Having read some (but not all) the comments, I do agree with the idea that decentralization (federation) somehow is what helps to alleviate this problem, although it’s such a complex matter that you will have to see how it plays out. For my part, with some exceptions I was more or less satisfied with how Reddit used to be, and part of that was because Reddit was centralized. Reddit not being federated or decentralized is to its benefit because social platforms benefit from having everything all in one place, but what really seems to have done Reddit in was commercialization. It went from being similar to some kind of basic software tool to this corporate nightmare of tracking and ads, algorithmically shaping content, etc. It’s like Facebook now but with a red icon. Lemmy wasn’t designed to do that, and it will never do that. Federation does help with that.

Then why are they defend-- ohhhhh

In all countries the general population doesn’t understand anything. Certainly Americans don’t understand. If you’ve been to some countries that have already experienced the problems you mentioned, they might look more familiar to you, but I think Americans may be experiencing them for the first time.

Has anyone ever played this? I have seen coverage of it in online news and it doesn’t even look like an interesting game.

Your whataboutism is pretty useless. China also uses its tech companies for spying. China's mass surveillance program is larger and more ambitious. If anyone has been duped by propaganda it's you.

I don't see how that stops the state's mass surveillance programs

If only they were were as smart and developed as the monkeys in that movie

Imagine, lemmy.ml claims to be about privacy but supports the PRC, which is like the most anti-privacy organization on the planet.