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How do people find good information on the internet these days? (programming.dev)

submitted 1 year ago by catch22@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world

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It used to be that you would do a search on a relevant subject and get blog posts, forums posts, and maybe a couple of relevant companies offering the product or service. (And if you wanted more information on said company you could give them a call and actually talk to a real person about said service) You could even trust amazon and yelp reviews. Now searches have been completely taken over by Forbes top 10 lists, random affiliate link click through aggregators that copy and paste each others work, review factories that will kill your competitors and boost your product stars, ect.... It seems like the internet has gotten soooo much harder to use, just because you have to wade through all the bullshit. It's no wonder people switch to reddit and lemmy style sites, in a way it mirrors a little what kind of information you used to be able to garner from the internet in it's early days. What do people do these days to find genuine information about products or services?

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[+] Wakmrow@lemmy.world -9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I mean Wikipedia is not without a shitload of bias. Try searching democracy in China or homelessness in the USSR.

Take the contrast between the pages democracy in China vs democracy in the US. The Chinese page uses shit like oxford and Cambridge to call China an authoritarian one party state. Which: okay, but the framing of this is incredibly negative given the same argument could be for the US. Notably, the US page (redirected from democracy in the US) simply outlines US government structure and function.

The Chinese page condemns the current government of China as being antidemocratic while unironically citing the government that lost the civil war to the Chinese communist party instituted martial law for 38 years in Taiwan. Yes, the current Chinese government does not allow other parties to run candidates (as far as I understand it) but given what the people experienced before this government, its not that shocking that the vast majority of the population believes they live in a democracy.

Long windedly, Wikipedia is also super biased and corrupt.

[–] Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Wow are you saying Wikipedia is biased and corrup because they didn't inaccurately call the U.S. a one-party Authoritarian state?

The "Democracy in China" page explicitly states at the top that i's going to be an overview of political concepts and that there is on-going debate.

Homelessness in Russia does have a section on Soviet Union, talking about "Densification" following the October Revolution ie. Forced re-housing into small state owned flats.

Criticism of the US is indeed found directly in the same paragraph about how our government works:

It has higher levels of incarceration and inequality than most other liberal democracies, and is the only liberal democracy without universal healthcare

Open your eyes, Wikipedia is showing how it can be an incredibly dense and informative resource.

[–] Wakmrow@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The debate is from western scholars and from a western perspective.

If you are going to call communist party control of elections authoritarian and undemocratic, then two capitalist parties controlling all elections in the US isn't really functionally different. I'm not a China Stan. My point is that even trying to research how Chinese government and politics function using Wikipedia is exposing one to western propaganda.

Also, I think it should be fairly obvious that the western state and intelligence wings clearly are influential on Wikipedia.

[–] Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Calling the CCP Authoritarian and Undemocratic / Illiberal is accurate. They disappear those who protest or object.

Having a two party, first past the post, electoral college system in the US is less democratic than other Liberal Democracies. And wikipedia has links acknowledging that.

Researching China is always going to be exposing oneself to Western Propoganda. Why? Because Chinese Propoganda is the direct source we have to go by. We are unsure 100% how it works, and must try to read China state actions, and makr educated guesses - because of China's obfuscation of the truth.

[–] mimichuu_@lemm.ee -1 points 1 year ago

The thing is most of the people who say they're making educated guesses are actually just being deliberately dishonest to plant dislike for a geopolitical rival in the population. And obviously Chinese state media is being dishonest too. You don't have to pick one over the other.

[–] randon31415@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

One of the longest running ARBICOM cases is about Tawain. The first one ended, and then another one pops up literally on naming conventions of geography in Tawain. It is like a unmovable obstacle vs. an unmovable obstacle with endless chineese editors vs. endless wikipedia burocracy.

I would hate to see what the mandarin version of Wikipedia has to put up with.