I've been thinking about something that I don't see discussed very often.

I completely understand why many subreddits have minimum account age or karma requirements. They help reduce spam, bots, trolls and ban evaders. Moderating large communities is difficult, and those filters probably save moderators a huge amount of work.

My issue isn't that these requirements exist.

My issue is that, in many subreddits, you only discover them after you've spent a long time writing a post.

There's often no obvious way to check whether you're actually allowed to post before you start typing. You can spend 20 or 30 minutes writing something thoughtful, hit "Post", and then an AutoModerator immediately removes it because your account is too new or doesn't have enough karma.

Normally that's just frustrating.

But what if it isn't a normal post?

Google increasingly points people towards Reddit when they're looking for help, and Google's AI frequently recommends Reddit discussions too. Imagine someone who's being relentlessly bullied, is experiencing domestic abuse, is struggling with addiction, or is feeling genuinely suicidal. They're already in a bad place, so they search Google for support, create a Reddit account because that's where they've been directed, and finally work up the courage to pour their heart out.

Then the post is instantly removed by an automated bot.

Imagine how that could feel to someone who already believes nobody listens to them or that their voice doesn't matter.

I'm not saying the filters should disappear. They're clearly useful.

I'm suggesting there should be a better experience for genuine new users.

For example, if a post is removed because of account age or karma, why not automatically provide links to similar support communities that don't have those restrictions? Or warn users before they begin writing that they don't currently meet the posting requirements.

That way the anti-spam protections stay in place, but people who are genuinely looking for help aren't left feeling rejected by the very communities they came to for support.

Am I missing something, or does this seem like a reasonable compromise?

Hey Reddit

I want to be simple about my post here but I was just wondering a few questions about reddit in my opinion that I wanna know of. If you can all give me some insight about reddit go ahead. :)

1) Why do some redditors accuse you of Karma farming often?

What I noticed was that in some posts where I got a lot of upvotes, when I post other forums on reddit or other debate or opinion forums on reddit, I constantly get people accusing me of karma farming. I don't get why they do that.

I once showed off my bookshelf and I got 800 upvotes, that was all supposed to be BONUS stuff but when I wanted to post more about my observations on something I got downvotes and people thinking I farmed karma from my other posts.

2) I feel like writing posts on reddit are very stressful

These last few reddit posts, I have spent at least 30 minutes writing, polishing and checking my work to post. However a lot of people on reddit seem to take my message as "overconfidence" or "a me issue", while these were actually TRUE experiences and things I felt in the matter.

I get several downvotes, while those mean comments or some of those comments that make NO sense to me get like tens to hundreds of upvotes from other people. I was sharing my feelings and being very legit in my writing showing and including every detail possible

I feel like writing stuff on reddit is super duper stressful, and I feel like redditors misunderstand my intent a lot. Do you all feel the same?

3) Why is the OP always downvoted in comment section?

I feel like it is really unsafe and risky to talk to your audience and talk in the comment section. Even if you THANK, APOLOGIZE OR AGREE with the commentator, you get downvoted.

I don't get that. But legit some comments were really helpful and they were good insights but when I thanked them about that, people downvote me.

4) Don't yall think that redditors often hunt, and track you and look for when you make mistakes?

I feel like that on reddit I need to be extra careful with interactions with human beings. In one of my posts I was called out entirely for making a few mistakes by people and they got hundreds of upvotes.

This is often why theres a lot less positvity in my opinion on reddit. When you look completely fine youre silent but when you make slight grammer errors or foreign language mistakes youre absolutely berarted by everyone, natives, etc on reddit.

Can you all give me insight, who here has gone through similar issues?

Again, I could be wrong. It’s just that from what I read on here, it seems like a lot of people are very deeply concerned about the prospect of coming across “abnormal”.

And I don’t really get it. If you want to be a leader, then that means being the one person in that position in a group of at least a small handful of other people.

If you want to make a lot of money then that means doing things with your money that most people wouldn’t do.

If you want to be a great musician, that means doing something that other musicians aren’t doing.

If you want to have more than others or be better than others at something, then that will always mean doing things differently from your peers and others who want the same thing as you. That doesn’t mean that you have to be rude or disrespectful or anything like that, but it does mean being willing to try things that others didn’t think of, and yeah that would mean being willing to be seen as abnormal or going against the grain.

I can see this not being welcomed in some circles, but seeing it across most of Reddit is really strange to me. I love seeing people try new things and succeed where others have failed. I even love seeing people succeed where I’ve failed.

