Real political discourse is too heavily censored in corporate spaces
this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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- No politics
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It's because political discussion (and in general most commentary) on Reddit / Meta / Xitter has become overtly censored, and there's a real concern that it's tracked - a bad thing in an authoritarian regime barreling towards facism. Those who wish to have real political discourse having been moving away, and lemmy is receiving a lot of that traffic.
As an example, referring to a list of CEO's on Reddit as "Luigi's List" will get you a ban warning for inciting violence.
This increase in sensitivity to the potential implications of real political speech, coupled with increasingly stringent rules on the parts of the mods and accelerated by the auto-mod bots and AI chat bots, has led to a very restrictive discussion environment on the big social media networks. Even Bluesky, which is left-leaning and possesses the architecture for multiple servers to avoid centralization, is following this pattern.
Lemmy / Mastodon are attractive because they're not as restrictive, when you're posting you're interacting with real people, and because the mods and admins are humans dealing with a manageable population. And if someone censors you on the server you're on, you just move to another. More and more folks are realizing this as the enshitification of the big 3 continues.
Fear not, the memes will live on, but I think that in a very real way, Lemmy's (and the Fediverse's) time is upon us, and this is the result. People are using it for real shit because the real shit is upon us, and we need a place where we can freely discuss how to get clear of the incoming shitstorm.
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(But yeah, things will never quite go back to the way they were, nor would we want them to exactly.)
Trump is using a technique called 'The Gish Gallop.'
Obama wanted to pass the ACA and the GOP managed to block it for almost two years because Obama kept talking about that one thing.
Trump is breaking rules left and right; plus screaming about crazy ideas like buying Greenland.
There is so much stuff going on that normal minds just want to shut down to get some peace and quiet.
I believe they call it "flooding the zone (with shit)" when it's this particular orange flavour
I like using firehose of bullshit, but using their words is probably better.
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It's not just Lemmy either. Every platform is looking like this. At least people have woken the fuck up.
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OP is onto something.
maybe people are getting sad out there. maybe news is coming at us fast.. because change (unprecedented bad bad change) is happening faster than ever before?
it's a sign of the times. people blaming news junkies or whining about blocking comms don't get it. we're no longer living in a time when we can afford to ignore what's happening around us.
ps, I'm not arguing against memes. in fact go check [email protected] it's been turned into a satire comm under new mods and it's wonderful!
Yeah that's unfortunate. I joined that community to listen to concerns of my compatriots.
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I actually saw some news bleed into shitpost the other day. It's that bad.
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Memes is the reason why i rarely sort by top.
Just remember, this is the worst things have been so far. The Trump admin still has shovels in hand, it can get much, much, worse.
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What happened?
People pay attention to memes more than news...
I blocked all the stupid meme communities as soon as I started using Lemmy, glad to see actual discussion is replacing brain rot tho.
It's a good thing.
political memes often are news though. they aren't like, mutually exclusive.
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God forbid we have any space without the constant never ending same arguments right?
You can.
You can subscribe to every stupid brain rot meme sub you want, and when you're ready to turn your brain off just switch to only viewing subscribed communities.
No one is saying not to do that, burnout is real and what fascists hope for.
So by all means, take your breaks. Check out and don't think about it for a day or two. But come back and care about the important shit again.
But when viewing /all and seeing the top post be actual discussions on serious topics it's a good thing.
It means right now more people are choosing that over the brain rot. Hopefully it becomes the norm, but we still need to rotate off for a break, it's not gonna be a short fight against fascism. No one is going to make it to the end without some breaks.
just switch to only viewing subscribed communities.
While I agree with your overall sentiment of taking breaks but staying informed with with discussions, my issue is that politics still leaks there.
Even if you subscribe to only memes and fun stuff, politics can still overrun it.
Imo during the Biden years there was good balance.
yep. we all definitely need breaks. i take long breaks every few months or in the winter when seasonal depression kicks in.
but this is a critical junction for global history. class warfare has escalated and accelerated, and the vast vast majority of us are being actively oppressed through the dismantling of economic and social welfare programs.
my family stands to lose too much for me to be burying my head in the sand right now.
some aren't ready or able or willing to do the work of preparing a response. others have no choice but to pay attention because their family's future literally depend on knowing whether today is the day they "come for you" and all this (bwamp bwamp) news actually reaches your doorstep.
so while people are arguing anime fandoms and who wins The Big Game, I'll be trying to understand my enemy, encourage my allies, and decide what an appropriate response looks like (in real life) using the latest information i have available.
I see your point but think it's also valid to use Lemmy or other social media to engage only with memes or whatever else people enjoy. Absolutely, everybody should stay informed and passionate about the rapidly crumbling world, but there's no rule that they specifically must do that via Lemmy. If someone chooses to use their social media as a haven from the real-world issues they encounter everywhere else, then unless Lemmy is their entire life, I don't see that as a problem.
