I notice a large number of ragebait-y political communities being spun up by new users with thousands of posts & ai profile header photos. I notice comment sections are more acrimonious, and foreign disinfo talking points are circulating a lot more prolifically than before the US election started ramping up.
Anyone else notice this? Any idea on how to combat it on this platform? Are there any communities built around creating block lists of obvious troll/ai/disinfo accounts & communities?
Keep in mind that American elections are coming up and Americans think the internet is only about them. So we’re not only being dragged into this by disinformation campaigns.
Do we though?
Yes.
Ok I’m convinced
Good.
Now go and tell your fellow countrymen.
lol I will say the dumber ones do think everything is America. I don’t think this applies to the nerds here on lemmy for the most part though
Smarter Americans do it too. It’s mostly small things, like saying they are from “Georgia” which is a country, while “Georgia, USA” is the state. Using the “Politics” communities (and subreddits) for USA Politics, while all the other countries just post it in their country community (/subreddit). Talking about “southern people” as if that internationally means southern USA people. “Why is my hospital bill so big???” without mentioning they are from the USA (we can figure that one out easily). I can literally keep going on and on.
It definitely applies to most Americans here too. Almost anything that’s exclusively US is posted like nothing else exists. Both thread and comments are written like they aren’t aware the rest of the world exists. It’s VERY prevalent here just like anywhere else online, and it’s infuriating for everyone outside the US.
'MERICAAAAA, nation as big as the Earth
That should be our new national anthem!
You might not. Many Americans might not. But the internet is annoyingly US-centric and can be frustrating to use as a non-American. A random example: Numerous times I’ve gone to sign up/purchase something and put “Canada” as the country and the “State” and “Zip code” boxes never changed. I have been denied purchases and registration several times because the website was coded to only accept US zip codes even if I change the country.
So many sites just assume everyone is American, speaking American English, and interested in American things.
Yeah unfortunately it’s not primarily astroturfing… these people do it for free
Yeah, it’s been proven America has no impact on the rest of the world at all.
Besides a strong military ally it has indeed not had much positive impact.
Not a jazz fan? Not a rock’n’roll fan? Not a hip-hop fan?
How about transistors? Or the Green Revolution? Or the polio vaccine?
Or the internet we’re using, ironically enough
Lol negative impact inexplicably doesn’t count. Our president totally having just no power to reduce or increase negative impacts. yep very intelligent viewpoint here
I have no idea what you’re trying to say.
Keep in mind that the US’s population is comparable to all of Europe and we are bickering over one shared election while also being a bunch of loud jackasses. We don’t even think about the rest of the internet while drowning it out.
Comparable not really. The EU has a population of 450 million compared to 350 million of the US. Europe itself has more than double at 750 million. Also, there are many more countries outside of Europe that have a lot of people that speak English online.
The world. Americans think the world is about them. Why do you think aliens always come to America? Why the “world series” of baseball or something features only American clubs? Why they have such an extensive military budget.
I guess when I watch French movies that are set in France I should hate French people for being obsessed with themselves /s
Also all the best baseball players in the world play in the MLB.
Hey now, Canada completes in the World Series, too!