Were this the ‘good ole times’ they always talk about?

Oh there's plenty of propaganda here, pretty extreme as well...

There can't be propaganda if everyone agrees with me! I think we're in good shape!
Extreme? Like Tony the Tiger who is the mascot of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes cereal. They're grrreat!
It's not as clever yet, thought, as the demographic is rather small. I was amazed that reddits' world news the comments were almost uniformly not only anti Hamas but pro Israel. I mean not to pick a side here, and not saying theres not astroturfing here. However there's more diversity of position, whereas the reddit thread felt almost strangly like everyone was just saying stuff, but not carrying any meaning. Felt like the last scene of body snatchers where even the protagonist turns out to be snatched, in a way.
The amount of sophistication is lower. There are people holding extreme positions but quite often they self identify and aren't state sponsored most of the time.
- I agree and have noticed the same things. I don't think Lemmy is big enough to attract the state sponsors yet like Reddit is but it will probably be susceptible to the same issues when it is.
It usually gets buried in downvotes tho, maniacs are everywhere..
- Never doubt your ability to be influenced by propaganda. The technique that broke the internet in 2015, lying and then confirming the lie more convincingly with a second account, is still very successful today.
- Oh, well, it might seem like it for you, on lemmy.world. My instance didn't defederate a single other instance, and I can tell you there's plenty.
- use linux
- Uh no. Lemmy is very much a groupthink entity. If you don’t agree with the hive, you’re berated and downvoted into oblivion.
- I see you're on lemmy.world. Try out a Lemmy that hasn't blocked the tankie instances for a change, it's wild.

If you think there's no propaganda on lemmy then I have news for you.

And fake internet points.
And I'm sure top men are working on monetization.
- I've already seen plenty of posts and comments that look suspiciously product-placementy.
- I mean I'd be really surprised if we have monetization through anything other than wikipedia style donation drives
Is it good news?

I see propaganda all over the place on here.

Here, take a fake Internet point.
- Let me link you my patreon
that's amateupaganda
Posts like this are it, even. Hurrdurr we're so much better circlejerk is grossing me out.
- Yeah… but having some pride (warranted or not) is good motivation to help build and maintain things.
Propaganda is an organization disseminating information they want others to believe, whether it be true, false, or the typical tactic, a mix of both.
You pretty much can't avoid it on social media, the only question is whether the action is direct from the organizations or grassroots support.
- Or, it can come from useful idiots repeating the propaganda they read/heard/etc.
- We could avoid it if people would stop acting like fucking clowns and parroting every stupid thing they've ever read that happens to align with their views.
Honest question. What kind of propaganda are you seeing on Lemmy? Nothing comes to mind.
I mostly see… Linux stuff. And I am not a computer person. Is that propaganda?
- On hexbear for example there's a lot of tankies posting tankie propaganda

I've been around since 1959, and back then people were up in arms about the partisan divide in this country and the Vietnam conflict and the oppression of black and other races. Back then, domestic abuse was sort of commonplace, no man could be sent to jail for beating up his kids or his wife. Alcoholism was rampant back then, and drug abuse shot up dramatically. Since then, I've seen so much of the same play out over and over. Things have changed somewhat for the better in some ways, but to be honest - there never was a 'good old time' when everyone felt happy and equal and safe and protected.

