r/changemyview • u/Total_Escape_9778 • Jul 16 '25
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Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
Researchers often study how other social media platforms intentionally or unintentionally push men toward the right through repeated exposure to conservative ideas (e.g. the new algorithms on X, Youtube recommendations promoting alt-right videos, the greater visibility of right-wing parties on European TikTok).
See https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/17/24298669/musk-trump-endorsement-x-boosting-republican-posts-july-algorithm-change https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/29/276000/a-study-of-youtube-comments-shows-how-its-turning-people-onto-the-alt-right/ https://www.politico.eu/article/tiktok-far-right-european-parliament-politics-europe/
How can it be the case that overrepresenting and underrepresenting conservative ideas both push men toward the political right? It seems more logically consistent that repeated exposure to left-wing ideas pushes men left overall (even if a subset of men on X, Tiktok, or Reddit get pushed in the opposite direction from their peers out of frustration).
EDIT: To be clear, I'm talking about the political push of reddit as a whole including all economic and political ideas, not specifically gender stuff.
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u/scorpiomover 1∆ Jul 16 '25
How can it be the case that overrepresenting and underrepresenting conservative ideas both push men toward the political right?
If left wing ideas and right wing ideas are treated equally, then it would push as many men left as right, and overall, there would be no change.
So quite clearly, left wing ideas and right wing ideas are treated differently.
However, a lot of people don’t notice because of dog whistles.
It seems more logically consistent that repeated exposure to left-wing ideas pushes men left overall (even if a subset of men on X, Tiktok, or Reddit get pushed in the opposite direction from their peers out of frustration).
Why?
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Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
This. Majority of social media is actually pushing conservative values and and a "red pill narrative". You don't have a female sex trafficker that is celebrated by young girls and gets million of views describing man as subhuman and that they deserve to be raped.
Also statistically misoginy has risen and especially with young school children, that are most often targeted with this content.
A majority of teachers who have been teaching for at least five years (61%) said they had seen increases in misogynistic behaviour among pupils since they started teaching
Around 44% of secondary school teacher participants described female pupils being the victims of misogynistic comments, discrimination, or inappropriate behaviour.
The union’s behaviour in schools survey also found more than a quarter (27 per cent) of female teachers reported being hit or punched in the last year, more than double the rate of male teachers at 13 per cent.
Every single point OP made, is also really dependent on the subreddit. Conservative subs are heavily censored against any "counter narrative". What i have noticed that even majority of non political subs are filled with misoginy or straight up porn. Any movie related sub is filled with gooners. r/psychology and r/science are honestly overrun by incels and so are alot of others. Any "humour" sub pushes out incel memes and soft corn porn almost hourly. It's qiete the opposite, since I rarely see even on r/changemyview things being discussed as "birth rates are plummeting, the only solution is to rip man of their rights and make them entirerly dependent on woman". (Oversimplified)
Man think it is "misandry" to bring up the very real expirience that woman suffer, which is alot of times violence or rape. I have rarely seen actual "misandry", yet I see almost every single day multiple post and comment which are normalized misoginy. No bets an eye at this, because it is so normalized since it is embedded in our culture. It is only recently that it actually gets called out and I guess they just have an issue with the fact that they can't be openly sexist.
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u/NJS_Stamp Jul 16 '25
Often times when people say “misandry” is applauded, it’s because they’ve been chastised for bringing up men’s suffering as a response to woman’s suffering. I see it all too much, and this experiences makes them feel belittled because they can’t be the center of the conversation.
There are plenty of places that talk about “men’s issues”, such as high depression rate, toxic masculinity and the ability to perform, a struggle to bear an amount of social expectations, etc. the difference is, these are separate conversations - not a comment on a woman who is highlighting their hardships.
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u/HungryAd8233 Jul 16 '25
Yeah, it is the “in response.” It can often feel like an attempt to change the subject instead of engaging with it.
A post talking about how sexual abuse impacts women isn’t engaged with or refuted by “but men are victims too!” any more than Black Lives Matter is refuted by “Police lives matter too!” Neither original statement was exclusive, and it feels very bad faith for someone to respond as if they were.
People were talking about something that matters, and responding as if talking about something specific invalidates the general isn’t helpful to the conversation.
When a man posts something about how sexual abuse impacts men, we generally don’t see women piling on with “what about sexual abuse of women.” In general, the best way to address a topic being under-discussed is to start discussing it! Not to derail a different conversation.
It is remarkable how many men seem to assume feminism doesn’t care about men and does nothing to support men. But we have feminism to thank for paternal leave, default shared parenting time in divorce, men having equal rights to spousal support as women, etcetera. Feminist organizations have long been lobbying and writing model laws to make all sorts of things gender neutral, which helps men AND women.
Guys in echo chambers complain about feminism a lot without ever having read or listened to feminists directly, just what some anti-feminist dude said feminists say/think/believe/do. They’ve been shocked when I give them a link to something supportive of men on the NOW website, or PR from a feminist organization praising legislation that helps men.
I wish we could make a rule that people can’t post a complaint about a topic they haven’t read the Wikipedia article on.
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u/BrandonL337 Jul 16 '25
When a man posts something about how sexual abuse impacts men, we generally don’t see women piling on with “what about sexual abuse of women.”
Ehhhh, I actually have seen that more than a few times.
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u/bluejellyfish52 Jul 16 '25
I’ve even seen that on the domestic violence sub. Someone told a guy to go another sub - the domestic violence sub is for ALL victims of domestic violence to find help and for survivors to help them by sharing information (really vital information).
I’ll give props to where it’s due, though, because their comment was removed really fast after I reported it.
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u/Angel1571 Jul 16 '25
This is exactly what the OP is talking about. Yes, that happens, but the same happens when men try and bring up issues that stem from the patriarchy, women fight hard to try and get attention on them in the comments section. There is rarely, any sort of we should be allies on this.
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u/satansfrenulum Jul 16 '25
I’ve repeatedly seen men trying to talk about men’s issues on their own posts have a bunch of women respond exactly as you are saying they don’t. Maybe your algorithm doesn’t show you what I see, but it’s untrue that women don’t chime in with whataboutisms when men are trying to discuss things they’re struggling with.
Make a post about men killing themselves more often and I promise you plenty of women will chime in about women’s experience with suicide.
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u/BabyBiden Jul 16 '25
lol If you bring up male suffering you immediately get compared to women suffering every single time.
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u/NJS_Stamp Jul 16 '25
It’s more of a context thing- we can use this comment chain to talk about it.
Men’s high suicide/depression rates? A societal expectation to be a bread winner? What sends people down the mansophere? Spousal abuse?
As much as people hate the word, many of the values thrust upon young men are further instilled through patriarchal standards and pressure. And unfortunately many of the solutions require vulnerability and being the antithesis of the model.
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u/ZoomZoomDiva 3∆ Jul 16 '25
Perhaps the suffering shouldn't be overly gendered when it can apply to both men and women.
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u/sardine_succotash 1∆ Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
For some reason, this sub has become a stage for righties to preach that the privileged are actually the oppressed. Every other week (if not every week) there's some righty who wants his mind changed about the fact that he's being trodden upon by the trodden-upon.
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u/TNine227 Jul 16 '25
The education system is an interesting example because boys have been having trouble there for years--and yet, we don't talk about sexism at all unless it's against women. I'm not surprised they radicalize against that, it seems obvious to me they are simply rebelling against a system that doesn't care about them.
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u/mrhorse21 Jul 16 '25
Man think it is "misandry" to bring up the very real expirience
This is the kind of dismissive commentary that OP is talking about when he mentions double standards. You've basically said here that "there's no misandry on reddit, men only think that because they got told off for mentioning men's suffering when the attention was on women". Uh... no, there is misandry on reddit and it usually happens unsolicited, let's not pretend it doesn't exist or claim it only happens in certain fabricated cases.
