The way political discussions are often policed on ML instances (This one, Lemmygrad, and Hexbear) is not conducive to helping new people see your point of view. If a, let's say, social democrat says something critical of the CCP and then is immediately censured or banned, they are going to be left with a very negative impression that feeds into the stereotypes that already exist about these instances.
Creating a useful enemy promotes group bonding, unity, a sense of strengthened identity, and self worth.
Aren't people on ML instances also doing the exact same thing when they shout down and decry the wretched "liberals" (which seems to refer to anyone left-of-centre who doesn't support communist party rule)? Whether it's "tankie" or "liberal", it only further entrenches the us vs them mindset.
It's a shame that leftist infighting exists to such a degree when we often share about 95% of the same views, compared to the general public.
I appreciate the effort you've put in here, but still I do not see grounds for defederation. You've just given me three examples from a single community that is obviously political.
Look, the question isn't "are there communities on lemmy.ml that are ideologically censored", because of course there are; the question I am putting to you is "is the average user going about their business and not actively engaging in politically-oriented communities affected enough to warrant the largest Lemmy instance completely defederating?" I would still say no, personally.
Yes I have, which is why I'm asking. While I agree that the admin response was totally out of all proportion, this is not evidence of either of the things you previously claimed.
If you're going to justify defederation based on non-political communities being policed and injected with propaganda, you need to provide some concrete examples of that happening.
but, these communities come along with an assortment of lies and Propaganda.
So block those individual communities that post what you consider propaganda. Hell, even block the whole instance - that option is readily available to you.
At which point the negative outweigh the positive?
With a server like, say, Hexbear, this would be an easy calculation. Defederate and what does the average user miss out on? Not a whole lot. On the other hand, .ml has a wide variety of technology, open source, gaming, hobby, etc. communities that don't even touch on politics.
I regularly visit many of them, so for me at least, it would take a lot more on the negative scale to even break even.
There are some good points here, but I think defederation should always be a last resort and especially so in this case, given that we are talking about lemmy.ml here.
Since it was the former flagship server (in activity, at least) before LW came along, there are still many thriving, non-political communities hosted there. To cut them all off would be a net-negative to the average Lemmy user, I would argue.
That's not to say that I agree with the actions of the .ml admins, or think that opening a dialogue with them about moderation policies isn't a great idea, of course; I just think it's overall a better approach to let the individual user figure out for themselves which communities/instances they want to engage with and which ones they want to avoid.
Yeah, so Gnome has an extension called Night Theme Switcher which automatically changes your background, icons, theme, cursor etc. based on a user-defined day/night schedule. It works great.
Arc Menu is another extension which gives Gnome a standard start menu (since it doesn't come with one by default) in the top lefthand corner. It also comes with a KRunner-like app launcher that pops up in the middle of the screen instead of using the default Gnome Overview UI.
Both these extensions make Gnome feel a little more natural for desktop use, IMO.
That's why I did a double take when I saw the above headline. Biden finally putting his foot down and strong-arming Israel into a ceasefire would be huge.
I'm personally not sure that saying "We're trying to work out ... an immediate ceasefire" has nearly the same urgency as as calling for one, but hey at least it's something.
Sadly, this headline seems to be misleading. Checking for additional sources, I can find none that confirm that he actually called for a ceasefire.
According to the Associated Press, he did decry the loss of life in Gaza and announce that the US are about to commence airdrops of humanitarian aid, but at no point did he seem to do what this headline implies.
A Reuters article covering the same conference mentions the possibility of a ceasefire, but this apparently referred to a previous conversation a few days ago.
Unless anyone can find evidence to the contrary, I have to assume that this Newshub article is clickbait.
I don't think so - to me it seems more about weighing up the student's need vs the parents' decision. The school district want to honor the student's wishes as much as possible but if they are <18 they are not legally an adult, so the school ultimately should defer to the parents.
Sensible from legal standpoint, even though it would suck for the student.
The advice on the subject of informing parents reads:
Telling parents
Note that the ACLU is very protective of a student's right to privacy in his/her sexuality. If a school employee believes that "a situation exists which presents a serious threat to the well-being of a student," the employee must notify parents without delay. (Utah Code 53A- 13-302(6)(b)(i)). Other than a threatening situation, volunteering known information about a student's sexuality with parents is not advised.
Consider the following factors in making a determination about talking to parents:
Age of students
Whether student is being bullied based on sexuality or gender identity
Student requests
Knowledge of parents' relationship with students
What if a student asks to be called a preferred name/pronoun and parents object? Unless the student is 18, parents' requests should govern.
Automoderator was really introduced to reduce loads on moderators. As such, how strict the filters were was mainly down to them.
The reason many moderators used it was to reduce spam from brand new accounts/sock puppets and to enforce community-defined posting rules. On the sub I co-ran, you only needed +5 comment karma in order to be allowed to post.
With respect, there's a bit more to it than that.
The way political discussions are often policed on ML instances (This one, Lemmygrad, and Hexbear) is not conducive to helping new people see your point of view. If a, let's say, social democrat says something critical of the CCP and then is immediately censured or banned, they are going to be left with a very negative impression that feeds into the stereotypes that already exist about these instances.
Aren't people on ML instances also doing the exact same thing when they shout down and decry the wretched "liberals" (which seems to refer to anyone left-of-centre who doesn't support communist party rule)? Whether it's "tankie" or "liberal", it only further entrenches the us vs them mindset.
It's a shame that leftist infighting exists to such a degree when we often share about 95% of the same views, compared to the general public.