Does anyone else notice an up tick in hostility on Lemmy lately?
I came here around the time the rif app shut down, and the general vibe I get from this place is much more negative than when I joined. Is Lemmy growing more toxic or is it just my imagination?
There has been a noticeable uptick in new rightist accounts lately.
Instead of blocking people, I tag the bad actors in Voyager and have noticed that most of the toxicity comes from the same small group of specific people.
An example right in this thread
That person is complaining about political axe-grinding seeping into every corner of every community. Yes they used a mild caricature of anti-Trumpism but this isn’t what I’d call a “rightist.” Although I am on the left, politically, I frequently argue with people here who are even further to the left. I don’t think chanting about seizing the means of production is… productive, and I say so. This probably makes me a “rightist account” in some people’s eyes. I’m also a bootlicker because I don’t advocate for lining up all CEOs in front of a firing squad.
This is actually usually the case
It's not a Lemmy thing. People (at least here in the States) are feeling anxious and defeated about the state of the world. That shit makes people irritable. Irritable people are prone to lashing out at anything that trips over their last nerve.
My wife works for a nonprofit that focuses on providing services to families with children who have emotional or intellectual needs. She told me she's witnessed more meltdowns from parents these last 6 months or so than she's seen in her 15+ years in the field.
Exactly, it's not just lemmy, and it's not just the US either.
Essentially it's late stage capitalism, the root of all our recent discontent in the past 30ish years. Enshittification of everything...
The Americans are getting hostile... And I can't blame 'em.
I'd be really curios to see some sort of study done on this. I mean, it's not just americans and most of the west is not insulated from america, either, at least not online. and you don't know from talking to someone online where they're from. At the same time, there's rising fascism and neoliberalism bullshit in europe, too.
I'd love to know how much of it is people getting antsier in general because they're in a shit situation and how much it's 'infectious' from talking with people in shit situations elsewhere, spreading bad vibes. Is this also happening in the chinese web? How about other countries that are more politically/economically aligned with the west but culturally less part of the english speaking web?
There has to be some sociologist out there somewhere studying this, no? But i wouldn't know where to look. if anyone knows of something along those lines, i'd love to hear it.
What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I'm the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You're fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little "clever" comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, kiddo.
Are you aware that there are people in this world that have a severe medical condition which causes them to be that way? My mother for instance is one of those people. She is a truck driver that has bad knees and a bad back from driving the truck but you probably do not care about that case either. Oh well I am not one of those people I am 6'4" 245lbs and I exercise every day. I would love to see you say something like to my mother in front of me. Probably never happen though you are probably just an internet tough guy. I doubt very seriously you would say that to someones face. Just my thought.What do you think. Oh I am sorry you probably do not have a brain. I on the other hand will be happy to buy you a plane ticket to come here and see if you have the nerve to say that to someone I know.
What the fuck did you just say about the God Emperor of Mankind, you little heretic? I´ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Space Marines, and I´ve been involved in numerous secret raids on Chaos, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in Plasma Warfare and I´m the top Inquistor in the entire Imperium. You are nothing to me, but just another Xeno scum. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of wich has never been seen before on Terra, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that heretic rambling to me? Think again, fucker. As we speak,I am contacting my secret network of Vindicare Assasins across the Emperium, and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You´re fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that´s just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in CQC, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the Imperium of Man, and I will use it to it´s full extent to wipe your miserable ass of the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have know what unholy retribuition you little ''clever'' heresy was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn ´t, you didn´t, and now you´re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you, and you will drown in it. You´re fucking dead, heretic. Extermanatus upon your hive world.
No, but I do actively block any community designed to rage bait like news, politics, and faith
This is the key. You are not required to engage with the rage. Block people, block communities, block instances! Curate your mood and don't give space in it to things that will poison it.
For sure. I posted content on selfhosted for the first time and got called a "filthy boomer" because it was a screenshot, then people basically told me to grow thicker skin went I complained. Why be better than reddit huh? Guess people just want reddit 2.0
I would actually compare it to Slashdot 3.0, but your sentiment stands.
Look, unless you have functional code included in your comment, or are Richard Stallman, it's just not worth reading!
I mean honestly filthy boomer to a screenshot is kind of hilarious.
Maybe they're not telling us that the screenshot was taken with a Nokia and sent to email over their sms to email bridge?
Yeah, I'm gonna stop taking screenshots and use an analogue camera to capture my screen, then run to the photo printing shop, stop by the hobby store for some tracking paper, and track the photo. Scan that bad boy, and Bob's your uncle!
Now what would I then be called by these keyboard warriors?
"Why can't everyone just be nice to each other all the time" is what lead us to where we are.
I'm not arguing for being an asshole but when you force everyone to be kind all the time online you get people that are empowered to and motivated to wrap up abhorrent shit in a pleasing package. Racist dog whistles, selfish political propaganda, etc.
I'm not saying that applies here but I DO think it's important that people are allowed to be assholes online. The internet really started its descent when people started putting bubble wrap on everything.
You're free to engage or not to.
People have become so used to echo chambers and safe spaces that they forget what things were like when they didn't exist. And it was better.
You SHOULD be encountering assholes online and encountering opinions you disagree with regularly, because that is the real the world.
Toxic positivity is how you get the worse shit. If you can't call someone else a fucker and move on then there's too much protection for the truly deranged.
There's a large gap between being rude and being Hitler but many places online seem to forget this and treat all forms of negativity as equally extreme and it just results in the worse psychopaths who understand how to mask to have the loudest platform.
I think part of it at least is reaching a critical mass.
Lemmy was definitely a collection of relatively like-minded geeks at the start. Even when we disagreed on issues, we all agreed that we needed to work together to make the community grow.
