this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
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I think it's because the initial lemmy launch was very leftist-oriented, so most people who used it early on were probably quite leftist. Basically as Voat was to the far right, so is lemmy to the far-left.
Add to that Reddit and lemmy both cater to younger people, and younger people tend to skew left, you're left with a very left-leaning audience.
So these leftist early adopters snapped up the popular names for communities, so we're left with a leftist culture on the site, even as right-leaning people later on come to the platform.
At least that's my take. And honestly, as a libertarian, I'm okay with it. I'm pretty good at filtering out biases, so I ignore the worst of it and try to give another perspective in areas that seem more open. I hate echo chambers of all varieties, so I also generally avoid the libertarian ones as well (i.e. /r/libertarian on Reddit as a cesspool). I dislike conservative politics, but I also dislike progressive politics and prefer an actual focus on small government that respects individual rights. Sometimes conservatives get that right, sometimes liberals do, and I'm up for discussing it in both cases.
I don't think they really did that though. Maybe on some subs, but any unequal moderation is much easier to chalk up to subconscious biases than anything intentional (i.e. it's easier to overlook rule breakage for a cause you agree with and enforce rules for causes you don't). There are even laws on the books that police don't need to apply justice equally, only that they need to apply them lawfully (i.e. it's not a problem to hand out tickets to black people more frequently than white people, provided the tickets are legally valid).