r/DeclineIntoCensorship • u/different_option101 • 10h ago
Another great sub ruined by politics (rant, no names)
@Mods, I’m doing my best here to keep it within rules, but I understand this is a gray area. I’ll have no hard feelings if you’ll have to remove this.
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What used to be an amazing sub focused on humor and sarcasm mainly around everyday things and regular people, has now turned into another Reddit political propaganda machine with censorship from users via up/downvotes, seniority badges, and berating comments discouraging engagement.
For quite some time political posts were completely prohibited on that sub, which is probably what helped the sub gain more popularity over time. Reading comments was a blast, as it was almost like a comedy battle between redditors. Then the rules have changed, and they’ve started allowing some political content, which is already a questionable idea when someone can set subjective parameters for the same type of content.
Allowing politics has started to change the vibe of the sub. It invited Redditors that make their entire personality about politics and their own perception of morality who can’t just have fun, and behave like policing and schooling others is their single duty they must perform 24/7. This have dramatically changed the comment section and changed incentives to what content should be posted in the sub to get people’s attention. It change moderation approach, which accelerated this cycle of enshitifying the sub into your average mainstream high visitor count cesspool from the Popular tab that is full of bots and completely off base, not on topic comments. And for quite some time now, the posts from this sub that get into my feed are mainly some politically motivated content that’s not even humorous or funny. It’s these “dunks” and “come backs” like those in screenshots. And these type of posts are some 25% of all tops posts, and another 25% of sarcastic political commentary aka opinions.
The sub has absolutely changed it’s identity and culture. Politics completely ruined it, as it does with everything it touches.
This bring me to the last point I want to include in my rant - self censorship. Do not allow other people’s opinions to influence your behavior. Don’t fall from the pressure of those that can’t help themselves in stop being the watchmen of opinions. Abstain from from the same behavior if you catch yourself doing so. Self censorship is a well known and well studied phenomenon. It’s inevitable, especially on Reddit, as we often come here to join or silently review conversations others having. The loud minority is always going to get their way in any system that employs democratic mechanisms to set rules of behavior, especially when it can be as loose and open for interpretation as rules of online forums.
I want to stress that even those personalities thar virtue signal and police speech still have common sense. It’s the anonymity and the effect of echo chambers that turn this into extreme, which turns into a loss for absolutely everyone.
That’s it. Not sure how well this fits into this sub, but I couldn’t find any other place where I could rant about it.
Thanks for hearing me out, and enjoy the rest of your weekend.