Squabbles, another recent reddit alternative, seems to be taking the doomed "free speech" path : reddit

[–] [email protected] 190 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (15 children)

The phrase "free speech platform" sounds like a giant, enormous dog whistle. Which is a damn shame, because I used to enjoy that place, and now I'm not sure I will anymore... Don't want to jump to conclusions, but is there ANY self-described "bastion of free speech on the internet" that is not a cesspool full of awful people? Just one?

I'm a white, heterosexual cis male in my 40s not living in the US, so this does not affect me in any way, shape or form directly, but it still feels just icky, unnecessary and tone-deaf. Guess I'll post photos of my succulents and my goofy dog just on Lemmy from now on, bummer...

[–] [email protected] 68 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think it is a dog whistle , here in India there are people who openly talk of genocide , homophobia and what not and call it their right to speech and expression !

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago

The "funny" thing is that the moment those people have power they don't have a problem going against free speech (see having books banned (in the US) or trying to stop people from voicing their opinion (Meloni in Italy))

It's all just exploiting the tolerance of the system in order to make it less tolerant That's why completely unchecked free speech is a bad idea as it will eventually lead in its complete demise

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

is there ANY self-described “bastion of free speech on the internet” that is not a cesspool full of awful people

When you have a "free speech" policy, you attract principled free-speech advocates who want to discuss issues rather than shouting down unpopular opinions, a few people who are well-behaved and intelligent but write about ideas that the majority may find offensive or horrifying, and a whole bunch of people who got banned everywhere else for being rude and disruptive.

The best-moderated such place that I've seen had a policy requiring politeness and high-effort posts, which kept out the third group.

The second group can be tough to tolerate. Sometimes they're interesting, sometimes they're a Holocaust denier who cites references, and you look up those references and they appear to be real papers written by real academics, and you know this is all wrong but you're not a historian and even if you were you don't have time to address every issue in this guy's entire life's work and you just wish the topic never came up. But you can't keep out the second group unless you compromise your principles as a member of the first group.

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[–] [email protected] 128 points 1 year ago (2 children)

>people are on the proprietary and centralized platform

>the proprietary and centralized platform does a bad thing

>people are moving to another proprietary and centralized platform

>another proprietary and centralized platform does a bad thing

[–] [email protected] 58 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I dont think most people care about whether something is centralized or not. I definitely dont. I am on Lemmy because it is afaik the biggest alternative to reddit with the most content. If there was a centralized version with more and better content I would go there

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[–] Madbrad200 22 points 1 year ago

Most of them seem to be moving to discuit, another centralised platform, Lol

[–] [email protected] 84 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

This seems to be the reason for the change (jayclees is the creator and admin of the site):

https://ibb.co/48hY8fm

[–] [email protected] 79 points 1 year ago

It's always telling when people describe a minority as a "political movement" rather than... people

[–] Madbrad200 53 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

honestly reading this, it just sounds to me like he isn't cut out for community management. It is stressful and hard sometimes, so I get it, but he's going to kill his own site doing this. I did wonder about this before - it seemed like to me he regularly made changes based on feedback on a whim, and these changes were often rushed without much thinking. Needs to know when to pass the baton elsewhere and stick to development, but alas...

The last comments also speak to someone who's probably hiding some contrarian views of his own.

Shame.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 year ago

cOnSeRvaTiVe vOiCeS aRe bEiNg sILeNcED!!

i.e. boohoohoo, I'm facing consequences for my hate speech.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Allowing bigots just means you are one. Rip squabbles.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago

As a wise bartender once said, "If you allow one Nazi, you no longer have a bar. You have a Nazi bar."

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

LGBT people: "We have a right to exist."

'Free speech absolutists': "Ugh, take your political bullshit someplace else."

No idea how people think this is a valid way to talk about people literally fighting for their right to simply be present in public spaces without people attacking their very being.

[–] TheSpookiestUser 19 points 1 year ago

If true: Well, that's the end of that platform I guess. Shame, I liked that there were so many alternatives cropping up.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Grand opening, Grand closing

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago

They also removed the admins who disagreed with this decision. Jayclees and Daniel are the only "staff" left now. This is a really bad look for them.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

Literally why would you go to this website over Reddit. It has all the same problems and is just more boring.

"Free speech" is just a dog whistle and gas lighting now. Unless it's fully allowing illegal content, then it's not free speech, which is obviously sane to not allow. That's why its a silly term to throw around in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

“Free speech” is just a dog whistle and gas lighting now.

You're not wrong, but I remember when free speech was more of a liberal issue. Freedom for artistic expression and all that. Freedom to curse in music, freedom to create and view porn etc.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't understand what I'm looking at here? Some reddit-ish place is declaring free-speech then they immediately backpedal and say racist stuff doesn't count, and also some admins left? So what is the material difference between a "free speech platform*" and lemmy which also doesn't allow racist stuff?

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Squabblr*

They had a mid 2000s rebranding.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Removng vovls s col nd trndy!

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[–] Madbrad200 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm really confused by this direction? The admin seemed... nice, and all of the users were "let's all be friends and be postivive x!" type people. Not exactly the place for "free speech" dog wistle folks. He's just going to alienate his entire userbase, I don't understand the point.

[–] uberkalden 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I left a month ago because it was clear they were going this way. Glad I'm here

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago

Sounds like they are going to speed run what happen with Voat.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Voat any% speedrun WR (glitchless)

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wonder why of all bad things they make an exception specifically for racism and not something else like pedophilia for example.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I hope people know that us all having instances would always be better than anything centralized elsewhere. 1) I can delete all my posts if I want. 2) anyone can make a better app to talk to it. 3) we got so many different ways of sharing our free speech here, it's not even funny. 4) you can backup your stuff. I'm not, but you can do that if you serve your own server. 5) you can establish your own rules or land on someone else's server that you trust.

At this point you gotta be a lower form of life to conclude that going centralized is good for anyone.

[–] AlmightySnoo 25 points 1 year ago

so basically 4chan without the racial slurs

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

And this is why federation is great.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Somewhere for the Trumpers to go when Truthsocial falls on its arse.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Well, they're being true to their namesake, I'll give them that.