Twitter obviously has always had huge downsides, but if you heavily curated your feed, it was sometimes ok. There were socialist/communist circles that had decent discourse.

Recently (last few months), I’ve noticed almost EVERY thread is infested with combative libs.

I also see literal pro-Nazi/fascist threads. I’m talking about praising Hitler and calling for ethnic cleansing. They never seem to get taken down and are very active (often with little resistance).

These threads are not something I’ve dug for either. They are easy to stumble upon.

This is almost exactly what happened to Reddit, which is pretty much worthless now. I haven’t logged on in weeks.

I need to research more, but I know most social media companies have been infiltrated by ‘former’ US security stooges from the CIA etc.

I know anything remotely left wing gets suppressed by the algorithms, but I’m pretty convinced they are pushing hard right content.

  • Leslie(she/her)
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    362 years ago

    The west is crumbling from the weight of its contradictions. It’s been a long time since they have known fear. They didn’t fear leftist ideas before because they wouldn’t really change anything because the western proletariat didn’t exist. At that time, there was only a labour aristocracy that benefited from the neoliberal policies that kept the world on its knees. Now that the world is rising from its knees, the birth of the western proletariat will follow. What we are seeing now is the attempt of the bourgeoisie to strangle it before it leaves the womb.

  • @Neers94@lemmygrad.ml
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    2 years ago

    The internet is much more full of bots now. Especially on political threads. There are several bot farms right now pushing Ukraine propaganda. Some farms are just internet recruiting grounds, where people just create a discord group and in it they detail who to harass and raid, what talking points to disseminate, etc. I believe NAFO right now is the biggest internet recruiting farm/bot farm for Ukraine propaganda. All they do is harass anyone and everyone who goes against the narrative on Ukraine. I follow the radio war nerd, and Mark Ames Twitter, and before Ukraine, he had no reply guys, anyone who replied or quote tweeted generally weren’t far from his politics and agreed with him. But now, he has dozens of reply guys commenting on every single tweet with snide/snarky remarks. And you look at their profiles and all they do all day is stalk other “anti-ukraine” posters and reply to every single one of them. It’s nuts. And Mark isn’t even “pro-russia” he still calls it an unjustified invasion. He’s just more critical of what the west has to say.

    In general, real discussions over the internet are completely impossible because it’s all a social status competition where the most brash and rude people who can “own” their counterparts thoroughly enough are encouraged. Snarky, snide remarks and quips are about the most discussion you’re going to get. Which is why I like to be on smaller forums, where general discussion is more incentivised. And also, yes, “echo chambers” are better, since it’s impossible to have a real discussion with people who disagree with you over the internet, people flock to more agreeable spaces where they can actually have a productive conversation.

    • @frippa
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      122 years ago

      The weird thing is it is almost impossible to discern brainwashed libs from bots

    • @i_must_destroy@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      2 years ago

      Spot on here. I much prefer Lemmygrad over previous social media I was on. Wild how it’s presented as bad when you surround yourself with likeminded people.

      If I wanted to argue all day about BS, I’d be back on Facebook.

      • JucheBot1988
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        82 years ago

        Absolutely. Though I do kind of miss the abrasiveness of r/genzedong; also being the sub that was hated by nearly all of reddit.

        But discussions here are 100 percent better.

      • @Neers94@lemmygrad.ml
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        2 years ago

        I know right? Centrists and libs always tell you you always have to engage with people you disagree with and you have to put yourself in spaces where there isn’t particularly a political leaning (which is always a lie, all general political discussion spaces in the anglo internet sphere are heavily skewed towards liberalism), but buddy, I am forced to hear liberal talking points and viewpoints every day. Every time I turn on the TV, everytime I go on the internet, everywhere I am exposed to liberal viewpoints. I don’t at all need to engage with and expose myself to it, I already am forced to every day. It really should be the opposite, libs should be the ones that are shamed into engaging with and exposing themselves to left perspectives, because those perspectives are ones you aren’t going to find unless you look for them. It’s ridiculous.

      • @Ellezeste@lemmygrad.ml
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        52 years ago

        I would say it’s still good to have some sort of constructive debate with or against people who are not on paper agreeing with you, people you best can find outside of closed groups with likeminded people. In the mean time, you’re probably having more chances to survive on Mars or Pluto than having a constructive debate on social medias, especially with the so called enlightened libs.

        I had such great debates on reddit before it turned crazy, for 50 idiot responses I had one or two great people who tried to devote time and energy to understand my position, defend their positions, and in turn I tried to do the same. To me it’s very interesting to go to the wilderness ( when it’s not sucking your mental health, which I reckon it did for the most part ) and try to present my arguments as clean as possible for the audience.

