If I was using a website called “Facebloke” that was well known to have been made and ran in the UK, I’d assume everyone on it was British.
Or the Australian version “Matebook”, full with Aussies.
Mate.
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We call it Cuntface down here.
To be fair, we call everyone Cuntface down here.
I’m ready to discuss maple syrup on HoserLoonieSorryEh
Ah, yes! The 3 billion Americans on Facebook!
And why would you make that assumption? The internet has no borders, so it doesn’t really matter where or by whom something is made. Especially if the language is English, which has somewhere between 1.5 and 2 billion speakers worldwide.
“Facebloke”
More like Faceberk, amirite?
Yes, I saw that. But it is obviously meant to be an analogy for how Facebook is a website famously made in America by an American.
The internet has no borders
Except that it actually does. See: China, North Korea, other fucked up governments that lock down the Internet for their people etc.
Maybe you should try posting more often then ;)
Tbf it seemed to make more sense for the likes of Reddit, Facebook, etc. Similarly if I go to a Chinese forum I would not assume that everyone there was from the USA.
I’ve heard this more times, and it’s kind of baffling. The US isn’t even the biggest individual country on Facebook. What do people who assume everyone is from the US think a non-US “forum” looks like? Where do Americans think everybody else hangs out online?
NOW, but when Reddit started, and therefore the now infamous subreddit names were first doled out?
I am fairly sure that the rest of the world already existed. And those formats keep being in use in newer places, too. This is not just a Reddit thing. Even you mentioned Facebook, which was instantly popular globally.
I am fairly sure that the rest of the world already existed.
No way - at least not back then! Source: am American, and therefore entirely confident that no other nations existed prior to my hearing about them (Christopher Columbus told me so! 😛). And maybe even then… which reminds me, are you so sure that you are real? Maybe you too are in America and just forgot? 🫠
Also, just so we are clear, “American” = “USAian”, definitely no other nations exist on the American continent, nope, no way! (Except Canada and Mexico, and they get a pass as wannabe USA states) 😜
instantly popular globally
There are 8 billion people on this planet, nothing happens instantly.
Facebook took a long time to spread around the globe. Same for reddit, this is a quote from the Wikipedia article:
As of August 2024, Reddit is the 9th most-visited website in the world. According to data provided by Similarweb, 51.75% of the website traffic comes from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom at 7.15% and Canada at 7.09%.[6]
More than two thirds of reddit traffic still comes from Anglophone countries to this day, and that percentage was surely much higher back in the early days.
I think you’re severely overestimating how many people from other countries actually use Western social media. Between the language barrier and the technology barrier, most people on this planet simply don’t have any opportunity or desire to use a site like Reddit or Lemmy. Facebook has slowly but steadily made global inroads, but by the time it got popular in non-western countries, Americans had largely moved on.
… I am a non-anglophone who, at the time of Facebook’s raise to social media dominance lived in multiple non-anglophone countries. I was there.
In one of the places I lived there was briefly a popular local Facebook alternative. It lasted maybe a couple of years before entirely capitulating and getting absorbed. That place does still have a local Reddit-like alternative, and Reddit is certainly more US-centric. You are right that Facebook stayed popular much longer outside the US. It has started falling off in some of those places, but I did keep a Facebook account for work purposes for a lot longer than you’d expect because work relations in those territories would share Facebook credentials as a way to establish professional contact. Twitter may as well have been a lost ancient civilization, though.
There’s also a lot to unpack in the assumption that on a thread about “why do Americans default to assuming everyone is from the US” you’re reflexively lumping the entire anglosphere as part of the US, but honestly, I’ll let the recently annexed English-speaking countries deal with that one on their own.
That’s interesting, thanks for sharing. I don’t mean to diminish your experience, but the world is simply too massive for anecdotal knowledge to apply when attempting to make sense of it. In other words, it’s impossible to gather a balanced understanding of global phenomena via primary experiences. I’m not as well traveled as you, but I’m analyzing the statistics rather than relying on personal experiences, which is much more informative when trying to recognize the big picture.
I’m not reflexively lumping anything in, I’m simply recognizing the reality that the cultural life of anglosphere countries is heavily mixed, and that US culture dominates that mixture due to its size and economic position. It’s not a controversial statement to say that Canada and the US are peas in a pod.