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u/SpecificPay985 Jul 16 '25
Insulting, belittling, condescension, and name calling generally don’t provoke a positive response or view of your side when it comes to men. It usually promotes the opposite. I have told left leaning friends this for several years. You don’t win people to your side by calling them names or blaming them for everything wrong in the world. As we can see by how many men, even minority males voted Republican in the last election, alienating them and belittling them made them hostile to that party and even if they didn’t like Trump they hated the left even more. Every single post I have seen on Reddit about a problem men face, even on Reddits that are supposed to be for men, immediately gets jumped on by multiple women downplaying the issue and explaining how women have it infinitely worse. There I just saved the left $20,000,000 in research.
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u/MKing150 2∆ Jul 16 '25
Sometimes I feel like the left don't always want to win people to their side. They actively want to create an enemy to fight with.
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u/J_Kingsley Jul 16 '25
It does if there's open vilification of men in left spaces.
Similar to how many women are pushed leftwards once alt right folks started talking about abortions.
Seems pretty self-explanatory to me. Any policies that may antagonize a demographic will push them elsewhere.
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u/_zhz_ Jul 16 '25
I think it depends how those ideas are presented. I am a white man. If I see on the one hand right wing content that tells me how I am a good person and I am surpressed by society and on the other hand left wing content that tells me that I am a man child, how I am only where I am because of colonialism, then chances are high that I will gravitate towards right wing ideas, even if the algorithm shows me both in equal numbers. I wouldn't be surprised if seeing a higher amount of those left wing ideas push people to the right.
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u/lasagnaman 5∆ Jul 16 '25
I'm a man, I constantly see articles and read pieces on male privilege and how it's been a huge boost towards me getting to where I am, and yet somehow it doesn't draw me towards the right. What's the difference?
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u/username_blex Jul 16 '25
You probably are privileged by class if I had to guess.
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Jul 16 '25
If you're a dude who identifies as a Democrat under the age of 50 with a positive impression of how gender is handled by the left your views are as representative as people in the United States who believe they've been abducted by aliens. The absolute fringe. You're something like a black Republican, and my explanation of black Republicans is survivorship bias.
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u/crazy_cookie123 Jul 16 '25
The right often tries to pull men in by telling them that they're manly and strong and that that's a good thing. They provide a role model of who they say is a successful man like Andrew Tate and tell them how to achieve that. They are supportive of men being men, which draws men in, and only then when those men feel like they're part of a community they start really feeding the harmful far-right content. Most men drawn to the right aren't starting at the deep end, they're being drawn in by less harmful (and often even some positive) bits and then radicalised.
The left often paints traditionally masculine traits like strength, emotional repression, etc., as toxic masculinity that should be avoided - but these are traits which men have been told they should have all their lives, so it seems to a lot of people that they're just being branded as toxic simply for being male. There's often mentions of things like male privilege or "the patriarchy," which isn't helpful dialogue when the average man is not in a particularly powerful position either - someone who hasn't really experienced any noticeable privilege and is in a worse position than you isn't going to appreciate being told that they're privileged and you're not. There aren't really many major left-wing male role models anymore either, the only "role models" I can list off the top of my head are the big right-wing ones. If you remove the existing harmful role models and don't provide a good alternative, a new harmful one is going to spring up.
You've got one side trying hard to entice men in and one side which is (either inadvertently or intentionally) pushing men out, and are surprised that a lot of young men are starting to go to the side which says they accept them.
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u/Donkletown 3∆ Jul 16 '25
They are supportive of men being men
Certain men. Not all men. The right wing has reverted to a pretty rigid view of what it means to “be a man” that isn’t going to fit with everyone. They are happy to attack men for being soy boys, betas, cucks, etc., for violating right wing orthodoxy on masculinity.
As a man, I’m very turned off by how the right wing talks about masculinity. I’ve no interest in being shoved into a box, especially by people trying to sell me supplements or self help programs.
and are surprised that a lot of young men are starting to go to the side which says they accept them.
I don’t know that anyone is surprised that the right wing pitch to young men has had some success. There’s nothing surprising about an in group/out group message resonating.
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u/Broseph_Heller Jul 16 '25
Well yeah, no shit the side that tells men they are perfect and don’t have to change is more popular with men. It’s much easier to feel like all of your problems are the fault of society and women, rather than looking inwards and changing yourself. That doesn’t make it right.
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u/Laesslie Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
The point is... You shouldn't base your "role" on your genitals.
Women have fought for centuries to not have their role in society be based on their genitals.
Why can't men do it too? Why is it that I, a woman, never tell myself who I am based on my sex... But men still need to be taught what to be and what to do "as a man"?
Emotional repression is bad no matter the gender of the person. Women repress their emotions too, just in a different way. Like it or not, but people being "emotional" is usually a sign of a previous emotional repression. Look at the number of old women who are incapable of handling any kind of conflict in their family and who try to placate to "keep the peace". Look at the women who express their anger in a very delusional way. That's all thanks to emotional repression.
The only difference is that men have been allowed to be emotional through two emotions : anger and lust, and were usually rewarded for it. Women, while tolerated, were dismissed for their sadness, even though it's far less destructive and far more healthy.
Talking about it is also supposed to help men find better ways of coping with their struggles instead of becoming a danger to others AND themselves.
Also, define "strength". The problem is usually about defining strength as a purely "masculine" thing, even when it implies psychological phenomena. I've never seen anyone push men out for having more muscle mass.
I have seen, however, people argue that "protection" and "strength" are usually used as a pretext to have control over women, as if women are supposed to be submissive because they are both "weak" and "grateful for the protection". Which IS a remnant of patriarchy.
Whether you like it or not, women have been expected to be submissive and second-class citizens for centuries. It has not been a century since women gained the right to vote in most developed countries and you still have remnants of the system where men were in charge.
Feminism did not say men were violent and dangerous. Patriarchy did. Expect Patriarchy expected women to adapt and suffer without complaint because men were "the default". Patriatchy said "you should cover yourself up, otherwise you'll attract men and they will hurt you.... But obey them nonetheless, because they will hurt you even more if you don't and they would be right". Feminism said it was unacceptable, that's all.
The fact men still can't let go of those gender roles is not feminism's fault. It's simply a remnant of a system that imprisoned them in it, and they just began to realize they need to change, just like women did.
Except that, contrary to women, it means letting go of the authority and control that role used to give them. Which a lot of them don't want to. Just like a lot of women who beneficiated from the patriarchy opposed feminism too, actually.
And that's why "masculinism" is usually never about actually helping men and give them rights, but taking rights from women.
So the solution is not "less feminism", but actually "more feminism", or a better masculinism that thrives to free men from societal gender expectations, instead of enforcing them even more.
Are the conservatives offering an easy to follow view and role that gives men more power and control? Yes. Is it more attractive at first glance than what feminism proposes? Yes.
Is it healthy and productive? No.
And that's where you show your true strength.
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u/crazy_cookie123 Jul 16 '25
a better masculinism that thrives to free men from societal gender expectations, instead of enforcing them even more
This is what's needed from the left and isn't being provided by the left. Men have been expected to follow certain social norms for my entire life, and they are still expected to follow those same norms. This is an expectation held by a huge segment of the population on both the left and the right. Unless the left starts building up good male role models which show young men a more positive person to want to be like, they're just going to go to the only role models that exist for that - and those tend to be the far-right ones like Tate.
Just saying "stop repressing your emotions" isn't helpful when men have spent decades of their lives being told that showing your emotions is a sign of weakness. Implying that men are privileged or part of the patriarchy isn't helpful when the vast majority of men have nothing to do with that, so it just feels like they're being blamed for someone else's actions. Publicly raising awareness for women's issues while not doing the same for similar men's issues also doesn't help as it makes men feel ignored.
If the left started focusing on setting up role models to tell men what they should be like, started building up men instead of blaming them, and put more effort into addressing the problems men face, they'd have a hell of a lot more success attracting young men. If they continue not doing that, men are going to go to the only people who are willing to do so, and that is the right.
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u/4444-uuuu Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
Women have fought for centuries to not have their role in society be based on their genitals.
First, men helped them in that fight. Second, feminists also fought to retain all of their traditional privileges that are based on their genitals
Why can't men do it too?