Now that it's grown to a respectable size, there are more dissenting opinions as well as less tolerance for dissent; and more to the point, there is space for absolutely vile content that used to get choked out. Now to stop this sort of thing, the 'old-timers' are more likely to say "shut the fuck up, sit the fuck down, and behave!!!' before they can get a solid foot hold.
Meanwhile, the worst of those people are feeling both entitled and persecuted, and shouting their garbage louder than ever.
This happens everywhere that gets to a certain size. I remember when reddit stopped feeling like a secret community and more like a warehouse.
Of course, there are other reasons that people have mentioned below: The world is tired, worn out, and PISSED OFF at the half that disagree with them. The president of the United States has broken every rule of diplomacy, grace, and civility that people tended to follow in social life. Social Media has made it far easier (too easy) to dehumanize people and turn them into a one-dimensional pastiche of their posted opinions.
And we're facing the destruction of the planet, genocide, and the global resurrection of fascism.
The world is getting worse, I'm afraid. I really wish it wasn't true and I spent a lot of time emphasizing the good to my mom before she died; but honestly, it's getting worse.
Well said, thank you.
i.e.: Eternal September amplified by the host of knock-on effects stemming from overshoot and the resultant insecurity
I haven't noticed much, but I do have a lot of people blocked...
The most important thing for me is that the amount of truly thoughtful comments I've seen is higher than on any other platform I use.
And discourse is generally more respectful. Disagreements are handled in a constructive manner at a much higher rate than on any other platform I have used.
Yeah, it's nice to be able to have actually constructive discussions with people I don't agree with. That's rare on the internet.
I've blocked a few, makes a huge difference.
It doesn't feel unique to Lemmy to me. I'm seeing higher levels of hostility in just about any environment broad enough to include left and right wingers
I don't know that I've noticed a real uptick. But in the past couple weeks I have noticed a few ridiculous right wingers and I blocked most of them since seeing their bullshit is bad for my mental health.
Yeah maga place looks like it's up to 21 idiots sharing a brain cell now, whereas I think it was 12 a couple weeks ago. Wonder if there's a critical mass for those fucks or if they'll find lemmy too progressive to stick around. I guess they could just circlejerk on their own instance.
I have noticed more people inferring things from a small part of a reply and rather than read and try to understand it, they insted get upset about it and reply back about what they think the op said.
It’s what comes with more users. As people you don’t know start writing in styles you’ve only seen parroting arguments you disagree with, the urge to shut things down increases.
Plus, there ends up being more stuff to read in the same amount of time, which leads to shallower reading to cover it all.
try to understand it
Why do you think they can't understand it? Are you saying their stupid? All lemmy users are stupid except you? Look at smarty mcsmartpants over here
/s
I noticed it a few months ago. It feels like a sudden, inorganic shift. Either all the good people have trickled off to a better basin, or someone or something has influenced Lemmy users
Pretty sure Lemmy got on the influence bot radar some few months ago. Comments are now deeply negative and constantly drumming the 2FA and guillotine remedies to every complaint. Interactions outside of this kind of content I still find Lemmy users to be magnitudes higher quality than Reddit.
Bots warning us about using better account security sounds pretty wholesome actually
Everyone should keep in mind: Besides the darkened tone of the world seeping into nearly everything, this place is probably crawling with shit-stirrers of a slightly subtler flavor than your typical obnoxious troll.
This effect might be from lemmy users in general hating everything about the world right now, or it might be the work of bots and/or illicitly paid humans fronting as the "general left." The type that reflects your viewpoints pretty well but injects their comments with a little something extra, inflaming you or depressing more than what seems reasonable, maybe pushing you a little closer to the edge, whatever that edge may be.
We (or at least I) have no idea how much astroturfing is happening in the comments. It's probably best to take anything that seems peculiarly provocative with a grain of salad.
Grain of salad?
I don't think this place is big enough yet for my conspiracy theory to make any sense, but if I was the CEO of a company like Reddit and I wanted to prevent users moving to Lemmy I would make a bunch of accounts on here and spark as much drama and infighting as possible. And there's been so much of it lately, whether it be callout posts on different instances or people concern trolling under posts, that it does feel so inorganic. When you come on here hoping for a better place and you see users writing mini manifestos calling out another user's character flaws, it is extremely offputting.
People are desperately combing through comments, looking for something to be outraged about. That’s what happens in echo chambers - when the outgroup isn’t around to be attacked, people start eating their own. It turns into this insane purity spiral where nobody is ever good enough.
Lately? Were you not here during elections when a bunch of kids were accusing everyone of supporting genocide?
"Republicans are fascist"
"I know. That's why I'm voting Democrat."
"Democrats aren't real leftists"
"I'm aware but this isn't the time for purity politics."
"Democrats support genocide."
"And Republicans don't?"
"Both sides are equally bad so voting is dumb. Don't vote."
"Listen, I've got friends and family with skin in this game. Both parties fucking suck but you know what really sucks? Having a fucking fascist dimwit who thinks your cousin is subhuman because she was assigned male at birth as your president."
"So you support genocide? Typical libshit."
"Ok, then what is your alternative?"
"You would know what it is if you read this dry, arcane bullshit about the reification of contemporary autonomous groups in Third World popular movements."
Were you not here for that same year when anyone who said that democrats shouldn't be supporting genocide was accused of being a russian chinese trumper republican tankie bot? Oh, and as you accused in your comment just now, a child.
democrats still have no business supporting genocide. It's shameful and there needs to be accountability. None is forthcoming.
They still are but I've learned to love the block list and use it judiciously with people who go beyond good faith arguments of any sort.
