Really insightful or just creative and well-worded variations on what people “already know”?

The latter are very common, even here. Truly insightful comments are vanishingly rare anywhere there’s an up/down vote system.

As an example, if I were to comment on someone’s post about the evils of the Chinese government (with the inevitable mention of Tiananmen Square in 1989) with the truth, that would be downvoted to perdition. Hell, there’s a good chance the post would be removed. I would almost certainly be branded a “tankie”. Because truth is not an issue in populism. Popularity is. And the popular opinion says hundreds to thousands of students were massacred in Tiananmen Square when in reality the truth of the matter is no students were massacred and the massacre that did happen didn’t happen in Tiananmen Square.

You see the real massacre happened several kilometres away and was of protesting labour. The student gathering in Tiananmen Square was a sideshow to the real perceived threat the Chinese government was reacting to. A mild annoyance vs. the perceived existential threat of the nationwide labour protests that even included elements of the PLA. But bring that genuine insight, not just rewarmed and creative expressions of popular opinion, into a thread and you’ll be voted into nothingness.

Lemmy had an opportunity to improve on Reddit. The (openly communist) developers of it decided instead to just make their own Reddit with leftist leanings and blackjack and hookers.