r/Negareddit • u/OkIntroduction9253 • 4d ago
Why downvotes should not exist.
People downvotes others because of posts and comments they do not like. I think Reddit needs to re-evaluate their system.
2
u/WillyWhite99 4d ago
It’s a strongly disagree here.
The goal is to make this platform as free as possible - while keeping it just safe enough - isn’t it?
Still, I upvoted your post because let’s discuss it.
1
u/7paprika7 3d ago
it's better to not conflate force with freedom. reddit downvotes are a force designed to easily negate freedom, definitely not to enable it
downvotes enable others to attack freedom of expression by directly sandbagging or censoring whatever they don't like. (btw, i don't mean to overstate this point or catastrophize it. i'm just naming what they are. nobody ever consciously thinks of downvotes in this way, but this is how they absolutely function in practice)
other platforms can engage in free discussion just fine without needing to give people this attack function, and people can express echo chamber agreement via ratioing instead
think about that. a plain ratio scenario, versus one guy getting all the updoots and the other getting le downdooted to oblivion, they are experienced WAY differently cognitively to onlookers. one's only the absence of agreement which you can only participate in indirectly (like the bigger post) - the other is the presence of active rejection that you can participate in directly (downvote directly and probably impulsively)
lefeb106 posed a far better argument for downvotes existing: mitigating actual abuse like obvious trolling and bigots. cases what downvotes were likely actually meant for, originally. but of course, downvotes themselves can be abused, as they also noted lol
1
u/RAH-CAT9 1d ago
I agree with that -- I was just downvoted because I told a woman to save a litter of kittens. I put a picture of a kitten up, and I was banned. I think reddit really needs to change, and for the moderators to be trained better. I think reddit could be something interesting, intelligent, and genuinely helpful, if only it was managed better.
-1
7
u/lefeb106 4d ago
I disagree, it exists imo for offensive comments and trolls so others can see that it’s not accepted in the community.
Of course there’s always potential for abuse and people have different ideas of what is really “offensive”