When did reddit turn Facist?

Historically, I’ve perceived Reddit as slightly left leaning, with strong pockets of conservatives. Recently though, a vast majority of comment sections seem to excuse violence, such as in this thread (TW: police brutality), where people say things like

TW: Supporting violence> The students didn’t hurt the bullets, right? > They paid to learn so… You go learn today > Um…good? > Follow the rules of the people who own the property. If they ask you to leave then leave. Don’t interfere with people’s incomes or you’ll end up finding the fuck out >> Got it. The next time I stand on a private piece of grass that I paid 200 grand for the privilege of using, I should expect to be shot at like I deserve. I’ll keep that in mind. >>> When the owner of the property wants you to move on? Yeah. Move on. Or don’t and find out.

And I’m seriously wondering when Reddit got so bad that the hivemind supports calls for violence. Are these humans? Are they bots? Why does reddit allow this conduct?

spez,

'Twas the added limitation of the Public Reddit API. Basically, everyone good left and everyone crappy is staying.

Shadowq8,

ever since occupy wallstreet scared the elites, reddit and other social media had a target on its back. Even 4chan. Itsbombarded by noise now.

brax,

I assume it happened around the time most of us left for other places. The fascist community there probably hasn’t grown much in numbers, but as a percentage it increased because the decent people left.

grrgyle,

My theory is that if you were really principled, you would have got out of there a long time ago. So what you’ve got left are people who are ok to put up with a shitty status quo, so long as they get their fix. You know, moderates.

I don’t go on reddit anymore, but if it’s full of people who put up with shit, then it’s only natural that the shit started rolling in.

Brickardo,

It’s flooded with bots as well as karma farmers. You can tell by the way they write down their comments.

For better or for worse, you’ll often find real people at the reddit comments when sorting by controversial. Often for the worse, but sometimes for the better.

then_three_more,

Probably a bit before The Donald was flooding the entire feed.

zeppo,
@zeppo@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve been using reddit since 2008 and the idea of any conservative bullshit on there would have been really surprising before 2015. Overall though the amount of generic person stupidity has increased in the past few years. Not that all sports fans are like this, but often i get the stupidest reply from someone - like, close minded, blithely cruel about whatever topic - and look at their profile and the ONLY other thing they’ve commented on is sports.

Forester,
@Forester@yiffit.net avatar

Then you’re replying to Russian bots…

zeppo,
@zeppo@lemmy.world avatar

No, the conclusion would be that they’re replying to me. However I’m quite certain Americans like that exist as well.

Forester,
@Forester@yiffit.net avatar

Oh, I’m certain that they do exist, but also it’s a known Russian tactic to spread disinformation . youtu.be/3X2puLun3-8?si=8mL_b72va5bLn2pL

zeppo,
@zeppo@lemmy.world avatar

Sure, I get that. The whole thing is that they imitate legitimate accounts.

squid_slime, (edited )

Its a universal tactic, look up Manufacturing Consent, it’s a book but you dont need to read it to grasp how insidious the governmental news machine is instead look at the Wikipedia page

RGB3x3,

It’s so wild to me that the same people who espouse the second amendment to the constitution completely ignore the first part, where freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are.

If you love the constitution so much, why aren’t you supporting those who are actually exercising their rights?

whotookkarl,
@whotookkarl@lemmy.world avatar

June 30th, 2023. There were always subreddits like r/thedonald that used violent right wing authoritarian cult-like political rhetoric, but after the users and mods who gave half a shit left when they banned third party apps and sided with advertisers over the people keeping it from becoming 99% bots and bootlickers.

CitizenKong,

Or in other words, Spez decided to speedrun enshitification.

spez,

Yes

TimewornTraveler,

Well, you see in June last year, Reddit decided to make some greedy corporate changes. So in response, tons of principled leftists departed the site. What did yall expect? Same thing happened to Twitter.

Katrisia,

Historically, I’ve perceived Reddit as slightly left leaning, with strong pockets of conservatives.

