Awesome thanks for answering. I knew this would turn into a political hate fest but hoped someone like you would understand the true question.

Actually I'm asking what I asked and interacting with Lemmy for the first time. Did I know it would be contentious? Yes, but that is part of the point. I wanted to see how contentious content is treated so you're somewhat right.

It looks pretty good actually. I was able to post and comment with a new account without being restricted 100 different ways even while posting something that might upset some people. I don't want platform level restrictions being driven by stupid group think and brigade activity. That's about it.

I'll let you in on a secret. No one likes Trump or Biden.

Oh no, Lemmy supports images like this? Garbage.

Also reductionist garbage anyway. How about the freedom of religion and being censored for protesting government mandated closure of places of worship while alcohol stores were allowed to remain open? Is that conservative? It's just one example.

I have Twitter blocked at the network level. Whenever I see a screenshot of a Twitter post I know it's literally the stupidest thing you could imagine. You didn't let me down. Also the whole screen shotted Twitted posts making a claim about conservatives that is easily refuted if conservatives were actually allowed to talk is peak Reddit.

Feel good, makes you laugh, hate your neighbor content. Just be sure you don't show it to your neighbor they might say some things that confuse you. Believe me this isn't unique to Democrats the same Twitter screen shot psy ops are run against conservatives. Look, some random person said this, let's talk about it like that is what all X's say and believe. Look, some random person said this, let's talk about it and how it's so true.

Screen shots of comments on Twitter being reposted is.. very disturbing. For reasons that go far beyond the stupidity of American politics.

It's not different, that's my concern. I want something different and better and fragmented instances of biased social media sites isn't it. I want a politics discussion to be diverse and varied not "politics" on the republican lemmy instance, "politics" on the democrat lemmy instance, and so on. It seems to be impossible these days for moderators or admins to promote an unbiased forum even if they themselves are biased. Everyone just kind of accepts and admits the bias and stays in their little bubble thinking this is how it should be. It didn't used to be this way.

Sensational nonsense and Republicans have similar sensational nonsense to say about Democrats. Both political parties are in favor of less rights for you and more money for themselves. That's about it. I even called this years ago when I told a friend that BOTH gun rights AND abortion would be successfully attacked in the near future and used as a wedge to further erode rights. One party wants you to have less of this right, the other wants you to have less of that right, no one is talking about expanding people's rights or reigning in government power. You just argue about which rights are more important than others and how the ones you don't care about should be gotten rid of or at least it's okay that your party wants to get rid of them because you don't care about "the other" who thinks it is important to them.

That's just your bias. Everyone is biased but social media platforms don't have to be designed to kettle people and feed their biases as correct. Let me put it this way using your own words..

current state of american politics manifested in a discussion platform

If that is true, can you show me the people talking about banning books because they were written by minorities and taking kids away from their parents for providing them healthcare? Even further, can you show me them talking about it in the POLITICS community?

I'm willing to bet that you can't because this isn't representative of the current state of American politics. It's a one sided biased discussion absent this "other side" you're referring to yet that "other side" is equal in numbers so where are they? Why are they so completely absent?

If I do post anti-Biden stories in politics or make anti-Biden comments in politics how long until I'm limited in some way compared to anti-Trump users? That is what I'm getting at. Does the platform support functionality to bias communities or does it actually rely on the users like old social media? Will my comments be time restricted? Will I be shadow banned? Will people have to click to expand my comment? How much will the platform itself interfere in these ways that create echo chambers?

Well, that isn't at all what happened, but okay. This was a platform discussion and probably beyond most users here even understanding. Not because they're stupid but because they don't really understand how social media algorithms and rules work to curate content in certain ways.

The scale and severity of the accusations against Trump and those against Biden are on completely different levels.

No, they're not. You said accusations. Remember Trump Russia? Well now this is Biden China. If you think Jan 6th was an attempted coup and that is why this is so serious then you can also acknowledge that Biden China is using the legal system to attack his political opponent, Trump, which is just as serious an accusation. It is similarly a coup like situation. Unless I misunderstand what you mean.

You’re implying the existence of an administrative or algorithmic bias that is somehow censoring right wing talking points while ignoring that several popular right wing talking points are of highly questionable veracity.

I'm not implying this that is already a proven reality. Both the bias censoring them and many being highly questionable. The tactic for censorship is pointing out what isn't true and ignoring the things being censored that are true. You could do the same thing for Democrat talking points, grabbing hold of the ones that are nonsense to justify censoring legitimate criticism.

It's like if someone says eating toothpaste cures COVID because their friend tried it and it worked but another person says vitamin D cures COVID here are several peer reviewed studies and you just lump all of that into a category called "COVID misinformation." That is the current situation. Meanwhile the people doing the categorizing are saying "this new experimental untested COVID vaccine will absolutely protect you and you 'WILL NOT DIE' if you take it and it's also the only way we can ever 'GO BACK TO NORMAL'" but we all know that was also utter garbage misinformation. So the problem is the censorship by those spreading misinformation who are using the toothpaste claim to suppress the vitamin D information. I don't see the problem as the toothpaste claim. People are supposed to be the most educated of any nation in the world in America they shouldn't need government backed protection from unsupported claims on the internet.

