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Comment by Sergiu37 | Hacker News Reader

Reddit is not toxic if you agree with the majority views. If not it is probably the most toxic social media. So other views people leave and so reddit remains a bubble of like minded people that don't see their toxicity. You can just look at some popular subreddits like iata i am the asshole or idiotsincar or murdered by words, justiceserved to name a few and many other where people just laugh and are being toxic towars other people. Most popular posts are also angry ones.

For a good mental health is imperative to avoid reddit, or at least just take part in tech/thinvs you love, but even there the neagtive and frustrated people will bring their issue there.

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Reddit is diverse. I hear a lot of “Reddit is toxic”. Or that “Reddit is the best place”. Both are correct. It is not only about the majority view. It is mainly about which subreddits you pick. I am not a massive Redditor. Yet, for some time, I opened r/MachineLearning daily.

Some subreddits are/were highly toxic (e.g. the infamous r/incels). Some other are full of vulnerable life stories you won’t find anywhere else. People won’t post them on their public FB feeds; not everyone writes anonymous blogs. Any coverage of such topics by journalists (if the topic gets ever covered) is likely to focus on a handful of cases, be biased and heavily edited.

For an example from Reddit, see “Trans people of Reddit, what was something you weren’t expecting to be told, find out, or experience when going through your transition?” (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4g1pgu/serious_t...).

Another subreddit with not so much majority view is CMV: https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/. It is heart-warming (and mind-stimulating) to see people open to changing their minds. Compare and contrast with Twitter, where there are no enough characters to express a more nuanced argument. And views are usually pushed down one’s throat (if they ever leave a bubble).

I disagree with your overall point that reddit is diverse (and it is beyond the scope of this comment to mention why) but I'd like to chime in with my love of ChangeMyView.

I just love the idea that you can have a judgement free place to discuss things openly and get reasoned replies without being piled on.

Sometimes we hold views which are controversial, and it's great that we can had a non-adversarial discussion about those things.

The only downside is that the person asking to change their view might end up being right in the end, and that the view should not have been changed, but that's against the spirit of the subreddit.

It also has some minor problems of people asking to change their view but have no honest intention of doing so.

But regardless of that, I love that subreddit and I'm sure it wouldn't be possible without good moderation.

> I disagree with your overall point that reddit is diverse

To make it clear, I know that the whole Reddit demographic is not representative.

However, each channel subreddit has a different demographic. Too much of a male perspective? Go to r/TwoXChromosomes/. Too libertarian or heteronormative? You can find your channels too.

I once posted my praise (and interactive exploration) of NSFW content (https://observablehq.com/@stared/tree-of-reddit-sex-life, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19640562). In short - I don't know any other place with that much openness to different body types, styles of grooming, etc.

Your comment would have been much better without the first statement. Why include it if you don't want to explain or talk about it? Seems flamebait-y.

The main reason is to acknowledge that I disagree before I speak highly about a certain part of Reddit.

It would have been unclear and implicitly sound like I agree if I didn’t include that.

On the contrary, it's an objectively true statement, and everyone already knows the reasons why. Therefore, explaining it here is what would be flamebaity, since even those that know the reasons still try to disingenuously pretend the reasons aren't valid. What is valid is the point made, since it addresses a point of the previous comment directly.

I find C.M.V. essentially failed due to the vote system.

All the upvoted, visible views are the same trite repetition topics that have been done a thousand times before that are also about hot button political issues: more interesting apolitical C.M.V.'s are often downvoted for not being political enough. I've seen views about optiomality of certain cooking methods be downvoted there.

I disagree with the notion that subreddits can be so considered atomically and not part of a whole. r/Fantasy has had this problem where the regulars and the moderators are generally great, but authors they invite to do AMAs will often risk being harassed by users who aren't even regulars of r/Fantasy. The mods even had to go to other subreddits for new beta features condemning some planned stuff specifically because it would enable even more harassment of authors.

