cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1795192
Take this screenshot for example. This is the front page of Lemmy right now. Virtually every post will make the reader feel bad and depressed. It’s all doombait, ragebait - and if it’s a meme, it is usually a meme that leaves an annoyed taste in your mouth at someone or something.
This is what drove me and many others away from Reddit, and a decentralized platform does not have to have this problem in theory - but it Is currently experiencing it now. Reddit has no reason to change their depressing content because it drives much engagement and creates revenue. But, for a decentralized platform to just be filled with ragebait and doombait is not good and exposes inherent problems with the platform right now.
What’s more is that most of these posts are posted by accounts created in the past month, leading me to believe that people from Reddit who are used to getting karma dopamine from getting people riled up are just doing the same thing here.
I don’t really know how Lemmy can fix this problem - it is something that we really need to be aware of as a community. Don’t just upvote something because it makes you annoyed and you want more people to see it - perhaps we need to downvote ragebait and doombait when we see it so that the platform doesn’t become a depressing echo chamber.
One of the wonders of the fediverse is that it doesn’t have all the awful algorithms of Reddit or other social media platforms that are designed to relentlessly attempt to draw you in with increasingly hostile content. That’s not to say there isn’t a lot of negative content out there. There is. But, with Lemmy, or the fediverse more broadly, you have the ability to curate your own feed and an algorithm that will override that doesn’t exist.
I suggest using the “Block” button liberally. I’ve found that works pretty well for me.