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this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
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Wow so much misinformed hostility against Beehaw here. The mod tools for Lemmy are currently limited and they just want to protect their community from trolls and spam. There's no conspiracy here to break federation.
Beehaw is some pseudo moral purity echo chamber. They consider anyone with a contrary opinion a troll. People create these "safe spaces" under the guise of protecting minority groups, but fuck.. I'm a minority, and I knew immediately I wasn't going to be welcome there.
People are free to judge it as they please.
--edit--
Why aren't other instances having this problem? Like if trolls and spam are such an issue, why do I only see relevant on topic comments in other instances?
The issue isn't trolls, it's political dissent. And if you care about the truth, if you care about having the ability to talk about and express your ideas freely to other people, to have uncomfortable discussions with people you disagree with, to be exposed to new ideas, and fuck.. to possibly even change your mind, you shouldn't support beehaw.
If you genuinely want that type of environment, go for it, but that place should be called out for what it is.
This type of political authoritianism is why I left Reddit. It kills discussion, and I'm here for critical discussion.
Why would you not be welcome? Is it for your political opinions? Even if it were, I don't think they would personally shun you unless it entails attacking minorities.
That aside, and having said that of course it is everyone's perrogative to judge this behavior, I personally feel it is an exaggeration. Not every instance is about free speech nor should they be, at the end of the day the fediverse is about creating communities, one is able and should shape them into what their vision of that is. This is not authoritarianism, in this case they said it is due to their inability to moderate.
Even if it weren't for that, it is good that communities don't federate with every instance, aa I said, not everyone is about free speech and changing opinions some are here to have a good time and for that adequate protection is necessary.
I myself prefer deciding myself when to block other instances, so I joined one that let's users decide. But if other instances decided to block us I would understand and either move on or join another instance to interact with them without thinking much about it (having multiple accounts is kind of easy on the apps,)
I think I'm kind of used from servers blocking one another from my time on mastodon and I've seen the necessity of the practice, for example an anime focused group blocking bot instances, brigading, alt right groups, etc.
Rationally I think this is straight bullshit. Their inability to moderate is because of the desire to control the political direction of topics. If people want an echo chamber, fine, but I'm calling it out.
Yes, that was always allowed. Beehaw is extremely up front about the kinds of voices and perspectives welcome on it. It never claimed to be a bastion of free speech. Complaining about that is like saying you don't like a burger restaurant because they don't serve sushi.
Dude this is a discussion based website, and you're complaining about me complaining? Pot meet kettle.
I think it was Alexander Pope who once said that bad criticism does more harm than bad writing. Same principle applies here. Your criticism is bad. You don't like getting "called out on it," then make a better one.
Dude I'm voicing my opinion. You apparently don't even disagree you just dislike like I'm expressing it? What's your deal?
Your opinion encompasses a criticism of another Lemmy community on the basis that it doesn't operate in a way that you like. Which is fine. But you framed it as a fault of the community itself and not a matter of personal preference. My "deal" is that I don't think that's very cash money of you, pimp.
I don't give two fucks what you think about the "framing" of what I've said. Would you get upset if someone said "McDonald's is shit food" or "Reality TV is shit television"?
Anyways, your criticism has absolutely nothing to do with the content of my comment. You've said you agree with me so 🤷♀️
I guess it depends on the context. If someone said that McDonald's quality was fine for the amount of money you spent and is a fine choice if you're traveling and need to grab something quick to eat and your immediate reply was just that it was shit, I would say that if your opinion is given as a response to someone else's and is poorly worded or thought out, you've automatically opened yourself to having your opinion criticized.
That said, do you not recall that your original response in this thread was to someone who said about Beehaw
And you disagreed with THEIR opinion?
This entire thing is me thinking your opinion is bad, while your original comment was you saying you think someone else's opinion is bad.
Pot, meet kettle.
Dude you've provided exactly zero counterpoints to my position. You think my opinion is bad, fine.
