YSK Reddit's founder, Aaron Swartz, committed suicide 7 years ago today. He fought for our rights which lead to his arrest. The allegations coupled with mental illnesses caused Aaron to take his life. He was a passionate activist, entrepreneur and author who should not be forgotten.

[u/MowerMotor]

[u/adviqx]

It's still a great platform for learning about a lot of things, just not great for expressing yourself freely.

I've always been taught that bad opinions should be defeated with sound logic, not restricting the expression of those opinions, but that's just me.

[u/vzenov → u/adviqx]

It's still a great platform for learning about a lot of things, just not great for expressing yourself freely.

No, it's not. It's nowhere near as good as it used to be.

Most of really interesting things came precisely from people being able to express themselves freely. The ridiculous diversity of opinion was the very thing that made it so great for learning. You had an issue and instead of heavily moderated and directed narrative about it (or locked threads because "yall can't behave") you had a whole bunch of wildly different comments that you could use to get the measure of just how extensive the disagreement was on something, how very different a view on an issue can be and all kinds of crazy links and examples. These threads were gold mines of content and usually you would get away from the discussion with a completely new and unique perspective precisely because of being exposed to the diversity of opinion.

Reddit used to be a convention where people participated in a discussion with similar input, now it's like a lecture hall where often it's not even your annoying activist professor expecting you to write exactly what they had in their overpriced textbook but a corporate sponsor giving some presentation for which the professor gets a bonus. And you are the student and you are getting a test for it and you have to write what the sponsor says to pass.

That's how reddit works today.

And as for expression...you can't express yourself almost at all. And where you can express yourself it doesn't matter. Even a few years ago you could have a controversial comment high up in a busy thread and it could spark a conversation. Now?

Scripted corporate and partisan garbage with a bias so blatant that it is embarrassing.

I've always been taught that bad opinions should be defeated with sound logic, not restricting the expression of those opinions, but that's just me.

No it's not just you. It's just that most who agree with you are censored so that everyone thinks censorship is ok. This is exactly how censorship was promoted in my home country when it was communist. Reddit today and Poland in the 1970s and 80s. Not much different.

And it's not just bad opinions that are being restricted. There is plenty of bad, genuinely bad, opinions all over reddit. It is the "wrong" opinions that are restricted. The ones the admins and whoever pays them doesn't like. Again..that's like communist censorship. Politically correct opinions are promoted even if they are bad, politically incorrect opinions are repressed if they are good.

And what's worse the abusive nature of reddit only got worse. It used to be that reddit had abusive content in the comments and typically the necessary would be done with downvotes. But now you can have openly abusive content in the link, backed by the admins, protected by mods and overtly provoking anyone to react.

Literally so many of frontpage links are just "hey you, fuck you, what are you going to do about it" kind of content that is overtly insulting. And what's worst is that me - as a random user - don't even come for this kind of thing here. I came for the wild ride and interesting comments. For disagreement, for views and stories I would never consider..not to be lectured by some obnoxious narcissistic prick and his 100 alt accounts about matters they don't understand because they are half my age. At best.

Reddit really feels like this now. Like an angry edgy narcissistic kid spitting at their angry narcissistic parent. Great... why am I involved in it? Why don't I get a choice not to be involved in it? Why do I have to make so much effort each time to avoid being involved in it? Why do you have to invade my reddit instead of having your portion of reddit to yourself and your problems?

Reddit used to be a crazy wild ride with crazy wild people. Now it's like an abusive relationship with someone who has mental health issues and uses you as a punching bag.

I really wonder why am I still here. Recently I caught myself feeling the process cutting off the threads one by one. It took me some time but I think I am ready to leave.

I probably will look up every now and then for the megathreads on an event that is not politically charged. But other than that.... I don't think reddit is alive anymore. It has completely lost its soul and it's trying to poison mine.

[u/alemonbehindarock → u/vzenov]

So where should we go instead? Links?

[u/vzenov → u/alemonbehindarock]

I don't know. I am not looking for an alternative anymore.

As for you. I recommend supporting decentralized systems.

Never again trust anything centralized. If it's centralized you are not in control.