It feels like this is very intense here compared to other social media services/protocols.

Why is that?

Lemmings have always been well-known for running in herds.

I'm not sure. What does everybody else think?

Because we are human

Could just be a consequence of a less ideologically diverse user base to start with.

I’m so upset about (privacy, reddit, corporatism, etc, etc) that I’m prepared to leave my large online social networks for a smaller space on principle is probably a bit of an outlier position to take.

Not that it’s wrong, but it’s probably something we all agree on. Something out there is so fucked up we refuse to be a part of it on principle, even if we don’t fully agree on what that is.

Mute lemmygrad, hexbear, .ml and maybe blahaj and see if you still feel the same afterwards.

Is it? I avoid politics and I've blocked the tankie instances. If anything, I worry there isn't enough communalism (there's a joke here somewhere) to sustain it.

Not exactly sure what you mean by herd mentality though.

Don’t understand the downvotes you get. I don’t think it’s Lemmy exclusive though. It’s just what the reddit like voting system promotes. Just hiding the score would make it a lot better i think.

What instances have you seen that on? Definitely should mention it/report it to those in charge of those instances and if they refuse to address it at least block those instances or if large enough of a problem discuss defederating the instance from your own.

That said, calling for people who commit illegal acts or crimes against humanity to be charged with crimes is different than calling for someone to have their nails ripped off and partially drown repeatedly.

It is as angry as any other platform

I'll tell you exactly why. As soon as I see what everyone else said.

That's what I herd as well.

Looking at your post history, I'm just seeing that the down votes look average to me.

If that's what you're talking about, I wouldn't take down votes personally.

Often what people are down voting is bad news, not necessarily fake news or something they disagree with.

If that's not what you're talking about, then never mind.

So.... everyone here is upvoting cat pics?

Oh, spend time on Reddit.

I was there almost 15 years and it is mind-meltingly toxic compared to lemmy.

Now I'm on the lemmy.zip instance and tend to lean towards more tech ended stuff, so maybe that's the difference..

This site is light-years nicer than Reddit's been since about 2018.

I think it's the lack of rage-bots here, that's the ticket..

I started a thread about lemvotes some time back.
Several people went to look up their own post histories, and one guy offered the most unique insight.
Apparently in this Lemmy client on his phone, he was clicking a button to make posts 'go away' after he read them.
Well after looking up his own vote history, this guy realized he's been downvoting everything he reads, all the time. That was not a 'go away' button.
After reading this guy's confused bullshit with the voting buttons, I came to realize that there are innumerable reasons for why people vote, and it may not at all be what you think.

Oh, nothing, but the complaint is "too much groupthink", and users on that instance tend to have a lot of solidarity and surface issues and topics that a fair chunk of the lemmy user base probably don't usually see in their other social feeds.

No, you fight like a cow.

Groupthink isn't always negative. Often yes; not always.

If it's downvotes you're concerned about, I think the fact is that bad scoring aren't hidden by default like reddit which is why unpopular downvoted takes are more visible. People feel strongly here about their opinions but I wouldn't worry too much about the amount of downvotes in general so long as it's not because you're an asshole or troll.

Social media bubbles are present everywhere, the way the Fediverse is set up I think leads to stronger but smaller echo chambers, which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing because you choose what kind of group you want to be with and which other "bubbles" you will interact with based on how aligned your values are with other bubbles. You get the choice of what things you want to debate and discuss and what you don't.

Principle*

Lovely observation of the greatest commonality here, though.

Where there's a herd, there's a say.

Look! A three-headed monkey!

Depends on your instance.

...this guy realized he's been downvoting everything he reads, all the time.

That's hilarious!

I think it's moderation. If you have a differing opinion from the mainstream (as in what the moderation team thinks), you'll get banned from the current community and any other community that mod is moderating. It's absolutely insane.

That quite obviously leads to a chilling effect where people aren't willing to discuss anything controversial freely, like their political stance, unless of course it's the one mods have.

I like piefed and Lemmy, but this is by far the worst place for any political discussion

So...I'm guessing you haven't installed Linux yet?

If so, try Linux. We're not a cult or anything.

O RYL? :]
What distro would you recommend?

What do you think should be done about unbelievers?
After all, those who have strayed from the one true path must be dealt with...

You get the oddball standout asshole from them on occasion.

That being said, I don't think they pop up at a rate that's abnormal compared to the other big servers. Though their assholes have a specific attitude that you can kinda tell they're from Blahaj without looking, though I can't put my finger on what exactly that is.

