Is there a more politically and ideologically diverse alternative for Lemmy?

I know the real answer is reddit but I really don't want to go back now that I've already grown used to life without it. I was hoping for Lemmy to be a viable substitute but it isn't. I can see how this place is wonderful for the certain type of person but that person is not me. My experience during the past 6+ months has been a net negative and I'm pretty much ready to move on. I just don't know where else to go.

fah_Q ,

Congratulations this is a actually a very stupid question. Please return to Reddit where you belong.

Thorny_Insight OP ,

There's some irony to how good thread this turned out to be

Skullgrid ,
@Skullgrid@lemmy.world avatar

Go to truth social for all your "political diversity" needs, or shut the fuck up about "left wing bias"

Thorny_Insight OP ,

How's going from a far end to another going to solve anything? There's no need to be so hostile

Anyolduser ,

You threatened their worldview by pointing out that Lemmy is an echo chamber. People get angry when they feel threatened.

danhab99 ,
@danhab99@programming.dev avatar

Lemmy is already diverse, you just gotta find the right instance, or multiple instances! The whole point of joining your platform to the federation is for visibility and control

Thorny_Insight OP ,

I don't quite see how the choise of instance affects much of anything except for which other instances you're able to interact with.

eldavi ,

there's a couples sites out there that will show you which instances are federating with each other and you can see a trend of lemmy instances effectively creating echo chambers with moderate viewpoint dominated instances driving nearly all of it.

if this trend continues, the fediverse will eventually go the same way that the other reddit diasporas went so i'm also looking for a new place; good luck fellow wanderer

Rentlar ,

Yeah it's hard to say. Fark? HackerNews? Bluesky? Tildes? You'll just have to try a bunch and see what catches on with you. You're welcome to try Lemmy again anytime, so who's to stop you from a break from it?

I've been saying for a year, Lemmy and the Fediverse is specifically designed to be like a series of echochambers, since the community, the moderation and local userbase are designed all around that. Ultimately, you have the freedom to choose who and what to allow and block yourself.

Personally I think you are subjecting yourself to grief by interacting with hexbear and lemmygrad but I'm not here to scold or police what you choose to do.

I think one major difference that can make your experience negative is that posts on Reddit can't show below zero, and people here use the downvote button more often because they have strong feelings on a topic. In my experience on controversial topics you would have various threads where both sides of an argument receive downvotes which is a sign there are diverse perspectives. You just have to live with and not be bothered by a negative score, it means nothing. Some examples:

  • Israel vs. Palestine narratives (Lemmy overall leans a little more toward Palestine but I've seen either get downvoted depending on community over the months)
  • pro-Biden vs anti-Biden (this is a very controversial one and sure some of it is anti-American propaganda and "both sides are the same"-type of sealioning, still both perspectives get downvoted).
  • Ukraine (this one is easy, you're either on a community under .ml moderation or not, which determines the overall narrative)

This is all to say that the best way to get 'diverse' opinions on Lemmy is to hop around various communities, brace yourself for downvotes and just try to be genuine about it. For non-controversial content we all gotta do our part, speaking of which I haven't posted much OC lately so I'll get onto that soon in a couple days.

Thorny_Insight OP ,

I keep post scores hidden so getting downvoted isn't much of an issue for me because I won't know unless I go out of my way to check.

The main issue for me is that I can reliably guess what kind of replies certain topics get and what is popular and what is unpopular. It's kind of like having a friend who never says or does anything that surprises you. Why even bother asking for their opinion when you already know what they're going to say.

Rentlar ,

I can understand what you mean. The prevailing narratives tend to be America bad, cars bad, capitalism bad, Linux good, on and on. But in the vein of how you assert that you don't want people to assume what you believe, going into a community painting users with a broad brush is going to fill the gap with your pre-conceived biases, and that isn't conducive to good discussion. I say give it a chance, even someone that writes along the lines of what you expect may still have a tiny sliver of something that surprises you. I look at some of the more notorious users like FlyingSquid, PugJesus, PP_BOY etc. and I've agreed with them and disagreed with them on various topics, even if they were in line with 'the narrative'. Other users I attempt to converse and sometimes it works out while other times I have to stop at the 3rd reply.

I'm making an effort to be better, trying to curb the ratio of responses I do that have only memes and add more original thoughts or detailed opinions to my newer comments.

morphballganon ,

Having a good idea what opinions you're likely to see doesn't mean there's no point to asking. Certain opinions being prevalent is expected in any community. Any time I make a post, I can be pretty sure there will be certain kinds of responses, but there are typically some that surprise me also.

If you find that the community mentality is so entrenched that people are hostile or disparaging, just block the most offensive profiles and move on with your day.

I block quite a few profiles every day. That's just how it is these days, when charlatans can convince millions of people to vote and vehemently influence against their own self interest.

PutangInaMo ,

Reddit was the same way to be honestly.

PumaStoleMyBluff ,

I'm kind of surprised you think reddit was any different from that!

FeelzGoodMan420 ,

How the actual fuck is the answer Reddit?

