r/technology • u/Dilpickle2113 • 10h ago

Social Media YouTube is testing hiding the dislike button entirely and users aren’t happy

https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/youtube-is-testing-hiding-the-dislike-button-entirely-and-users-arent-happy-3420822/
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u/thekk_ 10h ago

The fact that Reddit still has downvotes is most likely a good part of the reason why it's more sane than the other social media platforms that got rid of it.

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u/rokatoro 10h ago

Even that's getting worse. My home page is full off newish 0 upvote threads full of rage and usually written by AI

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u/airfryerfuntime 9h ago edited 8h ago

Turn off the suggested feed.

I still use RIF, but with the official app, I noticed all the algorithm driven slop reduced by a lot when I turned off suggested.

Edit: to the people asking about RIF, you can get it running with a patcher like Revanced or Morphe. I have it running through Revanced because I haven't changed it over to Morphe yet. For the longest time, it was pretty broken, with YouTube links and imgur albums not working, but that has been fixed through Revanced. https://github.com/MojiRS/revanced-rif-patches. The Morphe patcher is more limited and hasn't fixed YouTube links yet, I don't believe.

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u/Caleth 9h ago

Old.reddit.com and Reddit Enhancement Suite.

Keep that puppy going as long as possible all the "improvements" they've made to reddit don't get passed along keeping it clean and efficient.

it is a 900% better experience that the current nu reddit layout.

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u/Koru03 8h ago

I, and many people like me, will absolutely drop reddit when they finally break old reddit. The new shit is unusable by comparison.

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u/Caleth 8h ago

100% I'm mentally prepping myself to leave.

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u/psmgx 5h ago

yeah it's coming. i'm gone when it does, but at this point just feels like a matter of time.

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u/Caleth 4h ago

Because it is. The Enshitification train that leads to the line-must-go-up-ville can't end anywhere else.

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u/Sugioh 7h ago

Yep. This is my final red line. Old reddit is the only thing that keeps the site usable.

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 7h ago

Is there any better place where nerds go? Maybe where the average age is above 14 and I don't have to read "bro. bro bro. BROOOO" in every thread?

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u/Sugioh 6h ago

Sadly, not that I'm really aware of. There's the fediverse, but it's still pretty awkward to use (at least for me) and lacks a lot of the hyper-niche small communities served by subreddits that I love.

If reddit goes too far we may see a mass migration, but there aren't a lot of promising competitors waiting in the wings currently.

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u/elebrin 6h ago

If you are after articles, Substack has some decent stuff worth following, but you have to go find stuff to subscribe to specifically and there is still a lot of trash. The beginnings of a decent platform exist, however.

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u/diablette 20m ago

Substack doesn't let you filter out paid content. Halfway through an article - bam - paywall. And every individual blogger wants 4.99+ a month.

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u/the_post_of_tom_joad 7h ago

the metaverse is waiting /s

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 7h ago

I already want to drop it. The juice isn't worth the squeeze anymore. The conversations are just Youtube level comments. Facebook boomer posts are highly upvoted. The same repeated jokes over and over. The same repeated reaction gifs over and over. Any thread that you'd hope would have some topical discussion, additional information, etc. just has a million try-hard "comedians" with the same predictable schlock.

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u/4x4Mimo 2h ago

Subreddits worth subbing to seem to have increasingly less activity these days too. There's a higher and higher percentage of drama and crap that's taken over.

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u/Nearby_Mouse_6698 4h ago

I’m feeling this too. Conversation and unique perspectives from people all over is so interesting to me . I feel like it’s just bots causing culture war nonsense or political discord . It’s not new but it feels so much worse across platforms these days.

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u/eyebrows360 8h ago

We can't even see comment histories for some accounts, so it does look like they're trying to phase it out still, but I too will be holding on as long as possible.

The insane reduction in information density in the "new" UI, with all the fucking social-media-boilerplate whitespace and huge borders and padding everywhere, is just terrible.

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u/FUCKTHISWEBSITEBANME 8h ago

It's intended for mobile, for the average social media user. Reddit is just normal social media now, for the average idiot.

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u/Magickarpet76 8h ago

Which is why the normal braindead social media bullshit comments are becoming more prevalent.

“THIS LMAO 😂😂😂” /s

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u/Aellope13 7h ago

I still might prefer that to the ‘Narwhal bacons at midnight’ days.

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u/FUCKTHISWEBSITEBANME 7h ago

Idk man sometimes this site just makes me miss the cringe dork days. I genuinely hope they ban me so I can just read this shit without being tempted to reply. They changed it so that to use old.reddit you have to have an account, which is why I have an account again. I deleted my account years ago specifically so I wouldn't be tempted to get into stupid arguments with idiots, and now I'm back to getting into stupid arguments with the biggest idiots possible, and there's a good chance they're not even people.

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u/elebrin 6h ago

I vastly preferred those days. Was it goofy? Sure, but it had a soul.

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u/East_Sorbet_8388 5h ago

At least that hints at the possibility of a personality.

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u/I_am_Andrew_Ryan 4h ago

At least in those days people cared about spelling and formatting

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u/Marshall_Lawson 7h ago

it has been since before new.reddit

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u/RedAero 4h ago

The internet, reddit absolutely included, turned to shit when the aforementioned "average social media users" (read: morons) arrived in droves with their smartphones. Literally every problem of the internet, and caused by the internet, can be solved by removing it from ubiquitous mobile devices and restricting it to bona fide personal computers. No laptops. If you can move it, no internet.