Except, I did. Your claim is that Beehaw is authoritarian. Authoritarianism, however, is a political system. This is an explicit example of hyperbole to the point of misrepresentation because authoritarianism presumably ignores the sovereignty and political rights of the members of a nation state. Beehaw is just a website, one in which you can voluntarily participate, but one in which you're also neither product nor customer. You have no valid claim to any tangible rights on that server. It's much closer to just disliking a restaurant because it doesn't serve the food you want and asks you to leave after you keep ordering stuff they just don't serve. If you want to be able to say slurs or whatever without repercussion, there's plenty of places on the internet you can get your kicks by doing that. You just can't do it there.
Dude you're aware admins/mods are governing bodies right? Authoritarianism applies. If you don't like how I use the word, tough.
By your logic, any position in any institution with any authority of any kind over literally anything or anyone is a "governing body." Which is, to be perfectly honest, very dumb if you genuinely believe that. It means any moderator of any website is, by your definition, authoritarian because they'll ban you for breaking the rules. I'm guessing you think lemmy.ca, lemmy.world, and every other lemmy instance with any kind of moderation is by definition authoritarian in its organization. In which case, I have to wonder...why are you even here if you hate it so much?
Not by my logic, that's how it is, admins govern over communities.
I can understand why my perspective upsets you, you're controlling my dude.
So you admit that you think that literally every mod on every lemmy instance is by definition an authoritarian political entity? Cool. I mean, you're wrong and it's kinda weird to single out one instance for it, but you do you.
Everything in life is a matter of degrees my man. It's odd you don't see this, you seem smart enough.
That doesn't fit here because your own initial argument isn't really even an argument. It's just the assertion that "Beehaw is authoritarian," lacking any supporting argumentation or evidence. I can't misrepresent your argument because you don't even really have an argument. And you're effectively admitting to being unable to answer the question: what makes Beehaw's moderators authoritarian but lemmy.ca or another's not? If you're unable to answer that question, then maybe you just have a weird chip on your shoulder, or maybe you got banned for using a slur and are bitter about it? I don't know what it is, but if you can't defend your own position then you might wanna do the mature thing and admit it.
Sure it does, your inability, or unwillingness to understand isn't really my problem. Beehaw is a politically authoritian echochamber. And I'm not talking about "slurs" as you ignorantly believe, you are not allowed to have politically contrary opinions, that's how the friggen echochamber is maintained.
Anything else you'd like to say?
It's not authoritarianism if your participation is voluntary, bud. Your opinion, as horrific as I can only imagine it is, might not be allowed on Beehaw, but Beehaw moderators can't make you go there and post, either. If you invite someone over to your house and then they start telling you in the middle of dinner they think "[insert group here] deserves the gas chambers," that might be "just an opinion" to them, but you'd be well within your rights to ask them to leave. You're not an "authoritarian" for not tolerating their "difference of opinion," because they have no real right to be there without your consent in the first place. Same deal with any lemmy instance. I'm sorry your feelings are hurt that other people aren't obligated to listen to whatever odious beliefs you have, but I think this XKCD sums it up best.
I'm voluntarily having this conversation, but that doesn't make you any less authoritarian.
Being well within your right to do something doesn't make it not authoritatian.
If you invited me over for a party, and then kicked me out for a political opinion, yes that's authoritianism.
Okay, so, first of all, thank you. I'm really glad you made this comment because it basically just proves by pure example that you literally just don't know what the definition of the word "authoritarian" is.
It's ironic, really, because your own definition of authoritarianism (which is pretty much just people creating and enforcing rules for how you interact with them) implies that what you really don't like is the fact that you lack the ability to force your own will on others. Beehaw's administrators and moderators don't want you there because you insist on being able to voice beliefs that they find offensive or dangerous, but the implication of your criticism of them as "authoritarian" is that you think they shouldn't have the power to keep you out, and that you should have the power to come and go as you please and to say whatever you want without consequence or censure. In other words, you want the authority to force others to cater to your desires and to run the website in a way that benefits you, at the cost of what others may want. If others don't want to be around you or interact with you because they find the way you act to be harmful or offensive, but you think they should be forced to tolerate your presence and be forced to interact with you regardless, then you're saying you think you should be able to impose your own will over theirs.
Does this...remind you of anything?
Dude you project a LOT of convulted shit.
