Oh, and which countries are “free”? I’d like to know which state has liberated all its people. I’ll wait.

There is an ongoing pandemic and the global capitalist efforts to downgrade, downplay, and minimise this pandemic for " the economy" mean that it’s even more important to mask, not least to challenge the health supremacy and ableism of this current capitalist culture. Masking is one of the most easy yet powerful ways we can promote safety and engage in intersectional anticapitalism (in times of universal deceit, and all that).

Protests are not about “being seen” as individuals to gain clout or appear cool and edgy, not least with the increased assault on the right to protest.

To truly “believe in the cause” is to act, not attract recognition. Besides, if you want a revolution, you’d better start dressing for the occasion.

That’s really insightful and interesting, thanks! I do like the idea of simple reporting of posts rather than downvoting.

Hopefully as a Fediverse instance of radical info hubs forms, these discussions can be the topics to tackle. That’d be a wonderful “problem” to have! I’m hoping more people step forward expressing interest in the concept and willing to help make it happen.

That’s an interesting point. If it doesn’t make much of a difference, then why even ever enable it?

I find it best to really only embrace what contributes to a positive, productive experience rather than just replicating the Reddit culture through copycat features. But that’s just a small detail. The main challenge ahead is to utilise these templates to create a radical info space similar to the Mutu Network. Hopefully we can do it!

I was on kolektiva.social for a while (and still use their sibling instance on PeerTube, kolektiva.media), but found they became too unwieldy to effectively moderate, and unfortunately hit headlines with their compromised server data. I’m now on todon.eu.

I think Mastodon is a fantastic and important system of communication. However, I think a Mutu-style network would rely on something similar to Lemmy/Beehaw.

I was merrily using Lemmy, and later on Kbin in addition to that, for many months.

But then in recent weeks the culture seemed to change: More aggressive, insulting, and rude posts, even over nothing; some of them first responses to posts, others over nothing particularly political, just pop culture opinions and the like. And way, way more downvotes. And that last one was particularly new to me personally.

I’ve always been a laughably polite person, even irl, according to folks who know me, and had been the same online unless someone was outrageously offensive and mean (though in recent years simply handled that by a process of mute > report > block, rather than waste energy). But in recent weeks I’d noticed way more downvotes coming my way on innocuous posts, which was a first for me. I’d even told folks who were unsure about joining Lemmy, “Ah, don’t worry about the Marxist-Leninist reputation and the bad rap; I’ve never experienced any tankie stuff on there, and only ever had positive experiences - I mean, look, I’ve barely ever been downvoted, only ever received kind upvotes for what I’ve tried to ensure are thoughtful, positive contributions!”

Lately it’s turned nasty, and negative. I joined Kbin and most discourse on there was either polluted by the same culture rising on Lemmy, or dominated by people mocking Beehaw for wanting no part of what many agree is a recent influx of bad habits from Reddit folks. This theory is particularly popular on Mastodon, where people pointed out the switch from Twitter to Mastodon was more politically motivated, whereas the Reddit exodus was more about convenience. I thought that was an interesting explanation for these more negative experiences of late.

I’m sorry if this is a long post that doesn’t at first seem to address the actual question, haha! I guess I’m just trying to contribute my own personal perspective that is related to the topic - and demonstrates why I’ve recently arrived at Beehaw, as an online space that appeals to me, in contrast to those other aforementioned places.