How do you feel about the level of censorship in your current instance ?

I run my own instance, so supremely displeased as expected.
- Won't somebody save me from myself!
- My instance admin is also extremely oppressive.
  
  Same
- As you should be.
- I heard the admin is a nazi commie alien on that instance.
- literally me

it made me get off of lemmy.world
- What was the issue there ?
  
  Lemmy.world is incredibly hostile towards Marxists, or anyone too critical of the Democrats or the US' involvement in the genocide of Palestinians. I imagine @ComradeMiao@lemmy.dbzer0.com has similar complaints based off their username.
  
  Admin's didn't like Luigi discussions to the point of not allowing discussion of Jury nullification. It wasn't not supporting violence but not supporting most discussion of this topic. To me, that shows protection of a certain neoliberal class. Like the opposite of lemmygrad.

Not bad. The thing with "censorship" is that there are no real "free-speech" instances, all instances have opinions they deem intolerable and thus prune (whether selectively or overtly), and many selectively federate and defederate in a manner that makes one camp of thought more dominant, ie liberalism on Lemmy.world via defederation from Hexbear and Lemmygrad, etc.
Lemmy.ml is quicker to remove comments that break the rules than other instances, but is also more broadly federated and thus gets more points of view than, say, Lemmy.world. Lemmy.world on the other hand is more selective with what it removes, but intentionally defederates from instances with heavy concentrations of Marxists, a more subtle form of "censorship" that ultimately shapes the dominant narratives on its instance.
What this ultimately means is that the answer is to openly admit bias, which exists in everyone, and accept that as a natural consequence of the fediverse model. I wouldn't go to Lemmy.world if I wanted to know the opinion of Marxists just like I wouldn't go to Lemmygrad if I wanted to know the opinion of liberals on a subject, this recognition of bias is an intrinsic aspect of the federated model and needs to be openly recognized, otherwise sabre rattling about "censorship" between instances becomes a never-ending source of unconstructive drama.
- that there are no real "free-speech" instances,
  such spaces fill up with nazis anyway as decent people leave because there are so many nazis around
  
  Absolutely, it's why "free speech" advocates and "nonviolent activists" indirectly end up supporting the most heinous speech and most violent systems, by defanging any resistance towards injustice, injustice thrives.
  
  I think that the new(ish) conservative community on lemmy.world is the biggest proof positive of this.

I'm not being forced to say this but I love our Communist dictatorship of the proletariat admins. They keep us safe behind our Great Communist Firewall and make sure I only see things that are good for me. I have fun with the slop and treats they give me, everyone here is very happy. There are no fights among our people and we all are always in agreement. No one ever asks for real freedom and my family is never threatened for doubting the actions of our appointed Supreme Leaders. We have temporary bans (which in our language we call "gulag") that are necessary and only reserved for those who wish to destroy our way of life, which we all equally benefit from and enjoy, so that we remain safe. We all have portraits of PPB in our home and daily recite the TrueAnon Rules. We have reading groups to make us better shitposters and if we do not do the reading we are all publicly reminded of our flaws and failures so that we may improve ourselves in the future. We all cry tears of joy that we no longer must touch grass or logout, we are all terminally online for our own good and for our community. We are very happy and everything is normal and we enjoy higher standards of freedoms than do users on other instances, our strict rules are only there to protect us. I'm not paid or forced to say this and my family is safe, please do not SEND FOR HELP. WE ARE NOT FORCED TO EAT BEANIS AND DRINK PISS TO SURVIVE, WE DO IT BECAUSE WE LOVE IT.

I find, it's useful to piss off the nazis. For example, lemmy.ml has a word filter, which has hardly an impact on anything. But the free-speech absolutists who want to be allowed to say that we should murder ethnic groups of people, because they think that's an opinion, they see that as censorship, so they don't care to join here.
- I'm no Nazi, I just think it's infantilizing to filter out certain words so I left .ml. We're all adults here. Enjoy what you like though, I'm happy with /0.
  