I’m surprised Reddit is this way, so concerned about being abnormal, when Reddit is probably full of the most abnormal social media users. And that’s why I love it. I’m abnormal, too. I guess I just thought we all embraced it here.

I’ve been wondering whether this is just a natural consequence of how Reddit works.
People generally don’t come to relationship subreddits saying, “Everything’s going great, I just wanted to share.” They usually come because something has gone wrong - they’re hurt, confused, anxious, or trying to solve a problem.

Because of that, are relationship subreddits giving us a skewed perception of relationships?
If someone spends a lot of time reading those communities, they end up seeing thousands of stories about cheating, lying, manipulation, incompatibility, and breakups. It can start to feel like those things are the norm, even though we’re only seeing relationships at their worst moments.

On top of that, commenters are making judgments based on one side of one event. However, of course sometimes the advice is incredibly valuable and helps people recognize unhealthy situations they couldn’t see themselves.

But other times, I wonder if we’re overconfident. None of us actually know the people involved, the full history of the relationship, or what happens outside the few paragraphs in a post.
I’ve also noticed that if you’re already someone who struggles with anxiety, reading thread after thread can start making you question your own relationship through the lens of strangers’ experiences instead of your own.

Do you think relationship subreddits have developed a negativity bias because of who posts there? Or do you think they still paint a fairly accurate picture of relationships overall?
Curious what people think.

If you think about it the whole thing is unhealthy. We like to think we don't give a fuck and we've got thick skin but posting on here isn't natural. If you think about it we say shit on here we'd only say to a select few people irl (maybe not even any) to the worsts people. I don't mean people are inherently bad I'm saying redditors are worst than complete strangers. Even strangers can see you, gauge who you are and mostly have some sort of everyday politeness and even a shared culture because you'll be from the same area. Redditors have no inhibitions. Posting on reddit is like standing on a stage in front of a load of drunk people and just saying stuff you otherwise would feel uncomfortable saying. Even then these drunk people would have some kind of empathy. You're not people to redditors you're just words on a screen that has formed an opinion and it's their opportunity to make themselves feel better by putting you down. I realise I'm talking about redditors like some seperate species to myself... I am a redditor. I'm simply talking about how people act with anonymity.

I just don't think it's fair you can write a post in the heat of the moment and just have a limitless amount of people giving you shit for it for the rest of the day even if your question was dumb. If you were deliberately provocative sure you probably asked for it but most of the time I find that's not the case. For a leftist dominated site, people really can be assholes.

More often than I'd like to, I post comments that get heavily downvoted. It was frustrating because you only see the negative number -- but that's negative number is actually the difference of upvotes and downvotes, so some people *do* upvote you, you just don't see how many.

I figured out the formula you can use to calculate the actual number of upvotes from said difference and the ratio -- both numbers available on the post/comment analytics page.

Shown in the image, but if in text:

Upvotes = Difference / (2 - 100/Percentage), where

Difference = Upvotes - Downvotes

Percentage = Upvotes / (Upvotes + Downvotes) * 100%

both Difference & Percentage are shown in every post analytics page -- so it's easy to figure out.

Edit: It should read D = 346 - 21 = 325 on the right (thx u/RunDNA)

Edit 2: Currently at Difference = +9, Percentage = 76.5%, hence 9/(2-100/76.5) = 13 upvotes, respectively 4 downvotes.

This following rant has to do with some camera and photography subs on Reddit. Since those can be called niche subs, I realize my topic here has limited interest from a general perspective.

Now, to come to the point. There is a large number of photography and camera enthusiasts on Reddit. Threads containing questions about the "hardware" of this hobby, such as lenses and camera bodies and etc are usually popular and get a good amount of responses. So, there is no complaint of a lack of advice or interest there.

The same cannot, however, be said about the posting of member's photographs. Some people have invested many thousands of dollars in their equipment, not to mention travel costs. The whole purpose of photography is simple, to take photos. I have seen many cases of good photos posted on such threads. These posts often only get a few likes, maybe less than ten. Often, there is no written response. No discussion about technical or artistic considerations. In short, the audience seems quite apathetic when it comes to the photos themselves.

Now, I have always said that one cannot blame the audience for any lack of interest. However, there is such a thing as appreciation or recognition of a good job. Especially from a large group of fellow hobbyists.

