My experience on this platform has been mixed so far but one thing I’ve noticed the most is a significant contingent of the user base is really reactionary in their discourse.
This is a very typical exchange I have here :
User: I don’t like this color because it’s red.
Me: I don’t know, looks more like purple to me. What about red is bad?
User: Why don’t you fuck yourself in the face you fucking cuntfuck!
Me: OK…
Like, what gives? I don’t have this experience on other platforms. I have arguments but never this shutdown meccanism.
Because people are mainlining propaganda en masse and it’s rotting their brains. Maybe fediverse users are more abrasive idk, but the adversarial tone in online discourse nowadays is hardly unique to the platform.
That’s very strange. I’ve been here a year now, and have noticed that it’s MUCH friendlier than Reddit.
I see that others have creeped your profile, and made suggestions about not antagonizing others. I’m going to take their word and recommend you take their advice instead of arguing about how everyone else is so argumentative.
Thanks.
The issue is I am argumentative. I like having disagreents and most of all I like hearing different points of view. If this sounds like a vanilla take, it’s because it is.
If I disagree with people on fb or insta or ask to verify the facts of an event there I will get push back or I will learn something new. I will also hear some combative words. Nothing strange.
If I ask about the facts of the matter here:
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“blocked”
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“troll”
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“fuck you you cuntfuck defender of Kyle Rittenhouse. Eat dick.”
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“I have you labeled as conservative cuck”
On. And on. And on. But it’s OK, because apparently asking for facts is justification to garner this, right?
What gives?
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I think a lot of it has to do with an* impending sense of anomie. Something someone said to me once that I’d have done well to heed earlier: Don’t take what people say personally, especially if they mean it personally. The idea being it’s probably more about themselves than you.
I would say the majority of mine have been fine and even some i thought might go off the rails had a nice back and forth where I even learned a bit. I mean I have encountered reactionary and mean stuff but does not seem super often to me. kbin meltdown sorta messed up my account thoush so I have not really got my feed going in mbin.
That’s good! Gives me hope. Thanks!
I wasn’t sure what you meant, so I decided to check your profile and see if I could find some examples you responded to… And I learned a lot about you in the process. You sent a single person a lot of “why are you angry” comments. You get into a LOT of arguments on politics subreddits, and even defended Kyle Rittenhouse. You noted that you need to tell people you’re left wing, because the things you say convince them you’re not.
At a certain point, the reason why so see so many angry people might be that you’re the one pissing them off. Or at the very least, you’re seeking them out.
“If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.”
I could be an asshole. I won’t debate that. Maybe I am.
My point isn’t to claim I’m not an asshole. My point is compared to other spaces the vitriol and anger here seems ramped to 100.
I wasn’t necessarily calling you an asshole, it’s just a quote that represents what the other commenter was talking about.
To answer your initial question, I haven’t personally noticed Lemmy being more toxic than other platforms like it. Most conversations I’ve had have been pleasant. But I tend to avoid commenting on hot button topics. You commented on a topic that people feel strongly about and got angry comment replies. I wouldn’t say that necessarily represents the site as a whole. But both of our experiences are anecdotal so it’s difficult to say which is more common.
I think you’re right. Hot button topics are just to be avoided I guess or fare repercussion.
How can we avoid being captured by epistemic bubbles though? That’s the part that scares me.
I think what you’re experiencing is people here being less tolerant of your assholery.
I’m Ok with that. It seems to come up in benign comments too. Thats why I was curious. I’ll own the asshole position and declare myself a loser. I’m not offended by that.
You will need to block a bunch of people when you first join, or move to an instance that has already done that for you.
… or use a platform that automatically hides comments that get lots of downvotes. I looked in your posting history - the comments you remarked about being angry didn’t even show up for me.
… and filter out US politics & Israel politics. You’ll need an app/platform that lets you define filters, tho.
Your filter may have hidden the fact that he posts a LOT on politics, political memes, and world news, and often gets extremely downvoted for what he says.
I have nothing against down votes.
You’re doing it here too sort of. Your attacking me for asking this question.
I have discussions on politics on other platforms and there is a substantial difference. That’s the crux of my question. Why?
If you want to know why this platform reacts differently, it’s because it’s smaller, so you get noticed more easily. When you act calm and composed and “just ask questions” about why a mass murderer is called a mass murderer, people are more likely to notice.
If a summary of your actions sounds like an attack, that’s a problem.
So. If I understand correctly, talking about charged topics is an automatic invitation for extreme vitriolic language? I don’t experience this elsewhere (if, fb) . It should be more vitriolic on fb than here… Not the other way around no?
It kind of is. When someone has an extreme emotional reaction, you should look at what they’re reacting to before calling it unreasonable. Any defence of a mass murderer, no matter how civil it pretends to be, warrants an extreme backlash.
Like I said, Lemmy is smaller. People don’t notice you on fb, but they notice you here.
Just how many times are you going to ignore your own role in your conversations? You are the common thread among everyone who dislikes you.
But my point isn’t that people don’t disagree with me. I want to find disagreement because I don’t want to live in an echo chamber. I want to discuss ideas. Mi point is that the vitriol here seems stronger than other places. That’s all.
Were you even responding to me? Because you disagreed with a point I didn’t make and raised a point in response to my answer of that point.
Don’t disagree for the sake of disagreement. The devil doesn’t need an advocate.
