Guys I understand there’s big stuff going on in the world. This community though is really just about finding other communities. For now, on the theory that people kind of forgot where they were, some temp bans were handed out. I have no pretensions of this being c/news or something. But I also have no pretensions of this being c/news. It is absolutely beyond the pale to post your political broadsides here while people are trying to figure out the best place to have their community. The only way politics is acceptable here is if you’re talking about opening or moving a community about politics or because of politics. And it should absolutely remain civil. A simple, “I don’t like your ideology”, is enough here.
I’d like to apologize for my part in this toxicity. I think I could have approached that thread in a more civil manner.
But maybe you can give me some advice for the future. What got me fired up was statements by people defending or advocating for indiscriminate mass murder. To me this seems beyond a mere ideological disagreement and it feels wrong to leave this kind of content unchallenged. But would it have been better to just report it and move on? I considered this but wasn’t sure if it constituted rule-breaking content per se. And I was wary of reporting something that might not be against the rules.
What is the best way to respond to this type of content which I unfortunately see all too often on Lemmy?
This is just my opinion but you should leave it unchallenged. When was the last time you changed someone’s mind because you posted a reply to it?
I think we are just not being trained for situations like this in the west. People are talking about mass murder really triggers us. But you know, it’s designed to do that. More anger, more posts, more attention, and on big tech platforms, more money because more ads and traffic.
Just look at the person writing these things. Are they worth even responding to? Who cares what they think?
Whenever I respond to someone like that, I assume up front that the person I’m responding to will not change their mind. Taking that for granted, I write purely with the intention of providing a well reasoned counterargument for a third party observer of the conversation, I.e. lurkers, hoping that it prevents someone from being deceived by the content I’m responding to, thus giving them a mental handhold to avoid slipping into some deep bullshit.
I say that as someone who was once fully gripped by religion and conspiracy theories, and it was only after I was finally exposed to some irrefutable rational arguments that I could begin my slow crawl out of that dark pit of ignorance.
I was literally typing a reply about how it still is useful to onlookers and how I have had my mind changed as a third party witness to online arguments before, and then I saw this. Thanks for doing that!
Yes, this is exactly why it’s so important to not leave things unchallenged! Human brains are so susceptible to absorbing ideas through osmosis by just reading statements while scrolling.
Good point!
There are communities where that’s what drives the entire place. This just really isn’t the place, especially when it gets like that thread did. So in non political communities it’s usually best to just report that stuff and move on. As long as the report is in good faith a mod shouldn’t care. And to be clear I’m not saying we can’t have side conversations. This isn’t some draconian ruling like nobody can mention party or ideology names. But they clearly derailed that comment section for political discussion.
As far as the rules being clearly posted, you’re the second person today to mention they may not be. So I’ll definitely be looking into that.
OK thanks for your thoughts, I’ll try to stick to that in the future.