Lemmy is a worse platform for women than Reddit was

(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.

Dvixen , (edited )
@Dvixen@lemmy.world avatar

To be a woman online means to feel unwelcome. Leaving a new community is pretty much inevitable unless you are willing to swim in toxicity.

I've lost count of how many 'welcoming' communities for game/hobby/interest that I have left because of the inevitable creep of (male) toxicity and harassment.

And it sucks to watch so many people not speak up, and to be targeted for further harassment simply because I said rape jokes weren't funny. (Or tying and drugging up a woman so T could have a girlfriend, if the group I play online games with are stalking my account read this. You guys are part of the problem.)

I just want liked minded people to share my interests and play games with.

I, and other women shouldn't have to navigate or ignore toxicity to simply exist in public spaces.

spujb OP ,

Thank you for expressing this experience. 🧡

TubularTittyFrog ,

IME of online communities it was the women who supported the abusers in the community and ostracized anyone who called them out as 'attacking the community'. Quite a few of them were also abusive.

KillingTimeItself ,

To be a woman online means to feel unwelcome.

i think this is a rather interesting take, as someone who lives on the social fringes myself, and has no "support network" or real "social group" I'm what's best described as a social drifter, i don't like hanging around places all that much, and i don't like, and or am incapable of having proper friendships with others.

So when it comes to feeling unwelcome, for all intents and purposes here, i'm just going to argue that for the latter half of my life, that has been pretty much my experience of life. This also means i don't have certain types of experiences with people being dicks, because i can just fucking ignore them. But what i do understand, is how the isolation plays a factor, and how to pretty effectively deal with people you don't like in these situations.

And what i've learned is that you need to keep a distance. You shouldn't be attached to the community if possible, because being able to leave them is often a valuable asset to have. Notably, it doesn't solve the problem but it does keep you nomadic, and in control, which helps alleviate it.

Also for what it's worth, i don't think that this is uniquely female. I think it's a unique female account of the problem, but men also experience similar things. They just happen to be in different manners, so this is very much an "internet problem" more broadly.

Has been for the past 20 years, and will probably continue to be as such.

Dvixen ,
@Dvixen@lemmy.world avatar

I don't actually want to be nomadic, I'd love nothing more than to have a group of gaming friends that lasts. Inevitably, each time finding a new group gets harder.

I have no support network, No real social group either. I am for all intent and purpose a ghost. My opinions don't matter, my presence isn't wanted. No one notices when I leave.

Sizzler , (edited )

Hang on, either your friendship group is stalking you or they don't notice your existence. In two comments you've put two alternative realities. Which is it?

Edit: downvoted and no reply. Weak.
Eventually reply accusing me of who knows what. Big surprise.

spujb OP ,

Behavior like what you act out here, calling out women over a nuance that barely matters, is exactly the stuff that inspired me to make this post.

Thank you for illustrating my point.

Sizzler , (edited )

You're the one hanging out with people you think are stalkers. Do them a favour and leave them alone so they can be with people who respect them.

Again downvoted and no response. What a joke. No wonder no-one cares when you're gone. Probably relieved.

HowManyNimons ,

Nobody owes you a response. Especially when they're blocking you.

KillingTimeItself ,

it's funny to me that they're instanced on solarpunk. Which is ostensibly the very worst instance you could possibly choose to be mad at other people. Though i suppose it might be doomer enough over there to matter? IDK, i'm not a solar punk nerd myself.

KillingTimeItself ,

yeah i get it, i don't really want to be nomadic myself. But to me the value of being able to appear in places and disappear in others is massive. So far the best theory i've come up with is putting together a friend group like it's a card deck for something. I don't think putting groups together in a literal "hey i'm here now" tends to work out all that often. There are a couple of groups of people that i've clicked really well with over the years, and even though it's drifted i'm in good light with them, and likewise, there are other groups out there that exist in a sort of liminal state, those also tend to be pretty nice. Though much harder to find.

One of these days i would like to spin up a public/private instance of a chat relay/server or something, and spend a few years collecting some of the more interesting people in the bunch to be in a personal circle. I think that's probably about as close as i would get to having a social group/support network. And being the head admin there, i have sole discretion at the users expense, so i don't have to worry about moderation bullshit.

I think the idea of "join a group of people like you about this specific thing" is dead now unfortunately. I think we're at a point where you need to build a group specifically for the purpose that it exists.

ElpaisTurd ,

What about non binary? You fucking transphobic piece of wood

Sethayy ,

I think its more or less you come in swinging most people are gonna swing back, the bear thing gave both sides a reason to 'rightfully' be angry when the question literally couldn't matter less than Lego fortnite

kerrigan778 ,

Honestly yeah, Lemmy overall has seemed like it's gotten a bit iffier over the last few months. I feel like maybe it needs to be tweaked a bit in how it functions. Or maybe just needs more people.

