To be fair, the US has the largest number of English-speakers of any country in the world. As a first language, it has five times as many native English speakers as second place (the UK). It also has one of the highest Internet penetration rates in the world, meaning most of those English-speakers are also Internet users.

The US is a single country that is three-quarters the population of the entire European Union, and nearly all of its inhabitants speak English and use the Internet. So yes, if you pick a random user on an English social media page, odds are very good that person is an American. If you were to guess any random English-speaking Internet user's nationality, "American" is the best possible guess. But go on a Spanish language forum or a French language forum and nobody will assume you're American.

Consequently, Americans generate the majority or large plurality of English-language Internet content.

Edit: Please stop replying with "English is a lingua franca for non-native English speakers". I never made the claim that someone who uses English on the Internet is likely a native English speaker. I am claiming the converse—that people who natively speak English are likely to use English on the Internet.

[–] zerofk@lemm.ee 20 points 1 month ago (5 children)

I’m sorry but this is nonsense. I’m in a lot of online communities where everyone uses English, despite it being nearly nobody’s first language. It just happens to be the only language that everyone there knows. Language is no indication of nationality, especially online.

And to be honest, in those places the assumption is usually that everyone is European, which I can imagine is just as annoying for the stray American.

[–] NateNate60@lemmy.world -3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

I think you misunderstand.

What I am saying is that of all Internet users that use English, Americans are by far the largest group due to it being a very large country, (third most populous in the world) with a high Internet penetration (97%), and whose residents speak English as their main language (78.3%).

[–] s3p5r@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago

This list puts US at ~297m English speakers which is the largest group from one single country, that is true. But 297m / 1,537m = The US has 19.35% of English speakers globally.

You are likely also greatly underestimating current internet connectivity, older smartphones have changed things for poorer countries a lot over the past decade. For example, India has only 62.6% of people as internet users - but that's still 880m people and probably most of their 125m English speakers. Nigeria has 63.8% internet users, but that's 136m internet users. And they also have 125m English speakers, who again, are more likely to be the people who can afford an English education, and also a smartphone. And then there's Pakistan with another 100m English speakers and 70.8% internet users, etc.

Just 3 countries, (2 of which were 1 country 80 years ago) and you're close to that 300 million count already.

The list also gives US as 92.4% internet users, for what it's worth. A little less than 97% and not even in the top 20 countries by percentage, which is surprising.

The internet is less American than ever. It's just that most non-American people probably have non-English language spaces they can choose to gather in addition to the English-dominated spaces. Americans, on the other hand, are more likely to be monolingual English speakers and so they concentrate in the English-dominated spaces.

And non-Americans are all so used to people assuming American defaultism in English-dominated internet spaces because it was historically hugely expensive to get online and was overwhelmingly American English-speaking, that it's not even worth correcting when it happens the millionth time.

I've also put non-metric and US currency conversions in posts online many times. Not because I'm American or use them in daily life. It was just less annoying to convert them when writing rather than hear the inevitable multiple complaints about not understanding things in meters and dessicated jokes like "that's probably $2 in real money".

You're either overestimating the accuracy of your assumptions about your online interactions and/or seeing selection bias from your immersion in otherwise culturally isolated spaces.

load more comments (3 replies)

load more comments (19 replies)