Then again, assholes from Lemmy.ml also have commonalities, and I assume the same from sh.itjust.works and Lemmy.world. Maybe it's them catering to sexual minorities that makes them stick out, but again it's really hard to explain what's different

I was there almost 15 years and it is mind-meltingly toxic compared to lemmy.

And yet it's fristratingly addictive at the same time.

Sometimes I have to go back to ask a question on r/skyrim mods and I always make the mistake of doing a bit of scrolling. Thankfully I always catch myself 20-30 minutes in, but that's still time out of my day that I don't consoder well spent.

Lemmy has no algorithm to feed that addiction, and I really appreciate it

Good call out, corrected.

That has not been my experience. There are a number of times I've had fundamental differences with the zeitgeist and I've been largely down voted before, but never banned. I don't think I've ever even had a comment removed, and some of them have been pretty borderline.

Maybe it's due to other issues besides your opinion? Idk. Hope you find communities that fit you.

Because it's an echo chamber. You have communities that are modded by a small group of people who can control narratives through censorship, the community is very hostile to any differing views from their own, and the existing communities are so devoid of internal criticism that they start to purity test each other, which leads to more extreme views and develops a herd mentality.

Basically filter out the tankies, and this place becomes pleasant. I can't say you're wrong.

It should be noted that a very huge chunk of the userbase here are chronically online far left types who were banned from Reddit for being too extreme and toxic. Those same people came over here and brought the same problems that got them banned on other platforms here. Lemmy's is basically a cesspool of the Internets worst leftists.

That being said, I would say something like 40% of Lemmy's userbase is here for tech, privacy, and memes. If you filter out most of the politics, this site still has a big enough userbase to have an active and enjoyable experience.

Though their assholes have a specific attitude that you can kinda tell they're from Blahaj without looking, though I can't put my finger on what exactly that is.

Tbh it's probably the aura of condescending bitchiness, paired with a slightly fruitier and more youthful vocab than most of the threadiverse (except maybe hexbear? Idk, they're defederated from us)

I can only surmise these guys are vagueposting about me.

If it helps, you're definitely not one of the Blahaj users I'm referring to (not sure about the person I replied to though). The ones I refferred to ended up blocked

Oh wow! If they're really more insufferable than I am I guess I've probably blocked them too, then 😅

Well, it's really more than that.
Due to the nature of Lemmy, where all the data is public in lemvotes, I've come to consider a downvote a personal fuk-u, signed from me.
And sometimes I absolutely do want to deliver that direct message to another user, and so I do use downvotes. I do so fully aware that the person I'm judging may judge me in return.

it's also an outlier position fueled by belief, and people tend to self-select to be around others who believe as they do, and punish those who don't.

it's one thing to be concern about privacy, it's another to browbeat anyone who doesn't have a pihole server and selfhosts all their media content as being 'fools'. i don't use linux other than at my job, and according to lemmy techies I'm a heretic.

Ubuntu

true, but let's be honest most downvotes are just people disliking what you wrote.

on reddit i got banned.

on lemmy communities I just got told I'm a troll. or to cite my sources. and if I cite them, then I'm a troll. or told how i'm a stupid bad awful evil person who has zero 'empathy' if I say, think housing policy is a complex problem.

It couldn't possible be there are legit points of view and opinions that are different than the predominant one...

Just want to say I am dealing with this too. I had one guy yesterday reply to 10 separate posts of mine because of one thing I said in one thread they didn't like. I blocked them, but it is insane behavior.

These replies were no legit either, they were just slinging insults and character assassination and telling me how stupid and evil I was for saying something they disagreed with.

It's recent for me, this kind of nonsense has only been happening recently. a year ago it never did.

My experience of reddit wasn't toxic until '22 or so. The first ten years I used it was mostly chill and fun, with the occasionally dramatic event that I had no personal stake in. I mostly was in my local city subreddit and hobby subreddits and a few reading ones.

But around '22 or so, for me at least, i started getting reported and banned regularly for sexism, racism, and violence. i think because I am not 'woke' and the overton window shifted to the point where my views were considered evil or something.

But since I'm an economic progressive and not a social engineering erase gender progressive, I'm a bad person now or something. I also committed the sin of having an outdoor cat and pointing out racial/sexist attacks on my local mayor.

And FWIW this type of crazy has bled over into the real world for me. Extremist rhetoric invaded several activity groups I enjoy IRL. Like, I don't want to go to a book club and get lectured how I am evil for not buying/ the 'right' books, esp when I take most of my books from the library and most of the stuff I read is 100+ years old.

i downvote posts that whine about downvoting.

and in '26 pretty much everything anyone disagrees with is 'misinformation'. people no longer agree on basic facts of reality anymore.