Statement on Politics of Lemmy.ml

Recently there have been some discussions about the political stances of the Lemmy developers and site admins. To clear up some misconceptions: Lemmy is run by a team of people with different ideologies, including anti-capitalist, communist, anarchist, and others. While @dessalines and I are communists, we take decisions collectively, and don't demand that anyone adopt our views or convert to our ideologies. We wouldn't devote so much time to building a federated site otherwise.

What's important to us is that you follow the site rules and Code of Conduct. Meaning primarily, no-bigotry, and being respectful towards others. As long as that is the case, we can get along perfectly fine.

In general we are open for constructive feedback, so please contact any member of the admin team if you have an idea how to improve Lemmy.

Slur Filter

We also noticed a consistent criticism of the built-in slur filter in Lemmy. Not so much on lemmy.ml itself, but whenever Lemmy is recommended elsewhere, a few usual suspects keep bringing it up. To these people we say the following: we are using the slur filter as a tool to keep a friendly atmosphere, and prevent racists, sexists and other bigots from using Lemmy. Its existence alone has lead many of them to not make an account, or run an instance: a clear net positive.

You can see for yourself the words which are blocked (content warning, link here). Note that it doesn't include any simple swear words, but only slurs which are used to insult and attack other people. If you want to use any of these words, then please stay on one of the many platforms that permit them. Lemmy is not for you, and we don't want you here.

We are fully aware that the slur filter is not perfect. It is made for American English, and can give false positives in other languages or dialects. We are totally willing to fix such problems on a case by case basis, simply open an issue in our repo with a description of the problem.

letstry ,

I like how the slur filter is described here:

"Note that it doesn’t include any simple swear words, but only slurs which are used to insult and attack other people."

but I guess the devil is in the details. Where do I see the actual words that are being blocked? When I clicked on the link I just saw a page of code which I cannot understand.

Lemmy is a fabulous creation - keep up the good work. I am excited to see what the future holds for Lemmy.

nutomic OP Mod ,
@nutomic@lemmy.ml avatar

I dont know if the slur filter for lemmy.ml is posted publicly anywhere, but its just insults which no one would use in normal conversation. Also, each instance can define their own filter, or disable it completely.

Hagels_Bagels ,
@Hagels_Bagels@lemmygrad.ml avatar

As a Scottish person, I've been tripped up by the slur filter only twice. Once was when I used the c word to describe Dominic Raab (I still stand by that), and the other was when I used twit by with an A instead of an I. I genuinely had no idea that it actually meant vagina! I've heard it since I was a child and had no idea what it actually meant.

Still, you can't really complain about it, it's more of a trivial thing to people who aren't being offensive.

roastpotatothief ,

I'm always the first to start these threads.

But it's good to remember, we chose Lemmy over sites like notabug because it works better. Some good decisions by the devs created a good website, enabling good discussions, which you just don't see elsewhere.

Some things like the "slur filter" seem sketchy, but you have to give the devs the benefit of the doubt. They clearly know a couple of things about forum design.

At the same time, it's important to talk about this stuff. Better ideas usually come from debate.

MadestMadness ,
@MadestMadness@lemmy.ml avatar

Seeing the pile of comments on here, I just wanna go out of my way to say I think the slur filter is a great idea. Fascists will appropriate any leeway they're given regardless of the ideological motivations under which said leeway is provided

SloppilyFloss ,
@SloppilyFloss@lemmy.ml avatar

And developed by people who hate the fact that you're alive!

A comment about Lemmy I saw on Reddit. The slur filter really pulls its weight and keeps the bigots out, it was a great idea.

dessalines Mod ,
@dessalines@lemmy.ml avatar

Every time we get recommendations to remove the filter I think of this. These bigots end up staying on reddit, or moving to other bigoted platforms, and avoid lemmy, making our lives a LOT easier :smiling face: . I could care less about "growth" if that growth means an influx of disgusting racists. I'd much rather have a smaller, positive community that defends members of targeted communities.

roae ,

Although I'm more right-leaning than left, I personally think it's great that the people leading lemmy are communists, anarchists, etc. I think it helps provide a counter-balance to the more right leaning groups trying to avoid mainstream social media.