That’s most of the people here in political conversations.
I think it's still like that, actually.
It’s actually quite a bit more tame than it once was.
Hmm... maybe. The state of the world has been pretty awful for the past year so I imagine that plays a part. Aside from trolls, lots of us are on edge as the whole world seems to tilt right with propaganda and AI.
That said, I like us.
I browse bluesky too and find I actually prefer Lemmy because it's a bit more self-policing... Like regarding AI slop, bluesky is fucking rampant with it, like Trump dressed as a clown or Newsom with abs, it's fucking awful. Lemmy has a couple communities for AI but on average, you try that shit and you'll get publicly shamed. That could be considered mean, but I appreciate it (especially if it's AI I can't even tell).
The world has been deteriorating a lot in recently years and inflation is high.
I've seen roughly the same time frame. As far as I can tell no, this is just how toxic this place is. There's a bunch of people who continuously claim people from reddit are coming and bringing some form of toxic with them, but as often as not those people seem super toxic. There's a huge community of Linux fanboys who circle jerk over the same exact talking points in different meme formats (the talking point being "windows 11 is spyware, Linux Just Works ad doesn't even require a login -- but don't worry guys, this is the year of the Linux desktop steam deck"). There's a huge circle jerk over whether or not Russia is bad. There's the "liberals aren't leftists, liberals are capitalist genocidal shitbags" circle jerk. None of these have really changed in at least the last year, it's the same people making the same posts on the same topics.
But, it's nice to see a news feed of interesting posts so as long as you ignore the bullshit it still seems fine. Or if you like arguing.
People are demonstrably worse behaving online. This will be true in just about any online community. The more people that join, the more you'll see.
Idk some of the worst comments I have ever seen are from .world users, maybe not super toxic but definitely redditor type responses. Maybe that's just because .world is the most popular instance that I see it when I check a bad comment though ¯(ツ)_/¯
Either .world or .ml
Both are basically the two largest sources of toxic people.
Not that I've noticed, but the whole world is growing more toxic as far-right ideology becomes more and more accepted everywhere, so I wouldn't be surprised.
There are trolls. Not as many as other places, but we have them.
Once we isolate key people, we look for people we know are in their upstream -- people that they read posts from, but who themselves are less influential. (This uses the same social media graph built before.) We then either start flame wars with bots to derail the conversations that are influencing influential people (think nonsense reddit posts about conspiracies that sound like Markov chains of nonsense other people have said), or else send off specific tasks for sockpuppets (changing this wording of an idea here; cause an ideological split there; etc).
The goal is to keep opinions we don't want fragmented and from coalescing in to a single voice for long enough that the memes we do want can, at which points they've gotten a head start on going viral and tend to capture a larger-than-otherwise share of media attention.
(All of the stuff above is basically the "standard" for online PR (usually farmed out to an LLC with a generic name working for the marketing firm contracted by the big firm; deniability is a word frequently said), once you're above a certain size.)
from Bannon:
“The opposition party is the media,” Steve Bannon, who helped run Trump’s 2016 campaign, told PBS Frontline five years ago. “And the media can only — because they’re dumb and they’re lazy — they can only focus on one thing at a time.”
So the solution, per Bannon? Overwhelm them.
“All we have to do is flood the zone,” he said. “Every day we hit them with three things. They’ll bite on one, and we’ll get all of our stuff done, bang, bang, bang. These guys will never — will never be able to recover. But we’ve got to start with muzzle velocity.”
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/07/nx-s1-5289315/trump-week-in-review
The best defense is to call them out on it and then walk away. They'll downvote the shit out of you, but who tf cares about upvotes and downvotes. If someone is getting downvoted heavily, read what they said carefully before piling on.
Yeah the news are triggering the worst instincts of some users who tend to lash out alot, and some trolls might be taking advantage of that
Ugh. I understand being a bit on edge in these dark times, but lashing out at people on your side doesn't help anything.
I don't think so, it's just a dynamic that any platform (including Reddit) has, and like always, it depends on what community you join and what instances your account is federated with.
Things are quite politically tense right now, and it doesn't help that there are also a lot of issues outside of that sphere (enshittification, Windows 10 EOL, etc...) that could make people angry as well, and have heated debates.
Also, with any influx of people, there may be tensions as the userbase has more voices from different viewpoints, and some may escalate while others won't. You do have the ability to pick and choose who your admin is (instance), where you want to post, and where you'd like to visit, and you can make your own community without restrictions, so if one method of moderation in a community seems out of your preference, feel free to explore an alternative.
Not really. But I purposely avoid any politics related community.
It makes no difference. The single minded fuckwits will inject politics into a thread about cheese sandwiches.
Cheese sandwiches are a tool of capitalist oppression. They are a symbol of how the working class is unable to get the nutrition they need and is yet another attempt by the liberals to make you forget their support of genocide. Eating cheese sandwiches supports genocide.
I would like to note that although correct this comment is itself a bit rude
This is the issue I've seen everywhere. Military grade TDS. Even if you want to chat about your love for onions in an onion-based community, someone will probably talk about how orange man destroyed onion farmland and is a fascist. I don't think there's a way to avoid the constant repetitive rage seeping into everything.
well have you noticed (waves at everything) in the world?
No, it's not just your imagination. It has become distinctly more hostile in all communities.
Yeah. I was going to say I feel like people have a lot of "legitimate" reasons to be negative right now, at least in America. Our mental health has been tried.
Yes, but sometimes I wonder if it is just the nature of what happens when a social media network grows large. I did observe how some subreddits instantly get more toxic as they grow bigger too
... On the other hand though, coincidentally I did see some very recent comments that are decidedly more right-wing than the general Lemmy userbase. I personally try not to judge ppl's political orientation but I do wonder if there's something weird going on
While Lemmy might be getting a larger variety of personalities, some of them being jerks, I still find it a far more pleasant place to be than reddit.
