I woke up today, to a public comment in a Lemmy community asking a series of tagged accounts why they had downvoted certain posts

I thought that reactions to posts and comments are anonymous and now I don’t really know what to feel about Lemmy any more.

In this case I had downvoted a poster because of its design, but was confronted publicly for being racist because the person assumed that I downvoted the message on the poster

EDIT: changed the title from “How” to “Why” because it broke rule nr 5 about it being a support question

  • lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    Transparency & freedom of information are good. Information that is naturally open should remain open.

    I’m not sure anonymous negativity is anti-egalitarian: anyone has an equal opportunity to it. While

    Everyone has a right to confront their accuser with transparency.

    anonymous negativity isn’t an accusation, it’s disapproval. Plus, election ballots are typically secret in a democracy.

    Moreover, everyone here is anonymous unless they associate their account with a real identity.

    Your example had me confused.

    Should you have a right to leave an anonymous message on his car about the style of his shirt? Doing such nonsense will get you labeled a halfwit or worse. Take any real life circumstances and transpose this behavior. It is completely unethical nonsense.

    In a free society, anyone has the liberty do this. They have the liberty to do “nonsense” & be “a halfwit or worse”. None of it constitutes a harm conflicting with a right. The same liberty carries online.

    While transparency is more conducive to healthy democratic deliberation, there is no duty against such a note. There is no duty to suppress information, either. There’s just absence of duty altogether, ie, liberty.