Asklemmy

People who complain about "censorship" and "authoritarianism" while espouting the benefits of "freedom of speech" are exactly the type of people you don't want around.

If there's been discussion on lemmy.ml about this topic, I haven't gotten around to seeing it. But from what I've noticed from witnessing this type of discussion all over the web is that these calls always come from either the most reactionary users or enablers i.e. those that would rather sit on the sidelines and either let it happen or put up a weak front because they have a right to "free speech."

Unfortunately, this libertation-esque ethos runs deep in so many online spaces, where they'd rather have vague notions of freedom that obviously benefit them at the expense of others. Spaces like lemmy are not for them, and while there's nothing lemmy can do about it, going against the grain and purging that type of vitriol is the best way to keep it from turning into the shitholes ranging from Reddit's "enlightened centrism" to outright fascist spaces like *chans or gab.

I'd like to add that many projects besides ours have codes of conduct, and anti-bigotry rules. For the bigots, its not just the enforcement of those rules, but the mere existence of them that turns them into whiny babies. They get kicked out of nearly every space and are begging to have a platform to spread their bigoted views.

We will never give them one, and will do everything in our power to keep them marginalized and isolated.

IMO there's no such thing as "on Lemmy" in general, unless you mean this specific instance of Lemmy. But anyway, this problem of balance seems to be an eternal philosophical question which may be never solved once for all. Each instance chooses its own combination of censorship and freedom.