It seems like some AI bots with contrarian comments in order to drive engagement or strong arm wild political platforms have started to leak into the fediverse as a whole. Still better than other options though.
Got some examples?
Yea the shitposting has steadily increased. That is probably to be expected on a platform that is also steadily increasing.
However please don’t let the trolls think they turn this into the failure that is now Reddit.
Instead just call out the bullshit for what it is and carry on.
Facism is making the people that would normally be reasonable get really emotional and people love to lash out anonymously.
No. Fuck you.
/s
The world is increasingly hostile, but let me still seems more humane than any other social media.
Blame reddit. Lemmy is the home for us, the permabanned.
Places would change up and down in tone and attitude since the days of Usenet, BBSes, and FidoNet. It's not the platform, it's the people. How the world is in RL affects how people talk online, and the world changes over time.
The simpler answer may be that your feed has changed some since you started and you're pulling in discussions that have a different vibe than when you started. Just as you can grow your feed by browsing around, you can cull certain places that tend to be darker by blocking people or instances.
in RL
This is a first for me. Be RB, gotta run to the automated TM real quick.
I've seen it in both forms online and in chat, but I'm also old so it might be a depreciated form. I'm a walking internet archive.
Compared to election season? Nah. But everybody sees different stuff on Lemmy.
As a platform grows, you tend to get more diversity of voices. As voices become diverse, conflict becomes inevitable.
Oh yeah? Well I think you're wrong!
Well, too bad, because I'm right!
Lemmy isn't really growing. I think it’s been shrinking actually.
This place (old.lemmy.zip) is downright chill. Then again, I just came off Reddit (after 14 years there..) and that is in full rage-bait algorithm-driven meltdown. Feels like Reddit in 2010 here. Just lovely..
I’ve seen a lot of hard exclusionary leftists making noise outside of the triad.
Fuck off /s
I hope your dog gets bit by a skateboarding pug 🖕🖕
Idk, world events got me raging nonstop and I'm sure I'm not the only one. But I'm trying to reset.
Reset by like... Burning everything?
I haven’t noticed it lately, but I’ve experienced what you’re talking about. As far as I can tell, it ebbs and flows.
You suck! (im sorry im just kidding)
Well fuck you (pls)
🥸
Excuse me?! Are you saying I'm negative?! Are you trying to start a fight with me, bro?! I am THE, I mean THE most positive, fun and likeable person on THE internet, bro. THE.
The world is kind of a shitty place right now. And to be honest, I'd be surprised if it wasn't, at least to some degree, affecting everyone's calm.
I also noticed how every post just has 5-10 random down votes. Like perfectly fine post in the correct community, not controversial, no rules broken, -10 down votes.
Tempting to downvote that post, not gonna lie
People here do tend to downvote for disagreeing with any little part of something that was said.
Welcome back, I've been here the whole time and currently it seems a bit more toxic and hostile than when RIF shut down, I feel there are a couple more contrarians now than before but it hasn't been a steady decline. There has always been the odd jerk and troll on this site. I would say the time Lemmy was most wholesome when !cat@lemmy.world flooded the front page with black cats, it was such a cute problem for us to have. Anyone else remember that?
Like others I'd say it's cyclical month to month. This year there's daily doom in the news with US politics. If you want to avoid that then block !news@lemmy.world, !politics@lemmy.world, !usa@midwest.social, and other news and politics if it fills up with Trump posts. 2024 was a lot more hopeful and I think that reflected in the average user's demeanor even if there was bothsidesism, Gaza stuff, Ukraine stuff and Trumpism stuff. You'll be informed of important developments as Trump stuff leaks out on occasion but you don't need to be constantly engaged. Also if you do curate your All/Local feed then maybe some new communities sprung up that need pruning to fit your desired vibe.
Also: If you see a crapton of comments on a post with low votes then you know best to turn and run from the thread where most of the comments are.
I've not noticed that in particular yet. but it might be because I block accounts that don't add constructively to the comments, so maybe I'm not seeing a lot of the worst behaviour.
Can confirm. Lemmy became a lot friendlier after I blocked the worst of the permanently outraged communities and a bunch of people with extreme views.
I try to limit that to the worst cases, though, as I don't want to drive "bubblification" too much...
I've gotten pretty zealous with the block button. When I see a comment thread with some dipshit who clearly isn't being constructive I just block them immediately now.
No. Why? Are you accusing me of something? Are you threatening me??
/s
It's trepidation due to the asinine purity tests which ultimately lead to everyone being called a "Nazi". Now STFU Nazi! Whose side are you on?!
ultimately lead to everyone being called a “Nazi
There's two kinds of people who post this.
Ha! I literally have you tagged as a fascist, so not a surprising comment.
I don't like the moderation logs, because they keep the moderators who censor content anonymous. You can't tell people which moderator is being abusive, so ALL moderators have to be painted as a jackass. That isn't good, because good moderators have to be a human shield...and the community can't establish trust.
Lmfao just took a look at my page and a mod removed my comment. Literally could not get more ironic, all i said was that hate communities will not be tolerated.
It seems that out in the real world and here in the digital world we have been allowed/engineered to lose our civility and respect. Reminds me of the rock orchestra DEVO.
Civility as a desirable trait seems so bizarre to me. Historically it's been used as a tool of oppression. In fact, it still is (remember those portions of Tennessee who lost their representatives due to "decorum" "violations" when they had the audacity to protest gun violence rather than just saying "thoughts and prayers"?).
