@zeroase A few reasons.

First off, I actually don't have an issue with my current instance, for the post part. My interactions with most people on this instance have been decent. The problem is that the Fediverse, as a whole, is full of people just waiting to attack people like me if we decide to ever discuss anything in the political side of things.

The original post that started that whole thread was one by Eugen Rochko, he was encouraging people to leave positive reviews for the official app on the Play Store because there were quite a few negative reviews saying Mastodon is a left-wing echo chamber.

My first reply was that they weren't entirely wrong: even after strenuous blocking, word filter lists and even straight-up instance blocks, I still see all sorts of left-wing political stuff in the Explore feed. It's literally unavoidable. I joined this instance, and the Fediverse as a whole, to connect with people in the IT space and chat about stuff we care about, but over the past few months, I see loads of political crap again. It's especially horrid since the election.

The fact that I had two of my posts removed for a mutually civil discussion (which seems all too rare for political discussions here) is problematic. Even if I move instances, I'll still encounter loads of these sorts of ridiculous posts. Plus, like I said, I did enjoy using this instance due to the fact that a lot of people here are into the same sort of stuff within IT that I am.

Oh, and the 11k character limit is especially nice to have for people like me who tend to be very verbose.

@guyjantic I can respect that. I may not agree with your perspective but I respect your reasoning. I wish more atheists and agnostics could be honest and fair with their conclusions rather than insisting on mocking religions and faiths.

@guyjantic Lewis is one of the people that I almost always see respect for, even among non-religious individuals!

@guyjantic I have not encountered any nazis on X outside of random trolls in the replies of big accounts. I'm no Elon simp, nor do I think X is anywhere NEAR perfect, but at least I can speak my opinion on my faith and issues relating to it without fearing censorship.

And as for Bluesky, it's literally worse than the Fediverse in terms of being an echo chamber. I'd get banned for much less, much quicker. Not to mention the fact that, if we want to talk about the population of platforms, Bluesky is already infamous for being a platform full of pedophiles and degenerates.

I have a great circle of friends on X who just chat about tech, tea, Japan, traditional values and the like. I have a solid circle of people on Nostr that present thought-provoking discussions about history, big government and how evil Woodrow Wilson was.

I'll take those two over what I've encountered here, or what I'd almost certainly encounter on Bluesky.

"One reason why many people find Creative Evolution so attractive is that it gives one much of the emotional comfort of believing in God and none of the less pleasant consequences. When you are feeling fit and the sun is shining and you do not want to believe that the whole universe is a mere mechanical dance of atoms, it is nice to be able to think of this great mysterious Force rolling on through the centuries and carrying you on its crest. If, on the other hand, you want to do something rather shabby, the Life-Force, being only a blind force, with no morals and no mind, will never interfere with you like that troublesome God we learned about when we were children. The Life-Force is a sort of tame God. You can switch it on when you want, but it will not bother you. All the thrills of religion and none of the cost. Is the Life-Force the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen?" - CS Lewis, Mere Christianity

#CSLewis #Christian #Christianity #creationism #evolution #science

@bemmesr Accurate. I've had several encounters like that as well. How DARE I suggest that, maybe, capitalism could be a good thing?! What temerity! What gall! 🙄

@cmdr_nova If I had posts removed and received a warning, why would I push harder and end up literally getting banned? I'm not saying I'm planning to delete my account here, just that I aim to wind down my time spent on the Fediverse.

The best I can do is hint at what happened.

So, there was a post from Eugen Rochko talking about how Mastodon users should fight the negative reviews of the official Mastodon app because those reviews talk about how the Fediverse tends to be a left-wing echo chamber.

My reply said something along the lines of, "They're not entirely wrong, though. Even after I have done extensive blocking through filters and even entire instance blocks, I still see loads of left-wing political perspectives and any time you express an opinion that's even remotely aligned with right-wing politics, you get swarmed by them and made to feel like a monster."

