Who is they?
this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2025
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Ask Lemmy
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Who is "they"?
Users clawing at each other over anything, and mods power tripping has been an Internet trope since the BBS forum days in the 1990s, at least. Lemmy, or at least LW seems to have a lower than median amount although imperfect. Lemmy as a platform has the advantage that anyone willing to undertake it can spin up their own instance, preventing a 100% stranglehold on mod/admin powers.
Lemmy is split by design.
Maybe it's not BECAUSE you disagree, but HOW you disagree.
I've seen you post some wacky metaphysical concepts and get upset when others don't agree with your unusual beliefs and assumptions.
What do you mean ?
Most lemmy communities are pretty relax and laid-off, not really aplace with troll and censorships
I think it's bait.
It seems they really like going to .ml, disagreeing with them (perfectly reasonable, btw) then screenshotting the resulting replies and bans to complain about it.
Getting banned from tankie instances is a common intro to lemmy but not indicative of normal instances.
You're seeing the result of a Reddit migration, bringing the Reddit culture and mindset with it.
When you hear graybeards taking about Eternal September, this is the sort of thing to which they're referring. Now, you have your own "I remember the good old days, before the assholes took over Lemmy."
People have freedom. This includes the freedom to run a Lemmy instance that they own, on hardware they own, and administrate it however they see fit.
I would say it is extremely natural to get a fairly diverse array of different ways to run things, depending on the opinions and feelings of each individual owner.
Being private individuals operating their own private property for whatever reason they feel like, (usually nerdy tech reasons in our case) none of them are under any requirement to be nice or accepting of anyone. It is 100% their choice to operate however they see fit, within the laws of their own country. (which can be anywhere on Earth that has internet)
It is odd to me that people feel they should have some sort of right to go onto someone else's property and say whatever they feel like. That's just not how anything works anywhere. You are on their digital property by open invitation, and that invitation can be revoked at any time they feel like.
Divide what?
Lemmy isn't a monolithic thing, how would that be divided?
I don't know that I'd agree it's unnatural. My observation, from far too many years on the internet, is that fighting passionately over minor differences is quite natural. But it's all very impersonal here, and if someone seems to be really intense about an issue, or if I feel myself getting that way, it's time to take a break from that conversation. Maybe block them if it seem consistent because sometimes you just can't have a healthy conversation with a person and what's the point of engaging with them, then?
I'm really suspicious of anyone who doesn't hold a single opinion that differs with the zeitgeist. I don't expect anyone to agree with me all the time, and I don't agree with anyone on issue B just because we happen to align on issue A. And don't even get me started on morons I agree with, but who make terrible arguments I'm going to be expected to hold with and defend by association.
Then I step away from the computer and go deal with the nuances of life where nothing is so clear cut as the hypotheticals we engage with online.