A couple of months ago I wrote a single comment under a post about a hateful rage upon israel in c/news, literally I wrote “What could Hamas do to end the violence?”
Nothing else.
And I got immediately banned.
The moderators refuse to answer my messages.
Not even that, they even banned a buddy who spoke up in my defence per message - not per c/news but really just a personal message to be sure.
In 15 years of Reddit my posts got deleted a lot - but NEVER my comments and I got NEVER banned for anything.
If this is what Lemmy wants to be, then be it but without me.
Do you think this is what Lemmy needs to be?
The Lemmy.world News community moderation is awful; particularly when it comes to anything regarding Israel.
If I recall correctly I literally had a comment taken down for just explaining the perspective expressed (at the time recently) by an Israeli official. I believe the moderation note was that I was not making a “good faith” argument.
I would go so far as to say being anything but anti-Israel is not permitted in that community. I don’t interact over there anymore.
This was the comment. Emphasis added.
The reason a mod called it bad faith: Israelis were actively settling the land after the IDF cleared it out.
Thanks for finding it; I couldn’t on my mobile app.
Also if that’s the reason it was “bad faith”, I think a far more appropriate action is to just say “they’re actively settling the land they claim they don’t want anyways” ideally with a citation as a comment.
That sentence was a fraction of what I’d said anyways. To remove the whole comment due to an objection to one sentence is ridiculous.
Looking back, that was a bad day, with tons of reports coming in, and I believe the mod team was just working the reports as fast as they could.
We’re all only human and it’s a hot button issue that’s divisive even within the left leaning US political spectrum. Still, I suspect you can appreciate how frustrating it is from my perspective and why it has sat with me rather unfondly.
The Lemmy attitude has been staunchly anti-Israel (and at times frighteningly pro-Hamas) across the platform and having moderators remove a “mild mannered” comment, not in support of Israel, but in defense of situational nuance… It just further reinforces that narrative.
As I recall that day, several people I was engaging with were being much more uncivil and fervent than I was; Lemmy’s moderation weirdness likely doesn’t help as I’m not sure cross-instance reports really do much.
As a mod, what I can say is this:
If something of yours is removed, or you receive a ban, send us a message. We can work through it. Also, if you see something, report it.
We’re volunteers, and don’t police every comment or post, as we have full-time jobs. We tend to look at the reports, try to gather some context if time allows, then take action or not, based on the community rules.
Thanks for your feedback. I really appreciate it!
Honestly, given the Moderators background I think they are straw-men by the Axis-of-Evil (Russia, Iran, North-Korea) which took control of all major Lemmy Communities “just in case”
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Eh, maybe, but that’s quite the claim.
I don’t think forums really are a great place to have these political discussions at this point. I don’t know how to make a news community that isn’t going to outrage some group of people and become a moderation nightmare of its own given current political division.
(Edit: more likely they’re well meaning moderators trying to prevent disinformation with their own political tilt on the facts, one which I, and I believe yourself, do not think is an accurate tilt given the rhetoric and behavior of Hamas)
Also just with regard to moderating controversial stuff, there are some shitty people out there … The Lemmy development chat got bombarded with child porn. The KDE community got bombarded with gore. I’m still trying to get both of the respective images I saw out of my mind.
Honestly, between the technical issues as the base of lemmy, the leftist tilt, the honestly traumatizing imagery I’ve seen, etc, I’m increasingly considering packing up and moving to blue sky once it gets communities/discussion groups. The fedi-safe stuff has helped a lot, but I’m still in awe that there aren’t more protections in place for lemmy (or matrix public chats).
I partly agree that big Communities are not good for such discussions. But if a mere comment “what could Hamas do to end the violence?” is a reason for a ban then those communities should just forbid commenting at all.
And btw, on Reddit there are some actually very positive political groups, e.g. lazerpig and the volt-groups. As long as they don’t get too big and keep a healthy athmosphere this is possible.
Maybe; can’t say I’ve ever participated in those or know anything about them.
In any case, I’ve been having political arguments on social media since at least 2015 … and I’m not convinced it was a good expenditure of time.
I think there are more reliable places to find news and it’s best discussed with friends and possibly family. Social media is better for hobbies, interests, fun facts, history, and silly things.
I mean, even this fairly tame discussion we’re having getting down voted speaks volumes really. I share your frustration but I’d invest your energy elsewhere.
We should start an c/news without fascist moderators. Or just remove the old bunch.
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