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.
It’s nice to see content that isn’t just about poor or war torn areas. There are nice cities and people do indeed have water, electricity, wi-fi, and so on. First and foremost a lot of people are not political except during elections and most people are more concerned with local or regional politics than what’s happening globally.
Most around here are pro China if asked but they don’t understand the deals that are being done are predatory. The US doesn’t have much presence in east Africa although their recent push to treat Americans who had contact with Ebola in Kenya definitely caused issues. Typically they would be flown home or if not possible treated where they are.
I would say people generally have a negative view of the US and the west but they liked Trump a lot up until the issue with Iran and fuel prices. It’s mostly because of his stance on LGBTQ which is often seen as a western disease and is very unwelcomed in most of Africa (I personally don’t mind what consenting adults do). Also that many believed him to be honest, direct, and a Christian.
The end to USAID was difficult but simultaneously it’s understood it was free money and around here there’s no such thing as free money. Unfortunately most of it (like most things) didn’t reach people in need and found its way to peoples pockets or had harmful outcomes like disrupting local agriculture. Some of it did help and now people are suffering without it.
As for information I’m not a good example of most people given my IT background. Although Twitter and Instagram are popular here and even Reddit in some places. I would say most older people or people without smart phones only have the radio, tv, and of course their local community through which to get news.