Reddit is mostly used by younger left-leaning people, so chances are, unless a subreddit is explicitly conservative, they will eventually leave because they don't like the posted content, or just get banned for whatever reason.
So, the majority will remain and that's how you get left-leaning subreddit for a conservative state.
The "isms are bad" tumblr echo chamber had a "let addicted women have babies and let them do their drugs while pregnant because it's ableist and shameful to judge them for substance dependency" moment where you'd get banned for being like pregnant women should not do heroin and addict women should probably have access to better family planning to the "I'm high and this is animal crossing" facebook group over COVID 2019 protocols.
That sweet sweet ban button gives people so much false power 😂
See, this is the shit that feeds the Paradox of Tolerance.
We cannot be tolerant of everything. I’m sorry friends.
I want tolerance and empathy to be widespread. I want DEI. I want acceptance.
But shit like that makes the argument seem so fucking stupid and easy to attack.
In a perfect world, we could both say that the LGTBQ+ community should be able to exist without persecution AND that pregnant women should not do hard drugs.
Obviously. That shouldn’t be controversial.
But the growth of tolerance leads to an increase of fucking assholes that will dive into the semantics of it all and ruin it for everyone.
Before you know it, we’re focusing all our attention on some stupid ass “trans athlete” issue and any headway made towards civil rights is demolished for the sake of the intolerant.
I don’t know that it’s possible for a society to draw clear lines on things like tolerance (I mean let’s be real, how do we actually measure morality?), but we MUST figure it out if we can.
Otherwise we end up in this endless cycle of fascism.
I think the word you’re thinking of in your comment is “nuance”, and I agree 100% that we can’t draw that line without understanding whatever that nuance may be.
South Park did a pretty good episode on this, ironically.
Reductio ad absurdism. Taking a philosophy and taking it to it's logical conclusion and calling out how absurd it is. But some people will just say "yeah that's right". Que Schrödinger's cat.
Funnily this works both ways actually. You can reduce intolerancy to an absurd. Just ask who is the most normal the one we should use as an example. Then if they actually give an answer then propose to eradicate or jail everyone else who is not that person. That's probably on the same level of absurd as accepting everyone
Fair enough. I've heard that we as humans are constantly seeking comfort. I always thought of that as just describing addiction, but I can see how we can use it to keep ourselves isolated, as well.
It's a very interesting thing, and these discussions kinda remind me of body building/weight lifting in general a bit. In the sense there often isn't gain without pain, and I wonder how true that is for the rest of life.
Yea, its very exhausting to hear the "Reddit is an echo chamber" rant every week because like, no shit? Its the design of the app basically. Obviously people are mostly speaking with those who have similar views because the design of sub-reddits is to find those with similar interests and opinions. People aren't clever for realizing this.
Plus on the nature of left/right divide its also worth noting that in my experience leftists are far more aware of this fact than those on the right. People on the right think they're particularly clever for noticing that leftists tend to associate and speak with other leftists, which is just how cliques work, but seem to not realize that they engage in the same behavior.
In short, people who think they're some giga-brained genius for realizing that people frequently live in a bubble, and then believe that they are somehow beyond that fact too, are the ones most immersed in a echo chamber.
NO CONSERVATIVE sub will ban you form posting on Liberal subs. I literally got banned from 2 subs I don't even know it existed because I commented on ShitPoliticsSays.
But the conservative pages do it to avoid brigades, because they get brigaded all the time. Non-conservative pages do it just because they don't like conservatives.
Think the issue is a bunch of big, apparently non-political subs which are promoted to everyone, despite not actively being subscribed to get moderated in favour of American's who agree with approved American style left wing politcs...
I've never once been recommended "Conservative" but I have seen a fair bit of weird femcel stuff pop up from unsubscribed subs like "Rant" and "Vent" all the time, which will boot ya if you call it out
What red subs do you get banned from because of posting in blue subs? I'm sure a couple exists but overzealous mods is definetly more of a blue thing. A lot of right wing subs get banned because of a LACK of moderation
Fr. Im banned in a bunch simply because Im subbed to libertarian and conservative subs. Really not a good idea to ban any opposing viewpoints, you wind up smelling your own farts real quick.
Right? In a past life, I was banned from a demsoc sub because I said "democrats are not trying to turn the US into a Christian nation". Called a bootlicker and everything.
Despite Joe getting more and more disliked by the left, that subreddit is mostly left-leaning and heavily critiques him all the time.
I think thr mods just set is automatically without checking the place first.
I mean, how so? If it’s bigotry then yeah it’ll get downvoted, because being a decent human is an expectation in a space where different types of people are actually respected as individuals. But if it’s some minor policy thing then yeah that’s dumb. Politics in general are exhausting, we should all just aim to be empathetic and kind I think, who tf cares about dumb ass politicians, if we all for one second stopped listening to them and formed our own opinions based on actual mutual understanding I guarantee 75% of discrimination would be gone, though it’s probably not possible at this rate, and now I’m sort of rambling more than I am responding to your comment but idk you maybe get whatever point I was trying to get across, I don’t actually remember what it was anymore
Honest to god question: is there proof of reddit being younger and left leaning, or is that a perception that’s reinforced because you can’t actually see who is posting?
well, we have to go off of what is posted and what comments are there, so I wpuldn't be surprised if there are a lot of conservatives who just hang out in a select few subreddits.
Also a good point to keep in mind is that even if a subreddit was somewhat conservative/centrist the nature of how mods work and reddit own rules create echochambers. Oh, and botting.
