I know the real answer is reddit but I really don’t want to go back now that I’ve already grown used to life without it. I was hoping for Lemmy to be a viable substitute but it isn’t. I can see how this place is wonderful for the certain type of person but that person is not me. My experience during the past 6+ months has been a net negative and I’m pretty much ready to move on. I just don’t know where else to go.
Lemmy is already diverse, you just gotta find the right instance, or multiple instances! The whole point of joining your platform to the federation is for visibility and control
I don’t quite see how the choise of instance affects much of anything except for which other instances you’re able to interact with.
there’s a couples sites out there that will show you which instances are federating with each other and you can see a trend of lemmy instances effectively creating echo chambers with moderate viewpoint dominated instances driving nearly all of it.
if this trend continues, the fediverse will eventually go the same way that the other reddit diasporas went so i’m also looking for a new place; good luck fellow wanderer
Why so vague? I would be interested in this, but there is zero actionable information in your post.
the closest thing to actionable items is to identify with op’s experience and wish them good luck
How the actual fuck is the answer Reddit?
Because there is enough people to drown out all the people being paid by political parties to post here and offset the upvotes they buy.
The DNC has dozens of paid people on this platform and Because a post may only get 100 comments the people being paid can make it look like their opinion is the popular opinion.
Bro if you think the DNC even knows what Lemmy is, letalone is teying to influence it, then you need to check yourself into inpatient psychiatric care ASAP. Give me a fucking break LoL.
Shhh, don’t tell them about the secret paid Lemmy posting jobs. I’m up to 45 Soros bucks an hour posting about fully automated luxury gay space communism a few times a week. Don’t ruin this for me!
Lol you mad.
I’m not sure if Lemmy has a large enough userbase to warrant paying shills to sway opinion.
What would the purpose of that be? Get 20-30 politically inactive Arch Linux users to vote for Biden?
Hey man, the Linux vote could be the swing factor .
/s
BREAKING NEWS:
BIDEN USES LINUX!
“Pls Help, VIM keeps me hostage”
The Secret Service is currently trying to free him.
I feel your pain. The fediverse has been disappointing because of the extreme bias and propaganda.
There’s some irony to how good thread this turned out to be
Go to truth social for all your “political diversity” needs, or shut the fuck up about “left wing bias”
How’s going from a far end to another going to solve anything? There’s no need to be so hostile
You threatened their worldview by pointing out that Lemmy is an echo chamber. People get angry when they feel threatened.
One man’s far end is another’s centrism. I don’t think there are too many truly centrist places left because the Gulf between left and right is so wide the center is just a giant ball of contradictions or meaningless statements.
Honestly? It’s tricky to find communities that give you a spread.
I can recommend picking an instance that has a secondary alignment with you (for example, country/state), as they’ll tend to pick up posts in All that may be of interest other than politics.
(Though tbf, our instance still leans left on whole. Just not so crazily)
Yeah it’s hard to say. Fark? HackerNews? Bluesky? Tildes? You’ll just have to try a bunch and see what catches on with you. You’re welcome to try Lemmy again anytime, so who’s to stop you from a break from it?
I’ve been saying for a year, Lemmy and the Fediverse is specifically designed to be like a series of echochambers, since the community, the moderation and local userbase are designed all around that. Ultimately, you have the freedom to choose who and what to allow and block yourself.
Personally I think you are subjecting yourself to grief by interacting with hexbear and lemmygrad but I’m not here to scold or police what you choose to do.
I think one major difference that can make your experience negative is that posts on Reddit can’t show below zero, and people here use the downvote button more often because they have strong feelings on a topic. In my experience on controversial topics you would have various threads where both sides of an argument receive downvotes which is a sign there are diverse perspectives. You just have to live with and not be bothered by a negative score, it means nothing. Some examples:
- Israel vs. Palestine narratives (Lemmy overall leans a little more toward Palestine but I’ve seen either get downvoted depending on community over the months)
- pro-Biden vs anti-Biden (this is a very controversial one and sure some of it is anti-American propaganda and “both sides are the same”-type of sealioning, still both perspectives get downvoted).
- Ukraine (this one is easy, you’re either on a community under .ml moderation or not, which determines the overall narrative)
This is all to say that the best way to get ‘diverse’ opinions on Lemmy is to hop around various communities, brace yourself for downvotes and just try to be genuine about it. For non-controversial content we all gotta do our part, speaking of which I haven’t posted much OC lately so I’ll get onto that soon in a couple days.
I keep post scores hidden so getting downvoted isn’t much of an issue for me because I won’t know unless I go out of my way to check.
The main issue for me is that I can reliably guess what kind of replies certain topics get and what is popular and what is unpopular. It’s kind of like having a friend who never says or does anything that surprises you. Why even bother asking for their opinion when you already know what they’re going to say.
I keep post scores hidden so getting downvoted isn’t much of an issue for me because I won’t know unless I go out of my way to check.
On some conversations you might be better off seeing the score. Some people will agree in terms of a vote but aren’t going to back you up in the comments. I’ve had a few conversations where the comments are demoralizing and the score shows me I’m reaching at least some people (or vise versa).
