In the past week I’ve been absolutely roasted for criticising two different countries. Normally I’d be okay with that, I can handle a mild toasting and after all debate is a good thing.

On both occasions though I was flamed for mentioning human rights issues that are established facts and have been known for many, many years. I was critical of the actions/laws of their governments and not the people, their race, religion, general political ideology or nationality.

On both occasions I was bombarded by long posts that parroted propaganda, and in the case of one country I was told (on multiple occasions) that I was ignorant, racist and even fascist for mentioning the issues I did. I’m not complaining about how I was treated, but as a reminder, I was discussing internationally-recognised human rights concerns that can be verified and based in fact.

I could just be paranoid but I’m fairly convinced the responses weren’t from patriotic citizens. I think they were paid trolls or bots, and I think their purpose was to quiet negative talking points about the countries that were mentioned.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

  • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
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    23 hours ago

    Lemmy is a software; there are multiple instances (servers) that run lemmy and federate (talk) to each other. So it does not sanitise your feed the way corporate social media does. The advantage is that you do not end up in an echo chamber. The downside is that you get the weirdest and most incoherent conspiracy theories known to man. But you’re (hopefully) an adult, and can use your reason to decide what’s what.

    • baatliwala@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      Your instance literally determines your echo chamber lol. And if you run your own then you determine whom you want to federate with. Unless you regularly flip between instances you’re very certainly in one.