I’ve been posting in the meme communities in Lemmy for a few months now. For the most part, if I make some silly meme about how broke I am or how bad American healthcare is, it doesn’t get removed and the meme does well. But I’ve had several memes get removed that I was pretty sure don’t violate the rules of the instance or the community and now I’m getting pretty frustrated. In each case, I’ve gone to the modlog and (if there’s any reason given at all) they say that I violated a rule that is written so generally that anything could count as violating it. Meanwhile, a meme about American kids killed in a school shooting makes the top of front page.
Now, if you’ve made it this far, your first reaction is to question whether my posts are crossing the line. But I think all of my memes are pretty light hearted even if they’re about controversial subject matter. Let me give you a few examples.
A few weeks a go I posted a meme with the caption “My wife out-drinking everyone at the table-- Our unborn son:” [picture of Tom the cat in the womb]. I understand abortion is a touchy subject for some people, but it’s not like I was advocating for or against abortion. After that, I posted a meme complaining about the lack of specificity of the rules on Lemmy and that post also got removed. That’s enough to let me know that the mods on that instance (lemmy.ml) will delete anything they disagree with. But I’m sure that a meme about killing the rich 1% with guillotines would stay up no problem.
I know what your thinking: Lemmy is a big place, just post on a different instance. And I thought the same thing. I went over to lemmyshitposts@lemmy.world thinking that if they’re allowing shitposts, then they would have a more lax mod policy. Post a few memes about innocuous things, it goes fine. Then I post a meme that pokes fun at the LGBTQIA+ acronym for being too long and that gets removed too. So I’m coming to the realization that any post that is completely innocuous or anodyne to the mods is fine, but if you even touch on certain subjects (e.g., miscarriages, queer culture, Lemmy’s rules, etc) it will get taken down.
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lemmy.ml is a cesspit
Can confirm. I apparently pissed off the mods there with my other account enough that I get banned basically for making any comment in their worldnews community now. It doesn’t seem to matter if any rules get broken.
Sad but true. Just avoid it
It seems to be mostly not-quite-incels, or angry teens.
Or both.
It reminds me of trust fund kiddies who are in their first year of polisci.
Yeah actually, stuff what I said - you’re totally right.
Came here to say this. Their mods are in bed with the tankies.
It doesn’t even have to be a touchy subject.
I’ve seen plenty of complaints about lemmy.ml being the worst offender for this, removing stuff that is so innocuous that you could show your grandmother at church, because someone in charge found a contorted way to be offended by it. (or worse, because it was critical of China or something)
I think users will ultimately find the path of least resistance, and the least heavy-handed instances will have a healthier growth.
People here are focusing too much on the examples and too little on the core complain (that Lemmy moderation is inconsistent and this frustrates users). I think that the later is worth investigating, IMO for two reasons:
- The way that federation works, up to three groups can moderate your content: comm mods, admins of the comm’s instance, admins of your instance. As such it’s possible that users find mod problems far more often here than expected. And, while all those three groups are avoidable (unlike in a forum or Reddit), it’s possible that users are having a hard time settling down in instances that work for them.
- Lots of mods here were previously Reddit mods (inb4: myself included). It’s perfectly possible that we brought Reddit’s idiotic moderation culture into Lemmy, without even realising it. And… well, Reddit mods aren’t exactly known for being transparent, smart, or consistent.
“lemmy.ml” nuff said imo
I’ve had three removed comments, no posts, But every time the mod has eventually told me that even though I haven’t broken any rules, they don’t like what I’ve written and have decided to take it down.
I think it’s just the nature of the beast at this point. Smaller communities so the mods are identifying their personal politics with the impersonal rules of the communities.
Right, and the more you participate, the more likely you are to become a target. Ironic for a platform which desperately needs participation more than anything else
Yeah the more you participate the larger the target on your back, and that is a pain, but I prefer these forums to those of Reddit so I can deal with it for now. And the communities here and the general population is still growing and so recently grew so much larger that I think the mods just aren’t prepared for the quick shift it’s been from Reddit.
Also, It’s the frigging internet, so I expect to be irritated at behavior online, mods and trolls are the toll I’m paying to connect with the communities here
At least one of those is super innocuous and I have no idea why it got moderated. I have thoughts on the others.
LGBTQ+: You probably just don’t want to fuck with any marginalized communities, even if it’s a pretty light touch. It’s not hard to apply a valid slippery slope argument here.
Unborn child: Abortion is a touchy area, but what is reaaalllly touchy is miscarriage, Your meme could be pretty upsetting for someone who has had one or knows someone who has (we all do). I obviously can’t mindread the mods, but there’s a another angle that could explain the deletion. People get worked up about this shit man
Bottom line: if you wanna do edgier memes, fire up an EdgelordMemez community and have at it.
Hey OP, just for the record: you got a good chuckle out of me for all of the content you created that was removed. Thanks for trying to keep the fediverse interesting.
lemmy.ml and hexbear communities are generally not very friendly IMO
I look forward to the update when we can block instances, I think lemmy will be much better with those two on ignore.
I’m coming to the realization that any post that is completely innocuous or anodyne to the mods is fine, but if you even touch on certain subjects (e.g., miscarriages, queer culture, Lemmy’s rules, etc) it will get taken down.
I think polarization plays a big part of it. People are quick to downvote/remove stuff that looks like it’s from the “other side.”
Not that I agree with the decisions of lemmy.ml mods at all but I maintain that the moderators there reserve the right to enforce their fucked up rules on their communities how they please.
When Hexbear was federating with different various servers, they broke many servers’ rules but not others. Because the Hexbear admin had trouble reigning in their users they got de-federated by many of the servers.
I’m just saying that you have to understand that what’s acceptable on your server may not be acceptable on another server you post to. Maybe this needs to be made clearer across Lemmy as a whole but I’m not sure how we would.
Posting jokes making fun of the LGBTQ+ community won’t go well on beehaw, and blahajzone which explicitly are safe spaces for that group. Posting negative news or views of the Beijing or Moscow governments will likely get you banned in lemmy.ml and lemmygrad.
That’s what you will have to deal with in the de-centralized model, and I think it strikes a decent balance of allowing open communication, resisting overall censorship while still allowing some groups to censor out what they consider bad vibes.
There are many meme community alternatives: !memes@sopuli.xyz, !politicalmemes@lemmy.world, !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world, !funny@sh.itjust.works to name a few.
Edit: Just be sure to read the sidebar and server rules before you post if you’re ever unsure.
Don’t go posting political memes on !memes@sopuli.xyz …
Mods and admins on Lemmy can remove your comments and ban you because they don’t like what you said and it doesn’t matter wether you broke the rules or not. It’s a huge issue but what you gonna do, except just keep making new accounts. It’s not like you can appeal it anyways. Hell, you don’t even get a notification. There’s a ton of people here posting and not realizing that almost no one can even see their messages.
This sounds like reasonable moderation. You should find or start a political meme community if you want polical memes.
I really don’t like political content on lemmy or social media.
Ok that tom meme as youve described it is fucking hilarious
TLDR
Sorry. I am late to this. I am the mod here and the mod on lemmy shit posting. I firmly stand my decision to remove your posts. You have to be very careful with what you post memes about and I got user reports about the meme which is why I decided to act on it. People can and will take things the wrong way and that’s before I even go to the potential comments and users memes like that tend to attract.
