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?

  • Juice@midwest.social
    2·
    2 years ago

    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

  • njm1314@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 years ago

    Reddit admins straight up love Nazis. That’s not hyperbole. It’s a long and recorded history.

  • Optional@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 years ago

    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.

    • LordPassionFruit@lemm.ee
      1·
      2 years ago

      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.

  • Mwa@thelemmy.club
    1·
    2 years ago

    I think reddit is Usally far left ngl (if that’s a word) I never really seen racism happening it just gets deleted

    I remember someone on reddit saying the n slur to me I reported him and reddit deleted the account (idk?)

    • alvvayson@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      1·
      2 years ago

      The last natural, human, popular subreddit to arise on reddit was r/antiwork

      After that, the site got swarmed by bots and censorship.

      If you try and post something even remotely progressive in a popular subreddit, it will get deleted and you will probably get banned.

    • Zaktor@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      Yeah, last time I went back to survey the landscape the more anticorporate/progressive subs I knew were noticeably diminished, while subs that get off on the futility of activism and immutability of power structures were going strong.

  • Dr. Moose@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

    It simply grew too big and corporate. Reddit is not a niche social network anymore. It’s Facebook.

    • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
      0·
      2 years ago

      It was never a niche social network. In the beginning, Spez used sockpuppets to fake engagement, later on advertisers and state actors (In 2016, they forgot to scrub the bots from their statistics, and posted that Eglin Airforce Base was the most reddit-addicted city) generated engagement.

      • andros_rex@lemmy.world
        1·
        2 years ago

        Reddit also harbored trading rings for CSAM. It took a CNN report about r/jailbait for it to be removed. There was also r/picsofdeadkids. r/creepshots.

      • Dr. Moose@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        What it absolutely was a niche network to the point where if reddit was mentioned in mainstream media it made big waves. Dudes even had secret greetings like when does the narval bacon or smt like that I don’t remember. But reddit was super niche and that’s what made it special imo. The first secret santa exchanges were trully amazing, unique experiences that will never be replicated again and the platform was full of these niche little gems that are forever lost now.

  • magnetosphere@fedia.io
    1·
    2 years ago

    …with strong pockets of conservatives.

    Being loud, disrespectful and obnoxious is frequently an attempt to mask weakness and insecurity.

    I get what you mean, though. I avoid that cesspool as much as possible.

  • BarbecueCowboy@kbin.social
    1·
    2 years ago

    Reddit still trends liberal overall, but anti-police sentiment has been on a decline for awhile. To me, it feels like the anti-establishment crowd basically died out completely over the pandemic. Reddit also tends to trend anti-hamas and pro-israel, the newer users don’t really understand that you can be against both so if it hurts the one they don’t like, it has to be good.

  • whotookkarl@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 years ago

    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.

  • Katrisia@lemm.ee
    1·
    2 years ago

    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).

  • UNOFFICIAL SPEZ@lemmus.orgEnglish
    1·
    2 years ago

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

  • brax@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    2 years ago

    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.