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.

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164 comments

I'm not a fan of slur filter. IMHO words aren't the problem, the context is. I could use a word to describe a problem or to link a paper, in a sarcastic way, as a slang, or to make examples for something else. I don't think just banning some words will solve any problem, this should at least be opt-out, and I really think a different way to check for offensive content need to be found.
Anyway: keep up the good work! Lemmy seems an awesome project and I really hope this will grow
- The slur filter is certainly not perfect, but so far it has been very effective at preventing bigots from using Lemmy. If anyone has a better idea how to achieve that goal, we will definitely consider it.
  
  What if the filter sends a notification to the communities admins, so then they can read it and decide for themselves if it deserves a ban or not? It would require human moderation but it's an idea.
  
  I agree it would be more efficient in general, but it would allow the creation of spaces dedicated for people ok with using those words. And I do agree with the "clear net positive" of preventing creation of the accounts and communities here.
- I don't think sarcasm or slang are a good excuse to use slurs. On the internet where sarcasm can be impossible to decipher, it inevitably leads to irony-poisoning where people can't tell if anyone's being racist or "just being sarcastic".
  
  Another point, even saying them in jest is in very bad taste in the majority of cases. I hear arguments that some groups use slurs as part of their slang and "don't actually mean to insult anyone", but here's the thing: those people are usually not the marginalized group that the slur is meant to insult and when someone who the word is meant to insult feel insulted, their feedback is at best ignored and at worst mocked.
  I guess a notable exception is black people's use of the n-word, which is fine, but it's also a whole can of worms when you consider the fact that other ethnicities like white people also regularly use it "because they can, so why can't I?"
  
  Maybe sarcasm can be subtle, but expression like "we're back [common synonymous of sex-workers]" are often used not in an offensive way. And there still are a lot of contexts where I can choose to use a word to prove a point or talk about something. IMHO words shouldn't be banned without context
  
  if you spend any bit of time on any far-right or centrist forums you'll see that irony and sarcasm are very often used to express ideas that a person is not yet fully comfortable with expressing openly, a testing ground of some sort, so in case of backlash they can always backtrack and just say "it's just a joke"
  developing a slur filter that is based on context is much harder than just creating a list of words that are forbidden regardless of context, especially because much of the sarcasm can quite literally be Schrodinger's sarcasm (a person decides whether it's a joke or not retrospectively based on the response to it)
- Yeah, I understand it and know it's a patch for a bigger problem but I kind of feel what you say. Once I talked about a book called The F...... and their friends between revolutions and it got censored, and in this context is perfectly fine, but if you add an opt-out you will have a lot of people abusing it.

164 comments