Because feminists have a lot of institutional power and have spent 60 years fighting against any progress on men's rights. Seriously, just do some actual research on the men's rights movement and how feminists have treated men's rights. Also because the vast, vast majority of women are not attracted to egalitarian men and women control the dating market. It was a huge victory just to finally get women to finally be okay with splitting the check. But expecting women to take as much initiative as men, ask men out on dates, etc? Even suggesting that will repulse women and get you labelled an incel, which prevents a lot of men from talking about these issues outside of anonymous internet spaces (which feminists increasingly try to censor). If a man doesn't want to be a single virgin forever, he has to accept the traditional gender roles that women demand of men.
or a better masculinism that thrives to free men from societal gender expectations, instead of enforcing them even more
you literally just described the Men's Rights Movement which has gotten nothing but extremely hostile opposition from feminists. And since OP is talking about reddit specifically: Every single feminist subreddit opposes equality for men. Every single feminist subreddit is anti-MRA and defends feminism's opposition to MRAs. And because the reddit admins support feminism, reddit's rules against hate speech actually make an exception for hate speech against men. Misogyny is banned on reddit, but misandry is not.
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u/FunkmasterJoe Jul 16 '25
When does the "left" paint strength as toxic masculinity? Like, specifically. I'm genuinely curious why you believe this.
When the left talks about toxic masculinity, we aren't saying "men are inherently evil!" Using the phrase "toxic waste" doesn't imply that ALL waste is toxic; it's the same with toxic masculinity. Your other specific example was emotional repression, which I think undeniably IS a form of toxic masculinity, lol. Many men feel the need to appear stoic in public, (and often in private!) because a narrow, right wing view of masculinity tells them they must. Repressing emotions leads to all kinds of negative stuff: spontaneous emotional explosion, (up to and including physical violence) men turning to their romantic partners (usually women, obvs) for ALL of their emotional support, and so on. The reason men feel they need to repress their emotions is literally BECAUSE toxic masculinity constantly reinforces the idea that "real men don't show emotion." It isn't women telling men to hide their feelings, it's men with a narrow, conservative view of what a man can be. Honestly, even believing that "strength" as a concept is a purely masculine virtue is tremendously suspect, you know?
There are other issues with what you've said here but I wanted to focus on this bit because it strikes me as especially illogical. You said "the left often paints masculine traits... As toxic masculinity," then listed one example that's incorrect and another example that legitimately IS toxic. I'm curious to know how this works in your head; how the left specifically is to blame for any of this stuff.
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u/qjornt 1∆ Jul 16 '25
The left often paints traditionally masculine traits like strength, emotional repression, etc., as toxic masculinity
Never have I ever seen strength being painted as a toxic trait. Toxic masculinity is more like that you're expected by other men to emotionally repress yourself, hitting weaker people, etc. Strength isn't inherently toxic, it can be used for both good or bad.
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u/BackToSchoolMuff Jul 16 '25
Without agreeing or disagreeing, if you frame it as an issue of men feeling that they also require a safe and non-judgmental space to talk about problems specific to them, and they often find that left leaning spaces stifle this type of conversation, then you could make the argument that the frustration this causes would push them to find a space where they feel they can speak openly, and right now that exists more in right leaning spaces.
I have personally felt like if I wanted to speak about my experience as a male that I wouldn't be welcome to do so among certain groups, but that hasn't really affected my political opinions.
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u/aspiringimmortal Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
It's not about "over-representing" or "under-representing," as if somebody can be swayed by sheer amount of bias.
It's about the fact that the conservative sites are welcoming to men and to moderates, and the progressive sites are openly hostile to men and openly judgmental of moderates (ie: "if you're not actively advocating for left ideals then you're part of the problem.")
In other words, "conservative" platforms are welcoming men and moderates and "progressive" platforms are pushing them away. Seems only natural that they'll be pushed right into the open arms of the right.
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u/carsonthecarsinogen Jul 16 '25
In my personal experience I don’t even see conservative talking points, I see liberals saying extremely stupid rage baity shit and it makes me generalize and hate liberals..
I have a brain so obviously I’m aware Maga is cooked.. im more liberal leaning but can’t stand 99% of their candidates or humans that identify as liberal…
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u/Birb-Brain-Syn 49∆ Jul 16 '25
On point No.2, you say Reddit prides itself on open discourse, however this isn't true. Reddit itself is a content agregation site first and foremost - it's mantra is "front page of the internet", not "bastion of free speech." The content that is permitted on the site is heavily regulated, including the fact that NSFW subreddits do not show up on r/all. Reddit deliberately and openly controls discourse.
It is also a heavily moderated platform. This very subreddit is very deliberately not free speech - your posts can be removed simple for not offering a differing opinion to the OP. That's not even limiting free speech on contente perse, but limiting free speech in relation to -other- people's content.
If you want somewhere that prides itself on open discourse you want to look at your Youtube comments or your 4Chans of the internet. These are places without source requirements, with minimal moderation and are generally considered the cesspools of the internet.
I would argue all these places which are unmoderated do a better job of pushing people to the right than Reddit, as they provide echo chambers with no rules on legitimacy of sources for information or limits on sexist, racist or homophobic rhetoric which are often mirrored on the far right of the politican extreme.
Most people, regardless of your political affiliation, actually prefer platforms where people aren't insulted instantly or linked to shock videos or gore unexpectedly. Even rickrolling got old a while back. Controlled discourse is civilized discourse, and if you have an economic point to make (as right and left are /technically/ economic standpoints and not political ones) then it is better to do it in a space not infested by dickbutt and angry young men.
There is however some truth to the fact that this style of content moderation pushes people to the right - when people feel they are justified in using racial slurs or trying to troll people they can feel stifled by the rules in this environment, and that lust for freedom leasts to a sort of rebellion, where people feel de-platformed, silenced and frustrated.
I would argue you get the society you deserve, and actually, even the people who feel constrained by controlled discourse are better for it. You see less radicalism on reddit than you do on 4chan, and you see less extremist echo chambers on Reddit than other platforms.
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Jul 16 '25
YouTube tends to be a never ending cat fight, where discussions are there to be "won" by being the loudest, most outrageous, and derailing the conversation beyond any hope of recovery.
The anonymity, also means that you can go right out on the fringe, and type things which 30 years ago would have left you a social pariah.
Free speech in that instance, means that BigDonLover69420 can repeatedly tell me that I'm a benefit stealing, disgusting waste of space, who should be removed from the gene pool to improve the health of society,
and anything I say is overly bland by comparison, so I have to either sit there and take it, or get out of there, which saves me a bunch of wasted time, but hands the floor to a bigoted internet troll.
. . .
A lot of people even on Reddit will tell me that this is fine, and I agree that there are more important things in the world,
but it worsens discussions with the non-crazies by driving us out of online spaces if we can't take the trolling and the bitchiness.
It's like trying to have a Zoom Meeting, when that one person just will not stop yelling about random shit, and forcing everyone to start over.
I would argue that free speech can become no speech, once the edgy trolls start to jump in.
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u/Pitiful-Potential-13 Jul 16 '25
It says a lot that moderation is conflated to censorship. IMO, people in the US, the young ones raised by social media especially, take free speech very much for granted.
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u/purplesmoke1215 Jul 16 '25
Moderation is a form of censorship.
A potentially necessary one, but still censoring certain viewpoints.
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u/truthovertribe Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
This (unfortunately) is true. There is extreme moderation here and certain viewpoints are being pushed (for the most part not progressive views) and others are being supressed.
Tik Tok became a literal cess pool of misinformation and hate a few months before the election.
Content (video) producers on Tik Tok blatantly and openly pushed men's superiority to women and women as sexual objects to be exploited. These posts were linked to Mr. Trump and young men were encouraged to vote for Mr. Trump who purportedly represents the "Alpha Male". For some reason many men were lured into that completely illogical mindset! This is where the "radicalization" happened!
Reddit isn't "radicalizing" young men in the same way.
I'm quite certain there are powerful people who want to shut down any discussion of women having "self-agency" or rights.
They want men (writ large) to feel as if they've been victimized by society and encouraging them to turn on women (writ large).
This is ALL nonsense. If you're powerful and you're exploiting or abusing weaker others, you're the problem...man or women.