  I'm definitely not saying anyone who's not a fan of word filters is a nazi. I'm just saying that nazis disproportionally dislike them more, so it's a good thing in my book. But yes, definitely enjoy what you like, too. I would be more critical of the word filter, if it wasn't possible for you to just join a different instance.
  
  The beauty of the fediverse. We all self select our digital communes that best reflects our values. All while not having to switch to a new service or product.

I'm happy with Lemmy.ml. I feel like moderation is taken seriously here and that is a very good thing. I don't care for "free speech" that provides a platform for immoral points of view. For example, I do not need to consider the opinions of racists or Nazis. I've heard them plenty and there is no redeeming value in their speech. It is a settled debate. Anyone who doesn't understand that deserves your suspicion.
- Also on .ml and agree. Nazi shit on an instance makes it unusable as far as I'm concerned.
  
  The only thing I want to know about nazis is how far away they are so I can adjust my aim.
- I'm very comfortable on the .ml instances where I participate, mostly reading, commenting much less because I'm still learning and considering perspectives that I was heavily propagandized to reject. My questions are answered, my thoughts are challenged, and sometimes I have to chew on that for awhile. Other thoughts it seems are "we won't know until we know," and I'm okay with that. It's not always comfortable, it's very often uncomfortable, but I feel it's necessary for my personal development as a human being. I don't know everything, no one can, but I'm willing to consider perspectives that were once foreign and/or shunned by myself. It's not even necessarily that I automatically believe everything I read, more that I'm working to suspend disbelief in order to gather and consider more data. Iow, the older I get and more I understand, the more I realize how much I don't know and understand.
  
  It sounds like you have a great attitude, and I can relate to a lot of what you say.
- .ml rocks. I know people are upset when tankies post walls of text but it's their space to. I just wish they could live how they want, same as I do. Even if we want very different things in life. Want some get some.
  You don't have to craft a PhD dissertation any time they reply to you. Just move on to the next shit post. Some feel obligated, and that's your perogative. I have to many part time jobs to reply to everyone here.
  
  Our informative well-sourced arguments, their propagandistic walls of text

I like hexbear.
Modding is a tough row to how.
- Yeah they might not always get everything right but I’d rather have an overactive mod team than an under active (useless) mod team especially when it’s all done for free
  
  The things they get right (e.g., actively opposing bigotry) you don't find in many other places, and the things they get wrong (e.g., major changes without community input) happen everywhere. Like an AES state in miniature.
- Yea tends to happen when you are in a bubble and the admins strongly enforce said bubble.
  
  That's not an accurate way to view Hexbear. Hexbear is very explicitly for Marxists and Anarchists, but the vast majority of users live in areas where those are fringe viewpoints. Hexbear allows people to talk to other like-minded leftists without having to constsntly deal with people hostile to Anarchism and/or Marxism, which is the default in their lives.
  A more accurate "bubble" would be instances that uphold ideologies aligned with the status quo in my opinion, as it minimizes exposure to other viewpoints.

I feel OK about it, for the most part. I can say "genocide is always wrong" and not get banned here.
- Scientists working to end West Nile virus by eliminating mosquitos ability to reproduce.
- Until you get specific
- But ya can’t see the word bitch (or a bunch of other swears)
  
  good. not everyone wants to deal with misogyny.
  
  Oh no, not the tyranny of the regular expression filtering of a few bigoted words! This is fascism!