LifeOfChance ,

Lemmy honestly is not friendly or welcoming. My wife left after being attacked for any comment she made where she mentioned being a female. The man vs bear debate wasn't even around until a month or so later.

If you're not a tech savvy male and you're lurking just don't get involved. They'll belittle anyone who's isn't. You need to have PC for gaming on a Linux computer having the ability to program within Linux while running your internet through a pihole so your jellyfin server can remain hidden through the VPN. If you even ask any question about anything I said prepare to be shamed for not knowing how to already know.

spujb OP ,

pretty accurate and it sucks so bad :( sorry that happened to your wife

dependencyinjection ,

What kind of stuff are they attacking her for?

Why are people like this. I couldn’t care less what sex you’re as long as you’re making interesting content.

PanArab ,

I’m a man and I would take my chances with a bear over a man I don’t know. I don’t blame women who feel safer around a bear.

Sorry your experience here was awful.

ZC3rr0r ,

I am 100% with the women choosing the bear over an unknown man. Most wildlife, including bears, just want to be left alone to do their own thing. You can safely assume that the most likely thing to happen is the bear just does it's own thing and lets you be. An unknown man is a much less predictable entity, and as such should be treated with a lot more suspicion.

Side note for those wanting to be pedantic: Bears vary in their level of habituation and indifference to humans as a result. More habituated bears may associate you with food, and some may even see you as food (depending on species) This will affect their aggression towards you, but as a general rule of thumb it's still safe to assume any random bear would be more inclined to leave you alone or just steal your food than to actively want to harm you.

rottingleaf ,

Most wildlife, including bears, just want to be left alone to do their own thing.

Similarly to humans. It's the most important part, but sometimes animals want to play or get irritated at your presence. A bear is gifted by nature with ability to break many bones in your body without getting tired.

n3m37h ,

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

Dearth ,

It's a thought experiment. Women are asked if they'd rather stumble upon a bear or a man in the woods. Most women choose bear. Some boys got really offended at the women's choice.

arin ,

Most girls had Teddy bears so that's an obvious choice imo. They don't understand bear mauling from grizzlies or face eating polar bears

Dearth ,

I think the point isn't that certain bear species are aggressive, it's that all bear species are unapologetically bears. They don't try to pretend they are something else. Bears are bears and they all treat humans more or less the same

arin ,

The point is their only experience with bears are the cute toys and child artwork. Men in their experience were sexual predators and viewed and acted as women were prey.

Yggnar ,

I think you might be part of the problem, dude. Those are some pretty grand generalizations/assumptions about women there.

ClaireDeLuna ,

"Women don't know bears can kill you because they had fluffy teddy bears growing up" is what you sound like.

What? First off, boys also have teddy bears. Most people's experiences with bears are precisely what you described as solely women's experiences.

Like what are bears in men's daily experience? I'll isolate down to North America to keep things simple.

Most men's experience with bears is identical to that of women's. Most men live in suburbs or cities, and haven't even seen a bear outside of a zoo. But most men and women know that bears are dangerous wild animals because...we have been taught that.

I don't get why women are so infantalized by men. Now I'm just imagining a father walking up to his son, telling his daughter to leave the room then telling him "bears are dangerous son, you never wanna be close to one and here's what you do to stay safe, also do NOT tell your sister this, she's a girl and doesn't need to know this because one day she'll have a husband that will protect her from the bears"

arin ,

Number of female hunters vs male? Men have more encounters

ClaireDeLuna ,

And another broad generalization goes to you.

Women aren't idiots. They know what bears are.
They also know what men are which is precisely why they are mostly answering the way they do.

arin ,

LMAO

LazyBane ,

This is really the terminal issue with Reddit alternatives. They are just Reddit minus the most recent controversy as of foundation. Reddit is overall just a popular content aggregation website with poorly design discussion features.

Upvotes and down votes, while intended to help users weed out bad arguments and spam, only achive in promoting sophistry and tribalism. What ends up getting upvoted is what "wins" the argument, while good arguments that come from unpopular viewpoints get downvoted.

And with that comes all the toxic elements from old Reddit ruat we all hope just won't be a part of our replacements. Reddit's format works at a smaller scale, where users are typically more enthusiastic and therefor better informed, but as the sites get larger you'll notice they typical hyper-snarky "owned with facts and logic" attitude take hold of a community as more people with a weaker investment jump on the bandwagon and upvote everything that makes them feel smart.

