Why does the general attitude on Lemmy seem to lean toward more censorship and silencing of speech rather than less? There are plenty of popular views floating around here that I don’t agree with, but that aren't surprising - they align with the kind of people who are drawn to a place like this. This one, however, is surprising.

EDIT: I think ChatGPT did a pretty decent job at explaining this. And didn't even accuse me of being a fascist for asking.

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You're not imagining it—liberal-leaning platforms like Lemmy, Mastodon, Tumblr, and especially certain corners of Reddit often do show a strong tendency toward content moderation that can slide into ideological gatekeeping or outright censorship. But to make sense of why that happens, you have to separate two things: who has power in the platform’s culture and what values they believe justify limiting speech.

Historically, you’re right—censorship has often been associated with right-wing authoritarianism: military dictatorships, state control of media, book bans, and suppression of dissent. But the core mechanism of censorship is not inherently right-wing. It’s just a tool. Who uses it, and why, changes depending on who holds power.

In the online left-leaning spaces, the logic behind censorship isn’t about suppressing dissent to maintain state power, but rather about protecting marginalized groups and enforcing norms of inclusion, safety, and respect. That sounds noble on the surface, and often it is. But when taken too far or enforced rigidly, it results in a climate where even questioning the norms themselves is treated as harmful. That’s the paradox: speech is restricted in the name of compassion, not control—but the effect can feel just as silencing.

There’s also the factor of social capital. On platforms dominated by left-leaning users, calling something “harmful,” “problematic,” or “not aligned with community values” gives you power. Moderators and users gain status by enforcing those norms. And since these platforms are not democracies but tribes with moderators, dissenting views often get downvoted, banned, or flagged not because they’re poorly argued, but because they challenge the group’s identity.

You could argue it’s not censorship in the classic state sense—it’s more like ideological hygiene within self-selecting communities. But if you’re the one getting silenced, it doesn’t really matter why. You just feel the muzzle.

One more thing: platforms like Lemmy are very new, often run by idealists, and many come from or were inspired by activist spaces where speech norms are strict by design. In that context, “freedom of speech” isn’t always a priority—it’s seen as something that can enable harm, rather than protect truth-seeking. And that mindset has filtered into moderation culture.

So while the underlying motivations are very different, the behavior—shunning, silencing, gatekeeping—can look similar to the authoritarian censorship you mentioned. It just wears a different uniform.
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I happen to be a penis owner.

So what would happen if I were to install and use such a monthly tracker app and pretend I've been having regular monthlies for a while, then suddenly I miss a couple periods, then suddenly start having periods again?

Would the cops come beating my door down claiming I had an abortion? 🤔

Fuck this dystopian mass surveillance shit!

For christ sake, is there no open source option for such a simple task?

Edit:
2 people here could point to drip within 15 minutes of my post, and a third to the fact there are options on F-droid. So why the fuck don't women just use that?
Well i guess the ones with harmful advertising have better graphics or somemeting. Or the fact they allow advertising makes them more visible on google play. And you probably can't even get drip on iPhones.

Is it my fault if a comment I posted is removed by .ml-Mods simply because it states that there can be no justification for terrorism?

Honestly, I can't support that. Do you see it differently?

I want to preface this by saying I am not a fan of how .ml is run either. Tankies run rampant. Their ethical framework to me is wild.

But:

You don’t have to go there. They are their own instance with their own rules, just like tons of other instances with their own rules. You can’t show up and wipe your muddy shoes on their couch just because you don’t like their rules. You know what their rules are, you know you don’t agree philosophically, so don’t fucking go there. You don’t have to. You chose to go there looking for a fight, then you were shown the door, because that kind of behavior is not welcome.

You are not entitled to their consideration, you are not entitled to their time, and you are not entitled to posting on their instance. You seem to be under the (incorrect) impression that they are accountable to you. They are not.

TL;DR: They made their feelings clear to you with a ban, and you are now here throwing a hissy fit.

And before you start going off about how you think I’m a tankie or whatever, I gave this exact same lecture to someone a week ago because they were mad that an instance was hostile to the concept of ownership. An instance that was specifically centered around piracy. They felt entitled to express their option there without consequences but they were not so they acted like a petulant child.

Don’t be that user.

Ok so admittedly your post had all the trademark signs of an “i got recently banned” post, but you didn’t technically get banned I guess? So if that’s the case, I need you to explain to me what led you to making this post lol. You just woke up one day and did it for no reason? Did something specific occur? I feel like we are missing part of the story.

Anyway now that I fully acknowledge that part of things, I hope that does not keep you from seeing a larger point I am making. Surely you can see the relevance extends beyond whether or not you banned lol

No need to cargo-cult security practices here, chief. You’re not gonna get pwned by publishing your hardware specs. If you’re planning to build some kinda webapp for yourself, that’s a different story - but you have to fuck up hard to get hacked while hosting raw HTML.

Use an SSH key, disable password auth, make sure you’re firewalled (i.e. test with nmap), and call it a day.

Fail2ban ufw

port forward only the bare minimum (80 443)

Expose docker ports with 127.0.0.1:8000:8000 then port forward with caddy server on the host

Docker is going to undo your port iptable rules with or without ufw

Running rm -rf ~ isn’t that hard to do either just don’t do it.

Your router’s NAT should save you if that happens on the wrong port anyway.

You shouldn’t suggest UFW at all then. There are other firewall options that can be used just fine with docker.

It does have real potential to cause serious issues, e.g. if OP were to put their server in DMZ mode on their router and later copy some docker setup instructions that don’t explicitly bind to localhost.