Absolutely not.
We all have to make personal decisions about safety and risk, for our own unique situation.
While not in the US, I’m a straight, white, middle-aged dude. My risk in loudly speaking out is probably still orders of magnitude lower than yours is by staying quiet. If there are any moral decisions to be made, I’d say that it’s my moral duty to use my overly-consequential and protected voice to stand up for the vulnerable and suffering.
There is no moral flaw in trying to survive within your means - and if that means keeping your head down, then hopefully I and many others will have your back.
I’m not saying it’s a “stupid question”, but I don’t understand it. How and why could it possibly be considered “wrong” or even a moral issue at all to keep a low profile?? Saying/doing nothing is our natural state, no one can say it’s bad to just neutrally exist! Don’t let anyone tell you you have to speak up, especially if it endangers or harms yourself or your friends and family.
If you’re referring to the current US administration, they’re not acting lawfully and are currently trying to arrest or deport legally-protected people and even citizens! You don’t owe them or anyone else anything, certainly not at the expense of you or your family! When you’re acting defensively and protecting yourself, it’s not immoral. This is how hostile to immigrants we’ve become that you are even asking this question… ☹️
TL;DR: Absolutely not. You do you, and be safe!
Here’s an example: in the us, international students are now required to have public social media accounts before they’re allowed in. Unclear what happens if they don’t have any accounts at all, but they’re not allowed to have private social media accounts anymore.
Edit: wait I just woke up, this thread was about morality. My bad.
This depends entirely on your prescribed system of ethics.
Duty-based ethical systems would say yes, because you have a duty to speak out.
Point utilitarianism would say no, because the good outweighs the bad for that scenario.
The other utilitarianism of which I can’t remember the umbrella term would say yes, because it’s better for everyone if people speak out.
My understanding of Kant is that the unethical act is being performed by the government and that it is not morally wrong to keep a low profile.
TLDR: If you’re asking, the answer is no. If you’re being pedantic, the answer is “it depends”
I don’t think it’s morally wrong — it’s just human nature to want to survive. Not everyone has the same level of safety or privilege to speak out. Sometimes staying quiet is the only realistic option.
No, it’s okay to keep your head down.
You should know that in many countries, and now also the U.S., the government will revoke the visa of “political irritants”. In other words, your question is actually a historical one, and it is equivalent to, “Is it immoral to immigrate?”
No. This is simply self-preservation.
If I broke into your house holding a knife would it be morally wrong for you to hide in the wardrobe?
I’d add that they also have your roommate at knife point. I don’t think it changes the answer too much, but it’s closer to the scenario that OP is probably thinking about.
Regardless of whether you’re in a part of the country where the effects of you speaking up won’t have as much consequence, I don’t think it’s morally wrong to try and keep yourself, friends, family, and loved ones safe by not speaking out.
No. Let the white people (like me) who were born here (like me) continue to speak out on behalf of people being brutalized. Keep your head down. Stay safe.
Do you blame the Jews for hiding from the Nazis and even trying to look as non Jewish as possible? No? Exactly.
I mean its what they want. This whole thing is not about getting rid of folks as much as making sure any folks coming in are ready to bend the knee and actively support the bs. At a minimum stay silent but that may not be enough. Need to loud the ones in power and how good and just they are. Basically the ideal is north korea.
No, it’s morally wrong to contribute to the circumstances in which that would be a logical action
Ok so I bring this up all over Lemmy for this reason and people always push back like “har har ok touch grass”
Why the hell do you need to identify yourself in a digital world. How fucking mental are we to not realize you are on a device that offers anonymity whole allowing you to engage and capture as many people as you’re willing to do.
How much effect did libsotiktok inflict? How’d she do it?
How much effect did… Anyone have any examples of that on the left?
Why? Well maybe it’s because online accounts on the left keep telling others to not engage, remove ourselves from platforms, show up in IRL resulting in lots of images of people like you getting your head kicked in and disappear.
Maybe it’s time to realize its free and fun to download meme and use AI to create shit posts online with the intention of keeping things in front of the public’s eye. The left keeps picking fights on arenas it cannot win and it’s weirdly not correcting for it.
It’s 2025, everything is fucking digital. Why is the left so hell bent on standing in a street and getting beat up by people who have trained for 8 years to beat them up effectively.
Come on people, it’s not 1967 FFS Gimp is free. What the fuck are people sleeping on.
“Oh guys I’m conflicted, I want you do something but I don’t want to get arrested and harassed.”
“Ok here’s an Internet connection, a VPN and few software plus free accounts. You just need to make fun of them, share opinions and network online in your underwear.”
“No, no no that’s crazy talk.”
Meanwhile the fucking right shit posted their way into they presidency. Trump talked about cat litter in classrooms, officially. Sunshine to kill COVID. Doesn’t matter.
You people act like you’re my grandmother trying to send an email.