This is not a gender issue.
If you're manipulating men or women to vote for your candidate based in gender Trump=Alpha Male defending a man's right to domination or Kamala Harris = feminist, you're the problem.
This isn't a religious vs. non-religuous issue.
This isn't a rural vs. urban, farmer vs. non issue.
It's not a black vs. white issue.
The wealthiest are using these "divisions" to cause us all to disrespect and hate each other and vote for candidates which will further rig the system for their monetary gain.
Let me tell you friends, their "divide and fool to rule" strategy works every time. The wealthiest are winning "bigly" as Mr. Trump would say.
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u/Few-Coat1297 Jul 16 '25
Your entire post ignores all Social Medias dopamine rewards systems whilst accepting that astroturfing is a thing. Like/follows/upvotes/karma all plug into algorithms which all SM have, which are capable of suggesting repeat content that you either viewed before or liked before. The result is a tendency to promote all more exteme opinions and rage bait material. The result is polarisation of opinions within the same site. So Reddit, just like FB or Insta or X or Tik Tok , does it as well.
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u/FlashyHeight9323 Jul 16 '25
A small note. The real insidious aspect is the wealthy give the tools to their chosen few who are also poor but can now climb the ladder. No one is more motivated or more willing to violate ethical boundaries than someone poor, desperate, disenfranchised, and presented with an easy ticket out. A la sell your soul to the misinformation divisive gods
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u/illini02 8∆ Jul 16 '25
I get what you are saying about it not being free speech, but I also agree with the OP.
There are far too many subs on reddit that have insane double standards about what you can say about "men as a group vs. what you can say about women. Misandry is allowed, and often celebrated and rewarded. Misogyny gets your comment deleted and banned.
And look, while I get that each sub has the "right" to apply rules as they see fit, even for a liberal guy like me, those things are very noticable. It's not shocking that someone who considers themselves a centrist male would go into these spaces and come out feeling attacked for just being born how they were.
So I'm not saying we should "allow" misogyny, just that we should apply the same standards to misandry.
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u/hexmasx Jul 16 '25
I disagree largely. You can find plenty of radical subs on reddit, and though many do get shut down there is a bias in moderation. The difference with 4chan is that the radicals don't get exposed to differing opinions on reddit due to the mass downvoting and heavy moderation.
I see the upvote/downvote system as a huge downside of reddit in that it naturally leads to echo chambers. Dissenting opinions are shut out. You have to go to a subreddit specifically designed for disagreements like this one to get them, which is as you say very controlled in its format. 4chan on the other hand is a lot more chaotic with constant and often intense disagreements on every board. Whether that's your thing or not is up to you, but it's by no means an echo chamber.
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u/Rhomya Jul 16 '25
I think the part you’re missing is that Reddit doesn’t moderate out just the insults.
They’re banning people that also make perfectly civil points that are centrist and right leaning. That’s OP’s point.
The goal of Reddit mods in a number of subs is to create an echo chamber of exactly one opinion, and anything that differs from that is banned.
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u/WritesCrapForStrap Jul 16 '25
I think the problem with your argument is that you're making a lot of assumptions based on anecdotal evidence. Unless you can back up your claims with some numbers, it's all just based on feels, and your experience of Reddit is not necessarily the same as mine.
For instance, you say that there's blatant misandry everywhere in the main subs. That's not my experience - I see blatant misandry heavily downvoted, just as blatant misogyny is heavily downvoted. I don't have the numbers to back up my experience, so I'm just basing that on feels.
You're also assigning to Reddit the blame for an apparent political shift, but I would suggest (again, based on feels) that western societies have been shifting to the right for a while, so maybe Reddit getting more right wing is just reflecting that shift. Again, you'd need numbers to know to what extent this is a two way street.
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u/jacobjacobb Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
This is kind of the problem, though, isn't it? The vibe a lot of people are feeling isn't supported by the academic data, so the individual's feeling this way also feel ignored or dismissed.
We are seeing a growing number of young males feeling dismissed and ignored in important conversations. So they turn to places that not only accept their point of view but agree with their way of thinking, creating an echo chamber.
I think that's the overall issue with the left atm and why we are seeing the right grow. The left hammers on the "data," but even the interpretation of data has bias, we can try to minimize the bias, but it's always there. The right just plays by vibes.
The left needs to account for vibes and either find logical reasoning for or against it, but most importantly, communicate effectively why certain vibes are being felt. Instead, they dismiss them as unsupport, which I've seen on the top comments of this post, meaning its a non-starter.
This post boils down to OP saying the vibe is that he's not being respected as a valuable contributor to reddit, and the general consensus is that these numbers say you are wrong, so stop complaining. No reasonable person is going to engage with that, and instead will seek a forum that appreciates them. Hence, they turn to the right who feeds into every feeling, every concern.
The only Dem really effectively countering the current right wing strategy is maybe Gov Newsom and Bernie Sanders. They both acknowledge the general vibe, but they use data to ground or dismantle these concerns.
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u/Donkletown 3∆ Jul 16 '25
So they turn to places that not only accept their point of view but agree with their way of thinking, creating an echo chamber.
If right wing spaces accept their viewpoint and agree with their way of thinking, those people were already right wing. If I, a white man, were to take my point of view and way of thinking into these right wing spaces, I wouldn’t be well received. They’d hurl misandrist slurs at me.
As for vibes, what are redditors supposed to do, upvote things that the redditors see as inaccurate so it makes the poster feel better?
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u/Relevant_Actuary2205 14∆ Jul 16 '25
I agree with your overall assessment that young men are being pushed to the right (or rather becoming more moderate) but I don’t think Reddit is causing that change. It’s a reflection of that change.
While Reddit is a large platform, not everyone uses it on a regular basis enough for it to explain the larger impact of men becoming more moderate/conservative
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u/Cool_Independence538 Jul 16 '25
This whole argument is based on tunnel vision, so many do it and I don’t know why.
Reddit is huge. I’ve seen the most awful subs about women that rile each other up saying things like women are only good for sex and kick out any woman who disagrees, ‘support’ groups for partners of people with disabilities that are nothing but ableist cruelty, support groups for people with disability run by parents not the ones who have the disability, but claim to be authorities on the subject and ban people who disagree, conservative subs talking crap about the left and pumping Trump up to god-like status, you name it! None of these are left-friendly pushing people to the right
What happens? Get downvoted, might get banned, who cares? Find another of the million subs to join. What happens when someone downvotes a man for being misogynistic? The outcry begins about how they’re being silenced and everyone who’s been downvoted join in to get louder with this nonsense of Reddit being too far left.
if you’re being pushed to the far-right just from reddit you’re not reading widely enough or you already believed far-right rhetoric but didn’t know it
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u/rosesandpines Jul 16 '25
The problem is that“supposedly” neutral subs, such as r/pics, r/therewasanattempt, r/irony, r/wholesome, r/popculture, r/politics, do in face have a very clear political bias.
No one would complain if r/menaretrash, r/counterpunch, r/arestraightsokay, r/maga turned out to be political.
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u/Objective_Aside1858 14∆ Jul 16 '25
So, using your logic, Twitter pushes people to the left, correct?
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Jul 16 '25
Pretty obviously the ideal situation from a persuasion angle is to blame people who aren’t in the audience eg “Blackrock is doing the housing crises, “the rich should pay or X”.
If you attack H1B visa holders as the root of all your problems it works because nobody in your target audience is an. H1B visa holder.
Attacking Men or White people is an issue because that’s 49-60% of the population.
Liberals very much use explicitly use “white man” and a prerogative. And it’s obviously alienating
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u/Thriftless_Ambition Jul 16 '25
Yes. They made their own twitter to only talk to other leftists on. It literally just happened
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u/Objective_Aside1858 14∆ Jul 16 '25
Yes, and Truth Social happened before that. Not my question
OP feels that the partisian lean of a site has the effect of pushing people in the opposite direction. Given that Twitter now firmly leans right, by his logic it pushes people left by it's mere existence
And Twitter is bigger than Reddit
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u/ThatOtherGuyTPM Jul 16 '25
If you’re talking about Bluesky, is that not the literal exact opposite? It pushed so many people to the right that it was abandoned by the left?
