hydropticYeah, about that…
Late 90s to 2000s was the decade of internet glory. Then social media and big tech took over. Now with personalized feeds and searches, along with controversies promoting engagement metrics, many people spend their time within echo chambers and those chambers keep getting more partisan. On top of that, rampant misinformation has made it all the more difficult to separate fact from fiction.
Then social media and big tech took over.
Things like BBSs, Usenet and IRC are all social media. So is Lemmy for that matter.
I don’t think social media itself is the problem, it’s the big tech / algorithmic content selection part that screws it up.
SotuandusoLemmy can have its fair share of echo chamber syndrome. For example, almost nobody here vocally likes Reddit, and if you post anything pro-Reddit, it’s likely to be met with a lot of negativity. I’m anti-Reddit too, for the record, but it’s good to acknowledge tribalism even when you agree with the tribe. But the nice part is Lemmy can’t have competing echo chambers nearly as easily as Reddit can because we’re so much smaller.