Lemmy is always going to lean more radical than other platforms. Not only is the lead dev a Communist, but to pick Lemmy over Reddit is an ideological choice to begin with. There is an ideological barrier to entry, and this won't change until Reddit goes under.

I'm here because I DON'T want to have to read fucked up opinions. People here are mostly nice compared to mainstream platforms.

I'm all for difference of opinion, but not when one of those opinions is "we should oppress LGBT people" for example. 10-15 years ago, I'd have been more receptive to discussing opposing opinions, but shit has changed. A lot of those opposing opinions are now simply unacceptable to even entertain, because they've become a real, actual threat to my well-being. People aren't discussing tax policy anymore, they are discussing imposing states of emergency to do some kind of purge on undesirables.

Some people call it an echo chamber, I just call it chilling and having fun with like-minded people. There's nothing wrong with that. That's what forums have always been.

Echo chambers are never good, no matter the politics. Just reading this comment thread is proof. Some of these comments are fucking ridiculous.

Normally I'd say it was a weakness but the right has significantly departed from reality in most countries for way too long now. It's incredibly rare to find a right-winger who can be present in a discussion without spewing a whole lot of vile conspiracy hate fascist bullshit.

So I find their absence refreshing, desirable and a strength of Lemmy.

I don't care so much about the range of political views, just the quantity of them.

Too many people on Lemmy make their political ideology their entire identity, and it's just freaking exhausting.

Can we not just be people talking to other people about cool stuff? I just get sick of political ideologies masquerading as people.

Mostly mixed. The way i think it's a weakness is because I'm an anti authoritarian leftist, and i'd like a stronger anarchist/libertarian community on lemmy. Despite hexbear/lemmygrad/lemmy thriving, Solarpunk and dbzer0 feel a little lacking community wise. I'd also like a diverse political community, in general.

Another con is that if you even just disagree with a [bastard] moderator, they'll immediately ban you. Happens on lemmy.world with being anti-zionist, happens on lemmy.ml under the guise of 'rule 1' for literally just criticizing a mod such as dessalines.

But i also think it's a pro due to the lack of far-right content on lemmy. I remember on reddit casually seeing disgusting content, such as blatant racism (Such as arabs being called sand n-rs, Or racism against asians/immigrants in general on r/canada + r/europe) and most of that is obscure on lemmy.

I'm not denying that the Lemmy community doesn't have problems, Lord no. But it's much better than most other platforms.

I find the limited political knowledge a far bigger concern. The US has taken perfectly acceptable words and butchered them: liberal, libertarian, conservative, left, fascist, socialist etc mean different things inside the US to what they mean everywhere else. I reckon US political language hasn’t butchered itself - there’s a plan in there somewhere.

Weakness, If you're here for anything other than the narrow view.

Even if you're here for the the narrow view take a moment and consider if an echo chamber is good for you.

It's a weakness in the sense that there are times this place turns into a straight-up echo chamber...

But when there is actual debate going on, it tends to be a lot more civil than on other sites (most of the time)

I think it's a strength because I don't want to chat with fascists, thanks