It goes both ways. If you try to post anything remotely criticizing Donald Trump or his government on /r/conservative you'll also get banned. Even if you try to keep it objective.
Fair point, I barely comment on that sub so my experience is limited.
I guess the ratio of well moderated subs compared to poorly moderated subs heavily skews towards the poorly moderated. Irrespective of their political viewpoints.
You already suspect this, but your expectations are out of line with the actual game/meta game/propaganda model there.
You as a person who uses reddit have a general agreement most likely with the concept of reddiquette, and perhaps go to engage with diverse views, maybe to learn something, maybe to just have an argument. Normal internet forum stuff.
However, you are arguing with a vertically integrated propaganda machine that is basically an experimental weapons testing facility for rhetoric.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency but on so steroids, of which those steroids are on various white powders and no this isn't the War on Christmas.
It's less obvious because this machine mimics normal, centrist US culture in ways that slip under the cognitive radar.
You could more easily recognize this if it were AI prompts in the style of 1984 or Pravda; but it's more difficult in this case - it is just rational enough to be ridiculous/incredulous; that it seems like debate is a suitable avenue; it aligns to your context enough and while you might not agree; you could see how 1 in 10 people might be misled.
As a result, you engage and then one of the following happens:
- You make a point so salient they banhammer you because you cannot control the narrative.
- Or they mock you, and rally their "side" into feeling superior as a reaction/answer to their side's questioning of "huh, are we the baddies?". Of course not, it's the "loser woke left antifa attack helicopter pronoun'd TROUBLEMAKERS", who are an outgroup and just don't think about it too hard, k? Don't do the hard work of self examination! Just yell at this outsider!
As a result you aren't engaging with the centre right you hoped to; and if you even get close you will be removed as a threat, ASAP.
The game being played by one participant is "try anything that catches attention, causes fear and lures people to our mindset"; vs your (reasonable, but ultimately mistaken) view that rational debate would correct this and mutual understanding may emerge (and that's a positive; win win social outcome)
This isn't your fault, even longtime slightly centrist conservatives end up falling victim to this trap; when they realize their values don't align to the mechanics above, and are surprised when they are turned on by their former allies.
Unless you have a firm grounding in human psychology and few qualms about manipulation; it is unlikely that discourse or debate will get you anywhere if based on facts, not feelings.
I would firmly encourage you to keep the instinct to engage in discourse; but find social forums where it is a lot harder for a propaganda machine to control the narrative. Will still be tough, but face to face interactions in common spaces can build community.
The "other side" of the political spectrum or almost any group is absolutely just as liable to end up in this situation. It is not some "right wing" specific problem, it is a small but powerful group hijacking others to further their own goals, and people protecting their interests by funding the small group.
> a vertically integrated propaganda machine that is basically an experimental weapons testing facility for rhetoric
This is great lol
The specifics always depends on the subreddit, reddit doesn't pay moderators so its the wild west out there. You can find whatever echo-chamber you want honestly. Which subreddit does HN map to? Perhaps a mix of r/neoliberal and r/conservative (you know, healthy centrism /s)
Honestly, HN crowd is very diverse. I would say that it's a normal distribution here. There are some fascists/neonazi, some communists/anarchists and a lot of liberals/conservatives. I know that here is not the place for these kind of conversations, but it's funny how it's way better for that than other social media platforms. It's not perfect, of course, but perfect is not possible in real life.
Not really. There's few places on Reddit where you will be banned for expressing liberal opinions.
/r/conservative, a place for conservatives to discuss "from a distinctly conservative point of view", is one of them. It's kind of also in the name.
Do they ban conservatives for criticizing Trump? I don't know, perhaps. I'm going to assume many such comments on there will in fact be made by liberals.
Meanwhile, I was immediately permabanned from my country subreddit when I expressed a pro-Israel opinion in the comment section of a relevant post. In the Modmail I sent, the "moderator" basically insulted me.
> Do they ban conservatives for criticizing Trump? I don't know, perhaps
They won’t even allow you to comment there now unless they can interview you, audit your comment history across Reddit, and pre-confirm that you align with the message they want to allow.
Deviating will result in a ban.
Why are you commenting so much to defend a subreddit you admittedly don’t understand?
/r/conservative has absolutely nothing to do with conservatives, but everything to do with the cult-of-trump. It's a great place to read up on how completely crazy the world has become, if you had posted any thread there on the onion a decade ago absolutely nobody would have believed it to be possible.
If you think "any thread there" is that absurd, you are clearly not a conservative at all. You are another liberal ranting about /r/conservative, are you not?
It is in my opinion a very weak argument to point at /r/conservative specifically as an example for how the mainstream censorship on Reddit is not overwhelmingly liberal.
It’s not both all the other subs, the point under contention is about that you cannot be critical or reasonably discuss anything proper in r/conservative.
I don’t know if you have been following the sub, I have, and it always follows a similar pattern. If it’s a new topic, some discussion is allowed, but soon everyone needs to toe the party line.
Edit : I encourage free discussion on this point, instead of downvoting.
You are comparing one sub vs most all of reddit that touches politics. Reddit demographics is extremely liberal and anti-trump. This bleeds into so many subreddits that I participate in that have 0 to do with politics or Trump.
It gets that way when being pro trump gets you banned from r/politics, so all of those who are pro trump take over some other subreddit. It used to be they had their own, but after thedonald was banned they migrated to r/conservative.
The more you separate people the more unhinged they become. If you went back and talked about how reddit tried to hide that Biden was demented or that Harris was unpopular so would be a catastrophic election loss that would also have been onion worthy but today its reality.
That subreddit was taken over just like the conservative party in the USA was taken over. If you allow that to happen (both the party and the subreddit) then that's your problem. In other countries Trump would have had to found his own party, he'd still have captured a chunk of the vote but at least the Republicans that once were would not have squandered their identity. Now the house is on fire and it doesn't look like there are any mechanisms to stop it from getting much worse.
You don't let people like Trump near the levers of power if you want to keep your country in one piece. We have a similar problem here in NL and the only thing that saved us so far is that even the most rabid right winger will have to form a coalition. That still was a dime on its side and we'll see what happens at the next elections but single-issue-parties are less of a problem here, as are strongmen (though, like everywhere else, there is a fraction of the population that just wants to follow some glorious leader).
So, how is it working out for you so far? I find it hard to believe that otherwise intelligent beings can both make claims like this and at the same time observe reality. The USA has in all of its history since the civil war not been this divided. And it is falling off a cliff as we speak.
I guess the ratio of well moderated subs compared to poorly moderated subs heavily skews towards the poorly moderated. Irrespective of their political viewpoints.