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Recommend that new users join geographically local instances (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/fediverse@lemmy.world
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There is perennial discussion about what fediverse servers (Lemmy or otherwise) to recommend to new users. I have a proposal, perhaps not very original but I haven't seen it made often.

Let's just recommend that newbies pick an instance that is located close to them geographically. That's to say: their country, their region, or (ideally) their town.

Some context. Personally, I am not totally sold on social media, federated or otherwise. The evidence is now pretty clear that it causes major social harms. One way it does this is by fuelling polarization around hot-button national and international debates, at the expense of local issues. Reviving democracy is going to mean boosting communities at a local level. This could be a small way to do that.

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[–] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

My proposal concerns servers, not communities.

What's the difference? Servers are communities.

encourage them to join local communities where they might discuss local issues

There's that false dichotomy again. I think what instance someone is on has very little effect on what content they engage with. And if it does, this change would be detrimental rather than beneficial.

Corporate social media is only biased towards local if you count the whole USA as "local". Again, seems to be a misunderstanding. In the US case "local" would mean state or town.

We must be using different corporate social media. Of course facebook, twitter and tiktok show different content depending on every factor there is. The thing is, they wont confront you with people from your town that have a different opinion. They are tuned towards NOT changing whatever opinion you already have, unless you're pre-disposed to going down dopamine-laced rabbit holes.

Meanwhile, the fediverse does confront people with differing opinions. That it doesn't necessarily do so locally, is a feature, not a bug.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    You're an argumentative fellow! I'm still not sure exactly what it is you're disagreeing with. My proposal is pretty boring and inoffensive. Everything's in the post. But if you disagree, that's fine.

    Servers are communities.

    No they're not. Communities have "c/" in front of their name. I'm sure you know that already.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    You're confusing my use of the word community in its literal meaning, with its meaning as a term in the context of lemmy as a piece of software.

    I do not think that sorting people online by where they are from would help.

    In fact I think sorting people online by where they are from could even be harmful, and potentially dangerous.

    That the change you would make is small, does not change my opinion that it would be for the worse, nor that your reasoning for wanting to make it, as I understand it, seems faulty.

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