I'm a fucking anarchist 😂 Please quote me exactly where I said I want authority to force others to cater to my desires. The exact sentence.
Also just a heads up, when you start spewing a bunch of bullshit like "it's not authoritianism because you have no valid claim to rights." I don't see the point in arguing. If fudging details makes you feel happy, that's your choice.
And your xkcd comic was shit. I've seen it, and it makes me fucking sad Randall Munroe could produce such ignorant drivel. Freedom of speech exists beyond it's legal representations. Like holy fuck, that is a BAD argument.
For fun, want to go into some of the implications of what you're saying? For example, in a hypothetical would you be okay with beehaw refusing to serve gay members? You'd be okay with that?
And McDonald's could do the same eh? Or XYX cake company. Or a fucking private hospital. Where's your line? Do you have one?
Being an ancap doesn't count. That's not a real ideology.
There's text and then there's subtext. You want access to a private space that can serve as a platform for you to voice your opinions, even when the people already in that private space don't want you there or to have to listen to you. Your desire for authority over that space is a foundational component of that.
It's not bullshit, though, because that's the underlying premise of an authoritarian regime, particularly in a governmental sense: you have an authority that ignores the collective will of the people of a nation state. Those people have a valid claim to rights by virtue of their relationship to that nation as its citizens. You claiming that it's authoritarian to bar your entrance into a private online community is like saying it's authoritarian for someone to lock their doors to keep you out of their house. You don't have some inalienable right to access EVERY single space that exists in the physical or virtual world.
Except, it really doesn't. Private individuals don't owe you a platform. And that's what you're demanding. You seem to be conflating those two things: freedom of speech and a platform. They're different things. You can't be compelled to express opinions that you don't hold by the threat of state violence. That's freedom of speech. But you're also not owed a mechanism by which to broadcast those things. In America, for example, you can put a sign in your yard calling for virtually any kind of political policy change, ideological position, or political candidate that you want. But you don't have the inalienable right to stick the same sign in your neighbor's yard. Your argument is, basically, that, yes, you actually do, and no one should be able to stop you.
Also, it's "its legal representation" not "it's legal representation." "Its" indicates possession. "It's" is a contraction of "it" and "is." Just a heads up, since you don't seem to know the difference.
I'm sure you think this is some big "gotcha," but it isn't. If you recall, I said, "Beehaw’s administrators and moderators don’t want you there because you insist on being able to voice beliefs that they find offensive or dangerous." The implication is that they aren't responding to your identity (such as being LGBT), they're responding to behavior (what you say and do). These are different things, and your hypothetical actively and transparently misrepresents Beehaw's moderators in that regard. That said, there are plenty of privately hosted websites out there that are deeply reactionary. Stormfront is a famous one. Places like this are ran by people who hold beliefs that I find absolutely despicable, and I'm sure they would actively ban anyone who was LGBT, leftist, anti-racist, etc., but I do believe they should have the freedom to host their own terrible little corner of the internet without a government shutting them down or compelling them to conform to some arbitrary standard of behavior. Suggesting otherwise would obviously open the door for a government to do the same to progressive spaces with impunity. Which, historically, most Western governments have already done...a lot. But it seems ill advised to try and make that any easier than it already is.
Your other examples are just terrible to the point of not even being worth individual acknowledgment. Businesses, hospitals, educational institutions, and other, similar organizations are typically subject to anti-discriminatory regulation on the basis of federal funding and some kind of critical material relationship with the populace as a whole. In other words, banning someone from a hospital or from employment on the basis of their identity is a material detriment to the collective public good. Banning someone from a private internet forum, however, is not, because labor, commerce, medical care, and internet forums are all different things that should probably be governed and regulated in different ways. This is, of course, how it is in the USA, but other places have similar statutes. Additionally, if you get money from the government, you automatically play by its rules. Places like Beehaw are private. Totally private. They receive no financial support from any government in any way. Whether you feel any of this is justifiable or not ultimately boils down to your perspective on the concept of freedom of association. You clearly don't believe individuals should be allowed freedom of association, seemingly in any capacity, and I clearly do.
🥱
Dude where did I even say I want access to beehaw? You are completely full of shit. Subtext in this instance is just you making things up.
