this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2025
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I don’t see the issue. This is how it was in the early days and things were infinitely better. I’m convinced that the overly paternalistic moderation that overtook online platforms what was gave power to the alt right in the first place.
All online spaces could do with less moderation.
Hello, I was in the "good old days" of the internet. It wasn't the "right-libertarian utopia" that right wingers like to paint it was. Sure people believed in "free speech absolutism", usually until someone whose first "forum" was 4chan, who demanded the same kind of "freedom of speech" they had over there. Also those 4chan bastards were extremely hypocritical with their own "free speech absolutism", as the moment they got doxxed instead of someone they disagreed with, they either backpedalled, just cried like a bitch online, or rarely literally went that they only meant the free speech for themselves. People who actually lived in those days on the interne,t and weren't just heard about it some zoomer internet historian or someone whose first "forum" was an anonymous image board know that 4chan marked the end of the old internet, and marked the beginning of the centralization era (4chan sucked up some traffic from fan forums, similarly to what Facebook did later).
What actually is happening is that if you also peddle the right kind of economic policies for Google, you get whitelisted for hatespeech, meaning moderators are only allowed to act on your hatespeech after consultation with the higher ups. Talk about uBlockOrigin? Banned! Talk about how fascists are cruel in the comment section? Your comment is insta-deleted without explanation by the YouTube automod system. Demonize trans people? Wanna call "bad" black people n****rs? Want to talk about how all women are whores and deserve all their rights being taken away? Make sure you also bitch about taxes, how artists and other workers are "entitled", and write odes about how we need to "move fast and break things, ask for forgiveness later". Google will be happy to play "heel" for your "face" in case of "censorship", so you can have the facade of a freedom warrior.
wtf you talking about. they have been favoring right leaning everything for as long as i can remember.
I agree.
Scumbags want censorship to only be used against those they disagree with.
You're either very young, or very dumb. It is known that every low-moderation platform quickly devolves into nazism and/or child porn.
This person is just looking for an excuse to continuing censoring those he disagrees with.
He likes the abuse of power because it suits his agendas.
He doesn't know he's causing more harm than good, though. And I don't expect him to learn.
That’s no moderation, which isn’t the same as low moderation. Meaning there’s a few red lines that will get you banned.
If people wanna say faggot, they shouldn’t be banned for life from a site. If they want to talk about how Biden is a transdimensional vampire that eats virgins, let them do so fuck it.
A simple vote and downvote system solves many of the issues with over moderation because it’s how it works in the real world. You can say any dumb shit you want at any moment and people will react positively or negatively. It’s simple and elegant and doesn’t push people into forming their own sites and communities where their dumb ass ideas won’t get challenged at all which leads to them reaching the mainstream as it is happening now.
Why don't you run an experiment? Start a Lemmy instance with those ideals!
Most of lemmy is like that already.
It's not. Go on, really run that experiment, then you'll know for sure.
"Your claim is only valid if you first run this elaborate, long-term experiment that I came up with."
The world isn’t binary. When someone says less moderation, they don’t mean no moderation. Framing it as all-or-nothing just misrepresents their view to make it easier for you to argue against. CSAM is illegal, so it’s always going to be against the rules - that’s not up to Google and is therefore a moot point.
As for other content you ideologically oppose, that’s your issue. As long as it’s not advocating violence or breaking the law, I don’t see why they’d be obligated to remove it. You’re free to think they should - but it’s their platform, not yours. If they want to allow that kind of content, they’re allowed to. If you don't like it, don't go there.
You can also look into the long, long list of defunct instances because they got defederated by basically everyone because noone wanted to deal with their shit. Hexbear and lemmygrad don't care if they're defederated because they're platforms to themselves, the instances I'm talking about were basically 4chan, kiwifarms, whatever, chuds getting banned on ordinary instances setting up their own and trying again. When that didn't work the instances collapsed as harassing others was their only purpose.
Nobody is asking for an unmoderated space.
Those instances weren't breaking laws. At least not American ones. It is not illegal to be an incivil assclown, but you are going to get thrown out of the bar.
It’s not a place for incivility that I’m making, either. I just struggle to believe you genuinely don’t understand what people mean when they ask for less moderation or censorship.
I know what they mean when clutching their frozen peaches. It also never works out as they imagine because paradox of tolerance.
No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying your claim is nonsense and if you want a proof, you can run an experiment. Do it or don't do it, your choice. Just don't expect people who have an experience in running an instance to agree with you.
I agree. There just seem to be a fairly widespread pro-censorship sentiment among Lemmy users, usually driven by the desire to block speech that could be harmful to marginalized groups - but in practice, it often extends to broadly silencing all ideas they disagree with. The strawman here tends to be that anyone who wants more free speech just wants to shout slurs and spread (in their view) objectively harmful ideas.