Why is Lemmy so US-centric? The largest instances are in Europe, aren't they? So why does it have to be US news trolling as if it were Reddit?
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Most of us came from Reddit, and Reddit is predominantly Americans.
wrote last edited by [email protected]No, the majority of users on reddit are non-Americans. Americans are just the biggest national group of users, but they are a minority. You are more likely to be talking to a non-American than an American on reddit.
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Yes, that is the implication I was making to answer the original question. The majority of content here is in English-->the majority of English-first users are from the US-->this is why Lemmy seems so US-centric.
I was being a little obtuse because it's like a French-filtered user asking why social media seems so France-centric even though there's lots of social media in Africa--there are other languages that people use that you're not necessarily seeing on your feed.
That is not the reality though. The majority of English-first users is a quite irrelevant statistic, since a majority of people from non-English speaking countries still uses English on the internet outside of their specific national environments. The majority of English speakers on the internet are non-Americans, so it explains nothing about why the English language (international) areas of lemmy are US-centric.
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The United States is a giant nation in the English language. It comprises of a majority of English as a first language speakers and a large percentage of English speakers overall. American media output is also going to be primarily in English, including local news.
In contrast, a nation like Germany is likely going to speak in German when possible. This likely includes media like news. So, when it comes to news articles, I don't expect English news from Germany to be written in anywhere near the quantity of English news written about California.
I feel like it would be like asking why Portuguese media focuses on Brazil.
The majority of English speakers on the internet are non-Americans. In fact the majority of English speakers on the internet are not even from an English speaking country. That is because English is used as the international language on the internet.
So no, that is not the answer, even though a lot of native English speakers in this thread seems to think it is.
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English speakers will talk about the UK/Canada/Austrailia/etc. once one of them are on fire/falling into fascism as well.
No, English speakers will talk about anything because speaking English on the internet says nothing about where you are from. It is the international language of the internet, not tied to any specific country.
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It's possible that most English-speakers on this planet are in the US.
No, most English speakers on the planet are not from the US. In fact most English speakers on the planet are secondary speakers, and not even from an English speaking country.
English is used on the internet as an international language which enables people from all over the world to understand each other.
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That's why we moved our french communities there, on jlai.lu. so if you have a jlai.lu account, you can set your timeline to local and then every news will be french.
There is another solution : PieFed. With PieFed account, you can subcribe to the flux i created :
- https://piefed.social/f/cafe_fr (a cosy place where news are removed)
- https://piefed.social/f/actu_fr (there is also canada, swiss and belgium. For the worst news, such us US, gaza...are in Actualités difficiles)
- https://piefed.social/f/peertube_fr (a curratod list of french peertube content)
- https://piefed.social/f/societe_fr (for feminism, 0 waste, less cars, deaf...)
Oh i forgot, on piefed, we have a keyword filter. You can add trump, musk, eipstein and then ask piefed to hide or blur those posts.
I hope it helped ya somehow
I appreciate all the info, unfortunately there's several things that confuse me.
What's piefed, is this an instance or an app?
What do I do if I want Australia, France and a few other countries, do I need accounts in multiple instances? How do I find them? Can I have all of their posts collated simultaneously in my racoon app?
What's a flux?
Is there a book "Lemmy for Dummies"? Or perhaps a ted talk course to teach me basics?
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Because people engage with it regardless of wether they live there or not.
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The majority of English speakers on the internet are non-Americans. In fact the majority of English speakers on the internet are not even from an English speaking country. That is because English is used as the international language on the internet.
So no, that is not the answer, even though a lot of native English speakers in this thread seems to think it is.
I've mentioned in other cases that a lot of cultural post content is generally created mostly by people's first languages. Local news is likely going to be written in the local language. Discussions on media are likely going to be in the language the media was produced in unless it is a major national hit.
I've mentioned that five more countries have English-speaking populations larger than the UK, but you're likely going to see a lot more post content on the UK over Indonesia because local Indonesian media likely isn't producing the quantity of English coverage as the UK. And I don't expect that to change, as such a change would mean killing local languages.
You're focusing on the nationality of the readers. Most of the people arguing that the USA is the largest English-speaking country is focusing on those providing the written content.
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I appreciate all the info, unfortunately there's several things that confuse me.
What's piefed, is this an instance or an app?
What do I do if I want Australia, France and a few other countries, do I need accounts in multiple instances? How do I find them? Can I have all of their posts collated simultaneously in my racoon app?
What's a flux?
Is there a book "Lemmy for Dummies"? Or perhaps a ted talk course to teach me basics?
