A lot of redditors today think that Reddit became a hard left echo chamber organically. This couldn’t be further from the truth. It once played host to a large amount of conservative subs, and Reddit’s admins worked hard to eliminate this community. There have been false flags, constant harassment, selective enforcement of rules, and worse.
Famously, The_Donald was one of the biggest conservative communities on the internet. It represented actual politicians and the people who voted for them, it allowed debate. It was ultimately removed for posts “threatening violence against police”. The BLM movement started weeks later, and one glance at leftist subs even today should prove that if this was a REAL reason to remove a sub, then it wouldn’t just be TD being removed. Rather, Reddit wanted it gone from the start.
Spez has been caught editing users posts, for example: https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/13739026/reddit-ceo-steve-huffman-edit-comments
and Spez has admitted, he thinks he has the power to influence elections through reddit: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/19/reddit-and-the-struggle-to-detoxify-the-internet “I’m confident that Reddit could sway elections,” he told me. “We wouldn’t do it, of course. And I don’t know how many times we could get away with it. But, if we really wanted to, I’m sure Reddit could have swayed at least this election, this once.”
Another big sub was r/cringeanarchy. CA broke no reddit rules, it wasn’t “hate speech”, it just had memes making fun of people who were (arguably) on the left. But Reddit couldn’t allow subreddits that were popular and seemed to mock leftist opinions. CA faced mods being forced in, false flag attacks, and constant cries of “hate speech” from r/AgainstHateSubs. AHS was caught multiple times making false flag attacks on conservative subs, but they would pull out their ultimate trick, which I witnessed in person.
CA was flooded with CP late one night, faster than mods could remove it, and this was quickly and quietly used as a reason for Reddit admins to ban the sub. An AHS user admits to this as well: https://youtu.be/yUV9TyfYaEQ
There have been chat logs tying AHS leaders to reddit admins as well. I have no doubt that Reddit’s admins, who counted among their numbers known pedophiles Ghislaine Maxwell and Aimee Challenor, used posted child porn as an excuse to delete an unwanted subreddit.
Now redditors say things like “most people are left wing” and the classic “reality has a known liberal bias” not knowing that the opinions of actual people who vote right some or all the time, more-or-less half the US, have been deliberately hidden from them.
This same treatment affected LGBT subs outside the main narrative, and womens subs. Subs like r/itsafetish or r/detrans are gone, subs like r/twoxchromosomes or r/actuallesbians have trans members forcibly placed on the mod team.
Who else was there to witness the censoring? What else do redditors need to know?
I remember when Reddit had a sizable Libertarian wing. Ron Paul, etc. Now, the same people who call everyone to the right of Bernie Sanders a “boot licker” go on to support every expansion of government power that is proposed and parrot the same opinions held by the largest corporations, media companies, and the government.
A lot of redditors today think that Reddit became a hard left echo chamber organically.
Reddit is huge. The only people that think Reddit as a whole is a ‘hard left’ echo chamber are people who have had their reality distorted by their own echo chambers.
“ The_Donald was one of the biggest conservative communities on the internet. It represented actual politicians and the people who voted for them, it allowed debate”
Why even try to lie so blatantly about banned dissent circlejerk: the subreddit. For fun, or what?
The conservative subs got banned for promoting hate speech. If you don’t want to get banned for promoting hate speech, it really is that easy.
As the saying goes, if 9 people sit down to dinner with a nazi, there are 10 nazis at the table.
I should also point out that private entities choosing not to allow you a platform for your hate speech is not censorship. You’re still allowed to be a hate-mongering bigot, they’re just not obligated to hand you a megaphone.
just because you disagree with something, it doesnt make it “hate” speech - it’s just normal speech. oh, and calling everyone a “racist” or a “nazi” doesnt really make it true. the extremist left loves to do that, it’s like collective mental illness
I agree. You actually have to say something hateful for it to be hate speech. Luckily it’s easy to identify because you people aren’t exactly smart enough to hide it.
insulting already? wow that was quick.
What insult? I stated facts. If you feel insulted by that, be better.
No, calling for harming people is not normal speech. The_donald did repeatedly and openly disregard the rules in regards of brigading, calls for violence, etc…
Just because you automatically reply to any accusation of hate speech or calls for violence with “not everyone who disagrees is doing hate speech” doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist… And reddit also banned left wing communities that disregarded rules.
Reddit really didn’t want to get rid of them, they generated a lot of traffic, but they routinely caused bad press and caused trouble with advertisers. If I remember correctly, the last straw was calls to violence of police officers.
kind of ironic really - BLM protests were a big thing in my area, protests that quickly turned into anit-police riots, many leading to actual violence by “bad actors”… all swept under the rug. then many of the experienced officers quit because “acab” and “defunding” were politically viable… these actions were widely lauded on reddit & had quite a lot of support in the media.
however, actions have consquences. those experienced police officers quit - rightfully so - and then moved jurisdictions to the suburbs/other cities that were happy to have them. now the metro area is crime-ridden shithole, and just about everyone I know does WFH so they dont have to visit that hive of scum and villainy.
kind of ironic really - BLM protests were a big thing in my area,
Not really ironic at all… More like one has nothing to do with the other… The_Donald was already quaranteened in 2019. So why are you changing the subject?
protests that quickly turned into anit-police riots
You mean anti-protester beatdowns caused by a few bad apples?
all swept under the rug
All swept under the rug? The site was full with videos of people rioting and/or getting gassed/beaten by police…
these actions were widely lauded on reddit & had quite a lot of support in the media.
The murder of Floyd was mostly condemned on reddit, but that was the case everywhere… That’s not the same thing as people calling for riots… People who directly called for violence were banned, this included left wingers…
Acab is not a call for violence. “Defund the police” is not a call to violence…
Even before 2020 there were some on reddit calling for violence against the far-right. Reddit threatened to ban communities that did not remove those comments and banned users/communities who spread those comments.
now the metro area is crime-ridden shithole, and just about everyone I know does WFH so they dont have to visit that hive of scum and villainy.
What has any of that have to do with what we are talking about?
I truly do not agree. Reddit has played games with changing the definition of hate speech constantly. Many subs that were well moderated were closed for very minor things that weren’t upvoted. And if Reddit admins sit down to dinner with pedophiles (repeatedly, and only throw them out after mass protests…)
The Great thing about reality is it doesn’t care if you agree with it. By it’s nature, it simply is.
As I recall, most of those subs got the boot for not moderating, brigading, threats, etc.
Nice try to change the narrative but no one is buying.
I completely disagree. CA in particular was quite well moderated and didn’t brigade either. Reddit admins were notorious for using these as excuses to target subs they wanted to get rid of, while being lenient against other subs (AHS was basically a dedicated brigading sub! But merely saying something negative about certain subs could get an immediate warning.)
Yes, I’m sure the moderators of an anarchist sub did a great job enforcing rules they probably didn’t agree with. If I know anything about anarchists it’s that they love other people’s rules.
It was called cringe anarchy because it made fun of anarchists.
Ah. In that case it’s a virtual certainty that it got banned for transphobia or homophobia, because that’s what “conservatives” always go after these days.
thanks for summarizing what i came here to say