The whole "they're a fringe minority" claim is bizarre when Trump won the election and last election set records. Republicans and Democrats are roughly equivalent in numbers and so are their fringe crazies, who are increasing in number. Eventually the much larger majority of Americans who isn't affiliated with a party and doesn't vote will weigh in on this nonsense.

bias against right-wing ideology occurs naturally on internet forums

Is that why 4chan is the way it is? Is that why Twitter shifted hard to the right when people stopped being banned? I don't think it proved that at all.

All it proved is that Lemmy world is biased to the left which was already known. I found out that Lemmy isn't biased as a platform but also the userbase sadly thinks further fragmentation is the solution. Don't like the left bias here? Go find a right bias instance. Uhh.. No thanks to both? I want impartial authority and diverse participation not ANOTHER layer of bias on top of existing bias promoting mechanisms used in popular social media platforms.

That was the solution offered. Don't like the left bias? Go find the right bias Lemmy instances and some names were dropped. So obviously your theory is garbage if people are outright telling me where to go find "right bias" Lemmy instances.

Not at all, that's why it is a platform question. Obviously the users are biased that isn't my question.

There is no shadow banning, no time locking comments based on karma, and all that?

That is what worries me about this concept.

That now not only do you need a different community within social media but an entirely different site catering to your in group. It is further fracturing people into small groups that refuse to interact with each other and are becoming unhinged and paranoid as a result.

Is it really so hard to have a social media site with politics discussion that is moderated without bias? Everyone seems to just accept that the bias is a given and you just have to find your own little bubble to be happy in. No. I want to discuss with people different than me. Not circle jerk people who already think like me.

This means whereas you used to have a biased politics within a social media site you at least had political groups interacting outside of politics there but fracturing across sites will speed this up rather than reduce the group think. Hopefully social media just dies.

No, it's more like walking into a room and asking, "Hey, is this a place where we can have free open discussions or are you a biased group of people who rely on authoritarian control to promote your views?" then getting the door slammed in your face and told something like the commenter who said "There aren’t two sides to every issue, reasonable people can’t differ on everything." A sort of smarmy response implying that there is no bias, only the truth, and this group is just reasonable people who accept the truth and anyone who won't accept their truth isn't reasonable and therefore isn't welcome.

That's fine and it answers the question. It is a group of people who rely on authoritarian control to promote their views. They do not want free and open discussion. They are happy to suppress and censor speech they deem "unreasonable" or similar.

Whole point is lost on you and has nothing to do with Trump.

Whole point is lost on you and has nothing to do with Trump.

They absolutely do exist in similarly equal numbers. Just because you censor people it doesn't make them go away in the real world.

No my point is there is an absence of stories about Biden. At least that is it in a nutshell. Like I said elsewhere I'd prefer 0 stories about either one but at least equal representation of stories not just negative Trump stories endlessly. That isn't organic and it's obvious. There are many reasons it can happen but one is that the platform itself promotes bias and to me that is the most important factor on if I want to use a given platform. I don't even care if every story is about hating Trump as long as I can say Fuck Biden and not get banned for it by an admin. That's my only point. I don't care about either of them. If you're posting somewhere that saying Fuck Biden gets you banned but Fuck Trump is there every day all day then you're just participating in an echo chamber and taking party in a small community not the larger world community on the internet.

It's "a conspiracy"? That doesn't really mean anything. You didn't even say it's a conspiracy theory. Is Trump not being tried for a conspiracy at the moment? Not a conspiracy theory, the crime, it has conspiracy in the name. Your comment is just muddying the water. It's pretty obvious the Bidens are involved in bribery with the CCP to some degree and that is by the facts. No different than Ukraine and Burisma. Ukraine was branded the most corrupt country in the world and the Bidens just happened to be all mixed up in their energy sector and governance. This is before the latest events even.

Here is a simple example.

Biden said he never got involved with his sons business dealings. That was his cover when all the Burisma stuff came out. Well, we know factually that is a lie now. Where is the story about this specific example on the politics community here? It's a factual story illustrating Biden lied about business dealings with his son when he was questioned if these dealings could make him impartial. He lied in response to be asked if he could be impartial about Ukraine or if he might be involved financially in the situation. Where's the coverage here historically when this story broke?

It's just one of many examples of what is valid political news story about the current US President but where is it on Lemmy? Yet what I do see is 10 submissions on my front page about the same Trump story and he isn't even the current President. That is the bias and if you're not intentionally being a blind shill you can see it plainly. The question was not if Lemmy USERS are biased, obviously they are, the question is about the platform itself.