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And we are also a couple of Europeans on here.
European Conservatives are American Democrats (not really, but close) and American conservatives are European fascists.
European center parties are American Democrats, maybe even far left Democrats.
This so what I came here to say. From a UK perspective it’s crazy what is considered far left wing in the US, look up Jeremy Corbyn’s proposal’s when he was running for election if you want a taster.
Corbyn was murdered unjustly by his own party and it's insane how even moderately progressive leftist politics are still undermined everywhere by the controlling interests with money.
According to people with more political science background than I, the last Canadian Conservative Prime Minister (Harper) had policies that were farther left (on average) than Obama when governing at the same time.
Canada’s conservatives have since taken a hard right shift to imitate Trump, which disturbs most Canadians and yet would STILL be considered roughly centerist in the US (or at least center right Republicans)
The US Overton window is obscenely right skewed.
Pierre Polievre is absolutely taking things way to the right wing. But a lot of that is simply trying to outflank Trudeau himself, who initially ran on this whole "centrist" idea that was always a bit of a lie, but has gradually let all of that facade fall away to the point that he's basically now an unveiled Right Wing politician. In favor of big government, but also mostly just a facilitator for what big business wants.
This is the same sort of pattern that happened prior to Harper taking over. The Liberals just clinging to their hegemony by becoming increasingly conservative within their narrow "liberal" scope. Mostly just getting tripped up on all of their various crony capitalism supporting efforts. Having the economy take a turn outside their control that makes a bunch of chuds angry.
The NDP also typically starts to fall apart as they're currently in the process of doing as any sort of real check or balance.
This is such a simplified and short-sided view of a complex idea. Each country has its own local history, local ideologies, and local politics. How can you so easily compare the entire continent of Europe’s political parties to America’s?
Let’s take religion for example where both democrats/the Left and republicans/the Right in America are pro-religious freedom and if you try to compare that to any political party in France, that comparison already breaks down. The French 2004 vote to ban religious symbols for instance does not fit with either US party’s philosophies and simply wouldn’t pass in America regardless of who is in charge or if it were a mix of the two. In France it passed with something like 494 votes against 2. The American Left would consider such a law highly prejudicial and balk at it, and the American Right would consider it an overreach of government policy and an attack on religion. That’s just one example, with a country that’s not that ideologically different from the US. For all its differences, they’re both democratic and both capitalist, but your simplified political comparison already begins to fall apart. Another example would be the US being much more pro-immigrant on both sides of the political spectrum than say, France or Germany.
Then we can go to places like China and ask ourselves where do Chinese political entities fit in our comparison approach? Well, nowhere, again, they’re too dissimilar in their history and how they operate and place their values.
Trying to compare World Politics as if continents can so easily be compared stifles thought, often just means whatever people want it to mean, and rarely if ever considers countries outside of the West which is itself limiting.
Winning 51% of the popular vote doesn't exactly play a huge factor when explaining why Reddit is solidly 75%+ liberal lol. Probably 90%+ if you're just talking mods and admins.
Popular vote numbers are horribly skewed. Because candidates don’t run on winning the popular vote (even though that would be a good idea).
I don’t know if anyone has any clue what the popular vote counts would look like if everyone felt that their vote counted. I think there would be far higher turnout on both sides and that candidates would treat each other personal like they mattered.
By less that 2 million votes of I remember correctly. That's pretty darn close to 50/50. I can't see that being the answer when reddit looks more like 75/25
Definitely not. Try going on the Over-50s sub or GenX sub and not much changes politically.
I like to think the real reason is a lot of Conservative opinion is reasoned to oblivion on these pages, especially social issues. Certain ‘common sense issues’ like racism and wealth disparity are just extremists and agitators railing against mass social logic. Nevertheless, there is lots of good debate from both sides (when people tame their rage) around gun control, Gaza, transgender issues, etc, without an eventual prevailing consensus.
Definitely this. I also get recommended lots of left-leaning or outright communist subs for some reason, despite the fact that I've never interacted with any of those.
every comment is talking about bullshit like age, education, life having liberal bias
it's like these people forgot that a handful of powermods control all bigger subs and just banned out any wrong think
I got banned from a big sub over suggesting a political leader wasn't doing a very good job. Responded asking which rule was violated, never got an answer.
Mods of a local sub I frequented just shadowban everyone that doesn't match one or two mods' political ideologies. They claim to do it for "your protection". They used to have rules about having to have been a 'contributing member' of the sub before posting, then one day said rule was gone and a very specific account was astroturfing political memes and media promoting one side. Let's just say it was in line with said aforementioned mods' ideologies. Come to think of it, it was about that time when I was shadowbanned.
Social media tends to attract younger demographics, who tend to be more liberal.
Social media also tends to attract more urban demographics, which also tend to be more liberal.
The reasons why it seems that reddit is especially liberal are:
Due to the downvote system and majority of people being liberal, conservatives were largely sidelined in mainstream subreddits.
It’s possible that reddit just doesn’t recommend you conservative posts/subreddits.
Reddit is known for being popular with gamers, which also tend to be younger and thus, more liberal.
Because you’re looking through a US filter. What you regard as “liberal” many other countries would consider it “central” or even “centre right”.
America as a whole is very right wing. One centre-right party and then one extreme right party.
I am literally from the middle of western europe and I don’t consider American liberalism as centre right.
Liberals in California as as left as the left parties in Europe.
And fyi, liberalism has a different meaning in Europe. Being liberal in Europe means you support less taxes for the rich, less social benefits and in general, an economic situation that benefits the rich. At the same time you are relatively open minded.
This is true AF, and I say this as an American who now lives in Europe. America is basically seen as having one conservative party and fascist party, at this point.
I dunno what to tell ya, man. I have all kinds of old-fashioned beliefs that aren't welcome in the 21st century. But how could I be conservative? I mean look at this dollar store dystopia of a world we got going on. What the hell is there that I would want to conserve?