I left the original assumption unchallenged, but I don’t agree with it tbh. There are a ton of Europeans on Lemmy and also reddit, and it’s quite obvious to notice as an American. Furthermore, the entire premise is faulty. Rather than ask why people default to the US, the question is why people are assuming anything at all about anonymous accounts. And the answer is because of human nature, which isn’t something unique to Americans.
Well, yeah, but it’s not anecdotal. There is data to tell you how big Facebook is and was outside the US, in what territories and by how much relative to their US popularity at what point. My personal experience just happens to match those numbers (India, by the way, is Facebook’s current biggest market).
I would also point out that by your own data, which is accurate as far as I can tell, 49% of Reddit is not American, so even with its more US-focused audience the assumption that users are American unless proven otherwise is wildly ethnocentric.
Now, I agree with you that assuming things about anonymous accounts, and especially anonymous accounts writing in English, is foolish. Lots of people are fluent in English who are not native speakers and definitely who are not from the US. Most, in fact, depending on how you define your parameters.
I disagree that this is “human nature”, though. I don’t assume the same thing from people who speak my native language online. I also don’t assume the same thing about English speakers. The reason the OP is asking is that US ethnocentrism stands out. That’s not to say it’s not natural. We non-native dwellers in anglocentric social media will often comment on US cultural and political minutia, because US cultural and political minutia is present and relevant to us in a way ours isn’t to Americans (thanks for that, cultural imperialism). We pass for Americans in more situations than some American lurking in a German-language forum would, and we’re likely many times more numerous than… well, Americans lurking in German-language or Chinese-language socials.
But it being natural doesn’t mean it isn’t notable or an issue or a symptom of a dysfunction. Which it is, and it does annoy me for that reason.
Given how many people choose to speak their native language in the US (myself included), I guess they assume they post to forums that are in their language.
So like Facebook and Reddit? Social media isn’t in English specifically. People who speak other languages often post in their native language for some things and in the lingua franca for more international conversations. The Internet is the Internet regardless.
As a US citizen I think we forget how much of our shit gets out.
I’m always surprised when I go abroad and people are up to date with somewhat niche US info. I was in Hong Kong and some local dude made a reference to the fatass NJ gov who was chilling on the closed beach during lockdowns.
I do feel like I see far more people complaining about US people making assumptions than I do US people assuming. When I’m replying to someone I don’t put any thought into where they’re from unless they drop a context clue.
Note: this is just for your understanding, I’m not criticising you.
It’s the little things, like using NJ as a short form assuming everyone to know. Hong Kong is arguably more well known globally, but you spelled it out.
The ones in the know often don’t see the assumption.
Eh that seems like a major stretch. NJ used above was prefaced with “somewhat niche US info”
I even replaced what the guy said which was Chris Christie with NJ gov because I hardly expected anyone abroad to know him
I feel like if we’re going to start thinking that someone’s putting the ass in assumption just because they used something others might not understand then we’re in trouble
You’d have to kill off any slang or expressions for fear that people might not understand them
This is true. I wonder how often people assume and don’t think anything of it because it doesn’t even register that they may not be correct.
That said, I once did have a long conversation here with someone who just straight-up refused to believe I’m not American and would not take my word for it. I never quite got why he believed I’d be lying about that, but that person would not be persuaded, and it was one of the most baffling interactions I’ve had in my life.
Assumed by Americans which is an important detail.
To be honest I also find myself assuming this frequently. And I’m rarely incorrect
Yup, if it’s English-language, it’s probably American unless otherwise noted
That’s extremely wrong.
Weird to go into a website based in the States, with a large audience of Americans, all speaking in the American dialect of English primarily about events in US news and politics, and then get mad because it’s America-centric.
Not on Lemmy. Om Lemmy you’re 50% German, 50% American unless proven otherwise.
