I don’t know how it could get any worse than now. Basically we’re all in echo chambers whichever platform you use. Including Lemmy.
Agreement with “consensus” of whatever bucket you’re placed into is rewarded, and disagreement is punished. Even if only by upvote/downvote. Switching platforms won’t change much.
If you stray from world, things are a bit better. World, however, hasn’t seen a ban or anti-free speech action they didn’t embrace fully. World is a cesspool of smug libs that refuse to engage with anyone they perceive to be on their left or right.
Nearly all social media is full of eco echo chambers… I still post and follow stuff on several of the platforms. There is very little nuanced conversation… Seems like it is more and more just an up vote or downvote storm, or people claiming one thing or another without any supporting evidence.
And that makes me genuinely sad. When I joined Lemmy, I was a little put off by the leftist bent here, but then I realized that I appreciated being challenged on my views, especially since people here are generally nice about it.
I wish I could find something like that for conservatives as well. Better yet, I wish there was a place like Reddit or Lemmy where all views were respected, provided claims are supported with evidence. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be compatible with the world we live in, and that makes me sad.
Seems like there aren’t many centrist communities where you can have nuanced discussions.
I honestly don’t care about centrism, I care about diversity of ideas with citations for claims. If a left wing or right wing policy is the best for a given situation, I’d love to discuss it.
But failing that, I’ll take centrist over either political extreme any day of the week.
You can probably post on 7.62x54r.ru. Reddit had a decent number of anti-establishment leftists who would join up with conservatives on shared issues. I haven’t seen any spaces like that on Lemmy.
Yeah, and that’s something I missed about Reddit. I found a few good communities of centrists, open minded leftists, and open minded conservatives, so I could generally join a pretty good discussion. I still needed to watch what I said, because there were some things even open minded people wouldn’t consider given their political bias, but a lot of things were fair game.
For example, I could bring up Right to Repair to both groups, and I’d get different reasons for and against it from each group.
Here on Lemmy, I don’t get that diversity, either something is compatible with the group’s general leftist persuasion, or I get downvoted into oblivion. And that sucks, because I put in a lot of effort to be constructive and challenge the status quo. Fortunately, I usually know before making a statement which way it’ll go, and there are no downsides (aside from worse engagement) to getting down votes, so I know what to expect. It does make me sad though.
I’ll check out that community though. Not sure what to expect from a .ru domain though as an American…
Being a Reich Winger is incompatible with rational or thoughtful discussion.
Reich wing ideology boils down to subservience and deference to authority, not knowledge.
You seem to have a very specific definition in mind. There’s a lot more to the right wing than fascism.
Absolutely not. If for no other reason then you lose the ability to actually argue for your ideas if you’re in an echo chamber.
I look at it this way: I don’t let in the crazy person on the street screaming racist garbage into my house, so I also don’t have to listen to or engage with that person on the internet, either. That doesn’t make my house an “echo chamber.”
For a long time I tried to treat “internet people” with some level of “respect” so to say. That is, I didn’t spend time blocking people and whatnot. But now? Screw em. I don’t have time to listen to nonsense, so if someone tries to come in to a conversation in bad faith, it’s very easy to block and move on.
Or on short-form social media like Bsky or Masto or whatever if someone posts a racist thing. Or a bigoted thing. Block and move on.
Those trolls live off of engagement so just don’t give it to them. And those same trolls are the ones complaining about “echo chambers.” “Waaa, no one wants to listen to my racist nonsense. It’s an echo chamber!” No, you are just a trash human, and no one is obligated to listen to you.
Those trolls live off of engagement
Not anymore. Back in the day trolling was a recreational activity done for fun. Deny the fun, cut off the troll’s food. Now it’s being done for political purposes, so cutting off the fun no longer functions since it no longer strikes at the primary motivation.
It decreases the spread. Cutting form the engagement means free people who aren’t already subscribed to that content will see it, since there’s fewer people arguing with it. Which means those who are susceptible to falling for it have less chance to even encounter it, meaning fewer fall into it.
Even if the incentive to create the trolls has changed, the counter to letting it spread hasn’t.
Depends on platform I suppose. Here, the level of activity is low enough that if you’re reading the comments, you’re usually reading all of them. In a major reddit sub that is seldom the case.
Groups of any kind are echo chambers. That’s why they exist.
I doubt that it can be any worse than tech companies with financial incentives doing it. Surrounding yourself with like minded people will surely cause some bubbles like that but since when is letting a targeted algorithm funneling us for ad revenue a better option? I don’t personally think it’s a big deal and guessing that people are just upset that their obsession with mass engagement is getting shook.
