As more mainstream libs are discovering Lemmy, we’re seeing a pattern of complaints that opinions outside the ones they deem acceptable are allowed on the platform. We’ve even seen instances defederating because their userbase does not wish to be exposed to these views.
Interestingly, these are the same people who level censorship and control of free speech as their main critique of communists. What we’re seeing is that these people absolutely don’t care about free speech. They understand the necessity of censorship and actively advocate censoring opinions that they find dangerous. Yet, when societies based on values different from their own use these same tools they screech about authoritarianism.
Turns out it’s not authoritarianism libs hate, but that they consider their views to be the most enlightened and think that all other viewpoints should be shut down. What really offends them about places like China is that it’s their ideology that’s being suppressed there.
I find it really weird when people spend more time worrying about other niche leftists groups more than about the capitalist mainstream. The reality of the situation is that we live under neoliberal capitalism and society is far away from any form of left ideology. Fixating on how much you hate other types of leftists in this scenario instead of figuring out how to dismantle the system that’s oppressing you is misguided to put it mildly. It would be great if we get to the point where the question of whether we want to have a society based on ML or anarchist principles was meaningful to ask. We’re simply not there yet.