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This is the only way. Ruthlessly blocking everything you're not interested about seeing.
By blocklist on Lemmy is 1200+ users and communities long and even though I still see plenty of toxicity the difference is still noticeable. The only issue with it is that it's quite blunt tool. An user might be making inflammatory comments only on threads about a certain topic and then get blocked for it but then I'm not seeing any of their other content either which rarely is all toxic.
You're doing the right thing for your mental health, I think. The only reason I don't do the same thing is that I want to be aware of how prevalent the toxicity is. It's pretty easy to wave off fringe stuff as being insignificant only to find that you were in a bubble and that fringe shit has grown really big. And it gets to grow bigger without somebody there to challenge it.
10% of people believe that the moon landing was fake, the earth is flat, and covid vaccines contained tracking microchips. 10% isn't the majority or anything, but it's significantly higher than I would've thought. With the habitual defunding of education, increased misinformation and disinformation in media, reduction of in-person interactions with strangers due to online shopping and streaming, and encouragement by algorithms that show people only what they want to see, we're driving people deeper into echo chambers. We're forgetting how to respectfully disagree and discuss thoughtfully. We're backsliding societally to solving problems with our fists. As much as I think Nazis deserve to get punched in the mouth, I think proper discussions would prevent them from becoming Nazis in the first place.
Fascism is on the rise globally, and part of it is because fascists can find fascists and radicalize people into fascism more easily than ever, and part of it is because it's easier to ignore fascism than it is to publicly challenge it. Even outside of fascist moderators who will ban those who challenge the ideas in the first place (my ban from r/conservative was a badge of honor when I was on reddit).
I'm glad you've found a way to keep it as a palatable experience. I still have some fight in me, but I'll probably need to filter some of this garbage out soon.
I'm not sure I entirely agree with the logic here. I did a similar thing years ago by pretty much stopping paying attention to the news. You'd think that would lead to me not being aware of what's going on in the world but turns out one does not simply just turn off the news. When something actually newsworthy happens I'll hear about it just the same way as everyone else. It's effectively impossible to avoid even if you try to. The only kind of news I more or less totally insulated myself from is celebrity gossip and other similar entirely meaningless trash.
Also I don't block people to create an echo chamber for myself. More often than not it's not what people say that get them blocked, it's how they say it. I'm more than willing to engage an actual nazi on a debate as long as they're approaching it in a good faith even to some extent. It's people that are just throwing shit that I'm trying to get rid of. I'm basically just trying to improve the signal-to-noise ratio but the noise will only get quieter but never dissapear completely.
Gotcha, yeah that's the best of both worlds then.
I didn't mean that you will be in an echo chamber so much as that they will be in an echo chamber because if everybody ignores them then they have nobody left to challenge them. There are a ton of lurkers reading but never or rarely posting or commenting, so I'm mostly challenging bad faith arguments for their benefit. Without challenge, somebody casually reading might just accept that bad faith argument as fact or at least valid. Idk how effective it is, but I'm doing what I can to reduce the radical right wing incel neckbeard population. 🤷♂️