𝕯𝖎𝖊𝖘𝖊 𝕶𝖔𝖒𝖒𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖆𝖗𝖘𝖊𝖐𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓 𝖎𝖘𝖙 𝖓𝖚𝖓 𝖟𝖚 𝕱𝖚𝖊𝖓𝖋𝖟𝖎𝖌 𝕻𝖗𝖔𝖟𝖊𝖓𝖙 𝕰𝖎𝖌𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖚𝖒 𝖉𝖊𝖗 𝕭𝖚𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖘𝖗𝖊𝖕𝖚𝖇𝖑𝖎𝖐 𝕯𝖊𝖚𝖙𝖘𝖈𝖍𝖑𝖆𝖓𝖉!
Du irrst dich, Brudi - niemand spricht Deutsch hier.
Da hast du wohl recht, ich habe noch kein einziges “du hast mich” bis jetzt (Verwenden Sie für den zitierten Teil nicht Google Translate)
ich habe noch kein einziges “du hast mich” bis jetzt
Auch weil alles Liebe in Lemmy ist, ja? /witz
das oder neunundneunzig Luftballons 🎈
Yo no hablar alemàn
Se hablás castellano entonces complica, ya que no hablo. Excepto cuando borracho*. Aún asi, no es castellano, es más como portitañol…
*de veras, che. Una vodca hoy sería genial.
I have blocked sooooo many german communities and several german instances.
I browse all to get as much new content as possible.
But I have to block a shitload of stuff I am not interested in seeing.
SPRICH DEUTSCH DU HURENSOHN
Moerasduits. Is dat goed genoeg?
I took German in highschool, but all that’s left is: Darf ich aufs Klo gehen?
kek
Nej, jag kan inte Tyska, men om du vill kan vi prata Svenska! (:
jach ki’imak in wóol yo’osal Google Translate
Ik versta daar dus allebij helemaal niks van. Wel leuk, zo’n internationale draad.
akkor a kurva anyád
Fel språk är jag rädd, försök igen! (:
Du luktar skitgott.
Tackar tackar, jag har inte ens duschat!
Tja, da verpasst du was…
Just learn German. Just do it
Äh, du kan väl lika gärna lära dig Svenska, det blir enklare för oss båda! (:
I was thinking of doing that if I actually move to Finland.
Having been to Finland before I know that it’s not very useful in everyday situations but it’s still useful and way easier to learn than finnish. Especially as I speak German.
There are parts on Finland where Swedish is the primary laguage even over Finnish.
I have filtered out some terms: elon musk and donald trump
Just like Reddit was back in the day.
Alter… das kann nicht sein
Just like Geilenkirchen.
Ja ech waar, ik maak geen gein
I assume 70% European 30% whatever else, although that depends on the instance. Of the instance gives any indication I just assume that.
There was a fair amount of French language posts too, not sure how much quality and engagement they have.
Ja genau.
SPRICH
ESPAÑOL
ТЫ
FIGLIO DI TROIA
I’m Scottish and don’t know what the fuck % I am.
I’m guessing 67% German, 22% American at this point.
Well, then have some proof:
G E K O L O N I S E E R D
zeg makker
a broer
Als een warm bad
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It’s hosted in Finland, by a German company, and has Dutch admins. Was that your point?
Edit: bonus, the Lemmy devs get paid from a Dutch grant and the ones whose nationality I know are not from the US
If any instance uses anything akin to cloudflare, Google, a cloud provider or a CDN then this question makes no sense because it’s “hosted” all over the world.
Not that it ever made any sense because why would it matter where a website is hosted if it’s equally accessible globally? It’s not like you have to type a longer URL to hit it from Europe lmfao, and It’s not like the internet is some sort of local US thing where you have to hear about it by word of mouth.
The word world is literally in the name… When I joined lemmy I started there because I assumed it would be a general instance. It’s like worldnews where 90% of posts are US politics. Also, it’s not an obsession, most times it comes up it’s just a joke (like this meme).
Many websites that are international are hosted in only one country.
Lemmy.dbzer0.com lemmy.blahaj.zone discuss.tchncs.de sopuli.xyz infosec.pub lemmy.ml midwest.social slrpnk.net mander.xyz are all not hosted in USA(according to fedidb.org)
Also, why would it matter in what country an instance is hosted in? I cant just assume everyone on midwest.social is german because the instance is hosted in germany
This is lemmy.world, you would have to join lemmy.{country} for lands beyond the fruited plains and purple mountains majesty.