I'm trying to temper my passion so I can listen for legitimate concerns from all my compatriots. We have deep rifts and wounds that, if not healed properly, are going to cause so much more damage to everyone on the planet, let alone in the USA. That doesn't mean I can't have passion; it means I can try to set them aside and seek solutions that work for the most people while causing the least harm to each other and our environment.
If someone chooses to use their social media as a haven from the real-world issues they encounter everywhere else, then
I would advise them to curate a specific feed for that explicit purpose rather than browse /all and complain other people are paying attention to real shit
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Trump and Elon took office. Now all I see is Trump posts.
I blocked all of the news and political communities on my main account.
I keep an alt to keep track of local and national news of where I live. Improved my mental health substantially.
Edit: I live in Europe
Just the one alt?
I wish I could, but personally not knowing would be a greater mental load then having to process this run away train of fascism.
What more are you really going to do? You already know you're going to vote Democrat in 2028.
What makes you so certain? A lot of voters voted third party last election, across the political spectrum.
If you can't, it can be enough to say that's enough for today and control how much you take in I found a YouTube channel belle of the fifth column is just enough to keep informed but it's short and she put context to the news and just keeps it to the facts no click bait.
I'll not denigrate your choices. I will just say that I'm reading and listening to a lot less, but that's because I'm reading/listening/watching across the spectrum. Shutting out others' voices seems to be what got us here.
I haven't worked up the wherewithal to brave Breitbart, OANN etc yet. One, my mental health is so valuable to me, two, I want to continue to consume thoughtful pieces; but I think it's critical to keep an eye on these outlets so we can address legitimate grievances and also be a calm, steady, not-shaming tone to offer a more grounded perspective. It will take time, patience, respect to bring USA back to some semblance of sanity and unity. I think we are on the event horizon of do-or-die together, in that regard ) and I mean globally).
I don't think i understand your comment what does belle have to do with OANN or Breitbart I wouldn't touch those with a 10 foot pole.
I'm not sure how to be more plain. People are radicalized because legitimate concerns aren't heard, let alone addressed. Entertaining ideas doesn't mean automatically accepting all of them. How are we to address legitimate grievances if we refuse to listen for them?
I understand where you're coming from, but the legitimate grievances of conservatives are not covered by the far right media. They're alchemically transmogrified into immigrant hate, queer hate, poor hate.
Their legitimate grievances are largely the same as everyone. Wages haven't kept up with the cost of living is the most basic. But instead of looking at the top of the hierarchy for answers, these media sources redirect that grievance at the bottom of the hierarchy. And conservatives are obsessed with hierarchy.
It is good to study enemy propaganda, but it's hard to stomach. I wish more people could understand in the way you have.
And when we've tempered ourselves (I'm so not there yet!), we can calmly, rationally refute with truth in non-inflammatory language. We can try to use simpler terms and explain those not understood. I understand it's not going to be easy, that's why I'm working on temperance in small bites, first. Our media has inflamed and made reactionary all of us, to varying extents, because that supports the monied interests. It supports everyone's interests to dial it back, take deep breaths and respond rather than react. Don't think the Neo Duopoly is going to do that; they will counter it with even more inflammatory rhetoric.
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We should really stay on top of the news to know when Trump wants us to wear identifying armbands
I find that keyword-based filtering seems to work better than blocking. We're at a point here that if one is blocking all communities where people post news and politics to then there's nothing left to browse because you'd need to block virtually every even slightly popular community.
My current record so far is refreshing the front page and seeing 4 posts with all the others being filtered out. That's how bad the politics and news spam has gotten. And people wonder why normies aren't coming here..
I combine it with blocking users. Political communities are blocked entirely, and then users who post irrelevant political crap in non-political communities are blocked individually.
i don't wonder that. let the normies have their Destiny 2 and PublicFreakout and fantasy sports communities elsewhere. seeing comment section after section on Reddit filled to the brim with "I'm so funny!" unserious one liners was obnoxious. people talking about GoThrones fandom and RC cars while inequality skyrockets or the rich dismantle every federal govt program that benefit 99% of the population is not a good thing to yearn for. the founders-effect dominance from a handful of narrow ideologically centrists is not something we need more of.
Can you do me a favor and reply with your alts?
I've blocked at least 3 so far but it's like playing fucking whack a mole
I have to admit I find some of this user's takes annoying, while also finding some useful nuggets. I'm trying to learn to ignore inane or otherwise not useful to healing, while trying to respond to more thoughtful content.
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i was just thinking this.. it used to be 80% memes and now its just the downfall of western society. depressing.
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