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

[-] Sotuanduso@lemm.ee 14 points 3 months ago

I haven't really noticed much, but that's because I've taken to blocking political communities once they start bothering me by putting too many article links in the front page or being generally rageful.

[-] laverabe@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

I mean it's in /asklemmy too. I suggested voting for Kamala a few days ago is better than Trump if we want to move closer to universal healthcare and apparently I'm a murderer of 70000 people because of a pragmatic view of voting for her is better than Trump.

It was so quiet and nice a few weeks ago when everyone agreed for a short period Kamala was decent. Now the disinformation campaign has restarted, supporting her is supporting the "neo-liberal/pro-corporate agenda". So bloody tired of conservative/Russian bots.

[-] Sotuanduso@lemm.ee 6 points 3 months ago

Oh, you support a mainstream candidate, huh? What else, do you like eating babies? Why don't you just admit you're evil incarnate and vote for my favored candidate instead?

[-] tal@lemmy.today 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I don't follow !politics@lemmy.world, but stuff like !news@lemmy.world and similar have been pretty political.

But on the other hand, it's not due to a downvoting campaign against non-political stuff or anything. It's just because users there aren't actually submitting much non-political news. I mean, I'm not really enthusiastic about ragebait and such, but on the other hand, I can't exactly yell at someone for submitting something other than what I want to look at. The problem is just that there aren't enough people out there submitting stuff that I do want to see at the moment.

I mean, the real issue is that users need to do a certain amount of submitting and/or commenting to generate interesting stuff for others to read. The ratio drops as the size of a community increases; if communities are small, there has to be a higher ratio of content creation for the community to be viable.

It doesn't take a very high ratio if you have thousands of people in a community, but it's still larger on the Threadiverse, in 2024, than it is on, say, Reddit.

[-] Sotuanduso@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago

I can see where you're coming from. I already blocked the news because I come here for memes and don't like following the news anyways, but yeah, if you're looking for non-political news, I guess that can be rough.

[-] fsxylo@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago

Blocking half this site has made it significantly more pleasant.

[-] Valmond@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago

I'd love to but where are you getting regular news (and please without 'Elon musk might maybe sell stocks in tesla' "news" and likewise) ?

[-] Sotuanduso@lemm.ee 1 points 3 months ago

That's the neat part, I don't. If there's anything really important, it will leak into memes, or I'll hear it from family members, but I don't think I've ever heard a piece of news and thought "Oh, it's a good thing I know that now."

this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2024

418 points (90.8% liked)

Ask Lemmy

27062 readers

277 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.