I went back to Reddit this morning. Yeah I know, but I just wanted to check the place out after all the blackouts. As I was scrolling through my typical stuff I was down voting dumb things as is pure habit and it struck me.. after being here only 2 days and not having any down vote button, what was just a pure habit suddenly felt a little dirty.
Those people I just down voted didn't do anything wrong I just didn't agree with them. But by down voting them I'm basically doing one little part in actually silencing them. It felt bad. In fact all of Reddit felt bad.. like, it was just such a habit and I was ready to go back, but once I did it wasn't as good as I remembered it.
All it took was 2 days away using a different platform that gives me essentially the same stuff I want to read and this no down vote thing somehow has resonated with me more than I would have thought. I actually went back and removed the down votes. Those people have the right to feel how they do whether I agree or not. I don't need to silence and invalidate people over things that are so incredibly minor.
I've decided I will use Reddit only via Google search if it has the content I'm looking for, just like any other webpage, but I think Lemmy, and Beehaw specifically, are my new home. It no longer feels like "the alternative." It feels like a place I actually chose to be. I wrote in my application that I wanted less toxicity in my life and I think that's already happening. I'm really grateful to have discovered this place.
For the longest time, I avoided Reddit because of just how toxic it was becoming. This is really true of a lot of social networks. That's why I joined this instance (lemmy.blahaj.zone) because it doesn't have a downvote button, allows NSFW content for when I want it, and seems to have a friendly userbase. I was initially on Lemmygrad, but it really felt like an echo chamber and quite frankly I need a detox from "tankie" spaces.
I'm starting to realize the value in curating my spaces and paying attention to what I expose myself too. The last several years have been unbearable. Social media has put gasoline on a civilization that is on fire. It's been terrible for all of our well-being and mental health. And behind all of this are algorithms keeping us addicted and logged-on. What was once fun became an inescapable curse.
The thing is none of us are to blame for all this. Everyone was manipulated into it. But now we know we can at least try to do something about it. Independent and federated networks are part of that solution. Taking the social influence out of the hands of corporations who control what we see and manipulate our emotions so they can harvest and sell our data is key.
In the collapse of major social networks there is a silver lining—we have the ability to change the tide. This is a major opportunity for us and we should us it to make the Internet a better space. We all both need and deserve that.
Between the pandemic and the 2020 election cycle was when I became acutely aware of the information I was ingesting. I found myself becoming more and more upset by the posts I was reading while doomscrolling. Eventually I communicated with my partner about turning all that shit off via filters and tuning out and we immediately became 100% happier for it.
I noticed that too. Only instead of upset, I was becoming angry and supercharged into actually doing things about it. I think this was actually a positive for me, because I enjoy having a passion about some of these political topics I would have simply glossed over before.