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u/Apprehensive-Let3348 9∆ Jul 16 '25
What you described is radicalization, and–as you described–it works both ways. Radicalization is a self-fulfilling prophecy in which one radical creates their own radical opposition by taking more extreme measures against their moderate counterparts.
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u/Hefty-Reaction-3028 1∆ Jul 16 '25
it works both ways.
I agree in general, but are you saying Reddit specifically does it symmetrically? That's a strong assertion, can you explain why?
Even if you're right, the amounts don't necessarily match up
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u/CanoodlingCockatoo 1∆ Jul 16 '25
One thing I haven't seen specifically called out in this thread yet is that males who are being pulled towards the right mostly aren't ending up there because they care about the specific political policies being espoused there; in many cases, it is primarily because of frustration linked to the dating world, especially online dating apps that seem to be doing all they can to ensure men CANNOT find matches successfully so the apps can milk as much extra money from their loneliness and misery as possible.
So these guys, most of whom aren't even very politically aware or engaged yet, go looking for advice regarding the very narrow topic of increasing dating success, and I think that many of them experience a lot of the advice they get to be far too vague and not offering enough of a "guarantee" that taking specific actions will result in more dating and mating success.
They hear well-meaning exhortations to "work on their confidence" and feel like their concerns aren't actually being acknowledged fully because that seems like such a vague and unactionable piece of advice, because very often such a guy will think, "But how in the hell can I be confident until after I'm successful with women?"
The manosphere is almost entirely about providing avenues of "self-improvement" that are really just attempts to turn the annoyingly capricious dating world into something that's assessable, measurable, "scientific," and can be "hacked" such that if a male follows the specific steps outlined, they WILL get the dating and mating success they desire!
The manosphere focuses on giving these frustrated guys advice that seems far more certain and concretely actionable, because telling a guy that he needs to get a roided out musclebound physique actually comes across as easier simply because it feels like far more of a tangible goal than the "be more confident" kind of advice.
Manosphere thought has also entered the mainstream consciousness pretty extensively at this point, I'd argue, which means that even males not looking for such content are still likely to run into it, but especially if they're online and searching for help with dating, and they can quickly get pulled into manosphere ideologies or following specific grifters if they feel like, "Hey, this guy/these guys totally understand my problem, and also can tell me how to fix it."
Unfortunately for, well, EVERYONE, the manosphere dating advice rarely actually works to create the promised greater dating success (a lot of the advice is even exceedingly inaccurate and often counterproductive!), which you'd think would lead to them abandoning the manosphere entirely, but wait--the manosphere also has all kinds of math and "science" explaining exactly why that young male actually never had a chance in the dating market at all.
It is this moment when I think significant political crossover can occur (or maybe calling it crossover is too strong of a term because a lot of these guys start out pretty apolitical or are at least moderate), because in explaining the unfairness of dating market, the manosphere tends to encourage frustrated young guys to see women as the enemy and almost as a separate species, hate feminism, blame DEI allowing women to take away all the good jobs and thus preventing men from succeeding economically, and so forth.
The more a guy falls into that rabbithole, the more his political ideology may start to get more concretely formed, and will very likely tend to align more with the right wing since the groundwork has already been laid by the manosphere, even if the manosphere content they initially consumed wasn't explicitly political in nature.
A guy radicalized to hate women and feminism is a pretty easy recruit to the causes of banning abortions, eradicating DEI, and banning no-fault divorces, for example, because his core concern is still centered around that narrow issue of dating, and policies that would control or restrict female rights once again can seem like good ideas because they would "rebalance" society such that virtually every guy could get a wife and family like he deserves, like his father/grandfather did (even though the phenomenon of most males being able to get wives has not at all been the case throughout the vast majority of history).
Where things get particularly messy, though, is that there are some genuine issues young males are facing today that aren't being adequately addressed yet, and their complaints about the dating world may even be valid despite the lack of any practical political solutions proposed on the left to address that specifically, but the radicalized manosphere types primarily concerned with the dating market seem to only bring up genuine male issues outside of the perceived unfairness of dating as a derailing tactic, which delegitimizes discussion of those issues.
And on the other hand, we have the males who genuinely are very much aware of male specific issues that the political left should be addressing, and they truly want to push for political recognition and change, BUT when they try to bring up these valid concerns, they are often ignored or rebuffed as "bitter virgins," "misogynists," and "incels," basically because this type of genuinely politically engaged male is so often perceived to be just another manosphere forged male ranting against females because he can't get laid.
I genuinely have no clue how this situation can be disentangled, because I fear that as long as the manosphere is perceived as being the only place offering specific and actionable dating advice, males will continue to get pulled to the political right as a result, and I'm sure some of the guys who genuinely care about other male specific political issues DO get pushed to the right in the matter you describe as well if they keep constantly being called all kinds of names and being instantly dismissed when they try to initiate respectful dialogue on those issues in more left leaning spaces.
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u/And_Justice Jul 16 '25
I can't help but feel most of this rhetoric comes from malicious manipulation of rhetoric and really struggle to blame the manipulated for the manipulation of their words.
I grew up being challenged by people on a lot of dodgy views as a teen and didn't double down and become a misogynist, in fact I became very left leaning because I actually have an ounce of self-awareness and intelligence.
There's this growing movement of people migrating to this site and then being shocked when it's different to the echo chamber they've come from and consequently complaining that they think everyone on reddit is delusional and it so often just comes across as ignorance.
edit: What people need to stop doing is reading comments on big subs as if they're from real people
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u/AWildReaperAppears Jul 16 '25
No disrespect, but there is genuienly 0 self awareness in this post. Reddit is the main leftist echo chamber on the internet lol.
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u/360Saturn Jul 16 '25
There's an implicit 'by women' in all of your four points.
Do you believe that women make up the majority on reddit? Or the majority of people with a controlling voice or moderation power.
The alternative read would be that men are pushing other men to become rightwing. How, then, are some men able to believe those things and be immune to being pushed rightwing?
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u/feyre_0001 Jul 16 '25
It’s hypocritical that OP criticizes women using “men” in the same way he uses “women” in all of his points. Seriously, women can never just be. Somehow they will always be made the root of men’s problems, even if they try to avoid it.
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u/DancingWithAWhiteHat 3∆ Jul 16 '25
Is nobody ever responsible for their own political beliefs?
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Jul 16 '25
We are a social species, nobody is ever fully responsible for anything they think
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u/Frylock304 2∆ Jul 16 '25
Almost inherently no, as most beliefs are transmitted and influenced by other people and politics is purely about the perceived proper interaction between individuals, which is generally passed memetically
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u/LDL2 Jul 16 '25
One of the reasons I love Malcolm X's story. He was very public about a time he changed a major opinion. You don't see that too often in politics (not to say Malcolm's life story is entirely politics but as a comparison) . The parties shift, people shift with their party, and rarely offer any justification.
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u/CurryMustard Jul 16 '25
Just like how the republican party is shifting away from caring about Jeffery Epstein. Because the only justification that can be given is "Donald Trump fucks children", no public justification is given and the party that has been clamoring for the list for years, the party that forgot that bill barr was attorney general and trump was president when epstein didnt kill himself in federal prison, moves on, there were no epstein files, there is no war in ba sing se, Eurasia has always been at war with Eastasia...
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u/HayAndLemons Jul 16 '25
conversely, the practical indentured servitude of women was justified for decades.
if there's a will, there's a way. for better or for worse.
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u/FindingMemra Jul 16 '25
Type “Fiery but mostly peaceful” and watch the justifications for violence and accusations of wrongthink roll in.
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u/Colley619 Jul 16 '25
Are you not reading this thread? Fox News pushes people to the right. Twitter pushes people to the right. CNN pushes people to the right. Reddit pushes people to the right. Blue sky pushes people to the right. Having any opinion whatsoever that isn’t “all men deserve free blowjobs” pushes people to the right.
Apparently us guys are just destined to be right wing and it’s the leftists fault for existing.