Also, something I learned from Twitter and Reddit after engaging with people too much … sometimes the right answer is just to use the block button liberally and call it a day. Some people are not interested in discussion or good faith debate they just want to yell at people on the Internet and feel smart.
I had a person I bumped into saying (all of this paraphrasing) “the press has gone to shit” because of a headline and I was like “can we not be so dramatic this is a small website, surely a bad headline from a small operation is not a new thing” then they responded with “how many headlines do you see with X Y or Z even in those mainstream outlets? It’s all gone to shit.” I ran a few searches and found a rate of about 1 article per paper per year that met their alleged example… And then they said that was malicious compliance, I’d ignored their argument, and I wasn’t acting in good faith… Like mate, I just literally took 15 minutes to check your claim out and came back to tell you; how much more good faith do you want? That was a block, that person is clearly a total waste of time, and I don’t want to interact with their “doomerism.”
In a sense it’s a blessing lemmy is kind of small because blocking one loud person that has a lot of opinions that irritate you can go a long way.
The main issue for me is that I can reliably guess what kind of replies certain topics get and what is popular and what is unpopular. It’s kind of like having a friend who never says or does anything that surprises you. Why even bother asking for their opinion when you already know what they’re going to say.
I was definitely feeling this way a couple weeks ago … ironically the worst was the weekend my birthday fell on. It just felt like everything I came across was a hot take lacking nuance.
It comes and goes… Some weeks people can/will surprise you. Some topics… I think it’s better to just leave the mob alone and let them have their echo chamber.
Yeah I’m very familiar with the block button. Some might say even petty. My blocklist is around 600 users long.
I basically block everyone who demonstrate the incapability to have a civil discussion aswell as people that only shitpost. If someone posts something like “Fuck Elon” or “ACAB” etc. it’s instant block from me. Not because I disagree but because I’m not interested in seeing those kind of comments in my feed and I think it’s safe to assume that users who write comments like that likely aren’t interested in any kind of deep discussions or intellectual honesty.
It’s a blunt weapon and I’m knowingly filtering out a lot of valuable comments on other topics aswell but I don’t care. So far it doesn’t seem to affect the flow of new content in any way. Every now and then I notice a blocked person commenting something and I log out to see what it is and more often than not I’m satisfied with my decision to block.
Relatable
Reddit was the same way to be honestly.
I can understand what you mean. The prevailing narratives tend to be America bad, cars bad, capitalism bad, Linux good, on and on. But in the vein of how you assert that you don’t want people to assume what you believe, going into a community painting users with a broad brush is going to fill the gap with your pre-conceived biases, and that isn’t conducive to good discussion. I say give it a chance, even someone that writes along the lines of what you expect may still have a tiny sliver of something that surprises you. I look at some of the more notorious users like FlyingSquid, PugJesus, PP_BOY etc. and I’ve agreed with them and disagreed with them on various topics, even if they were in line with ‘the narrative’. Other users I attempt to converse and sometimes it works out while other times I have to stop at the 3rd reply.
I’m making an effort to be better, trying to curb the ratio of responses I do that have only memes and add more original thoughts or detailed opinions to my newer comments.
Having a good idea what opinions you’re likely to see doesn’t mean there’s no point to asking. Certain opinions being prevalent is expected in any community. Any time I make a post, I can be pretty sure there will be certain kinds of responses, but there are typically some that surprise me also.
If you find that the community mentality is so entrenched that people are hostile or disparaging, just block the most offensive profiles and move on with your day.
I block quite a few profiles every day. That’s just how it is these days, when charlatans can convince millions of people to vote and vehemently influence against their own self interest.
I’m kind of surprised you think reddit was any different from that!
I don’t think there is one, unfortunately. I agree that lack of ideological diversity is a problem with the Fediverse in general, but it’s a problem that likely won’t go away unless the Fediverse becomes mainstream.
It’s a problem with humanity.
We naturally silo ourselves into separate groups.
Nah, anything else (even free speech instances) will always get defederated from the “popular” ones.
We’re stuck like this forever.
What kind of ideology would you like to see more? I mean I’ve stumbled onto the whole left-right spectrum here? Few/no fascists, ultra conservatives I guess?
Not really interested in discussing things with fascists, but I’ve rarely seen anyone here who’s to the right of, like, a milquetoast social democrat.
There’s a few of us further right than that, but when I was forced to cut back on reddit I realized that political discussion online was deleterious to my mental health. I resolved to not seek out or sub any political discussion communities on the new platform. A spontaneous discussion, sure, sometimes, but I can’t do it every day.
💯
And if that eventually happens, other problems will follow.
I kinda like it the way it is. I also use Reddit, so that kinda balances things out I guess.
What made your experience negative ?
-
I’m on an large instance which doesn’t federate with Grad, so I don’t see the Right-winger playing to be leftist by supporting right wing dictators
-
Tons of communities don’t get that much political beside the respect basic human rights and sometimes comment the news
-
Even with the European election ongoing, I don’t see much political discussion on European communities
So may-be try more “casual/fun” communties than the political one.