Why? Because when "the internet" is "on the computer", it means you have to leave it behind whenever you do anything Real. It doesn't follow you around, because it can't; you leave your asinine comment, you turn the thing off, and until you turn it back on and decide to return to the same website there is no way for it to reach you. Every problem since ~2016 can be traced to people allowing - nay, demanding! - the internet follow them around 24/7, leading to them blurring the line between what's real and what's virtual. It's been an absolute catastrophe.

A couple of years ago it dawned on me that when I reply some BS to some halfwit's reddit comment, they - in all likelihood being a smartphone-using troglodyte - get an immediate, loud notice on their person, wherever they are, whatever they are doing. Meaning I literally have the power to annoy people who I've never met, who I'll never interact with again, all because they were stupid enough to allow a website to become an app and decided to allow it to intrude upon their consciousness for literally no benefit whatsoever.

By contrast, if someone replies to this comment all that'll happen is that a small icon in the top right corner will turn orange. I will only notice when - if! - I visit this site again. In the meantime, there is no way for this shithole to manifest itself in my life. Why some people decide to do the opposite I will never understand.

If you're a reddit user on "the app", let this be a reminder to you that this is a website. You visit websites using a browser, when and if you want to do so, and then you leave them. There is no reason to let this dump exist in the background of your life.

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u/Marshall_Lawson 3h ago

this is p much why, even though i do use reddit on my phone, i don't use the app and hell no i don't let it give me notifications. the site still waits until i go back and check it to let me know if i got replies. 

you might be onto something about leaving the internet behind when you go outside though, lol. 

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 7h ago

Yeah the days of this being a nerd site are looooooooooooong gone. Like many years gone. It got worse, I think, after they removed /r/all. But the introduction of New Reddit, destruction of 3rd party APIs, and more just continued the destruction after the shift in the userbase. I can't believe how many comments are "Bro is like xxx" or "bruuuuuuuuuh" and such low effort shit.

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u/B_dorf 7h ago

I remember when using an emoji would get you downvoted to oblivion!

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 7h ago

I tried out the new Digg right at its re-launch and it was essentially dead. But looks like there's some activity now, I might give that a shot.

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u/RedAero 4h ago

/r/all was "removed" (it wasn't it's still there) last year, this site went to shit a decade ago.

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u/Bladelink 6h ago

Me on mobile currently, browsing old.reddit.com: 🤔

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u/Agret 8h ago

They actually made it a Reddit setting that you can hide your activity from everyone. The official app & modern website won't show you the history for those users either.

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u/the_post_of_tom_joad 7h ago

Furthermore i was told new accounts have histories hidden by default.

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u/Keltarrant 7h ago

I hate it, a subreddit I frequent is getting a lot more traction recently and I notice a lot of accounts named "Word_Word####" or "WordWord####", it reads like bots but is impossible to confirm. Only reason I think its bad actors is I don't notice nearly as many accounts with that naming convention on any other sub I go to (r/classicwow)

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u/what_the_purple_fuck 5h ago

that name format *could* mean bots, but all it *actually* means is that it's someone who accepted whatever default system-generated name Reddit suggested when they first created the account.

a surprising amount of real human people didn't realize they had the ability to edit their username when they signed up, and after that they're stuck with whatever they've got unless they start over again.

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u/psmgx 5h ago

word_word#### is the generic default name

could be real users with a throwaway. no way in hell am I posting anything truly spicy on here without one.

but also means bot, or could. or random offshore spammer's 331st account.

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u/AnalogiPod 7h ago

You cant see the comment histories due to the privacy settings on their account. You used to not be able to but you now can set it so people can't view your history on their profile. Had a dude following me across subs for a while and had to turn it on for a like a week but I feel like comment history being available is how Reddit should be so I reversed it.

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u/eyebrows360 5h ago

Oh, didn't know that!

Yeah that's flippin' madness

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u/Alpha_Hunting 5h ago

Can I ask why you feel like comment history should be available on Reddit? I instinctively make myself private on any and everything I ever use if possible.

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u/RedAero 4h ago

It's an anonymous site. It's private by virtue of not requiring your real name.

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u/AnalogiPod 5h ago

It was that way for a long time, with the autonomy of Reddit it can give you a better idea of who you're talking to, with post history shown you can tell more easily if you're arguing with a bot, or someone who drinks their own pee. It has gotten to a point where if someone's post history is hidden I assume they either post in embarrassing subs or are a bot. I also understand the want to be private, I hate to say but I think knowing your whole post history is out there makes people less likely to share personal info and that is honestly better for privacy. The old system really reinforced that 'If you don't want it out there don't post it' mentality that was more prevalent in the old internet. I have my photography IG linked on my page and one of my old cars posted here so IK I am not anonymous on this account.

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u/Alpha_Hunting 4h ago

I've been here for over 10 years now and rarely comment. I've felt more comfortable taking part in conversations now that it's possible to be private. Probably I'm scared of the internet and all the random angry people always finding a way to argue. In other words, I'm not as brave as most redditors have been that made this site great. Despite it, I also like the way it was, for the reasons you pointed out and also because it's more interesting to see the person behind the post.

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u/what_the_purple_fuck 8h ago

the padding—and the very stupid and irksome changes to text formatting/markdown—is what finally spurred me to start using Morphe. it only works on Android devices, but if you have an Android I highly recommend setting it up: morphe.software

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u/Caleth 8h ago

Yes. Ars Technica did something similar but they at least offered a filter that redensifies the pages.