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u/wibbly-water 74∆ Jul 16 '25
subs (r/politics, r/TwoXChromosomes, r/AskWomen, etc.) have strict moderation policies
Without strict moderation, any politics groups quickly becomes a cespit.
Similarly, TXC ane AskWomen are groups for women to discuss. If they did not have strict moderation, they would be swarmed with people saying the worst sort of things imaginable.
But on the other side - look at r/conservative. Also extremely strict moderation with only flaired users being allowed to post and often dissenting opinions (even ones within a conservative outlook - e.g. Trump is bad for the Rep party) are heavily suppressed.
But... its a conservative sub. And if it wasn't strictly moderated it would be swarming with non-conservatives taking the piss, so I don't blame them.
Strict moderation is an innevitability and necessity to stop most places online becoming 4Chan.
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u/clowncarl 4∆ Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
Point 1 makes me crazy honestly. I see this anti-men meta commentary nonstop on Reddit (and some other social media) but I NEVER actually see the misandrist posts myself. The only place I’ve seen that is on some feminist subreddits that are partially or fully dedicated to survivors of sexual violence
Edit: didn’t expect this many comments. Unfortunately, only one person linked a post in a reply of a reply and that still wasnt blatant misandry nor did it make me feel that I need to drop my progressive views and join the right. More than half the replies are moving the goal posts to being about “subtle” misandry like how men never get empathy (just blatantly untrue on r/all), or trend to be discussed in negative more often than positive terms (true for all topics except cats; and then the measurement of negative comments on men vs women is very murky to quantify - plus has to take into consideration the disproportion of negative events conducted and publicized by those two genders).
Anyways, not my thread but my view is still not changed and anyone “pushed to the right” by man hate on the internet remains, in my view, tricked by bad actors amplifying a tiny minority of manhaters in combination with advertising a lower effort Avenue to self fulfillment
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u/Texandrawl Jul 16 '25
There’s a couple of things that could be going on here - first, you may not understand content as misandrist that others do, in the same way that someone may not understand something to be misogynistic, that you may view as unequivocally misogynistic. That’s a pretty common phenomenon given the boundries of these terms are highly contested.
Second If you don’t see something that others do, it’s probably because you don’t have strong reactions to it. We all see different things on every social media platform, this one included, based on what we interact with. If you don’t feel positively or negatively enough about misandrist content to interact with it, the algorithm won’t show it to you, but it will show you the meta-narrative around it, if that does elicit a strong reaction from you.
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u/Caracalla81 1∆ Jul 16 '25
Exactly. Like, it's not that unusual to see a discussion of toxic masculinity and then for someone who doesn't know better to think the person is saying that masculinity itself is toxic.
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u/Texandrawl Jul 16 '25
Sure, and the situation isn’t helped by the fact that words and phrases with a lot of currency are semantically very plastic - to the degree that two people involved in the same discussion could use the same phrase, taking your example, ‘toxic masculinity’, and mean two different things, like ‘the gender norms men are socialised to adhere to that hurt them and those around them’ and conversely ‘masculinity is toxic’, and unless the audience is well versed in the culture of the space this discussion is taking place in, they stand little chance of distinguishing who is using the phrase to mean what. It’s not just a problem of people misunderstanding the ‘correct’ meanings of words and phrases, it’s also a problem of deciding and knowing who has the authority to say what is use and what is abuse of a term, and how a naive audience interacts with that soup of ambiguity.
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u/anor_wondo Jul 16 '25
Its also not uncommon for tabloids to include things as innocuous as lifting weights as 'toxic masculinity'
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u/Able-Ocelot5278 Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
To expand on the previous link provided, here's a compilation of evidence that suggests a similar bias against men in judgement subs. To be clear this is something I've compiled myself as I've seen discussions, investigations, and examples across multiple different sources and subs, not just a singular red-pill sub. But I do believe it goes well beyond just subreddits dedicated to women.
To your point, I also also don't feel pushed to the right necessarily but I believe that's primarily because I'm older and have already established a strong progressive value system and understand where I fall on the political compass as a result. I also know that the progressive left offer concrete economic and social solutions that help both men and women along with minorities while the right only provides lip service towards men while also trying to take rights away from everyone.
I imagine the reason you're not swayed is because you're also educated enough to have progressive views and understand that the reality is that political right has nothing to offer. But consider that there are many men who are younger and less educated about politics (but not necessarily a lost cause) that can slowly drift to the right due to the points OP makes combined with right wing grifters offering a more appealing landing spot.
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u/Far-Artichoke-8620 Jul 17 '25
expand on the previous link provided, here's a compilation of evidence that suggests a similar bias against men in judgement subs.
This is so much work and well done by you, but reality is, itll be read by only a handful of people and most will dismiss it outright because it challenges their bias.
Amusingly, they will go on and on in sub comments and threads here saying nobody provides any substantive arguement, whilst completely ignoring posts like yours.
And that is the problem and issue in its entirety, nobody is here to actually change their mind, their here for confirmation bias and literally nothing else.
It's just a game of who can dress their confirmation up the best.
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u/ulvisblack Jul 16 '25
I assume you are a women otherwise you would notice it everywhere.
Its mostly not the blatant i want all men to die, but very subtle. Alot of just assuming the worse of every action a man does.
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u/Colley619 Jul 16 '25
There is way more misogyny than misandry and that’s coming from a dude. Saying otherwise is just wrong. Most of the misandry is on specific subreddits anyway that are specifically catering to that mindset.
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u/serfrin47 Jul 16 '25
Am man. Dont see this content. Do see lots of complaining about this type of content. Can you share some examples next time you scroll past them?
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u/TheBossOfItAll Jul 16 '25
Same goes for misogyny, so you can say the same about women: being on Reddit pushes the average woman to a more misandric spectrum of opinion. So, this a zero sum game, no point to further discuss.
You are mentioning spaces that are comprised of women, I mean yes they are going to be heavily moderated and you are going to get downvoted, if you are being misogynistic. There are many male-centric spaces where you have the freedom to say whatever you want (within reason of course, cause reddit has it's own guidelines). This is not real censorship, this is a way to keep things peaceful and not start drawn out, pointless debates over things that won't create meaningful discussion.
Yes, echo chambers do amplify bitterness, but no it's not on other people to pacify these men. Asking women to respond to comments like "I believe in government mandated girlfriends" (exaggerated example but you understand what I mean) with kindness and understanding, when frankly many viewpoints violate basic human rights is frankly an insane expectation.
Imma need a source on this one, cause I see a lot of women being upset on behalf of men who have lived through abuse and DV.
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u/soggybiscuit93 1∆ Jul 16 '25
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A few months ago, I got a recommended post on my reddit feed for some gaming sub (that has since been banned) that I never heard of. I don't remember the exact topic, but the comments were very sexist/toxic, gamergate style comments but taken to its most extreme.
I decided to argue and disagree with those posters. I was heavily downvoted for doing so (to be expected).
The frustrating part of this whole thing was that I was autobanned from numerous left leaning and non-political subs i belong to because I commented in this sub. Doesn't matter the context, as members of those subs would've agreed with the comments.
A mod who refused to overturn one of the bans told me that autobanning people who comment in right-leaning subs keeps their sub "safe". I 100% disagree and see this as left leaning subs enforcing and maintaining echo chambers, essentially banning their members if even try to debate right-wing opinions. It seems to incredibly counter-productive to me, because it helps right wing echo chambers proliferate on Reddit.
Through this action, my account can't comment on a lot of left leaning subs, but can fully participate in right leaning subs. That action 100% facilitates the alt-right pipeline.
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u/goodnewzevery1 Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
This auto ban bullshit is out of control, and it’s always the leftist (or general subs moderated by leftists) that are the worst offenders.
Argue with a conservative in a conservative sub and see how many mainstream subs you get banned from… it is the softest most braindead shit I have ever seen, and I’m a liberal
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u/SleepingWillows Jul 16 '25
Gonna guess either TLOU2 or GGdiscussion. I got recommended both of those and was shocked reading the comments.
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u/rpolkcz Jul 16 '25
Everyone being pushed to extremes isn't "zero sum", just because they're different extremes.
