The fediverse is small, and thats both a blessing and a curse - one of its several blessings is that in a smaller space we all individually have a bigger impact on what the culture of this space is like.
On this comm (and on lemmy broadly) there’s a lot of discussion about how to grow the fediverse, what to improve, but an easy thing you can do for the fediverse is right in front of us-
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Be kind
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Ask people what they think, and why
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Approach folks you disagree with with curiosity rather than hostility (EDIT: no, this is not specifically referring to Nazis. I get it, they’re the first thing that comes to mind. I’m not telling you to approve of Nazis I’m just saying be kind to your fellow lemmites)
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Engage sincerely
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Ask yourself if there’s something nice you can say
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Make this small space worth being in
A platform lives or dies by what’s available on said platform and often we have this conversation in the context of “content” or posts - and we may never have as much content as reddit does. But content and posts aren’t the only thing this kind of platform offers- it also offers people. It offers community, and human interaction.
Culture and community is lemmy and the fediverse’s biggest differentiator, and we all have a role to play in shaping the culture of this space.
The biggest thing you can do to help the fediverse is make it a place worth being.
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Here are some more specific examples to think about!
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Compliment people’s art and ask about their process
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Teach people about something you’re knowledgeable on
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Give constructive criticism on peoples projects when it’s welcome
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Thank people for posting things you’re glad you got to see, tell them you enjoyed it
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Tell people you’re glad they’re here
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Tell people you hope they have a good day
Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts :) if you have thoughts of your own, I’d love to hear them!
Have a great day :)
Thank you! You too 😊
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There was a movement in the blogging community ~15 years ago to leave positive comments on posts you like. It was an approach to conquer negative comments and a general destructive nature of online conversations. I still do it to this day. If I really like something or appreciate someone’s work, I leave a nice comment.
Oh neat, being younger there’s a lot of how folks approached the web in its earlier years that I don’t have any experience with, and think there’s a lot to learn from
I love that!
Great post.
To add to this, not resorting to calling others tankies or Russian bots when you have differing opinions, especially around politics.
I came to Lemmy (lemm.ee originally) with this attitude. Tankies really made me regret trying to be sympathetic too them. It was the most vile interaction I’ve had on the Internet maybe? You shouldn’t call people tankies if they’re not but real tankies are by far the biggest problem with the fediverse and it’s growth
yeah i’ve met some thorough tankies recently and wow are they annoying. just completely blind to reality.
1 billion percent agree, not everyone you disagree with is acting in bad faith
when you’re dealing with fundamentalists or extremists things turn nasty very quickly because you’re questioning their fantasy world
doesn’t matter if they’re good or bad faith, often they will just ban you
On Reddit, I once bragged about having universal healthcare and got called a Nazi and a communist at the same time.
This is what happens when Xbox kids that use the n-word grow up. They learn new “bad” words and throw them around out of context and contradictingly. They don’t actually know what those things are, though, so it never makes sense.
I’ve been called a tankie here. I didn’t know what it was and looked it up, just to discover it was the literal opposite of the things I was saying. I was very confused and just put it down to frustrated self-projection. At some point they had been called that, it upset them, so now they use it to upset people too but they still don’t actually know what it is they’re saying.
If I see someone defaulting to Russian bot or tankie, I’ve found another Xbox kid and it’s in my best interests to just move on.
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Instance admins have pretty good information at their disposal to identify bots.
I have yet to see any instance admin say that there is any significant amount of bots, outside of the occasional spate of spamming. I only see such theories & accusasions come from non-admins, with no accompanying compelling evidence.
well the good news is that everybody - and that includes the US - creates psyops all the time, so that makes it fair.
This is Eglin Air Force Base checking in. 
Most addicted city (over 100k visits total)
Eglin Air Force Base, FL
Oak Brook, IL
South St. Paul, MN?
What I’m saying is that Reddit is packed with US government psyop coming from Eglin AFB https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eglin_Air_Force_Base#Department_of_Defense
I’ve had the thought that if I were to design a psyop campaign, a pretty solid option for dominating the discussion would be to come out swinging and accuse everyone else of being an agent. That way, people have to either constantly defend against accusations, or they conclude, rightly, the accusations are baseless and decide to disregard the very idea that there is a psyop going on.
