418

Is it just me, or does it feel like Lemmy is being hit with a wave of political spam? (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 months ago by voluble@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

203 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] mannycalavera@feddit.uk 45 points 3 months ago

It's all about the longest running election campaign in the world. The US elections. I don't understand why it needs to be this long 😂. France, the UK, India (over a billion people!) can announce and complete elections quicker than the US.

I would love some more intelligent and nuanced spam filtering but, honestly, I don't think we'll get anything soon enough.

It'll get better in November, but then we'll get a wave of spam about stolen elections. And then better again in January when they finally finish the election game.

[-] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 25 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I don't understand why it needs to be this long

Money and ratings. Since money is free speech and the media is a receptical for infinite speech, they can engineer a multi year campaign to keep that money flowing in constantly. And making it contentious means more eyeballs on the story and even more money for the media orgs.

[-] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

It never really ends in the US. News people actually watch is so hyper polarized that the past four years felt like an election year, and they just repost it all to social media. Honestly I get wrapped up in it too... and I hate it.

It's like nothing gets any clicks unless its slurring a party or candidate, virtue signaling or parroting some party line, or something like that.

[-] LesserAbe@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

Do other countries have laws forbidding campaigning before a certain time?

[-] cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago

Denmark has yes. I believe its limited to a pretty short period of a month.

In a way people decide on what to vote, depending on what the parties have been active with in between elections. The campaigning mostly is about promoting that and pointing at what others have failed with

[-] qevlarr@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Never heard of that. In my country it's normal not to finish your term in office, so once an election is called, they don't want to plan them too far out. That takes care of it and you're not too long in between governments

this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2024

418 points (90.8% liked)

Ask Lemmy

27036 readers

683 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.