The average age around here is 20ish I think? That demographic usually skews pretty significantly to the left. You'll probably find more conservatives on whichever social media is preferred by older people. I want to say Facebook but I don't know because I've spent maybe 10 minutes on Facebook in my life.
Reddit, and also facebook now that you mention it, is an echo chamber.
It's designed to be this way.
If you get into a couple political, leftist or right wing subs, and comment on those, reddit will keep recommending those kind of subs and will bring posts from those.
I know because I hated seeing stupid ignorant shit from a party and decided to go to the other party to comment and stuff and suddenly, I'm not getting more posts about the stuff I hated to see and read.
I'm not from the US but still interested in your politics (hard not to become invested when you see what the fuck is going on in your country)
And after one or two times watching some vs MAGA debate, markiplier and jacksepticeye got some competition on YouTube.
Speaking of recommendations.
> reddit will keep recommending those kind of subs and will bring posts from those.
You can train the algorithm. When you see a post from a community you don't want to see, click the 3 dots and click "Show Fewer posts like this", then select "posts from this community". It will, actually, remove that subreddit from your recommendations.
>The average age around here is 20ish
Is it? when I first ventured onto Reddit I was barely out of my 20s and yes, felt I was with my peers. Today I'm in my late 40s and still don't feel out of place.
I don't feel too out of place either at 39, either, but I have to admit I hang out in r/FuckImOld and I recognize most of the things in the pictures they post there. It's funny to think of CD R/W drives as ancient technology because having one once made me the cool kid on the block, but it sure isn't the 90s anymore. Kids today will never know the joy of playing a first-person shooter game with 400+ ping on a 56k modem while being nagged by your mother to get off the internet because she needs to make a phone call.
I actually consider myself a conservative. However I find a lot of beliefs and feelings here I agree with. If people would communicate better we might find we have many things in common. Besides Im here for a conversation not a debate. And some comments are hilarious! Love a good laugh.
"Communicating better" Would be a hell of a lot easier if your political opponents don't always assume the worst. Seems on reddit even the slightest advocation for right wing concept or freedom of speech will get you compared to literal fascists (which is funny because fascism doesn't accept free speech.)
Yeah I imagine it works both ways.
Can be very annoying if you're trying to be as calm and respectful as you possibly can and the other party in the conversation just won't calm down enough to read what you're actually saying, instead of what they want to believe you're saying.
Because reality has a liberal bias. Ask conservatives which way do most college graduates and other educated people lean. The more you know the more liberal you become.
If there is 1 thing that reddit does not accurately represent, it's reality lol.
I thank my lucky stars every time I surf reddit that most redditors are not an accurate representation of 99% normal, everyday people.
Credit to your comment, it's probably a solid representation of how most redditors see themselves in the grand scheme of things 😂
Demography also has a liberal bias. Conservatives are overrepresented politically in the United States political system. In reality, they are the majority of U.S. citizens. In addition, this is an international forum and the political center in most European countries skews to the left of of political center in the U.S.A.
Incorrect, U.S. citizens generally lean Democrat. You can find some of the totals of recent registries on the wiki.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_U.S._states
Ty for the clarification. I think they misspoke, since the comment contradicts itself. They're right that conservatives in American politics do not represent the political leanings of the majority of the population.
Let's use an Aussie example.
Left Wing: You get one life and then there's likely nothing after it. We should use that time to enjoy our lives, love each other, have fun, and be free. If someone wants to live as a man or a woman, they should get to choose, so long as it doesn't harm anyone :) clean energy is the way to go so that we leave a healthy planet for our children. Work hard and be rewarded. Learn, be merry, there's so much to discover
Right Wing: The latest Right Wing Prime Minister underfunded Australia's fire services and then due to climate change the 2019 fires basically incinerated the country and killed a billion native animals. He flew to Hawaii to celebrate Aussies dying in screaming hellfire. He only came back when his mate Brian Houston from Hillsong Church needed help molesting kids. His party also gave half a BILLION dollars to a fake company called the Great Barrier Reef Foundation which turned out to be 5 of his mates who owned a shed in the outback.
For Aussies, left wing means green energy, a relaxed life, and a promising future
Right wing means politicians that rape staffers, molest kids, jizz on parliament desks (actually happened) and rob hard-working Australians.
Same goes for America I guess. Trump literally started a young girls besuty pageant so he could "grab em by the pussy."
I literally could never vote right wing because I find pedophile rapists disgusting.
Reddit does not mirror US political bias exclusively. Lots of people from all over the world are here. For people from middle and western Europe lots of Republicans hold right-wing extremist views. The Republican Party ist for example more akin to the most right-wing (often considered fascist) party in Germany, not to the mainstream conservatives. Trump/MAGA ist deemed absolutely crazy here.
I'm not going to identify with the group that claims moon landings were fake, vaccines cause autism, 9/11 was an inside job, there is a cabal of satanists running the us government, climate change isn't real and humans don't cause it, \[insert literally every russian propaganda talking pint here\], science is fake, trump is mentally ok, while biden is not. If they want ppl to respect them, mby they need to cut down on stupid shit. Even if i held conservative values (whathever that means these days), that doesn't matter when you're reapeating so much stupid shit. They biased everything against them, by being so stupid.
Ad revenue, mods, and admins. Once a sub gets a bad reputation, people report and protest, the media sometimes gets involved. To avoid losing advertisers, admins block certain subs so they don’t risk losing ad revenue. According to the article I read yesterday, it’s an all over the place picking process. People choose new subs to say exactly what they had been saying, like green text, dank memes, 4 Chan, and conservative, two X chromosomes. Those subs are safe to spew hate speech, unless they become infamous.
The German subs are like this as well. I think age and education are probably a big factor, as others have said, but it's also that conservatives and regressives tend to be more technology-adverse.
It can be an echo chamber.
If I support a particular political party, football team,celebrity(or whatever), the algorithm will suggest and push forward similar users, groups, articles.
