reddit eats itself.

[alienmothership]

this is a rant mini informal essay thing ive been stewing over for a little bit. but i think its ready to be posted.


ive been using reddit since 2019 and im convinced that reddit is going to kill reddit.

at first i didn't mind reddit, the userbase is a bit pretentious, but generally not too bad. auto moderation kept the site from becoming a copy of /b/ and /pol/, but the fact that reddit doesn't come pre-installed on most phones meant that the most of the plebs too stupid to download an app, where effectively gatekept off of the site. not to mention that the whole "reddit is full of woke trannies" kept a lot of patriots off it. win-win for everyone.


but at this point im convinced that reddit is on a mission to basically ban all of the human users, leaving just bots on the site. probably good for shareholder value in the long run. this is satire.

however automod has progressively become more and more strict. this has only gotten worse as time has progressed. things that are normal part of the modern English lexicon can get you a temp or permanent ban now. memes and jokes and copypastas are now bannible offenses.

this has only gotten so much worse since kirk got kirked (lol). im guessing an aspect of this is because of the dump administration putting pressure on platforms to stop "extremism" or something....

i think a huge part of this is because reddit is becoming more risk adverse, partially because of a potential future IPO, but also because they have drawn the ire of the Trump admin and the conservative (social)media sphere.

but most of the issues with reddit predate kirk. 

in feb 2026, i got a 7 day ban for "threatening violence" for saying that "i cant wait for him [lindsey garham] to die", then a permanent ban for telling a user that i was "going to kick their ass".

in the end, i dont really care; it takes 5 minutes to clear your cookies and make a new account. but in this case, "kick your ass" is hardly offensive, and its not a call to violence. its not harassment, and it can be used in a variety of contexts. saying that you hope someone dies isn't a call to violence.

if this is what reddit is banning, what memes and jokes and shitposts and copypastas that are normal on the site will now also get other accounts banned? i guess we cant discuss films, tv, and videogames now.

in the end, what felt like a decent platform, with people shitposting and joking and cutting up together in the comments, will now slowly become a place where people wont want to post or comment, and if they do they will be forced to use algo-speak to avoid drawing the wrath of auto mod.

the thing is most people probably wont make a new account if they get banned, and if they do, its likely to be banned again.

for me, i made a new account and was almost immediately banned again for 'ban evasion', which likely means im device banned.

in addition, its clear that reddit has moved way past its roots of being a forum and link agrigator, and moved solidly into the realm of facebook style "use the feed to try to monopolize as much of a users time as possible."

maybe this isn't news to anyone, but i have noticed that i could follow 100+ subreddits, mostly computer science and gaming themed, and in the feed, all i will see is political posts from the same 10-15 political subreddits or posts from say, a local city themed subreddit you dont live near and never visited the subreddit for,  with a juicy controversial post.

in my experience, the algorithm is so broken (in favour of capturing user attention) that i basically never see posts from 80% of the subreddits i follow and post in, regardless of how large and active a subreddit is. i joined a subreddit because the topic interests me, i want to see more of it. i dont want to have my feed choked with political posts or posts about some facebook spat between a business and customers in a city i have never been to, clear on the other side of the country or sometimes in another country.

this is really not what i think the average demographic of users actually want. most of reddits userbase is millennials and genZ, who almost unanimously hate facebook, hate the algorithm, and hate the attention economy, so trying to emulate facebook is really not the move. people came to reddit because they couldn't stand facebook.

another issue is bots. there are a lot of bots. spam bots and political astroturfing bots, and bots reposting old posts from human users to karma farm. ive personally seen the same post with the same photos get reposted in the same reddit multiple times a year.

ive seen photos i posted on a long since deleted account get reposted a few years after by a bot.

personally, i just dont want to be interacting with bots. i was hoping that there might be a silver lining on reddit locking down their API would mean that there would be less bots on the platform, but this never became a reality.

speaking of bots, the situation with subreddit mods across the platform is certainly an issue.

asking for help? nope sorry, you cant ask for help here, you can only ask for help once a week in some convoluted mega-thread.

asking a question? sorry we dont like that question. post removed. go read the sticky (it probably wont answer your question but fuck you)

posting a photo? removed because you included alt text with the photo (literal rule in r/alberta)

asking about a product? how dare you be so stupid, that product is shit. we only talk about the superior product (that costs 2x what you can afford) and you better not ask about a product you already own because we will try to make you feel stupid for it.

its annoying to get banned from a sub because a mod didn't like your attitude and banned you on a whim....its annoying to get a polite, well worded post removed because you broke some asinine little rule. its bringing the whole user experience of the site down, when mods are using bots to remove posts from people for asking for help on the wrong day, or your account is too new, or your account doesn't have enough karma, or whatever stupid reason.