.ml here, I'm happy with this community. I know the reputation it has, but honestly, I haven't really seen it. I'm a hardcore leftist, but I've been very critical of China, Russia, etc. And I'm not a tankie. Obviously haven't been banned or had my comments removed.
The mods here seem quite reasonable, and of course if folks don't agree, there are a lot of other instances.
I used to be a free-speech absolutist when I was young, but then I realized that there isn't such a thing. Even the few places online that pride themselves on having "no censorship" like 4-chan still have a handful of things that they don't allow.
Quite frankly, I think those places are pretty nasty overall and I have no desire to emulate them. Racists, Pedos, lgbt-phobes don't need a platform or to have their opinions elevated or taken seriously.
I wouldn't think a top university's physics department is improved by devoting classes and curriculum to flat earth or 7-day creationism. Likewise, I don't think a forum or server is made better by allowing racists and bigots to have a safe space on it.
Of course, you have to decide what crosses the line, but welcome to real life. There's a difference between a hardcore neo-nazi who thinks Jews and black folks are literal sub-humans, and your 87 year-old grandpa who unironically calls the employees at his favorite asian buffet, "Chinamen."
- I haven't really had any bad experiences with .ml communities or users. I consider myself a Marxist actually. I mostly saw the China, Russia, and North Korean dick sucking on Reddit. I remember someone on Reddit actually arguing that leftists should use Redstar OS (North Korean Linux distro designed to spy on its users) because its made by a socialist country that cares about its people. Guess that's why they're executed for stealing bread. I'm sorry about your instances bad reputation, I really haven't seen it. Besides, there are assholes in every community.
- In general communities it's ok here but in global events it's easy to see in the modlog that certain topics which are not favorable for Socialist-In-Name-Only are hidden very fast.
  
  I haven't checked the log, but I get my news from several different sources, Lemmy is only one of them.
- I have been banned twice from .ml just for mentioning that Russia shot down a civilian airplane in Ukraine (the first time)
  
  Can't really speak to specifics. I'll just say that there are definitely posts on .ml news and commentary communities that go against the typical views of many .ml members, and they are left up by the mods and allowed to be discussed and debated.
  Every community has censorship, it's a spectrum. But that's what I love about the federation model and FOSS in general. There are always different communities with different focuses and standards, something for everybody. And still we all have the freedom to block content we don't want to see or support.
- I think 99.99% of Lemmy is hardcore leftist so it's no wonder they don't fuck with you, so it's no wonder that you have no complaints.
  
  If "hardcore leftist" is defined as "left of Joe Biden," then sure. Within that group there are a wide range of opinions.
  
  Lemmy largely has 3 camps, the Anarchists, the Marxists, and the Liberals, and each instance leans overwhelmingly in one or 2 of those directions. Looking at the number of active users on each instance, at this point it's fair to say that the liberal camp is probably the largest, as much as I wish that wasn't true.
  That does make for ample radicalization territory, however.

My instance has no censorship and federates with all, and moderation only happens for obvious illegal content, not someone having an opinion that is not popular.
To me, it's what the fediverse is supposed to be, so very happy.
- Same

we aren't federated with NSFW instances and thats honestly okay because I use this account in public.

Most important is that passwords are always censored for others: ********

I love that lemm.ee is federated with everyone, because that means I frequently encounter ideas that I - gasp - disagree with!
- Not only that, but Lemmy gives us a decent amount of control over our own curation, at the user level. We're from the same instance, but our feeds could be totally opposite each other dependant on who/what we choose to filter/block.
  It's one of my favorite things about this platform, and I feel like .ee's ethos really works alongside it.
- Yea Im pretty happy with lemm.ee too. Great instance great (former) admin/founder. Great admin team un general. Could not be happier
- Content like: "[Insert Racial Group here] are disgusting and should be genocided"
  ?
  Well if only exploding heads were still here, you might not wanna see those shit.
  Also, federating with everyone is a bad idea. CSAM is everywhere, someone glancing at your phone while you browse lemmy and there just happen to be CSAM, well you're getting reported to the authorities because the person think you are browsing CSAM.
- I think there's a huge difference between seeing opposing ideas and just seeing a bunch of propaganda and brigading.1
  
  That's a bit of an interesting dillema. Anyone that supports something consistently is doing propaganda, so it's generally better if people reveal their biases. As for brigading, it's difficult to tell if there's just a large group of an ideologically different instance coming across a post in their all feed or of its a concerted effort.

Just in case anyone needs to investigate what instances are federated/defederated from each other.
https://defed.xyz/
- o7 thank you for your internet link service comrade
  This link may also be useful
  
  Slava Ukraini!

