Lemmy has a strong tendency to criticize the US, and a lot of the critiques of certain issue with the US are valid. However, I started getting really tired of opening comment sections in innocuous and non-political posts only to see that someone somehow found a way to criticize the US in it. At first, I started thinking that maybe some Lemmy users are really unhappy and find criticizing a something stronger helped them feel better as if standing up to injustice was a passion of theirs. But, we don’t see them do that with other targets, just the US. The more I notice and think about it, I’m starting be suspicious that some of those users and comments aren’t authentic, but made to create divisiveness in the West and reject the US entirely. In other words, they may be Russian, Chinese, et al. agents working to feed a stream of propaganda in order to further cause chaos and lack of unity in the West as we have seen them do before.
Anyone else think about this?
This is what I’m thinking the game plan is:
- Criticize something obviously unjust that the US has done. Ignore that all other major powers have also committed atrocities.
- Link and liken it to other US matters & behaviors
- Paint the US entirely as evil so that nothing the US can do is just
- Attack anyone that supports anything out of the US (we are between here and #3 above)
- Create a black-and-white model of geopolitics: US vs everyone else. EU and Russia on the same team lol
- West fragments as US and EU relationship dwindle from pseudo-populist movements (e.g. MAGA)
- Pick specific countries in the EU to start alienating and repeat the cycle
- ???
- Profit in special economic zones
Honestly, most of it seems like edgy kids who learned about communism from a YouTube video and are now convinced they have the secret to a better world that nobody else understands. So many of the comments display a substantial lack of understanding about the real world. Many other comments are completely disingenuous, blatantly ignoring or attacking anything that doesn’t support their singular argument. They’re the viewpoints of inexperienced teenagers, not adult discussions.
There are certainly propaganda posts and communities, but I think the majority of the work is done by actual people who are just echoing what they’ve read or heard. Filter out a few key communities and a lot of it will disappear.
But, to answer your question more directly, yes, I do feel what you’re saying and it gets annoying. Sometimes it gets overwhelming and I consider just deleting my account entirely. I’m so very tired of only seeing the extremes of either side of the pendulum online, rather than having a place for discussion with people of all viewpoints. I’m tired of the polarization.