I have a question, on Lemmy and most platforms, certain wars and atrocious conflicts are always discussed, for example; Palestine and Israel, Ukraine and Russia, Iran and America. But certain conflicts are not talked about, like Myanmar, DRC, Sahel for example. Or is there like a tier list and the first 3 conflicts are just S tier and the ones I mentioned are C or D tiered

  • FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.websiteEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    You can discuss any war you like in any forum that will discuss this subject.

    The national media wherever you are will discuss certain conflicts and maybe strive others but the attention will really be elsewhere. As humans we have a limited attention span. Until last decade we had outsourced the sorting of importance to editors in newsrooms. With social media it’s been a hybrid of editors and algorithms. A lot of algorithms are fed by traditional, trusted news organisations so the biases persist. This is very generalized but I would describe the formula like this: far away, no oil, no business interests? No news.

    Also, people like having opinions. But there is also an ignorance level the majority of people will stay under. You’ll always have a-holes that just parrot stuff unreflected. They live these days mostly but not exclusively on Xwitter. I’m not talking about those guys. The more level headed will not want to discuss certain things for lack of knowledge.

    On Lemmy, you’ll find more level headed people that are influenced by biases that persist in the Anglosphere - we speak English after all. Also, people are not willing to walk into wood chippers. There is no comment on the internet that doesn’t have the potential to trigger a shit storm.

    Journalism is also about narrative. Aung San Suu Kyi’s journey from imprisoned freedom fighter to de facto head of government, to looking away from genocide - the hero journey was aborted and with it attention waned. Most white people don’t want to look too closely at Africa for fear of finding contemporary conflicts with their roots in the era of colonisation. Since our attention is limited, those are the conflicts we gladly let go of first. Also, we need to stay focused on whether or not an octogenarian shat himself in Washington.