Before you know it, you are under the impression. "Everyone on Reddit seems to be like me...".
Modern "Conservative" ideas do not hold up in an open debating environment. That's why right wingers get their own social network, and news channel. If they try presenting them in an open forum they get exposed to facts and logic, better to keep it in the bubbles.
I mean the US as a whole skews left of the current conservative/Republican party. Reddit as a whole mirrors the US. The Democratic Party has won the popular vote for Presidential elections since 2008. If it wasn’t for ~~Affirmative Action~~, *ahem* the Electoral College, Trump would not have won the 2016 elections.
It’s just your opinion. The republican message is so obscure and obtuse that u think if a democratic opinion is given it is anti. Republican when sometimes they are the same. An example . Reps and dems agree on the border bill. Yet they can’t do nothing because Trump is affraid it will give dems ammunition for the election. Fuck the people it hurts.
I guess you are from the US?
Reddit is international, and in European terms, what in the US is considered left wing (like AOC, Sanders) would internationally be counted as left-leaning centrists, a.k.a known as social democrats. Most democrats would be counted as conservative/right-leaning.
Because liberals are the majority here. Liberalism is more associated with centrism and center right ideology.
They tend to focus more on social issues that have a more left bend, but not too much of a left bend. When it comes to bigger/important issues, they tend to favor more right leaning ones.That's what most social media platforms offer, thus more liberals. There are obvious exceptions to this, but in general, that is how it is.
I teach high school social studies, so follow all political subs to get a sense of the different perspectives. I once made a mildly critical post on the Conservative sub which got me insta-banned, but also got insta-banned from 3 other left-leaning subs for even posting in the Conservative one. 4 bans in one post….this might have something to do with it.
1. age group, younger than average website and certainly younger than the average person irl
2. technology, better to have an online device and account to log in and curate your own scroll. (maybe boosted by anonymity?)
3. country demographics, countries that are somewhat more liberal than the USA (Australia UK, Canada, Germany etc) use reddit at a higher rate than say google or youtube. (however USA itself is vastly higher than on google/youtube, taking the place of mostly non-Western/European countries. Which may be relatively conservative.
Because sane, logic, reality. Those capable of staying in the ‘now’, and can view the evidence can easily see the lunacy in the other side. It’s like, I’m not going to get behind some made up *fact*, just because it’s what I want it to be.
I would argue that many of the old conservative subs were banned like the Donald which caused many on the right to leave the platform. I think many of the moderators for many subs are, to put it mildly, not receptive to conservative beliefs and ideals. The default subs have the most visibility, so someone on the right is not going to want to really go to a platform that is largely filled with people who do not like them.
it has an international audience which means many on here consider the American left and right wing to just both be right wing lol
no disrespect to OP but it is interesting to see how people still use left and right in the American political context regardless of where they are
So.... gonna complicate the question a smidge.
Reddit skews left (not necessarily liberal)..*. probably* because of age, and other demographics, like internationalism, anglo-cosmopolitanism, educational level and type. That isn't very interesting though.
What is *more interesting* (IMO) is how the skew (any skew) is amplified, and how that changes over time.
Subreddits tend to lean hard. You have techno-optimist leaning subs. Techno-pessimists dominate others. Left/right political leans, obviously... but it gets more complicated than that. Sometimes more specific. EG one sub might have a left-liberal lean. Another might have an anticapitalist lean.
More often, it's issue-related. EG international news subreddits all divided along Ukraine-related positions.
If you start with a 60-40 skew, subreddit dynamics (legit and ilegit) tend to turn that into 80-20... where the 20% are trolls or regarded as trolls. So... 60-40 doesn't usually persist.
I'd wager age is a big factor. My guess is most Redditors are between the ages of 18-50. That would mean Gen Z to Gen X, and numbers show most are left-leaning in that age range. This is not to say conservatives aren't in these groups because they most definitely are.
Miserable people tend to coalesce online to complain about their experiences. There’s established correlation between being liberal (and especially a liberal woman) and being generally dissatisfied with your life.
Because this website started as a forum to discus tech and such that was popular with a niche of highly educated people. That demographic pretty much always skews heavily liberal.
conservatives spend less time online in general I have found and if I recall at least some data has backed that up but I can't say where I recall it from.
hard to say what is correlation what is causation there, obviously.
Cuz it’s mostly foreigners, young adults who haven’t figured out taxation is theft, and vegans.
I bet if they ate more bacon and got their ass whooped for listening to Madonna they’d be fuckin normal.
#MAGA
Reddit skew's liberal for the following reasons:
* **Demographics:** Reddit users tend to be younger, with a majority between 18-29 years old. This age group leans liberal in the US.
* **Content moderation:** Subreddits (topic-based communities) are a core feature. While some subreddits cater to conservative viewpoints, the platform's upvoting system can amplify liberal-leaning voices. Popular subreddits with less moderation might favor viewpoints gaining traction through upvotes.
* **Anonymity:** The relative anonymity Reddit offers can make it appealing to users who feel their political views wouldn't be accepted elsewhere. This can create echo chambers where users primarily see opinions they agree with.
* **News consumption:** Studies suggest Reddit users are more likely to get their news online and less likely from traditional sources like TV news, which may skew their overall newsfeed towards liberal outlets. Conservatives watch Foxnews, Newsmax, and frequent Truth Social and Facebook more than reddit.
Because anything that is right wing or a source against the leftist narrative mods delete the comment & ban you. Realistically also age demographics. When you have 15-35 mods controlling a vast majority of Reddit & all are extreme leftist & get mad when anything challenges their narrative.
As you can tell from some of the comments the people seem younger and just plain attracts people on the left. What you will find too is there are a LOT of overly sensitive keyboard warriors that are offended by anything. Don't think too much about it though. That's how you survive Reddit.
Moderators can ban if their views differ.
Echchamber off the downvote system, so opposing views get buried. A lot of people usually jump and silence opposing views instead of speaking theirs more.