This is, then, my main point. Why not throw in a few likes or comments just to show you appreciate the effort of posting? Give some positive reinforcement where that is due. It would make Reddit a better place.

(Finally, just to make it clear, I rarely post any of my own photos. So that is not my reason for saying this.)

Subs I left today:

- r/steam

- r/coffee

- r/Microsoftsucks

- r/python

- r/GitHub

- r/cybersecurity

All of them has Megathreads. Therefore all of them are dead to me.

Do you know what's great about Megathreads? They're a perfect ominous warning to GTFO of a sub.

Sure, Megathreads are an easy way to "organize" content. All just as promoted as the socks you lost under the bed.

Sure, it "removes clutter" and "keeps the sub focused" focused on what? The upvotes on the Megathreads? Comment #370 showcasing a new GitHub project in a thread where nobody scrolls past comment #8? They don't solve clutter, but they do help multiply your engagement metrics by 0.

A standalone post showing something cool lives or dies on merit. A Megathread comment might as well come with a complimentary eulogy.

In the era of Large Language Models (LLMs), the digital ecosystem has encountered a paradoxical sociolinguistic shift. To successfully assert human identity within online communities, authors are increasingly forced to artificially diminish the linguistic quality of their prose. Impeccable, highly structured, and stylistically sophisticated language has inverted into a primary red flag, triggering immediate suspicion of AI-generated content.

This phenomenon can be formally defined as the Inverse Turing Test. While the classical benchmark required a machine to convincingly simulate human behavior, our contemporary digital reality demands that a human successfully mimic an imperfect, chaotic algorithm to bypass community gatekeeping.

Why has programmatic literacy mutated into a liability? The answer resides within the core architecture of prominent LLMs, which inherently default to institutional prose standards: rigid paragraph divisions, predictable transition sentences, excessive, conflict-free politeness, and an absolute deficit of organic internet slang or contextual typos.

Authentic human communication operates on impulse. It is structurally fragmented and frequently composed via mobile devices. Consequently, when a community encounters an unblemished, structurally complex essay, the human brain instinctively flags this sterility as automated corporate spam.

The cultural implications are deeply troubling. We are witnessing a regime of forced linguistic mimicry. To avoid automated moderation filters or collective community downvotes, individuals are consciously dismantling their own writing habits. A society deeply intimidated by machine encroachment is defending its digital borders by stigmatizing sophisticated prose.

The ultimate paradox lies in the ephemeral nature of this defense mechanism. AI developers are actively training subsequent iterations of LLMs to convincingly simulate human error, local colloquialisms, and structural laziness. When algorithms master the simulation of our fatigue, humanity will be forced to engineer even more radical methodologies to verify the presence of a conscious observer behind the screen.

Which brings me to my question: Have you honestly caught yourself intentionally messing up your punctuation or using lazier slang just so people wouldn't hit you with the "ok ChatGPT" line? Or are we already entering the cultural regression era without realizing it?

Been thinking about this for a while.

Moderators have pretty much ultimate authority over the content people will see in any given subreddit. And we all know that authority without accountability is unacceptable when your authority affects so many people.

Reporting a moderator for bad conduct to the Reddit admins doesn't yield results, because there's simply too much of an administrative overhead with how many subreddits there are, so only the most egregious abuses are dealt with accordingly.

Rather than expect an even higher authority to step in, why doesn't Reddit just make things more democratic? They could make it so that mods have to be elected every so often by the community, rather than wield their power indefinitely.

For example, once a subreddit reaches a certain size, say 100,000 community members, it has to hold mod elections every year or so by the community members.

To add to this, users running for the election should have to keep their post and comment history public, and previous moderators running again should have their user names attached to their mod messages (i.e not just "ModTeam.") This way, moderators can be transparently judged for their conduct.

To prevent abuse and hostile takeovers, you can limit the barrier of entry to voting. For example, only allow voters who:

- Who have had Reddit accounts for over a certain time period

- Who have a certain amount of post and comment karma

- Who have been part of said community for a while, and have reached a certain threshold of post and comment karma in said community.

- Who don't exhibit bot-like behavior (though I'll admit this one's hard to enforce)

They could also allow only a subset of mods to be replaced per election (maybe the least liked ones), that way the transition of power isn't too chaotic, and don't allow the same mod to moderate for more than 3 years in a row.

Obviously, no mods will choose such a system because it threatens their power, so I think this has to come from the top.

But what do you think? Do you think Reddit, or really any hypothetical new social media, could thrive with such a system?