I could be wrong but to me it feels odd to think lemmy is big enough to be worth organizing psyops for.
Not to say it couldn’t be an issue in the future, but it feels much more likely that people expressing pro Russia sentiment are just people who bought into that particular brand of propaganda.
Which like, to some extent all of our individual world views are shaped by the environment of propaganda we’re exposed to. We’re all products of our social conditioning, and ultimately that’s exactly what propaganda is. Media designed to socially condition people to a certain set of beliefs. All we as individuals can do is be aware of it and be willing to look at our own beliefs critically.
But at the end of the day I think the folks praising Russia on lemmy are just people. People I personally think are misguided, but I don’t think theyre generally acting in bad faith any more than the general population here.
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Honestly if anyone is doing that I really feel like it would be the US, not Russia.
Russia’s goal is to sew discord and unballance the populace that drives politics, and for that to work you need a MASSIVE scale that we just don’t really have. They don’t really have much to gain from the IP addresses of a handful of leftists
But Lemmy is exactly the kind of hotspot for people DEEPLY angry about the government of the US to organize that if we’re big enough to be on their radar, the US government would have a vested interest in keeping an eye on potential dissidents. Unlike Russia IP addresses and personally identifiable information would be useful to them, in identifying threat actors, tracking their activity and volatility online, and building cases that would allow them to prosecute should said dissidents escalate
That’s how it looks from where I’m standing anyway 🤷♂️
Lemmy being splintered and opposed to all forms of authority makes it perfect for radicalizing individuals to commit great harm and violence in their community.
All movement starts at the grassroots.
Sometimes they literally just are. Not seen it on Lemmy but on Reddit I definitely interacted with users, age under 1 year, all suspiciously pro-Putin. It’s rare and I’m looking for it, but still.
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Nah fuck tankies, zero tolerance for the intolerant.
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I’ve noticed most discussions i have here end with a LOT less anger and a LOT more learning and that makes me happy.
Fuck yeah! I think that’s the thing that makes the fediverse special :)
We all care enough about the online spaces we choose to inhabit that we leave the big platforms for something kinder. I think that’s worth leaning into :)
100%
Internet by the people, and for the people, truly.
Because there’s fewer foreign bots trying to make you hate everyone in your country, and fewer social media engagement bots trying to make sure you stay online arguing with someone.
I’ll add: “be supportive and helpful if you can, and just shut up if you can’t”.
Fediverse is sometimes suffering from the same kind of people that Linux has - “oh you have a problem? Well, here’s the GitHub repo and a project Wiki, figure it out”.
Fuck you!
I have a couple of suggestions to add:
I was considering leaving the other site before the API fiasco because it felt like so many users approach engagement as rhetorical combat, that is, the point of discussion is to defeat the other person. Instead, think one of Covey’s habits of highly-effective people: “Win-win, or no deal.” Approach discussion on the Fediverse as a collaborative act, in which you’re exchanging ideas with another person. Even if you disagree, you can both win by respectfully hearing out the other person. And if the other person won’t collaborate? No deal! Just disengage.
Just like in intimate relationship, use “I” statements instead of “you” statements. Telling people who they are and what they believe is not only disrespectful, but probably wrong, often exaggerated or distorted for rhetorical combat purposes. People get angry when their identity gets poked at. One exception, of course, is when giving advice, like, stick to what you know, and share your thoughts and your reactions to a topic.
Well yeah but consider that everyone that doesn’t think like me is a Nazi at best
I disagree, yes being kind is very important but even more important is people engaging and upvoting comments.
Reddit was great because of what happened in the comment section, not the headliners, and I see very little voting engagement even in active posts.
Remember, it’s free to do and it encourages others to engage as well. But yea be kind too
Unless you’re a republican or other type of nazi. Then you can absolutely go all the way to hell.
Tolerance got us here.
Nazis can always join their own defederated server and have their little circle jerk, nothing is stopping them from going and joining exploding heads; they don’t have a right to be part of federated fediverse and have their bullshit heard.