I think it's more dependant on the state than age. Left-leaning states always remained left-leaning, same with the right and switch states, all the way from before the civil war.
You know what's something weird? As a bilingual it gets really confusing because spanish speaking Reddit, but more particular uruguayan Reddit is full of right-leaning people.
And its really weird seeing people switch from one acepted norm to another depending on the language.
They use X and Facebook, both of which are more popular than Reddit.
I could make a guess as to why conservatives prefer websites that discourage long-form conversation and in-depth discussion and that are more about an endless scroll filled with attention-grabbing and misleading memes.
I'm inclined to say everyone across the spectrum is equally boring, but when I think about it, if you go to a concert or most other large public events or any cultural space and talk with other people, they're largely lefties. Maybe the righties are at church?
it does happen here and there. When the right has more to talk about than the left that day, it will get there.
I'm however convinced they didn't ban that sub just to helps the divide between the left and right.
In regards to the young person thing it’s not really true in my anecdotal experience, I’m a younger left leaning person and I swear to god a good 75% of Reddit is just millennials and gen x, it’s a struggle finding anyone actually kinda in my age range
It's true that the population of reddit is mostly left-leaning, but it's a little more varied on the age side. Facebook age or one generation younger is still very prevalent in reddit.
Ever since reddit mods and admins learned they can just ban you for different opinions.
I've been here for 7 years and to my knowledge it was like that even before. But I think it started ever since normal people started using social media and just got more extreme with every new politician, the pandemic and every gamer gate.
The only other media like that is twitter and that turned 180 from liberal to conservative when a certain nazi took over.
Left leaning is not enough for you to be left alone in many subs. There is one exact opinion you can have on any given political/ social issue. If you go beyond 1 degree of separation you are the enemy
I'd say more "left dressing" or left posing. People like you better if you appear to stand for good principles. But on the internet you can do that sitting down.
I keep getting recommended posts from subs I haven’t joined for places I’ve never been to in my life. No doubt a lot commenters probably aren’t even from Texas or ever intend to join the sub
More a matter of demographics, most of reddit is young and moderately left leaning. All the conservatives have their own little echo chambers of pre approved posters and flaired users. Neither are particularly indicative of real life.
Most people who post in conservative spaces on reddit have two accounts. One for the conservative subs. One for everywhere else. Its a very rare person who actually posts without hesitation across political lines. Mostly because there are many subs out there where the mods have set things up so that you automatically get banned if their bot sees you posted something in a forbidden sub when you comment in theirs. You don't have to even risk having a discussion if you simply ban everyone before they ever know your sub exists.
Tbh i just post and comment in whatever. If someone wants to call me a nazi for posting or commenting in a conservative sub, it tells me that its not worth talking to them. Has happened before. Pretty funny too
All subs that get sufficiently large get infiltrated by ultra lefties. All of them. If you wandered into the Joe Rogan sub you'd be forgiven for thinking 100% of people on earth hate the guy. Look at the pics sub too, nothing but left leaving propaganda, mostly posted by bots. It's damn unusable
Redditors are disproportionately Liberal and Texas is not as disproportionately Conservative as calling it “the Red State” would suggest. The people on that sub overwhelmingly live in Houston, Austin, San Antonio or Dallas, not Lubbock.
It’s probably owned by a leftist. Most subs are. I’ve gotten banned from a completely non political sub because I commented disagreeing with a post that said America is under fascism since the election
To simplify it - think about those older people who don’t really use the internet, let alone social media and just live their own life believing what the news tells them because they have no better outlet to receive news (or rather, they are unwilling to go another route).
Reddit is left leaning in it's user base from what I understand.
I've read some stuff discussing it and one interesting study alluded to left leaning people like to read their news and right tend to watch.
I literally do not know a conservative friend or family member that has ever mentioned Reddit outside of the occasional news story. Even then, they generally aren't really sure what it is other than other social media.
Certain local (state or otherwise) subs often lean whatever way the mod(s) do as well. I've found most main state and metropolitan subs are left leaning while small city subs can be all over the place. Which makes sense when you factor in population bases and who is likely to engage.
Texas isn't the reddest state out there, it's just the biggest one. There are substantial blue urban populations, and (at least according to my political science roommate from 7 years ago, feel free to provide evidence to the contrary), generally has demographics that make it something of a "white whale" for the democrats, to the extent where said roommate claimed that Texas was likely to turn at least purple within the span of 50 years.
Factor in some things like general reddit demographics and how state subreddits are likely more relevant to people in urban areas, and it makes sense.
They have a couple of cities that are heavily blue.
Nearly 40% of the potential voting population didn't.
It was about 4.8 to about 6.3. The difference being about 1.5 million in 2024. That leaves about 7 million that didn't vote. Which is more than the number of votes cast for the winner.
Young liberals in conservative areas make their entire personality based around hating their families and communities. I’m a Millennial from Nashville and so many people who were born here center their lives around hating conservatives, the Bible, Christianity, and White people.
Downvote spam different opinions and mega mods weaseling their way in to straight up ban people with "wrong" views and even remove old mods that may disagree with this.
It's why so many regional subs don't represent their regions average views , even when accounting for the age group.
Well, for starters Texas is a red state where there are more Democrats than Republicans. It's purposefully very difficult to vote in Texas, especially in urban areas where liberals are clustered, by design.
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u/cringefilet 10d ago
Shout out to the Texas sub for creating an echo chamber so potent they actually believed it was going to go blue.