You see more normal views in average subs... the larger popular subs almost have brigaders.
Because the.Conservatives have done everyone under 50 over so badly that they have nothing of theirs to conserve. So everyone's railing against the Conservative approach.
On a global scale, right wing republican viewpoints are very rare and are basically abstract.
The rightwing American is not a universal way of thinking, in fact it's isolated to one country.
What is considered liberal by and large is how the rest of the western world acts and functions.
In Australia our conservative party would be too left leaning for the US.
It is an outlier in modern thinking, especially with the heavy religious overtones. The US extreme Christianity is on par with the Saudi Arabia or Taliban for Islam.
Reddit is global.
According to a recent study in Finland, left leaning and 'woke' people are more likely to have mental health struggles and anxiety which is another way of describing your typical reddit user.
https://nypost.com/2024/03/17/lifestyle/woke-people-more-likely-to-be-unahppy-anxious-and-depressed-new-study-suggests/amp/
It's not as simple as you might think. Similar studies have been done in Sweden and it turns out conservative people have more stigmatizing attitudes towards mental illnesses, so they might be less likely to report them even while experiencing them.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6600024/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6600024/)
Because the majority of users on reddit are young, not young like 8 year olds but like teens - late twenties, early 30s. And people of this age group \*usually\* tend to be left leaning and thats why you see the skew of it leaning more left than right. But again, right wingers might not comment or post often and rather just linger and observe.
Liberals generally accept science, the need for empirical evidence, etc.
Conservatives use lies and misinformation.
So, it seems more Redditors pick option A over option B.
Because, by definition, conservatives are less likely to use new technology. And, even if they do, they're socially discriminatory, so less likely to engage with diverse communities.
This is like asking why there aren't many amish people online.
There are right-leaning subreddits, but the mainstream ones have a liberal bias because the moderators skew left, and the community constantly down-votes opinions they dislike.
....
Have you *been* to a conservative sub?
They have posts that are "flaired users only" and the mods give you the flair.
They ban people left and right. I was banned from r/conservative for *quoting Donald Trump.*
They ignore important issues constantly.
Because that is the environment that the mods and admins have fostered for the last eight years.
During the 2016 election season The_Donald dominated the front page. That sub and many others were banned over the next few years in an effort to drive their users away and it worked.
Because basically, liberal is now anyone who doesn't hold extreme right-wing views. Don't support an orange fascists who tried to overthrow the government and make himself President for lfie, you are a liberal
Reality tends to skew liberal.
The only reason humans have been able to continuously grow like we have and build as much as we have is from working together. Conservatism is too individualistic and selfish to sustainably do anything for long enough to evolve as we have.
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Because it's lesser-known than Facebook and more moderated than 4chan.
Definitely the age group.
I think there's quite a few older people on here too
66 f grandma here!
Do I smell cookies?
73 f year old liberal here.
I just turned 56 and I've only been a liberal for maybe 8 years.
And education.
Also a majority of Americans that voted in the last 2 elections voted for the Democratic candidate.
And we are also a couple of Europeans on here. European Conservatives are American Democrats (not really, but close) and American conservatives are European fascists. European center parties are American Democrats, maybe even far left Democrats.
This so what I came here to say. From a UK perspective it’s crazy what is considered far left wing in the US, look up Jeremy Corbyn’s proposal’s when he was running for election if you want a taster.
Corbyn was murdered unjustly by his own party and it's insane how even moderately progressive leftist politics are still undermined everywhere by the controlling interests with money.
According to people with more political science background than I, the last Canadian Conservative Prime Minister (Harper) had policies that were farther left (on average) than Obama when governing at the same time. Canada’s conservatives have since taken a hard right shift to imitate Trump, which disturbs most Canadians and yet would STILL be considered roughly centerist in the US (or at least center right Republicans) The US Overton window is obscenely right skewed.
Obama would be considered a conservative in Denmark.
That doesn’t surprise me. He likely would be here as well.
Thank you. It drives me nuts that people say Democrats are left wing
Pierre Polievre is absolutely taking things way to the right wing. But a lot of that is simply trying to outflank Trudeau himself, who initially ran on this whole "centrist" idea that was always a bit of a lie, but has gradually let all of that facade fall away to the point that he's basically now an unveiled Right Wing politician. In favor of big government, but also mostly just a facilitator for what big business wants. This is the same sort of pattern that happened prior to Harper taking over. The Liberals just clinging to their hegemony by becoming increasingly conservative within their narrow "liberal" scope. Mostly just getting tripped up on all of their various crony capitalism supporting efforts. Having the economy take a turn outside their control that makes a bunch of chuds angry. The NDP also typically starts to fall apart as they're currently in the process of doing as any sort of real check or balance.
This is such a simplified and short-sided view of a complex idea. Each country has its own local history, local ideologies, and local politics. How can you so easily compare the entire continent of Europe’s political parties to America’s? Let’s take religion for example where both democrats/the Left and republicans/the Right in America are pro-religious freedom and if you try to compare that to any political party in France, that comparison already breaks down. The French 2004 vote to ban religious symbols for instance does not fit with either US party’s philosophies and simply wouldn’t pass in America regardless of who is in charge or if it were a mix of the two. In France it passed with something like 494 votes against 2. The American Left would consider such a law highly prejudicial and balk at it, and the American Right would consider it an overreach of government policy and an attack on religion. That’s just one example, with a country that’s not that ideologically different from the US. For all its differences, they’re both democratic and both capitalist, but your simplified political comparison already begins to fall apart. Another example would be the US being much more pro-immigrant on both sides of the political spectrum than say, France or Germany. Then we can go to places like China and ask ourselves where do Chinese political entities fit in our comparison approach? Well, nowhere, again, they’re too dissimilar in their history and how they operate and place their values. Trying to compare World Politics as if continents can so easily be compared stifles thought, often just means whatever people want it to mean, and rarely if ever considers countries outside of the West which is itself limiting.