For that matter, nothing’s stopping the people who disagree with me from creating their own nazi-friendly Lemmy instance. This is not the Nazi bar, and it’s not going to be, so go ahead and open it yourselves. No need to let me know how it turns out, I’m pretty sure I’ve got a good guess.
like Truth social
Or x or Facebook or reddit at this point tbh.
well yeah but I meant that Truth socials source code is actually a fork of Mastodon. I think they’ve even published the source code somewhere for legal reasons, which is so wired to think about trump doing.
Holy crow I didn’t know that! I doubt Trump did it on purpose. I’m almost certain whoever he paid for Truth social just did the least amount of work possible to cash in, and forking Mastodon was probably it. The right wing is like a fractal grift, so it wouldn’t shock me.
Except the non-US republicans, they’re cool :D
It’s not about tolerance imo, it’s about discussion. You’d be surprised to learn their reasoning if you actually listened to it. You don’t have to agree with it.
Both sides have this problem right now. Both only converse with their own. Why are republicans not changing? Well if their friends, family and everyone they talk to is a republican, they’ll never be exposed to different opinions.
Don’t forget that both sides can have valid policies depending on how you view the world. I’m not taking about trump and whatever you people are doing out there in the US, but in general, conservatism is the idea that people will manage their money, rather than the government.
Look at Quebec for example. A very socialist government. 2 years ago they invested a ton of money into one electric bus company. Well that company failed really bad and while they aren’t completely bankrupt, they aren’t far. It’s easy then to then see why conservatives would want to vote conservative. If their money had stayed in their pocket instead of going to the government, this wouldn’t have happened.
Same thing with health. The public health system is currently clogged up so a lot of people end up having to pay to go to the private sector to actually get cured in time. So conservatives believe this whole system is a huge waste of taxpayer money. Most conservatives I know aren’t agaisnt the government helping with that, but they’d rather the government just pay the invoice after you went to a private clinic, similar to insurance in the states, rather than try to control a system that clearly isn’t working.
You’d be surprised to learn their reasoning if you actually listened to it.
Turns out their reasoning a lot of the time is divinely ordained racism and sexism. Turns out thats been the reasoning behind a lot of humanity’s choices.
I’m not interested in the reasoning behind bigotry.
That’s the problem. You see the other side in a way they themselves really aren’t. When people say the left is just as bad as the right, they don’t mean in opinions and policies, but in behavior, just like you’re doing. They both think themselves as having the moral high ground while the other side is complete and utter evil.
Honestly of all the conservatives I know, I don’t think a single one of them is remotely racist in any way. One in particular is agaisnt talking about lgbt stuff in schools but he also has a trans friend and thinks as long as they’re adults it’s fine. It’s not being evil, it’s having a difference in opinion.
People said everything you’re saying 30 years ago and used it to justify letting fascism grow unchecked. Now we’re here and you are still afraid to be firm. You are why they’re in power.
No more compromises. No more chances. No more conversations. People are being abducted. People are dying. There’s no time left for patience.
They change NOW. Or they can fuck off.
I have no issues with facists fucking off. The problem is most people on lemmy seem to give just about everyone they disagree with a facist tag. Honestly in the US I agree the situation is different, but here in canada, I haven’t heard of anyone dying or being abducted by conservatives.
I certainly hope your turn to fight it never comes.
So do I.
Generalizing is a logical fallacy. Not all Republicans are Nazis.
Some are rotten. Some are good people that just got duped.
It’s not black and white.
Nope. They’ve had plenty of time to see the results of their actions. They’re complicit at this point.
