I’ve been posting in the meme communities in Lemmy for a few months now. For the most part, if I make some silly meme about how broke I am or how bad American healthcare is, it doesn’t get removed and the meme does well. But I’ve had several memes get removed that I was pretty sure don’t violate the rules of the instance or the community and now I’m getting pretty frustrated. In each case, I’ve gone to the modlog and (if there’s any reason given at all) they say that I violated a rule that is written so generally that anything could count as violating it. Meanwhile, a meme about American kids killed in a school shooting makes the top of front page.
Now, if you’ve made it this far, your first reaction is to question whether my posts are crossing the line. But I think all of my memes are pretty light hearted even if they’re about controversial subject matter. Let me give you a few examples.
A few weeks a go I posted a meme with the caption “My wife out-drinking everyone at the table-- Our unborn son:” [picture of Tom the cat in the womb]. I understand abortion is a touchy subject for some people, but it’s not like I was advocating for or against abortion. After that, I posted a meme complaining about the lack of specificity of the rules on Lemmy and that post also got removed. That’s enough to let me know that the mods on that instance (lemmy.ml) will delete anything they disagree with. But I’m sure that a meme about killing the rich 1% with guillotines would stay up no problem.
I know what your thinking: Lemmy is a big place, just post on a different instance. And I thought the same thing. I went over to lemmyshitposts@lemmy.world thinking that if they’re allowing shitposts, then they would have a more lax mod policy. Post a few memes about innocuous things, it goes fine. Then I post a meme that pokes fun at the LGBTQIA+ acronym for being too long and that gets removed too. So I’m coming to the realization that any post that is completely innocuous or anodyne to the mods is fine, but if you even touch on certain subjects (e.g., miscarriages, queer culture, Lemmy’s rules, etc) it will get taken down.
I’ve had three removed comments, no posts, But every time the mod has eventually told me that even though I haven’t broken any rules, they don’t like what I’ve written and have decided to take it down.
I think it’s just the nature of the beast at this point. Smaller communities so the mods are identifying their personal politics with the impersonal rules of the communities.
Right, and the more you participate, the more likely you are to become a target. Ironic for a platform which desperately needs participation more than anything else
Yeah the more you participate the larger the target on your back, and that is a pain, but I prefer these forums to those of Reddit so I can deal with it for now. And the communities here and the general population is still growing and so recently grew so much larger that I think the mods just aren’t prepared for the quick shift it’s been from Reddit.
Also, It’s the frigging internet, so I expect to be irritated at behavior online, mods and trolls are the toll I’m paying to connect with the communities here