Submitted 3 weeks ago by Jomega@lemmy.world to [deleted]
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.
I’ve recently noticed a lot of new accounts which post a whole series of news articles and then get deleted. Notot fake news or conspiracies but mostly reputable sites. No idea what’s going on there.
Sockpuppet accounts selectively posting articles to sway a opinion about a country or person/s?
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 CEO in front of a firing squad.
This is actually usually the case
Go fuck yourself!
You kiss ya mother wit that mouf!?
no I kiss yours.
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.
Haha baby killer
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.
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
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 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?
I would actually compare it to Slashdot 3.0, but your sentiment stands.
“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.
Nice to see another person who understands this. They want their social media experience to not make them feel anything negative, and loves their bubble where everyone agrees with them.
When someone writes something they dont agree with, they go into keyboard warrior mode and either tries to put the person down with downvoting and insults, or mod reporting, which is similar to running to dad and crying about someone being bad.
Its like people refuse to grow up today. Argue for your opinion, stop censoring and pushing down opinions you dont agree with.
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.
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.
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 have been threatened and harassed in person multiple times the past few years. but left and right wingers. by trans and anti-trans folks, etc.
angry people just want to beat up any one that is in front of them.
So wait are you wearing both knee-highs and a maga cap?
So what are you really
I’m resisting the urge to jump to conclusions, however I can’t help but observe that objectively there seems to be a common denominator in your situation. Either way, it sucks that that’s been your experience and I hope things change for the better for you.
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.
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 attack, people start eating their own. It turns into this insane purity spiral where nobody is ever good enough.
yeah i’ve noticed this. the people who harass me go to my comment history, start downvoting everything i say or replying to old comments and/or reporting them… just like people do on reddit.
one disagreement on one comment or issue becomes a personal vendetta
These people need to be flushed out of here. On the other hand I stand by almost everything I’ve said in my comment history, so…
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.
Same with going off the headlines. I am well aware that we lose 90%+ of communication over text, but damn, some of these fucking people. You have to learn to couch your comment in such a way that even obvious sarcasm and the like is obvious.
To all those joking about being autists and not getting social clues, I see you.
This has been a consistent issue I have seen on Lemmy over Reddit since day one, TBH.
No it hasn’t! That’s just what they want you to believe. You heard nothing! Make him repent Asmodai!
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.
yep.
i will write out three paragraphs… get multiple replies about like three words I said that are taken totally out of context.
Lately? Were you not here during elections when a bunch of kids were accusing everyone of supporting genocide?
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).
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
No, fuck you
/j
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.
The world has been deteriorating a lot in recently years and inflation is high.
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.”
www.npr.org/2025/02/07/…/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.
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”). 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.
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
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.
well have you noticed (waves at everything) in the world?
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
No, it’s not just your imagination.
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.
Not really. But I purposely avoid any politics related community.
As the space becomes more popular, the level of social cohesion goes down.
Also, every space on the internet where users talk is now infested with shit chatbots trying to keep poor people angry with each other.
Facism is making the people that would normally be reasonable get really emotional and people love to lash out anonymously.
cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
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.
Tyrq@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Can confirm some asshole on. ml is chasing around my comments wasting both our time, isn’t that right mistermodal, you incel loser.
Canconda@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
pilferjinx@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
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.
shalafi@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
And they think the real world is reflective of what we talk about here. It’s truly bizarre. I’m terminally online, unemployed ATM, but I still get there’s an outside world.
Take all the Trump voter hate for example. Do they not truly understand how under and misinformed most American’s are? Watch Mamdami interview Trump voters in NYC. Not ONE was what we picture as MAGA.
Also, since Trump 1.0, people refuse to talk politics. We’re at a party last month and talking about my new, weird, .22 rifle. I started to bring up a thing in the Big Beautiful Bill that was on-topic and the only thing I find decent in it. “NO. We’re not talking politics.” “I’m NOT. I’m talking about one thing I think is cool and will help gun owners.” Jesus. Now we gotta dance on eggshells.
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
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.
Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world [bot] 2 weeks ago
Someone more self aware than me!? How dare you! /s
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
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!!!
Jomega@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Is lemmy.ml is the second largest instance? Or at least rapidly growing? That would explain why it feels this way.
Triumph@fedia.io 3 weeks ago
.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.
Canconda@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
I see a lot more assholes from .world and .shtjstwrks
.ML peeps are either chill or really cringe depending on how militant they are.
devdoggy@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
.ml stands for Marxist\Lenin afaik. And the mods\admins take it very seriously.
Jiggle_Physics@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Since they were the first they used to be the biggest, however they are declining.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
“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 shit?
Sure, if you ignore the assholes who pop into other communities to take a colossal shit on them.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Bro they just said “tends to be pretty wacko”
That’s like, really mild.
MotoAsh@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
The irony of your stupidity and judgement in that post is hilarious.
Quexotic@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
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.
mistermodal@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Rent free
MyBrainHurts@piefed.ca 3 weeks ago
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.
BassTurd@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
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.