r/TheoryOfReddit

I’m pretty new to using Reddit more actively, and I just lost a bunch of karma for mildly critiquing a TV show. I don’t really care about the number itself, but it made me realize how quickly downvotes can shut down discussion. I wasn’t trolling or insulting anyone. I just gave an honest opinion that didn’t match the thread.

The funny part is I was actually trying to build enough karma to participate in a filmmaking community I really wanted to be part of. I just made a movie, and I feel like I could contribute a lot to indie film discussions: practical effects, low-budget production, marketing, all that stuff. So it’s not really about losing internet points. It’s more that the system seems to punish honest disagreement, even when someone is trying to participate in good faith.

Am I in the minority on this? I’d honestly rather upvote someone making a real point, even if I disagree, than see everyone repeat the safest opinion in the room. That just feels like groupthink.

The comment section in reddit is not a space for the people who liked the post, it's actually the opposite. The people who upvote the post, at least like 80%-85% of them I think, just hit like and move on. However, the comment section remains as a space for those who either didn't quite like it, or are a bit jealous about the attention it receives, the other half of it is mostly people who just want to expand on the idea without being particularly fond of the stranger even if they somewhat enjoyed the post.

So that's why if they see the OP appearing in the comment section, chances are many of them will downvote it just for the big blue OP flair that stands out like a 'kick me' sign, and some may do so before even reading OP's comment lol. Even if the post is generally well received, the person behind it almost never is so that's why you kind of feel that general hostility vibe in the comment section towards them, they're kind of roaming like sharks and then, at the first sight of his unprotected presence, they attack lmao.

It's actually kind of hilarious.

I've recently started using this app again after years away. I just scrolled for fifteen minutes & didn't see a single entertaining or engaging post in that time. So I started muting subs, hoping to curate my feed a bit. I found that *all I was doing* was muting & clicking "not interested". That was the entire experience.

The incessant low-effort political choir-preaching is well-documented so I won't harp on that. That's fixable; but once you wade through those, all that's left are the same questions posted day after day, year after year (What's a movie you like that others don't? What's your go-to late-night snack? What's one thing humanity would be better off without?). People thrusting pick-me contrarian views in your face like unwanted dick pics then responding with shock & bewilderment when they get downvoted into oblivion. Children who have just discovered the internet for the first time. Non-English speakers posting gibberish. Crass sewage leaking in from TikTok, Instagram, etc. People bitching & moaning (throw this one on that particular pile).

Every post in my feed is between 12 hours & 2 days old. Even if they were worth engaging with, it would be pointless because they're already dead. Everyone is so angry & bored it seems like the primary pastime here is intentionally misinterpreting posts in order to start a dogpile. It's the only way to get a dopamine hit.

Reddit has always had its particular strain of issues; but in the past it was not this difficult to find something, *anything* engaging or entertaining. It's as banal & unstimulating as Facebook, only a slightly different flavor of shit. It makes me sad.

Happily accepting advice if anyone knows how to make the app usable again, or a better alternative. Otherwise I invite you to use this post as a place to vent your own frustration.

Maybe I’m just old school, but I have always reserved blocking for the rare group of users with a blatant pattern of harassment, trolling or other abusive tendencies.

As a Redditor of over a decade, I’ve noticed that in the last couple of years, instead of being a feature to protect against harassment, blocking has become a tool to silence others for arbitrary reasons. Far too many Redditors are blocking others to either win an argument, fortify their echo chamber or simply because they dislike another user personally.

Sometimes I’ll come across the dreaded “[deleted] – [unavailable]” comment and then, out of curiosity, I’ll switch to another browser to read it. More often than not, it’s a username I don’t recognize and have likely never even interacted with before. Yet they’ve blocked me because… ?????

Other times I’ll be having a conversation with someone and we will disagree on a topic, never disrespectfully or anything, but then out of nowhere they will block me to get the last word in.

It’s just really weird behavior and it makes this site a worse experience for those of us who are trying to engage in good faith discussions.

[removed]

Hey guys I’m literally here to have a discussion over something that happened recently on Reddit. Long story short someone wanted advice over how to handle money that was won in a lottery. For more context, his gambit BIL had pushed him to buy a ticket, which was eventually found to be a winning ticket for 20k. He wanted to keep it all, his brother in law thought he was entitled to some, bla-bla-bla.

