Why is rule 6 specifically targeted at US politics?
Enough people have given good answers to this question, so I won’t bother repeating their explanations. It came about after a trial following the last US election and a community discussion led to the trial becoming permanent.
I’m going to leave this post up as it’s not actually about US politics, but about how the asklemmy community wants it to work.
Probably because we want somewhere that isn’t flooded with whatever detestable thing trump last did or said. I’ve been meaning to put out feelers about revising the rule to “No current/recent politics”, but I’ve never gotten around to it.
That would make more sense imo. Even though American politics have a long reach it seems a bit strange to limit it to that
The text in the about page for rule six currently shows some alternatives for posting questions for US politics, if the rule was extended to current / recent politics, does anyone know good channels for questions about global politics?
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Yeah, that’s completely reasonable. Is it worth updating the community about page for the rule to add a line or two about why the rule exists?
Maybe something like:
“”" The motivation here is to avoid the channel becoming a stream of questions about US politics and to provide a space to avoid US politics. “”"
It might save the mods time in the future if it comes up again.
I don’t know.
Maybe it is because people can’t have a rational, civil and mature discussion about politics?
And it devolves into shit-flinging, bad faith debates and all that?
I mean, why do you have to come off so dishonest like this?
its actually being bombarded with trump-based news on every community, reddit for example is almost 90% trump.
Most discussion about US politics isn’t discussion sadly so it just turns into either arguing or a circle jerk of hating a specific person/place/thing. Most “news” isn’t even news here, it’s opinion segments. I agree it should stay in its own section to an extent since people can’t tell the difference of what’s news and what’s opinion when reacting.
Because its everywhere all the time. And I get it, its interesting and never ending and affects the whole world and theres a bottomless well of drama and comedy and horror especially with orange man in charge, but its everywhere all the time.
If you have used Reddit for some time, you’ll have noticed an interesting trend: any large space where general content is allowed to be posted and which does not prohibit US politics, will generally become saturated with US politics.
This happens to some degree on Lemmy as well. It’s because Americans are the largest national demographic group on the English-speaking portion of the Internet, and because American politics in general is extreme and garners a lot of attention from others. So if talking about it is allowed, it will usually become all that anyone ever wants to talk about, or at least it will appear that way in a space where popularity determines visibility.
Sounds like my keyword filters and blocks are having a good effect, because I thankfully can’t say I see the same on Lemmy
Thanks. That makes a lot of sense
I haven’t used Reddit for years but I could see what you mean from Lemmy too. I just hadn’t noticed such a specific targeting of limitations in rules before.
Now that I think about it, I honestly think that Lemmy has suffered this more than Reddit. Reddit has a lot of various non-politics related content but Lemmy seems to be filled a lot more with political posts. I get that many people find that content interesting, but after a while, one tires of it.
but after a while, one tires of it.
You won’t believe this conspiracy
You can filter most US politics out, especially with Piefed and still have other content at least.
This was not my experience with Bluesky or Mastodon.
I think we’d all like to go back to the days when politics was only occasionally interesting.
Shit, I want news to be boring again. I remember when there was just thirty minutes of national news power day from 6 to 6:30. Then local news, and then The Muppet Show to put the world back into proper context.
Shit, I want news to be boring again.
The news has been full of wars, drugs, and domestic unrest since at least the 60s. In the 70s we added rank political malfeasance and conspiracy theories and here in the 2020s its more of the same. The big difference makers are the 24 hours news cycle and the rise of social media.
If you limit your social media time and stay off aggregators like Lemmy and Reddit you’ll find that it’s possible to (mostly) go back to the way it was.
‘May you live in interesting times’…Old Chinese Curse.
reddit is way worst lol, every news article is almost related to trump, or israel
true, I’m sick of hearing and reading about the orange man’s tales, but no matter how much I try to filter that shit out, it still pops up everywhere
I’m oversaturated with US politics.
So say we all.
As an American I too am oversaturated with US politics. It’s been this way for a decade now and I fear its never going to end.
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Probably because most of these spaces exist to push whatever narrative the admins and mods who own it want, and open conversation about these topics might result in some people learning about the world around them and making their own decisions.
Notice how many accounts appeared overnight from the Venezuela shit pretending a war was inevitable? Those are the accounts these spaces exist to enable.
I guess this sub doesn’t want to smell as bad as the rest of the “international subs” that are flooded with US crap.
the tankie ones are the worst, and they try disguise or infiltrate the non-tankie communities.
To stop the stupid posts after they voted for fascism, instead of a female president, again.
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Why is there a rule against US politics? Like are people asking about US politics too much or what?
Yes. It happened on reddit. It happens here.
reddit also have tons of bots doing it too. look how quickly epstein disappeared replaced by venezuela attack
If you had to guess, what would you say is the reason?
I don’t want to guess, this is why I ask
But I am curious to hear why it is specific to US politics. The world is a big place and although politics have a long reach I find it strange that it is targeted at specifically the US.
Internet users are 90% Americans on Lemmy or on the technical forums. It’s to prevent being flooded with US stuff.
I find that hard to believe given reddit, the largest forum of its kind and an American website, is only 43% American.
But I am curious to hear why it is specific to US politics.
You’ve already gotten the biggest reason but another one to consider is that there are other large countries trying to force the world to become multi-polar. Those countries spend a LOT of time, effort, and money making sure that every possible negative aspect of American politics and culture is brought to light as much as possible.
The Russian troll farms and China’s 50 cent army don’t sleep. They’re always active and always looking to push negative coverage of the United States. They simply won’t allow a focus shift because they are paid to keep that spotlight shining bright at all times.
One thing I think other’s haven’t mentioned yet: US internal politics specifically make headlines worldwide, certainly in the western world. That’s not true of German, Swedish, Israeli, or any other country’s internal politics. This is probably because USA is arguably the only real remaining superpower, or something close to it. Regardless of the reason, US politics are uniquely loud and everpresent, which I guess is why they were singled out.
Edit: I once saw a subreddit’s mod post explaining this better than I did, but I can’t find it at the moment.
its also more clicks for websites too.
FYI:
US Domestic news also makes headlines.
My dad saw 9/11 on TV when he was in China.
Like everyone in the world knows major events involving the US
Breaks Rule 6 by asking why rule 6 exists.
If you have a rule that is interpreted as “you can’t ask questions about the rule” or “no questioning the rules” then it’s a fucking stupid rule.
It’s a political post.
No It has nothing to do with politics. The question is about the rule of this Community .the rule is about politics but the question is why the rule specifically applies to a very narrow area of politics
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Yeah, check the comments. It’s become one.
I wish more communities implemented this rule.

