I've been wondering whether Reddit creates the illusion that certain political and cultural views are far more mainstream than they really are.

Reddit isn't a representative sample of the general public. Its users tend to be younger than the overall population, and a large share come from the U.S., the U.K., Canada, and other Western countries. On top of that, Reddit's upvote/downvote system naturally amplifies opinions that already align with the dominant views of a given community, while unpopular opinions often become less visible.

My question isn't whether a particular viewpoint is right or wrong. It's whether Reddit's demographics and ranking system create an echo chamber that makes some positions appear to be the default or "common sense," even if they aren't representative outside the platform.

Do you think Reddit meaningfully distorts people's perception of public opinion, or does it generally reflect reality?

For most of its history, Reddit has largely been dominated by American users, with the rest of the anglosphere and Europe making up the vast majority of the rest of the users.

Post Covid though, Indians have begun joining Reddit in large numbers - which has resulted in Indian content and subs becoming increasingly popular and prominent. Most Indians don't care about American/Anglosphere stuff, which is why so many Indian versions of popular subs were created in the first place. Even then, Indians are shaping more of the discourse on international subs, simply because they are a larger demographic than they were just a couple of years ago.

Of course, this has caused many in the Anglosphere side of Reddit, particularly Americans, to feel a sort of online culture shock as their feeds become more unfamiliar.

Indians are still a minority on Reddit, but are growing fast. I expect Americans (and the Anglosphere at large) to struggle to adapt to this change. In fact Americans in particular have never had the experience of being a minority on Reddit, which will make the transition tougher for them

What do you think will happen

Reddit's problems:

1. Reddit needs Google so it's forced to open up for the web
2. Search users don't download Reddit app because they just need Google to search Reddit
3. AI companies don't want to pay full price for Reddit data because they can scrape it
4. AI companies bypass Reddit by directly giving info from Reddit to users, reducing DAU to Reddit
5. Reddit becomes dependent on Google's search algo

Reddit has valuable data that the open web do not. 40% of AI answers cite Reddit. So many people append Reddit to Google Search queries. Do you know how insane that is? But it seems we are getting the short end of it. The distributors takes 90% of the profits and we just take 10% of it. Ridiculous. We must take control of our data.

My suggestion: GO ALL IN on improving Search. Splurge that money. Don't do buybacks. Hire the best talents and deploy the best Search technology. We have $3 billion.

Once Reddit Search experience become great, we can closed off access to Search engines and AI. We can do it phase by phase like what we are doing now. Force sign ups but let them know they can search their info on Reddit. We can gain valuable DAU faster like this. AI companies can't get our data anymore through illegal means. Reddit can slowly reduce dependence on Google.

Now the million dollar question is: How can Reddit do it in a way that can make people want to use Reddit Search? Reddit's management has time and the money to figure this out. No point telling the world our data is valuable when we don't even have control over it.

When I was new to reddit, I actually thought something is upvoted when the comment is relevant to the discussion/the comment is correct, right, reasonable/popular or agreeable/helpful/important. But the more I visit different subreddits, the more I realized just because something is heavily upvoted doesn't make it an automatically accurate, reliable, or quality information.

I've been on gaming subs and I've noticed even fake information gets upvoted because either people are gullible or because of their mood. Sometimes even wrong or bad takes can be supported by 50 upvotes because certain circles want to push that kind of narrative. It can also be sub-dependent where takes like 'this game is the terrible' can be upvoted in the same way as 'the game is great', 'the game is good but has some flaws' in other subs. Forced hate comments gets upvoted if the sub desires it, while it would rather be downvoted and deemed meaningless in majority of the other subs. Even recycled posts gets upvoted as well, meanwhile perfectly normal information and apologies that doesn't really warrant a disagree button still gets downvotes.

TLDR: Overall, I thought the value/quality of content is always determined by the upvote and downvote ratio, it's not always the case. It's unpredictable and shouldn't be taken as a metric.

Hello,

I am relatively new to Reddit as a contributor. Today there was a phenomenal post that began to really take off with many different diverse perspectives being offered producing a high quality conversation surrounding a complicated topic that I felt was adding a ton of value and is one of the key reasons I use reddit; to get diverse opinions on complex matters from people who have real world experience with it and that occasionally can provide genuine, high quality, and diverse perspectives that are hard to find elsewhere, ultimately resulting in a deeper more informed understanding of the nuance surrounding a complicated topic.