New Reddit could sadly learn something from them here. That's not the only issue I have with it, but that's a fucking massive one. The "new" Facebook layout, shoving suggested content, and their non linear feed enforcement also made me ditch them about a decade ago.

Every time I'm forced to interface with a web 3.0 UX I want to scream. Give me data give me details, give me access. I don't want Apple like sterility.

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u/the_post_of_tom_joad 7h ago

Comment histories being gone is the most vile of the changes they made (to me). How the hell can one see if the person you're takin to is an astro-turfer? Ppl are sayin they can tell bots n such but like... the best tool for gauging people's character is gone...

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u/darthjoey91 7h ago

That's users blocking others from viewing their histories. You also can't see those users' histories on sh.reddit or the app.

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u/DockLazy 4h ago

You can still see their history if you google "u/namehere".

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u/ThimeeX 8h ago

Reddit signals ominous upcoming “changes” for old.reddit.com

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u/Caleth 8h ago

As I said to someone else I'm already mentally prepping for when I'm leaving. I'll sell my account for the couple shillings it'll earn me to avoid temptation and move on.

I've left Facebook and other social media platforms I can learn to live with Bluesky or Mastodon or something else. Digg and Fark still exist if I really need something.

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u/No_Tangerine2720 8h ago

Reddit is removing features from old reddit presumably to push you to their garbage app

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u/Caleth 8h ago

And when it gets bad enough I will leave.

Right now they haven't tipped across that line, but I'm not going to move to new Reddit it is demonstrable ass. It sucks on nearly every level. Hell Reddit as it is now even on old.reddit is getting notably worse for content by the week.

I'm only on here for a handful of subs and habit. You make my habit painful enough I'll find a new platform. I was here before the Digg migration and I'll happily leave because there's nearly nothing here that resembles what I saw 15 years ago.

I left Facebook, and other places I can find a new place beyond reddit even if it means I need to learn how to live with Bluesky or Mastodon being lesser services.

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u/airfryerfuntime 8h ago

It's not that, they just don't want AI companies scrapping comments without paying. It's why they now required you to be logged in if you want to surf old.reddit.

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u/mrk240 3h ago

The All page is still full of shit though.

It's always 1 or a combo of the following.

  1. Someone with 500k post karma and 3 comment karma.

  2. A <1 month old account reposting shit that has been posted numerous times before.

  3. A subreddit that is a varient of some other sub, like all those fucking stupid fucking/mildly/this is interesting subs.

  4. Someone clearly posting with an agenda to reinforce an echo chamber reddit hive mind thought.

I've blocked so many uses and subs my All page will have 10 posts but the order would be 2,4,6,7,10,15,18,20

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u/Peylix 8h ago

Yup

I'm holding on to old reddit + RES until it's no more. Same for my patched Boost app. Holding on to both for dear life.

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u/Caleth 8h ago

Only thing keeping me posting is old.reddit and RES. Once those are toast I'm out. Maybe before then too depending on their behavior. I nearly left during the API issue, but none of the other platforms had good useful stuff yet. Maybe 18 months later they've grown enough that I can stomach them.

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u/crustyrobots 7h ago

Nu-Reddit is still such ugly ass. If old. ever goes away Im going away too. This site is just Digg'n itself

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u/ryancnap 7h ago

This + boost on Android instead of the horrible default app

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u/IClop2Fluttershy4206 7h ago

new accounts and inactive ones cannot use old reddit anymore

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u/lmpervious 8h ago

Turn off the suggested feed.

We need a law where all social media needs to offer this. I think that’s very realistic to pass, and ideally also to have it off by default.

People being fed the same information from one perspective over and over is not healthy for our society. When people hear something 100 times and see everyone else agreeing with it, almost anyone in that situation will believe it, even if they are a skeptical person and believe they won’t fall for misinformation. That’s why we see people living in completely different realities.

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u/Exia777 9h ago edited 7h ago

Does RIF still work? I thought it died with the 3rd party API costing money change

Is there a fork/maintainer you could point me towards, I miss having a nice, sterile mobile client...

Edit: thanks to all the responses + OP, it has been 3 years since I've used a mobile client ;D

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u/july280 9h ago edited 8h ago

It can be patched with Morphe so it works, but it's broken in multiple ways, just barely somewhat usable now. Maybe there is a new patch that has fixed those issues though I'm not sure tbh

Other comments mention Revanced - that is fine but Morphe is generally recommended over Revanced these days. edit: apparently revanced now has better RIF patches so good to check it out!

/r/morpheapp
/r/patcheddit
/r/revancedapp if u want to try revanced

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u/_senpo_ 8h ago

what issues have you noticed? for me it's loading imgur albums but other than that seems to work like it did

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u/july280 8h ago

In fairness I guess it's not as bad as I make it sound. The imgur thing is annoying because for me it crashes the whole app when I open an imgur album. Also it's kinda annoying to me that images in comments don't load inline, although that may be a bonus to some people. I certainly still prefer RIF to the official app! :)

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u/airfryerfuntime 8h ago

https://github.com/MojiRS/revanced-rif-patches

You have to use Revanced for these patches to work, but they did fix imgur links and added inline image functionality.

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u/AXEL-1973 9h ago

You can't get it from the app stores anymore, but you can manually install it as a third party app. I was doing that for a few months initially when the API smackdown hit, but it was buggy. Its probably significantly better by now though.

