Now Reddit’s not just promoting ragebait and AI generated stories, but divisive conservative rhetoric. Anyone else notice the non-political subreddits spontaneously hosting a population of chuds and propagandists where a few weeks ago they weren’t tolerated?

Has reddit changed the algorithm? Has some nation begun its bot operation? Has reddit deployed bots at musk’s behest? Has twitter sent its worst users to brigade? (All of twitter’s users are its worst users) I don’t know, but the effect is striking. All I’m certain about is that I’m avoiding reddit even harder now.

  • conicalscientist@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    It’s been like that since 2016. You’re saying it’s gotten worse? Oh well.

    Besides. Belligerent conservatives have always been a core component of reddit. Doesn’t anyone remember much the left leaning atheism type of users were ridiculed. What I find more interesting than anything is how everyone even leftists accept the default view that reddit is center to left. While everything right leaning is a minority and an aberration. They’re not seen as actual reddit for some reason. Spoken of as if conservatives are outsiders. It’s bizarre. Old reddits favorite politician was Ron Paul. They were a bunch of Ayn Rand loving pseuds. How the hell does anyone get the remote idea that reddit is historically anything but at least right of center.

    By the way Musk bots have been on reddit for a long time. Once upon a time the mods of /r/technology tried to limit the amount of musk posts on that subreddit. Otherwise they would be flooding the top posts of the subreddit all the time. The musk bots caused quite a scene. I think it led to that subreddit getting removed as a default. I might be remembering wrong though.

  • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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    3 hours ago

    If reactionary stuff is the latest rage and all the progeessives are leaving the site, it’s no wonder that the reddit demographic is turning conservative.

  • Lootboblin@lemmy.world
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    2 hours ago

    I just deleted all my posts and my account there. Havent used it much anyways since the 2023 api changes. Though I still use rdx on iOS to read few sports sections for the latest news.

  • RedSnt@feddit.dk
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    4 hours ago

    It’s just a happy accident that I had my 15 year old reddit account banned for calling out one of the many karmafarmers on the site. You know, the ones that’ll post something, get a bunch of upvotes (who knows if botted or not), then delete said post a couple of hours later. Who am I to tell if there’s a botting conspiracy there or not, but so much reposted slop ends up on r/all all the time. Anyway, glad I’ve, albeit forced, moved on just in time for the site to implode.

  • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    There are also a couple of subreddits that are still good. But from what I can see, Reddit is probably only good now for visiting the subreddit of your country or town. I also still look at Reddit for occasional news, as long as I avoid mainstream news subreddits that go on the front-page.

  • I dont know shit about reddit except what this community says. I would assume they have relaxed moderation against conservative viewpoints (likely in an attempt to suck the dick of the current government).

    Honestly I’m celebrating reddit becoming shitter and shitter it makes federation look like a better option.

  • niketunic@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    i’ve left reddit for the most part, as of a few days ago. i’ve signed up here. still trying to tweak my subscriptions

    • Humanius@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      Welcome! Hope you enjoy your stay.

      I’ve been here for 1.5 years now, ever since the previous Reddit exodus.
      Its not as big, so finding a niche community is a bit tricky sometimes. But overall I find this place quite cozy.

      One recommendation I tend to give to newbies is to ignore the .ml instances. They claim to be Marxist-Leninists and the moderation there tends to be iffy at best.

      Other than that using this place has been smooth sailing for me.

      • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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        58 minutes ago

        Definitely do not subscribe to any .ml instances. That was my mistake when I started. They will ban you as soon as you say anything negative about Russia (pre or post USSR, hilariously), China, tankies, authoritarianism, etc.

        ml is a propaganda machine, filled with the type of narcissist auth scum who turned reddit into a cesspool around 2015.

    • pumpkinseedoil@mander.xyz
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      3 hours ago

      I recommend sorting by all and blocking everything you’re not interested in, works better for me than searching communities to subscribe to.

  • mesamune@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    We (people who post) are also generally not on the platform anymore. I would surmise that causes changes in how the site operates and what posts get the people who have not left riled up.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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      24 minutes ago

      This is the conclusion I came too. I left when they killed 3rd party API’s, now when I drop in to r/all it feels like 50% AI/propaganda. Posts linger for DAYS! Back in the 2010’s you’d be lucky to find anything from the top 25 in the top 100 the following day. In the last month when I’ve refreshed the page 24-48 hours later, the majority of posts are purple. It’s obvious the volume and quality of posters has fallen off a cliff.

