It feels like people are a lot nicer here than on Twitter and Reddit, and even when people disagree, it’s generally civil and not an all-out flame war. Also, there’s no algorithm promoting outrage all the time.
For me, the anticipation of toxicity was a huge deterrent for me ever participating in real discussions, but here I feel like I can be myself.
I think it’s healthier this way.
I did see a theory that part of the vibe is the result of federation itself. People drift to instances that align with them and their views, and instances have defederated each other based on hate or trolls. Basically the trolls start quarantining themselves.
I think that a lot of toxicity on commercial socian networks comes from their need to increase engagement, so they tune algorithms for that. Which is usually agresive behavior.
Just by not having that sort of algorithms we will be better.
Sounds like creating echo chambers which will hurt healthy debate