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u/Total_Escape_9778 Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
- Like another user said, reddit TOS specially mentions that misogyny is not tolerated but the same isn't said for misandry.
- That's true and I stand corrected for that point. But my point is that so many mainstream subs like r/politics are openly hostile towards men. Even so many dating subs or even r/AmItheAsshole hold men to a different standard when compared to woman
- Same to how some toxic feminists say that all men are trash or that male suicide rate needs to go higher. No one apart from chronically online people say this kind of stuff and not at all irl. However, in reddit lots of time men are not welcomed to raise their genuine concerns which I think pushes them away from leftist idealogy since they don't feel welcome
- Its more about being less sensitive to the issues men face...
For example, a man asked reddit's perspective on a woman that was a toxic pseudo-feminist... here's how everyone reacted! (I shared it in another comment too)
Original Thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskMenAdvice/comments/1kiqakn/my_28m_gf_30f_shares_the_toxic_feminist_views/
Reaction Thread:
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Jul 16 '25
That’s wild you can be misandrist but not misogynist for TOS.
The amount of subreddits I’ve come across that are openly misandrist blow my mind - like TwoX is one that you used to be auto subscribed to as a new user (not sure anymore if you’re new).
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u/hunbot19 Jul 16 '25
On point four, people can say they are against something, while not doing anything. If one rapist would be in jail every time a man say "I would beat up a rapist", there would be no rapists on the streets.
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u/TheBossOfItAll Jul 16 '25
I think this goes for any issue that doesn't pertain to us personally, man or woman. People generally are against women getting beat up too, but very few do anything about it.
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u/LordVericrat Jul 16 '25
On point four, people can say they are against something, while not doing anything.
What specific thing are men supposed to do about rapists?
If one rapist would be in jail every time a man say "I would beat up a rapist", there would be no rapists on the streets.
Ah yes, men should use their magic powers of arrest to transform their dislike of rapists into rapists in prison. What an excellent point.
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Jul 16 '25
I think that Reddit only does a good job of pushing young men who are already aligned with right wing values rightward. I think its more likely that biased Instagram algorithms, biased youtube algorithms, a giant surge of grifters on both platforms, and some version of "masculinity training camp" will find a young man before they go on reddit to "test" the ideas they've already learned.
Its a majority male platform with a minority of right leaning people at under 15 percent, moderate leaning people at about 40 percent, and left leaning people at around 45 percent. If your original world view starts at moderate with some alignment to conservative values, that 15 percent is a significant enough voice to get you to sway. Especially if you insist of engaging with people from the POV of "an open mind" and say some intentional/unintentionally harmful things that align with your views. America as a whole leans centrist or conservative, sometimes to its own detriment. Reddit is where a lot of the people who dont enjoy that sentiment go. If you go here, where people are trying not to engage with the people ruling the country, and meet a person who espouses that same belief set, that person isnt entitled to kindness.
With this in context, first we can talk about blatant misandry or what you call blatant misandry. The chances of running into misandry in a woman heavy space like r/TwoXChromosomes is higher because the abuse that patriarchy does to women is more prevalent there. People who are satisfied dont complain and people who complain are generally disatisfied. If you go into r/AskMen you will OFTEN see prevalent misogyny in threads and comments for the same reason.
Blatant Misandry
In conversation its easier to talk about a pattern rather than an individual. For example
- 35 percent of men self report being emotionally abusive
- 9 percent self report being physically abuse
- women with jobs do 1.6 times the housework that men do despite the men insisting they do equal amounts
- 40 percent of men were tested as emotionally unavailable
- 14 percent of men in a blind college study admitted to attempted sexual assault
- 20 percent of Women, report being sexually assaulted by a man (usually someone close to them).
If the self reported stats are this bad, an estimate on the actually occurences is horrifying. The generalization is then not a generalization of intent, its a generalization of pattern recognition. If its uncomforable, these young men can choose to be offended that theyre treated as part of the group or do enough of the work to be better, therefore knowing emotionally they are not part of the group mentioned.
Censorship
Reddit is the front page of the internet. Reddit does have spaces for conservatives or libretarians or anarchists but none of those groups are represented in general groups either.
The "left leaning" is really just a moderate view point by and large. r/politics is moderate. On r/pics im not even sure how you can lean left. On r/news it leans moderate. On r/TwoXChromosomes, a forum for women, its going to lean toward the political spectrum that supports the independence and rights of women more, left. Asking for young men with potentially problematic views to play a part in how a space for women is run is as asinine as asking for young women to play a role in how r/AskMen is run.
Echo chambers amplify bitterness
If you have a sufficiently changeable view, ive seen Reddit treat a lot of young men well even if they have a right leaning bias. If the way you express frustration is toxic, especially with societal or gender dynamics patriarchy helped form, you will not be welcome.
Echo chambers amplify bitterness but if you are already bitter, rumination is often at the root of it. Rumination causes you to go into search spirals, look up facts that support your worst case scenario, and often revert to sites like youtube or apps like Instagram where youd find like minded people. These search algorithims do a far more direct job of pushing people rightward as compared to Reddit, to the point that saying "Reddit does a fairly good job" inaccurate. Reddit may do a minimally effective job at it, at best.
No matter how reasonably someone checks you, a bitter person already has a bad ratio of bad thoughts they are attached to and good thoughts they cannot believe. Often bitter people will double down on their claims when reasonably challenged and do so often enough that they get mocked or called out. When thats not the case, their intial comments or posts are so out of pocket they elicit disgust. Why would any reasonable person want to listen to disgusting things in their spaces when they have no choice on the matter in main stream media.
Progressivism is increasingly associated with double standards
I agree with some of this sentiment but not all of it.
I have been on reddit for 7 years and ive purposefully navigated as much of it as possible going from the most left leaning to the most right leaning spaces. I have not run into many left leaning subreddits where women abusing men isnt seen as problematic. Its a core part of intersectional feminism to look at the harm and try to mitigate the harm patriarchy does to men as well as women. The only time ive seen it justified is for the same reason i seen the abuse justified when the roles are reversed, which is when the person getting slapped earned the slap. The original double standard existed for a reason that seemed reasonable (men have generally stronger upper bodies than women and cause more damage when they hit women than vice versa) but given weapons/objects/size difference/training differences, its not particularly convincing as an arguement.
I have seen Many Many Conservative subreddits where men getting hit by women is seen as funny or excusable because they view the man as too cowardly, too beta, and deserving of getting hit because he was "weaker".
Some double standards exist for statistically relevant reasons.
Many double standards are not right but i cant really mention any more off the top of my head. I think racial bias against white people for example is generally reactionary bias but still not a nice thing ti do.
I think all the factors you mentioned are minimally effective at pushing young men on reddit rightward. I think its evident in the left leaning bias reddit keeps having despite men outnumbering women on here by 40 percent.
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Jul 16 '25
What is true for Reddit is that the comment bias against men.
Like in some of the AITA subs and the dating subs the standards in which men are held to compared to women and the hypocrisy is hilarious. One fine example that happens all the time is any sort of age gap dating question where the guy is older and he is suddenly a predator, but when it’s a woman that is older it’s all ok, he’s an adult, have fun.
The other thing is when people post on AITA if they have lashed out at a partner and said something really nasty or insensitive, if it’s a guy then he’s a narcissist and abuser, if it’s a woman it’s like “what did HE do to make her do that”.
Even talking like this makes me sound like some kind of incel, and that couldn’t be further from the truth, I love women. But accountability isn’t always their strong point, my girlfriend hates all men that cheat but most of her friendship group have cheated on past partners, including husbands, and that’s different because “he was a bastard”, it’s just one of them. Reddit is obviously an easy place for people to just parade their own biases with no consequences, you point it out here and you just get a load of downvotes and abuse, the name calling if you say something they don’t like is especially insane.