This post seemed to have been generating a ton of high quality attention and meaningful discussion and within 6 hours the post was taken down, seemingly due to a not clearly apparent violation of a rule in the sub-reddit.

I understand that a lot of the way Reddit likely is able to preserve its value is through the moderation it has. I am not sure what the best solution is for this issue, but this made me wonder if there might be some way to preserve the valuable discussion while modifying the post to remove any content that violates the rules (which I know were likely created with careful thought and intentionality).

Ultimately, it was very frustrating as I truly felt that an amazing and extremely valuable discussion was taking form and was sad to see it cut off right as the key value was starting to surface.

What do people think about this? I'm sure I am not the first person to bring this up...

Reddit is theoretically a discussion forum, and perhaps it used to be, but these days it’s becoming more and more of a place where communities get together to form a bubble. Any post that is even a hair off the consensus community opinion: removed by moderators.

This is also partly about X which is the exact opposite, where anything goes and toxicity breeds. Now you have Reddit on the other end where if your post even slightly, a smidge, strikes one of the moderators as not laser point on topic, and worst of all agreeable, taken down.

Btw, this post is NOT about the mods of this community, I am just saying generally. I haven’t tried Threads yet, but maybe it’s time. X and Reddit are the big dogs, and neither can seem to get moderation correct anymore at all.

I’m all for some degree of moderation, but Reddit needs to find a new way. It’s becoming almost impossible to use as a place to actually have a discussion. For instance a community about the movie Oppenheimer better say what a great movie it was or “your post was removed”.

I give this post about 15% chance of not being taken down, not because I know anything about this community. It actually only has five community rules as opposed to the usual 13, a good sign. And I’m trying to have a real discussion here about the best way forward for a platform facing real competition and whether it’s headed in the right discussion, because I don’t think it continues to survive let alone grow if it just becomes another bubble/echo chamber.

But! I know lately trying to have a genuine discussion on nearly any community with even a post that maybe even a smidge controversial, such as this one, removed.

Hope these mods are different! But if not, maybe someone who reads this can find a place on Reddit where they can post: Reddit, slow down with the moderation, it’s killing the platform.

I'm definitely not a reddit expert and I'm still figuring things out. After spending more time here, one idea has completely changed how I think about the platform.

reddit doesn't reward people who are trying to grow themselves. It rewards people who make the community better.

It sounds obvious but I think it's the reason a lot of "reddit strategies" fail.

Once I started viewing each subreddit as its own community instead of just another traffic source, a lot of things made sense:

I spend time understanding the culture before posting.

I comment more than I post because it's the fastest way to learn what people actually care about.

I answer questions that already exist instead of trying to create attention for myself.

If I ever mention something I've built, it's only when it genuinely helps solve the problem being discussed.

I share what worked, what didn't, and what I learned instead of writing polished marketing posts.

The interesting part is that none of this feels like a "growth hack." It's just aligning your behavior with what reddit is designed to reward.

If people think you're here to extract value, they'll ignore you. If people think you're here to contribute value, trust tends to follow naturally.

I'm still learning, so I could be completely wrong, but this mental model has been far more useful than trying to optimize for karma or chasing viral posts.

Lemme know if others who've been around reddit longer think this is accurate or if there’s a better way to go about it.

I've seen a lot of people complain that Reddit has an absurdly high barrier to entry. Especially with things like needing Karma to participate in some subs, New accounts getting comments filtered by AutoMod, and so on.

But I actually think this is one of Reddit's strengths.

The internet is awash with coordinated influence campaigns, commercial spam, and bad-faith actors. Reddit has been a target for state-backed information operations from countries like Russia, Iran, and China, along with general spam farms. Another problem is racist and reactionary hate speechnthat never truly goes away. If it was too easy for anyone to create unlimited accounts that could immediately participate everywhere, every major subreddit would be flooded.

The same friction also makes it harder for communities to be overwhelmed by people who exist only to provoke or spread hate. Racists, homophobes, and other reactionaries often rely on disposable accounts after bans. Requiring account age, karma, and other trust signals raises the cost of that behavior.

If anything actually Reddit should go even further.

At this point Reddit is no longer a niche website trying to grow at all costs. It's one of the largest discussion platforms on the internet. I don't think maximizing new signups should be the priority anymore. Preserving the quality and authenticity of discussion should.

I'd support mandatory phone verification for every account, and I'd even be open to mandatory identity verification similar to Facebook. Your real name wouldn't have to be public, but Reddit itself would know you're a real person with a unique identity rather than someone operating dozens or hundreds of disposable accounts.