For awhile I was harassed in almost every subreddit I frequented because I’d posted in The Donald. Not even a full throated support of Trump just a post-2016 election “well let’s see how he does” sort of support.

>For a good mental health is imperative to avoid reddit, or at least just take part in tech/thinvs you love, but even there the neagtive and frustrated people will bring their issue there.

I got into a real black hole of posting about politics on Reddit during lockdown, which as someone with fairly anti-authoritarian convictions couldn't have been timed more horrendously. Deleted all my accounts and it did wonders for my sanity.

This is a good point. Reddit is a self-described hive mind and there are certainly things that will get you abused.

I imagine you were fairly safe from death and rape threats, as happens frequently on Twitter, but you're right it's not a welcoming place for everyone, at least outside of certain subs.

Reddit is a particular demographic and mostly a particular philosophical lean.

And there are ways for users to be dicks without the extreme behaviour you get on Twitter. I'm sure it happens on Reddit too but it seems more managed.

Fortunately in my case at least the unpleasantness was limited to the odd loony stalking me across the site to carry on arguments that were several days stale. I did get told to kill myself once, but the person making that suggestion sounded so unhinged their rant had very little weight! To be honest it wasn't abuse from other users that were affecting my mental health at all, it was the never-ending doomscroll of depressing content and the people who seemed almost gleeful at bad news because it validated their worldview (and this ironically seems to apply across the political spectrum). /r/ukpolitics prior to perhaps 2015 or so was something really special because people entertained ideas they disagreed with for the purpose of debate, rather than this ideological total war that is the norm on the internet now where any inch of retreat is cowardly and any notion that the "enemy's" arguments might have a point is treason. Of course it wasn't perfect (/pol/ raided it from time to time which would crapflood the whole sub with obvious bait), but the arguments were mostly good-faith debate rather than simply rhetorical cudgels to hit your opponent with.

That's what made me leave Reddit fundamentally, I wanted a debate rather than a conflict. I want people who'll tell me why I'm wrong, not people who'll call me an irredeemable piece of shit for not clicking my fingers and 100% agreeing with some philosophy neither of us really had an in-depth knowledge of. It's like internet debates (especially on Twitter) have adopted the old Calvinist notion of "total depravity" for the modern age. It's not even about being right, it's about other people being wrong and that'll make you an angry, bitter person if you're jumping headlong into that world for hours a day.

> Reddit is not toxic if you agree with the majority views.

Different subreddits will have different majorities with different views, no?

> toxicity ... toxic towars other people

What does this mean? For example, if you are sitting inside your bubble and laughing at the outsiders, who don't even come to your bubble, is there any toxicity going on?

> Different subreddits will have different majorities with different views, no?

Different subreddits do have different majority views, yes, but the largest subreddits all pretty much have the same ones.

Probably of the general majority.

This is an almost natural consequence. The largest sub-groups start out with having most of the same people of the whole society. Then the minorities get turned off and leave to smaller sub-groups where they feel more welcome.

>” Then the minorities get turned off and leave to smaller sub-groups where they feel more welcome.”

Then communities like r/AgainstHateSubreddits show up and try to get those subreddits banned for even the slightest infraction.

I've been on Reddit for over 10 years now and have to agree. Generally all the larger subreddits are fairly left.

There have been some hard right subs, but most of the larger ones are banned now.

I find a lot of the mods of large subs are quite power hungry too, for example r/soccer. If someone breaks some news, linking good sources, correct post format etc. mods will regularly take the post down and repost it themselves or just leave their own posts up so they get the karma for it.

When I first joined that kind of thing bothered me, and I enjoyed getting internet points and actively tried to get karma. Now if I think something is funny or relevant I'll post it, but generally avoid big subs and stick to smaller niche ones about a certain topic, like a phone, programming language, football club, watch brand, cryptocurrency etc.

> There have been some hard right subs, but most of the larger ones are banned now.