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u/Linked713 9h ago

I use RIF with morphe to patch it. it has a little tutorial to be able to get it working but no, you do not have to pay anything. Needless to say that it is android only.

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u/HAc0reRD 2h ago

Try out Artemis too, different dev from Apollo but it’s the same idea. I like it.

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u/TuPieces 9h ago

You can use all the old apps by installing them through an app called revanced manager

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u/Adlerson 9h ago

This may be a stupid question, but how do I turn off the suggested feed...?

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u/6thseer 9h ago

Settings > Preferences > Show recommendations in home feed toggle! Edit: Preferences not Profile

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u/Borderline-Bullshark 8h ago

This just removes suggested posts, I think the real issue here is the home feed sort that can’t be changed in the app so it defaults and shows many new posts rather than the already curated and voted on posts of hot or top.

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u/RedAero 4h ago

The hot sort has been deprecated. Frankly, I have no idea how people can bear to use "best", because it's 50% week-old shit that I've already seen and there's no point commenting on at this point, or brand new stuff which probably won't go anywhere. Hot wasn't perfect, but it was pretty good.

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u/Borderline-Bullshark 4h ago

I’ve used my browser for my homepage lots because I can sort by hot.

Ever since the Apollo Reddit app went away my Reddit usage has plummeted.

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u/thelifeofafangirl 8h ago

Where is this? I think they removed it.

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u/6thseer 8h ago

Mmm if you're on desktop you can get there from your profile icon, might be different on mobile but I don't have the app so I can't confirm

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u/Vrazel106 9h ago

Try red reader app or relay for reddit instead

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u/Lord_of_Sword 8h ago

Always check your settings/preferences page first.

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u/thelifeofafangirl 8h ago

I think they removed that feature.

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u/Lorcogoth 9h ago

I have the issue that it keeps trying to put me back on "suggested for you" instead of the stuff I am actually following.

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u/MyronBlayze 2h ago

How in the world do you turn off suggested feed? Every other month they toggle on the ability to switch between suggested and following, and whenever they toggle it off again I get stuck in suggested slop

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u/HAc0reRD 2h ago

Try out Artemis too, different dev from Apollo but it’s the same idea. I like it.

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u/Vid-Master 9h ago

yea and the subreddit name is like SuperGreenNews123

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u/Inevitable-Ad6647 9h ago

old.reddit.com/r/all is the only way and occasionally hitting the specific subs I care about. Honestly even that they've widdled away at and I'm losing interest. Reddit has always been more intellectual than other platforms but /u/spez will end that or die trying, I'm sure of it.

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u/thelifeofafangirl 8h ago

Yeah this website has become almost unusable 

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u/Vrazel106 9h ago

I stopped using the official app and get a lot less shit shoved in my face

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u/shoulda-known-better 9h ago

Use your feed not the suggested one!! Makes a big difference

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u/DrMobius0 9h ago

My home page only has subreddits I follow

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u/DrAstralis 9h ago

As the us election aproaches I've noticed a HUGE upswing in man bad / woman bad / morality yes/no? rage bait culture war bullshit.

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u/n3rv 8h ago

Sort by top. You know the one Reddit doesn’t want us using.

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u/Disastrous_Visit9319 8h ago

At some point they changed the way sorting by "best" works too and it's significantly worse now. It used to favor newer posts a bit but now it'll straight up put an hour old post with 4 upvotes next to a 6 hour post with 5k upvotes. It's terrible.

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u/Frewdy1 8h ago

And all the right wing bot-driven “meme” subs. 

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u/IAmAGenusAMA 7h ago

Half the posts in my home feed are several days old, and it isn't even small subs. Right now there is a 6 day old /r/AskReddit post sitting in the 3rd spot. It's maddening.

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u/ThrowAwayAccountAMZN 4h ago

I've noticed that some subreddits also have it set to show 1-2 "controversial/low voted" comments first even though the sort order is set to Top/Best. Likely to push engagement. Or it's a bug. But with the Reddit app it could be malicious or a bug or both.

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u/LandMooseReject 1h ago

"Best" sorting is... not. Brand new posts and 3 day old posts.

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u/Actual_Noodle 43m ago

Comments algo has gotten worse too. Tons of 0/1 upvote comments.

Yes, someone has to see the new comments, but when I sort by “best” every other comment shouldn’t be a 1 upvote comment with 10 replies to it. That’s what the controversial sort is for

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u/AstroPhysician 10h ago

I’ve seen correct answers im an expert in the field on downvoted very consistently lol. But yea

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u/Brootal420 9h ago

Just like irl

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u/Gh0stMan0nThird 9h ago

There are times I will see someone post misinformation, I will do nothing but say "Hey, unfortunately that isn't true" and post a source

Then I get -23 downvotes and nobody comments back to me

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u/eseffbee 8h ago

I find there is a snowball quality to votes on some comments. The first few votes can really set the direction. You can often see two comments in a thread saying almost identical things yet one is minus and the other with dozens of upvotes. I think when people see something upvoted/downvoted it subconsicously influences how they approach reading the post.

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u/AstroPhysician 8h ago

Yes I mean this is almost100% of the reasoning for it

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u/blivet 6h ago

Yeah, it's really surprising how much influence a little number can have.