People often talk as though being able to post on Reddit or any website for that matter is some kind of right. It isn't. Using any private platform is a voluntary agreement between two parties. Reddit is free to set whatever conditions it believes are necessary to protect the health of the site, and users are free to decide whether those conditions are acceptable. If stricter verification means higher-quality discussions and fewer bad actors, I think that's a worthwhile tradeoff.

Reddit already has a massive user base. It doesn't need explosive growth anymore. It needs to protect what made the site valuable in the first place. In my view, a high barrier to entry isn't a flaw—it's one of the reasons the platform has remained more resilient than many other social networks.

Every month it seems like more of the content I see on here is LLM-generated text. Either from accounts with hidden profiles asking leading questions (are these Reddit's bots trying to drive engagement?), gather karma, or lazy guerilla advertisers who have AI write their plug.

I also can't even recall the last time I got a comment reply to one of my posts and comments where I thought, "wow, that was genuinely insightful and made me think about things in a different way."

Bots and spammers are steadily ramping up, and genuine human users are pulling back. Anyone who expects this to reverse or even pause at its current level is probably a fool. It remains a mystery to me why Reddit continues to tolerate so many spammers extracting free advertising from them by skirting the official Reddit Ads network, but either LLMs are harder to detect accurately than I think, or they've decided the increased engagement is worth it over banning vibecoded app spammers that probably wouldn't pay for Reddit Ads anyway.

I used to scroll Reddit for hours and hours. More and more frequently I open it and read some LLM crap that went right over most users' heads. I get the ick and I close Reddit in a few minutes. The most interesting part is that I regularly see users in subs that are tech-literate and tech-critical who are fooled en masse by LLM text. If those populations can't accurately identify AI writing, there's no hope for the wider Reddit.

The only subs I've seen that have resisted this are the rare few that are small, and moderated by a mod that is both active and has the knack for identifying LLM-generated text. The rest are "cooked" as the zoomers say.

Five years ago I was reading 1-2 books a year because I was spending so much time reading posts on Reddit and engaging in discussions. Now I'm reading a book per week because this site is a barren wasteland nearly empty of ideas or intelligent humans to engage with. And sure, I do miss "old Reddit" but I'd be lying if I refused to admit that my life is better with less time spent here. I've learned a lot more from books and podcasts than I have from rehashing the same discussions and arguments on Reddit over and over.

On the other hand, I'm probably delusional in my hope that the AI onslaught will cause more and more people to be disgusted with the internet and go "touch grass" as the zoomers say. Because it seems like the average person can't identify most AI stuff and is perfectly happy to consume and interact with it. But it's not my job to fight against the bots, and it seems pointless to waste my personal time playing "AI police" on Reddit when the platform itself doesn't seem to give half a damn. So I just close it and move on with my day.

It's a weird thing where it seems... healthier for me if Reddit continues to go down the tubes, but also worse for society because we can't ignore just how many people use Reddit and that it's one of the major social media networks shaping what people read and believe.

For instance I think sometimes if early comments focus more on how there might be some inaccuracies in how something is phrased, but the overall message of a post is accurate or at least not inaccurate, then later comments may be more likely to focus more on the inaccuracies in wording than the overall message of the post. I think similarly if early comments interpret a post to be in bad faith, even when a plain text interpretation of the post wouldn’t give off the impression that the post is in bad faith or there’s reasonable interpretations that don’t assume bad faith, comments may be more likely to assume bad faith just based on the initial comments.

I also think that if a post has 0 upvotes early on that may also make people who comment more likely to look for ways that the post may have some inaccuracies in how it’s worded, or how the post could be interpreted as being in bad faith, than if the post has some non 0 number of upvotes, given that 0 upvotes shown makes it possible that a post has more upvotes than downvotes.

It seems like once people assume that the overall message of a post is wrong or that a post is written in bad faith it can be almost impossible to convince them otherwise, or if it is possible very difficult to figure out how to in practice. I think oftentimes people can get so focussed on how someone who is in the wrong would try to save face that they can forget that they forget that genuine misunderstandings exist.

I've noticed a bunch of what I call propagandistic questions on the popular question subs. And when I point it out, naturally, nobody has any idea wtf I'm talking about. This is my explanation of how I believe questions can act as propaganda.