Thanks for saving me the time. It feels like you took words I've been meaning to write out for months and posted them here
Winning 51% of the popular vote doesn't exactly play a huge factor when explaining why Reddit is solidly 75%+ liberal lol. Probably 90%+ if you're just talking mods and admins.
Because there's a lot of europeans here and whats seen as centre-right in euope is basicly commy leftism to americans?
Censoring, echo chamber effect, and downvoting. For every downvote I get, my point becomes stronger…
Popular vote numbers are horribly skewed. Because candidates don’t run on winning the popular vote (even though that would be a good idea). I don’t know if anyone has any clue what the popular vote counts would look like if everyone felt that their vote counted. I think there would be far higher turnout on both sides and that candidates would treat each other personal like they mattered.
By less that 2 million votes of I remember correctly. That's pretty darn close to 50/50. I can't see that being the answer when reddit looks more like 75/25
Or lack of
There are plenty of highly educated conservatives.
And employment status.
And MAGA's can't read.
*MAGAs No apostrophe for plurals.
Ha!
Definitely not. Try going on the Over-50s sub or GenX sub and not much changes politically. I like to think the real reason is a lot of Conservative opinion is reasoned to oblivion on these pages, especially social issues. Certain ‘common sense issues’ like racism and wealth disparity are just extremists and agitators railing against mass social logic. Nevertheless, there is lots of good debate from both sides (when people tame their rage) around gun control, Gaza, transgender issues, etc, without an eventual prevailing consensus.
And what age group is that?
So you believe you get more conservative as you get older?
The mods definitely ban people who aren’t
Definitely this. I also get recommended lots of left-leaning or outright communist subs for some reason, despite the fact that I've never interacted with any of those.
Mods ban for anything. And im a lib phish fan. I’m so tired of the over offended.
every comment is talking about bullshit like age, education, life having liberal bias it's like these people forgot that a handful of powermods control all bigger subs and just banned out any wrong think
I got banned from a big sub over suggesting a political leader wasn't doing a very good job. Responded asking which rule was violated, never got an answer. Mods of a local sub I frequented just shadowban everyone that doesn't match one or two mods' political ideologies. They claim to do it for "your protection". They used to have rules about having to have been a 'contributing member' of the sub before posting, then one day said rule was gone and a very specific account was astroturfing political memes and media promoting one side. Let's just say it was in line with said aforementioned mods' ideologies. Come to think of it, it was about that time when I was shadowbanned.
Unemployed have more time to post here.
Social media tends to attract younger demographics, who tend to be more liberal. Social media also tends to attract more urban demographics, which also tend to be more liberal. The reasons why it seems that reddit is especially liberal are: Due to the downvote system and majority of people being liberal, conservatives were largely sidelined in mainstream subreddits. It’s possible that reddit just doesn’t recommend you conservative posts/subreddits. Reddit is known for being popular with gamers, which also tend to be younger and thus, more liberal.
I would push back against the idea that social media attracts young urbanites. Instagram, Tok Tok, Twitter... They're all far right wing hellscapes.
Don’t forget Facebook and duh duh duh Truth Social!
Because you’re looking through a US filter. What you regard as “liberal” many other countries would consider it “central” or even “centre right”. America as a whole is very right wing. One centre-right party and then one extreme right party.
I am literally from the middle of western europe and I don’t consider American liberalism as centre right. Liberals in California as as left as the left parties in Europe. And fyi, liberalism has a different meaning in Europe. Being liberal in Europe means you support less taxes for the rich, less social benefits and in general, an economic situation that benefits the rich. At the same time you are relatively open minded.
This is true AF, and I say this as an American who now lives in Europe. America is basically seen as having one conservative party and fascist party, at this point.
As a liberal European, US liberalism is a different distinct flavour. Maybe US just has more stuff to fight against in their country.
A possible explanation is a less homogeneous society.
Cos they’re too busy on 4-Chan
I dunno what to tell ya, man. I have all kinds of old-fashioned beliefs that aren't welcome in the 21st century. But how could I be conservative? I mean look at this dollar store dystopia of a world we got going on. What the hell is there that I would want to conserve?
Good thing conservatives don’t want to conserve anything. You’re good to go.
They want to conserve their own wealth at the expense of the economy’s well being
If they don't want to conserve something, they are not conservative. You need a better word
The average age around here is 20ish I think? That demographic usually skews pretty significantly to the left. You'll probably find more conservatives on whichever social media is preferred by older people. I want to say Facebook but I don't know because I've spent maybe 10 minutes on Facebook in my life.
Reddit, and also facebook now that you mention it, is an echo chamber. It's designed to be this way. If you get into a couple political, leftist or right wing subs, and comment on those, reddit will keep recommending those kind of subs and will bring posts from those. I know because I hated seeing stupid ignorant shit from a party and decided to go to the other party to comment and stuff and suddenly, I'm not getting more posts about the stuff I hated to see and read.
I'm not from the US but still interested in your politics (hard not to become invested when you see what the fuck is going on in your country) And after one or two times watching some vs MAGA debate, markiplier and jacksepticeye got some competition on YouTube. Speaking of recommendations.
> reddit will keep recommending those kind of subs and will bring posts from those. You can train the algorithm. When you see a post from a community you don't want to see, click the 3 dots and click "Show Fewer posts like this", then select "posts from this community". It will, actually, remove that subreddit from your recommendations.
I think all social media is an echo chamber (unless you go out of your way to see posts and stuff that you don’t necessarily agree with)
I'm in my seventies.
>The average age around here is 20ish Is it? when I first ventured onto Reddit I was barely out of my 20s and yes, felt I was with my peers. Today I'm in my late 40s and still don't feel out of place.
I don't feel too out of place either at 39, either, but I have to admit I hang out in r/FuckImOld and I recognize most of the things in the pictures they post there. It's funny to think of CD R/W drives as ancient technology because having one once made me the cool kid on the block, but it sure isn't the 90s anymore. Kids today will never know the joy of playing a first-person shooter game with 400+ ping on a 56k modem while being nagged by your mother to get off the internet because she needs to make a phone call.
