Tbf this is a very unusual time in the websites history due to the federation, and sorting by hot or new or, uh, “all time - month” will look very different.
It’s also just false that there are no anti-china people. For example, we have a weird Khrushchevite who says that he and only he is the one good head of state to hold office at any point from 1950 to now.
You can also find plenty of people who have criticisms of China (myself still included) but just hate the bullshit western articles that get shared on lemmy.ml or whatever. Between
- a group where 98% of relevant users are vehemently anti-china and 2% are for, but there is a profound consensus among the 98% that mediabiasfactcheck.org is a good website and the BBC is objective in its coverage of China as it puts out absolute pablum articles against it
Vs 2) a group where (let’s just say) 100% of the user base at least supports China over America but they are able to have real discussions about journalistic epistemology and media bias that doesn’t equate “unbiased” with “bipartisan”.
I think 2 is a lot less of an echo chamber because the presence of people with absolutely moronic and uncritical responses to media are not a substantial indicator of something succeeding in not being an echo chamber. Consensus within a finite population is a real social phenomenon and the vast majority of people can be reasoned with over time.
Edit: “but you just like your own media!”
Look at what we actually talk about. There is some use of Chinese or sometimes Russian press for reference, but the focus is overwhelmingly still on western sources because you can find a lot of useful information even in spite of the author’s intentions much of the time, and no one is using some Chinese NGO as a fucking measuring stick for what source is objective and what isn’t (and Russian media is automatically criticized, but that is an aside).
