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Hey @jordanlund@lemmy.world, you seem like someone that might have a good perspective on a question I have. While I've always noticed a habit of people to down vote news they don't like on Lemmy, I feel as though there has been a lot more of this occurring in the last, say, two weeks around election news.
Anything that seems to indicate bad news for Harris or is critical of democrats tends to get rapidly buried, often with little engagement. I worry this is symptomatic of a broader denialism on the left/Harris wing, and that it might lead to another election where people are caught by surprise by something that was a very plausible possibility the whole time.
Since you see a lot more posts than I do week in and week out, does that phenomenon seem to be intensifying over the last week or two, or have I just been noticing it more and it's always been happening?
Oh, it's been going on long before now. Negative news about Biden and Biden polling was being buried before, that didn't really stop until his train wreck of a debate performance.
Who did the burying?
On this site? Users of Lemmy in denial of her alienation of voters. She started strong and then pissed all of that good will away by announcing she's just going to be a continuation of the Biden Israel policy.
And before anyone says "oh, the Biden administration is pushing for a ceasefire". Nobody takes that seriously. You can't push for a ceasefire and rhetorically and materially enable the annihilation of Gaza and the invasion of Lebanon. Any ceasefire proposals are performative.
The hive mind, mass downvotes and reports.
This you fam?
https://lemmy.world/post/16224102?scrollToComments=true
Yup! That's me! Ozma was out of line and repeatedly warned.
Another interpretation of the situation is that through the suppression of a point of view, that while unpopular, was objectively true; ultimately does have an editorial impact on what conversations do or do not happen. So when it comes to "the hive mind, mass downvotes and reports", you quite literally made an editorial decision to suppress a particular point of view. Nothing Ozma was posting was out of line, but you took editorial issue with his posts and banned him.
That editorial moderation literally curated a culture of "the hive mind, mass downvotes and reports", that poisons this forum to today, and has furthered a discussion culture which is dismissive/ in-denial of objective reality when it disagrees with their personal sentiment.
For better or for worse, you are the leader of this space. And I do see your logic in why you thought what you were doing was appropriate. However, a leader is ultimately responsible for outcomes.
You can say what you want about @jordanlund@lemmy.world, and you'll have no concerns about doing so, but I consider him to be a very careful and judicious moderator. I don't always agree with him, but he would be very, very low on my list of troubling moderators. I would even say that he's a moderator that honestly tries to hold himself to a fairly consistent standard. He also explains himself readily if asked. You might disagree with his decisions or opinions, but I generally take him in good faith because he's also very consistent in his moderation.
This comment is taking a very simplistic and, frankly, cheap shot at blaming one moderator for the collective behavior of an entire community. Moderation isn't some magical lever that controls the thoughts and actions of thousands of people, yet the you try to pin the rise of "the hive mind, mass downvotes, and reports" squarely on one person's decision -- as though this behavior isn't broadly distributed in society as a whole. It completely overlooks the natural evolution of any online forum, where people tend to form echo chambers, not because a moderator is pushing buttons behind the scenes, but because that’s just how group dynamics tend to work over time. Blaming it on a single moderater is an easy, surface-level explanation that ignores that fact.
A moderator’s role is to ensure conversations follow the rules and don't spiral out of control, not to curate the perfect philosophical debate. Forums are shaped by their users as much as, if not more than, by their moderators. People downvote what they disagree with, reports happen because of collective sentiment, not because one person is playing puppet master behind the scenes. The real issue isn't a ban or a moderator’s leadership—it's the way communities tend to self-regulate and often become more insular on their own.
I think every thing you said is very fair and generally accurate.
I disagree specifically with what I consider a major moderation decision.
A decision from which you've concluded that it "literally curated a culture of 'the hive mind, mass downvotes and reports', that poisons this forum to today, and has furthered a discussion culture which is dismissive/ in-denial of objective reality when it disagrees with their personal sentiment."
That seems pretty unlikely, don't you think?