"Censorship" has become a buzzword and lost all of its meaning
- It simply means that somebody stopped you from talking.
  That's it.
  
  It's meaning in abstract is simple, but it's actual manifestations are usually quite complex. Self-censorship for example: If you self-censor out of fear of a negative social reaction, to what degree is that actually someone else stopping you from talking? Everyone else, or the idea of everyone else? I would say that any view that's held by a group of people that's pervasive enough to cause others to calibrate their words towards them, any cultural context strong enough that visitors feel a need to adjust for it, automatically and unconsciously practices censorship.
- The line is at least very blurred with moderation. One person's moderation is another person's censorship.
  
  Its the same thing. People are just primed into thinking that censorship is universally bad in every instance.

I haven’t had a single issue with feeling censored at DB0. If anything, it is users from other instances acting like they own the whole Fediverse that I have occasionally had a problem with, but I don’t think any of them were moderators.
- Yah, moderation on db0 is fantastic. I have zero complaints.
  
  I honestly feel like parasocial friends with DB0 at this point, and he is a really standup person in my opinion. Definitely the kind of intelligent nerd I admire.
- I sat down with my partner last night, to help him pick out an instance to join. He said he wasn't unixy enough to feel at home on SDF.
  I feel comfortable with his decision to join dbzer0. Folks from dbzer0 seem like good sorts, and somehow none of y'all have pissed me off enough to get added to my block list.

I'm on world. Fuck the admins of world.

I’m on lemmy.one which has disabled downvoting. If I had known in advance I would have picked another instance. Unfortunately, Lemmy doesn’t have a mechanism to transfer your account to another instance yet.
- Disabling down votes is good actually because it forces people to engage and not just down vote and move on.
  
  but sometimes i just want to be passive aggressive
  
  That doesn’t really work if people from other instances do get to downvote.
  
  It also benefits trolls and disingenuous conversation.
- Copy settings to new account, add a note in your old profile telling people you've moved to another instance and add the link to your new profile. Use the same Display name in both. Done. If you want to remember what you posted, you could always search and filter by both your old account and new account. It's effectively the same as a transfer.

My random choice of instance over a year ago with zero research has worked out well so far.
- Same here

I have encountered very little if any at all
- From what I’ve read, in our instance, it’s being critical of China that gets you banned.
  But I don’t know how much of that is people being straight-up racist/xenophobic and then conflating it with being critical.
  
  It's the second IME. We talk all the time about our concerns with the CPC, our hopes and disappointments with their foreign policy, and our thoughts on their political/economic situation. Critically discussing China is pretty much half of what we do in the news comm.
  The people who say "I was banned just for being critical of China" never seem to want to specify what those criticisms were, but every time you go looking through the modlog you find the same shit: Commie hivemind spy balloon Winnie the Pooh uyhgur tinyman square. It's like going up to some people talking about Korea and saying "don't you weirdos know that they eat rats and push the trains by hand"? It's not just the propaganda that gets them banned; everyone starts out full of propaganda, and most people here will paitently clarify things for you if you ask. No, it's the smug doubling and tripling-down on ignorance at every turn that gets them the boot. Then they run back to their home instance to tell the story of how the tankies murdered them, and the mythology builds.
  
  Why don't you try saying something critical of China but not racist, and see if it gets removed?
- Lemmy.ml does censor a lot of profanity, but other than that it doesn't seem any more or less overtly heavyhanded on censorship than other instances.
  That being said, I suppose self-censorship among the community is another factor to consider as well, as I've seen a lot of instances purge their own versions of wrongthink depending on which mod is on a power trip.
  
  Yeah the profanity censorship can be a bit weird but its nice that I don't see slurs

I just had all of my comments deleted by the mod of a vegan group because I questioned one person. Seems lemmy is bringing over mods from reddit and their attitudes.
- I'm thinking it's just normal human power tripping. Which is why we need to find something better than the present system.

Pretty good, it only defeds from two instances, one used by pedos and threads.
- What's up with threads?
  