Yes, in international subreddits. The national ones were often right leaning (e.g. r/Canada, r/Mexico).

Juice,

I left reddit for good 4 years ago for just this reason. I suspect it was well before that, like when someone tracked the IPS of reddit users and discovered that the most redditors were in the town where Eglin Air Force base is located. Now there’s more bots but they used to have more people just doing the same shit. Lots of large police forces have big social media teams I wonder what they do. And the most prolific mod and poster of their time was likely Ghislaine Maxwell. Oh and their CEO made their career in the CIA before coming over to Reddit, which from what we know about people who left the CIA to go into media, is that they never really left

drumino,

Interesting hypothesis, would you mind citing some sources for those claims? I never heard of spez being CIA or any of the other rather huge claims you make.

Juice,

*Sorry its been forever since I looked at these notes. It isn’t the CEO its the Director of Policy, Jessica Ashooh. Thanks for the spot check

old.reddit.com/…/reddit_has_removed_their_blog_po…

old.reddit.com/…/ghislaine_maxwell_was_a_moderato…

off-guardian.org/…/reddit-hiring-nato-shills-to-c…

wikispooks.com/wiki/Jessica_Ashooh

Cloak,
@Cloak@lemmy.ml avatar

I agree these claims are a little crazy, but not actually that crazy. Did a little digging and

that the most redditors were in the town where Eglin Air Force base is located

Ghislaine Maxwell

their CEO made their career in the CIA before coming over to Reddit

No fucking clue on this one

Juice,

Sorry I hadn’t looked at my notes or thought about this in a while. Its not the CEO its their director of Policy, Jessica Ashooh. My apologies to Spez I hope his mountains of money can give him comfort.

That air force study is cool, gonna add it to my notes!

homesweethomeMrL,

Friendly reminder the “block user” function is available on all your favorite platforms. Much like we had to invest the time in filtering mail back in the day, so do we have to do the same for comment threads now.

anas,

I’m pretty sure you can only block people who have replied to you on reddit.

LordPassionFruit,

I don’t think this will solve the issue OP is describing. They’re concerned at the existence of fascists on reddit, not just that they are seeing them. Blocking them all would be more like sticking your fingers in your ears and saying it doesn’t exist.

homesweethomeMrL,

Oh, agreed. Just pointing it out as a tool-in-the-toolbox kind of way. Like, not going to reddit = less fascism now (apparently).

treadful,
@treadful@lemmy.zip avatar

But then you won’t get the satisfaction of downvoting them in the future.

Jikiya,

Two things are happening simultaneously Russia/China are trying to spread discontent, and Trumps followers are being told they no longer have to abide by social norms that keeps societies civil.

I believe the uncivil thing just always comes in waves as the people that don’t like change are forced to change and get resentful. Some kind of event happens and resets the floor, or all the people that don’t want to change die off, and things settle down.

And this is the mental framework through which I see the world.

zorflieg,

That’s a choice though. Have you thought about biodegradable plastic or some other composite material? Oh not “metal framework” sorry, carry on.

FeelzGoodMan420,

Probably just your average Russian Trolls/AI bots. May I suggest simply just not subscibing or browsing political/news subreddits/communities? You’re ragebaiting yourself for no reason. Just ignore those areas of the Internet. Your mental health will thank you.

JPSound,

This is the sure-fire solution. Before I left Reddit when the API bs went down (RIP RIF), I had already filtered out all the popular and simipopular political and adjacent subs. It change my Reddit experience and overall frustration levels immediately and all for the better. I still got the news I wanted here and there but without that dumbass antagonistic shithole that’s the comments section. Anyway, good riddance, Reddit.

FeelzGoodMan420,

Lemmy has the same doomscrolling ragebait political bullshit though. So make sure to hide those here too.

null,

Yup, I’ve seen enough posts where bots are clearly reposting (huge) comment chains from older posts to know the place is absolutely crawling with them

Subreddit Simulator wasn’t an experiment, it was a proof-of-concept.

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