I can empathize with your anger but I do think it’s easy to forget just how much propaganda can shape peoples world views and idea of reality. It’s used so heavily because it works :(
Regardless, I’m not trying to start a fight, I can appreciate having no more tolerance for the increasing cruelty of the state of the world. Take care ❤️
There’s a story I heard recently that has really stuck with me. It happened in the Sobibor Extermination Camp during WW2. Basically the camp was structured so that captured Jews would be selected to be Kapos. A Kapo was a disciplinarian that kept the rest of the Jews in line, usually with a whip. A lot of the times the Kapo would repeat Nazi propaganda because the Nazi guards were watching too. The rest of the Jews could understand their predicament. But there was one Kapo named Berliner, nicknamed because he was born in Berlin. The rest of the Jews hated Berliner because he truly bought into the propaganda. Imagine, a Jew… in an extermination camp… talking about how Hitler was a misunderstood savior of the Jews right before he started beating his fellow Jews to keep them in line.
It’s no surprise that Berliner’s end comes in the form of a lynching by the rest of the Jews he was keeping in line.
Thank you very much for sharing, I expect that story will stick with me too.
That’s the part that I still can’t wrap my head around. We know it will be shameless shilling and nepotism along with stochastic terrorism and still vote for it anyway? Wtf
Its easy to forget they live in a fundamentally different reality shaped by a buble of media. We all do, but conservative media kinda feels like an alternative universe.
When confronted with the world we live in they reject it as unrealistic because it differs too much from the facts they’ve accepted about the world.
My grandpa is a trump voter and I do my best to still talk to him. At an individual scale he’s a kind, sincere man who has always been welcoming of my queerness and tries to understand me. It’s very painful trying to discuss things with him even though it stays a kind interaction when I lead with kindness. It requires a lot of cognitive dissonance, but he lives in a fundamentally different reality than I do and I honestly don’t know what I can do about it :(
That’s the dangerous thing about fascism. Decent people buy into it. Become complicit or enable it. It wouldn’t be a real threat if they didn’t. But it engineers a reality for people to believe in, and lo and behold, they do. And cruelty ensues :(
Nope. There’s really hasn’t been. A lot of them are waking up. You’re being divisive. And that’s not what the country needs.
I am being clear. This debate is over.
I’m being clear as well. If you want to be hostile to the whole group that’s your personal choice. I’m going to express the reality of the situation though. Bye.
If you’ve been getting duped for 50 years, then maybe you’re just too stupid to vote. People with a bit of a plant in their pocket have been disenfranchised for a lot less
Perhaps. However. on the other side I think of this quote. “Poor people have been voting democrat for 50 years, and they’re still poor…”
MAGA wasn’t formed until 2016, the party was much different before Trump. But who cares I guess. It seems people just want to hate the other side here. Which is no better than them.
It really wasn’t different before Trump, it was just a little more articulate in its rhetoric.
Before that was the tea party loons, before that was the airbrushed WMD photos, before that was McCarthyism…
When the other side is always fascist, the answer is always FUCK OFF NAZI PUNKS
(Maybe people wouldn’t hate the “other side” if it wasn’t straight up 4th reich on paper 🤷)
I’m just going to ask you a question. Do you think Mitt Romney was a fascist?
Not them, but yes, absolutely
Ik a few people who lean to the right economically but aren’t in favor of all this authoritarian stuff And they’re not Nazis, you cant just generalize so broadly about what should or shouldn’t be tolerated. Ofc if someone is being blatantly racist that shouldnt be tolerated, but economic discussion is totally fine
Turns out Republicans social and economic policiy is dogshit. There are three types of Republicans; power hungry sycophants, cultural chameleons that dont care but to blend in, and then the largest proportion… salt of the earth morons.
I’m not saying their policies are any good, but the golden rule still stands, if a Republican who isn’t evil is nice to you, it only makes sense to reciprocate that.
Electing republicans is in itself blatantly racist.
You do realize that there are members of marginalized groups who have been elected as republicans. Like there’s black republicans. Is voting for them ‘blatantly racist’? If you overuse language it loses some of its meaning
When you need to resort to “but I have black friends” to defend racism, you’ve lost.
I’m not resorting to that. I’m not saying that. I’m saying that the idea that voting Republican is inherently racist, is wrong. This really isn’t that complicated.
You are incorrect. The republican party is the party of bigotry and cruelty. To vote for them is an explicit endorsement. Adults are accountable for their allegiances and their actions, and we have had decades to learn.
that’s wonderful /s
Lol the irony
Zero irony. Nothing funny here. Nazis fuck off. Republicans fuck off. Trumpers fuck off.
