The fact that people are constantly talking and making everything about politics is the “problem” I’m talking about here and that is what I’m almost entirely blaming social media for. It’s not the world events I’m blaming social media for but the reaction people have to them.

The current events are nothing new - social media is.

What excuses have I been making?

Social media is what happened. Consuming negativity all day every day makes people angry and depressed - who would’ve thought.

I’m one of the few users here whose not taken in by the Elon hate-train and I often find myself here fighting against a windmill defending him against baseless accusations but in this case there’s nothing to defend - that was a nazi salute.

Now, as to what he was thinking when he did that I have no idea. Maybe he still feels like that edgy 15 year old that he no longer is. In fact - kind of seems like he immediately regreted it and came up with the “my heart belongs to you” excuse. Either way, that was incredibly stupid and he should face serious reputational damage for it from his own side but probably doesn’t.

This is happening to me constantly as well. I have no idea how someone thought that was a good idea.

Age of consent in Germany is 14 but for someone over 21 years old it’s 16.

I elaborated on my reply. I just don’t get it.

There’s a trend where you print an unorthodox fictional character that you want to bone on a cake and then make your case for why they’re attractive.

This doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m imagining someone holding a cake with piece of paper laying on top of it which has a disney character printed on it and the person is explaining why they want to have sex with said character. Even if that is exactly what it’s describing it still doesn’t make any sense to me. That entire scenario is completely incoherent to me. What does the cake have to do with anything and why does there need to be a picture printed? Who are they making the case for and why?

Hey! This is one of those texts that no matter how many times I read it I still have absolutely zero clue what it’s saying.

I don’t see how this has anything to do with federated platforms. I’d argue that watching Loops is just as bad for one’s mental health than TikTok is.

I wouldn’t say that I don’t see the appeal of it. I would probably get sucked right in if I gave it a shot. It’s a consciouss decision on my part to simply not do that. I don’t not-consume short-form media because I’m better than the people who do, I prohibit it from myself.

Like I said, I’m not for this ban. In my view what ever reason is used to ban TikTok should then apply to every other social media aswell. I don’t want the government to dictate which content I’m allowed to consume - I should be free to decide for myself. I simply don’t view this issue thru the lens of free speech.

It’s similar to banning porn. While it’s objectively bad for you, so is drinking gasoline and that’s not illegal either. If you want to drink gasoline you should be allowed to.

I’m not for banning TikTok but the ban also doesn’t conflict with your freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is not about having a megaphone, it’s about not being procecuted for the things you’ve said. You’re still free to say the exact same things you were allowed to before the TikTok ban - you just can’t do it on TikTok.

the other guy isn’t really trying to learn anything or even to change your mind. He’s acting for an audience of people who already agree with him.

This is why I argue that votes should be hidden from everyone. Audience capture is one of the biggest issues on platforms like Lemmy. Many users feel like they’ve “won” an argument simply because their broad, nuance-free generalizations get upvoted by the masses.

To add to your point about avoiding engagement with certain types of users, one thing I’ve noticed that really sets some people off is when they take something I’ve said, draw their own extreme conclusions from it, and then start accusing me of something completely untrue. Instead of defending myself against these ridiculous accusations, I now either ignore them or stick firmly to the original point.

What’s fascinating is how often they double down, repeatedly trying to get me to explain why I’m not, for example, a Nazi. When I refuse to entertain their absurd line of reasoning, they seem to lose their minds.

Blocking on Lemmy doesn’t prevent them from seeing your “reasonable” takes. It just hides that user’s messages from you. They wont even know you have blocked them.

I’m sure you’re never wrong about anything. Maybe you should start a podcast.

At times like early covid there wasn’t much facts and evidence available. Back then masks didn’t stop the spread of the virus but vaccines were supposed to. Who decides what the facts are in times like that?

Yeah, but the question was; who decides what is disinformation? If it was some truly competent and unbiased AI system then I perhaps wouldn’t be as concerned about it, though I can see issues with that too, but humans are flawed and I see this as a potenttial slippery slope towards tyranny and censorship.

Who decides what the facts are?