Hello, Im kind of new here and trying to get used to Lemmy and I was wondering about if this is true since I am considering donating on this site to support alternative projects but wanted to hear other users before doing so. That being said, what have been your experiences?
There is three questions to consider.
One is the site itself. Reddit inc has their own policies that apply site-wide no matter what. Lemmy has no central organization like that, although each individual server operator has their own acceptable use policy for what they allow on their server. This means it is both more free and more confusing- if you want to post potentially objectionable content like porn, there are plenty of servers that allow it or you can always run your own, but you have to make sure you are on one.
Next is individual group moderation. Both Reddit and Lemmy have this, community level moderators that apply whatever standards particular community requires. There is much less of the ‘power mod on a power trip’ situation than on Reddit currently, at least in my experience. I think some of that is because the overall traffic level is less, so it will be interesting to see what happens as Lemmy grows.
Finally there is culture and self-moderation. You see this on mass market platforms like Instagram and TikTok, where someone will say like they were roped at a party and want to buy a pewpew to unalive themself or some other such bullshit. Unfortunately that brain rot is spreading into Reddit, even though it is not at all required. Fortunately Lemmy seems pretty free of that so far.
corn, seggs, etc too. so absurd that stuff. esp because so much tiktok content is just lead-ins to porn/onlyfan accounts.
That’s a good point actually. An extra level of ridiculousness and hypocrisy to this trend of self censorship.
You know what worries me though? It was about 2008ish when I first heard someone say “lol” verbally as a response to a witty comment, and it was a really weird moment for me. She didn’t laugh, she smiled and said “lol”, because she was so used to speaking online. Now it’s pretty normal to hear that. I even do it without realising it.
What worries me is that these awful censorship words will creep into spoken English and people will start saying then out loud. I think I will unalive a little inside when that happens.
I have already heard things like “unalive” defended as youth slang rather than Orwellian doublespeak.
I mean, on the one hand, no. It’s not even slang, it’s just a pathetic phenomenon where the users feel forced into using words they don’t want to, even though they aren’t being forced but they cowardishly still do it for fear of actual censorship. But then, on the other hand, my generation’s youth slang includes things like douchecanoe and heckin and live, laugh, love, so I don’t feel in a superior enough position to judge gen z on theirs.
Yup all those too.
I wish Reddit would put up a banner like ‘you are on the grown up internet now, please act like it’.