I mean the us dwarfs other english speaking countries
Your comment is very typical of that (fallacious) US centrism. People write in English on the internet because that is the universal language. There are far more secondary English speakers on the internet than primary English speakers.
because that is the universal language*grince des dents*
because it is the international language of this days and time.Le français était à un moment donné, hein
Yeah XD Now english is the lingua franca
Tons of people speak English as a second language, on the internet
Yeah like India
135 million english speakers is less than 300 million
Mr Blott really really really likes to denigrate Americans. Don’t rain on his parade
What on Earth are you on about? “denigrate Americans”. They are pointing out facts. That you apparently are so fragile that you consider that denigration is entirely on yourself.
I think you owe me an apology. It took me a while to copy paste all that senseless vitriol and you won’t even acknowledge your mistake. Disappointing.
Look at their comment history. They can’t go two days without getting in a dig at Americans. Even when it’s completely irrelevant and off topic. I’m just pointing out that this person has a bone to pick and not to take it personally.
The funny part is that they’re often completely wrong when they try to talk shit. Like here, thinking that India having a larger population than the US is some kind of gotcha moment, despite less than 10% of that population speaking English.
I’ll just transcribe a few lovely comments from our good friend Mr Blott.
Glock pistols popular in US because of the proliferation of fucking cowards
Scared of their own fucking shadows, those pussies
What’s the difference between a cow and 9/11
You’d stop milking a cow after 23 years
Seems a bit unnecessary when you could just dress the ivy up like schoolkids and the yanks would wipe it out in a week
German
I’m guessing a yank whose great great great great great great grandfather once wiped his cock on a strudel
They’re using American weapons, they should just aim for schools
Holy fuck, yanks are weird
God I’d hate to have such poor reading comprehension. You’d last about a minute in UK based communities lol
You’re not out of the dark ages, you quivering shitebag lol
You mean prison slavery? That’s the US, get on it lol
Did it come out of the States?
If so, guaranteed utter fucking horseshit
You can punch your hand through your plasterboard mate lol
You can always spot an American because they’re so fuckin scared of everything. Look, this one’s scared of his own shite 😂
Of course!
Just lose the -
- Guns
- Tiny-penis trucks
- the “right” to hate-speech
- the religious weirdo thing
And you’ll be getting close to the 20th century!
Know how yous get upset when people say “Americans are stupid”
Literally a third of you have demonstrated that you’d eat gravel if someone said it’d cure immigrants
A third. So lets just say only half of the other two thirds are stupid
That’s quite a few. Almost a quarter pounder
Yous cunts are greedy to the point of being fuckin EVIL
That’s just… evil, taking money from poor folk and their kids
How are yous letting evil cunts do this to your fellow citizens? How are you not fucking getting the flaming torches out?
Selfish fucking cunts, the lot of you. Stand up for not just yourselves, for all of yous
The bot is only “spreading misinformation” to people who are too stupid to realise that “left” and “right” mean politically different things in different countries
Mostly the yanks
I feel really sorry for this guy
What kind of unhinged parents call their kid Tyreek?
This is just from the past few weeks lmao. This dude has issues.
Surprised at a yank using the word “denigrate” without clutching their pearls at the etymology of it lol
Aren’t the majority of English speakers from the US?
EDIT: The USA has 3x the population of the UK and Australia combined and the USA appears to be the home of approx 60% of native English speakers. However there are billions of speakers if you include it as a 2nd language. Which Americans don’t speak 2nd languages so we obviously don’t count that.
What’s your definition of first/second language if you grow up bilingual?
The majority of English speakers aren’t from the US, though the US does have the most English speakers. Important distinction to make!
I’d just like to mention that plenty of ESL users speak English more than their native, and that the country with the most people who use English for interacting with the Internet, it’s probably India. Indians communicate to a lot of their compatriots in English, since they are also an ex-British colony, and have a large variety of native languages.
That sounds like America’s problem. Big portion of western eu, especially non-boomer and non-french, comprehend English
verywell, so I dunno why you’d just dismiss it in a post about us-defaultism when almost everything is text basedThat was the joke.
