• Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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    13 hours ago

    Like you I’m confused at the continual cries of racism on Mastadon. I’ve been on there for months and never seen it. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist but I’m confused as to how it is “full of racists/white supremacists” but I never bump into them or see it.

    I don’t want to doubt anyone’s experience but I’m at a loss to explain why my feed is so different from other peoples.

    • JCPhoenix@beehaw.org
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      12 hours ago

      Same. And I am a racial minority (though not black, so that may color things…excuse the unintentional pun). That said, on Mastodon, I mainly interact with the people on my instance. And it’s small. There’s probably only a core group of like 50 active individuals, and I’m one of them. So there I’m not surprised I don’t see racism.

      Interestingly, I have the same experience on even the proprietary social media sites. I was on Twitter from 2009 to 2023. I can’t say I was ever served up far-right content by the algorithms. I’m still on YouTube; same experience. Same on Instagram. Same on Bluesky.

      I’m not trying to discount other people’s experiences, and I’ve seen the horrible tweets referenced in news articles and reddit comments and such. So I know it exists, but why am I not being served this content, while so many others apparently are? I mean, I’m OK with not getting far right wing content, lol. Leave me out of it! Makes my online life easier and more enjoyable. But it’s just odd.

      • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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        10 hours ago

        YouTube…that reminds of a conversation I had here on Lemmy a while back. The subject of right wing political content on YouTube came up and I had the same “I don’t encounter that” comment that I just made in regards to Mastadon.

        After a bit of back and forth I realized that I don’t engage with political content of any type on YT so the algorithm doesn’t push it at me. It seems that YT doesn’t do a good job of classifying political content as to its lean. So once you start engaging with political content the algorithm starts suggesting all kinds of it.

        It’s the same with social justice and racial issues. I don’t engage with that kind of content on YT or Mastadon, don’t see it my feeds, and it’s not being pushed at me by the algorithm.

        I don’t know if that explains it completely but there has to be some reason(s) why some of us don’t see this stuff while other people see it all the time.

    • Kichae@lemmy.ca
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      10 hours ago

      Like you I’m confused at the continual cries of racism on Mastadon.

      I, uh, said I’m not confused by the cries of racism. I’m confused by the constant claims of “I don’t see any, therefore it must not exist”.

      It’s like no one gives a shit, because it doesn’t affect them personally. Which, you know, makes everyone the kind of people that those experiencing harassment don’t want to be around anyway.