Moving on, I cracked the ago old joke, don’t be a « believer in the Star of David » (iykyk) and stated that I’d give 1k and call it the in-laws commission. Anyway, I’ve seen so much worse being said about Indians and Africans on this platform, especially with some people freely using the n word, so you can imagine the surprise when I got a warning from Reddit that I’d be banned if I made any more comments of the sort.

Ever since then, I’ve started realizing that there is a huge double standard when it comes to moderation on Reddit, and that it’s much more protective of Epstein’s people (again sorry for beating around the bush sm, I don’t want to get banned). So I’ve literally come here to ask if it’s just noticing this or if I’m crazy, let’s literally talk about it, let me know what you all think.

I've noticed several recently created subreddits that seem to be bot controlled, dedicated karma farms for bots. The bots all appear to be young "vampire" themed girl accounts.

Some posts will have a large number of comments, but none of them are visible. E.g. 160 comments, 3.2k karma, no comments visible: https://www.reddit.com/r/gothbutcute/comments/1t6nvtn/whats_my_score_on_the_cute_test/

https://www.reddit.com/r/VampsOnly/ - created may 2nd

https://www.reddit.com/r/ootdspam/ - created may 2nd

https://www.reddit.com/r/itsmyselfie/ - created may 2nd

https://www.reddit.com/r/altbutcute/ - created may 2nd

https://www.reddit.com/r/gothbutcute/ - created apr 12th

The only accounts posting there, with vampire/goth "slogans" on the profiles:

https://www.reddit.com/user/floatysass/ - "i don’t sell!! i simply haunt 🦇"

https://www.reddit.com/user/spicyquirky/ - "professional introvert 🧃"

https://www.reddit.com/user/snackflirt/ - "Drink only sugar free blood 🧛🏻‍♀️"

https://www.reddit.com/user/winkquirky/ - "addicted to eyeliner 😭"

The 'simply haunt' phrase was shared by two other accounts I noticed that used stolen photos. These also HAD a ton of young goth girl photos, but deleted almost everything after being called out. It seems that when they get called out, they delete all comments, but the karma obviously remains.

https://www.reddit.com/user/wooktookpook/ - "don’t sell, i simply haunt 🧛🏻‍♀️"

https://www.reddit.com/user/Otherwise-Aspect7523/ - "i don’t sell!! i simply haunt 🦇"

I think it's noteworthy that bots are creating entire subreddit ecosystems to generate karma - that way, the chance of being reported is lower.

So over the past 5 years or so, I've noticed that Reddit moderators seem to be tightening the noose on what is and isn't "acceptable". The problem is, that doesn't always line up with the rules of the subreddit, or even Internet culture.

In the last 2-3 years I've been banned or had my posts removed more than anywhere and anytime in my 20+ years on the Internet (remember dial-up?). Keep in mind, I'm not very politically radical or anything and up until the last five years, I was almost never removed, censored or banned from anything. Most of what I talk about is gaming, writing, etc..

So I decided to do a little research and I found something pretty disturbing:

1. Plenty of complaints on Google and other websites
2. A few old complaints on Reddit
3. A couple on Steam forums
4. A university website that discusses the statistics of recent changes in moderation culture related to inherent bias.
5. Google's AI agreeing (for what that's worth)

Notice, you won't find complains in appropriate places like the Steam subreddit, because the rules prohibit posting anything about steam support there. Including bans, complains or even discussions. I know because I've had several messages over the past few years removed, even though they were innocent open discussions on how Steam works. Moreover, I was even told to leave a subreddit about a TV show, because I opened a discussion about ways the show could have been better. They told me "this is a place for fans of the show", even though the subreddit didn't say that. They didn't ban me, but it was a pretty big show of stupid.

So, to be clear:

• You can't post about something in the subreddit that's made for it.
• Subreddits have rules against posting about other subreddits.

I just read a 7-year old post on this very subreddit about something similar and have recently had some bad experiences on Steam forums (unheard of until the last few years), even though we know the moderators there don't work for Valve.

So I suspect this issue is actually much larger, we just can't see all of it because of all the restrictions. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hell, even this post will probably be deleted, at least by the automoderator or because someone thinks I'm breaking rule #3 without reading the context.

What do you all think this means for Reddit? Are we being choked out of our ability to talk anything, anywhere? Is decentralized moderation no longer working?

Y si todos estamos equivocadas?

