I just want to shout out ReddThat for their lack of downvoting. It’s so refreshing and positive to not have people downvote you for random stuff. It’s so refreshing compared to Reddit.

    • Flora@literature.cafeEnglish
      0·
      4 days ago

      But anything can be weaponized against minorities. You could say that we should ban social media, or even kill off humanity entirely, because it tends to be weaponized against minorities. The solutions are not to get rid of the tools themselves, but rather to use the tools correctly as much as possible.

      • Ada@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        0·
        4 days ago

        In your analogy, downvotes aren’t the tool. Social media is the tool. And turning off downvotes is how we use that tool to match our needs.

        • Flora@literature.cafeEnglish
          0·
          4 days ago

          No, no. I was drawing a parallel between downvotes (a tool) and social media (another, larger tool that encompasses the smaller tool of downvoting), and I was saying that downvoting is a neutral or even generally positive tool, and not inherently bad. My point was that you can take any neutral thing (such as social media or even humanity more broadly) and see how it is often weaponized against minorities, but that doesn’t mean that the thing itself is inherently bad – it just means that, in those contexts where it is being weaponized against minorities, it is being used incorrectly or in a bad way. Does that make sense?

          Turning off downvotes can meet some needs, but it also fails to meet other needs. For example, a racist cannot downvote a person of color, but it’s also then the case that the person of color cannot downvote the racist. Pros and cons. Expressing disapproval of a post or comment is not an inherently bad thing at all, it really depends on the context of the situation.

          • Ada@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
            0·
            4 days ago

            Downvotes aren’t how you address racists and bigots. Banning them is.

            Downvoting is a tool that racists and bigots use when they’re trying to avoid getting banned though. On top of that, most targetted groups are minorities, which by definition, have small numbers. All off which means that the impact of downvotes hits vulnerable minorities harder than it hits bigots.

            To you, this is some sort of hypothetical ideal that you’d like to see. In your mind, if things “worked the way they should”, downvoting would be a useful tool. But things don’t work the way the should. They work they way they are used, and in this case, that means they often hurt vulnerable groups more than they help them, despite how it ‘should be”