And worth keeping in mind that every sub, every comment section, including this place, is a self-selected narrow group that is very much not representative of public opinion in general.
And this goes far beyond politics (though it's the obvious one). People say they only can use reddit to find organic recommendations, but the representation is still very narrow.
Take podcasts or books for example: if you use reddit to source recommendations, you'll get the same ones coming up over and over. Many of my favorite podcasts I've found have been stumbled across by chance and have rarely even been mentioned on reddit.
Hobby subreddits in hobbies I’m more versed in are incredibly frustrating as it converges to people trying to fit the same rehashed suggestions onto whatever is being asked without any real thought about the context of the question. I get the feeling its just people trying to fit in by repeating authoritative recommendations while having next to no experience with what they’re suggesting.
I’ve experienced this same thing. Very frustrating when you get downvoted for pointing out the flaws of commonly held misconceptions which only novices would fall for. I hate to gatekeep hobbies, but the bar for entry to speaking with authority on Reddit is too low.
I have frequented r/de for a long time (German subreddit) and it's very much on the student life / left-leaning site of political opinions as a community. It is fascinating how repeated reality checks with the rest of society regarding political and the social landscape (e.g. national polls, elections) seemingly violate the moralist self-image of this community over and over again which is represented in flabbergasted comments. How can all of these people be against my opinion?
I happen to share many of the popular ideas on r/de - disagreement and mud-slinging is not my point. Just this notable lack of self awareness and the, frankly, authoritarian mods that enforce their political ideas on others in a de facto public forum. I really understand moderation is a hard problem but deleting entire comment sections and putting threads into contest mode if the left-leaning political opinion is in danger is painful to watch since the essence of democracy suffers: pluralistic (but respectful) discussions and arguments. The main points of debate here seem to be nuclear power, COVID and migration. Very divisive topics.
There has been a very interesting example of this in the case of the Bavarian lockdown which enforced an actual curfew of citizens in March 2020 when COVID was new and entirely unpredictable. This law was later taken to the Verfassungsgericht ("Supreme Court") and the discussion did a complete 180 degree turn strictly for political reasons and social media dynamics.
First, there was massive support (against COVID deniers) [1] where top commenters complain about the lockdown being too soft (!) and users even threatened others with violence (pepper spray to cite a specific comment) if they dont wear masks in public or take walks doing the curfew. But later, when the law was challenged in court, COVID became politically irrelvant and it was an opportunity to undermine the conservative leader of Bavaria, Markus Söder. Suddenly the curfew was a sign of a police state [2].
As long as the own agenda is propagated in a specific moment, you can collect upvotes with fitting comments. Facts and consistency just don't matter.
>I really understand moderation is a hard problem but deleting entire comment sections and putting threads into contest mode if the left-leaning political opinion is in danger is painful to watch since the essence of democracy suffers: pluralistic (but respectful) discussions and arguments.
If there is a better term for this someone let me know, otherwise I'm going to coin this kind of moderation "bush sculpture" moderation. That's how subreddit moderation works.
If a person saw a bush sculpture for the first time ever they would probably think how it's really curious the bush has this well defined shape, and happily conclude that the bush is just like that. "Pretty cool how there is a bush with the shape of a dog's face" they'll think.
In the same way, visiting a subreddit you would think that that's just the community and content. But once you see how moderation works you realize that in reality, the community is pulling to all sorts of places at the same time, and by pruning the content here and there with the shears of moderation, using the chainsaw that is automod and by motivating growth with precision via shadowbanning and choosing what becomes popular, you can perfectly shape a subreddit into the content you want.