A veces pienso esto

Realmente lo que se dice en las noticias y videos sobre que los judíos son la peor escoria que existe

Y si realmente la élite de la que todos hablan no es manejada por el judaísmo, sino manipula la historia para hacer ver a los judíos como los malos?

La élite que controla al mundo acaso dejaría que viéramos todo de forma tan obvia? Si ellos controlan el mundo dudo que sea por idiotez asi que en su lugar lo mas lógico seria (eliminar la religión o pensamiento que yo mismo apoyo, manipulando la historia donde pongo otro pensamiento osea el judaísmo al rededor de personas tan ratas y asquerosas por ejemplo epstein)

No quiero sonar idiota o como si apoyará esto a morir

Peroooo, la élite seria tan idiota como para dejarse ver?

Siempre hay que cuestionarse lo que vemos

Porque quizas

Solo quizás

Esta manipulado para que nos centremos con el odio a otra cosa

Que podria ser... los judíos

I used to have an account long back for writing prompts, nosleep, askreddit, crappy memes. This is back when Imgur used to be a big thing and had a super strong community. I remember the Imgur staff would share photos and stories of their Christmas parties too. (Rip Imgur 🥲)

I deleted that account eventually because i felt it was a lot of negativity for my taste, especially in certain gaming subreddits and back then I would engage with trolls and disregulated people.

I made this account a few years ago so I could access nsfw stuff, post questions in cptsd and autism subs, and mostly enjoy memes and communities. I'm not a power user or a mod or anything like that. Reddit has just been a site I visit daily as my only social media aside from YouTube.

And oh man, I feel like now it's been invaded by botted posts, too much pop culture stuff on the front page, and the constant "popular near you" recommendations drive me up a wall. I moved to south asia and the recommended posts are horrific lol.

I feel like they optimised the site so much they removed the fun out of it. Nothing feels like a community or space anymore, it's just twitter with a twist at this point. And I'm not saying it was perfect or great before, I mean i deleted my old account. But currently it just feels so... Purposefully ragebaity by design? I feel like it pushes divisive or controversial posts for my engagement which just makes me hate it more. Even when i switch to just my feed, it's always the same meme templates being beaten to death. That originality and sense of subcommunities is gone.

And yes i understand as it becomes more popular all things become staler, but the type of posts I see despite aggressive filtering is just... Frustrating. I've used it for so long I don't want to switch elsewhere, especially due to the niche interests and communities, but it's just an annoying thing to browse :( I'm considering deleted my account again because there is no way this place is good for my mental health or bloodpressure.

The catch is you need to find something to do other than reddit. The key is understanding reddit’s engagement metrics, and the depth of tracking the app does.

Back in late 2025, like a lot of users, I had /r/all disappear out of my sidebar. I was basically only scrolling /r/all at this point so this was a direct attack on my main vector of interaction. Would not do. Pretty clearly from confused users on r/help meeting confused users who still had r/all, it was just the beginning of A/B testing for removing /r/all.

So, I counterattacked. I went and touched grass. I actually played my videogames. I made a conscious, concerted effort, to cut my reddit usage by at least 90%, avoiding “Popular” like the plague just browsing my feed (Best is such a terrible sort it made this easy), and, I *think* this was the key, I made sure that the majority of times I opened the app (usually muscle memory) I made sure not to scroll, just opened the sidebar, scrolled all the way to the bottom where r/all used to be, and then then completely force closed the app and went and did something else. Like I said, for me, it *felt* like this was what made the difference, but obviously I can’t be sure.

Reddit broke in like three weeks under my siege. One day I opened up the app, and r/all was just there, back. I resumed my habit of only really scrolling r/all, at reduced usage, because unplugging had genuinely helped me go find other rewarding feeling things to do. The numbers of people claiming to still have r/all on r/help and r/bugs dwindled as I watched from my castle.

Around late December ‘25, they yoinked r/all again. Now admittedly, as far as social media addiction, I did stumble here that I actually managed to resist the siren call of short form video content until 2026, and it was in my renewed boycott of the reddit app that I fell prey to instagram and facebook reels. Heed my warning traveler, it got me where I was going but it is not the way, stay the course, touch grass. I’m a week clean from short form video content now, it’s possible.

Around february/march, I started some renewed discipline of just totally deleting the reddit app off my phone on weekdays. I kept checking for r/all as I scrolled less and less.