If you use the “local feed” it may be worth checking another instance. I heard good stuff of Blahaj Lemmy which as no downvote and act mostly as a safe/relax space for queer but is open to non queer people
-
I’m not sure whether there can be an ideologically neutral social media platform at all. I think there will always be a significant proportion of users who are not interested in discussion, arguments and open minded exchange, but rather in seeing their world view confirmed by others or simply being part of a perceived in-group.
What’s more, the sheer mass of content makes an attention economy necessary so that one can deal with this flood of information. In my opinion, the content that is easy to consume will always prevail over content that looks at a topic in all its complexity (hardly anyone is willing/has the time to read up on it). So it’s often not about who has the better arguments or actually knows something about a topic, but about who sells their posts better. In this sense, it seems to me that social media in general is not really social, but to a large extent a competition for attention.
I am not aware of any platform that could solve these problems. In my opinion, this is not really the aim, as pretty much all platforms are not really about objective information, but rather about passing the time and entertainment. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you can’t find good discussions and serious information. But I think that this kind of content will never be the main focus of any social media plattform. The fediverse approach seems like a good try to me tho, because there can be “special interest instances” that can make their own rules to focus on whatever they are about.
I think there’s a significant difference between “neutral” and “diverse”.
For example, Reddit is big enough that if you find yourself holding an unpopular opinion in some particular subreddit and you’re getting battered with downvotes, you can probably find some other similar subreddit that’s more friendly to whatever view you’ve got that’s drawing ire. People speak derisively of “bubbles” and “echo chambers”, but really, why should I stick around and try to engage with people who just don’t want you around? Communities naturally tend to segregate themselves along ideological lines like this.
Here on the Fediverse the population’s too small to support quite so many diverse communities yet, unfortunately. So if you’ve got an unpopular minority view you can end up stuck with either routinely finding yourself serving as a punching bag or just not posting. That’s no fun.
Yes, that’s probably true. For me, however, neutrality presupposes diversity - at least to a certain degree. As in the maxim of quality journalism: the assumption here is that a journalist can never be truly objective. This is why an attempt is made to allow opposing perspectives on a topic to have their say, so that the reader or viewer can form their own opinion.
Of course, this principle does not work in an environment in which differing opinions or perspectives are generally unwelcome. This is probably the case with Lemmy and other Fediverse applications for some topics. But I think that this doesn’t just apply to the Fediverse, but to social media in general. It seems to me just as you say: if you only encounter rejection on a platform, in a community or on an instance if you disagree with the majority, you will move elsewhere - which in turn will probably lead to you eventually finding yourself in an environment where the majority of others are of the same opinion.
Of course, it would be highly desirable if people were more open-minded, but I’m afraid that’s a utopia. In any case, I don’t have the impression that the advent of social media has fundamentally brought open exchange forward.
On the contrary, I have the impression that political discourse in many countries, for example, is now characterized by the very strategies that make social media posts successful: the abbreviated presentation of complex contexts, the invocation of enemy stereotypes, sometimes even straight-up trolling. But perhaps this is just a perception error on my part.
Though it’s only tangentially related to your inquiry, you should check out improvethenews.org
It’s basically what you are looking for but with news stories, though it’s primarily focused American news. It allows you to read the different narratives without actually visiting cancer news sites like Sky news.
Imo it is fine as long as you stay away from Lemmy.ml, Lemmygrad and Hexbear.
There’s a lot of extremism and censoring perspectives even on Lemmy.world
Like what?
Their world news community is a good example. They censor people that don’t align with their views, I’ve had comments deleted with no explanation. The kind of things that get a lot of votes there wouldn’t last on most other social media platforms, of any.
If you’re sincere I might go find an example, but in my experience usually people asking questions like yours are just trying to waste my time.
Are you sure you aren’t confusing this with the worldnews@lemmy.ml community?
Diversity will come with a larger userbase. You could wait and come back after the next reddit purge.
Tildes might work for you. Politics is a banned subject, but you’ll get polite discourse on most subjects.
I found it stifling, personally. But if you like overly verbose, overly polite discussions where all opinions are respected as long as it’s long winded and politely communicated, well, that’s your place.
If you’re after moderate right flavored discussion I sympathize but you’ll have trouble finding it as the broader right has been consumed by alt right and far right. If your point is that those viewpoints specifically are missing from Lemmy then I’d say it’s a good riddance. I just wish Lemmy was as hard on some immature leftie takes.
I’m a pretty “left-winged” European, but I see the lack of a “moderate right” or “conservative” alternative as a real problem! Here on Lemmy and in the real world as well. When there is no place for them, people will feel the need to align with the far-right to at least have some points in common with others. And the only one who profits from this is the far-right. It’s important to have a mixed political Landscape, so Ideas can be exchanged, topics can be discussed in a meaningful way, and we don’t end up in an echo chamber.
Man, I’m trying to remember the last time I saw a nail get hit so hard right on the head but I’m coming up empty.
I agree but I also think it’s up to them to build that space.
If your a classical conservative and believe in personal and fiscal responsibility, then it’s your job to create or contribute to a space for this.
I think this is the problem, those people let the crazies in and then turn around and blame the victim.
