Tl;dr: have there been any writings, surveys, or studies on the political composition of Reddit shifting in large communities?
I logged out of my reddit account a while ago but still browse some subreddits without logging in and have recently noticed more far-right rhetoric in general. I’m curious to know if others have seen this trend or, even better, wrote about it or documented it. Some examples I noticed were r/sweden and r/exmuslim. These are two communities I used to frequent often and both of them now have descended into more upvoted far-right rhetoric of the “deport them all!” caliber.
I have a feeling (from my own experience browsing these communities) that such content used to be quickly addressed and downvoted, and both of those subreddits don’t tend to ban people on the fly nor overmoderate. Sometimes I see threads with the same title (likely posted by the same person) on both the subreddit and the corresponding lemmy community where the difference in opinion and the general political leaning is obvious.
So, not to succumb to my own biases, have there been any writings, surveys, or studies on the political composition of Reddit shifting in large communities?
Because they will receive the same down votes whether I put energy into a quality post or not.
Here is a surefire solution to that problem if you are accessing Lemmy through a browser:
Install Ublock Origin
Open the dashboard (click the icon, gear button on bottom right)
In the 'My Filters' tab, paste the following lines of code:
sh.itjust.works##span.ms-2 sh.itjust.works##span.me-1With this, you can no longer be downvoted and are free to put as much energy into a post as you want. If someone wants to let you know they disagree, they can do so, but will have to use their words.
Hm. Didn't know that was possible. Although I use the boost app on Android to access Lemmy.
I'm not sure whether anything similar can be done on mobile. It is genuinely difficult to be seeing vote scores and not be affected by them, but I really do think they are best ignored as much as possible. The effects on comment visibility barely matter; unless it's a top level comment in a large thread, people are still going to see it, and even then they will end up seeking out the dissenting views. If people let fear of derision stop them from speaking their minds, no one will see what they actually think, which is a shame.
It is a shame. I spent almost a decade on Reddit and over the years I saw it devolve into madness.
I quickly learned no matter how much time and energy I spent trying to create a quality reply or post I was attacked, down voted and in some cases straight up banned for having a different opinion.
For example, I replied to a comment in the world news or politics subreddit that said "I disagree with you". I was banned for trolling. Trolling! It was after that I just gave up all hope for having any kind of sane discourse online. I started with Usenet back in the 90s so I've seen the decline since then. I hate it.
I think Lemmy is better than Reddit in a sense that you can see both up- and downvotes. If my message gets +7 / -30 points, at least I can still see that not literally everyone is opposed to what I'm saying. On Reddit, it would just say -23 points, and it can feel like the entire world is against you.
If I say something I believe to be true, then it doesn't matter if I get a ton of hate for it, especially when no one even makes a serious attempt to argue to the contrary. I have something to say, so I put it out there and move on. For instance, if I say something like "I can't help but feel bad for this Russian dude in the drone video whose face just got blown off," and I get downvoted to oblivion for it, my first thought is not "maybe I'm wrong," but rather "damn, these people are cold and cynical." I might be losing my hope for humanity, but at least I'm staying true to my beliefs.
I try to be respectful, even towards people who act in a manner that I don't appreciate, including you. I could've made a much different reply to you acting a bit shitty here and further provoke you to come back at me with a nasty reply, but I didn't. No matter how crappy social media can be nowadays, I try not to be one of those people making it worse.
Thank you.
I guess my app doesn't have that feature yet.
No matter, you guys are beginning to turn me around for the better. Sorry if I came off shitty earlier. My mind was already made up that this was just going to be another Reddit shit fest.
All good, man!
I still use Reddit, but I unsubbed from the world news, politics, etc. subreddits years ago for this reason. There has been a clear decline over the years, but I think a lot of this is artificial, especially anywhere focusing on political discussion. Anyone who can't tolerate talking like a propaganda bot shuts up or leaves or gets some kind of stockholm syndrome, because there are groups of activists who think they can achieve their goals by enforcing that. And to be clear I'm not saying this is just left wing activists, you could see the same sort of decay happening on 4chan for instance with right wing activists who have that same mindset.
But because it is artificial, so is the impression that everyone really thinks like a propaganda bot. Maybe some of them do, but I think for the most part they have just been conditioned to feel uncomfortable speaking in public spaces online without a lot of anxiety and attention on speaking the way the bots and activists have narrowly defined as acceptable. Any time you go to a private space, or a smaller, less popular space, there is a noticeable difference. So personally I think there is cause for hope.