Someone replied and said that the reason this is the case is because, in their opinion, Christianity has mistreated these individuals and caused them trauma. I called out that perspective as a moot point because, first off, disagreeing with someone's worldview isn't "trauma". I said that anyone that feels that way needs to grow thicker skin.

The discussion continued on this subject, away from the original topic, and it was between this person and I as we debated our own opinions. Neither of us were being hostile whatsoever. Re-reading the warning, I still don't know what in my removed posts was considered "being a jerk" (the moderators' words, not mine). But because my opinion was traditionalist, conservative, rooted in Christianity, it was removed. Meanwhile, I've seen posts on the Fediverse that have literally been just south of active threats against people like Elon Musk and the like, yet that's somehow okay? To be fair, I haven't seen those posts on my home instance, and I am not blaming this instance for that.

The point is, if I can't express my worldview in a civil, mature manner on a platform that's allegedly in favor of freedom and free speech, then I'd argue the FEDIVERSE is the fascist platform... but even then, I wouldn't argue that, because the term "fascist" is thrown around for anything that is right-wing, or even centrist at this point.

@Gargron Free speech is not troubling. We're adults. We can think for ourselves and don't need nannies policing our content for anything that doesn't line up with an accepted narrative. Community notes is far from perfect but handing fact checking to the community is the only way you can promote both freedom AND the truth.

@cmdr_nova Again, free speech isn't fascist. It's literally the opposite. If I can express myself in civility on "fascist" platforms, yet I'm censored for the same thing on a supposedly "free" network, then the world must be upside down.

And frankly, I find it a lot more pleassnt on the other platforms. I have my awesome friend group of Japan lovers, tea fanatics and tech enthusiasts on X. I have a decent circle of folks standing up for individual freedom and small government on Nostr. What do I have on the Fediverse? Occasional decent chats in an ocean of ironically intolerant phonies who throw tantrums if you don't go along with the "acceptable" narrative.

Again, I fail to see how that's not fascist, yet Nostr and X supposedly are.

@cmdr_nova Frankly, I don't know what in my post triggered moderation, but it was in relation to my refutation of the claim that the left-leaning population of the Fediverse is somehow the fault of Christians causing "trauma" to certain groups... simply by choosing to not agree or accept their lifestyle choices. Last I checked, a person has every right to freedom of religion and an opinion on others' decisions in life.

Also, say what you want about the others, I'm actually free to conduct a civil discussion on both. That's not "fascist" behavior.

Had a post of mine removed for supposed violations of the instance rules, when I was being civil in a discussion about how the Fediverse apparently has no tolerance for anyone who isn't left-leaning, politically. This just further proved my point.

As such, I will be winding down my time here. I will not support or accept a place where people can express all sorts of legitimate hatred toward the "right people" yet one can't civilly express their opinions if they don't fit the preferred narrative of the Fediverse. I'm ultimately not here for politics, but when I still see hardcore political takes that target myself and people like me even AFTER stringent blocks and filtering, it angers me very much that I am not permitted to make a statement when everyone else can attack me, my beliefs and people like me just because we're the "correct" group to target.

Sucks to have to do this but I've been feeling this way for months now, and now that my suspicions were indisputably proven correct, I'll be spending my time on Nostr, X and I'm also considering opening a second, public account on MeWe for sharing the kinds of content I used to share here.

If you ever enjoyed my posts or care enough to find me elsewhere, those are where you can find me. My Nostr pubkey and X handle are in my bio.

#Fediverse #censorship #politics #freedom #freespeech #religion

@fredbrooker Feature-wise, definitely not, as they both offer a truly awesome feature set.

However, Whatsapp being owned by Meta is concerning, especially since they admit they can still access any reported messages, which leads me to believe they probably have other backdoors as well.

As for Telegram, that one's hotly debated but the issue comes from the fact that it's not encrypted by default, and they run their own encryption standard rather than one that is tried and true like the Signal Protocol (which even Whatsapp uses, funny enough).