Woozythebear ,

Because there is enough people to drown out all the people being paid by political parties to post here and offset the upvotes they buy.

The DNC has dozens of paid people on this platform and Because a post may only get 100 comments the people being paid can make it look like their opinion is the popular opinion.

jaspersgroove ,

Reddit: everybody sucking Trump or Biden’s dick

Lemmy: everybody sucking Putin or Xi Jinping’s dick

partial_accumen ,

I too enjoy that Lemmy has a more global audience and isn't as USA centric.

jaspersgroove ,

Oh it’s still incredibly USA centric, at least as far as the content shared and discussed in English is concerned. The userbase just gets their biased talking points from Russian bot farms instead of US media outlets lol. I guess that counts as more global.

partial_accumen ,

I've been pleased with the amount of content from non-English languages even if my ability to parse it is pretty poor.

DarkThoughts ,

Imo it is fine as long as you stay away from Lemmy.ml, Lemmygrad and Hexbear.

fuckingkangaroos ,

There's a lot of extremism and censoring perspectives even on Lemmy.world

misk ,
@misk@sopuli.xyz avatar

If you're after moderate right flavored discussion I sympathize but you'll have trouble finding it as the broader right has been consumed by alt right and far right. If your point is that those viewpoints specifically are missing from Lemmy then I'd say it's a good riddance. I just wish Lemmy was as hard on some immature leftie takes.

Roflmasterbigpimp ,
@Roflmasterbigpimp@lemmy.world avatar

I'm a pretty "left-winged" European, but I see the lack of a "moderate right" or "conservative" alternative as a real problem! Here on Lemmy and in the real world as well. When there is no place for them, people will feel the need to align with the far-right to at least have some points in common with others. And the only one who profits from this is the far-right. It's important to have a mixed political Landscape, so Ideas can be exchanged, topics can be discussed in a meaningful way, and we don't end up in an echo chamber.

Grandwolf319 ,

I agree but I also think it’s up to them to build that space.

If your a classical conservative and believe in personal and fiscal responsibility, then it’s your job to create or contribute to a space for this.

I think this is the problem, those people let the crazies in and then turn around and blame the victim.

atro_city ,

What have you tried? There are communities of all types on here. If you say something, there are definitely people who will agree and others who will disagree. Most will express it quite badly and few will give a thoughtful response. Reddit, I find, was much worse at nuance.

/r/askmen for example was open to anybody asking questions while /r/askwomen was heavily heavily moderated and didn't allow diverging views. /r/science turned into a place for science memes. /r/politics was just a battleground for left and right wingers calling each other names, and places about men's health were consistently attacked by other subs. Reddit seemed like twitter's second coming - with communities.

WldFyre ,

Lol are you complaining about the way people treat men's rights subs??

gimpchrist ,
@gimpchrist@lemmy.world avatar

I mean, my eyeballs read 'Men's Health'...

DavidGA ,
@DavidGA@lemmy.world avatar

Lemmy is a federation of servers. "Lemmy" is not one political group with one viewpoint. If you're looking for different viewpoints, try different groups, or different servers.

In another comment you said this about the comments you read:

they're made in bad faith

I don't think this is true. I think that what you think is "bad faith" is actually "people who disagree with me". So far, most users of Lemmy appear to trend politically left by American standards, but that's only because American standards are so absurdly skewed to the right that it appears to stand out. By American standards, "truth" is left-wing.

Ask yourself what you're actually looking for.

msage ,

Also, I've spent time on Reddit, it was only bad faith arguments in controversial. Like bots pushing propaganda bad.

XEAL ,

The problem is that all of the big instances sorta line up the same way and anything that doesn't please them gets defederated at the speed of light and comments and posts get removed. They have the control.

It seems OP was getting some comments removed (Rule 1 = bigorty) by simply expressing opinions that don't please the "gods".

ristoril_zip ,

I'm sure this will come if the wrong way but if you're genuinely concerned about discovering diversity of thought, you're going to have to tell us what your positions are for example.

I'm all for finding diversity, but so often what people who post these are looking for is an echo chamber. Like if you're really wanting to be challenged, and you're a conservative, go to https://socialistworker.org/ and read up.

But if what you're concerned about is the nerds in Lemmy seem to be left leaning, that's just the nature of smart creative people. We value skills and creativity over hierarchy and structure.

Thorny_Insight OP ,

I like hearing both sides of every argument even when I don't agree with it. On reddit I could read the top comments first and then sort by controversial to hear the opposing arguements. Here I can't do that. There usually are no opposing arguments or if there is they're made in bad faith. It's almost like I need to choose a team and then subscribe to the ideologies of that team when in reality I'm more of a pick and choose type of person.

you’re going to have to tell us what your positions are for example

There are very few "positions" I hold. When it comes to most subjects I'm not informed enough to form strong opinions so I generally float somewhere in between. For most hot topics I see on Lemmy every day I can usually make good arguments for both ways. I may lean to one side or another but I'm often just a few well written comments away from tipping to the other direction.

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