Not a bad idea! I think of works like Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilliogy, which has a pretty significant focus in the second book about what a new style of collaborative governance might look like. Narrative is always the most powerful way to convince people of ideas, so I say go for it!
What an interesting idea. As this project scales, how would you think of getting around the Reddit API limit problem? This sounds pretty API intensive. I also wonder if Reddit might see this as a TOS violation (particularly when the bot was posting comments) and killing it without even reaching an API limit.
That said, I applauded you for trying to think of creative ways to increase content on Lemmy. One thing in particular that I miss are the questions on niche subreddits, particularly hobby subreddits. You can learn so much just by reading others’ questions. Lemmy doesn’t have the user base and reach to support stuff like that yet, so I like that you’re trying to think of ways to increase that content here.
I’ve been on the Fediverse for years and I’ve never much encountered this. I curate my timelines very carefully. I don’t look at the Local or Federated timelines in Mastodon, Pixelfed, or Lemmy.
That said, I do the exact same thing with all social media. I don’t go to the subreddits that would have such content, don’t follow users on Twitter who spew this content, etc.
I’m not disputing that it’s there, because of course it is. But it’s also there on every other social media platform, and with far more resources these platforms haven’t been able to do nearly anything about it.
I don’t know what the answer is to this propaganda, and I want to make clear that I think it’s awful. But it’s the fault of social media writ large, not the Fediverse.
In fact, I’ve found the Fediverse to be better about calling it out and encouraging defederating offending instances than I’ve seen on traditional social media, which seems to shrug its shoulders at it at best and actively encourages it at worst.