Back in the day the left were the tech people. Now uncle Glenn with 8 Trump flags on his truck admin for 30 let’s go Brandon Facebook groups.
The Left does both. The purpose of real life stikes and protests is because its proof that Leftist organizations have the logistical capacity to plan, demonstrate, and act in a cohesive and unified manner. Organizing is more important than meme sharing. Memes, agitprop, etc are very useful recruitment tools, so they should not be ignored, but it’s more important to actually put in the work of organizing effectively once recruited.
Sharing memes without actually organizing is just an outlet for people to express frustration, but organizing is an actual necessary and important step in toppling the existing system and replacing it with a better one, as the hard work on organizing has already been laid out.
There’s no way you can say it’s more important given that all the left has done is show up for protests, including multiple “greatest protests ever” and all the right does is shit post and has nothing but victories. That math doesn’t math.
I have no idea how none of you see this. It’s like horse blinders or worse, willful ignorance.
You cannot spend decades losing and doing the thing you said while the right has shit posted digitally into the Whitehouse. They still do it daily. There’s a reason RSA and Cambridge and all these companies and nations invested into channels and digital tools.
The Left is fighting an uphill battle. Capitalism is the status quo, and the US relies on imperialism using its vast financial capital and massive number of millitary bases to keep goods relatively cheap, but this is crumbling. Change works as quantitative buildup until significant, qualitative change. Orgs like PSL are growing rapidly. They are still small, but the rate of growth is large. Time is on the Left’s side.
Just look at Palestine, as an example. 5 years ago, the vast majority of the US was Zionist. Now, the majority oppose the genocide. Mamdani winning the primary in NYC shows that more overtly left-leaning individuals are valued over right-wingers like Cuomo. Change works on trends. History doesn’t reset every day, eventually water droplets bore through stone. The left has never been in the White House, it has always been a toss between the right amd the far-right, this isn’t a new struggle, but it’s one that is changing every day thanks to historical work.
You’re literally saying my point but missing the whole picture.
Mamdani one out of spite. Not because the left did anything successful but because of the actions of the right. If we see more of these victory’s I’ll be happy. But right now I have yet to see the left do anything of any significance.
You bore through stone with digital media. It’s the only damn thing that makes sense. If the left truly believes it has the numbers then the only answers is to use this numbers to flood the zone. Use the Internet as a force multiplier.
If we truly believe the right are buying bots to push agendas there’s a fucking limit how much it costs. If we have the numbers, flood the fucking zone because when you flood the fucking zone it costs them more to counter it. Which is why the dominate comment among the left is … Say it with me… “Don’t wrestle with pigs” right? We all know that saying as if it was repeated in zones and we all read it over and over again and went yea it’s useless why would we ever give our opinion. We need to create content, not protest in the streets. We need to keep stories said news in front of people’s eyes through memes and shit posts. Let the good ones catch on. Taco last 24 hrs.
The reason the left is losing is not because of the right. They’re losing because of the left. The left is losing because there are traits that are inherent with being on the left that unless they figure it out, they’ll always lose.
These people are all talk “we’ll go punch a Nazi and fight in imaginary freedom wars” but can’t be bothered to spend a few hours a week building a network to share content to flood zones and at the very least make the rights ability to flood the zone much harder and costly.
No, lol. The Left is fine on the internet. You can touch grass and organize, and do online agitprop. Mamdani won because people are being radicalized. Even then, Mamdani doesn’t eliminate the need for revolution, not even close.
I guarantee you Mamdani did not win because people are radicalized.
But I agree people are being radicalized. Cuomo’s had to kill everyone’s grandmother and Trump had to basically bring the empire to reality for Mamdani to win.
Let’s make a prediction here. I bet Mamdani is going to get crucified. The Lefts lack of awareness and ability to do what I’m saying which is control zones online will contribute massively to Mamdani failing. The right will pull every thing they can and sabotage him. The left having failed to build any networks will not be able to control the public opinion and will watch their one shot to show a more leftist politician can be successful.
Because if what you’re saying is true, then people who are radicalized and supportive of Mamdani aren’t going to let him get pushed around. But if I’m right, these voters are only supporting out of spite and will let him be crucified.
Hell trump just said he’ll arrest his ass. Mouse squeak can be heard. I bet some people reading this hadn’t even heard of that. Had this been a let president saying this, there would be armed militias showing up at the White House to remind the government about the constitution. And they would have organized between their multiple shit posting groups that are networked together
There have never been left presidents in the US. Mamdani is not the leader of the revolution. You’re very confused about what’s going on, and you’re out of touch with why Trump won. It wasn’t “memes,” it isn’t some masterful play, nor are liberals left wing.
You need to take a step back and familiarize yourself more with what’s going on. Try to take a materialist outlook, not an idealist outlook.
Sometimes discretion is the greater part of valour.