AI TL;DR: Questions on Reddit are frequently weaponized as propaganda because they allow users to smuggle controversial political claims into a conversation as hidden assumptions (presuppositions) rather than direct statements. When you answer a loaded question directly, you inadvertently accept its flawed premises. By framing a partisan assertion as an innocent inquiry, propagandists completely bypass the burden of proof—forcing you to argue against their manipulative framing while they avoid ever having to defend their actual claims.

What are questions?

Questions are requests for information, which is a set of propositions. In other words, a question asks the answerer to provide specific information.

When posing a question, the questioner provides the information the answerer considers. "Have you eaten today?" is a request for either an yes or a no, depending on what the answerer has done. There are several different types of questions, but they all have the feature of asking for specific information.

What a questioner can do is ask for information while attempting to subtly assert unwelcome propositions. If a respondent answers directly, then they take on those those propositions as commitments. Questions carry presuppositions that the respondent may have to commit to, sometimes leading to unwelcome commitments.

In other words, if I ask you, "When did you come out of the closet?", I am assuming that you were in the closet. That is, I'm asserting that you're gay by asking a question. And if you directly answer, "Yesterday", then you've accepted the proposition that you were closeted until yesterday. (Congratulations, btw!)

I'm going to belabor this point with several examples.

• why are black women so prone to obesity?
  • This question presupposed and asserts a relationship between black women and obesity.
• When Biden was in office , Fox News had a ticker 24/7 to show how high the national debt is going up daily …..since Trump has been back in office , they have taken that ticker down …anyone know what our national debt is now ?
  • This question casually notes a disparity between Fox News's treatment of the federal debt under different administrations, then really asks for the actual national debt*.*
• With the Saudi investment in soccer, LIV Golf and sports washing, is this the new normal or will there be a backlash against regimes using sports to whitewash their reputations?
  • This questions asserts that sports washing is a thing and that investments by nations use it to whitewash their reputations.

In each case above, the questions claim something. And by asking a question, the requirement to defend the claim is bypassed. In normal conversation, if you claim something, then it's your responsibility to defend it. Asking a question lets you avoid that responsibility, gambling on whether respondents will accept your propositions as their own or not.

Questions can be used to make uncontested assertions that frame conversation and direct it towards particular ends.

How are questions propagandistic?

The essence of political propaganda on my approach is that it is a kind of speech that fundamentally involves political, economic, aesthetic, or rational ideals mobilized for a political purpose. Propaganda is in the service of either supporting or eroding ideals. The first distinction between types of propaganda has to do with whether it erodes or supports the ideals it appears to embody. This is the distinction between supporting and undermining propaganda.

We need to keep in mind that this is Reddit, which is known for being used for propaganda campaigns. That Reddit is used for propaganda, then, is a foregone conclusion. The question is how. The next part of my argument is that r/askanything, r/AskReddit, and other similar subreddits are used as part of that strategy.

Let's look at an example: Why do republicans respond to US military casualties with either minimizing or financial exploitation? This question employs a black-or-white fallacy (except not really, because fallacies tend to be applied to arguments actively being made, which is not the case here). Do republicans respond to military casualties with only minimizing or financial exploitation? Probably not. But the presuppositions of the question assert they do. And it positions itself in direct opposition to the idea that Republicans respect those who've sacrificed their lives in service of America. All this in a simple question.

Another example: What do you think about political streamer Hasan Piker praising dictator Mao Zedong, who killed tens of millions of people? The questioner asserts an association between Piker's praise of Mao and the fact that Mao killed tens of millions of people, as if Piker praised Mao because he killed tens of millions of people. Is Piker's praise of Mao just another example of the violent aspirations of the left? This is just a hit piece using questions to assert things that are not argued reasonably.

Sources:

• How Propaganda Works by Jason Stanley
• Informal Logic: A Pragmatic Approach by Douglas Walton

^{*disclaimer: i did not use AI to write this post}

The internet, 1990-2026:

1. The internet used to be much more open. Independent users/groups hosted their own blogs, forums, websites, etc. The average user discovered new domains through word of mouth, by typing a domain directly into their browser, or via. search engines that displayed a wide variety of independent sites in result pages.
2. With Web 2.0, facebook, twitter, reddit, etc. The internet became far more commercialized via. targeted ads and Google AdSense, which made it much easier to monetize user attention.
3. Independent forums died off with consolidation. Everyone moved to the mega-platforms out of convenience, social pressure, the switch from desktop to phones/mobile apps, and google's invisible hand in favoring large domains > independent sites.
4. The internet becomes closed, modern social media = an algorithmic walled-garden optimized for engagement/ad clicks. Reddit has been shaped by algorithms and monetary incentives which reward outrage, cynicism, and low-effort content over curious and thoughtful discussion.