In your mind yes, we've established your narrow view. In reality, no.
Dude, drop the damn strawman arguments. I can judge beehaw without demanding access to it, which is exactly what I've done.
And you wouldn't see this as authoritatianism? Like you are so dense you're unable to see distinction between communities?
... I'm not a collectivist.
So just to be clear, you don't believe in civil rights on an individual level? You see civil rights as contingent on government funding, and social norms? I see civil rights an an extension of personal autonomy.
So what about pre-civil war when legally blacks weren't seen as people by law or social norms?
What happens when say.. Abortions are determined to be against the collective good by a population? Body rights just stop being a thing?
Anyways I specifically talking about hypotheticals. Government funding and social norms aren't relevant to whether you'd personally be okay with McDonald's discriminating against gays, and whether you could understand that to be authoritarian. To make this easier we can pretend it's a small business under 15 employees with no government funding.
If you don't want access to Beehaw and don't think you're entitled to it, then you must be admitting that you think it was totally okay for them to ban you, then.
This is just pure contradiction. You're not even trying to make an argument anymore.
So you agree that you have no right to any kind of access to that website and that your complaints are purely superficial? Great, that's progress.
I can guarantee I privately believe in civil rights as an ideal more than you do. That includes the rights of the owners and administrators of a website like Beehaw to dictate admission and participation guidelines for their private website. I believe in freedom of association, and you don't. We've already established that much.
You specifically talk in whataboutisms. They're hypotheticals that are irrelevant to the discussion because we're talking about a privately held website, not labor, not healthcare, and not commerce, and we're talking about instances of behavior being policed, not discrimination on the basis of identity. These are fundamentally different things which you merely perceive, wrongly, to be equivalent. Someone banning you for expressing a horrible opinion is not the same thing as someone refusing to provide you with medical care on the basis of being gay. In spite of what you seem to believe, you are not being persecuted for your beliefs. You have merely experienced the "find out" part of "fucking around." These are, once again, different things.
In fact, let's examine what happened: you went on Beehaw and the first comment you made was, essentially, "wow, fuck Beehaw, this place sucks lol, I don't want to EVER see any content from this instance - this place is a stupid fucking echo chamber" and the second one is "I want to be able to talk about how gay people are grooming kids on this website that very explicitly bills itself as a safe space for LGBT persons and other minority groups" and then a mod did you a favor and banned you before you had the opportunity to embarrass yourself further. Seriously, I really don't understand why you're upset that you told the moderators you didn't want anything to do with their website and then they did you the favor of keeping you from ever accidentally posting something there ever again. You very literally did everything in your power to get banned short of explicitly requesting one in writing. And as the first mod that replied to you in your first comment told you, "you don't have to come here if you don't want to." Maybe you should have, I dunno...listened to them?
Duuude... That's all completely irrelevant to beehaw being authoritarian. Beehaw being privately operated isn't a defence from criticism. Not at all. You refuse to accept that, you want to keep relying on a subjective perspective for whatever reason, have at it, you being wrong isn't my problem. I'm done trying to help you understand.
Wait what lmao?! I 100% never said anything about "gay people grooming kids on this website" I dated a crazy controlling person that wanted their daughter to be queer. How you morphed that into the above is... Special. It's interesting how you let bias manipulate everything you say. Even when trying to tell me about my own posts 😂
I personally think that story is a great litmus test by the way 😆 Not that you'll give me credit!
And yeah.. The fact that I'm RIGHT THERE asking how to remove beehaw from my feed shows how full of shit your claims are about me wanting to force myself on beehaw. So much for subtext!
This has been fun for me! Thank you for teaching me a bit about collectivist perspectives.
Except, it is. In order to be authoritarian you have to have authority over someone else. A parent or guardian can be authoritarian. A government can be authoritarian. An employer can be authoritarian. Beehaw can't really be authoritarian towards you because it can't really compel you to do or behave a certain way. It can ban you for violating the rules, but that's it. But that's the only thing it can do and you have the choice of just not participating there. It's no more authoritarian than getting ejected and banned from a store for trying to shoplift. Nor is it any more authoritarian than getting banned from a library if you try setting the books in it on fire. Or do you genuinely believe that you should be able to act however you want anywhere you want without consequence?