Damn
No, it’s roughly 20% (297M/1537M). Source.
English (excl. creole languages) l1 380 million l2 1.135 billion total 1.515 billion
Nah its 50/50, either you’re a USA English speaker or you’re not
I speak American, boy.
(Kratos voice)
You mean anything with
outworld in its name?What? Like the World Series of Baseball?
The name fits, it’s just that the only people in the world who give a shit about baseball are from the USA.
Well that’s just not true, you should check out the World baseball Classic, it’ll open your eyes.
Japan would like a word, but otherwise, fair enough
Puerto Rico and Cuba also love baseball.
Hell, in Cuba standing around arguing about baseball is a recognized profession.
HE WAS SAFE!!!
Sorry, anything with or without / everything not ich_iel
i live in DC and we get tagged for everything world politics.
forgive me for not caring if fvey countries get lumped into uspol.
I don’t care where y’all are from as long as you’re not a dumbass dickhead.
Oh. I’m shit out of luck then.
Well, I also sit in front of a mirror.
Terrible news, guy who just started posting on the Internet
I hear you and am guilty of it myself. I feel like it’s due to the anonymous nature of the internet. I think everyone immediately falls into the category of “peer” before putting a touch more thought into who the actual person (bot/ai) is that wrote the reply. Add that to the fact that most Americans see themselves (as a country) as the king of the world.
Maybe you can try typing with an accent, but I think that’d probably just be seen as a racist American.
I’m not even American, I find my thoughts defaulting to this.
Well Al Gore invented the internet so the internet is more a.USA thing 🤣🤣
Heavily inspired by the french Minitel but yes
Minitel launched in 1982, well after work had begun on interconnections between different computer networks, using the predecessor protocols to TCP/IP and what would become the addressing/domain name system. Minitel launched on protocols that were ultimately incompatible with the rest of the Internet, and didn’t have an easy way to actually get joined in.
Minitel was more of an alternative internet than it was the inspiration for the migration of the internet to becoming a HTTP/www-centered network.
Heavily inspired by the Sumerian cuneiform but yes
I’m from Australia and don’t mind engagement with the (mostly) US content.
Let’s face it, the US election is the most interesting event on the planet anyway.
I just wish Americans would have a little self awareness when engaging in foreign content.
I was in a comment thread for a video on a report by the ABC about ADEs. Now I will give Americans the benefit of the doubt, we both have ABC networks, but ours clearly says “Australia”, the news presenter has a Australian accent, and was talking about the Australian minimum wage, there were references to Centrelink and the Australian government repeatedly. If you watched the video and couldn’t tell me what country the video was about, you need to go back to primary school, your media comprehension level is dysfunctional .
I mentioned a clarifying point in the the comments about ADE being different from DES and giving numbers for each (you don’t need to know anything about these acronyms), and someone starts arguing with me that when they were in the disability program they got xyz and they didn’t have to do any of this. I replied saying that these processes have been unchanged for 20 years, I don’t know how they’re getting what they’re getting, they have a unique case. They come back telling me everyone gets that, that’s how it is, I need to do my research before I make stuff up. I explain that I work in the sector, I’m looking at the cases software, if they are indeed getting those services through that program, they are the only one of 40,000 people in the program getting that, because that’s not how the service works. They tell me 15 million people people use the program. I finally realise what’s happening. “there are only 25 million people people in Australia…you’re a lost American aren’t you?” and sure enough ,they politely reply with “oh yeah, I’m not Australian so I don’t know, maybe it’s different over there”.
And I just can’t with that level of American stupidity.
You can came into an Australian forum and assumed I wasn’t Australian, assumed I wasn’t talking about Australia, then came to the conclusion that “maybe it’s different over there” when I had explicitly just informed you that ,yes, the law is different here.
Now many times could I have used the acronym DES before the American thought to themselves “maybe this person isn’t talking about SSDI”.
And this is just the example from the last hour. I end up in a lot of international PD sessions for my work, and something like this is a daily occurrence, only with the Americans.