I can't even begin to express the emotion from the thought that someone may decide to erase a part of your life. This is what puts me off social networks in general.

Avoid the large ones, I am not even referring at politics, any big movie,book,game subbreddit will be filled with garbage , better to find or create a subreddit with strict rules.

For politics, I have no advice , probably try real life

That still doesn't help. Unless you 100% tow the party line in whatever sub you're on you will get inundated with hate.

Try telling any car sub that Toyotas can break or that Germany's automotive regulations are even slightly over-bearing and see where that gets you. No matter how narrowly you scope your dissent from the local norms the platform rewards everyone dog-piling onto the dissenter. There is simply no room for conversation on that platform and that drives out anyone who doesn't extremely align with whatever the local opinion on a given sub is so eventually all subs become filter bubbles almost completely dominated by one set of views and you basically can't have any meaningful exchange unless it's ten levels of comments deep where the masses won't see it and crap on it.

Are you always on all topic in a minority? If yes then maybe is your way of communicating.

Still you need to find a subreddit with rules like:

- comments only on topic

- no personal attacks, only critique the content

- always provide sources when providing some information as a fact

- no lazy comments like me too, memes, jokes,

When you find such a subreddit then do a bit of work and report comments and threads that are breaking the rules and of-course respect the rules.

I wish HN would have such rules, you could have lazy comments, bad jokes, aggressive comments, information without a source removed.

>Try telling any car sub that Toyotas can break or that Germany's automotive regulations are even slightly over-bearing

On r/justrolledintotheshop, a fairly large mechanic and car enthusiast subreddit, those kind of discussions are commonplace. The mechanics will say "toyotas are usually reliable" and then also agree that they suffer from rust issues. You are being heavily hyperbolic or refusing to see counterexamples to your belief

(not the OP)

I honestly think some people are just not used to get pushback on their ideas. Whether they are surrounded by like-minded individuals in real life or they just haven't ever shared their believes/thoughts much, I don't know. But I quite often see people shocked by encountering the concept that their ideas aren't perfect.

Couple that with the difficulty of reading intent and intensity in a written media and you get people that believe conversations are heavily skewed against them.

Disagree. Well formed arguments even against the very topic of a subreddit are well received in my view.

It’s probably a controversial opinion, but when it comes to certain subjects like accepting homosexuality or just accepting the existence of trans people, it is no longer politics - not doing so is a moral failing. That’s not left-leaning anymore than believing that war crimes are bad.

While reddit is actually left leaning in a more purely political view as well, I don’t find conservative viewpoints banned/discriminated against that are actually political, only those that are anti-people — which is welcome.

>Different subreddits will have different majorities with different views, no?

No, not really.

Ignoring standard left/right policy bickering points you are still going to catch a lot of hate on Reddit if you don't think people are fundamentally untrustworthy by default and that centralized authorities (be they governments, academia, professional organizations or BigCo) are fundamentally trustworthy and credible by default.

Offend upper middle class consumer sensibilities and you'll catch a whole lot of hate from that direction too.

Unless you go to /r/libertarian?

It's hard for me to accept such a final "No" when there seems to be a sub for literally every viewpoint. However, I am willing to accept that those subs get brigaded and maybe that's what you're referring to?

A half dozen subs out of thousands and hundreds of big ones doesn't really change the overall picture IMO.

>Different subreddits will have different majorities with different views, no?

This was the comment you were remarking on, and I have difficulty reconciling "No." with the reality of all the different subreddits available.

As if there would be more and less popular opinions among the general population? Like, I would be surprised if r/clojure had more subscribers than a gaming sub.

/r/libertarian has a moderator team that is not libertarian

Then try /r/libertarianuncensored or /r/libertarian_party or make your own sub that follows your own leanings. This idea that you straight up can't find a community that has whatever particular leaning you're looking for doesn't seem very accurate.

> if you are sitting inside your bubble and laughing at the outsiders, who don't even come to your bubble, is there any toxicity going on?