And zero self awareness lmao
The “tolerance paradox” is a handy tool with which to justify violence by those on both sides. If I’m just fighting intolerance, then my actions are justified. It’s a common rally cry used by authoritarians to stamp out diversity and democracy. To really hammer the point home, the Nazis were the first to employ it. By blaming their issues on the “intolerance” of foreign states, they justified a global war. It is obviously the inspiration for Popper’s 1945 work, The Open Society and Its Enemies. Russia is currently using this fallacy to justify the war in Ukraine, claiming that the West is “intolerant” of Russia, and they need to defend themselves against this intolerance.
Here is a full quote from Popper on the subject if anyone is interested.
I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise.
But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.
Popper’s argument is laid bare here. Tolerate up to the point of violence. That is, if one physically attacks us, we no longer have the burden of tolerance. Popper is commonly misquoted and intentionally misused to justify violence, suppresion, and censorship against disagreement, and that is clearly not his argument.
Lmao now this is irony
Blocked.
Same
Either you’re being intentionally obtuse or you’re being paid by Russia either way….
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Liar. They were destroyed with facts and logic, duh
The thing that I appreciated most about Lemmy and my transition from Reddit is how cordial everyone has been. Even if a comment is taken out of context, people tend not to jump down each others throat and assume the worst, or make bad faith arguments full of fallacies. I’ve had legitimate back and forths with people, something that basically never happens on Reddit.
I see you around a lot, and you’re consistently doing exactly this. I really respect that.
Thank you very much, I do my best :)
By the way I love your username lol. Take care!
Thats absolutely horrifying, thank you. 😂
The last time I went to Reddit, I felt like everyone was trying to pick a fight, and would jump on me for any tiny reason.
No point being part of a community like that, the whole place is a dumpster fire, but if everyone is either trolling or turning on each other, it’s much worse.
I hope as Lemmy gets more popular, it doesn’t inherit those problems.
I think as early members of this small online space we have to potential to cement a kinder culture that can influence even what this platform is like many years from now, with users that won’t be here for a long time!
People tend to match energy with the people they’re engaging with. When you show people kindness they intuitively respond the same way, and when that’s the culture, I think it can profoundly shape people’s social behaviors :)
And this space being as small as it is, we all have an outsized impact on that culture compared to something like reddit where any given user makes up such a teeeeny tiny fraction of the social interaction there.
We can all create that kind of culture that leads with kindness and prompts others to follow suit
I swear Reddit has bots/trolls/AI designed to argue and rile you up to increase engagement. We see it in reposts/titles, why not in the comments?
I arrived at LEMMY after what I think we very optimistically called the Reddit Collapse. We wish. And I had toe in LEMMY and a few others at Reddit.
Recently with their abusively patronizing redesigning and gamification and just ugly bullshit, I can’t stomach Reddit at all. So LEMMY grows increasingly important, not just to me but to folks who haven’t yet even heard of it.
So, I’ll just say thanks for your post here. I have, I confess, engaged with a couple bullies on LEMMY and I always try to say… I don’t like to do this on LEMMY— and I say that precisely for the reasons you mention.
And as you encourage: I will try to be kinder, even in when feeling… hmm… less than kind.
This place is becoming very Reddit, if you post anything that deviates from someone’s beliefs they call you names and insult your intelligence. So many people can’t have a debate or discussion without jumping to personal attacks and hate. It’s really disheartening. I love political debate but there’s no such thing anymore, only name calling
OP simply asks people to be kind, People proceed to tear each other apart…
OP now knows how Jesus felt 🤣
i gotta lead by example. I gotta lead by example. Lead By Example. IM GONNA LEAD BY EXAMPLE 🥲🙃
we’re doin our best out here lol. But that’s what it takes! There is no perfect, no “I literally never make mistakes” or “never let my frustration dictate shitty behaviour when compassion would yield the outcome I want”
You gotta decide you care more about what’s effective than how good it feels to act on your anger, and then you gotta do your best :)
That’ll do it
