There are various reasons Lemmy succeeded as a Reddit alternative where others failed. One of the underappreciated ones is probably that the devs were communists. I know that sounds a little strange
The main thing that made Lemmy succeed was structural: no matter how bad an admin team is, you can limit their impact on your experience, by picking another instance.
The main focus of the text is something else though. It’s what I call “the problem of the witches”.
Child-eating witches are bad, but so is witch hunting. People are bound to be falsely labelled as witches and create social paranoia, and somewhere down the road what should be considered witch behaviour will include silly things with barely anything to do with witchcraft - such as planting wheat:
if you’re planting wheat you’ll harvest it.
if you harvest wheat you get straw.
if you get straw you can make a straw broom.
if you make a straw broom you can fly on the sky
conclusion: planting wheat is witchcraft activity.
However, once you say “we don’t burn witches here”, you aren’t just protecting the people falsely mislabelled as witches (a moral thing to do). You’re also protecting the actual witches - that’s immoral, and more importantly it’s bound to attract the witches, and make people who don’t want witches to go away.
In other words, no matter how much freedom of speech is important, once you advertise a site based on its freedom of speech you’ll get a handful of free speech idealists, and lots of people who want to use that freedom of speech to say things that shouldn’t be said for a good reason.
That harmed a lot of Reddit alternatives. Specially as Reddit was doing the right thing for the wrong reasons (getting rid of witches not due to moral reasons, or thinking about its userbase, but because the witches were bad rep). So you got a bunch of free witches eager to settle in whatever new platform you created.
This really sounds like a reformulation (with more accessible language and preferable IMO) of Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance. I have it below for your convenience:
Less well known is the paradox of tolerance:
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. (in note 4 to Chapter 7, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 1)
Yup - it is, partially, Popper’s paradox of tolerance.
However there’s a second risk that I mentioned there, that Popper doesn’t talk about: that the mechanisms and procedures used to get rid of the intolerant might be abused and misused, to hunt the others.
I call this “witch hunting”, after the mediaeval practice - because the ones being thrown into the fire were rarely actual witches, they were mostly common people. You see this all the time in social media; specially in environments that value “trust” (i.e. gullibleness) and orthodoxy over rationality. Such as Twitter (cue to “the main character of the day”), Reddit (pitchfork emporium), and even here in Lemmy.
[from your other comment] There is another solution. Make it so witches cannot cause harm, everyone gives a little bit to make everything work for everyone.
It is trickier than it looks like. We might simplify them as “witches”, but we’re dealing with multiple groups. Some partially overlap (e.g. incels/misogynists vs. homophobic people), but some have almost nothing to do with each other, besides “they cause someone else harm”. So it’s actually a lot of work to prevent them from causing harm, to the point that it’s inviable.
There is another solution. Make it so witches cannot cause harm, everyone gives a little bit to make everything work for everyone.
We already give things away: money with taxes, certain liberties, information, hours of our lives; how many of those are done with complete intentionality? i.e. could we choose to do something else? I’d rather do something I choose or want to do even if its harmful or less pleasant because it’s something I am privy to instead of not.
The main thing that made Lemmy succeed was structural: no matter how bad an admin team is, you can limit their impact on your experience, by picking another instance.
The main focus of the text is something else though. It’s what I call “the problem of the witches”.
Child-eating witches are bad, but so is witch hunting. People are bound to be falsely labelled as witches and create social paranoia, and somewhere down the road what should be considered witch behaviour will include silly things with barely anything to do with witchcraft - such as planting wheat:
However, once you say “we don’t burn witches here”, you aren’t just protecting the people falsely mislabelled as witches (a moral thing to do). You’re also protecting the actual witches - that’s immoral, and more importantly it’s bound to attract the witches, and make people who don’t want witches to go away.
In other words, no matter how much freedom of speech is important, once you advertise a site based on its freedom of speech you’ll get a handful of free speech idealists, and lots of people who want to use that freedom of speech to say things that shouldn’t be said for a good reason.
That harmed a lot of Reddit alternatives. Specially as Reddit was doing the right thing for the wrong reasons (getting rid of witches not due to moral reasons, or thinking about its userbase, but because the witches were bad rep). So you got a bunch of free witches eager to settle in whatever new platform you created.
This really sounds like a reformulation (with more accessible language and preferable IMO) of Popper’s Paradox of Tolerance. I have it below for your convenience:
Yup - it is, partially, Popper’s paradox of tolerance.
However there’s a second risk that I mentioned there, that Popper doesn’t talk about: that the mechanisms and procedures used to get rid of the intolerant might be abused and misused, to hunt the others.
I call this “witch hunting”, after the mediaeval practice - because the ones being thrown into the fire were rarely actual witches, they were mostly common people. You see this all the time in social media; specially in environments that value “trust” (i.e. gullibleness) and orthodoxy over rationality. Such as Twitter (cue to “the main character of the day”), Reddit (pitchfork emporium), and even here in Lemmy.
It is trickier than it looks like. We might simplify them as “witches”, but we’re dealing with multiple groups. Some partially overlap (e.g. incels/misogynists vs. homophobic people), but some have almost nothing to do with each other, besides “they cause someone else harm”. So it’s actually a lot of work to prevent them from causing harm, to the point that it’s inviable.
Well said, then at some point your platform gets labelled “the witch platform” and non-witches will leave.
It happens before the label. When you start seeing a witch flying on your sky every night, you’re already leaving.
There is another solution. Make it so witches cannot cause harm, everyone gives a little bit to make everything work for everyone.
We already give things away: money with taxes, certain liberties, information, hours of our lives; how many of those are done with complete intentionality? i.e. could we choose to do something else? I’d rather do something I choose or want to do even if its harmful or less pleasant because it’s something I am privy to instead of not.
A gun would help stop those witches from flying in the sky.
I may be taking this analogy the wrong way.