this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
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Unpopular Opinion

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(Content warning, discussions of SA and misogyny, mods I might mention politics a bit but I hope this can be taken outside the context of politics and understood as a discussion of basic human decency)

We all know how awful Reddit was when a user mentioned their gender. Immediate harassment, DMs, etc. It's probably improved over the years? But still awful.

Until recently, Lemmy was the most progressive and supportive of basic human dignity of communities I had ever followed. I have always known this was a majority male platform, but I have been relatively pleased to see that positive expressions of masculinity have won out.

All of that changed with the recent "bear vs man" debacle. I saw women get shouted down just for expressing their stories of being sexually abused, repeatedly harassed, dogpiled, and brigaded with downvotes. Some of them held their ground, for which I am proud of them, but others I saw driven to delete their entire accounts, presumably not to return.

And I get it. The bear thing is controversial; we can all agree on this. But that should never have resulted in this level of toxicity!

I am hoping by making this post I can kind of bring awareness to this weakness, so that we can learn and grow as a community. We need to hold one another accountable for this, or the gender gap on this site is just going to get worse.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago (11 children)

Yep. I agree. I’ve been bullied on Lemmy for sharing the fact that I have been bullied in my own home town because local law enforcement hired exes of mine who have abused their law enforcement powers. I now have a person, or group, that follows each of my posts and comments to immediately downvote them, even if they aren’t even controversial. I just receive an automatic downvote. That pales in comparison to the verbal bashing I’ve received from that group, or person. Each time I speak out, I have this one commenter that tells me that I’m crazy and need meds to make me shut up about having been abused by an ex that was hired by our local sheriff’s department. I wonder if they sniffed my phone to follow my account. I guess that would be crazy and just earn me more hateful comments from “random” people on Lemmy, huh? My question is, do I blame Lemmy as a whole, or will people on here finally admit that some certain local in my area is stalking my account?

When comments have become as bad as “strangers” telling me to “get raped with a rusty lawn mower blade”, I have to wonder if it’s all coming from the same IP address and if the mods even care.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago

I missed the kerfuffle, but my $0.02 is Lemmy is still in infancy. It's also a federated system made up of different instances, some of which - and you know who I mean - aren't as cool.

So utilize the tools provided, reporting, blocking, etc. and find the communities you like. /$0.02

[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago

Nice to see someone say this out loud. At the end of the day no platform is immune to hive mind thinking or ignorance, but hopefully there are solutions for open platforms to enrich people's lives some.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I think regardless of the platform it will get ugly when topics are controversial. How ugly it gets is mostly depending on the level of moderation. It doesn't need many trolls or ill willing people to derail a discussion among hundreds of good meaning people.

We also tend to concentrate on the things we consider unfavorable. If among 100 comments 5 are sexist, these 5 will get far more attention than the other 95.

I mean, I've seen people uttering death threads on YouTube, because the YouTuber used butter in a recipe, not margarine. One of several hundred comments under that video, but the only one I remember...

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Ya'll don't like getting called out on your bullshit. Ofc I'm not gonna let myself get grouped into something worse than a fucking animal. Go have your rights and empathy activism someway it doesn't clump men in the "not people" category

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago (3 children)

The most accurate response I can think of is many people on Lemmy want to be technically right (and I am no exception to this myself). You can see this in our many debates if the Democrats are a hindrance or the "best of the temporary solutions we have" in our debates in the best way to eventually form a working government.

The post in question (man vs bear) summarizes how much fear men have caused women throughout history in meme hyperbole fashion. Most people would "just get the point" that the meme is actually making. Women have suffered a lot from men. However, some of these Lemmy users correctly point out that its predatory behavior that should be called out; not "man vs woman". After all, anyone regardless of age, religion, sexual orientation, gender, etc. can be a predator. The meme is correct but those who oppose the meme are "technically correct" as well.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Nobody needs my comment but here it goes. I don't take it personally, it has nothing to do with me. I don't have any issue with people's answers. I know that many people have PTSD and bad experiences and they'd prefer to avoid weird situations like this.

But privately there's a part of me that likes to solve problems and consider everything for myself. I think the question is set up to imply danger by comparing a wild bear to a strange man. If the scenario were different I would expect different results: You are hiking in the desert and you become lost and you have no water. After several days you see a man who offers you water and directions. Do you choose to turn away and continue into the desert or do you accept the man's offer to help provide water and directions to safety?

I have had traumatic experiences with people and one day I realized that I was negatively effected by them and I chose to start practicing Jiu-Jitsu where you need to be in close contact with people as you struggle to gain advantage and win points. I no longer feel the same fear and apprehension about being close to people like I did before.

If people feel a certain way I just wish them healing.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago (8 children)

I've been away for a few weeks and I've missed this whole thing I think, does anybody have a link?

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The same is true of all social media platforms. There are always bad actors and jerkasses that have been banned everywhere else. Eventually, the admins of said social media platform must crackdown and ban those people. Eventually, that will happen to the Fediverse.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I don’t know how you can solve this. Lemmy has become a refuge for outcasts. Men with social/personality issues are the biggest group of outcasts. Women are much less likely to be outcasts and so have far less interest in being here.

To create an environment that is welcoming to a particular group takes a certain critical mass of people from that group. If you’re such an extremely small minority you’re going to have a very difficult time reaching that critical mass and the negative environment further discourages people from joining.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (8 children)

If outcasts are people who don't feel welcome in any irl or mainstream communities; women are just as likely to be outcasts. Women online can avoid outing themselves because even female oriented online support spaces get brigaded by men. There are a handful of female artists in my circle who identify as male online because they kept getting creepy dms. They still get them, of course, but less so. Less violent and rapey.

Who knows how many women are out there, lurking in the shadows, just trying to look at memes about linux and communism.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (6 children)

Well my block list on lemmy grew a whole lot faster and is longer now than on it ever was on Reddit.

But This was even before the bear debacle.

Lemmy is not as good as advertised.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Lemmy was never Reddit. It's a decentralized network of websites. Not all of them will be kosher.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Meanwhile its the opposite for me. Character assasinating everyone who wasnt a fan of the bear meme and mods deleting any post that wasnt fully inflammatory has made me second guess whether I want to be here far more than the Tankies ever did

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (9 children)

I literally have no clue what man vs bear is and honestly sounds like it should stay that way1

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