trying to post almost anywhere feels like trying to navigate a mine field. its hard to try to remember all of the stupid little rules so that your post doesn't get removed or deleted.

what sucks more is to make a post and then realize that the post has no engagement because reddit automod took it down as "spam". you cant appeal it, and you cant do anything about it, and you dont know what qualifies as spam.

so when i said "reddit eats itself" i truely meant it. like who is this platform for now? users? obviously not. its for reddit corporate to make ad revenue, and the perfect user would be someone who just scrolls and never posts.

why post? your post will probably get removed or taken down.



so what does this mean for me?

i could use a new device and email and vpn to make a new account, but tbh why go through the effort for a platform that is falling off?

automod is ban happy, the algo is broken and exists to capture your attention, bots are rampant, mods powertrip and ruin the user experience.

im thinking that its really not worth the time and effort to make a new account.

im thinking there are plenty of forums with active users for any topic you could think of. these forums might have less bots.

these forums generally dont have a algo that tries to suck you in and waste your time, and will try to ragebait you for increased engagement and ad revenue.

sure reddit was convenient, having everything in one place, but it lowkey has started to suck more and more as the years go by, and has become yet another sterile, corporate money farm, and im tired of being the product.

[lakes]

I only used reddit once and someone kept getting mad because an image wasn't perfectly color-filled and had a hard to notice line.
So I deleted my entire account because it was annoying & it just proved a preconception I already had about reddit.
Granted, I was more of a tumblr queer than a reddit queer, but even then I'm afraid to go back to tumblr because not only would I have to deal with intracommunity arguments probably, but it also seems to be eating itself too. 1st there was the porn ban, but at least you could excuse it by saying that it got rid of some annoying users which some people did point out. Then the mods started turning on transfem and antizionist users, looking for any excuse to ban them, when like LGBT+/women leftists and liberals have always been most of their userbase.
I agree most niche and indie web forums are superior to reddit in my experience. There's also niche social media like Bluesky, Spacehey, various Fediverse platforms, etc. But it's a bit harder to curate my experiences on those.

[alienmothership]

There's also niche social media like Bluesky, Spacehey, various Fediverse platforms, etc. But it's a bit harder to curate my experiences on those.

tbh i never got into tumblr. but i was raised conservative and had restricted internet access so im not surprized. i do have an account now as an adult but i dont really use it.

people bitch about bsky but i dont mind it. in fact i like bsky cuz either they dont have a recommendation algorithm, or the one they have is ass, so i find that i never spend more than ~15 minutes on bsky at a time and i can go for days without touching it. all of this is fine with me, i dont want to be checking bsky like i used to check fb and reddit dozens of times a day and scroll either for hrs at a time.

idk anything about the fediverse. i should learn tbh.

[lakes]

people bitch about bsky but i dont mind it. in fact i like bsky cuz either they dont have a recommendation algorithm, or the one they have is ass, so i find that i never spend more than ~15 minutes on bsky at a time and i can go for days without touching it. all of this is fine with me, i dont want to be checking bsky like i used to check fb and reddit dozens of times a day and scroll either for hrs at a time.

idk anything about the fediverse. i should learn tbh.

that's fair
my experience on bluesky and mastodon wasn't great but mostly because i followed a bunch of accounts commenting on current events that would sometimes argue with each other
plus i got put on a "tankie list" for liking posts criticizing the democrats & found out because 2 people followed me thinking i was one even tho i'm not that much of a campist
although i do think i'm at the point in my life where i could probably join some social media and handle it better, especially since i get most of my news through my RSS feed now
also monsterdon events on mastodon were fun (they were basically just live tweets of a weekly scheduled monster/alien b movie)
there's actually 2 fediverse platforms meant to be reddit-like, one's lemmy and the other is piefed
i never tried them tho

[cyberdreamz]

I never had a reddit account myself, but I do browse some subreddits on occasion if I have some hyper-specific question or problem that I can't find answers to anywhere else. Reddit usually has at least one person with the same problem and at least one person that tried to help them.
Recently though it started blocking me from looking at posts for more than a couple of seconds and insisting that I install the app... Why even have a browser version of the website if you're not gonna let me use it? Why would anyone install an app if you're not even letting them see what it has??? So yeah, that's been discouraging me from using reddit at all.
Sucks to see the platform shoot itself in the leg for no reason like that. While I haven't had any issues with the algorithm since I only go for specific subreddits and posts, from what you said in your post, I can see how annoying using the platform is getting from the "inside", too... More the reason to go on actual forums and indie websites I suppose, but still, it was easier to find info on reddit v__v

