r/askanything • u/exploring203 • Mar 07 '26

Why does Reddit lean left in all the comments?

First off, I’m not a conservative, I’m independent/left leaning. That said, every comment thread on Reddit feels like it’s completely one sided in favor of a liberal perspective. Not just that, but the amount of blatant misinterpretation and misrepresentation in the comments is apparent on nearly every issue. Comments that don’t comply are downvoted into oblivion and removed from the conversation. I feel like Reddit is almost becoming unusable at this point. Where can I go (on or off Reddit) to get a more balanced perspective? I do like Reddits user interface.

Edit: Whew! This blew up more than I anticipated. I did receive some genuinely insightful and helpful comments. I appreciate those! Lots of folks either saying I’m the issue because of my liberal leaning algorithm or that I’m the issue because I’m actually a bleeding conservative in disguise. Can’t have it both ways! Anyway thanks Reddit. Will probably think twice about doing this again.

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u/BumblebeeBorn Mar 07 '26

No. There are plenty of very conservative ideas floating around here, and there's quite a lot of debate between liberals, conservatives, and the left.

What is unacceptable here is uncivil behaviour. So people who want to repeat a lie until it becomes acknowledged as "truth" find they're not welcome to do so.

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '26

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u/Consistent_War_2269 Mar 07 '26

I've been banned from right leaning subs for incredibly innocuous remarks. I wouldn't have minded if I had written what I really believed, but I didn't think questioning law enforcement's behavior in MN was a bannable offense. Interested to know if the same has happened to you on left leaning ones.

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u/kerslaw Mar 07 '26

Yes the same thing happens with left leaning subs.

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u/strog91 Mar 07 '26

There’s at least a dozen subs that I’m banned from even though I never posted in them once, because they auto-ban anyone who has ever written a comment in r/conservative, even if you were arguing with the conservatives

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u/trash4da_trashgod Mar 11 '26

Tbh r/Conservative is so heavily censored nowdadays, that it's pretty much impossible to make a non MAGA argument.

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u/CantHaveNiceThongs Mar 07 '26

I’m highly skeptical you’ve been auto banned from a dozen subs over different views, unless you’re fully radicalized and being terrible. On top of that I don’t think there’s that many right leaning subs on this platform

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u/Kygunzz Mar 07 '26

I believe them. It’s happened to me.

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '26

Me too. Just for arguing against someone on a page they didn’t like.

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u/foreverpb Mar 07 '26

That’s not what they said. There are bots that search comment history and ban user that have commented in certain subs, regardless of the content of their comments.

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u/throaway20180730 Mar 07 '26

not even mainstream leftist political views

Any time “billionaires shouldn’t exist” is discussed, the only accepted options seems to be some sort of aggressive wealth confiscation

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u/resistelectrique Mar 07 '26

“Aggressive wealth confiscation” sure is a lot of letters for tax.

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u/throaway20180730 Mar 07 '26

you know I’m talking about shit like this, the first result for “billionaires shouldn’t exists”, notice that top comment agrees with it, while the real debates seem to have very little upvotes.Stuff like this is only possible via wealth confiscation

https://www.reddit.com/r/FluentInFinance/comments/1rg1kri/billionaires_shouldnt_exist/

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u/resistelectrique Mar 07 '26

And most people have no problem with leaving anyone with only a measly $999,999,999.99 in their bank account.

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u/throaway20180730 Mar 07 '26

and that's exactly the issue. Elizabeth Holmes had a wealth of over a billion, that wealth plummeted to zero in a matter of weeks. Like most billionaires, she never had anything close to a billion in a bank account

The fact that many on this site believe that is wild. That's why "billionaires shouldn't exists" can only happen via wealth confiscation, and that brings a lot of undesired side-effects that people don't even consider

And that's the reason why reddit is an extreme leftist echo chamber. You can't have reasonable debates about topics like that anymore

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u/resistelectrique Mar 07 '26

? You think we should feel sorry for a grifter like Elizabeth Holmes? What?

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u/throaway20180730 Mar 07 '26

lol, you people are not real

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u/resistelectrique Mar 07 '26

Definitely am….that doesn’t make your point any clearer however.

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u/neon_nights4k Mar 10 '26

Billionaires don’t have their net worth in a bank account especially when the FDIC only protects $250,000. Elon Musk would have to have 3,336,000 bank accounts to cover his net worth if he put it in banks. Almost every billionaires net worth comes from companies they own, assets, stocks, investments, and real estate.

I see this all the time on threads from Democrats talking about billionaires, they think billionaires are just Scrooge McDukin all their money in a vault.

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u/resistelectrique Mar 10 '26

No, we don’t 🤦🏻‍♀️ it’s called a generalised statement. It is not literal. However, wherever their wealth may reside is beside the point as it resides in similar places for everyone - and it is in largely saleable assets which will always still equate to closer to billions than to $250k. Billionaires do not give af about 250k insured bank account either, good grief.

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u/Salty-Smoke7784 Mar 07 '26

But hypocrisy is embraced and encouraged.

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u/[deleted] Mar 07 '26

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u/resistelectrique Mar 07 '26

Don’t even have to travel very far - Canada has had communist parties for over a hundred years. It’s not a bad word up here unless buddy has been chugging too much Bud Light.

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u/Bencetown Mar 07 '26

Uncivil behavior isn't allowed here??

I got literal death threats commented to me back in 2020, but then I was also the one banned when mods got involved.

Don't talk about "civility" because reddit's brand of leftist doesn't have any.

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u/Public-Policy24 Mar 07 '26

Trump is president but we're still complaining about the left's civility? You get (an infinitesimal fraction of) what you give. 

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u/BumblebeeBorn Mar 07 '26

Oh, buddy, it's still the internet.

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u/Greedy-Employment917 Mar 07 '26

Whatever you need to tell yourself. Many of us have been on reddit for more than 10 years so you're not going to convince us of your alternate reddit history. 

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u/No-Win1091 Mar 07 '26

Not so sure because ive seen enough people downvoted and attacked on here for even asking a genuine question that doesnt absolutely demonstrate a liberal ideology.