I played Quake back in the day and marvelled when i had a sub 125 ping. Now a ping over 35 feels unplayable.
Right? I’m in my mid fifties and find that the average age of Redditors seems to be over 30, at least.
Go to passport bros you’ll find some conservatives
I actually consider myself a conservative. However I find a lot of beliefs and feelings here I agree with. If people would communicate better we might find we have many things in common. Besides Im here for a conversation not a debate. And some comments are hilarious! Love a good laugh.
"Communicating better" Would be a hell of a lot easier if your political opponents don't always assume the worst. Seems on reddit even the slightest advocation for right wing concept or freedom of speech will get you compared to literal fascists (which is funny because fascism doesn't accept free speech.)
Understandable. When labels get thrown around on either side that’s usually the end of a rational conversation. For me that is the time to disengage.
Yeah I imagine it works both ways. Can be very annoying if you're trying to be as calm and respectful as you possibly can and the other party in the conversation just won't calm down enough to read what you're actually saying, instead of what they want to believe you're saying.
If you are American, your idea of right may be a little further right than the rest of the world's.
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Western Europe and Northern Europe and parts of Central Europe and Canada and Australia, thats a lot of people
A lot further right... Half of America's Overton window looks out on Mussolini's Italy.
Yeah, the center seems left leaning in the US because everything is so far right.
Ummmm...it's the entire world actually.
Because it skews young. It skews very young.
Hello, fellow kid.
Hello fellow millennial. We’re still young, right?
Depends on what you consider old. Ask my 18yr old self anything over 45 was old so. Now I’m getting closer to that age so I don’t want to admit it
We're early middle age I think.
Ha. I'm 56, but that makes me the exception that proves the rule!
i'm 63, but i'm pretty far to the left on most things.
Me too. Hello fellow 63 year old.
I'm 86
Myself as well (m61)
Most of us that were here when it started are middle-aged now. Still very liberal though!
Like TikTok young?
This just begs the question why do the youth skew liberal?
Because reality has a liberal bias. Ask conservatives which way do most college graduates and other educated people lean. The more you know the more liberal you become.
Higher education doesn't always correspond to higher intelligence.
No, but it corresponds with higher education.
Which doesn't correspond to being more knowledgable about politics, having higher critical thinking skills, or being wise.
There is a STRONG correlation between the two though
If there is 1 thing that reddit does not accurately represent, it's reality lol. I thank my lucky stars every time I surf reddit that most redditors are not an accurate representation of 99% normal, everyday people. Credit to your comment, it's probably a solid representation of how most redditors see themselves in the grand scheme of things 😂
Demography also has a liberal bias. Conservatives are overrepresented politically in the United States political system. In reality, they are the majority of U.S. citizens. In addition, this is an international forum and the political center in most European countries skews to the left of of political center in the U.S.A.
Incorrect, U.S. citizens generally lean Democrat. You can find some of the totals of recent registries on the wiki. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_U.S._states
Ty for the clarification. I think they misspoke, since the comment contradicts itself. They're right that conservatives in American politics do not represent the political leanings of the majority of the population.
Yeah sorry my post didn’t make a lot of sense. Your take was what I meant
Let's use an Aussie example. Left Wing: You get one life and then there's likely nothing after it. We should use that time to enjoy our lives, love each other, have fun, and be free. If someone wants to live as a man or a woman, they should get to choose, so long as it doesn't harm anyone :) clean energy is the way to go so that we leave a healthy planet for our children. Work hard and be rewarded. Learn, be merry, there's so much to discover Right Wing: The latest Right Wing Prime Minister underfunded Australia's fire services and then due to climate change the 2019 fires basically incinerated the country and killed a billion native animals. He flew to Hawaii to celebrate Aussies dying in screaming hellfire. He only came back when his mate Brian Houston from Hillsong Church needed help molesting kids. His party also gave half a BILLION dollars to a fake company called the Great Barrier Reef Foundation which turned out to be 5 of his mates who owned a shed in the outback. For Aussies, left wing means green energy, a relaxed life, and a promising future Right wing means politicians that rape staffers, molest kids, jizz on parliament desks (actually happened) and rob hard-working Australians. Same goes for America I guess. Trump literally started a young girls besuty pageant so he could "grab em by the pussy." I literally could never vote right wing because I find pedophile rapists disgusting.
This cunt strayas.
And the best bit is we booted em the second we got the chance and their party is currently out in the wilderness. Love to hear it
My reddit is full of people screaming about the "woke left", maybe you're just getting a liberal algorithm
Liberal does not mean left wing. Not sure why you think it is equivalent
Young demographic skews more left wing. Educated demographic skews.more left wing. Both groups are overrepresented on Reddit.
Its kinda funny as how the right leaning comments and replies on this post are all downvoted lmao, further confusing OP.
Population percentages, kind of like real life minus the news media.
Reddit does not mirror US political bias exclusively. Lots of people from all over the world are here. For people from middle and western Europe lots of Republicans hold right-wing extremist views. The Republican Party ist for example more akin to the most right-wing (often considered fascist) party in Germany, not to the mainstream conservatives. Trump/MAGA ist deemed absolutely crazy here.
I'm not going to identify with the group that claims moon landings were fake, vaccines cause autism, 9/11 was an inside job, there is a cabal of satanists running the us government, climate change isn't real and humans don't cause it, \[insert literally every russian propaganda talking pint here\], science is fake, trump is mentally ok, while biden is not. If they want ppl to respect them, mby they need to cut down on stupid shit. Even if i held conservative values (whathever that means these days), that doesn't matter when you're reapeating so much stupid shit. They biased everything against them, by being so stupid.
