In the past, when I saw the same posts on both Reddit and Lemmy, the Lemmy comments always showed more critical thinking and skepticism where it was appropriate. Nothing was taken at face value; memes were not considered a source of information, and there were always many comments looking for verifiable sources. This was in stark contrast to Reddit.

But, apparently, something changed. When the memes about the bombings started coming in, every comment was based on the premise that the meme was true. "2/3s??? Wow, I was expecting a big number but not a sizeable majority" "reddit too, all the traffic has been quiet."

Fortunately, as time went on, the more critical comments got voted to the top, and this spurred more skepticism. But the damage had already been done. The first wave of comments is always more representative of peoples' uninfluenced reactions; seeing them made me lose my faith in Lemmy.