      …And now the r/Conservative echo chamber is regularly hitting the front page? What a fucking joke. I’m glad I left. It was certainly the right time. If I started using Reddit today, instead of 2009, I probably wouldn’t have gotten addicted at all. It’s such a shell of what it once was, Lemmy is already close to surpassing it.

      Edit: Oh look, after weeks/months of reddit artificially promoting conservative threads to the front page — a sub which has remained an auth echo chamber of mentally ill narcissists for over a decade — is now doing “open threads” where they all act like they’re just your working class neighbors who want peace on earth, and to make the world better for everyone “but just don’t agree on how to get there” as though they don’t openly support fascism and authoritarianism every other day of the week. Pigboy has officially turned Reddit into yet another fascist propaganda machine, and safe space.

  • Zero22xx@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    7 hours ago

    Reddit is definitely trying the ragebait thing from what I saw before I left. With however the algorithm works there these days, /r/all actually got pretty good at showing me more of what I’m interested in (same as adverts to be honest, I did not mind getting random romance fantasy novels and shit advertised to me), which made me even more suspicious every time it would slip /r/conservative into my feed, even if the post only had like 10 upvotes.

    And maybe it’s just in my imagination but I would especially start seeing subs like conservative after literally just being active in subreddits that shit on conservatives. So it felt a lot to me like Reddit’s algorithm was actively trying to bait me at times to get into fights in places I should just ignore or block.

    • murmelade@lemmy.ml
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      2 hours ago

      Hello. I have come today to talk to you about our Lord and Saviour, adblockers.

      • Zero22xx@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        2 hours ago

        Haha I use adblock (uBlock Origin to be specific) in Firefox but I was talking about the app in particular. I actually have a hosts level ad blocker installed too but it’s disabled a lot of the time because every now and then it breaks something and I’m too lazy to toggle and reboot any time that happens.

        Honestly though, I didn’t mind Reddit ads that much. I’ve spent the last few years questioning gender and shit and honestly, watching targeted advertising try to figure me out on various platforms has been oddly fun and affirming in a lot of cases that I’m on the right track, in the right place and asking the right questions.

        Not that I’m defending it, no ads is of course better but I’ve seen much worse and more obnoxious styles of advertising than the way Reddit handled it. For all their faults, if they had to go down the advertising route, at least they managed to keep it somewhat more classy than almost everyone else.

    • Sl00k@programming.dev
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      6 hours ago

      Definitely wasn’t just you, I’ve noticed Reddit actively feeds me content from subs I’m subscribed to that will bait me to argue with less than 100 upvotes, meanwhile it won’t show me major posts from the same sub that I actually wish to see.

  • twinnie@feddit.uk
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    4 hours ago

    I only go on it occasionally to check out niche stuff but I’m unsubscribed to most of the defaults anyway. I still find Lemmy too extreme left wing but at least I don’t have to put up with all those crappy in-jokes.

      • Unquote0270@programming.dev
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        5 hours ago

        They just banned pretty much all nsfw subs because of a “bug”, including abuse support subs. Probably due to that.

        And there was the white people twitter ban, as well as some Musk critical subs a day or two before the"bug".

      • Banana@sh.itjust.works
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        7 hours ago

        Yeah there was one about a year and a half ago when all that shit happened with the third party apps, then again very recently as people have become disillusioned with corporation-owned social media.

  • fallowseed@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    reddit is promoting divisive conservative rhetoric? that could just be conservatives being conservatives. this is a moment of strength for them and their cause. they could be rallying in awe of what is taking place-- you don’t have to like it but maybe stop trying to push everything you don’t like or agree with out of every corner of the internet and learn to promote your own rhetoric better. it probably didn’t occur to you that they (conservatives) do make up a large percentage of the population of this country.

    • LuxSpark@lemmy.cafe
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      8 hours ago

      Don’t give these fuckers an inch. They will take a mile and be shitting all over you before you know it.

      • vaguerant@fedia.io
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        6 hours ago

        I wouldn’t bother taking anyone who uses “this country” unqualified on the Internet seriously. Even if they are being serious.

    • TommySoda@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      I’d agree, but I went to check reddit the other day and a post from r/conservative bitching about “leftists” was on the front page with 400 upvotes surrounded posts with thousands of more votes. Kept scrolling and more of them were showing up. I know reddit is bad, but I never used to see this many ragebait posts on the front page.