[alienmothership]

my experience on bluesky and mastodon wasn't great but mostly because i followed a bunch of accounts commenting on current events that would sometimes argue with each other
plus i got put on a "tankie list" for liking posts criticizing the democrats & found out because 2 people followed me thinking i was one even tho i'm not that much of a campist

lowk hilarious cuz the right wingers act like bsky is a communist spawn area, and then quite a few of the communists that i know claim that bsky sucks cuz theres too many liberals and democrats.

people gotta pick lolololol

there's actually 2 fediverse platforms meant to be reddit-like, one's lemmy and the other is piefed

i made an account on lemmy but i forgot about it

especially since i get most of my news through my RSS feed now

i feel like ive probably been sleeping on RSS. never tried it.

[alienmothership]

I do browse some subreddits on occasion if I have some hyper-specific question or problem that I can't find answers to anywhere else. Reddit usually has at least one person with the same problem and at least one person that tried to help them.

probably one of the best things about reddit, and one of my main reasons for having an account. some subreddits suck, like people in r/ps3 where absolute assholes to me because i asked about stick drift and deadzones in aftermarket controllers, i was actually shocked about it.

Recently though it started blocking me from looking at posts for more than a couple of seconds and insisting that I install the app...

they want you to create an account to browse cuz they realized that not pulling a twitter and forcing people to sign in to view posts was leaving money on the table.

[rnottelovesowls]

GAH i hate reddit. for a site trying to position itself as an "evolution" of forums, it's too social media-like to be true forums. the thing about forums is that conversations never die as long as there are no rules against necroposting, but on reddit, a conversation lasts only 24 hours at best. and so, instead of having a true community, you have a bunch of strangers cracking wise (or being snarky jerks), collecting their 500 upvotes and thanking the kind stranger for the rewards, and moving on with their day. there's no sense of camaraderie. that's my personal reason for hating reddit. the fact that all subreddits look the exact same now, with no custom themes unless you go to old.reddit.com, also doesn't help. but if the unpleasant users and lack of fun personalities don't turn people away from it, the bots and AI-generated posts definitely will

[Lyonid]

I honestly have no idea what the AutoMod is up to because I only used to post on subreddits that were aggressively focused on a singular franchise or video game. I think that is what the site used to excel at, but the more opinion-garnering subs have rotted the site quite a bit. I used to be very trigger-happy with muting subs until I realized that idk /r/RealNews1252 or whatever could simply repost all the ragebait from the subreddits I muted, rendering the whole process useless. In general, I kept getting a bad feeling browsing the site, as it felt very hateful and miserable. I had the same feeling with Instagram when I left, so it was just logical to cut it out of my habits. Unfortunately, I am still looking for a site that offers the community exchange I long for. I tried to desperately cling to the Fediverse, but I ultimately found it rather dull and isolating.

I think it's GREAT to let any subreddit define how their place functions, but the moment that place becomes an instrument for whatever cause, it reflects very badly on any other community that needs these safeguards. I also just think people have been unlearning nurturing communities for the sake of frictionless consumption.

[Dan Q]

You first got onto Reddit in 2019... which was about when I stopped! I opened my primary account there way back in the day... like: "subreddits" were a thing, but user-created subreddits were not, yet (so pre-2008 I guess). My account is old!

Reddit probably peaked around 2010-2012 and rapidly went downhill thereafter. A victim of its own success, the financial interests of the platform necessitated a gradual enshittification: the death of API endpoints, excessive "top down" moderation, more-aggressive ads, favouring an app experience over the Web portal, etc. So yeah: in 2018 I basically... quit. My account's still alive and has years worth of "gold" (premium) just sitting in it, because back in 2010 when they asked for donations I threw a pile of money their way and they then said that anybody who did so before the awards were announced would get a "charter member" sticker thing and would get something like double their donation in "gold"; sort of a reward for getting through the gate early, I guess? Anyway, it's just sitting there rotting away.

The most Reddit-like service I use nowadays is Metafilter. Its model is very different, and while it's not immune to potential enshittification, it's certainly resistant to it. Metafilter feels a lot like Reddit did circa 2006.

