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?
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).
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.
Then you’re replying to Russian bots…
No, the conclusion would be that they’re replying to me. However I’m quite certain Americans like that exist as well.
Oh, I’m certain that they do exist, but also it’s a known Russian tactic to spread disinformation . https://youtu.be/3X2puLun3-8?si=8mL_b72va5bLn2pL
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
Sure, I get that. The whole thing is that they imitate legitimate accounts.
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It didn’t. Lemmy is ultra liberal so Reddit appears fascist.
Yeah, I don’t support most of the crackdowns on the protests, but it’s silly to think that people are suddenly fascist for wanting state power to crack down on what they BELIEVE is antisemitism. If I believed that the protesters were doing it more out of weird racist shit than concern for Palestinians, I would want them out too. ESPECIALLY now.
And before you say “well they should know better!” I mean sure, but not everyone has the luxury of spending tons of time analyzing every single piece of news, looking into multiple sources, reading the history of a middle east region the size of New Jersey, etc, etc. What makes it even harder is that Israel and Palestine are ultimately foreign countries, no matter how much of an alliance the U.S has with Isreal, it’s still a country in the middle East.
Then there is the nuance, Hamas are still terrorists and Netanyahu even supported them until October 7th, Israelies were trying to actively get red of the guy until the 7th, the country was set up by the British have both sides fight and hate eachother forever, real antisemitism is rising all over the world and fascists are trying to take advantage of that and connect it to Israel-Palestine. Then Add media bias and how even video footage can be fake with AI and you have a basically completely out of control situation.
Eh the brits were just following the example the Ottoman Empire set.
Source? I’ll admit I’m very new to Israel-Palestine, that’s why I keep quiet about it most of the time, but I felt like speaking up for other people who know even less about the issue would be a good idea here on Lemmy where people seem to have a great deal of knowledge on the subject.
Its not specific to Palestine as it was due to how the Ottoman empire typically left the existing adminstration structures in place when they conquered regions.
Then, many of its sultans used rival groups against each other, typically to their own benefit as both groups jockied for power over the other.
An example whwre this benefitted them was Mehmud(1 or 2), who used two rival groups dislike of each other to make them both weaker and his own position much stronger.
An example of this backfiring on them was the uprising / rebellion of Egypt.
Also, notably, non-muslims(and non-male muslims) were explicitly inferior citizens in the eyes of Ottoman law. They(example: christians and jews) were allowed to make their own communities, but they weren’t seen as equals and would be fair game to be enslaved.
Source: the Ottoman Empire by Kenneth W Harl as well as https://www.britannica.com/place/Ottoman-Empire
Idk, the subs I used to frequent the most have definitely shifted to the right.
Worldnews over there is just a horrendous shitpile of fascism and Hasbara. It used to be way more variable depending on time of day and stuff.
Same as it ever was, only now events have changed. There never was a massive exodus from Reddit, so the opinions you see there are a better representation of the masses than the limited ones you read here.
At most a few hundred people will vote on a post like this. That’s all you really need to know.
Nope, the Israel Palestine occupation has been a thing for decades. Redfit was different in, say, 2014 (another hostage situation) to what it is now.
Personally I think it has a lot to do with the total unleashing of bots and astroturfers, but it’s definitely noticeable to me.
Anyone worth a shit left already. It’s full of normies and bots now. The “reddit is a psyop” guy is starting to make sense now.
I think you have AI to thank. Bots are going to take over everything, and I worry that soon comments of anything on the Internet will be rife with garbage like this.
Internet solipsism; you realize you’re the only real person on the internet
Edit: solipsism probably isn’t the right word, i think i heard a word for this but can’t recall what it was
Subjectivity?
Dead internet theory
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.
It simply grew too big and corporate. Reddit is not a niche social network anymore. It’s Facebook.
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.
Reddit was doomed the moment Aaron Swartz left in 2007.
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.
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.
Everywhere is shit. Lemmy has those folks too
Right around the time America turned fascist?
Probably a bit before The Donald was flooding the entire feed.
Conservatives have a lot to gain by building bots to antagonize and convert naive young (and old) people by plastering their dumb ideas everywhere. It’s marketing, if you’re cruel and dumb they want you on their team.
Why do they allow it? Many reasons I’d guess… engagement , capitalism, shared-beliefs.
Controversial things generate engagement.
Engagement generates profits.
Many of the decision makers are narcissistic conservatives who think the same thing, but instead of saying it they just enable it, indirectly achieving the same goal as hate-evangelizing.A surprising amount of people want to watch the world burn, as long as they can do it from a balcony.
It’s also so, so, sooooooo easy to post right wing bullshit because it’s always emotional shallow and without any nuance.
So if you say immigrants are stealing all our jobs and committing crimes all over our country! People are already getting riled up, while I have to spend 5 minutes explaining that while we have to secure our borders immigrants aren’t the cause of all our woes.
And while I’m in the middle of my 5 minute explanation debunking your first horseshit point, you interject “Gays are over running our schools and molesting our kids!”…
So yea… The truth has a huge disadvantage in the online space because it’s so easy to spread lies.
The bullshit asymmetry principle.
It takes far more text to disprove bullshit than spout the bullshit itself.
Then, to prevent your followers from reading the debunking, introduce, “Lol libs sure do write a lot, they do that because they are dumb and triggered!”
And, “I love the poorly educated” (because they haven’t been taught how to apply reason to arguments so they can’t see through my historically well-known hate tactics because they don’t read books.)
But they do understand, “Sleepy Joe!” “Crooked Hillary!”
So yeah, you’re encountering bullshit asymmetry, it sucks and our job is hard, but hey, since we are on the topic of slogans, let me paraphrase a famous one. “We do this thing or that thing not because it is easy, but because it is hard.”
The decision you are left with is knowing when to talk and when to walk away from someone who isn’t ready to listen.
A surprising amount of people want to watch the world burn, as long as they can do it from a balcony.
“I never thought the
leopards would eat my facefire would spread to my building!”Exactly, my theory is they are too narcissistic to realize that fire will spread to their metaphorical balcony… idk. My own theory seems dumb to me, how could they be so shortsighted?
My own theory seems dumb to me, how could they be so shortsighted?
There are countless events in human history where that question could be asked. Thinking long-term about the health of the environment and the species just doesn’t seem to be within human capability.
Conservatives have a lot to gain by building bots to antagonize and convert naive young (and old) people by plastering their dumb ideas everywhere. It’s marketing, if you’re cruel and dumb they want you on their team.
Because their opinions are unpopular as fuck, even amongst their own base, so they have to resort to paying propagandists and social manipulators to spam accounts and posts about their shit to make it seem more popular than it is, in the hopes of converting some of their idiot base by making them go “WELL SO MANY PEOPLE (BOTS) ARE TALKING ABOUT THIS, IT MUST BE POPULAR, THERE FOR I MUST LIKE IT OR I FAIL CONSERVATISM”
A surprising amount of people want to watch the world burn, as long as they can do it from a balcony.
I do believe I’m going to borrow this one.
ever since occupy wallstreet scared the elites, reddit and other social media had a target on its back. Even 4chan. Itsbombarded by noise now.
…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.
Has Redditc become more right wing or have you become more left wing.
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.
That’s a choice though. Have you thought about biodegradable plastic or some other composite material? Oh not “metal framework” sorry, carry on.
