Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein was suspended from X shortly after sharing a leaked dossier on Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance.

Free speech hero Elon Musk is yet again silencing his perceived opponents. This time, he is doing J.D. Vance’s dirty work.

Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein on Thursday reported on the leaked 271-page dossier on Vance, allegedly from the Trump campaign’s research team, which mainstream media outlets had refused to publish. Just hours later, Klippenstein was banned from X, where he’d shared a link to his reporting and to the dossier

  • BertramDitore@lemm.eeEnglish
    233·
    2 months ago

    I want you to be right, but I’m not so sure anymore.

    For example, yesterday I was having a good discussion over on !asklemmy@lemmy.world !asklemmy@lemmy.ml about how terrible the media bias fact checker bot is, and when we started talking about the fact that it feels like there must be some kind of sponsorship deal involved, the mods removed the post. They cited a rule that the discussion absolutely didn’t break. So, it appears we’re free to talk about anything we want on Lemmy, unless a particular mod starts to feel sad or offended, or wants to hide something from the rest of us, and then they behave like anyone else with power and act unilaterally regardless of the ideals of the platform.

    Oh, and it says a lot about how mods feel about an otherwise benign issue, when they remove all discussion of it. A sponsorship deal was only a guess, no one knew if that was true for sure, but when the mods deleted the discussion it made me convinced we were onto something. So, that kind of backfired.

    To anyone who saw that yesterday, it made me furious. I almost quit Lemmy entirely. If we can’t be critical of mod decisions without fear of all our content being deleted by said mods, then this place is not worth my time. I’m going to stick around to see if things improve, but I’m frankly not optimistic.

    Edit: I initially said the discussion was on !asklemmy@lemmy.world, but it was actually on !asklemmy@lemmy.ml, and the mods have since restored the post.

    • TheTetrapod@lemmy.world
      13·
      2 months ago

      That is ridiculous. If the mods have an opinion about what you’re saying, they should reply, not remove the comment like cowards.

      • BertramDitore@lemm.eeEnglish
        9·
        2 months ago

        100%

        They need to get a backbone and engage with the community, not police it when it suits their interests.

      • vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        31·
        2 months ago

        I understand your position, but I have to say that I appreciate communities that are at least a bit curated.

        Seeing the same three guys having a go at each other about the same barely on topic thing in every post is such a let down.

    • fitgse@sh.itjust.works
      41·
      2 months ago

      Lemmy and the fediverse is not about free speech and democratizing a platform, it is about eliminating central authority.

      Lemmy.world can enforce whatever stupid rules they want on their instance and their communities. But none of that stops you from running your own instance and a community on your instance where you can enforce your rules.

      • BertramDitore@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        That’s technically all well and good, but I think it’s a bit unreasonable to expect everyone who happens to dislike some mod decisions to spin up their own instance. Not all of us could reliably do that without help, nor should we have to. But I do think it’s reasonable for us to expect mods of large communities to follow their own rules, and moderate in good faith, regardless of the instance they’re on. These platforms need regular participating users like me who can trust mods across the fediverse.

        I recently moved from lemmy.world to lemm.ee because I’m frustrated by what I see on lemmy.world, and I like lemm.ee’s general vibe and philosophy more. So that kind of instance move, and speaking out whenever I see shit that feels wrong, is the most I can do as a regular user.

    • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      3·
      2 months ago

      Your first mistake was discussing on .ml.

      Ml is a shithole. But the flexibility and true freedom of the Fediverse is you are free to not use instances with shitty tankie admins and mods. You can move your account and community subscriptions over to any other instance.