I considered making a really insulting comment on this just for fun, but I just can't be arsed.
I appreciate the honesty.
Filter your content to get the vibe you want.
Blocking the porn and impotently hostile makes it quite the chill platform.
There's a facet of internet culture that revolves around ridicule. I'm not sure but I think it stems from the streamer world. It's like a modern form of celebrity gossip (read: harassment) that got commoditized into social media. So it's not just gossiping about celebrities like in the past era of media.
Harassment used to be driven by publishers. In this era of social media anyone and everyone is a content publisher. People trawl the internet for things they think can be made spectacle. Right down to a random internet comment 100 replies deep in a thread. If for whatever reason they think this person is to be made a fool of then they proceed to reply with such belligerence.
They engage as if they are an outside observer. As if they've an audience like it's Jerry Springer or something. As if they are the only human being. They don't see others as human. Everyone else are caged animals for them taunt. To throw objects at through the cage bars or to tap on the glass. They think they are the main character.
I think there's some psychological effect where their parasocial relationship with their favorite streamers and the herd of loyal viewers gives them a false sense of power based on the crowd effect or something. They can't see it from the perspective that they are a lone poster being deranged.
I think the vote/like/share model gives them a false sense of power. When they see the uplikes number go up, they think they have a herd of supporters behind them. A simple little number on a screen emboldens them.
Nobody seems to see anything out of the ordinary with this. Such is the nature of this era of internet and the hostility. It's normalized. They don't know of any way of being.
You're not a streamer with a herd of followers. You're just a sole internet user. You have no crowd behind you. It's like you think you do. It's bizarre. From observers outside your perspective, you're like an unstable person wandering the city streets. Pedestrians avoid you. They don't want to aggravate you. You're seen as someone possibly having a mental break. Or is it drugs or some kind of substance abuse.
On the internet now it's unavoidable. These crazies are out here. They're aggravated. They jump down anyones throat. On much of social media it's the only way they know how to be. Just belligerence against belligerence all the time. Nobody talks like a normal human being. It's like they're derealized. Dissociated.
A basic fact that internet has no moderators anymore. They're moderators in name only. The definition of the word is lost. To "moderate". To preside over a discussion. Nobody does this anymore. The crazies are allowed to run amok. There's some hints of actual moderation on Lemmy instances. The extremists have been grinding away at wearing this down though. In general this kind of thing is completely absent on social media anymore.
The only time I see it anymore comes from people from the older eras of internet. Those to came about in the modern internet have no concept of civility.
Get a load of this guy
A lot of it came from early 4chan and the online culture war of creationism. It's like the right test drove its tactics using creationism, and also took what they saw was popular with the cool internet kids.
No, just an uptick in complaints about it.
Makes me pretty proud if my subscription list, honestly.
Yeah. I've enjoyed Lemmy casually for years, but this last year has really killed my desire to read or post here.
For me it's everywhere. I still come to these things out of habit or because i don't have energy for a regular hobby, but it's getting draining. All of social media just brings me back to politics, even if funny memes are in between. I also have a habit of reading comments, and then some dingus brings the one non political thing back down to politics anyway.
I first joined and started using Lemmy probably a couple months before you.
Back then, when anyone was being uncivil, needlessly hostile, rude, or aggressive, there was a very high likelihood that other users would call it out quickly. Many, many wonderful folks did it on my behalf multiple times and that's one of the big reasons I stuck around, because that's cool as hell if you ask me. I'm here to enjoy myself and have a little fun, not to be verbally abused because some problematic person lacks reading comprehension or prefers to make wild assumptions based on very limited information.
I won't say there's been a recent uptick in hostility, unless your definition of lately is a lot more lenient than my own. However, I will say that with each new outrage from Reddit comes an influx of new users and with each new influx, it's only a short period of time before I notice things are suddenly a bit less nice, friendly, and casual.
Sadly, things are at the point now where I rarely bother to read any responses, replies, or messages in my inbox. I usually just go in there to click "mark as read" to clear the notifications without reading them and move on. There's just too much negativity directed my way, often super randomly to the most innocuous stuff, or random users I can't recall ever interacting with who somehow seem to have a chip on their shoulder. It's actually kind of bizarre at times. Regardless, for my style of participation, which is mostly parodying old people facebook and sharing random anecdotes, feeling like I need to ignore replies is still okay, I guess.
Anyway, glad I'm not the only one who has noticed the shift. Wish there were an easy button to get things back to the welcoming place Lemmy used to be.
I am here from only some weeks but i noticed that in the last days i got waay more hate than normal and i noticed that in many convos people are starting to ""abuse"" upvotes and downvotes by downvoting everthing a dude say even if they are asking sorry, stating something right or is unrelated like how it was on reddit
It's growing everywhere. The problem is subjective, which is why the current model fails. I've tried to suggest ones in the past where users have more control about general moderation in their communities or can at least choose their curators, with communities themselves are more decentralized from their instances, but there is no interest, at least not in losing that power of control.
The people who downvote after every reply don't really help, they either just want the last word or aren't really interested in an honest conversation. The anonymous downvotes don't really help either (specially when they coincide with thread upvotes coming from accounts with no comment or post history that just seem interested in nudging the conversation to an alt).
Replies have certainly taken on a more Reddit-like quality to some things. Like rude for the sake of being rude.
[insert funny rude response here]
Yes, blocking posts from .ml and dbzer0 helped. Same goes for just liberally blocking anybody, who starts screaming instead of participating nicely.
I've been considering blocking .world, as some of the mods are behaving like power tripping reddit mods. But it's the biggest instance and without it I wouldn't have any content.