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u/OldManFire11 8h ago

One of the most dangerous human traits I've become increasingly aware of over the last decade is that people largely don't give a shit about what's true or not. They only care about what they want to be true.

It's obvious in groups like Trump supporters or conservatives because they've become actively hostile to truth, but even progressives and moderates will soak up misinformation that they want to be true. Like all of the posts about how Ukraine has crippled Russia's social media bots last week. It would be nice if that were true, but it's not. The data centers destroyed had literally nothing to do with Russia's bots. The few charts that circulated showing a line going down were either completely fabricated, or utterly misrepresenting what data was being shown.

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u/AstroPhysician 6h ago

Google “death of the expert”

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u/baconboner69xD 8h ago

It’s because you posted a source. Nobody wants to read that crap. You’re supposed to tell the other guy to post a source that refutes your “trust me bro”

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u/BirdlessLongdeal 7h ago

yeah, i'm not clicking on some link that takes me to a rick astley video.

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u/AstroPhysician 9h ago

Nah, here it’s more democratic playing field. IRL if a professor was to give his commentary or a researcher it wouldn’t have as much perceived weight as trailer trash (which on this site are both anonymous usernmaes)

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u/AppropriateCommand80 9h ago

I agree that there is a democratic upvote process but it’s not exactly an even playing field. Mods hold practically absolute power in what gets presented and further filters out posts/comments based on their own perception. It may be democratic to vote on what is presented but you’re only getting to vote on what mods agree with being presented. In the world of academics I feel you are far less restricted to state an opinion or test a hypothesis on any topic

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u/Tonio_Akerbeltz 4h ago

It's more of a mob.

No matter how much of an expert you are, if you don't pass the vibe check you'll get downvoted to oblivion

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u/HipToss79 9h ago

I've also had this happen. I'm a mechanical engineer and made some comments about the fury 365 rollercoaster incident that happened a few years back. The number of people that understood fatigue failures in structural steel grew exponentially overnight. I got down voted for stating basic engineering principles I use everyday.

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u/bacon-squared 9h ago

This happened to me when I pointed out the ocean is not a perfect mixer for heat when they were talking about building server farms underwater. Just talking about basic science and how it applies to heat exchange and I got down voted. Also got downvoted for talking about the ways to do heat dissipation in space.

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 7h ago

Yeah I made a comment and mentioned my literal experience doing installation and maintenance of actual off-shore wind turbines. I hired and worked with the divers... Downvotes.

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u/timmybondle 9h ago

People here just down vote you for disagreeing with them whether your points are valid or not. I think discussions here are mostly ego-based and conceding anything would be a hit to that ego

3

u/blivet 6h ago

That, and I think that unfortunately it's becoming clearer all the time that a lot of people just have a deep-seated antipathy towards anyone who actually knows things. It seems to go beyond ego. No one expects the average person to know anything much about some specialized topic, but just the same, even when they are anonymous they will become furious when exposed to someone who does.

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u/Aeroncastle 9h ago

Half of r/bestof is so nonsensical that I think that bots got the community for themselves Edit: things currently being posted, not things on "all time best"

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u/_harveyghost 9h ago

I've been on this shithole website for two decades, that's always been an issue lol.

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u/Sweetwill62 9h ago

It was at least better in the beginning when both upvotes and downvote totals were displayed alongside all comments.

1

u/blivet 6h ago

I've completely forgotten the reasoning behind not showing those, and showing the aggregate total only.

1

u/Sweetwill62 6h ago

Easier to manipulate is the actual real reason. The fake one they publicly said? I can't remember either.

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 7h ago

Sure but it was significantly better back then. Today like 2% of comments are even worth reading. Same with posts.

8

u/HTPC4Life 9h ago

Still, world's better than no downvote button at all

3

u/Flesroy 9h ago

i think it's very effective for getting rid of the worst of the worst.

but then when you have mostly normal people remaining it can be very detrimental to productive conversation. it basically just becomes a popularity contest.

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u/DrMobius0 9h ago

more sane, not perfectly sane.

1

u/AN3223 9h ago

I think an important factor is how many people are part of the discussion. Social media platforms usually push trending things onto users, so people are being herded into big discussions. We don't (yet) have a (good) algorithm for showing people the comments they want to see in those discussions.

A good example of this is when a post hits r/all. It invites a bunch of clueless people into the discussion. That wouldn't be an issue if they had their own bubble and the subreddit regulars had their own bubble. This exacerbates the issue of fragmenting communities but I think there are solutions available for that too and both problems can be worked on independently, solutions for either would be immediately beneficial.

I think recommendation algorithms (like what Youtube/Tiktok use for recommending videos) might work as a solution to this if executed well. Another idea I've had is using a program (an LLM) to distinguish comments based on various factors (types of statements made, topic, sentiment, etc.) which is interesting because that could be done client-side without depending on a social media platform to implement anything.

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u/axle69 7h ago

Its definitely not perfect but when you go to YouTube and places like twitter my only thought is "I fucking wish they had reddits upvote and downvote system" would make both sites a lot fucking nicer.

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u/itsmesorox 9h ago

Reddit is definitely not sane XD

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u/Acceptable_Fox_5560 9h ago

Reddit? Sane? Reddit is the reason we're in this whole mess to begin with.

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u/tehlemmings 9h ago

I wouldn't expect that to last. Reddit is actively removing r/all right now, forcing everyone into algorithmic feeds.

They'll follow suit and remove downvotes sooner or later. It's the way every right wing site has gone. It's the best way to hide the bots.