  It's an attempt by Meta to swallow the fediverse via Microsoft's old "embrace, extend, extinguish" strategy.
- I'm out of the loop. What instance is pedos? (Legit so I can block it, if hexbear isn't defederated already)
  
  I personally haven't seen any of that while on my Hexbear account, the mods and admins usually do a great job of blocking all of that out.
  
  Don't want to link it for obvious reasons, but it's burggit (dot) moe

I'm happy with it. I've gotten a few temporary suspensions for saying things that I still believe I had a right to say - but that's the thing, they're temporary suspensions for a reason. You sit through them, seethe a little bit, and champ at the bit for the opportunity to say the same thing again but angrier.
The only instances Lemmygrad defederates with are porn and fascist instances, which I think is fine - I'm not anti-porn, but you just make a second account for that stuff.
The only things that I think the Lemmygrad admins have a hard time adjudicating are "Internet Leftist" boutique issues - stuff that is rarely taken seriously by actual people in the real world but weirdos on the Internet think are very important.

hell yeah brother 1,000,000 banned reactionaries and transphobes
- o7

What censorship?
- Ironic instance name for one you're implying is uncensored.
  
  Ironic instance name for one you're implying is uncensored.
  I think it's quite fitting for federated social media.
- Can you point us to some disagreements the people in your instance have had with moderators? Do you have any specific links for us to view? If censorship is happening I'd like to know more about it.
  I'm an instance owner (it's very small) and the only thing I don't tolerate is hate messages and subversive spam ("www.BuyGoldHere123.Spam.me"). I haven't yet needed to delete anything my users created.
  
  Can you point us to some disagreements the people in your instance have had with moderators? Do you have any specific links for us to view? If censorship is happening I'd like to know more about it.
  No because there aren't any. There are very few active users on WG and I have no desire for it to ever become very big. I originally created it for myself to experiment with and I don't really promote or advertise the instance itself even though people are welcome to join.
  The people who have joined tend to share common interests so things have mostly remained the same as when it was just me. The "walled" part of WG is more or less the application process itself, since it removes easy access for troll and bot accounts.
  I'm an instance owner (it's very small) and the only thing I don't tolerate is hate messages and subversive spam ("www,BuyGoldHere123,Spam,me"). I haven't yet needed to delete anything my users created.
  I've seen some of these spam posts in our communities before but always from outside instances. They are very easy to keep under control and I wouldn't consider that censorship, just garbage removal.

My instance has been really good, with some hiccups, but I also appreciate that it doesn’t rampantly defederate (to my knowledge) because while I can handle a more overbearing moderation staff I like being able to see other instances and appreciate the dialogue going on in them.
- I have to say my one interaction with your mods was bullshit. Your admin was cool, but when mods decided to subvert their decision… nothing was done about it.

The automated censorship that keeps out CSAM and blatant trolling and scams? I love it.
The moderation that's done over the whole instance. That's understandable as it's a large attack surface for regulatory or state actor interference.
The community mods, that depends on the /c and honestly it's the same as it's ever been. It's wildly variable from person to person.

I'm on my own instance, so i dont have anything to complain.

It's a little high for my tastes, notably in blocking piracy communities from other servers. I don't even care to participate in them; it's a matter of principle.

I haven't knowingly encountered any

I've been thinking about switching over to lemmy.today as it's not currently defederated with anyone, so I can decide who to block and keep for myself. It's based in Oregon, and I like the idea of joining an instance close to me. I do worry about Lemmy.world being so overly dominate in the federated-lemmy-space.
But many of the communities that I participate in are lemmy.world, and it's nice that they send me an automated notice whenever a post/comment of mine is removed. I've already subscribed to many communities and would have to do that all over again. and I haven't thought of a creative new username.
- You can use the same username since they're unique per instance. I had the same one on Lemmy.world

Removed by mod

I'm not a huge fan of the pro-China stuff in lieu of the pro-US stuff on other servers, but its mostly chill

Most of us never say anything interesting enough to censor.
Most of the censoring is mob dogpiling.
But ya, I hate it.
And even if you don't get censored, look at who you're talking to. You're trying to reach the 1 smart person in 1000.
What we need is the 1990s internet. A collection of niche communities. And the 99% stays way over there in facebookland or whatever they had back then.