I'm still here at .world because every time I think I've identified a better instance to go to where people seem to like it, I see someone else who recommends blocking it.
I definitely see the appeal of (and need for) blocking individuals, but I think that instances are too big and varied to neatly paint everyone with the same brush.
Oh shit I'm on dbzer0 - just seemed like a good geeky instance. Is it a problematic one? Thx!
I have heard it several times, but it has also been debunked. I'd stay there if your only reasons are some vague rumours. I mean there are shitheads on any server.
Let me preface this by saying that the following are my opinions. They're based on my experiences and prejudices. Take it with a grain of salt, and make of it what you want.
I don't block users by instance, just posts. Posts on your instance tends to get moderated heavily one-sided. I got reprimanded (I think it was a temp ban, but I can't remember) for being skeptical about AI. I don't want to spend time and energy engaging in a discussion under those conditions.
But that doesn't mean every dbzer0 user is an AIvangelist. Same goes for .ml, they're not all tankies ... although I've found that not engaging with .ml users tends to give me a more pleasant experience in general.
I doubt that anyone who came from reddit either as an exile or willingly can really notice any additional toxicity. Maybe the early adapters.
Not really besides maybe more conservative trolls upsetting people in their usual favourites like unpopular opinion communities. Negative communities are troll attracting nectar generally.
There’s a setting in voyager that shows you how you voted on other people. I use that to block people… if you are -5 to me then I’ll never see you again 😘 Lemmings.world people are among the worst somehow.. just saying
I imagine it can be hard to scroll past someone saying something very off the wall. When you read someone's comment it's hard not to feel like they're talking directly to you, and if you don't align with what they're saying, especially if you're far from it, it can be hard to resist correcting them or giving them your opinion, when I catch myself doing this, I try to reframe it to ask a question, rather than dump opposing facts.
But there's another perspective I try really hard to keep in mind, if I were sitting at a table with a group of people and someone was loudly saying those things to me in person, I wouldn't engage. I'd move to a quieter spot and ask the people I do like at the table to come for a chat there, or I'd acknowledge their feelings (but not the topic) and move to a different conversation topic.
But I feel like I need more practice at doing this when it's in a text form of socializing, as this is.
I notice some amazing people on here, whom I aspire to learn from, that handle conflicting opinions with grace, and inclusion.
And I understand the dehumanisation that text conversations, present, it can be easy to imagine a hostility that may not be behind the comment. We're all filling in the blanks of the personality behind the commenter. I worked a checkout for a good decade, so I'm very familiar with positions that can become dehumanised. Especially seeing as that seemed to be throughout a time when a huge bulk of people felt like they were only going to get righted the situation they believed had wronged them, by yelling or getting massively agro at the poor checkout chick who was gunna set that right wrong, because fk corporations, I enjoyed giving as much free stuff away as possible, any excuse, within the rules I could muster.
I absolutely understand tensions being high, currently, with world events being what they are. And there's so much propaganda trying to brain wash us into being an army for their cause, and it's all rage baity. So there's even more rage and tension built up. I get it.
I really feel for people who can't, and haven't been helped to learn how to help and sooth their emotions, and then those emotions fester into all consuming things. And they find a cause to funnel that emotion into. Without really addressing that emotion, therefore not actual helping, processing or soothing that emotion.
See, we feel a feeling first, and then we ascribe a meaning, after. Except those two parts of the brain don't actually communicate. The emotional brain is essentially non verbal, and the thinking brain, is verbal, but obviously it doesn't do emotions. So you have this thinking guy in your head trying to tell you what emotions mean, except that guy is not an expert and knows nothing about them.
Your emotional brain is essentially a, very detailed messenger system for checking the temperature of the room. If shit feels off, it sends an alarm. Your emotions are a message to you that the shower temperature is too hot. It's not really about that argument you had with your sibling last fortnight.
And to top it off, your emotional brain is non verbal, so all that ranting that you do, thinking that you solve the anger (or whatever emotion) you feel isn't! It's actually making it worse.
Your emotional brain is super primal, and very simplistic. All it wants is to know you took your hand out of the broiling hot shower water, and now your safe, and it's message worked. It feels the environment and let's you know if that's vibing good stuff or danger. Sometime all you gotta do is change environment, or do a couple of jumping jacks, to help that emotional brain know, dangers gone. If you sit in the same spot and stress, your brain can even learn, that's a stressful spot to sit, every time we sit here, bam, gotta be bad, and spits up those same feelings, even if it's about nothing, just habit.
It also believes anything you tell it, because it's listening to vibes. So even if shits fkd, right now, you have to keep telling yourself, everything is OK, you are safe and a capable bad ass, who has handled all the shit life threw so far, so you absolutely got this. Time to shine.
Your emotions are a message for you, and you alone. And if you expect others to sooth your emotions, all the time, you tell yourself that you don't trust yourself to be capable of helping yourself process emotions. Obviously, we also need connection, so at the same time, it's not at all about doing it alone. But it's more about feeling safe to sit in emotions, rather than, fixing them. The way forward is sometimes the way back, sit in the emotion. Don't try and put it out like it's a fire, or distract it with shiny things. Just be, and listen, feel. Sometimes you need to sit with someone and not feel like you have to create a false front. Just sit and feel, for a bit.
If you're getting stuck in emotions for elongated periods of time, there's people who spend multiple years at school learning how to try and show you all the tips and tricks we've learned so far. Have a chat with one (or two if you don't vibe with numerous uno) of them.
It's literally all about emotional regulation. The mean people, haven't been able to process their emotions, have never been taught how, their parents didn't know, themselves, to tell them. And they're being bombarded with proverbial tornadoes from all sides. And there's so much rage baity propaganda, all designed to fuel and feed off that.
