People are going to assume it's something you don't want to name, if you won't name it.
What happened to thinking for yourself?
Mastodon instances are largely moderated by people from the other 30%. You are free to judge if you want. But don't pretend this is a violation of publicly accepted morals in the 1st world.
What do you think I'm doing, right now?
Someone is invoking censorship as a reason not to adopt a new platform. No specifics, just rabble rousing. That's manipulation. Pushing back is thinking for yourself.
Or, they are being imprecise and undermining their position, in which case what I said works as advice on further conversations. Either way is thinking.
But generally speaking, anything that the US/"San Francisco" left wing ideology deems "bad" is generally unwelcome.
The ability for /r/conservative to ban my counter arguments is just as harmful as Mastodon shutting down the anti-trans positions.
Conversation is what moves us forward and is how we find commonality.
I grew up religious and conservative. I changed a lot of my viewpoints through friendly conversations in the internet of 2000-2010, before tumblrism, cancel culture, and censorship took hold.
If I grew up in today's world or internet, I might never have been exposed to different opinions in a non-hostile, no-judgment environment. By trying to segregate, censor, and ban we're only leading to intractable polarization. Never giving folks an opportunity to change. Never accepting that people are capable of growth.
Please let's talk with each other. Even if we disagree. You'd be surprised how effective that can be.
We're all suffering though this world together. Laugh away our differences and find the ways and the things that we share. We all hold more in common than you might think.
Love your enemy, even if they don't love you (yet).
If I could have one lasting impact on this world, it would be this message.
If you have the energy to politely engage people who think of you as a child molester who should be shot on sight, great! Go for it! But I have done that, and I am tired, and I do not want to do it any more. I run a Mastodon and I just want it to be a space to talk to my friends and maybe make some new ones, and thus, I block the fuck out of places I do not expect to get anything but hate from.
I realize it's a complicated issue, and I'm never a fan of banning speech. But not all speech deserves a response.
Ooh, ooh, ooh? Like what kind of "vanilla opinion?"
Not everyone is cut out to be an educator, and I think you should have the option not to be voluntold for the job. Not just because it should be your right, but because insisting that everyone in a group can speak for that group is itself stereotyping. I think once you see that it's really hard to be patient with people who don't.
And you're free to engage the people who want to put you and your spouse on a train car in conversation all you like. Maybe you'll deprogram one or two, but you'll just help spread their propaganda to exponentially more people than you could ever help.
I have no commonality with such people and don't want to find any. I don't want to share a society with them, and I know they don't want to share one with me. I certainly don't want to debate the Jewish Question or "groomers" or race science with them on my gamedev instance.
>We're all suffering though this world together. Laugh away our differences and find the ways and the things that we share.
You know these people want you dead, right? They don't believe you have a right to exist. You and your spouse. Especially your spouse. We're not talking about a difference in belief about tax laws or support for opposing soccer teams here. "Laugh away our differences?" I'm sorry but with all due respect fuck that.
80% of Americans think that the southern border should have increased security: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/09/08/republica...
50% of Americans oppose affirmative action (with 33% approving, 16% not sure): https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/06/08/more-america...
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/americans-oppose-in...
Not American or white or whatever, just stating the obviously less widely supported stuff that may sound uncontroversial to the more terminally online.
What does this mean? Drag queens shouldn't be allowed to read? Like what concrete policy are you saying they can't propose which isn't obviously overreach?
And no, there is no such thing as eradicating "transgenderism" without eradicating transgender people anymore than you could eradicate "blackism" without eradicating black people. It is a meaningless distinction invented to provide a paper-thin veneer over what is simply a call for mass murder.
If they're talking about some other kind of speech that I might actually care about, they should have mentioned it. Because the next bad one I can think of is even worse than hate speech.
For example, the fairness and safety issues with regards to males competing in women's sports, or the issues of safety and dignity in women's prisons when males are incarcerated there.