In advance, this is NOT a complain, but just myself looking for some opinions, views and experiences around this topic. Also, the screenshot is marked as NSFW because it contains language that might be sensible for some people (and that's also present one time in the post itself).
I'll start it short: I've just been banned for 14 days from the memes community on the official Lemmy instance (!memes@lemmy.ml).
Why?
Apparently, just critizicing chinese state and authoritarism in front of some China's authoritarism deniers (and, maybe, some CCP infiltrators [I have to I must clarify that the latter is just my speculation, but the possibility is not zero and does not seem low, and as a hypothesis I think it is sufficiently solid]), it seems like pointing up chinese's government authoritarian character is sinophobia and "not being sufficiently polite" (as it shows in their modlog).
Censorship and FLOSS
This raises me a concern. I can't say that happens in all of Lemmy.ml communities or that's anything that they are condoning that; I understand that they give autonomy to the moderators of each community and everything else, and I also do not want to attack the moderators of that community with this, or anything similar. But, seeing that I have already seen several similar cases being reported throughout the Threadiverse, and that the majority of the Fediverse tends to the left (which is not necessarily bad either, I myself am center-left), I have noticed a growing radicalization and a growing polarization within the Fediverse, and that worries me because that was exactly one of the things that attracted me to it, outside of the obvious fact that it is Free, not proprietary like shit in Silicon Valley.
And with that, I increasingly notice a greater spiral of silence here. I've been lurking on Lemmy for quite some time, but I only recently created my account on Disroot when I felt ready to start socializing and I felt like I understood the fediquette well enough, but being banned for not thinking the same as the rest of the pro-Chinese people there doesn't give me a good taste in my mouth; It doesn't bother me so much that they insult me (in fact, they can do it all they want, I'll just laugh in their faces and move on xD) and that they don't let me express myself freely, especially when I live in a country where freedom of expression is a luxury and there is a humanitarian crisis of hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of political prisoners and tens of thousands of deaths for precisely that reason.
I really can't say that they want to censor me since it is one of my first interventions there and it is the first time they have banned me, it would be drawing conclusions too hastily, but I am still worried about this ideological homogenization. Mainly due to the asymmetrical application of that rule, since I never insulted or denigrated anyone and they constantly did. Probably the only failure that would justify a ban is the fact that I wished the death of all the politicians and governments in the world, but it is difficult not to do so when my country is hell on Earth and I can barely trust in any of them. What raises my concern more than anything is the fact that they do it without even having notified me beforehand (really, I never received a notification where they warned me, or any warning, or anything like that, and I have moderator notifications activated by all means in my client, not a message, nothing like that), which makes me feel very arbitrary, especially when they only vaguely mention "Rule 1" in the moderation logs.
I would like to know what you think; Is it just my paranoia and trauma, or is there really a culture of conformism that tends to silence ideas that are foreign to their ideological views, creating a spiral of silence?
I have read the comic, and I disagreed, I'm on my right of doing so. And again, I have found instances that draw the line where I do: real damage. But again, the problem that I'm pointing is that it is worrying that people so unjustifiably and illogically expand the line of what constitutes hate speech in their spaces (and I speak for both extremes, not just those on the left, as incels are also unbearable), because in part thanks to that is where all the current polarization arises (and pay attention, in part, it is multifactorial of course). At least we agree that others have the right to block others if they don't want to read them, but I think banning is much trickier territory. Exactly in part the DECLARED purpose of these networks―that is, the Fediverse― is that there is more freedom of expression and thought than in, say, Blueshit, Shitter or Reshit, where moderators can ban you for absurd things. Do you think that only state censorship represents a problem? No. Any type of censorship, even personal, is a serious problem. Think about it, it is a problem that LGBTQ or racialized people cannot express themselves freely on traditional networks because that affects their scope of action and perpetuates their marginalization. The same thing happens with those of us who criticize totalitarian regimes.
Oof that's a wall of text. Formatting please. I'll do my best to parse it.
Ok you disagree with the comic, they (lemmygrad) disagree with you. What's the issue?
That's a long sentence, I kept looking for the full stop for the quote, mostly it's what we call "blah blah blah". But, it isn't unjustisfied. It's their hardware and they have the freedom to host what they want, that's the justification. Simples, you fundamentally do not understand the situation.
I'll make it really simple for you: you cannot force people to host things, on their hardware, that they do not want to host. You understand how entitled/authoritarian you are right? It's their stuff, their money, their time, you have no entitlement or authority to tell them what to do with it. I keep telling you this, it's just not going in. It's a simple concept, do you not understand, disagree, haven't heard it?
Lemmy isn't what you think it is. Lemmy is a bunch of little fiefdoms run by little dictators that can do whatever they want, whenever they want.
Find a fiefdom you agree with, don't go to the fiefdoms you don't. Or do, and they'll show you the door, see comic. That isn't a freedom of speech issue, you go where you aren't welcome and you will be shown the door.
Again, you don't understand what Lemmy is. It isn't "I can go to .ml and say Marx was an anti-semite and they have to host that". It's: I can go somewhere and say Marx was an anti-semite, or make somewhere and say Marx was an anti-semite.
You again don't understand what freedom of speech is, they (.ml) haven't violated your freedom of speech, they've shown you the door.
Is that you asking me a question and answering it for me? You know when I said you're all yap and zero listen? Please introspect. As it happens I've made my view on moderated content on Lemmy very clear, thanks for listening.
You don't believe that. You have already told me how you believe the environment should have rules and moderation. You already said there is a line, you disagree with people where the line is. Get off your high horse, it's embarrassing.
Again you don't understand Lemmy, the exact opposite happens here, Blahaj.zone (spelling?) flourished. Exploding-heads did not. LGBT+ people made their own little fiefdom: people like being there, because they're nice people and it's a nice place to be. Exploding-heads made their own little fiefdom, and the nazi bar cycle happened. You see how my hypothetical played out in reality, and the opposite of yours happened? Would you like to consider why that might be? You called it a slippery slope fallacy, round here it's observable reality.