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?

  • Dr. Moose@lemmy.worldEnglish
    59·
    6 months ago

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

    • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
      27·
      6 months 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.

      • Dr. Moose@lemmy.worldEnglish
        26·
        6 months 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.

      • andros_rex@lemmy.world
        16·
        6 months 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.