I only assume that when the person is wrong
Everyone on the internet is a white guy in his 20s unless specified otherwise
True. I’se a white goy, an’ has been in my middle twennies fer a coupla decades.
Measured by gross tonnage, many of us are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_obesity
Because the majority of English speakers are American. If you’re speaking English online there’s a lot less of a chance that you’re English than that you’re American. On top of this localization on some sites and shared interest means Americans do spend a lot of time online with other Americans.
Carefully read the question again
No.
There’s over a billion non-native English speakers.
Population of U.S. ~340 million.
Population of Canada, UK and Australia combined: ~138 million.
Chances are, native English speakers on the internet are American.
I don’t assume people who speak other languages on the internet are American, but English speakers probably are. Unless they’re in country specific communities, like Canada, or UK. I do check the community before I butt in with my American take in country communities, usually, I don’t comment at all. But, I do see my fellow Americans making fools of themselves in those places sometimes.
There are 500 million Europeans. We just talk englisch online because everyone else does.
Break the Englischer hegemony! Latinam discere!
You’re ignoring ESL and L2 countries like South Africa and India
India has a billion internet users
But how many of them surf in english?
Enough that the default assumption should not be the USA just based on English.
There are enough other tells, such as saying that something is legal or illegal without giving a jurisdiction, or the imperial system (for things that don’t describe a person’s dimensions- I’ve rarely heard Brits describe their weight in kilos and I’ve never heard anyone outside of the commonwealth use stones except as a joke). Even things like budgeting student loans or medical bills as a huge expense or talking about long driven commutes.
It’s not perfect, but it’s more accurate than just using English. How many German speaking users do you encounter on Lemmy speaking English (it’s obviously not just German, but I recognize your username from the German speaking communities, so it’s an example I hope will work) whom you only recognize as German speakers through their username (either through familiarity or the language of the username)? I encounter it all the time. I also occasionally see two users interacting with a thread in general in English, but with each other in a different language because they recognize each other as speakers of that language, even though I would not have pegged either of them as a resident of a non English speaking country without their mutual interaction (obviously speaking any given non English language doesn’t mean you’re from or reside(d) in a country which officially uses that language, but it’s a pretty big indicator, especially for languages with fewer speakers than the top ten)
why assume all english speakers are in these 4 countries? :P
I don’t care how high the chances are, you shouldn’t assume someone’s nationality, just like you shouldn’t assume their race or sexual orientation. You shouldn’t refer to a group (eg, the American people) as “you” without knowing whether the person you’re replying to is part of that group
The way you and I are on the internet is because of our AOL subscriptions and AOL stands for America Online.
Huh.
I thought that the ‘A’ stood for avoirdupois and referred to the weight gain from sitting at a computer all day, whilst drinking Roan Bull and eating Chee-Z Poofs.
Because they often are, until proven otherwise. I also assume anyone online is a man until proven otherwise.
“I am Groot!”
This thought process is the basis of the internet rule, “There are no girls on the internet.”
It means to use caution and not fall victim to fraud or attempts to be persuaded based on alleged gender.
https://archive.org/stream/RulesOfTheInternet/RulesOfTheInternet..txt
Which is actually, in turn, based on misogyny rampent in many techie nerd spheres since the dawn of the internet. :|
Yup, we were always around, just not around them specifically.
As a woman I can assure you this isn’t necessary
