this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
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Asklemmy
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Yeah that's true. I get that US politics can be entertaining and lead to funny tweets, but the content inevitably makes you feel worse than before. It's all so gloomy and brings out the worst in people. Doesn't help that seemingly everyone is somewhat of a lunatic.
I also don't get the fight posts. Sure you can block them for yourself, but just having them constantly on r/all for the entire platform to see can't be good for the general climate.
Uplifting News is also often more fit for the Boring Dystopia subreddit, which I quit after a few weeks because the constant stream of negativity was slowly affecting my views and just worsened the experience for me.
All these types of content exist because they showcase a part of life, but the intensity and frequency are significantly elevated above the everyday norm. I wouldn't want that content to be restricted, but I also think platforms need to make sure they create mostly positive places of community. I feel much more inclined to contribute if the overall feeling of the communities is inviting and open-minded, not overly cynical or divided.
Emotional and negative content simply gets tons of views and engagement and it's therefore often in the best interest of platforms to push it to the top for everyone to interact with.
My silent hope is that that might be different for lemmy and that we can keep a more positive attitude among each other because of it.
There is currently no incentive to drive engagement other than people enjoying community participation in lemmy. Reddit wants eyeballs, and the bots want karma, so they post what's gonna keep people, scared, angry and insecure.