Lemmy – A link aggregator for the fediverse

For what it’s worth if your leftists will only talk to people who already accept their worldview and assume everyone else is like Ben Shapiro, it validates the point that they are not available for the kinds of discussion we are talking about.

While the core Lemmy team has been intransigent about this feature, it is pretty clear why they have taken the position they have. They understand something a lot of people here seem to miss. That creating an alternative to Reddit / Twitter / Facebook / etc. is much more a social project than it is a technological project. It doesn't matter how slick your software is. Hell, Reddit's user interface is still dogshit. So is Twitter's. People don't use these platforms for their technological aspects. They use them because of the community.

A former Reddit admin by the name of Deimos decided to create a Reddit alternative as well, named Tildes. The software itself is nothing special. Just another bare-bones link aggregator like Reddit or Hacker News. What made it unique was the "manifesto" and philosophy behind it, which basically boiled down to "place value on effort-posts instead of low-effort slop" and "If your website is full of assholes, you are an asshole."

The failure to recognize this is the reason why a lot of the early Reddit alternatives like Voat instantly turned to dogshit. They were born from a knee-jerk reaction to Reddit getting rid of communities like FatPeopleHate and C**Town, so the only people who migrated were people who were such enormous assholes that they couldn't even fit in on Reddit (a website which is already notoriously full of assholes).

Instead of actually trying to build and nurture a community, or even think of their goal in the terms of a social project, they just tried pushing the technology button. Don't even get me started on the folks who tried to fix Reddit's problems by doing Reddit but blockchain.

The point of federation is autonomy. Communities can decide on their own how they would like to conduct themselves, instead of having Steve Huffman or Mark Zuckerburg write the rules for them. Several alternative social media websites, including instances of Lemmy, have actually sprung up explicitly because of censorship they experienced on the hegemonic corporate platforms.

Hexbear for instance was born from the ashes of r/ChapoTrapHouse, one of the most active (per capita) communities on Reddit. The Reddit staff pulled the plug in the midst of a generational political crisis and mass civil unrest and didn't even have the nerve to cite a single, specific infraction. And now, the community is free to discuss subversive political topics without having to worry about advertiser boycotts applying pressure to have their community shut down.

This idea that free speech starts and ends with the ability to use slurs is among the most idiotic brainworms which persists among libertarians. Nobody in power gives a fuck if you spend your time spitting on people who have even less power than you do. They only care if you can articulate a political program which threatens their ability to rule.

There are large numbers of people who describe themselves today as leftists, and there have been for the past 80 years. People across the political spectrum, academics, and the news media use the term in relation to contemporary politics.

If you are using a definition that stopped being relevant 80 years ago, it will be hard for you to have a coherent discussion with people today.