Yes.

So what does toxicity mean then?

Would you like it if there were thousands of people shittalking you? Some of them even harassing you?

Expressed bigotry, typically.

"am I the asshole" and idiotsincars are pretty normal places where people can politely disagree; MurderedByWords and Politics are political echochambers and that territory brings a bit of toxicity like black-and-white thinking, but I would only call "justiceserved" particularly toxic.

>am I the asshole" and idiotsincars are pretty normal places where people can politely disagree

These places are echo chambners too you just don't realize it because you agree with the echo.

Go on I am the asshole and give even the slightest hint of approval for a parent that's parenting in a traditional manner (e.g. approving of a "my house my rules" attitude toward an older teenager) and you'll get all sorts of hate.

Go on idiots in cars and talk about how people can't be expect widespread compliance for asinine road signage (like a 55mph speed limit on an interstate highway designed and marked for a much higher speed) and you'll be inundated with "hurr durr the law is the law" types.

These examples seem overblown, and likely a false equivalence

Or instead of pontificating from your armchair, you could go check and see that it's actually pretty accurate.

"It's a useless echo chamber" is the number one complaint I see about aita.

I can check from my armchair, thanks. You get lots of different opinions, it's just that the hive mind forms an opinion around whatever the current topic du jour is. This opinion changes day to day, it's not a place where people have political agendas that are exacerbated by like minds. It's just people in large groups.

There are visceral reactions (I’m pretty sure you can catch yourself doing the same from time to time as well), but my opinion/experience is that well-meaning and well-explained comments are well-received in most of the not-completely echo-chamber subreddits.

I learned this the hard way in my mid twenties. So many angry people, wasting their valuable time and energy.

In life you're the only judge, as long as you're not doing anything which hurts another person you can do whatever you want. Say you only want to live in a city with fresh chocolate almond croissants. This is not subject to Reddit approval. The opinions of others, particularly random people should have absolutely no bearing on your life. But if you're chasing fake Reddit status, you can quickly lose sight of this.

I find myself agreeing. I utilize a few subreddits from time to time, mostly about entertainment, and all of them have very homogeneous opinions and aggressively downvote subjective dissent and verbally gang up against it, which I've certainly not noticed elsewhere.

The internet king of pluriformity and aggressive dissent still remains 4chan. A lack of identity does seem a good way to facilitate dissent.

Local subreddits can also be incredibly toxic. I thought that moderating one of them would be fun, but I got stalked and harassed. Other mods had it worse. I thought people would appreciate the Internet janitors that occasionally improve the subreddit, but indifference is the best I could wish for.

Thankfully, I didn't have the wrong opinions. Another mod did, and there were threads calling for his resignation, for a change of mods. Of course, no one actually volunteered their own effort.

I don't go there much anymore.

Some people say the same about Hacker News, by the way.

Arguably Reddit at least has niche communities which are small enough to avoid the problem of dogpiling and mass downvoting (except via brigading).

Hacker News is smaller, and has much tighter moderation. The conversation tends to stay civilised. I can't remember a negative interaction here. On reddit, they're the norm.

> The conversation tends to stay civilised. I can't remember a negative interaction here.

That's very much in the eye of the beholder. This isn't my first account (I abandoned my previous one a few years ago) and I chose the name for a good reason. The only good thing I can say is that my username does not seem to have had an effect on downvoting behavior.

There are plenty of communities on Reddit that are considerably smaller than HN and either have good moderation or are unknown enough to be able to do well without it. HN isn't special, or at least not any more special than the rest.

If you think reddit is "the most toxic" you haven't been to twitter, even at its worst it doesnt hold a candle

The front page content changed. There's more and more outrage porn and other content that work on your anger. I noticed that the quality of the community changed accordingly, and became more unpleasant to interact with.

I used to post waaaaay too much, but lost all interest in it because there are only downsides nowadays.

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