PieFed is a software that support flair, tags, multicommu...your instance has opened a PieFed instance there : https://piefed.world
The account on jlai.lu allow ya to use local shorting so you can switch to french content or english easily as we do.
A flux, is a piefed feature, this is a multicommunity. They can be public (shared to everyone) or private. So you can create flux based on countries, language, whatever come to your mind...on subcribe to an available flux, import existing one to your piefed instance...
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Because in a 24 hour news cycle the most interesting story gets the most airtime? Also we likely outnumber you on any engagement. I can't tell you the last time I saw a story from Canada or Germany or the uk that beats felonious demented white nationalist pedophile attempts to ruin entire world in narcissistic crashout. Even if a euro story is important, There are likely less lemmy users who even have a chance of seeing the story much less understand the context enough to engage. Even chinese people are engaging with America's shit show on xiaohongshu. It's a matter of worldwide impact on every platform. Everyone here to watch Nero fiddle
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I mean honestly this is the most deranged and worst it's been in my ... at least adult lifetime. I think a lot of the political mess we're in is tied into our appetite for some pretty terrible pop culture. Yes, yes, we have moral and intelligent and sane people here too, but the way that we have leaned in so hard to trashy reality television, infuencers, anything to grab your attention and reward it monetarily...hell we have a reality tv president. It's not the only reason I think we're in the mess, but I think we've been primed to accept more and more outrageous behavior cause we've always been over the top and big and loud. I always assumed I'd live in a democracy, it was just a given. This is the first time I'm doubting it.
Yeah fam we live in a fascist oligarchy masquerading as a democracy. Been that way probably our whole lives, it's just the latest puppet gave the game away pretty hard. Hope you'll keep following the white rabbit for your own self edification but stay hydrated and fed and look after your safety, things can get a lot worse before enough people come together to make it better.
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Because US news are the funniest and the most absurd.
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if there were countries in Europe that were as politically idiotic as the US has been for literal decades I'm sure you'd read about that place more than the US.
I live in Canada and as far as political news goes here...it's dreadfully boring and I imagine it's the same for most of Europe. It's always been like that. even regular news here it's boring. nothing dramatic happens because unlike the US most of the world has their shit together when compared to the US.
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if there were countries in Europe that were as politically idiotic as the US has been for literal decades I'm sure you'd read about that place more than the US.
I live in Canada and as far as political news goes here...it's dreadfully boring and I imagine it's the same for most of Europe. It's always been like that. even regular news here it's boring. nothing dramatic happens because unlike the US most of the world has their shit together when compared to the US.
I miss the days of boring US politics
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Because the average US citizen doesn't speak a 2nd language while most of Europeans know English, so the focus shifts towards that
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We have Florida Man and Europe doesnt
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Because US news are the funniest and the most absurd.
USA! USA! USA! We’re number ONE!
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That is not the reality though. The majority of English-first users is a quite irrelevant statistic, since a majority of people from non-English speaking countries still uses English on the internet outside of their specific national environments. The majority of English speakers on the internet are non-Americans, so it explains nothing about why the English language (international) areas of lemmy are US-centric.
Perhaps, neither of us seem to have statistics here so it's a little moot. But I was talking more about my impression of Lemmy, the scope of OP's question, rather than the internet at large. I'd be curious to hear your alternative explanation tho!
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I thought I understood US politics...even if it was by osmosis given the sheer volume we're exposed to...but lately I felt like I only understood the dem half...after the election I'm not sure and by now I have this "there is no hope of understanding this mess, different culture, different values" that I get from trying to understand Indian politics.
As an American I think the same way.
We’ve always really had two parties but historically they were not radically different. While I have certain tendencies, I’ve always understood the other party/perspective and sometimes voted for those candidates.
But now I have no clue what half the country is thinking. I don’t understand what happened to let the current crop of criminals attain leadership or get away with so much. Sometime I think it’s the “leopard eating faces” scenario, but sometimes I think it’s the toddler having a tantrum and knocking over the table scenario. Sometimes I think it’s just narcissists who can only think in the current time with no connection to the future. Sometimes I think people have no abstract thinking anymore and sometimes I think they’re all just gullible and easily manipulable. I can’t even have empathy for them because I can’t tell whether they deserve pity or need a scolding or need to stick to their sandbox.
Or if you’re talking about the mechanics of politics, that too. We have ways we’ve done things traditionally, according to laws back to (and even before) the constitution found our country. Apparently that doesn’t matter anymore
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A lot of English speaking people live in the USA. ~340M people.
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I see tons of news about the major world powers, and there just happens to be a lot going on in the USA rn.
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