Since I joined Lemmy in June this community has just been getting more and more toxic. I never see good news, just bad news, and always the same biased takes. If anyone tries to disagree or point out a silver lining they get shut down. What is going on?
More users will lead to a more diverse range of opinions, and groups will more fiercely fight for what they think is right when they feel validated in the comments feedback.
The pains of a growing platform.
Yes. As the platform becomes more mainstream, it more accurately reflects society at large. Which is extremely toxic at the moment. 😕 I used to think talking about our differences in forums like this would help, but it seems that no one actually wants to listen to anything but their own echo chambers anymore.
I’m down. I’ve found that people genrally want the same things, we just disagree at how best to get there.
I want to see the world burn
My experience is that firstly Lemmy is not that diverse and secondly that there are platforms that are not that diverse either but are much more open and capable of discussion. Tildes for example is in general too progressive for me (I’m not from the US, so I don’t really fit into its politics/culture wars left-right division, though I’m closer to the left), but it’s nowhere near as toxic as political threads around here and it’s normally possible to have discussion and disagree in a civil way.
Lemmy is not that diverse
Understatement of the year. Just like most places on the internet, it leans mostly white, mostly male, mostly from richer areas US/Europe, mostly interested in computers/technology. Not exactly a diverse group at all. I’ve definitely had women already tell me this place isn’t exactly friendly to women, but I mean, that’s par for the course for the internet.
I’ve blocked all the news communities for a start. Maybe I’ll let one through eventually, but I’m sick of seeing 13 duplicate posts about how Elon Musk said that penguins can’t be trans or something equally useless.
As for getting more toxic in general I haven’t noticed anything drastic but my gut feeling is that as Lemmy grows, more people see a post, and as more people see a post, the better the odds that one person is going to start an argument. Even if 99.99% of the Lemmy community is not toxic, it only takes one person to reply.
I’ve blocked all the news communities for a start.
I’ve done the same. Works wonders for my mental health.
Tbf he is the leading expert on aquatic fowl gender theory
When you say “bad news” you mean like in the various “world news” type communities? Personally I haven’t found those to be much good. Subscribe to the communities that are to your liking, and make your default view of lemmy show only them. If it isn’t already strictly necessary now it will become so soon with any further growth.
beehaw.org might be more in line with what i think you are expecting
Misanthropes have more time alone, away from society, and are here eager to give you their hot take.
[email protected] nothing but good vibes
There’s upliftingnews@ too if that’s what you’re after. :)
Confirmation bias maybe. I’ve been here a few months and is about the same as it always been for me. The most ‘toxic’ part is when I get down voted for having a disagreeable opinion, but I’ve lived a long time and have been on internet fourms enough to not get too salty when a majority doesn’t like what I say.
You are just seeing more posts, which is skewing your perception.
I suggest you become familiar with blocking people, words/phrases, and communities. If you use a third party app you can even block entire instances. In your settings you can also block bot accounts. Blocking the news bots cleaned up my feed and I mainly browse new posts on All.
deleted by creator
My guess: These days, all social media is full of outrage bait and extreme political takes that try to elicit strong emotions and engagement. Because Lemmy is fairly new, a decent chunk of the early adopters are the most terminally online and more likely to be swept up in it. Reddit’s early days were similar, but internet culture has definitely gotten more intense since the early 2010s.
The solution: Be the change. I make a point to be active in positive communities and try to avoid the corners with more aggressive politics or people who are addicted to outrage and just want to argue all the time. It’s going to take more chill people being active posters/commenters. It’s part of the reason I’ve been motivated to post as much as I do, when I never did back on reddit.
I agree, with one exception:
Reddit’s early days were similar, but internet culture has definitely gotten more intense since the early 2010s.
Has it really been that way? I’ve been on reddit since 2010 and from what I remember it was definitely much more nerdy and full of tech people who live on the internet, but I don’t think it had much in common with what we call “terminally online” today. I associate “terminally online” with people who really care about things like culture wars and trying to push their views on others, spending a lot of time arguing about it. Whereas reddit in 2010 was much more homogenous - the stereotypes about forever alone IT nerds with nerdy hobbies were much more true than now, but that meant there were nowhere near as many cultural things to argue about. People sometimes had really weird or controversial opinions, but there was not a lot of added toxicity about it that’s omnipresent now in the discussions.
Ime the “terminally online” problems with toxicity and culture wars only started around 2014-15 with the rise of “online feminism”, that seemed like the first big division into two hostile groups that spent significant time just attacking each other.
I agree with you and probably could have worded that better. I meant pretty much what you said - that the early adopters of reddit back then were techy and very online, with some strong opinions that come with that territory (remember r/atheism?), but it’s nothing compared to recent years.
Most of your comment history is pretty toxic. If you disagree with most of the users, maybe you’re just the minority here?
I’m noticing the same. Maybe the chill people are slowly having enough of the more toxic people and are going somewhere else. I’m not really enjoying the constant barrage of far-left biased news and opinions. I just want to chill but it seems to permeate everything. Things aren’t always great in the world, but personally I come here to not be reminded of that.
there’s “feel good” communities out there, but they’re not very active. the active communities are very toxic because they’re arguing about ideologies - tankies, *.ml communists, hamas apologists, and etc vs normal non-insane people. the arguing is why the communities are active.
if you unsubscribe to the active communities you’ll see a lot less negativity - but your feed will be basically static & boring.
Your literal last comment to a post titled “‘Gaza will be liberated’: Tens of thousands march in S.F. to support Palestinians”
liberated through saturation bombardment maybe
Yikes