From a neutral viewpoint, the world is more divided than ever, no matter what values you have, there's someone who opposes them with few, if any exceptions. Those opposing viewpoints have only grown in strength and number on the Internet, for years.
Additionally, the "us vs them" mentality of everyone is blinding them to even understanding why someone would disagree with their viewpoint. Of course that's not everyone, but it's a growing and very loud group.
Political violence is also starting to run rampant. Escalation after escalation. It keeps building.
So in this time of having a global voice, that can reach hundreds of millions of people with a single tweet or comment or thread or post or whatever, and with so much growing hatred among different political groups, it's unsurprising to me that conflict is rising.
Additionally, Lemmy is growing. Not everyone that joins Lemmy will be the same type of person that joined Lemmy after the Reddit API incident. That influx of people had a very similar value set, because they almost all came here from Reddit for the same reason. So there's at least a good amount of overlap in everyone's values.
Over time, more and more diverse people have been joining Lemmy, and it's not surprising that they have differing opinions on a lot of things.
This outcome was pretty much inevitable.
As far as I'm concerned, as long as it's done respectfully and civilly, then disagree. Debate. Try to understand the opposing viewpoint, even if you don't agree with it.
You're really being a drag, dude. What's with you throwing all this shade? Wanna fight about it? /s
I haven’t noticed anything in particular, and I do post in more controversial areas like Politics and News. There’s always a chance to get negative feedback in those c/.
I have noticed some ancient-ass reddit-type reposts of the same old shit that circulates reddit, though. That junk can die.
E: maybe I stand corrected. I asked for a source for a claim and got downvoted because someone’s ego couldn’t take it or it was too hard to provide a source.
Post quality go down. Echo chamber go up.
mid 2023 felt honeymoony, but i knew would eventually wear off
Block and block often. Now if lemmy admins will just unspez their attitude about reciprocal blocks I can cull the herd of raging douche nozzles infesting every online community.
Yes, it seems to be.
Yes. I've also noticed if you say something mods don't like they will remove your comments. This place is more of the same with censorship.. in terms of removing opposing ideas.
(This person who complains about “censorship” says some seriously bigoted shit. It’s not a moderation problem, it’s a MAGA problem.)
What gets you permabanned for "spam" from the .ml meme comm:
OP being a magatwat aside, mods being unaccountable children is a problem.
Lately? I find it comes and goes.
Isn't it just people? Why did Rome fall? They had better tech, more people etc. I think they fell because the glue that held the society together dissolved. They had enough success that the human impulses that tear things apart were no longer suppressed. Lets kill people for sport, someone else should deal with the invaders, etc. A big part of that glue is apparent need. That guy in my way is the blacksmith that I need or I don't know that guy get the F out of my way. Our major challenge has shifted from trying to survive to competition with other people.
I think this is where a lot of the hostility comes from. Now add in another force, marketing and business. It's not like they are really worried about your well-being. They prey on these things like a con artist preys on trust. Feed the easy things that everyone wants. A kid is going to choose the candy bar over the brussels sprouts most times. You deserve a break today, you deserve everything. Feed this and you end up with a lot of believers. I deserve everything and those people are preventing it. Plug in a system (AI) that only purpose is to get more of your attention and what will it feed you? Trolling, anger, hate are all easy. The feelings from them are strong, addicting even. They feel powerful. Stir well and spread widely. Pretty simple recipe.
For the final topping, the people who rule us. Yah rule us. Do good people chase power in this environment? Can a good person stop the mob of 50 people that are gonna do some damage? At what point to people start giving up resisting those impulses and joining the mob. I want to do some damage too. As we see our leaders and the things they do, our examples, the people we trusted to do the right thing, the people who get the make the rules, who are so removed from the people they rule as I am from that ant I just stepped on. As this snowball gets bigger and faster it's harder and harder to stop. Rolls over most things except that cliff where it will go splat. Everyone feels it. It's hard to miss if you look. Any attempt to stop it creates a conflict between the stoppers and those that are fine in that snow ball and the people that are actively pushing that snowball. It will eventually stop and most times it's a very messy stop.
Why hasn't there been a successful civilization that has lasted, people and who are people... ?
Re: the title: Yes 😔
If I don't see that, am I the problem? 🤔
Nothing outside the usual to me.
But that’s another good perk of Lemmy: if you don’t like this instance, join another or create your own.
Yup, it's happened to me a couple of times this week alone. It's getting silly.
I think it's always been the same. I've received weird ass hostility before but it's been consistently spaced.
I feel like it's steadily increased over the last 6 months or so, but it's hard to really say. And it's still pretty tame.
Didn't notice anything like this, not even slightly.
You want a piece of this??
just general vibe here, even positive news about something happening outside of US and you get a lot of negativity.
Not only is it not more hostile I would argue its less hostile. During the election season you couldn't say Kamala was anything other than perfect without being called a tankie. Hell you couldn't even talk about any of the issues that mattered without being called a "single issue voter". Granted today you have the people saying "well acturally the toxicity is because of those other people", still not as bad.
That's exactly the same time I migrated. Personally, no, I haven't noticed an uptick in that, it's just as hostile as ever. It just about scratches the itch enough to be a functional replacement for what Reddit used to be for me though so I hang around. There's solace in that it's not ALL nasty, it's just extremely likely to devolve in to that at a hair trigger and however benign or even how mundane the original topic of discussion, someone will try to clumsily make it related fascism or imperialism.
Well im up to 30 user blocks and not long ago someone asked people how many they blocked and it was at about a dozen and 6 of those are alts of one user (same name with different instances). So its closer to go from like 7 to 24. So like in just a few weeks. Maybe over a month or so but not many months I have tripled my blocking of people (I block communities mostly do to it being something I am just not interested at all as opposed to the community is horrible). So take that info as you like.
