Full disclosure, I live in Africa and don’t have a dog in this fight. I like proper discourse and it’s alright if I and another person disagree on something, what is important is that we communicate and understand where the other is coming from. The ultimate goal is the satiation of needless and avoidable suffering for all minds.
I’ve only been on Lemmy for a few days but across any sub I’ve noticed any criticism of China or the CCP is met with immediate downvotes and anything remotely positive of the US or really any western country whatsoever meets a similar fate.
Anything pro-African is mostly neutral but in essence ignored, no upvotes, no downvotes, no comments.
Has anyone else noticed this? Am I completely off base here? And is there anything else here that seemingly gets downvoted automatically. It would be sad to see the fediverse and Lemmy be nothing more than just another echo chamber on the web.
Finally, I am posting this assuming it will also be downvoted to hell based on the title alone and that itself will be some monochrome of truth of the situation here.
American here. As we all know, America is the only important country in the world so there is little need for African content…
Hi Joe, although with a somewhat heavy heart as I think there are some Americans who would say that seriously. I would also love more South African content. It’s a beautiful country with an interesting if checkered story and I would love to visit it someday.
That said, there are two things you should keep in mind. First off, whatever instance you’re on has a large effect on what you will see on Lemmy, so if you want more African content you might see if there is an instance running in Africa or at least subscribe to communities on that instance. You don’t have to join that instance in order to see them, but you do have to go looking for them.
Second, Lemmy has been largely adopted by a westernized population mostly of American and Western Europe origin, mainly because it provides a fediverse system with an experience similar to Reddit. Thus, much of Lemmy’s traffic is current or ex-redditors, which are mostly from the aforementioned demographics.
I’m noticing the structure now, although it doesn’t change who can view posts and comment. As for SA, I’m not sure, I’ve never been, right now would be a bad time to visit though from what I’ve heard. They are having a pretty serious xenophobia push right now, more so pointed at other Africans. Karibu east Africa rafiki yangu. I highly doubt there is an east African instance, people barely know reddit exists, much less something like here. Can confirm, I found this place through reddit as it’s popular amongst people in IT here. Finally thanks for the info.