The US-defaultism that happens on the internet is very annoying
this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
93 points (80.8% liked)
Fediverse
28537 readers
459 users here now
A community to talk about the Fediverse and all it's related services using ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, KBin, etc).
If you wanted to get help with moderating your own community then head over to [email protected]!
Rules
- Posts must be on topic.
- Be respectful of others.
- Cite the sources used for graphs and other statistics.
- Follow the general Lemmy.world rules.
Learn more at these websites: Join The Fediverse Wiki, Fediverse.info, Wikipedia Page, The Federation Info (Stats), FediDB (Stats), Sub Rehab (Reddit Migration), Search Lemmy
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Yeah, it's especially annoying when you live in a different English speaking country. I don't give a shit about your pounds in the chicken recipe.
That's right! Put dollars in the chicken recipe!
Anyway that's my two cents.
Let’s say 2/100 of your country’s primary monetary unit. No reason to be US centric.
load more comments
(7 replies)
I immediately became a bit upset when I read this post and realized US defaultism was going to happen on lemmy too now. Very annoying thing.
load more comments
(3 replies)
The US! Oppressing everything else in the world since...the beginning!
Damn americans, they ruined america!
load more comments
(1 replies)
I mean pretty much every website is US focused unless stated otherwise.
And the argument always was that Reddit/Facebook/Twitter/whatever are American.
Well, Lemmy is not. So there's no reason for it to be americanised by default.
(Unless we'll hear the argument that the internet is American :p)
I don't think hosting was ever the argument. It was always just that the vast majority of users were American.
Any site defaulting to English is going to attract users who predominantly speak English as their primary language, and then people who speak English as a sort of lingua franca are going to be a smaller part of that. Among native English speakers, Americans make up the majority, so that's the prevailing default you are likely to see.
Even if Lemmy.world is hosted in Europe, I'd hazard that the largest user demographic is still Americans.
Actually (!) the majority of Reddit users are not American. Although Americans make up the largest single group, they’re in the minority overall.
load more comments
(5 replies)
It is a stupid argument anyway that fundamentally ignores the entire concept of the internet being global and universal. If a site is aimed at a global userbase it is mostly completely irrelevant (except for legal purposes of course) where that site was originally created or where the servers are located.
Well, Al Gore said he invented it, so...
load more comments
(2 replies)
ShitAmericansSay
If they were wrong people wouldn't be complaining about US defaultism.
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
Yeah I assume the reason there isn't is because the general ones are US-centric by default and then everyone else has to have somewhere specific to go. But I guess if they want their own dedicated place too why not?
Isn't that the problem being stated in the OP haha.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Of course the Germans have have everything all organized.
Ja natürlich :)
Na klar! 😁
That's what we love about them. And the accent when they speak English. And their cars. Not forgetting their tools. Beer.
load more comments
(1 replies)
There is no rule that everything about Germany is hosted on feddit.de and everything what is hosted on feddit.de is about Germany. I have a english language GalaxyWatch community located on feddit.de.
TBH, I do not know what is the best way to handle these. As far as I understand, the idea of fediverse is that instance as such must not be important. And there are many instances which have no "self-vision" or it is based on other logic than geography.
I have a english language GalaxyWatch community located on feddit.de.
Literally the first sentence in their sidebar says "Deutschsprachige Lemmy Community" (= German-language Lemmy Community). So you're right that feddit.de is not about Germany but German is spoken in several European countries, so you do disrespect the intend of feddit.de by hosting an English community there.
They also write in their rules that it's okay to create English speaking communities. So no harm done.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(6 replies)
I mean you can just have your feed show only the stuff you’re subscribed to…
Given the prevalence of US defaultism, I don't mind the lack of a US-specific one. Plus, unless an instance, or even community, is regionally specific, chances are Americans are going to assume it to be American. Even if that subreddit specifically claims to be worldwide, it may still be dominated in excess by Americans, like the politics @ lemmy.ml community.
load more comments
(1 replies)
And I'm sure it would also be more convenient to have it all under one roof, just like everything about Germany is under feddit.de, and people from elsewhere can still visit if they like.
I'm trying to advertise my country's instance, feddit.nu (Sweden). feddit.de got a headstart with Germans by having been created before the Reddit migration and providing the first federated community discovery tool.
Instances that were created after the migration started on the other hand? It's frustrating with Redditor behavior, because they expect the Lemmy community to share the same name as the Reddit community (/r/Sweden) and only subscribe to communities that use the same name.
If you don't want your lemmy.world feed to be flooded with languages you can't understand, please make sure to annoy their users about it as much as possible, in English, that they should move to the country-specific instances instead of centralizing on lemmy.world. It's healthier for the Fediverse in general with everyone on many instances, in the long run.
load more comments
(7 replies)
Well beehaw.org is hosted in NYC.
well now someone needs to make the most obnoxiously American patriotic instance possible, as a meme
Can we afford to buy freedom.us?
load more comments
(1 replies)
Isn't lemm.ee US based?
It's Estonian (.ee is the country code for Estonia) but it's also a cool domain hack and the owner opened it to everyone.
load more comments
(2 replies)
If it is, they aren't doing much to advertise it or to attract those kinds of communities.
load more comments
(3 replies)
I thought beehaw.org is US based.
I intentionally used one based in Switzerland. Like my email and VPN needs.
load more comments
(2 replies)
It might be because most of us Americans lick the boots of corporations for free or get in line to.
Don’t forget about subscription services for everything!
I like my life for rent!
load more comments
(1 replies)
view more: next ›