Comment by Suddenmoose@kbin.social on Unlike previous attempts at trying reddit alternatives (like Voat), kbin and much of the lemmyverse doesn’t seem to be plagued with extreme far right buffoonery.

It’s one thing to have differing views, but I’ve seen enough attempted reddit migrations to be relieved that the popular communities in the fediverse so far haven’t been about crazy racist stuff or other extreme right bullshit.

I am also glad that I’m getting away from reddit’s general political shitposting, which was more left leaning. You couldn’t have any proper discourse on there, and even I with my generally more left leaning views recognized that.

Reddit was filled with a special brand of retards always trying to police language always acting smug about taking about some weird moral high road it is exhausting to deal with. People irl dont have such tight asses about speech. And permabanning someone for having an opinion you dont agree with is an abuse of power (not like it matters much to people who are so zealous about policing public morality). Obviously dont be a shitter and start spouting off trump supporters special brand of koolaid but if you feel like trans women should not compete with biological women in professional womens sports then you are free to think that way.

Speaking of speech:

Using the word “retard” as a derogatory term is pretty offensive to those born with developmental defects. It’s similar to how we used to use “gay” in a similar way a few decades ago. It’s pretty shitty.

you are free to feel that way but the mods are not free to ban me for my shitty vocab. they can just call me an asshole and move on like every other website

You are entirely in control of what you say… but it sounds like what you meant is not in line with what you’re saying.

Do you deliberately want to belittle people with developmental issues? It doesn’t sound like it. I think what @Dr_Cog is trying to say is that you should consider lining up the words you use with the message you’re actually trying to convey.

Do you deliberately want to belittle people with developmental issues

no one is attacking people with developmental disabilities by calling something retarded if you want to take it that way your are free to do so its your opinion not mine and even if you try to twist my words to suit your fucked up narrative i know what i mean and thats what matters to me

Sounds like you’ve had this conversation before and you are comfortable being on the merry-go-around.

sure thing boss have a nice day

I’m honestly sure you don’t mean “retarded” as a personal attack against people with developmental disabilities.

There’s also a very long history of people using that exact same word to attack them. Many people who make arguments like yours, that they should still get to use the word, tend to also be prejudiced against these people and treat them poorly. Maybe you’re not like that, but using that word does make you look a lot more like these people.

You making an argument to try to keep using the word, even though it hurts people, essentially tells them “I will not change one word in my vocabulary to accommodate your feelings and history of being hurt by this word.” Your choice on if you want to change your words to in an effort to get people to interpret you in a way that better matches your intent, or if you’d like to stick to your guns even if it means lots of people will get hurt. After all, people are free to interpret words however they wish, including in ways that you don’t intend them to and ways you don’t mean. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for people affected by this word to not want you in their communities if you want to keep using that word, at least if they didn’t promise you absolute freedom of speech.

Hey if the mods want to remove folks like me so be it. Do i make extensive use of such slurs in my day to day vocabulary? (Not really) i mainly want to test the waters and see how hard the mods and the community comes down on me for it. Can i speak like normal or will i have to sing song dance around subjects like on reddit.

Language is subjective. Being offended is also veeery subjective. Some male gay person may take offense of you using the word “asshole”, as being derogatory to those who practice anal sex. 🤷‍♂️

In my case, the word “retarded” was used extensively when I was in middle/high-school, and it never was taken seriously as accusing someone of actually being retarded. It was more a call out to someone talking nonsense of not articulating their words carefully. It was playful. Only in recent years I’ve seen some pushback to the usage of the term, but my impression is that the actual “retarded” people are not really concerned about it, and they’re not being actively targeted by this word as an expelative. In fact, this whole debacle is a tool used by the non-retarded people as a way to virtue signal.

If we’re to start declaring how people speak, can all you word nazis please start cracking down on those people who use the Q slur to refer to LGBT people? it’s a literal slur, has been used to attack and harm large portions of the community, yet people will happily broadcast it.

I feel that’s a better use of time than pushing offense over the word “retard” which ultimately doesn’t hurt anyone and hasn’t been used to hurt anyone.

Technically depends on the instance. The Fediverse supports free expression in the sense that you can spin up your own instance and say whatever you want. Flip side, any other instance can de-federate with your instance if they don’t want to listen to your BS^1.

For instance, my instance^2 would probably police my ability to use slurs. Which is fine. I certainly am a member of some groups for which slurs exist, and if some asshole started spewing that BS in my house, I would express myself by kicking them the f*ck out. Likewise I chose an instance where I can be comfortable, and not have to deal with being harassed for who I just happen to be. My choice of an instance is largely founded on its Code of Conduct. In exchange, I extend the same courtesy to others on my instance.

It’s almost like a social contract…

Anyway, point being, as a consequence of different instances having different Codes of Conduct (even if just minor changes), you will technically be bound by both the CoC of your home instance and the home instance of the community/magazine.

lol ok i just want to hang in a place that isnt all uptight or uppity about language

Good luck with your quest. May you find that place eventually.

Yep, the Fediverse can totally provide that. Self-hosting puts you in total control. I’m just making the point that free expression cuts both ways. Each instance is a free association of members who consent to that instances CoC. Each community/magazine has a home instance, and by joining that community you are also consenting to abide by that instances CoC.

This does mean that in effect you can be banned from either the community or your home instance.

Flip side of all this, is you have a bunch more variety of instances. You should be able to find one where you are comfortable, but still be mindful when participating in wider communities. You’re visiting someone else’s house in effect.

Finally, instances can de-federate if they don’t want to deal with another instances nonsense.

Community standards are what matters in the Fediverse, IMHO. Two standards matter, the users home instance, and the home of the community. Even a user from third instance was offended by something, the two instances that matter are the two home instances. Granted, that user from a third instance could individually block specific users or even whole other instances.

I’ve been being pedantic on general principle. This whole topic is a consequence of some specifics. I have no doubt that there are some outright Nazi or at least Nazi-adjacent instances out there, I’m also fairly certain my home instance wouldn’t federate with them, so I don’t have to deal with them. The general civility of the Fediverse so far is as much due to where in the Fediverse people seem to be ending up in.

I think that it also matters that we should be considerate of the type of instance we choose. If big corporate social media is like a big mall, arena, or convention centre; when dealing with the Fediverse, sometimes we are hanging out in someone’s backyard (metaphorically of course, in the case of a small instance run by a single person as a hobby). I know my home instance is working through this right now, and my home instance in Mastodon went through this as well.

I’m sorry, I deleted my own comment because I placed it under the wrong comment (I re-posted it under the correct comment later). But as you commented hours after my deletion, that means you managed to read my deleted comment? 🙃

Speaking as someone with a speech impediment, using the word “the” is super offensive to me. It’s basically a slur. If you don’t stop using it immediately, I have no choice but to report you for being a Nazi.

That’s sounds tough. You should probably not report people for generally benign speech, though, just because you personally find it offensive. Have you tried simply informing others of your problem with this language?

I would say that “retard” is less offensive than the Q slur used to refer to LGBT people. You say there’s a problem with calling stuff “gay” whereas I’m actually same sex attracted and have no issue with that. THe bigger issue is the Q slur.

if you’re gonna just say “well my dictation of language is the only one that matters!” then you’re just being an authoritarian fascist nazi and are literally the problem.

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Unlike previous attempts at trying reddit alternatives (like Voat), kbin and much of the lemmyverse doesn’t seem to be plagued with extreme far right buffoonery.

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