You wanted to talk about gay people grooming kids, and you wanted to do it on Beehaw. Learn to read. I beg you.
I believe no part of this happened, including you ever dating anyone.
And the fact that you practically beg for a ban, get it, and then complain about Beehaw's moderators being authoritarian shows how full of shit you are. You wanted to get banned so you could play the victim. You honestly just come across as painfully entitled.
You're welcome. I can recommend some books if you want a deeper dive. Books are things made out of pieces of paper that have words written on them, by the way.
Fine, I just don't get the echo chamber feeling but admittedly I only use beehive for gaming/anime/escapism hobby related communities so I haven't seen it being all about conteolling politics, at least not directly.
At the end of the day I barely get what you mean by controlling politics, since it is not apparent on the communities I visit. Also keep in mind, I'm not american so if this is about the culture war over there or a republicans vs democrats thing I probably won't notice it since it hasn't affected any discussion I've had.
But I would need concrete examples for me to see it as authoritarian because in a vacuum as I explained I can see communities pulling this kind of conduct without it being about controlling the discourse per se but more about helping communities.
Edit: forgot to say, but if it was over politics I don't think that would necessitate a ban lemmy.world (or alternative ly that would mean complete defederation) since it has no clear political affiliation, I see it just it being massive and difficult to moderate otherwise they would have targeted many other toxic instances way before touching .world.
So if you take Reveddit, and go look at Reddit communities you'll see massive political disparity in how comments are moderated. Go look at beehaw modlogs and you'll see the same thing.
If you personally aren't able to see the bias in moderating, sorry I don't know how to teach that.
Beehaw lost me when admins allowed a female user to repeatedly insult men, say 95% of them are awful, that men shouldn’t even exist etc they claim they’re a “safe, welcoming space” but it’s actually hypocritical.
They defederated from this and other instances and yet I’ve never seen any comments reaching that level of hostility here. The only way to interpret that is that they actually are okay with insults and bigotry as long as it suits their whims. If a man had made the same remarks it’d be written off as the rantings of an incel and they’d likely be banned.
I should be their target audience as someone who has voted left my entire life and it’s too much and too controlled for me. Either they’re for all equality and inclusiveness or they’re not. Pick one.
Eh, there were a few posts about this on lemmy.world when it happened. People went through beehaw's modlog and could only find a handful of actions taken against both communities.
Seems they just want to have their own little bubble.
Safe spaces are pretty much that. I would actually like to join beehaw if I ever need to switch to an instance for my own sanity. I left reddit but it's followed us here so I think a more curated experience would be nice.
That is unless they're nazis, fascists, authoritarian or any other kind of violent extremist faction. I'm sick of having no faith in humanity because of all these backwards ideologies being "expressed". To quote Costanza, these pretzels are making me thirsty.
I also don't like how beehaw has downvotes disabled. I get not wanting there to be brigading, or negativity, but being able to downvote a troll, or a post that is blatantly providing misinformation (purposefully or not), is invaluable.
I think there's value in it. The underlying idea is that if someone is wrong, even if blatantly so, you have to take the effort to explain why. On reddit, the downvote button was just as often used as a community cudgel against dissenting opinion, even when the opinion was 1) genuinely harmless but unpopular, 2) well reasoned and supported by evidence but something that went against the mob mentality, or 3) just something that people didn't understand and their gut reaction to it was negative.
Yep, I applied to join when I was fresh and it asks about how active applicants are. I was honest and said I wasn't the most active person but that I did participate in the subs that I used the most. Was trying to be honest and didn't see any red flags with that. They still denied me, so fuck beehaw
True, but unsubbed from them when it happened because I don't want to see communities I can't interact with.
Why add to the problem and have frustration with wanting to discuss something you are blocked from?
They have every right to protect themselves against spam. But that said, ever since they defederated, their activity and user numbers are down.
Agree that they have every right to handle their instance however they want. I also have the right to not interact with them while they are blocking the instance I call home.
Good. Serves 'em right.