I like the idea of a slur filter as a moderation tool for any instance I am a part of, but I feel like it goes against the whole purpose of federated social media. Isn't the point of federated stuff that you are free of centralized control, with the freedom to pick an instance which suits your desires? It seems wrong to impose any moderation, no matter how justified, on an entire federated platform.

Generally though, I love this platform! Thanks so much for all your hard work!

PP44 ,

I'm clearly "left-leaning", so I might be biased, but I don't agree with your criticism toward the slur filter : the project is open source, and as such people wanting to use these slur can work they way to another version. The devs explain here a clear intention to make this change difficult enough to prevent at least partially the migration of some communities they don't want to support and/or give a platform to. I think that's an honest way to do things ?

It also open up the debate on free speech and how saying some things actively attacks fundamental rights of others. In those cases, defending free speech as a "right" becomes irrelevant since both sides of the debate can use this logic to defend opposing actions. Trying to be short here, hope you understand what I mean !

southerntofu ,

The devs explain here a clear intention to make this change difficult enough to prevent at least partially the migration of some communities they don’t want to support and/or give a platform to.

I'm happy it's becoming harder for neonazis to find a home online, however i'm not happy that this makes lemmy english-centric, and i'm not happy that honest discussion about some topics (including thoughtful criticism) will be made harder.

Related example: on another message board a few weeks back i couldn't post a message containing my criticism of "bitcoin" because bitcoin was part of the slur filter to filter out the crypto-capitalist clique... i understand and appreciate why it was put in place, but i felt really powerless as a user that a machine who lacks understanding of the context of me using this word, decided i had no right to post it. I appreciate strong moderation, but i don't trust machine to police/judge our activities.

PP44 ,

I quite agree with you that moderation is hardly a machine job, and not saying it is the perfect solution. It sure as it's drawback. I am just arguing that the benefits outweigh them. I would prefer to be in a world where there are not needed, be as of the world today, I admit I prefer having this filter rather than not having it, mostly because of the systemic effects I explained.

I agree that the relevance of he content of the filter can be discussed too, and that banning some words can make it difficult to discuss certain topics. But I think some words are almost always meant to harm, and can be easily replace by more positive or neutral term.

As a direct example : I can talk in this post about homosexuality, and I can event paraphrase to talk about the way some f word is used as a slur for it and how I think allowing it here isn't a good idea in my opinion. See, I can talk about it, be respectful about it. I just prevent to call you a [insert here whatever banned slur] pretending to use my free speech.

southerntofu ,

I prefer having this filter rather than not having it, mostly because of the systemic effects I explained.

That's also the case for me, in case that was not clear :)

I think some words are almost always meant to harm, and can be easily replace by more positive or neutral term.

I don't think it's that easy, because of the context. Should all usage of the n***** word by black people be prevented? Should all usage of w****/b**** words by queer/femmes folks in a sex-positive context be prevented? etc.. I agree with you using these words is most times inappropriate and we can find better words for that, however white male technologists have a long history of dictating how the software can be used (and who it's for) and i believe there's something wrong in that power dynamic in and of itself. It's not uncommon that measures of control introduced "to protect the oppressed" turn into serious popular repression.

Still, like i said i like this filter in practice, and it's part of the reason i'm here (no fascism policy). As a militant antifascist AFK, i need to reflect on this and ponder whether automatic censorship is ok in the name of antifascism: it seems pretty efficient so far, if only as a psychological barrier. And i strongly believe we should moderate speech and advertise why we consider certain words/concepts to be mental barriers, but i'm really bothered on an ethical level to just dismiss content without human interaction. Isn't that precisely what we critique in Youtube/Facebook/etc? I'm not exactly placing these examples on the same level as a slur filter though ;)

roastpotatothief ,

That's the defence of the "slur filter" that everyone can agree on. It's harmless because it does almost nothing. It has no real benefit or cost.

The people who say it deters fascists - it just doesn't hold water.#

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • random
  • announcements@lemmy.ml
  • test
  • worldmews
  • mews
  • All magazines
    •