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Comment by krapp | Hacker News Reader

>but to me this sounds like a distopian place where anyone that does not align with the "correct worldview" is made to disappear and never be heard of again.

You misunderstand. Being banned from a Mastodon instance doesn't mean you disappear never to be heard from again. No one is going to try to murder you. You're still allowed to participate in society and communicate. Also, the "correct worldview" in this context means not being a racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic asshole. If you find that too much of a straitjacket on your personal liberties or radically free-thinking beliefs, there are Mastodon instances that will happily accept you.

Of course, not everyone, everywhere is compelled to accept you and your speech with open arms, nor should they be. Freedom of speech and freedom of association are equal and opposite.

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I had to leave an instance because the maintainer said pro-life views were forbidden. Didn't matter whether you expressed them or not - the owner had a policy against private opinions.

I agree with your point about freedom of association, but let's not pretend this is just limited to racism.

And if you support the concept of free association, what do you do when it collides with civil rights law?

The great thing about Mastadon is that you're not actually excluded by being banned from a particular instance, you can go and join an instance that is aligned with your worldview (and as I understand it, still interact with people from other instances).

What do I do if instance A (this is where the person I follow) decides to ban instance B (my instance of choice)?

What if this happens more than once? Should I reregister every month and refollow the same people again and again?

What if I set up my own server and people will decide that some of my toots are not "left" or "progressive" enough?

Well that’s society working as designed I think.

Really? wow, okay. Thank god I'm not part of this society.

bigot bĭg′ət (noun)

One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

>Also, the "correct worldview" in this context means not being a racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic asshole.

This is oversimplifying things.

Here is the example: https://gts.superseriousbusiness.org/@gotosocial/statuses/01...

>We do not work with transphobes/fascists/racists. If you open an issue or PR on our git repo and we see you are one of those things, or hang out with people like that

So I can't really be part of the team if a person whom I follow on github or somewhere else is somehow "correct worldview". I may even not be aware of this.

Not to mention that many people actually have no idea what they are talking about and use words like "nazis" only to describe abstract "bad people" as opposed to their image of "good people"

Example from the same link:

>we are a strictly antifascist organization. we have zero tolerance for fascism or anything that enables or allows it. (yes that includes capitalism)

Apparently I won't be able to participate if I follow Bill Gates blog.

Furthermore, leftism needs to have these banning-systems because modern leftism cannot survive in a free speech environment.

This is why all leftists started leaving twitter when Musk took over and promised free speech (not freedom of reach), they knew instantly that the gig was up.

uh-uh-uh-uh, wait a minute, please contain your prejudice. First off, you're talking of a very narrow and US-centric definition of "leftist". Second, it's tiresome to hear this constant whining about "leftists" that cannot tolerate (or in your version, survive free speech) different views. It's simply not true, what doesn't rub well is constant complaints about being disrepsected for maintaining some frankly disrespectable opinions. That simple...

All freespeech platforms, from 4chan to twitter, are pre-dominantly right wing.

All censorship-based platforms, such as reddit or mastodon that has _mods_, are left wing.

Secondly, the woke left is the same in the US as it is in Europe. The west is one global entity these days. JK Rowling is hated by swedish leftists and california leftists.

Third, "it's simply not true" is not a convincing argument in the face of millions of examples. Why do you think all the biggest comedians in the US avoid colleges?

Twitter is a free speech platform? Did I just imagine Elon banning unlabeled parody accounts? Did Elonjet’s account get restored? What about Chad Loder, the activist Elon banned at Andy Ngo’s behest?

> All freespeech platforms, from 4chan to twitter, are pre-dominantly right wing.

> All censorship-based platforms, such as reddit or mastodon that has _mods_, are left wing.

This seems to be relying on popular belief rather than facts, and making a lot of assumptions in regards to why particular groups would prefer particular forums. If we're drawing spurious correlations 4chan also seems to enjoy a lot more violent and illegal pornography than say reddit - can we draw conclusions from that regarding the right as well?

> Secondly, the woke left is the same in the US as it is in Europe.

You're now defining a sub group of the left. What separates the "woke" left from the regular left. or are they all one and the same in your eyes? And if so, do you think that actually aligns with everyone who calls identifies as left?

> The west is one global entity these days.

Are you American? As a Canadian I say it definitely is not, we're now at an impasse I guess?

> Why do you think all the biggest comedians in the US avoid colleges?

Who are the biggest comedians? And if they are the biggest why would they go to a college when they can fill a stadium.

There is literally no difference between "modern leftism" or "modern right-wing" in free speech environments, you are just being dishonest.

If you think modern leftism is being mad about people being racist, that says more about you.

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