As a side note, it was hilarious how long my 600+ day reddit streak hung out. You could actively watch the app’s processes of denial that I was unplugging, that I would have not opened it for three days, open it, open a comments section, and opening a comments section would be action enough for the reddit app to throw up its hands “Hurrah! Your streak lives to another day, 576, good job!” and I just laugh.

So, over the last couple months, I’ve totally broken the “open reddit, scroll” muscle memory and the engagement metrics know it. I got to the point I didn’t have to delete the app to not open it on weekdays. The last few weeks even, I was basically only using it occasionally for porn. And today, I come to you declaring victory in my second siege. r/All is *back* in my reddit app, it probably can be in yours, too, if you stop tacitly accepting its absence and continuing to scroll and start actively manipulating the engagement metrics instead of reporting to them.

I’ve been building a project called SubSignals:

The platform collects anonymous user-submitted reports about moderation experiences across Reddit communities and tries to surface broader reported patterns around things like:

• removals
• bans
• rule clarity
• openness to discussion
• moderation strictness

The hardest part has been designing around the obvious trust/data-quality problems.

Some of the things I’ve already tried implementing:

• confidence levels tied to report volume
• explicit “reported patterns” framing instead of objective claims
• report skew/context sections
• evidence uploads/screenshots
• moderation/admin tooling
• report/image flagging systems
• differentiated confidence thresholds for low-data communities

The biggest open problems I’m still thinking through:

• preventing manipulation/brigading
• distinguishing Reddit-wide filtering vs subreddit moderation
• reducing negativity bias
• avoiding the platform turning into “mods bad”
• scaling moderation of user-submitted evidence
• balancing anonymity vs accountability

Would genuinely appreciate feedback from other developers on:

• trust systems
• moderation architecture
• UX concerns
• obvious blind spots
• technical/product decisions that might become problems later

The project is still early, so I’m trying to identify structural weaknesses before expanding it much further.

I'm going to attempt to detox from my Reddit addiction after I write this post. We all know that social media is being used to manipulate people and shape their opinions. We make fun of boomers on Facebook for believing fake news and getting caught up in misinformation, and we think we are immune to it. We believe that while we visit this website daily to be fed our own curated algorithm of misinformation that wants us to hate each other.

The majority of what you see and read on Reddit is fake. The obvious fakes are right in front in places like AmItheAsshole or AmIOverreacting or any subreddits that can act as a front for creative writing exercises. There are so many obviously fake stories pushing the same agenda and the comments are always the same. It's probably bots reacting to bots but humans browsing through might actually believe it's real.

We ingest fake news on Reddit every day. There is currently a screenshot going around saying that black lawmakers in Tennessee were arrested for trying to attend a meeting regarding redistricting. The image is real but the context and truth are misrepresented. The elected representative's brother (who was not a member of that body) was arrested for protesting in the chamber. The full video shows the representative walking with his brother and the troopers but he was doing so of his own free will, not under arrest.

One post with this image has over 30k upvotes and it has been reposted in numerous subreddits. A 10 second Google search tells you that this is misinformation.

There are countless videos posted to Reddit that cut out important context to push a narrative. The narratives are not one sided. Content is being pushed to stir division among americans on all sides of the political spectrum but we still come back here every day.

Yesterday one of the front page posts was an image from a sentencing hearing for a husband and wife who were sentenced for making threats and hurling racist insults at a child's birthday party. It was presented as if this was a current event. It happened nine years ago. Why was that posted yesterday in the way it was if not to sow more division and hatred?

There has been a drastic increase in gender war content on Reddit in an attempt to instill the belief that women are entitled and greedy, and that men are all violent incels. Reading these posts as a spectator is horrifying.

I don't know what the solution is. Ideally there would be legislation aimed to combat the sources of misinformation, and heavy moderation that quickly removed content like what I've described, but that's unlikely. I think the only way to use the internet safely is to pretend that it's 1998. If you want news, visit news websites. If you can't pay for the New York Times or other legitimate sources, you can read NPR and PBS for free. If you still want to watch user generated content, ask yourself after watching what the creator's intentions are and what they want to "influence" you into believing.

Honestly, I kinda wish Reddit changed how downvotes worked.

Right now, people mostly use them as an I disagree’ button instead of what Reddiquette originally intended. Half the time, you can post something completely reasonable and still get buried just because the subreddit's mood is against you.