[lakes]

lowk hilarious cuz the right wingers act like bsky is a communist spawn area, and then quite a few of the communists that i know claim that bsky sucks cuz theres too many liberals and democrats.
people gotta pick lolololol

yeah, i feel like rightwingers and certain moderates have a tendency to lump in every ideology they disagree with
i remember seeing news articles calling trump a "maoist," an "anarchist," etc
you can tell none of them are even familiar with what those ideologies even mean

i made an account on lemmy but i forgot about it

that's fair. it's very easy to forget about niche social media platforms

i feel like ive probably been sleeping on RSS. never tried it.

i think with rss feeds, there's often a period where you forget to use it
but once you start using it more regularly, it becomes really convenient
i have all the blogs and news i'm subbed to categorized and stuff

[Seechain]

maybe this isn't news to anyone, but i have noticed that i could follow 100+ subreddits, mostly computer science and gaming themed, and in the feed, all i will see is political posts from the same 10-15 political subreddits or posts from say, a local city themed subreddit you dont live near and never visited the subreddit for,  with a juicy controversial post.

in my experience, the algorithm is so broken (in favour of capturing user attention) that i basically never see posts from 80% of the subreddits i follow and post in, regardless of how large and active a subreddit is. i joined a subreddit because the topic interests me, i want to see more of it. i dont want to have my feed choked with political posts or posts about some facebook spat between a business and customers in a city i have never been to, clear on the other side of the country or sometimes in another country.

I use Reddit quite a lot and this is absolutely true (if there's some hidden setting that prevents it, let me know). What I currently do is just go about opening the communities I follow one by one. (what a self-imposed torture)

[Rubbereon]

One thing i like about redit is the wide range of news and discussions for almost everything, I checked metafilter and the posts all seem to be on the same topic. It's also not very active anywhere except for the main metafilter page.

cohost (another reddit clone) was a major turn off for this reason (lack of activity + too much homogeneity).

As for the comment about people lumping everybody together in ideologies they don't like, the most famous case is nazism to the point where a term was coined just for it and to my knowledge it's not exactly the far-right doing it (go figure they hate tankies more than nazis), but every political ideology further left has at least compared somebody to hitler or called them a nazi. So basically you're safe nowhere on the political spectrum, you're gonna get called a nazi, a fascist, a maoist and a communist despicable if you get involved in politics.

Funny thing is I did get called by 2 different people different things like one said I was a far-left socialist anjd the other said I was a fascist. Actually writing this down reinforces my opinion that we really need a large social media that is politics-free.

[lakes]

As for the comment about people lumping everybody together in ideologies they don't like, the most famous case is nazism to the point where a term was coined just for it and to my knowledge it's not exactly the far-right doing it (go figure they hate tankies more than nazis), but every political ideology further left has at least compared somebody to hitler or called them a nazi. So basically you're safe nowhere on the political spectrum, you're gonna get called a nazi, a fascist, a maoist and a communist despicable if you get involved in politics.

Funny thing is I did get called by 2 different people different things like one said I was a far-left socialist anjd the other said I was a fascist.

Yeah, you're right about that. People don't care about understanding the differences between ideologies they disagree with that much.

Actually writing this down reinforces my opinion that we really need a large social media that is politics-free.

I understand your perspective since certain indie forums I use as a break from politics. But in defense of social media platforms not doing this, it's hard to enforce because 1st you've gotta define what is political which will likely be informed by your ideology and then you'll end up having to censor people and there's probably gonna be backlash from that. With forums, it makes sense because a lot of forums are mostly centered around a specific topic or shared interest. But with social media, it's often meant to be a "free for all" when it comes to interests even when they attract the same sorts of people. It's why my brain sees reddit and the 4 clover imageboard site more as social media than forums.
I don't think using social media as a break from political stuff is inherently bad because we're all human & a lot of it can make us feel powerless. But we need to be careful how it's implemented if that makes sense.

[chilblands]

sure reddit was convenient, having everything in one place, but it lowkey has started to suck more and more as the years go by, and has become yet another sterile, corporate money farm, and im tired of being the product.

I use Reddit primarily for really niche local fashion recommendation and textile discussions. But I agree with your sentiment, I hate the unnecessary use of AI which this post has discussed. I would also add: Reddit literally collaborated/ sold it's users to feed AI ("partnership" & article). Reddit is riddled with bots and who knows now many real users are behind the screen. Reddit is now an Ouroboros- sell users for bots> bots infiltrate space> bots make people lonely> people seek community via Reddit. It's quite clear that Reddit is an AI-first social media where the majority of its users are liberal & anti-AI.

My overall experience can only describe Reddit as a big circle-jerking elitist community. You state it is auto-mods but real human Reddit mod stereotypes are real; and they love to abuse their pseudo power. r/comic is known to ban users who criticise or state anything negative about their artists. Not to mention Reddit does in fact create a cesspool of political brainrot through upvotes that create an echo chamber (as you mention Kirk). I know it is annoying but if you are interested, there are a few articles (you can argue it is biased because most are written by conservative authors, but IMO it is important to understand both sides instead of silencing them) and research articles that suggest certain social media through promote political radicalisation.