Yes, something similar happened to me: https://maximiliankohler.blogspot.com/2023/06/reddit-is-dangerous-humanity-needs-an-alternative.html

Reddit is an atrocious website with so many disturbing problems, and it keeps getting worse and worse.

If health is a topic you’re interested in, I created a forum that matches your description: https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/

Hopefully, it won’t be too long before Xenforo forums can federate with Lemmy.

I’ve tried going to back to forums after leaving Reddit, but many of them are filled with the same type of unintelligent people you find on Reddit and other social media.

That said, I’d still stick with forums & lemmy over Reddit.

I think Lemmy was being astroturfed during the recent reddit API controversy and exodus of some redditors to lemmy. Lemmy seems much more normal now, whereas reddit is still manipulated, astroturfed, and botted to hell.

No. Lemmy > Tildes.

Tildes should be avoided as much as reddit: https://maximiliankohler.blogspot.com/2023/06/reddit-is-dangerous-humanity-needs-an-alternative.html

Tildes: I’m not a fan of the UI/whitespace, but the invite-only nature of it keeps it high-quality. It’s another nice & unique option, but has the same “single owner” issue, as Saidit, Reddit, etc., so it would be risky to dedicate time and effort to building a community there. In the blink of an eye your years of work could be terminated by one person. I’ve also read multiple concerns/complaints about heavy-handed moderation, similar to what occurs on Reddit.

Tildes update:

I made a Tildes account many years ago when it first started up. I knew the founder was a Reddit admin, and I’d heard that it was a haven for Reddit admins & power-mods, but I hadn’t spent much time there.

I recently made a post about the problems with Reddit, and while there were intelligent people and comments on there, the majority of votes went to people who were being extremely dishonest, and even outright lying; attacking me in every way possible while urging the admin to ban me. Neutral people don’t behave like that. So they couldn’t have made it more obvious that Tildes is merely an extension of authority-figures-of-Reddit with a different UI. All the same problematic people & behaviors exist there.

Based on the accusations one of them was making, and my history they were pulling up, one of them was either a Reddit admin or someone in cahoots with one of the Reddit admins that banned me. Tildes is invite-only, and the main accounts attacking me were brand new.

The Tildes admin removed my comments debunking the lies they were telling, and deleted my account.

My experience with Reddit has made me extremely hesitant to put in any amount of effort or commitment into any platform I don’t own/control myself, and this recent experience with Tildes greatly confirms that concern.

and people realize just as well as you do where they can or should get their information

That’s definitely not the case. Some of the most popular sources of information are terrible (Eg: reddit and other social media, huberman).

Not sure if your comment is serious, but credentials are not a valid way to determine that information is accurate.

YSK that taking health advice from youtubers, celebrities and podcasters is a terrible idea.

This is mostly correct. Huberman, for example, is not a good source. But Rhonda Patrick seems decent.

Only take advice from research universities

This is not great advice. I’ve seen so many articles on sites like Harvard that contain harmful misinformation and no study citations.

Always look for citations to studies. But even that is not enough. The source can be cherry picking to push an agenda, or simply ignorant of other conflicting research. You really have to put a lot of effort in to find quality sources.

It’s not easy to find quality information, but sites like sciencedirect, eurekalert, and medicalexpress, are some of the better sources.

There’s an existing cure for most chronic diseases. Unfortunately, no one seems to care, so it will likely never be available.

OP, given your knowledge of news media, perhaps you have some ideas of how to get coverage of the issue? I’ve written to dozens of news outlets about it.