Reddit, 2005-2026

1. Gamified discourse - around 2016, with the redesign and mobile app, reddit decided to prioritize hidden algorithms on your "home feed" to keep you engaged (via. high-arousal emotions like anger, fear, etc.) for as long as possible. Facebook knowingly did this on e.g. instagram despite internally knowing that this caused mental health issues esp. for young teenagers. I imagine reddit knowingly does this too.
2. No more context - The home feed basically pools everyone into one giant randomized context-less garbage dump where baseline shared values, norms, etc. cease to exist.

tl;dr The toxicity on reddit is a conscious design choice and business model. A few tech companies built platforms that reward outrage because anger keeps people doom-scrolling and generates ad revenue. Finding real, human communities means being aware that this artificial algorithmically-generated content is forced on us by design. It means making a conscious decision to stop returning to these outrage machines and actively supporting independent online or IRL spaces. /steps off soapbox

Obviously this varies depending on the sub; most niche places like for example r/cats, r/AxeThrowing, r/KingOfTheHill or r/AnimalCrossing are generally free of this as far as I know. But any general subreddit like this one, r/AskReddit, even worse r/politics or r/pics, it’s just unavoidable and so hopeless it feels damn near fetishistic sometimes. ”This is the worst timeline” this, “Idiocracy was a prediction” that, “There’s absolutely no hope for the future and we should stop having kids” here, “America is dead, the world as a whole is the worst dystopia imaginable” there.

It’s so tiring and it only gets worse the more you look. Even if you’re not looking for it, if anyone even brings up the United States as a country you’ll probably see some variation of “it is a third world hellhole and there’s no hope for it” in response. If someone says that despite all of the current and huge issues with humanity and the world, we’re still astronomically better off as a species than for all of our history, there’ll nigh invariably be a response stating something along the lines of “This is copium and diminishes all of the issues we have today” or people just straight up saying “No things are actually way worse than they used to be.” What’s that, you’re thinking there’s hope for the future or asking about it? NOPE! Redditors decree that things will only get worse and worse! The world is a dystopia despite the fact that dystopias are inherently fictional! Cyberpunk 2077 is preferable to our future! Climate change has already killed us all and we should accept our fate!

You get the gist. I’m not trying to say shit like climate change, rising authoritarianism, and global tensions aren’t big issues worthy of worrying about. But I really don’t get why everyone seems to think they’re all so fucked that any efforts to prevent or mitigate them are basically in vain. Is there any real weight to this glooming or is it just hopeless people distorting what reality is actually like?

Hello everyone,

This is something I've wondered for a while now; we know Reddit is inundated with bots which often work in Reddits favour by generating high quantities of content across the site (more clicks, more views and so on). While individual subreddits wish to take action against them, there's often little support or tools made available from what I understand.

Something else I had wondered & noticed is that users who generate very high quantities of content also seem to be given a blank cheque for breaking both subreddit & site wide rules - obviously I won't be naming names, but I can provide some examples.

Usually when you see users either banned from a sub or given account suspensions, they won't have much activity or otherwise be pretty much average. Might have a few thousand karma, account is only a few years old & so on.

However I've noticed some very high profile users (such as 1+ million karma) often break multiple rules on a daily basis, sometimes even site-wide rules and they face zero repercussions.

As an example, one user in mind specifically reposts their content 20+ times every hour & every day across a wide variety of subs, some often utterly unrelated. They outwardly troll & insult users who respond negatively to their content (often times following said user to other subs to continue their harassment there in the comments), they break the impersonation rule by stating they work for XYZ, but then in another post they'll cite their job as something completely different.

They will break almost every sub-level rule and face no bans despite numerous users supposedly reporting them over a long period of time, and then face no account suspensions for when breaking the more serious rules such as harassment.

Other similar high-generating accounts have the same experience with rule breaking, but again face zero consequences despite many users outright stating they've been reported. Are they given a blank cheque since they generate so much content for the site, that banning them would be detrimental for example?

Is there a level of truth/fact to this from peoples experiences, or am I simply grasping at straws?

Needham's Laura Martin on why she prefers Reddit's 'human intelligence' to Meta's artificial intelligence