Obviously, the internet has always been a toxic place, (the phrase “flame war” has been around for decades,) but it seems to have gotten so much worse over the last few years. I used to think decentralization of the internet would fix the worst of it, but Lemmy seems to have gotten worse alongside the rest of internet culture, proving me wrong. How do we fix/improve this culture of toxicity?

Block .ml and don’t engage with .ml users And hexbear and lemmygrad

Shun the toxic people. Block them and don’t look back.

Seriously, block them. They’re still gonna toxic whether you’re there to observe it or not.

Find a well moderated instance that isn’t afraid to show toxic people the door

Block .ml, grad, hexbear, dbzer0, and quokk.au

Block any other instance or person that centers itself around identity politics

Block all the news/politics communities. Just get your news from actual news services. The comment section for most news/politics posts here is worse than an entire garbage dump on fire.And you’ll end up with like 3 federated users left which is basically my /all feed now 😑

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[–] LadyCajAsca@hexbear.net 24 points 3 days ago (6 children)

they're blocking quokk.au now? damn just one more instance and we have a hexagonal six

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 41 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

Lemmy.world is going through an interesting evolutionary process. It's generally the first one people join, and then they realize it stinks (for different reasons), so they leave. Over time this filters their user base to become more and more reddity as only the most reddity users stay behind, like an online social experiment to see what reddit island would have looked like.

[–] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 33 points 3 days ago (1 children)

What is truly incredible is how many people on Hexbear were saying exactly this would happen due to their policies. Truly a shocking turn of events.

[–] Cowbee@hexbear.net 34 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

In a short word, yes.

Reddit was once good enough to join, but is now bad enough to leave. Could be from the IPO, API scandal, or other period. Thus, we have Reddit’s more ideological crowd, but not the ones who are interested enough in the structure of Lemmy.

Lemmy.world provides a generalist, non-committed community that they believe will replicate “earlier” Reddit, though the nature of federation means the people with more niche interests already joined a different server.

Lemmy.world attracts, therefore, terminally online radlibs with no specific interests.

~2 years ago (looks like a deleted post, found the comment by searching for it)

I'm sure others have said similar even earlier than I, just remembered this being something I also predicted.

[–] Damarcusart@hexbear.net 25 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You know, I never really thought about it, but that "no specific interests" thing is really what is so offputting about a lot of redditors. They are only interested in the social capital that social media upvotes gives and don't express an opinion or share an experience for fun, but so they can get more upvotes. Their obnoxiousness is a byproduct of their unpleasant and empty existence, not the cause of it.

[–] Cowbee@hexbear.net 24 points 3 days ago

Yep! It's not that they are formless, but they are formed in a neutral way embodying whatever is culturally dominant. Humanity is a social animal, and Lemmy.world as a subsection is for those that specifically love the flavor "general, non-descript."

[–] FishLake@lemmygrad.ml 31 points 3 days ago (2 children)

One hundred percent. I was on Reddit for a decade and had a curated sub list I aligned with and participated in. When the API changes happened and the app I used shut down, there was no way I was going to download the official app just to see ads and suggested/sponsored content. I took one look at .world and saw that the most redditiest redditors were also flocking there. So I joined Lemmygrad and was extremely happy with my choice.

The funny thing is that I still need to get on Reddit from time to time, and it’s really normie now. Sure it’s lib as ever, but the culture is much, much more mainstream than even a few years ago. That was probably Reddit’s goal, but I think it’s funny that they essentially orchestrated an exodus all their most insufferable users to .world. Going to .world is like a time machine to 2013 r/all.

[–] AssortedBiscuits@hexbear.net 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The funny thing is that I still need to get on Reddit from time to time, and it’s really normie now.

I remember someone going, "I use Reddit now because it's like normal now." irl. They were incredibly dismissive about the "boycott" over spez, mostly thinking of them as a bunch of loser cranks.

[–] FishLake@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 3 days ago

Credit where credit is due, a bunch of them were losers who joined the bandwagon of leaving Reddit. A lot of the concerns I saw around that time on Reddit were that the site was becoming “toxic” and “political”. I don’t really think most of the people that left Reddit left because of any principled coherent stance. They perceived the site changing to be more advertiser friendly as a direct attack on their beliefs. Beliefs that 99 times out of 100 were misogynist and/or racist. Those are the losers that made a new home on .world.

[–] ZeroHora@lemmy.ml 16 points 3 days ago

Me going to .ml when I saw them talking about russian people.

[–] Cowbee@hexbear.net 25 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

That's funny, considering some of the most prominent posters on quokk.au are radlibs that lie about communists, and cape for Nazis by ignoring pograms and lynchings to suit their narrative. You'd think that would be right up the anti-communist's alley.

[–] Goferking0@ttrpg.network 10 points 3 days ago

I mean world hated them before due to how anti genocide they are. So not at all surprising they'd now be cutting them off

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 11 points 3 days ago

I was surprised to see that one on the list; most of the time I go it's full of libs talking points.

[–] chgxvjh@hexbear.net 6 points 3 days ago

Personal grievance mixed with rampant anticommunism.

[–] Soot@hexbear.net 5 points 3 days ago

Never mind the Tankie triad, FEAR THE TANKIE DODECAHEDRON sicko-hexbear