@fredbrooker Yeah, it sucks to see because Signal, at least, has a lot of great features that easily make it competitive with larger options. I understand people not having the desire to try the more esoteric kinds like Session and SimpleX if they're not hardcore privacy advocates, but Signal's only barrier of entry is getting the person to realize how bad the big tech messaging options are... which is way more difficult than it sounds, for whatever reason.

@argv_minus_one No, it's not, because people don't determine what sin is: God does. It's not a sin to disagree with a person's worldview, whether that "traumatizes" them or not.

People think "earthy, bitter, bold" when they think of black tea. The thing is, when you actually try a quality Dianhong black tea, that impression goes straight out the window. In my experience, Dianhongs tend to be chocolatey, smooth and roasty.

#tea #teastodon #blacktea

@richardincyprus It could result in either a split, or a massive growth of free speech across the globe. I'm hoping for the latter, especially given the power and influence that's already being displayed by the incoming administration before it even gains any political power.

@safetyandjobs Much appreciated!

If you know me, you know I'm an AI skeptic, so this says a lot: I started trying Venice AI and I REALLY like it.

Previously, I only used Brave's Leo and the search engine summarizer as occasional augmentative tools. I still use those for information purposes.

However, Venice also offers image generation, and very solid image generation at that. While I don't ever plan to subscribe to any AI service -- ever -- I will say that I could see myself making use of Venice more often.

A huge part of why I enjoy Venice is because of how it's more privacy-friendly and less censorship-heavy than big tech AI services. It feels like this is how the technology SHOULD have been implemented.

If you're interested in trying it, I have a referral link you can use: https://venice.ai/chat?ref=Kv1g7q

#AI #Venice #VeniceAI #artificialintelligence

@argv_minus_one Same diff in this case. Parents have a right to disagree with a child's choice in sexuality, that's not trauma. The amount of times parents ACTUALLY throw their kids out of the house for being gay isn't nearly as common as you seem to think. As for things like beatings, imprisonment and the like, you realize that almost NEVER happens in the west, right?

The LGBT community, feminists, Muslims, they all have it INCREDIBLY well in the west. In fact, I'd argue they have it the best here. Feminists literally rule the west, the LGBT community gets its way with everything and Muslims practically own all of Europe at this point.

You can blame God and Christians all you want but most of these people you're referring to are NOT victims if they live in the west. They might be if they live in the Middle East, or one of the socialist/communist hell-holes around the world, but not in the west. Cut the victimhood complex.

PS: Jesus taught people to pursue and proclaim righteousness. He didn't teach us to accept sins. There's a difference between someone disagreeing with a worldview, and actually persecuting someone. You overestimate how common the latter actually is over here.

I hate to be the one guy praising Mark Zuckerberg but seeing how many people complaining about his policy shift on Meta platforms, I'll temporarily be "that guy":

This is a positive development.

Social media should be neutral. I'm not against moderation by any means, but it needs to be minimal. I've had a LOT of experience running and moderating forums when I was younger, and back in those days, the best communities were always the ones that took a light-handed approach to moderation. Why? Because by and large, people can self-moderate. Moderation should only be there to facilitate civil and open discussion, nothing more.

For the past six or seven years, in particular, Facebook has been notorious for censoring people for exercising their first amendment right to have opinions on politicians, doctors, businesses and the system at large.

By no means am I saying that X's moderation is perfect. Not by a LONG shot. But what I will say is that when it comes to misinformation, social networks need to let us be ADULTS. Let us do our own research. Stop playing nanny to us, trying to act as arbiters of truth. That's an incredibly dystopian path to walk. We don't need social media, MSM or cults of so-called "professionals" telling us what to think.

Leaving "fact checking" to the community is right in line with the very basis of the internet: decentralized, open communication available to EVERYONE.

So yes, today, I am applauding Mark Zuckerberg. I still don't like the guy, I still think Facebook and Meta platforms are one of the most egregious examples of the violation of privacy ever devised, but I believe in credit where credit's due. Today, Zuck did the right thing. Today, Zuck made a step in the right direction.

#zuckerberg #meta #facebook #instagram #facts #factchecking #moderation #communitynotes #privacy #freedom #socialmedia