Damn I miss rif :/ that was when I came over here too. I'm not on here as much but everywhere there seems to be an uptick in hostility these days
I find it quite bizarre that people came here after a single reddit app stopped working. My favorite reddit apps still work lol
Edit: I love the downvotes on a post about an uptick in hostility
It wasn't because of the apps.
It was because closing down the APIs - despite the widespread protests and subreddit blackouts - was the final nail in the coffin for many. It proved reddit was no longer a place where community opinion mattered at all, or had any sway in how the site might operate.
It was proof that things were firmly entering the enshittification phase of milking the reddit userbase and their content for profit, pushing a first-party app full of ads, and fattening up the balance sheet for investors.
I left at that time because I didn't want to subject myself to that, and no number of "still working" apps would change my opinion.
If not because of the apps, then why do they mention the app shutting down specifically instead of the API changes?
Never used the app. I'm here cause after an effort gain enough karma to post in the group I joined reddit for, I found I had been shadowbanned (had to look up what it was) and had been from the creation of the account. Never spammed, no trash, no fights. In fact I still have 1 karma. Found out days ago I was shadowbanned (cause some mod finally took pity on my posts trying to understand how to get karma, which I couldn't cause no one saw anything I posted, ever) and realized that all that effort was worthless because of some AI or other that flagged me for some unknown reason and they didn't have the (insert word here) to indicate there was any issue. Not interested in the ban hammer that drops off the shelf and happens to hit you. Sad thing really as I tracked the group through another means and it's been great. reddit can eat my karma. and their shadowban hammer.
I've had a private message from a user who's a starting with 'v and ending with n' and that's all I say because if I say the full word I know some angry Internet people are going to show up
They responded with that passive aggressive question tone
I've also run into some lemmy users that spread misinformation about Japan to discredit it which reads like foreign actors intentionally spreading disinformation to discredit a country and its people, the sake kind of misinformation about Japan is much worser on reddit but its not a good thing that it has started to show up here
I do feel like unseriousness/unsophisticatedness is generally frowned upon here. Usually things are more debate than conversation
Idk, people just seem a lot more relaxed on like nerdy public discords for example
Seems the same as it’s always been. Was it always negative? Do I not feel like it’s negative currently?
I’m not sure.
It's more along the lines of people making an elephant out of an anthill. Your average person is a drama-addict
Such is life on the internet sometimes I guess
Check your communities, and what instances they're on. Not all are created equal. lemmy.ml tends to be pretty wacko unless you're of their particular ideological alignment, lemmy.world is very very large and thus has a very very large number of obnoxious shitheads compared to other instances. On the other hand, beehaw.org is intentionally and pathologically positive. I also find lemmy.ca quite friendly, though I might be biased.
Can confirm some asshole on .ml is chasing around my comments wasting both our time, isn't that right mistermodal, you incel loser.
Lemmy users are much more entrenched ideologically than an average layman. We all have strong opinions and it can get pretty heated. I avoid posting inflammatory posturing if I'm self aware enough. But I'm just as human and fallible as the rest.
Well, many of us are on the spectrum whether that be ADD, ADHD, Asperger's, or some other form of autism. Helps us to be highly technical and computer savvy, doesn't help so much with attempting to reframe "right and wrong," for most of us.
Unfortunately the very entrenchment, ideologically speaking, that these particular "character traits" cause most of us to have, are being celebrated as "immunity to propaganda" in the media. The reality is that we have an innate sense of right and wrong, and that shit can get skewed all over the place in your formative years. The only remedy I have seen for this is the person intentionally exposing themselves to other cultures.
Someone more self aware than me!? How dare you! /s
Yeah? Yeah, you think so? Obnoxious? Yeah? You sayin' there's obnoxious shitheads round these parts? That what you're sayin'? Just wanna be clear! Well you're wrong! Lemmy.World isn't large at all. The whole fediverse combined isn't very large! Not like my penis! Can't believe you said Lemmy.World is full of obnoxious shitheads! Why would you think that? Can I have $20? Your mom gave me $20! Heyyyoooo!!!!
Is lemmy.ml is the second largest instance? Or at least rapidly growing? That would explain why it feels this way.
.ml is the instance run by the developers of the Lemmy fediiverse software, and they themselves are tankies. Do with that information what you will.
I see a lot more assholes from .world and .shtjstwrks
.ML peeps are either chill or really cringe depending on how militant they are.
.ml stands for Marxist\Lenin afaik. And the mods\admins take it very seriously.
Since they were the first they used to be the biggest, however they are declining.
"Hey y'all, anyone feeling hostility on Lemmy"
"Yeah, let me tell you what, fuck those fuckers over there. They fucking suck and I hope they rot."
Like, how do you not immediately block everyone on lemmy.ca after reading this hate?
Sure, if you ignore the assholes who pop into other communities to take a colossal shit on them.
Bro they just said "tends to be pretty wacko"
That's like, really mild. You might need to get some thicker skin.
The irony of your stupidity and judgement in that post is hilarious.
I wouldn't call beehaw pathologically positive. They just seem to bee some very nice people that caught to create a community of nice people. It's not a pathology, it's a common understanding.
If you're following them around, that's not living rent free in someone's head, that's just being weird.
The whole idea of the phrase is the one living rent free is just enjoying their life while the OTHER person obsesses about them.
If you're the one doing the stalking, it's the stalkee that's living rent free in your head.
You weren't tagged and still showed up to prove OPs point. It's not rent free when they're being stalked by a fucking weirdo basement dweller.