I almost feel like if you downvote someone, Reddit should pop up a small window to make you pick a reason first:

• off-topic
• misinformation
• harassment
• low effort etc

At least then people would know WHY they’re being downvoted instead of just getting silently dogpiled by subjective opinions and hivemind voting.

https://preview.redd.it/shaxbh8oaq0h1.png?width=1371&format=png&auto=webp&s=2568cbf1189476e34160a4a6310c6cba01088d01

Screenshot of and Link to Reddiquette provided

https://preview.redd.it/pj48i8ol140h1.png?width=745&format=png&auto=webp&s=94a2026c15a7a5e2d99b4e8c6855f1cb4091f34b

After 6+ months in this platform I can say what worked for me and what brought 9,000 Karma and over 4+ million post views

Velocity is the most powerful multiplier: first 2-3 hours upvotes are the most impactful for the score. After ~6 hours, the time decay makes it nearly impossible for a post to climb into hot regardless of how many votes it gets. A post that starts strong becomes hot → a virtuous loop

The Hot Score Formula (simplified)= log(upvotes - downvotes) + (time_decay_factor)

Comment/upvote ratio: high comments = Reddit understands the discussion is lively

Controversy ≠ reach: We are not on Facebook or X, polarizing posts in the wrong community get killed by downvotes before they can gain velocity

Timing relative to the event: for newsjacking, being among the very first counts, my 3.9K+ upvotes post about DeepSeek V4 release was probably among the first when the announcement went live

Image/media attachment: preview increases CTR from the homepage → more upvote

Every subreddit is a different country with different laws, this is the most important thing to internalize. The Same Post Gets +100 in one Subreddit and 0 in another one, why?

1. Identity mismatch

2. Wrong Tone

3. Technical depth expectations

4. Wrong Vocabulary

5. Not Written Rules

6. Wrong assumed knowledge level

I've been thinking about a moderation pattern I'd like to discuss: the practice of leaving posts visible after their comment sections have been locked.

The sequence often goes something like this: a post attracts a high volume of controversial or low-quality comments, moderators lock the thread citing the need to clean it up, but the post itself remains on the front page in a read-only state. During that window, the existing comments continue to be surfaced to new readers, sometimes for hours.

A few questions I'd be interested in hearing perspectives on:

- What is the actual effect on readers when they encounter a locked thread on the front page? Does the read-only framing change how they perceive the comments, or are the opinions absorbed similarly to those in an active thread?

- Are there alternative moderation approaches (e.g., temporarily hiding the post, collapsing all comments by default, removing the post until cleanup is complete) that would better serve the stated goal of cleanup without leaving the existing comment set as the de facto record?

- To what extent could this pattern be used, intentionally or not, to influence community opinion on a topic?

Curious what others have observed or read on this.

hi all, it looks like there's been multiple posts about AI commenters here so i am beating a dead horse but this is a very specific scenario that i've been trying to figure out. i mainly browse the public health + data analysis career subreddits but i have been noticing from these subs a rise in a specific wave of AI users that i suspect is astroturfing in other career subreddits too. on r/publichealthcareers, we have a user named "chocolate_asshole" that has been responding to nearly every post with the structure of either "same, haven't been able to find anything in [career], job market is horrible right now" or "look for jobs in [list of job titles], job market is rough in general" while also changing its alleged job field depending on the subreddit and post. this user was found to be a bot that appeared in wildly different career and career region subreddits. another ai poster named "bootyhole_licker69" was also found.

what i have noticed among these bots among with a few other ones that i suspect to be bots is that the only job hunting tool they ever recommend is JobOwl. eg the "bootyhole_licker69" profile in the Construction and TeachersInTraining subreddits added random hyperlinks to JobOwl and also frequently mention JobOwl in their comments when their profiles are searched via google through the "site:reddit.com" prefix. the "chocolate_asshole" profile has also done this (ex. 1, ex. 2-which someone actually called out in the replies, ex. 3). i also noticed another poster right now in the newgradnurses subreddit named "i_own_5_cats" who had the same comment structure as the other ones that i mentioned and they, again, posted in disparate subreddits (e.g. nursing, paralegal, cybersecurity) while semi-frequently mentioning JobOwl(ex. 1, ex. 2, ex. 3).

has anyone else noticed profiles similar to these on other career subreddits? if so, do they also mention only JobOwl whenever they recommend a tool or do they also recommend other tools? it feels like a "cut one head off, two pop up" situation and i've become conspiratorial/paranoid enough to wonder if this is something coordinated