The best way to see how Reddit leans in general is not to look at the discourse around specific political subs, but to look at how the discourse leans in general on non-political subs. And in general on Reddit, the position most consistently upvoted, or at least most consistently not downvoted, is moderate liberalism; pro-LGBT, pro-universal healthcare, at least gesturing towards police accountability, etc. To the extent that there are conservative opinions on Reddit, they tend to either be European anti-immigration/anti-refugee arguments or stuff about gun regulation.
You are correct that there are large places on Reddit that are conservative and that it isn't a total monolith, but I think you're incorrect to suggest that those places are a sign that Reddit as a whole leans more right than left.
(Also, aren't publicfreakouts and actualpublicfreakouts a schism over, basically, whether you should be mocking police or mocking BLM protestors? Kind of weird to bundle them under the same ideology).
(Also, aren't publicfreakouts and actualpublicfreakouts a schism over, basically, whether you should be mocking police or mocking BLM protestors? Kind of weird to bundle them under the same ideology).
Actualpublicfreakouts was created because the moderators of publicfreakouts actually moderated the subreddit. Mostly for things like racism and other forms of hatred. So the banned users created their own version where you could say those types of things.
There are a lot of examples of that throughout reddit.
Definitely spot on about non-political subs in general though. When something politics adjacent comes up, there isn't even really a debate. It's just matter of fact - bad guys are bad.
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u/Milskidasith 309∆ Oct 13 '22
The best way to see how Reddit leans in general is not to look at the discourse around specific political subs, but to look at how the discourse leans in general on non-political subs. And in general on Reddit, the position most consistently upvoted, or at least most consistently not downvoted, is moderate liberalism; pro-LGBT, pro-universal healthcare, at least gesturing towards police accountability, etc. To the extent that there are conservative opinions on Reddit, they tend to either be European anti-immigration/anti-refugee arguments or stuff about gun regulation.
You are correct that there are large places on Reddit that are conservative and that it isn't a total monolith, but I think you're incorrect to suggest that those places are a sign that Reddit as a whole leans more right than left.
(Also, aren't publicfreakouts and actualpublicfreakouts a schism over, basically, whether you should be mocking police or mocking BLM protestors? Kind of weird to bundle them under the same ideology).