bearboiblakeMar 3

Meme criticising the US two-party system deleted from lemmy.world; now I'm not allowed to post political posts at all

https://pawb.social/post/40594416

Meme criticising the US two-party system deleted from lemmy.world; now I'm not allowed to post political posts at all - Pawb.Social

I posted this meme [https://anarchaos.s3.eu-central-003.backblazeb2.com/posts/Zf/kn/ZfknNc5Yawq7d0f.png] to the Lemmy Shitpost community [https://lemmy.world/c/lemmyshitpost]. I reckoned that it might generate a bit of debate, and would probably end up locked, but the entire post got deleted, and moreover, I’m now forbidden from sharing political posts to the community. Political posts are not against the rules of the community. [https://pawb.social/pictrs/image/3ac17a24-98e8-4ba2-9975-2fd637bc81f0.png] [https://pawb.social/pictrs/image/629203b1-41f1-434f-8f3c-9ae893de0f58.png] I have reason to believe that the post was deleted not because it was controversial, but because the moderator (Decoy321) disagreed with the political slant of the meme. The reason I find this suspicious is because other controversial posts, such as one about veganism [https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/55430539] remains up, and Decoy321 seemed to enjoy the fact it was controversial: [https://pawb.social/pictrs/image/058deb11-1d6f-4ab0-80d1-4b9ffc036f1a.png]

Show threadNotSteve_
Nah I reported your post too. Stop spamming US internal political shit in the shitpost community. Keep that to a US politics community
Mar 3 at 5:24pmWeb
Show threadbearboiblakeMar 3
Thanks for sharing and being honest and I totally get it, but don’t you think that should be a rule that’s fairly and equally enforced, not just applied to posts that the mods personally disagree with?
Show threadNotSteve_Mar 3
Yeah fair point, it definitely should be applied equally and its not right if its only subject to mods’ opinions. I really wish the community would ban political posts entirely
Show threadWrenMar 3

The problem with banning politics is determining what’s considered political. Not long ago divorce, adoption, abortion, nazis, and women wearing pants were hot topics. Now it’s immigration, queer folks, abortion and nazis again, and men wearing skirts.

I’d rather endure some of that doom and gloom through a shipost than the rapid onslaught of panic-inducing headlines.

Show threadhendrikMar 3
Old-school internet forums usually did that. Not sure about all the nuance and specifics to meme groups… Just saying it’s not a generally impossible thing, or a new idea.
Show threadWrenMar 4
Not saying it hasn’t been done, I’m saying it’s hard to do well. I’ve seen “women’s issues” and “pronouns” included under “politics,” in old-school and new forums, which is why I’m hesitant to agree with no-politics rules.
Show threadhendrikMar 4

Sure. I’d consider them politics as well. Those are all topics with a very high chance someone comes along with some (weird) opinion and makes the discussion derail. And then everyone stops discussing the scifi computer game or Linux, and homes in on the controversial topic with a lot of feelings involved.

I think the big cultural achievement is: Forum members have all agreed to live a certain culture. They do it together and there’s some group cohesion and a pre-made agreement to all pull in the same direction. So what I’ve seen a lot of work isn’t done by the mods, but people all identify with the rules and the next random person will step in and state “it’s getting political again”, and then everybody else is cautious not to add to the drama.

I think we lost that with social media. And there’s also less group cohesion here. So we end up handling it out of band, mods have to delete posts. Plus we regularly have to peck out the rules again and again… I mean it’s not as bad as my words make it out to be. And this isn’t entirely down to design and hierarchy. But also group dynamics changed, there’s more regular people online than some 15 years ago instead of nerds amongst themselves. And I think politics became way more polarized.

Ultimately, it’s all part of our lives. There’s obviously demand to discuss politics, pronouns, the crazy setup US Americans call a political system… And I think they’re all valid topics. We just have to figure out a way to make it work. Which isn’t easy. But I think the Fediverse is up to something. Our basic idea allows us to customize the experience, steer clear of some things or dive down… I think we just have to strike some balance and put in some more work because politics is such an all-consuming topic.

Show threadWrenMar 4

The person who comes along with their disruptive opinions should be moderated, not people who simply exist. Being a woman or having chosen pronouns isn’t dramatic.

If someone is uncomfortable with a topic they can simply disengage and start their own thread on their chosen subject.

It’s either accept that no one agrees on what’s considered political, or have firm rules about subjects that can and can’t be discussed.

Show threadhendrikMar 4

Hmmh. I think I largely agree… There’s definitely a red line. Things like disrespecting people is unacceptable. That’s what misgendering and questioning pronouns is largely about. And people trying to walk the line and other kinds of behaviour are highly problematic. And done to hurt people. On the other hand I wish we’d come up with a more human way to address these things. Other than implement some super strict rules, enforce them to the letter (to be fair). And then we resort to the ban hammer as the first tool of choice.

I mean in reality there’s a lot of nuance. Sometimes even I make mistakes, and I really appreciate someone takes the time out of their day to confront me. Instead of just going the easy route with the delete or downvote button. I sometimes don’t like to subscribe to the friend or foe mentality and be a bit harsh with people. Sometimes I’ll have a different perspective because I speak a language that doesn’t offer simple words like “driver” and all we have is cumbersome phrasings like “person who drives a car” to phrase it in a way that doesn’t bring in the person’s gender, or leaves out non-binary people. And then I’ll make some snarky remark, but of course that gets people the wrong way… I mean sometimes it is a bit complicated to be a human. And I’m still not sure if confrontation isn’t just part of life.

Of course the people who just exist are entitled to exist. There’s no reason to allow trolls (or whoever) just molest them. I’m just not really convinced that a strict, hierarchical rule-system is going to do what we need to do.