7

u/lplqsnkczxccia 8h ago

Reddit is actively removing r/all right now

really? It's the way I used reddit (old.reddit.com/r/all), haven't seen any issues with it

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u/tehlemmings 8h ago

Try it on mobile or using new Reddit.

The only way to access all is on desktop in old. They fully removed all the workarounds last week.

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u/LG03 8h ago

And they're very much in the process of permanently killing old.reddit. No hyperbole, the first step is blocking access to anyone that hasn't used it in 6 months, effectively cutting off any new users.

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u/tehlemmings 7h ago

Yup. They're already actively removing pieces and forcing you over to new for basic shit like checking your replies. They'll kill it for good soon.

5

u/lplqsnkczxccia 5h ago

Ah, I use the OldLander extension to view old desktop reddit on mobile, so i haven't noticed anything breaking.

It's pretty good, removes all the visual clutter and all the new nonsense.

1

u/tehlemmings 5h ago

I haven't heard of that one. Do they have an android version, because I'm in the market for anything better than reddits app.

3

u/lplqsnkczxccia 3h ago

oh, if you're looking for Android apps, you can use RedReader and RiF (RiF requires some patching with reVanced that might take a bit of effort).

But OldLander is a browser extension that's available on Firefox Mobile, which I use on my Android. I don't use any Reddit app, I just install it and when I go to the reddit website on my browser, it changes all the formatting so it becomes usable. Depending on what mobile broswer yo use there might be a similar browser extension.

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u/tehlemmings 2h ago

Aha, gotcha. I'll look them up.

Honestly, I was tempted to have Claude generate a css override with a decent mobile layout. The current one is... Intentionally bad? I can only assume it's intentional.

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u/Bensemus 9h ago

It’s not that sane. Subs are usually pretty hard echo chambers. Go against the sub and you will be massively downvoted or just outright banned.

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u/LackFormer554 10h ago

It’s also how every subreddit ends up an echo chamber with dissenting points of view sent to the shadow realm. Swings and roundabouts.

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u/Historical_Owl_1635 9h ago

People blaming bots every time people disagree with them has also added to this.

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u/Jumpeee 9h ago

There being an actual unhandled bot problem doesn't exactly help with this point either.

9

u/Historical_Owl_1635 9h ago

Sure, but you can have an opinion that’s quite popular outside of Reddit and people will claim you’re a bot for it lol.

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u/gabu87 8h ago

My bigger problem is when i go into a popular thread (say, 300+ comments). I sort by top and often times the most popular chains says "I can't believe so many people would argue [insert insanely stupid comment here" with hundreds and thousands of upvotes.

Then it gets repeated again and again, but I never actually see said [insanely stupid comment], just people complaining about it even as I get to the end of the thread with like +1/+2 upvotes.

Either these people are reading a completely different Reddit than me or they are sorting by controversial and actively seeking out -5038 vote comments to be mad about

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u/aethersentinel 7h ago

Well, some of them are AIs just predicting what will get upvotes. No reason there needs to be literally anyone who said [insert whatever stupid thing here].

1

u/Particular-Cash-8586 8h ago

I experience the same thing.

1

u/lplqsnkczxccia 8h ago

with an unhandled bot problem, you can point to bots whenever anyone has an opinion because there really isn't a way to tell who is a bot.

1

u/NaturalDon 8h ago

bot accusations rose like 500% in the midst of celebrating being free of russian bots thanks to blown up data centers

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u/Appropriate_Ride_821 7h ago

I get called a bot a lot. Its like disagreement is just rejected entirely because everyone surrounds themselves with safe little bubbles.

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u/Shapes_in_Clouds 8h ago

Yeah, and the voting system is easily botted. And even when it's not, people still upvote and engage with the same kind of content other platforms promote via algorithm. Ragebait is everywhere here.

Reddit's primary advantage is its community structure so you can still find and engage primarily with decent, thoughtful communities if you want. But the shift to algorithmic feeds on Reddit is also starting to expose you more and more to the more toxic side of this site.

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u/thinkingdeads 7h ago edited 7h ago

Like how every circlejerk sub that was meant to parody a main sub/community for its negative traits ends up an actual circlejerk community with even worse traits (exacerbated by the fact it will be combined with a cynical hostility towards others in the main sub/community and general sense of superiority in taste, morality, and intellectual ability).

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u/LackFormer554 7h ago

Yeah, or they turn to softcore porn. I’m looking at you /r/okbuddycinephile

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u/mommytyres 9h ago

Show me where a dissenting point of view with actual merit is being hidden. I’ll wait.

Oh, your conspiracy theory bullshit got downvoted? Good.

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u/Historical_Owl_1635 9h ago

Conspiracy theory?

Of course the upvote system will always cater to popular opinion, it’s not a conspiracy it’s the whole logic behind it.

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u/Defendyouranswer 9h ago

Such a reddit answer. 😂

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u/LackFormer554 9h ago

The hivemind has spoken

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u/beccabeth741 9h ago

You should probably go outside.

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u/Meloetta 8h ago

Have you really never made a comment on a post that you found to be reasonable, only to come back later and realized it's buried by downvotes and hidden? I feel like this is a pretty normal occurrence if you leave reasonable comments that include opinions.