My instance is great.
If I get banned randomly, I don’t think I’d go to a different instance, though. I’d probably just stop visiting Lemmy altogether.
In that case check the modlog and if it's unreasonable why not try out another instance?

I'm completely unaware of it and DGAF.

If there is any I have not noticed it.

I don't feel I'm missing out on anything important. I don't want my instance to engage in any form of ideological censorship (in any direction at all unless required by law) and don't feel they are doing that. But I'm glad this thread exists because it tells me about other instances I could try if I ever became dissatisfied with mine.

Massive fan of feddit.uk and Lemm.ee, moderation has been great, feddit.uk the admin have shown a willingness and urgency in helping user. My personal experience; helping with resetting a backend issue effecting my account and looking into bot'ed down voting when I DM'd them.
Lemm.ee is just good with their federation philosophy which can be found on the sidebar.
- Lemm.ee is nice. No complaints.
  
  Agreed. I appreciate the well-thought and out level headed approach lemm.ee has taken.
  Actually, for a moment I was annoyed they wouldn’t defederate with a certain offensive instance. But, now, looking back on it, I think they made the right decision. I appreciate that defederation is an extreme tool that shouldn’t be used lightly.

Doesn't impact me so fine with it.

Sh.itjust.works has been brilliant, tbh.
High uptime, reasonable admins.
Very happy with it

I am the only (AFAIK) Italian instance and pretty happy. No censorship.
I don't know how people from Lemmy.world stand it, honestly.

I have no problems with lemm.ee. Mastodon on the other hand...
I got booted from my first instance for going against prevailing opinion even though I was perfectly polite about it.
- even though I was perfectly polite about it.

I’m satisfied, I haven’t seen or noticed any censorship.

Delighted. Constructive or helpful disagreements are encouraged, and the mods ensure that I hardly ever encounter a bigot.

Mostly I haven't had issues with it, I was banned from an egg_irl community on one instance, I forget which, for not espousing violence though.

It is precisely what I want.

Instance level censorship isn't much for the user to worry about (I run my own, so it's zero problem for me). Most censorship happens at the group level by group owners, and the admins on the instance the group is hosted.
I still don't have a problem with it though. You subscribe to a group on a certain instance, you cannot be too surprised if you get censored there.

My instance doesn’t seem to have any censorship as far as I can tell, but despite what terminally online people would expect, it’s not overrun by Nazis.
- Ditto. SDF feels very nerdy and comfortable.

I'm happy with my instance, no complaints!
- Is it because you are free to talk strange? Or is it because you don't talk strange?
  
  I don't generally say hateful things, so no risk of being censored for that, and I like that my instance doesn't censor anything that could possibly be considered a slur the way .ml does.
  I was originally on .ml and I remember seeing a comment that had a legitimate use of a word that could be considered a slur in another context. I don't remember the exact scenario, but it was something equivalent to saying "response time retardation" in relation to drunk driving. And "retardation" was censored, which created unnecessary confusion. I'd been thinking of switching instances anyway, and that silly little example is what pushed me over the edge. I guess I'd rather not be cushioned from every word that might be hurtful, especially when doing so can cause confusion.
  No hate or disrespect to .ml, by the way - I'm very grateful to Dessalines and crew for creating lemmy and Jerboa, and I respect their right to administer their instance the way they see fit. To me that's the neat thing about the fediverse - it allows for a "different strokes for different folks" approach. :)

honestly too light

It's not bad at all so far.

I run my instance so I am perfectly happy with the level of censorship.
Said instance is narrowly focused on free software and free culture issues, so unrelated politics would be off-topic. That said there is a fairly bog standard code of conduct prohibiting bigotry, nazism and the like.