn’t because of some mindless intolerance of political views - I’ve had serious political conversations with actual Mussolini-reading Fascists - but because some points of view are inherently antisocial, willfully repulsive and exclusionary, and they inevitably destroy communities. There’s no material reason to be open to their antisocial points of view, it doesn’t benefit the community or bring useful insight. It’s an abstract right which causes more harm than benefit, more oppression than liberty. It’s a waste of time and space.
Lemmy already experienced Wolfballs, the de-facto right-wing instance, which their admin closed once they realized they were hosting a Nazi bar who were actually serious about White Nationalist nonsense and not just joking to “troll the lib snowflake”. We tried it, it wasn’t fun. Free speech absolutism is a pointless idealist approach to society - building a community where anyone can express anything will drive away people who want useful discussions and don’t want to be regularly dehumanized for their existence (not their opinions or acts, but their existence). Diversity of opinion and the freedom to express is productive and constructive, but only up to a point. If someone came on here and persistently and seriously advocated that everyone whose name begins with an “M” should be publicly executed… what’s the point in tolerating that point of view? It brings none of the benefits of free expression. It’s a waste of time that doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously. And if it weren’t so silly and people actually did get lynched for having a name starting with “M”, it would be threatening and make people uncomfortable being here. If this “M” example seems too ridiculous, replace it with something equally pointless like “not being straight” or “not being white”, which people do get killed for.
If this site were sprinkled with literal neo-Nazis and child abuse advocates (this isn’t a mythical “what if”, one can go to plenty of “free speech extremist” forums to see these people in action), then would you stick around? I’d go to somewhere else where I wouldn’t have to see that pointless trash. And this isn’t because of some mindless intolerance of political views - I’ve had serious political conversations with actual Mussolini-reading Fascists - but because some points of view are inherently antisocial, willfully repulsive and exclusionary, and they inevitably destroy communities. There’s no material reason to be open to their antisocial points of view, it doesn’t benefit the community or bring useful insight. It’s an abstract right which causes more harm than benefit, more oppression than liberty. It’s a waste of time and space.