"Normal" as in, reddit has an agreed-upon set of opinions largely. Those don't always align with the general public's agreed-upon set of opinions, and reddit isn't very tolerant of a wide variety of opinions, often attributing a differing opinion to lack of morality rather than a normal variation in human experience. It's not an every comment thing, but if you have opinions that don't always mesh with reddit, you're gonna personally experience "my view has merit but it's being hidden" at some point.

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u/Bleyo 8h ago

Reddit only seems sane if you're in a sub where everyone agrees with you on everything. Go post something that goes against a sub's hivemind and see how much "sanity" you generate.

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u/casualti21 9h ago

Isn’t effective when comments are now sorted “Best” by an engagement algorithm. Every user sees different comments at the top based on what is most likely to keep them engaged with the content. Votes don’t really matter as much anymore. “Best” will still put comments with no upvotes at the top for certain users if that’s what the user is most likely to keep the user engaged on the platform.

I have multiple accounts. I can go to this same post and see different sets of comments sorted to the top. It’s just like YouTube or Facebook now.

2

u/anothershawn 8h ago

yeah but reddit just bans you if you don't agree with its political agenda so it's mostly just people circlejerking each other in here🤷‍♂️

2

u/bloodrider1914 8h ago

There's lot of ragebait here lol, it's just ragebait designed to appeal to Reddit's user base.

But I've seen posts like "all Trump voters need to have their right to vote taken away" and seen them get up voted a lot. Like that's obviously ragebait, even if it's sort of popular because people on Reddit tend to dislike Trump.

2

u/TrynaPlayItOff 7h ago

Take one look at /r/All - do you still think this site is sane? 😂

It's all political propaganda and botted threads. It's no better than Facebook, just a different flavor.

2

u/Appropriate_Ride_821 7h ago

Its not sane. Its overwhelmed with socialists, AI slop, and reposts from 10 years ago.

8

u/mlavan 10h ago

That's a joke, right?

8

u/Arsene_Yuka_1980 10h ago

It has created a crazy amount of echo chambers. This one (and r/accelerate) included.

11

u/Schwenkelkamp 10h ago

Isn't that also the case on any other social platform? I don't think that's due to downvotes being a thing but due to the option of 'closed' communities

9

u/newhereok 10h ago

How is this an echo chamber?

2

u/Orleanian 8h ago

How is this an echo chamber?

4

u/AttonJRand 9h ago

Someone said something they didn't like.

1

u/Arsene_Yuka_1980 8h ago

tldr big rant, just saying we should feature more positive AI stories, downvote if you want :(

Firstly, before starting off, I do believe that AI will and is already having a net negative effect on society and many individuals, and there are many, many repercussions to it.
But.
Do see the number of upvotes for any negative articles about AI, and see if any positive (if there are any) articles about AI or any articles discussing new AI capabilities have more than 0 upvotes. Check which are the top comments on each of those articles, and check if they are really accurate or not.

For example, an article today:

Anthropic logged net loss of over $80 billion in first half of 2026 : r/technology
This is a clickbait headline, clearly made to make people think Anthropic has racked up $80 billion dollars of debt in half a year. It hasn't. 72 of that 80 billion is the value they owe in convertible notes, which means the value of their stock rose, and because of that the stock they owe to other people rose, meaning they just have to give away <5% of their overinflated equity to the debtors (who have already signed a contract to get this stock btw) and they never have to pay a penny out of their pocket for that. Their real loss is around $8 billion - still staggering, but manageable with revenue growth. Their main problem is the $100+ billion they've pledged to invest in data center capex, but the article misses this for a frivolous clickbait headline that will enrage everyone, but I'm digressing here.

The main point is, I had to scroll down 5 comments, each of which had 5k+ upvotes, to get to the real answer that cleared this up. Now imagine the thousands of people (and many more bots lol) who read this and took the wrong meaning from this.

One post is fine. But if this repeats?

Negative AI Posts with thousands of upvotes:
AI bubble could burst and take global economy with it, IMF warns : r/technology
Man Sold Everything He Owned and Traveled 2,000 KM to Meet His Dream Woman – She Was AI : r/technology
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1x71khf/i_applied_for_200_jobs_how_spray_and_pray_ai_job/
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1wcj4kn/we_have_started_losing_control_of_ai_its_time_to/
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1x5xybi/the_tragedy_of_ai_coding_aiassisted_software/
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1x1w3az/pure_insanity_mathematicians_will_need_years_to/
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1x3yi9v/all_ai_is_compromised_and_has_fewer_rules_than/
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1o8feev/reddits_ai_suggests_users_try_heroin_aigenerated/
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1wppgtp/the_personal_ai_agent_horror_stories_are_rolling/
Positive AI Stories and Releases that either got 0 upvotes here or weren't posted at all:
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1w6f598/welcome_to_the_agi_era_openai_says_as_gpt6_astra/
https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1sa6s27/recent_2026_research_highlights_how_artificial
https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1xbs5ay/six_months_later_the_best_ai_costs_20_less/
https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1xbfxiu/for_the_first_time_aidesigned_viruses_have_been/
https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1xb7qtc/leading_mathematicians_are_increasingly_convinced/

It's more, but I'll leave it here for now.

Finally, I loath to quote from the true echo-chamber of r/accelerate,

in just over a month, we've had

- flying cars

- Al solving a Millenium Math problem

- A new antibiotic discovered by Al lab

- 722 Al written Math papers released at once

- A solution to Al alignment

- Google reducing errors 40x in quantum computing, making it practical

- Opus 5 level Al running fully offline

- Opus 5.5 solving motion graphics and

automations.