Canada, you are sadly not excused from this, nor sure why but it’s always "okay, where are we all from? “Australia” “Belgium” “Brazil” “Indonesia” “Fort Freedom” “Edmonton”
Those are cities and provinces, clearly the rest of us are doing countries, some of us are big enough that we could name states if we wanted to, but we’re being polite, you’ve got 50 (10+3 🇨🇦 ) of them and we didn’t memorise a silly song in school to learn your states.
The fact that I know how many states the US has and how many provinces and tertories Canada has, but an American would be stabbing in the dark to guess how many states and territories Australia has, even though our biggest state is 3x bigger than Texas and Australia as a whole is a comparable landmass to the contiguous 48.
My stab in the dark is 8. That feels about right
And I just can’t with that level of American stupidity.
Not just Americans, most people don’t read/watch the link
The fact that I know how many states the US has and how many provinces and tertories Canada has, but an American would be stabbing in the dark
Not surprising given our influence on your culture is far greater than the other way, landmass is worthless when it’s full of the Outback (a beautiful place for sure)
And you’d be surprised how many of us know it’s 6, I bet. Californians get to play with you guys online if we stay up past our bedtimes, after all.
The more fun part is going to be me trying to name them and see if I still can: Queensland, New South Whales, Western? Australia, Northern? Australia, Victoria (you already HAVE ONE NAMED AFTER THE QUEEN THOUGH), Tasmania? Is that one you guys?
This is a good point about cultural export, majority of modern content use American, and the majority of childhood content at least for me was Canadian.
I’m often surprised how little I know of the UK compared to the USA when I think of how much is imported to Australia from the UK …including my family.
Thank you so much for giving me your guesses at state names, we did make it easy for you with just a bunch of cardinal directions.
You are bang on with 6 states, and almost bang on with their names.
The place you’ve dubbed “Northern Australia” is the “Northern Territory” and is not a state, the state you are missing is South Australia.
We have two major territories, Northern Territory as mentioned, but then similar to the USA, our national capital is not located within a state.
Our capital city is in “The Australian Capital Territory”, or just “the ACT”
We are super creative with the names. Hence why we named 2 after the Queen (then stupidly named the capital city of Victoria “Melbourne” instead of “Batmania”, which was totally an option on the table!) but also America can’t talk, how many important places have you named after Washington and Columbus?
Tasmania is indeed ours, ours lonely Island state. Not so fun fact, Tasmanian Devils are endangered because they keeps biting each other’s faces off and giving each other contagious facial cancer.
There’s another internal territory no one really talks about, Jarvis Bay, it was formed mostly so the ACT could have access to a port without needing to use a state’s port.
We have 7 external territories, the main ones being the island territories of Norfolk, Cocos, and Christmas Islands.
Glad everyone else is enjoying the show at least. Half of us here are terrified we’re about to lose the country to maniacal egotists with a penchant for a bit of racism and monarchy.
As a Canadian, we’re feeling it too. I’m sure it’s not as significant as what you’re all feeling.
It’s weird having a half deranged megalomaniacal neighbor, where they’re fine most of the time then occasionally go completely off the rails.
I’ve often wondered how concerned ya’ll might be. Sorry about the mess. For whatever it is worth, a lot of us are trying to clean it up.
We’re hoping that happens, and you don’t get stonewalled by idiots. We’re cheering for your efforts.
To be fair, we have our own share of problems, including, but not limited to, hardline conservatives pulling similar crap, and even the odd Canadian Trump supporters, which always confused me.
We’re coping okay. Hopefully it doesn’t get any worse.
Trump supporters outside the us are the absolute weirdest anamoly to me. I barely get why some Americans like him. But seeing avid support for him elsewhere just blows my mind. Good luck though! Rooting for you guys too!
Could not disagree more.
It’s a pathetic state of affairs that people here care and know more about US politics than our own country’s, and I’m personally sick of it.
also one of the most concerning ones
My favorite answer when internet Nazis asked “How could the Nazis have won?” used to be “Be America.”
It’s not as funny anymore. They listened.
Stop giving them ideas.
I’m sorry, the rise of American fascism is all my fault :(
oh god, no
I find a squirrel climbing a tree a more interesting event
To be fair, squirrels are pretty interesting.
Not to worry, I’m sure that there are websites around that cater to your squirrel tastes