Eventually, the site becomes just like Reddit, but for a smaller and more insulated community, and users begin to question why they're here instead of Reddit which has the established user base that can reliably cover more topics you are interested in.

We have not learnt from history, and we are doomed to repeat it. Maybe it'll be different in the future.

ZC3rr0r ,

The one major advantage that Reddit alternatives on the Fediverse have over Reddit still is that nobody owns the platform wholesale. So while that doesn't solve the content issues you're rightfully bringing up, at least we've learned from Reddit's faults by removing the option of unilaterally making platform-level decisions that are undesirable for the end user.

rottingleaf ,

Some people need to attack somebody and feel smarter than IRL, let them do it on Reddit or Lemmy and not on the street.

Yerbouti ,

Nah. Lemmy is FOSS while Reddit is going to shit.

LazyBane ,

Being open source doesn't stop the inherent flaws of the Karma system or the increasing toxicity that correlates with platform population.

It's really cool that Lemmy is FOSS, don't get me wrong, but that's kinda irrelevant to the issues presented.

Yerbouti ,

I know it doesnt fix toxicity but it has the potential to bring solutions. Users dont have any power over Reddit's management decision, they made sure to remind us last year. But wity Lemmy, we can always change the rule, experiment with new systems, etc. That's a huge difference.

ParabolicMotion ,

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.

Hadriscus ,

wtaf ? from that same post I just replied to yesterday ? Can you take it to the admins of your instance ? perhaps they can do something about it I don't know

KevonLooney ,

I'll be honest with you: based on your comment scores, I don't see anyone following you and downvoting all your comments. I can almost guarantee that there's no "group" doing it, as very few people care that much.

Although I have seen people on Lemmy randomly downvote things for no discernable reason. Like I will post a comment and it will be negative for a few hours. Then when more sane people show up, it's upvoted so it's positive. My comment didn't change, the people looking at it did. Don't worry so much about votes.

ParabolicMotion ,

True, there are some people that just downvote everything, for no reason. I get that. I guess what made me worry was the fact that I had comments in Lemmy News telling me they hope I get raped with a rusty lawn mower blade, followed by someone downvoting all of my past comments in succession after that comment. I figured it was the person who made that comment.

CosmicCleric ,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

I had comments in Lemmy News telling me they hope I get raped with a rusty lawn mower blade,

Curious if you reported them?

If so, did you check the mod log to see if they were banned? Did the offending comment get removed?

followed by someone downvoting all of my past comments in succession after that comment.

Personally I would say that's happening to you, sure. I've experienced something similar, over something much more trivial than what you've experienced.

Apparently it's someone's personal mission in life to try to maintain their version of 'order and peace' on Lemmy, through their singular actions.

Anti Commercial-AI license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

ParabolicMotion ,

I did report it. I should check to see if it was removed. Honestly, I haven’t thought about it much. I have had other things to do, and it just wasn’t on my mind lately.

rottingleaf ,

Actually I have had an argument (don't remember if that was still Reddit or already Lemmy, but my old account on an instance which went dead) with every my comment N days back getting the same 2 or 3 downvotes (don't remember, but it was the same number with every of them) and the other side at some point saying that it's "the community showing you the door", making it clear that it's them trying so hard, but that was actually funny.

Pfeffy ,

I rip on the Man versus bear thing because it's boring and repetitive and spammed everywhere.

Duamerthrax ,

I'm not going into the Man vs Bear discussions for the same reasons. Could most allies just be avoiding those threads, leading to a bias of toxic people in them?

worldofbirths ,
@worldofbirths@lemmy.world avatar

Everyone has a vested interest in 50% of the population feeling good about the other half. And certainly we should all feel safer about being with fellow humans than with a bear. The fact that some of us don't feel that way means we should try to make them feel safer.

Thanks for the post. Does anyone have advice on how to become a moderator?

spujb OP ,

Look for communities that are actively calling for mod applications. I know !196 has been looking for a while.

Beebabe ,
@Beebabe@lemmy.world avatar

It was not interesting to see how different cohorts responded to the topic. It certainly landed the hardest in this one. More discussion to be had I guess.

Cannacheques ,

I'm not a bear but on behalf of bears I think it's funny that many women prefer bears which unironically explains how deranged everyone is

tobogganablaze ,

I think it’s funny that many women prefer bears

I don't believe that that's actually true.

I'm pretty sure that if you took any of them to the edge of a forest and relevaled a big crate with a bear in it, their choice would change very quickly.

Flax_vert ,

Who will win: Gender equality or a funny bear

Grass ,

didn't know that. i was thinking of a small flower that doesn't seem very durable.

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