And that's just in the last 5 weeks. IYNYK.

Incredible time to be alive.

Where are the posts on how AI is speeding up medical, pathological, and engineering research and development? Where are the posts on the greatest and fastest improving advancements in software and technology in about four decades or more?? We're making rocks think, for crying out loud! I do understand the negative effects of AI and the many and powerful terrible people behind it, but we cannot be ostriches with our head in the sand. We should both work politically and socially to stop such evils and the people behind it, and I do my best to support it. But we cannot ignore its benefits and pretend they do not exist either, and do our best to understand and use it as a tool, and if the singularity comes to be, figure out where we fit in it. Or do a Butlerian Jihad. I'm in for both.

But at the end of the day and this frivolous rant - guys, this is the technology sub. We can have political posts and positive posts on AI advancement. I don't want to go to r/singularity and r/accelerate and interact with myopic accels to see legitimate AI news. Let's just make this sub, you know, much less of an echo chamber. End rant :)

1

u/wOlfLisK 9h ago

It turns the sub into more of an echochamber than it otherwise would be but I would take that over absolute drivel being pushed by bots simply because the community can't dislike it.

1

u/SahibTeriBandi420 8h ago

Reddit just got rid of r/all on mobile, its only a matter of time they fully enshitify too.

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u/ladiesluck 8h ago

You used to be able to see the amount of dislikes :/ I miss those days

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u/Mainbaze 8h ago

It’s a small part, but the biggest part is not giving out ANY money for bringing in engagement 

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u/FUCKTHISWEBSITEBANME 8h ago

It doesn't matter. They hid the ratios years ago. And even those, the numbers weren't completely reliable, but it was better than now.

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u/dearth_of_passion 8h ago

Lots of subreddits use custom style sheets to disable or outright remove the downvote button.

Joke's on them, RES can disable all custom style sheets, and they don't show up at all on my mobile app.

Although between mods' ability to shadow-delete comments (the comment shows up when viewed from your own account but is not there when viewed from another account or while logged out), those style sheets blocking voting, and the way some subreddits use automod to completely ban participation from anyone not whitelisted Reddit isn't particularly open either.

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u/RevolutionaryTone738 8h ago

OG users will remember that subreddits like r/the_donald got rid of the downvote button entirely and made it to where you had to disable custom themes in your preferences in order to downvote their posts. I'm still using old reddit so idk how this works with the app so some users reading this may have no idea what I'm referencing.

Essentially, r/the_donald was gaming the algorithm of reddit by having mods sticky certain posts that they liked. These posts would then go on to get a fuck load of upvotes by their users and not many downvotes (since users had to go into their settings and disable custom themes and many didn't). That resulted in these pinned posts making it into r/all consistently. Eventually, things came to a head with the_donald when u/spez actually stealth edited people's comments on the_donald that said "fuck u/spez" and replaced the name with another user from the same thread. This became a massive controversy because it revealed that admin had the ability to edit user's comments against their will and without their knowledge which resulted in this apology post. Along with the apology, the admins removed the ability for pinned comments to reach r/all and also gave us the ability to actually filter out subreddits you don't want to see(which is still something you can do when using old.reddit.com)

Just goes to show that nothing good ever comes from removing the ability to downvote something. History on the internet has shown that it's only ever done by people who have bad intentions and it always results in minority opinions/views getting much more exposure than they deserve.

1

u/ItsJustReeses 8h ago

Do you now know where the phrase "We did it Reddit!" Came from?

Reddit is just as bad as every other social platform. Even worst in certain cases.

1

u/thinkingdeads 7h ago

it's more sane than the other social media platforms that got rid of it.

This site's main export is AI text-to-speech readings of thousands of obviously fake (sometimes not even human generated) drama posts, from dozens and dozens of hugely popular and active "text based anecdote" subs, accompanied by literal tens of millions of comments by people smugly showing off their moral superiority (who additionally get very mad when you point out they are inexcusably gullible).

It ain't that sane.

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u/Ren_Kaos 7h ago

Unpopular opinion. Downvotes are antithetical to social media and stifle participation. Upvotes serve the same purpose, forcing the popular opinion up. Anecdotally I’ve found that people are more reticent to hand out upvotes as they are downvotes.

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u/elebrin 6h ago

At one point on old Reddit, the UI mods you could do to your subreddit allowed to to basically hide the downvote button. Of course, sensible people turn off subreddit styles. I still use old.reddit.com and have all custom styles turned off, because most subreddits turn themselves into eyesores.

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u/JCvSS 5h ago

Wrong. I can say something completely rational but if it's against the reddit hive mind, be downvoted into oblivion.

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u/Cheese-Manipulator 4h ago

Mob downvoting, echo chambers, unaccountable mods...

1

u/ropobipi 3h ago

It use to be a lot better when you could see the total number of downvotes.

1

u/doomiestdoomeddoomer 2h ago

Uh, are we using the same Reddit? You're not from another planet are you? wait... is this one of those master crafted bait posts? It is isn't it! DAMN you got me!

1

u/damontoo 10h ago

Is it? Because this subreddit downvotes anything positive anyone says about technology. Doesn't seem very sane. Despite the admins explicitly telling people to downvote spam and comments that don't contribute to discussion, and not to downvote things just because they disagree, the vast majority of downvotes are in fact just because the reader disagrees.

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u/JustLikeWhateverHuh 10h ago

Hilarious you think that

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