Unpopular Opinion: Reddit is a cancer for society

[[MPGH]arunforce]

So your main point is that people find places where they can find other people who share the same ideologies and circlejerk each other to affirm their beliefs? This would apply to the entire internet right? Making the entire internet cancerous?

Or maybe the positives outweigh the negatives in regards to the internet thus making it less "cancerous"?, and depending on your point of view the positives could outweigh the negatives on Reddit as well i.e a sense of community, places to share ideas, art, music, songs, or to actually learn about any wide range subject.

I think it's unfair to label Reddit as "cancerous" just as much as it would be to label the internet as such. There are "hiveminds" everywhere, you go to San Francisco and say "Hey man, I think college should be free!" and nobody will say "Hey man, I don't think that would work because of ...", simply because they'd get chastised for anti-liberal views. Same with for example if you went to a southern state and said "I support abortion because of.." , you'd get chastised. Hiveminds are going to be around no matter what, niche opinions or not.

If you want to find a group of people who share the same crazy opinions as you do, it'll happen. Flat-earthers, KKK, the list goes on. Do you think that they were open to discussion on their shared opinions?

"Fake news" is also not Reddit specific either is it? Remember the Central Park Five? People will grab onto Fake news and run with it no matter what, they'll believe whatever the want to believe. The main point you're trying to make is people go on Reddit, share opinions, hive-mind either agrees or disagrees and theres no dissenting opinions.

As I said in the beginning, the problem is that your entire argument could be used for the entire internet, and just like the internet you weigh the pro's and con's to determine if it really is bad for society.

You're far more likely to run into opposing views in any normal part of society, versus a specific section of a website like Reddit for like minded ideological people to gather. Even San Fran, a certain demographic with a certain ideal may be prominent in that area, but it's essentially open, and opposing opinions aren't down voted into oblivion and hidden out of sight just because their opinion/facts don't agree with the hive's agenda. Nor are people moving to San Fran because they want to voice their opinion to free college. Again, there can be a majority anywhere, but it's not like 99.9% of all people with the same opinions stroking each other's egos to believing any false ideas. The internet allowed people like these to gather from anywhere in the world, but reddit made it easier to convert people over with "popular" upvoted ideas which can be factually erroneous or simply just fake information being expanded, regurgitated, and spread because the collective agrees with it. It's easy to get lost thinking that since a lot of people agree: A) it must be true and B) it must be a firmly held popular opinion. Way back when the IRC days and even forums like MPGH who have been around before reddit and youtube, people have had opinions on everything, but they have a tendency to go checked and not end up a single collective individuals who identify with the gender of sea urchin telling each other they can be any gender and pronoun they want and we have to respect it or be labeled a something-ist. The fact that you can disagree with me here and we're all not on the same page and your post isn't essentially deleted and ignored basically validates the problems with reddit.

[itzsheng]

I agree however reddit is life

[Levi]

nah 'unpopulair' he said you drunk go home aruuunnnnn

[scotbud123]

Making such general and overbearing statements about a site not only as big, but designed like reddit doesn't really make much sense.

Of course there will be niche echo-chamber subs, but there's also the majority of subs that have nothing to do about polarizing opinions and topics and just focus on/produce a lot of quality content about their sub-topic.

Most of reddit isn't how you described, just some of the more popular subs.

[001.]

Nah, Reddit is dank as fuck. Just depends on the subreddit.

[KekKing]

Been a Reddit use for over 3-4 years and I observed a lot.
After seeing how shit posts are in r/politics, r/news, r/truenews I really started hating on them.
It's just like fascism, the majority decides, the opposers with their own ideas will get obliterated, a totalitarianism system.

I only visit Reddit nowadays for a good r/nosleep when I can't sleep and Dark Net Markets subreddits.

[Hydra]

Reddit is bunch of kids with fucked up knowledge.

[Sublime]

At least they don't censor people ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Draganoid]

Reddit is awesome. Like my threads <3

[ReinZoPA]

If I were to contract AIDS/ any other form of STD I'd fuck as many people as I can. Take these motherfuckers down with me

[Lehsyrus]

I don't believe many of you are getting what @arunforce is saying. Yes, reddit does allow for collective groups of all types to engage in specific conversation, which seems diverse to begin with. However, when one group grows large enough influence, it spreads to other groups. Take a look at most of the political subreddits, which are supposed to support both ends of the political spectrum: the vast majority is filled with hard left groups which use their voting options on the site to stifle any polarizing conversation from the other side.

You can see this on nearly every website, however with one as large as reddit there is the ability for the traffic throughput to be thoroughly influenced by whichever viewpoint holds the most clout on the most viewed subreddits. It's not about whether the website itself has a political or ideological influence, it's that the users by and far can alter the general visitors viewpoint in a biased manner by sheer numbers, which in itself is a cattle effect that should not be praised as intellectual discourse and debate thereby are impossible.

IE: Reddit is cancer.

[InCognito]

I don't believe many of you are getting what @arunforce is saying. Yes, reddit does allow for collective groups of all types to engage in specific conversation, which seems diverse to begin with. However, when one group grows large enough influence, it spreads to other groups. Take a look at most of the political subreddits, which are supposed to support both ends of the political spectrum: the vast majority is filled with hard left groups which use their voting options on the site to stifle any polarizing conversation from the other side.

You can see this on nearly every website, however with one as large as reddit there is the ability for the traffic throughput to be thoroughly influenced by whichever viewpoint holds the most clout on the most viewed subreddits. It's not about whether the website itself has a political or ideological influence, it's that the users by and far can alter the general visitors viewpoint in a biased manner by sheer numbers, which in itself is a cattle effect that should not be praised as intellectual discourse and debate thereby are impossible.

IE: Reddit is cancer.

Hi Lehsyrus I haven't seen you in like 4 years

[[MPGH]Ethereal]

Social media in general is cancer. I feel like it's really unnatural to give every moron with a keyboard or smartphone a podium to reach the world with.
The way we used to interact with each other was much more intimate. People didn't talk as much shit to each other, because that meant you had to do it to their face opposed to being a bitch ass computer thug. I think facebook is creating more discourse than anything else, a place where you were supposed to reunite with old friends, keep bonds with family and friends, share ideas and interests. Don't know about you guys, but my newsfeed is cluttered with drama and political pissing contests.

[RIP_FeelAlive]

Reddit is fun doe

[assassin88]

I don't think reddit is a cancer, I think a lot of it is still good - especially in forums which don't allow hate etc. It does have cancerous parts yes, which you need to cut them out, but I think it is a platform which keeps the world informed.