In my experience people who talk about the good old days are white and male.
It was a time when they got their way 100% and everyone else could get fucked.
- More likely it was when they were kids and without adult responsibilities, or narrow/whitewashed views of the past(as from stories and shows from before their birth)
- That's about it. I'm white and male and I'm here to tell you, there never was a 'good old days' unless you mean a time when white men could get away with raping and killing a young kid like Emmett Till and could butcher their families and get away with it.
- White guy, 1985
I've been around since the 70s and I mostly agree ... but on one point I disagree ... the ability of humanity to wipe itself out with a nuclear exchange. Back then, even 20, 30 years ago there were a lot level headed leaders who (although we may have disagreed with them) were less radical and would be less likely to consider launching a nuclear weapon for any reason. Back then, we also had a lot of actual war veterans in the public and in government who understood the nature of war ... now there are fewer of them around. Most people including those in government now don't know what war is any more, other than to see it glorified in history books, movies and pop culture.
So the combination scares me ... a society that is complacent to war yet has the weapons to cause world wide destruction if someone disagrees with them.
- It didn't feel like they were stable and would take care of us though, the nuclear drills sure didn't help. Also, I know a lot of army vets that weren't drafted but went to school with the army bill. There are people out there that still know that war sucks. Also, the kids now have school shooting drills, they kind of live with the potential of war and some have seen it. There does seem to be an incredible breakdown with the money in politics, no shame and we're extremely close to having a dictator after they attempted a coup, I'll give you that.
- There is only one way that humanity will finally end - and yes, it will be by nuclear war. And it's not very far off at all. There is no other way that the fate of humanity can go. There is such a lack of human compassion and empathy and such a desire to cause hurt, it's just a matter of hours. So don't think it won't happen. There's no other possible outcome for us at this point, none whatsoever (unless an asteroid demolishes us first, that is).
I feel as though there was a "good old days" of the internet. Don't get me wrong, it was a complete shit show, but it was anonymous, anyone could say anything that they wanted, and there would be few if any consequences. There were ads, but they were generally garbage animated GIFs at worst.
It wasn't perfect, but we were free to do what we wanted on the internet, with little to no bearing on our daily lives.
Now, it's almost expected that your online activity will be tied to you specifically. In most cases, your legal name is attached to it for everyone to see. If you try to go around without your legal name on everything, then generally you are either severely limited, or outright removed from the platform. Sigh
- That's true enough. I started working around the time computers were even a thing - back in the 70s and there was no internet, just basic DOS green screens that were very basic. It wasn't until the mid-90s I even had a computer that had rudimentary internet access - and it was so new, there was only maybe a handful of websites you could find.
  There were no cookies or trackers to watch what you were doing online, but then again, there wasn't anything much to look at anyway - porn wasn't even there yet.
  So I feel we definitely have it both better and worse today. To me, the better outweights the negatives - I mean it's so much nicer today to just be able to search anything and get a million different answers. But that's also the downfall of everyone being interconnected - being buried in bullshit much of the time.
- and there would be few if any consequences.
  Meted out by human beings who had to read the thread in aggravatingly linear order - so they were more likely to say 'you were being kind of a butthead' instead of 'how dare you call anyone a butthead.'

Yeah, and it's people arguing about cars, Trump, rich people, work, Linux distros, not pooping, and communism.

We need memes, Spiderman memes
- Bring me funny pictures of Spider-Man!
Not pooping? I'm almost afraid to ask, but that's the only one I've not come across yet...
- There was an asklemmy post shortly after the exodus asking how to avoid a bowel movement for three days.
Swap Trump for Bush and this is what the early internet was like

Great post. I give you my fake internet point up arrow.

Without propaganda ?

Yep they said it lmao
- They probably mean advertising, it's a close word in other languages
That's the main thing I hate about Lemmyverse is that the zealots and puritans came over too.
They always think you mean someone else when you say "please stop constantly trying to shoehorn your politics into everything"
- My dude, everything is politics. Especially things like "I want a free internet" or "I don't want to be drowning in ads" which is a huge part of the appeal of Lemmy are both DEEPLY political stances.
posts Starlight Glimmer with hammer and sickle

I'll have you know that the fake internet points are still here and I will continue to use them to determine my worth in the eyes of my peers.

270 karma in 4 months. Cute.
- Oddly enough that's an average of 10 points per comment.
  Also I can't see total up votes in Sync, or I haven't figured out where that is, so I don't know if the total karma is correct, but I can see they've only made 27 comments in 4 months.
- Do me next
Only if you look for them. Not really in your face.

Make the internet nerd again

There is plenty of propaganda on lemmy. You just have to realize you will always be fed propaganda and understand there is propaganda on each side of every issue...

There is incomparably more propaganda here then anywhere else. On reddit politics are kept out of most subs that are not specifically discussing politics, here everyone uses every opportunity to push whatever agenda they happen to have
- The thing about this is fuck all Americans to death amirite?
The sheer amount of pro palestinian / pro hamas content around here...
- That is two very different things. One is a terrorist group, the other are just humans trying to live their lives in safety. Same with Israel. The people are humans trying to live their lives in safety, but Netenyahu is incredibly corrupt and reports show that he is secretly propping up Hamas.
- You don't need elephants to smash ants. The Israeli government has gone too far, full stop. I also hope the hostages are returned home safely and a peaceful solution can be found. Calling out atrocities and war crimes perpetrated against the Palestinian people is not pro-hamas propaganda, it's the first step in accountability.
- This place is heaving with nutters.
I havent seen a universal agreed definition of propaganda. It seems like anything advokating for something that that person doesnt agree with is propaganda.
- its art that is political, what form that takes is up to the content.

I liked the fake internet points, but it definitely leads to karma whoring. So I'll do without.

