I have been on reddit for just about 12 years now. Something I’ve noticed over time is just how hateful the place has become. A complete outrage machine. Every single sub became filled with it. I’ve filtered so many subreddits over the last few years, it’s insane. I don’t know enough about this place to be sure, but I do hope it doesn’t become the same type of echo chamber of anger.
This is an ongoing problem with our Information Age. The fediverse already has this problem, though to a much lesser degree than reddit. Look at the structure of titles of threads on the political magazines/communities here. They are designed to make you outraged, because the sources they come from made their titles with engagement in mind and that permeates over to here. My hope is that the group of people on the fediverse, who are more interested in the future of the internet than most, will give rise to an idea that helps combat this problem.
I don’t think it’s just that. Politics has seen the trend going right for a while now, and not just the US. When there are people in power saying they’ll do dumb shit that’s even dumber than before it’s bound to get more outrages. And even putting politics aside you’re getting corporates that are getting greedier and greedier, and serious problems that have been festering without sufficient effort to solve for years like climate change showing up with the consequence (and still not enough is being done). So, in general, we as a whole haven’t been doing enough to solve existing problems while making new ones. Problems just keep on piling and that’s what we are seeing.
I agree. Many politics related posts are roughly equivalent to anything from r/Politics. It’s been really disheartening to see that it wasn’t Reddit causing the toxicity. It was the users. And they’re here now, trying to be just as toxic. The funny thing is people will read this thinking “it’s the other guys he’s talking about.” No, I’m talking about both sides. I’m referring to everyone who calls those with different political opinions “Nazis.” Reddit used to be a place to discuss ideas. Now there and here requires strict ideological homogeneity.
People hated it, but this is why I was on political compass memes. Both sides were taking jabs at each other in a very wholesome environment. Gosh I hate politics now and it’s because I refuse to get enraged about it. It’s funny how when I cut politics out of my life I felt so much better. And the sad thing is that I know it’s a positive outcome for a lot of people. I’ve stopped educating myself so I’ve stopped voting.
And yes it was the users. It always was and always will be. The people that have joined lemmy or kbin or mastodon are likely of a similar mindset. That makes a hivemind. It’s already happening now, and I doubt the fediverse will make anything really change.
But I’m here for the memes and just found Reddit’s practices unethical.
Well. “Back then” not everyone had that level of access to the internet. Also keeping it limited.
And yeah. It is always up to the community.