Europeans still don’t have enough population, money, or influence to change the status quo.
English is the issue. There are only about 80M people who speak English as a first language in Europe, out of 0.8 billion or so. Yeah, plenty of people who are relatively fluent in English participate in English social media, but many also spend a lot of time in social media in their own language, something English-speakers never see.
The Fediverse has a pretty big German-speaking population, but not as much French, Italian, Spanish, etc. I don’t know where they are – probably Facebook / Instagram.
hibsen@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Google tells me there’s like 332 million people in the US and like 750 million in Europe. I get that they’re different countries, but different states here might as well be.
Are there posts Europeans make that I’m just not seeing (beyond complaints like this one), or is there something else that keeps them from posting and upvoting the content they apparently want to see in places like world news?
Damage@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
Europeans tend to prefer discussing local matters in their own language
hibsen@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Possible I missed something, but nothing I see in the world news rules about posting in languages that aren’t English. My (admittedly small) point is that nothing prevents Europeans dominating these spaces apart apparent apathy and disinterest.
antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Isn’t it pretty obvious? If literally any European posted news in their native language, outside of the Brits and the Irish, it would be literally incomprehensible to 80-90% of the continent.
Not to mention ^(proceeds^ ^to^ ^mention)^ the problem that we don’t care about each other’s internal politics and don’t know enough about their context to follow them. People might follow the EU topics and the large-scale shitfests such as Brexit, French protests and of course the Russo-Ukrainian war. But that’s it.
E.g. I just realised that my country borders six other countries and I can’t name the current PM/president of two of them. (for somewhat excusable reasons, but regardless of that it’s not a good look)
ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 1 year ago
Different states are not like literally different countries.
nl_the_shadow@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Exactly, different states still have their country as common ground. Most Europeans identify with their nationality first, and as a European second.
halferect@lemmy.world 1 year ago
When asked where I’m from I say my state, I don’t say I’m American.
Siegfried@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If I remember correctly, most Europeans identifiy first with their city, then with their country and third with the EU…
merc@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Different states in the early 1800s might be like different European countries are today. But, today, states have a lot less power, and people generally think of themselves as American first.
In addition, European countries speak different languages. That severely limits the common ground you share with neighbouring countries.
ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 1 year ago
They also have different cultures, traditions, history, etc.
MBM@lemmings.world 1 year ago
Even then, different states in the early 1800s had more or less the same history/origins (colonists that arrived relatively recently)