You could create a plug in that states your and everybody's total karma. Karma is one of the worst ideas on the internet. A tool to enforce conformity and obedience
- Boost shows you your total karma

I like the absence of cumulative fake internet points. I do think it lends a healthier perspective to the community

take my Extra-Fake Internet Point my friend
- Pls god no
Upvoted AND boosted.

Lemmy is just as much an information warfare platform as anything on Reddit. The Israel/Hamas coverage has confirmed that pretty conclusively.

Very true! Here, have a fake Internet point lol
Eh, talking about Isreal/Hamas/Palestine has been a sensitive topic for as long as I can remember. I wouldn't be surprised if an argument broke out between two Catholics in a church on Sunday if they were talking about it. It's an extremely devicive issue.

Usenet and IRC were the good ole times.

- Amazon: 1994
  eBay: 1995
  Match.com: 1995 (same parent company as tinder)
  Hotmail: 1996 (MS owned in 1997)
  Google: 1998
  PayPal: 1998 (eBay owned in 2002)
  If you look at the dot com bubble, there's a lot of corporate colonization in the 90s. Many of them didn't survive their stock crashing in 2000 (pets.com is a good example). Some things were not able to be launched until the internet infrastructure supported it properly (YouTube, for example), so yes some things do date to the 00s. But largely, by 1998, the internet was already on its current trajectory.
  The reason Google was so disruptive at the time was that they didn't charge websites to get listed -- it was a business model that relied on actually finding what people were searching for. The fact that this model was disruptive at the time tells you how corporate it was even by then.
You pretend like they are dead?
Downloading QWKs from local dial-up BBSs was the good ole times.

Speaking of monetization and propaganda, for your consideration, "Barbie", now available on Blu-Ray and streaming services everywhere!

Please give me an affiliate link! I need my dayly dose of trackers!
that was such a great movie, I liked the part when you said “it’s barbin’ time” and totally barbed all over those guys

It's pretty cool, even though it not even 1% of the size of the big social media monopolists

Perhaps because it’s not

This might be a hot take here, but I'd be open to instances running a limited number of ads with minimal tracking to generate enough revenue to keep the instance afloat.

It's why I did use the official Reddit app at first when I started using Reddit. They can't bleed money forever. But when they kept making the app worse and worse and worse that's when I switched to third party apps. And after they killed those, I didn't have any sympathy for Reddit because I was sick of their continued greed.

I don’t want any ads. But I’d pay money to a small Verein or something similar to keep a community instance running. Being a profitable customer to a social network works against the best interest to any mental health.
I'd rather pay than have ads. I think advertising is a plight upon humanity.
If Lemmy ever does have ads, I will tell everyone to avoid the platform like the plague. No ads. Ever. If your instance is too big to run on donations alone, it's too big to exist and its members need to branch out.
Future platforms need to be programmed with a max number of users.
I don't think ADS were ever the problem. The problem was the ratio. ORIGINALLY adblock plus, when it was a relevant adblocker had an option to allow less obtrusive ads to show. The rules they set for themselves there was pretty reasonable.
- I used that for a while specifically because of that feature. But I switched to uBlock origin when I found out it could block those autoplaying videos as well.
When I became financially independent I got Reddit premium even though I didn’t really use any of the features. Already had adblock and RES. I just wanted to support the site I spent hours on.
Cancelled that when they killed Apollo.
But I do agree that limited ads aren’t an issue… except for the slippery slope that’s happened. Just a few more ads… just a little more intrusive…
just make the cost to run the server transparent and setup a monthly goal to cover the costs, none of this capitalist shit; with adverts come advertisers botfarms and astro turfing to boot.
Honestly, I'd love it if platforms gave people the option to either pay a subscription and maintain the privacy, or see ads and give up their personal data. However, it looks like we're going in the, "pay a subscription to watch ads and have data stolen" route.

Who's Line is it Anyway had the right idea, the rules are made up and the points don't matter.

Now do it from Linux and you have an ultimate no-BS experience

Reminds me of the old WoW forums night shift.

It's so... Free.

Yah bub. This were the good ol' time.

oh you

When Lemmy replaces Reddit, I wonder what will replace Lemmy when Lemmy goes corporate.

Lemmy will replace lemmy. It's federated and open source by design, so if any corpo manages to take over existing instances, people can just create and move to new ones. Lemmy is the endgame. Lemmy is the final software, the last forum.
"when" is an optimistic choice of a word
How would it go corporate beyond specific instances? That's kind of the entire point.