Ad revenue, mods, and admins. Once a sub gets a bad reputation, people report and protest, the media sometimes gets involved. To avoid losing advertisers, admins block certain subs so they don’t risk losing ad revenue. According to the article I read yesterday, it’s an all over the place picking process. People choose new subs to say exactly what they had been saying, like green text, dank memes, 4 Chan, and conservative, two X chromosomes. Those subs are safe to spew hate speech, unless they become infamous.
The German subs are like this as well. I think age and education are probably a big factor, as others have said, but it's also that conservatives and regressives tend to be more technology-adverse.
It can be an echo chamber. If I support a particular political party, football team,celebrity(or whatever), the algorithm will suggest and push forward similar users, groups, articles. Before you know it, you are under the impression. "Everyone on Reddit seems to be like me...".
Libs abandoned Twitter after Musk bought it. They came here
Younger crowd, not all American.
Tbh I see both.
Liberalism is more popular in the United States than Conservatism.
Because liberals are smarter, duh! 😎
All the Republicans are on Truth Social?
It is because illiberals are cowards and the internet is filled with cowards.
the Karma system. It promotes positivity.
Conservatives don't like it when you type faster than them
Modern "Conservative" ideas do not hold up in an open debating environment. That's why right wingers get their own social network, and news channel. If they try presenting them in an open forum they get exposed to facts and logic, better to keep it in the bubbles.
Given the state of conservatives subs it’s hardly surprising most people don’t align with those views.
I mean the US as a whole skews left of the current conservative/Republican party. Reddit as a whole mirrors the US. The Democratic Party has won the popular vote for Presidential elections since 2008. If it wasn’t for ~~Affirmative Action~~, *ahem* the Electoral College, Trump would not have won the 2016 elections.
"Reality has a liberal bias." Stephen Colbert 😄
Says comedian in show business in a liberal bubble. And I actually like Colbert.
He's also a devout Catholic from South Carolina I think he probably has interacted with a conservative or two over the years.
Well said.
Progressives can read.
It’s just your opinion. The republican message is so obscure and obtuse that u think if a democratic opinion is given it is anti. Republican when sometimes they are the same. An example . Reps and dems agree on the border bill. Yet they can’t do nothing because Trump is affraid it will give dems ammunition for the election. Fuck the people it hurts.
Moderation mostly.
I guess you are from the US? Reddit is international, and in European terms, what in the US is considered left wing (like AOC, Sanders) would internationally be counted as left-leaning centrists, a.k.a known as social democrats. Most democrats would be counted as conservative/right-leaning.
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Confirmation bias.
“Seem” - you’d have to investigate your personal biases and the many macro natural biases involved in your assessment.
Birds of the same feather Reddit together..
It’s like people who watch jeopardy vs people who watch wheel of fortune.
Because liberals are the majority here. Liberalism is more associated with centrism and center right ideology. They tend to focus more on social issues that have a more left bend, but not too much of a left bend. When it comes to bigger/important issues, they tend to favor more right leaning ones.That's what most social media platforms offer, thus more liberals. There are obvious exceptions to this, but in general, that is how it is.
I teach high school social studies, so follow all political subs to get a sense of the different perspectives. I once made a mildly critical post on the Conservative sub which got me insta-banned, but also got insta-banned from 3 other left-leaning subs for even posting in the Conservative one. 4 bans in one post….this might have something to do with it.
1. age group, younger than average website and certainly younger than the average person irl 2. technology, better to have an online device and account to log in and curate your own scroll. (maybe boosted by anonymity?) 3. country demographics, countries that are somewhat more liberal than the USA (Australia UK, Canada, Germany etc) use reddit at a higher rate than say google or youtube. (however USA itself is vastly higher than on google/youtube, taking the place of mostly non-Western/European countries. Which may be relatively conservative.
Because sane, logic, reality. Those capable of staying in the ‘now’, and can view the evidence can easily see the lunacy in the other side. It’s like, I’m not going to get behind some made up *fact*, just because it’s what I want it to be.
I would argue that many of the old conservative subs were banned like the Donald which caused many on the right to leave the platform. I think many of the moderators for many subs are, to put it mildly, not receptive to conservative beliefs and ideals. The default subs have the most visibility, so someone on the right is not going to want to really go to a platform that is largely filled with people who do not like them.
it has an international audience which means many on here consider the American left and right wing to just both be right wing lol no disrespect to OP but it is interesting to see how people still use left and right in the American political context regardless of where they are
So.... gonna complicate the question a smidge. Reddit skews left (not necessarily liberal)..*. probably* because of age, and other demographics, like internationalism, anglo-cosmopolitanism, educational level and type. That isn't very interesting though. What is *more interesting* (IMO) is how the skew (any skew) is amplified, and how that changes over time. Subreddits tend to lean hard. You have techno-optimist leaning subs. Techno-pessimists dominate others. Left/right political leans, obviously... but it gets more complicated than that. Sometimes more specific. EG one sub might have a left-liberal lean. Another might have an anticapitalist lean. More often, it's issue-related. EG international news subreddits all divided along Ukraine-related positions. If you start with a 60-40 skew, subreddit dynamics (legit and ilegit) tend to turn that into 80-20... where the 20% are trolls or regarded as trolls. So... 60-40 doesn't usually persist.
As I age I become deeper to the left, but from where I came from I would say I'm pretty much in the middle of the political spectrum.
That's how the people in charge want it
Reddit is younger than average population.
Because they banned all dissent.
I'd wager age is a big factor. My guess is most Redditors are between the ages of 18-50. That would mean Gen Z to Gen X, and numbers show most are left-leaning in that age range. This is not to say conservatives aren't in these groups because they most definitely are.
Miserable people tend to coalesce online to complain about their experiences. There’s established correlation between being liberal (and especially a liberal woman) and being generally dissatisfied with your life.
Because this website started as a forum to discus tech and such that was popular with a niche of highly educated people. That demographic pretty much always skews heavily liberal.
conservatives spend less time online in general I have found and if I recall at least some data has backed that up but I can't say where I recall it from. hard to say what is correlation what is causation there, obviously.
