Lemmy is more left leaning because the rights popularity seen on other social media are driven by bots that are not here.
Lemmy is more left leaning because the rights popularity seen on other social media are driven by bots that are not here.
Yet.
Not really. I mean that "because..." part.
Leftism is inherenty tied to technology, especially new. It's part of its lifestyle. EVERY new, massive social "site" (or online service) is expected to be left-leaning by default. It may later change its political viewpoint, but in its relative infancy it's left.
Rightism is more about actions taking place in real-world. As such, the technology isn't perceived as more than a tool, used for specific purpose only, rather than part of, or the foundation of a lifestyle.
...and of course there's a plethora of alternative political views, options and convictions that are a mix of either extremes of the spectrum - if you meet a person online, it shouldn't be surprisied to learn about "pro-life", but also "anti-Trump" and similarly puzzling approaches to various aspects of life.
tl;dr: it's not about bots. It's because Lemmy/Mastodon isn't popular enough to serve as a tool for right-wing politics.
I agree with the other commenters who say that the issue is primarily that the Lemmyverse is too small for the grifters to bother influencing, but I also think federation (and the non-profit nature) plays into this.
A site like Reddit generally does not ban members just for being Conservative and expressing relatively mainstream right-wing beliefs. They have to present at least a veneer of "free speech" except in the case of hate speech and violence. In addition, they don't want to drive away Conservative users, because that's where their money comes from.
To a small Lemmy instance, these motives don't come into play. More users actually costs the admins more money. And while they generally don't ban users willy-nilly, they feel they have a right to ban people just for being right-wing dicks.
Ultimately right-wing ideology cannot survive in a space like this except in explicitly right-leaning instances; which will be subject to the "Nazi Bar" effect until those instances are defederated from the rest of the Lemmyverse.
Not by bots but by rage farming algorithms. Rage farming the right is easy and profitable. Facebook has gotten that down to science. The fake absolutist free speech espoused by Twitter's management as well as the apparent moderation inaction by Facebook are all about that. Letting right wing nuts rage freely generates engagement, generates ad revenue. The only thing the platforms actively manage is making sure that big name ads don't show up on Nazi posts.
Lemmy also isn't profit driven, so you don't get libertarian tech bros.
i think its not just the bots but also that the right want their posts to be seen and want to "present" themself and their "opinions". And i think for that, lemmy is just not visible enough, yet.
I honestly don't think that's the case. There's tons of right leaning and left leaning people that are bots. You can just never know. I think it comes down to the age range using this place and the culture using it. Reactionary people prefer sites like 4chan or the other online communities designed to cater to them. The age comes in because based on research the largest age demographic using Lemmy is between 25 and 35. This site is too underground to attract the middle aged and older cohort that are right wing. It's also not hip enough to attract the under 20 crowd who make up the bulk of Steven Crowder, Ben Shapiro and Tim Pool viewers.
I think that the left-right dichotomy is inherently flawed. A lot of what I believe might be considered "right-leaning" or "left-leaning," but I cannot say that I prescribe to either sort of ideology fully or with any fidelity.
I will always be opposed to any view with a pervasive "moral" authority, and both the so-called left and right are obsessed with their own versions of this. The problem we run into is the false supposition that beliefs can be categorized on a spectrum spanning right to left (or, even more liberally, a spectrum spread across two dimensions). It has been a ridiculous notion from its inception, whenever that might have been.
Building one's identity (another silly notion, in general—identity itself being a frivolous construct that functions only as a fulcrum for the extortion of social power) upon a supposed spectrum is likewise ridiculous. You can be conservative or liberal, or anything, really. But those beliefs do not exist in a linear or planar dimension. They are so far removed from each other that one cannot fathom sliding incrementally from one to the next.
And to each respective party, "left" and "right," the other can be demonized as evil, even without full comprehension of the other. It's all just so damned tribalistic and silly.
I agree with you that Lemmy may be more left-leaning than other social media platforms due to the lack of bot activity. However, I think it's also important to consider the type of content that is shared and discussed on Lemmy. As a platform focused on creativity and expression, there may be an inherent bias towards progressive or left-leaning ideas and discussions. Additionally, Lemmy's community guidelines prioritize kindness and respect, which can create a space where voices from marginalized communities feel safe to share their opinions and experiences. Overall, while bot activity certainly plays a role in shaping the political climate of social media platforms, I believe that Lemmy's unique culture and values also contribute to its overall political orientation.
That being said, I appreciate your comment and am glad to see thoughtful discussion happening on Lemmy! Let's keep building a supportive and inclusive online community together.
Idk how it's taken people this long to figure it out lol
Nah, it's probably because most of us left Reddit at some point, either due to banning left-wing subs or due to corporate dickery.
The right-wingers went their way, to places like Voat, Saidit, Gab and Truth Social.
I agree. I think most people just miss the point that young people tend to move faster the others established. It doesn't help that people's views o left v right differ depending on their agendas etc...
Haha, good one tankie. Look, I can hide the sun with one hand! xD
Right wing bots. That's a good one.
Be good to others - no bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia
As long as these rules are in place and enforced arbitrarily by power tripping mods you'll only see the woke bubble. Alternate ideas are not allowed. Try talking about any of the taboo subjects and see how quickly the ban hammer falls.
kbin.social is just as bad as reddit ever was. I said that I personally don't want a transgender transition surgery and they banned me. These are not places where real discussion can happen.
Most smart right wing people (not me obviously), long ago gave up trying to discuss anything important with the left.
It’s not productive, and everyone that I know has just gone to more private chats and channels and don’t even have social media accounts.
You get banned enough times for saying something reasonable, or constantly get called a nazi or something ridiculous and you just stop using those places to talk.
The separation and division has already happened. For anyone hoping to have a discussion with anyone who has different opinions than you do, that train has left the station.
There are bots, lots of them (I’m sure from the left and the right) and that’s it’s own problem. But I doubt we will ever see a place where people can just disagree anymore.
No one seems to have the balls to let these conversations happen on either side.
That's just wrong. Totally ahistorical.
There's a good chunk of the rest of the fediverse that's more right leaning, for the most part they've actively avoided Lemmy because Lemmy was actively hostile to any kind of wrongthink. It was one of the things that really limited it's growth because you could only be on Lemmy if you believed exactly what you were told to believe.
I stayed on the threadiverse through lotide despite it all, and despite having some pretty limited takes, I quickly found myself banned or defederated from many instances. To this day I don't participate on those instances because I'm not welcome. Wolfballs and exploding-heads came to exist, but were similarly rejected and even now the very first thing to be done by many instances is defederating from those instances.
I've heard through the grapevine that some of the people who run fediverse instances are considering starting Lemmy instances now that the platform is growing.
I think that Lemmy leans left because people on the right tend to be occupied with more productive activities in their life, such as work, family, or hobbies.
The left-leaning Lemmy tends to be people who haven't gotten out and touched grass in a while, mainly because it is composed of former redditors.
That's reaching a quite a bit. Reddit itself is very left leaning. Pair that with the fact that the (probably few) ring wing people leaving Twitter recently might not be interested in a forum style platform such as Lemmy.
My guess is that the number of right leaning people joined Lemmy in this last wave of new accounts was small in comparison to the left leaning ones.