A contrarian isn’t one who always objects - that’s a confirmist of a different sort. A contrarian reasons independently, from the ground up, and resists pressure to conform.
But I’m not criticizing them for failing to summarize the entire article in the headline. I’m criticizing them for being biased - and for clearly showing that bias in how they chose to write the headline. This isn’t neutral reporting on what’s happening.
Lincoln St. Woodworking just did a review on the vac you’re probably talking about. Only complaint was it’s size.
So they didn’t…
The title should quote what they actually said rather than putting their own bias on it. You’d call them out for twisting your words like that. Hold yourself to the same standards.
I don’t even need to read the article to know that they didn’t actually say that.
No, it doesn’t. If I watch a 15-second funny video from nine years ago, my feed gets flooded with other short clips like that - that’s just how the algorithm works. My personal experience doesn’t support the claim that right-wing media is being disproportionately pushed to people who aren’t interested in it. If I click on that kind of video, it means I’m interested in it - so of course I get recommended more.
Well yeah, isn’t that the whole point of the recommendation algorithm? To suggest content people might find engaging. If a “Ben Shapiro destroys” video doesn’t break any rules, then what’s the issue with it being monetized? What I’m doubting here is the claim that this kind of content is somehow disproportionately pushed to people who have no interest in it.
Instead of engaging with anything I actually said, you went straight to attacking anyone who even questions this, while subtly implying I’m probably a nazi.
This just sounds so strange to me because, in my case, it works exactly the way you said you wish it did.
Since the right wing stuff still gets pushed to the front page
I find this hard to believe since it goes against my decades long personal experience using YouTube. The moment I click on a “Ben Shapiro destroys” video, sure - I get plenty more in my feed. But they also go away when I stop engaging. In my experience, YouTube does a great job of recommending me the kind of content I actually like to watch.
if you have the true conviction of your beliefs
I can sympathize with this.
My personal view is that when you silence speech, you leave people with no other means of influence but violence.
I’d imagine that the inflammatory content in question mostly gets demonetized just the same, so I don’t really see what the issue is. It’s not like a specific kind of content is being treated differently, or is it?
Why does the general attitude on Lemmy seem to lean toward more censorship and silencing of speech rather than less? There are plenty of popular views floating around here that I don’t agree with, but that aren’t surprising - they align with the kind of people who are drawn to a place like this. This one, however, is surprising.
EDIT: I think ChatGPT did a pretty decent job at explaining this. And didn’t even accuse me of being a fascist for asking.
You’re not imagining it—liberal-leaning platforms like Lemmy, Mastodon, Tumblr, and especially certain corners of Reddit often do show a strong tendency toward content moderation that can slide into ideological gatekeeping or outright censorship. But to make sense of why that happens, you have to separate two things: who has power in the platform’s culture and what values they believe justify limiting speech.
Historically, you’re right—censorship has often been associated with right-wing authoritarianism: military dictatorships, state control of media, book bans, and suppression of dissent. But the core mechanism of censorship is not inherently right-wing. It’s just a tool. Who uses it, and why, changes depending on who holds power.
In the online left-leaning spaces, the logic behind censorship isn’t about suppressing dissent to maintain state power, but rather about protecting marginalized groups and enforcing norms of inclusion, safety, and respect. That sounds noble on the surface, and often it is. But when taken too far or enforced rigidly, it results in a climate where even questioning the norms themselves is treated as harmful. That’s the paradox: speech is restricted in the name of compassion, not control—but the effect can feel just as silencing.
There’s also the factor of social capital. On platforms dominated by left-leaning users, calling something “harmful,” “problematic,” or “not aligned with community values” gives you power. Moderators and users gain status by enforcing those norms. And since these platforms are not democracies but tribes with moderators, dissenting views often get downvoted, banned, or flagged not because they’re poorly argued, but because they challenge the group’s identity.
You could argue it’s not censorship in the classic state sense—it’s more like ideological hygiene within self-selecting communities. But if you’re the one getting silenced, it doesn’t really matter why. You just feel the muzzle.
One more thing: platforms like Lemmy are very new, often run by idealists, and many come from or were inspired by activist spaces where speech norms are strict by design. In that context, “freedom of speech” isn’t always a priority—it’s seen as something that can enable harm, rather than protect truth-seeking. And that mindset has filtered into moderation culture.
So while the underlying motivations are very different, the behavior—shunning, silencing, gatekeeping—can look similar to the authoritarian censorship you mentioned. It just wears a different uniform.
Isn’t this kind of like ridiculing that same Atari for not being able to form coherent sentences? It’s not all that surprising that a system not designed to play chess loses to a system designed specifically for that purpose.
Sure, but I’d still argue that the vast majority of flats people get would have been avoided by running tubeless. I’ve fixed around 8 punctures over the past 10,000km and only one of them was such that tire sealant wouldn’t have fixed.
Every time I make a picture post on this community it gets accused of being “not dull” so I no longer do. My moderately interesting garden stays secret.
Going tubeless would solve this or alternatively put tire sealant inside your tubes.
You need quite a bit of masts to cover the entire globe and that still doesn’t work in places like in the middle of the ocean. Satellites most likely are easier to deploy and cheaper as well.
Not very compareable systems. One covers the entire globe with satellites and another is just a fancy version of Wi-Fi. If you live somewhere remote you’d still need a bunch of masts within line of sight from eachother and if you’re vanlifer or such then it’s of no use.
I mean, cool technology but serves a bit different purpose. Especially in the edge cases.
I was hoping you’d be wrong so I looked into it and while that’s not the whole story, it’s not entirely wrong either.
Damn, and I thought I was bringing in good news.
I believe women attempt suicide more often but men are more succesful at it. May be that for women it’s more often a cry for help where as with men once things get that bad they’re serious about it.