    • @i_must_destroy@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      292 years ago

      I’ve also noticed TONS of left people becoming anti-vax. I hate the pharmaceutical industry as much as everyone else, but it’s very discouraging.

      • FossilPoet
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        172 years ago

        Random ass downvote you got and no clue why, because I’ve literally been talking about this too and seen others on here about it. I’m so concerned about it. Some of my favorite journos gave in and I can’t read their shit the same now.

  • @holdengreen@lemmygrad.ml
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    222 years ago

    This morning 8AM I got a message from a guy on there who I was talking to last night about how humans are different from other animals and how/if/why we are successful. He tends to focus on stuff like that and science.

    He said he got suspended second time apparently for saying he wishes Biden gets long COVID. I try messaging him back a few hours later and his account is gone. https://twitter.com/erasmix

    Anyways don’t trust twitter. I have a presence on there and I basically keep it up to draw attention off of that cursed site and to sites like lemmygrad and to my own sites.

    • @i_must_destroy@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      42 years ago

      I deleted my personal Twitter and made an anonymous profile strictly to view content. It’s private and I don’t tweet at all. It’s better this way, but sometimes it’s still pretty bad.

      • ButtigiegMineralMap
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        32 years ago

        Yea scrolling thru Twitter arguments is sometimes like watching a bad fight. No slams or good hits, just swings and misses everywhere until someone gets ratio’ed and the debate comes to a close

  • @darkcalling@lemmygrad.ml
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    162 years ago

    Hard to say. There was a visible push last year by the Biden admin under the guise of “combatting disinformation” with the pretext of covid vaccine misinformation/conspiracy and the ever useful “Russian troll farm” specter used to force social media companies further under the imperialist thumb. I think Zuckerberg actually resisted a little and was hauled in front of congress and pilloried before giving in. As part of this drive I believe the less mentioned aspect was putting in all these new (as opposed to the limited, high ranking but not directly curating) info-warfare people. I think that plus a ramping up of perhaps western bots, forced changes to the algorithms to force western propaganda and suppress other views, etc may be finally all converging to create this situation.

    • There was a visible push last year by the Biden admin under the guise of “combatting disinformation”

      In the mouth and especially in the law of westoid it always means “increase propaganda efforts”

  • Looks like everyone agrees its getting worse.

    I personally have seen an improvement, even in my country’s most reactionary channels on youtube such as Jovem Pan I have seen more and more people defending socialism. Same goes for instagram. But this is only my country. When Im on the “international” part of these sites things are pretty bad and I see horrendous takes

  • JucheBot1988
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    82 years ago

    Western social media is always breaking new boundaries of stupid and bad. It’s that “Faustian spirit of the West” that fascists like to talk about so much.

  • @i_must_destroy@lemmygrad.mlOP
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    72 years ago

    I mentioned this below, but just wanted to clarify: I say Western social media because it is what I have experience with.

    I’m American, and most Americans have a tendency to think everyone lives like they do. I always want to specify that I don’t speak on behalf of anyone, just my experience.

  • ButtigiegMineralMap
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    2 years ago

    I really can’t comment objectively because I don’t use it anymore, just snapchat sometimes for someone I speak to only on there. And from what I see on Snapchat, yes:It’s like 90% more sexual because it’s supposed to make you horny and want to spend more time watching BullShit Snapchat Channel Stories, they have an option to pay for a “premium version” (which means Snapchat snitches to tell who is watching your story and how many times, and they added a fake TikTok feature to keep you on the app longer. TL;DR Snapchat got worse with more Clickbaity nonsense and overly-sexualized ads disguised as snapchat stories

    • @i_must_destroy@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      22 years ago

      This is the only social media I actively interact with anymore (other than some personal stuff on Instagram).

      I still see plenty of anti-capitalist content, it just seems to have a lot more pushback from libs than was normal.

  • @peeonyou
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    12 years ago

    I don’t have those issues on Twitter. Once in a great while someone I follow will retweet something from an insane person and I mute or unfollow. Overall I just see seething anger about the hellhole that is the US and all the propaganda bullshit that feeds the libs.

    • @i_must_destroy@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      22 years ago

      That’s good. I have very inconsistent experiences on Twitter. Sometimes I really enjoy it. Other times it makes me miserable 🤷‍♂️

  • @thervingi
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    2 years ago

    Social Media was fun when anyone could say anything. The anonymity of the internet resulted in a lot of weird and interesting content.

    But now social media is policed by lynch mobs, content moderators and the government. What you are allowed to say is constrained. As such it’s becoming a worse place.

    This is why Tikok and Telegram are taking off: there are much less constraints there compared to the Western internet.