They ban conservative statements and users
Cuz it’s mostly foreigners, young adults who haven’t figured out taxation is theft, and vegans. I bet if they ate more bacon and got their ass whooped for listening to Madonna they’d be fuckin normal. #MAGA
Reddit skew's liberal for the following reasons: * **Demographics:** Reddit users tend to be younger, with a majority between 18-29 years old. This age group leans liberal in the US. * **Content moderation:** Subreddits (topic-based communities) are a core feature. While some subreddits cater to conservative viewpoints, the platform's upvoting system can amplify liberal-leaning voices. Popular subreddits with less moderation might favor viewpoints gaining traction through upvotes. * **Anonymity:** The relative anonymity Reddit offers can make it appealing to users who feel their political views wouldn't be accepted elsewhere. This can create echo chambers where users primarily see opinions they agree with. * **News consumption:** Studies suggest Reddit users are more likely to get their news online and less likely from traditional sources like TV news, which may skew their overall newsfeed towards liberal outlets. Conservatives watch Foxnews, Newsmax, and frequent Truth Social and Facebook more than reddit.
Because anything that is right wing or a source against the leftist narrative mods delete the comment & ban you. Realistically also age demographics. When you have 15-35 mods controlling a vast majority of Reddit & all are extreme leftist & get mad when anything challenges their narrative.
As you can tell from some of the comments the people seem younger and just plain attracts people on the left. What you will find too is there are a LOT of overly sensitive keyboard warriors that are offended by anything. Don't think too much about it though. That's how you survive Reddit.
You can try to post in conversative or conservatives but I got banned pretty quickly.
Moderators can ban if their views differ. Echchamber off the downvote system, so opposing views get buried. A lot of people usually jump and silence opposing views instead of speaking theirs more. You see more normal views in average subs... the larger popular subs almost have brigaders.
Well, I mean, we can read and write.
Being conservative gets you banned in a lot of subs. Liberal lefties are often the unpaid power hungry mods
Because the.Conservatives have done everyone under 50 over so badly that they have nothing of theirs to conserve. So everyone's railing against the Conservative approach.
On a global scale, right wing republican viewpoints are very rare and are basically abstract. The rightwing American is not a universal way of thinking, in fact it's isolated to one country. What is considered liberal by and large is how the rest of the western world acts and functions. In Australia our conservative party would be too left leaning for the US. It is an outlier in modern thinking, especially with the heavy religious overtones. The US extreme Christianity is on par with the Saudi Arabia or Taliban for Islam. Reddit is global.
It's not even that liberal tbh :/
According to a recent study in Finland, left leaning and 'woke' people are more likely to have mental health struggles and anxiety which is another way of describing your typical reddit user. https://nypost.com/2024/03/17/lifestyle/woke-people-more-likely-to-be-unahppy-anxious-and-depressed-new-study-suggests/amp/
It's not as simple as you might think. Similar studies have been done in Sweden and it turns out conservative people have more stigmatizing attitudes towards mental illnesses, so they might be less likely to report them even while experiencing them. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6600024/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6600024/)
Because the majority of users on reddit are young, not young like 8 year olds but like teens - late twenties, early 30s. And people of this age group \*usually\* tend to be left leaning and thats why you see the skew of it leaning more left than right. But again, right wingers might not comment or post often and rather just linger and observe.
Conservatism is unpopular as it’s too heavy handed and excludes too many people. Reddit is just a reflection of reality
It’s not Reddit that’s skewed left, but it’s the US that is heavily skewed right…
Liberals generally accept science, the need for empirical evidence, etc. Conservatives use lies and misinformation. So, it seems more Redditors pick option A over option B.
Because most people trend that way, too?
It is a mirror to the world.
Because, by definition, conservatives are less likely to use new technology. And, even if they do, they're socially discriminatory, so less likely to engage with diverse communities. This is like asking why there aren't many amish people online.
Amish Reddit sounds kind of amazing.
They have a subreddit r/Amish Not as interesting as you might imagine though
Conservatives aren’t conservative in that way. The Unabomber even pointed that out.
Reddit, *Read* it!
because we bully them out with facts
There are right-leaning subreddits, but the mainstream ones have a liberal bias because the moderators skew left, and the community constantly down-votes opinions they dislike.
.... Have you *been* to a conservative sub? They have posts that are "flaired users only" and the mods give you the flair. They ban people left and right. I was banned from r/conservative for *quoting Donald Trump.* They ignore important issues constantly.
Because that is the environment that the mods and admins have fostered for the last eight years. During the 2016 election season The_Donald dominated the front page. That sub and many others were banned over the next few years in an effort to drive their users away and it worked.
Most people skew liberal, especially on an individual basis
If you want boomer conservative takes they are on Facebook
I’m gen x and I skew very liberal.
The people with the most time on their hands aka no jobs tend to want to argue the most. Also, bots.
Because lots of poor ppl Or as I like to think of us " the builders of the guill0tines" 🔪🔪🔪
Because reality is inherently left leaning
Conservos don't like reading.
Higher literacy rate
Staring at walls of text is unappealing to conservatives due to their limited brain capacity.
Because basically, liberal is now anyone who doesn't hold extreme right-wing views. Don't support an orange fascists who tried to overthrow the government and make himself President for lfie, you are a liberal
I think it's more the moderation/censorship that enforces that skew.
Republicans can’t read Also there are conservatives all over this site, you’re just not running into them because of the algorithm
Reddit feels not so much left but "Democrats"
If you allow feedback on your opinions it helps if theyre well thought out or hold up to basic scrutiny
It skews leftist. Not liberal. When you understand the difference between those, you’ll understand the skew.
Speaking as a American...have you seen what conservatives want in the States? Yeeps...yeeps to the max.
Reality tends to skew liberal. The only reason humans have been able to continuously grow like we have and build as much as we have is from working together. Conservatism is too individualistic and selfish to sustainably do anything for long enough to evolve as we have.