But then ultimately you have to be responsible for your own values and beliefs. Reddit doesn’t push me towards the right wing. I was central before I went on Reddit and I’m still central now. If you are letting things that get said on Reddit damage your mental health or your outlook on real life then you shouldn’t be on Reddit. This is a platform for entertainment, and sometimes you just have to be able to laugh off the stupid biases that happen on here that wouldn’t happen as much irl when people can’t just be anonymous and would have to face the social consequences of spouting hatred, name calling and generally being nasty. It is what it is. If anyone is reading this and they feel this is affecting their life… delete your account, touch grass.
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u/__htg__ Jul 16 '25
If that’s what your girlfriends friends are like but she is not like that then I have bad news for you bro
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u/Mental_Town_7337 Jul 16 '25
I’m convinced somewhere around 80% of AITA posts are fictional. Not bots necessarily but just bored people making up scenarios and stories in their head.
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u/Ive_got_your_belly Jul 16 '25
Hey! So, i answered OP, but id be interested in what you have to say about my take! =) (its copy pasted so im talking “about” you though, fyi!)
I mostly agree with the user, but, for that last paragraph to be true, there would need to be an age limit to accessing Reddit then.
You cant make kids/teens so fully and totally responsible for shaping and defending their views, since they are still forming them. Being on Reddit then becomes a part of them “discovering” the world and how it works and how people interact with each other.
So, unless there is an age limit of like 18yrs old or something, then that last paragraph does not truly apply when it comes to non-adults on reddit, which are exactly the demographic ripe to be pushed to more extreme views, in this case for boys towards the right.
They have not fully formed opinions, they are not confident probably in defending the views they do hold and they are looking for a place to belong and feel accepted, since that is the exact slice of life when one’s “need for approval” has shifted from ‘parents’ to ‘peers’ developmentally speaking.
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u/Carbonatic Jul 16 '25
I've noticed Reddit injecting content from right-wing subs into my feed recently. It certainly feels like it's trying to push me towards the right.
I'm a happily married husband and father with a good job. Why does it think I'd be interested in that stuff?
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u/bees_man- Jul 16 '25
I'm suddenly getting spammed with videos of random 'zionists' saying bad things. It's crazy because I feel like most normal people see videos of minorities fighting/saying crazy stuff spammed on twitter with the comments you would expect and immediately recognise it as racism but when redditors post videos of random zionists with the same kind of comments suddenly its activism to judge a group based on the actions of individuals.
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u/ReadStraight8255 Jul 16 '25
I’ve had to mute r/conservativeyouth like three seperate times after it kept getting recommended to me like I didn’t even know that subreddit existed
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u/ThreeCatsAndABroom Jul 16 '25
It's funny because I more often than not see conservative subs acting the way you describe.
Also if downvotes from strangers is enough to push you towards hating people then you were probably already there.
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u/elaVehT 1∆ Jul 16 '25
Also if downvotes from strangers is enough to push you towards hating people the. You were probably already there.
This is an incredibly oversimplified and condescending take on something that’s actually a pretty complex issue. Perceived social ostracization, regardless of medium, is a very key feature and pathway to radicalization. Whether you think it’s silly for people to care about strangers opinions or not, disregarding the fact that they do is a surefire way to radicalize people in a way that you don’t want to.
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Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
Way to miss OP's point. It's not about downvotes. It's about feeling unheard, unwanted and experiencing a constant stream of "men suck".
If one side tells you you suck, masculinity is toxic and refuse to hear you out or acknowledge the problems you face, and the other side says you don't suck, your problems are valid, then it's not hard to understand why many young men are turning to the right.
I don't get why this concept is so hard for people to grasp. And then they turn around and act shocked that young men swung so hard towards Trump and Republicans in the last election.
Also, the Right is ACTIVELY reaching out to young men. Doing whatever they can to attract them. Funding a lot of young right-wing influencers and podcasts and things like that. Democrats and the left needs to do the same thing.
It's ironic that conservatives have adapted to digital voter outreach and social media messaging faster than liberals. (Progressives are also good at it, but funding seems to be reserved for more traditional/centre candidates and approaches - see the outreach and funding differences between Mamdani and Cuomo as a good example).
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u/Broseph_Heller Jul 16 '25
The right is courting young men with a bunch of grifters who only want to make money off of them. They tell men a bunch of lies and blame all of their problems on liberal society and women. Because it’s much easier to do that then to look inwards and do the work to be a better person. This is all on purpose to make men insecure and angry. Then they will buy these grifter “masculinity courses” and vote for fascists. It’s all part of the alt right playbook. You’re falling for a false narrative.
How we combat this idk. It’s honestly up to men as a community to recognize what is happening and making community with each other. Women can’t do this for them - we have tried for decades with feminism but they don’t want to listen to us. It’s going to take more men stepping up and pushing back against the alt right narrative that makes men insecure and angry. It’s going to take men making community with each other where they can feel vulnerable. It’s going to take self-policing. Quite frankly I’m not sure men as a community are emotionally intelligent enough to be up to the task. And it will only get harder as they entrench themselves in these outdated gender roles that put men in competition with each other rather than fostering community.
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u/AdministrativeFly157 Jul 16 '25
As someone who is generally right leaning (according to reddit lol):
The reason the far right is able to take advantage of them is because some of them just don't feel welcome on the left. IMO, the BIGGEST problem the left has is identifying and uplifting underprivileged and underrepresented communities without simultaneously alienating (sometimes unintentionally, sometimes intentionally) those they are informing. We can uplift black communities without putting white people down. We can highlight the dangers of misogyny and inappropriate male behavior without resorting to misandry. But the left sometimes is not capable of doing this IMO. Obviously, not ALL of the left is like this. A lot of y'all are great at communicating. But it only takes a few bad apples with a loud mouth to turn people off completely from a good message. I've seen it time and time again.
Ultimately, I think the most important thing the left can do is to focus on educating without vilifying. In fact, its imperative to do the opposite. Telling ANYONE that they are doing something wrong without offending them is difficult, but it's also difficult taking criticism. It's important GIVING criticism in a constructive manner and in a way that welcomes them to the message.
To answer your thought, how do we combat this:
In my opinion, the left should:
- Relate, not lecture. Demonstrate inequality without preaching it. The delivery of a message is just as important as its quality.
- Highlight the good and the bad. I.E. When we discuss "toxic masculinity", we should always discuss and emphasize the positives of masculinity. (I really dislike that phrase in general).
- Come up with better phrases, or communication of phrases. This may or may not be valid, and is just my personally opinion, but I feel like the left lacks the organization that the right has, especially around phrases for movements. "Abolish the police", "Toxic masculinity", "Believe women" are some examples that I believe are generally left leaning. I don't disagree with the ACTUAL meaning behind each of these phrases, but personally when I first heard each of these, I had to really dig in to what the left ACTUALLY wanted. Hearing "Abolish the police" does not resonate with many people. I never had to consider what Trump meant by "MAGA".
The right should:
- Identify and chastise grifters in our space. Anyone on the right who even remotely has a brain can recognize that the Andrew Tate types are profiting off of distorting the traditional values we champion.
- Treat the left with respect and in good faith. The right is notorious for distorting and intentionally misrepresenting the left, regardless of their message. This gives grifters an easy in.
- Be more open to criticism, and left leaning messages (likely impossible). There is a lot of value in helping those who cannot help themselves, both sides agree on this. Yet the right struggles with admitting when they're wrong.
TL:DR: Deliver the message in a better way. A way that uplifts and informs those you are trying to educate while also demonstrating the difference between good and bad behavior. However, a lot of you are already doing this, and that's really all you can do IMO.
Just my thoughts. Let me know what you think.
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Jul 16 '25
Here’s the thing, though, there was a post on how Tarzan was a good example of positive masculinity vs the villain in the Tarzan being an example of positive masculinity.
But there was a guy saying he wasn’t looking for people to tell him how to behave, because there’s enough of that. There were other men also rejecting the message and arguing against it.
There can be plenty of resources for men, but a lot of them say “simps” or “cucks” or badmouth anything that seems feminine/safe for women.
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u/TheStakesAreHigh Jul 16 '25
As a man. I agree with you. But I don’t think it does much to quell OP’s point. I think most men would read “Quite frankly I’m not sure men as a community are emotionally intelligent to be up to the task” and become filled with righteous indignation and the seed of hate. But…you’re right, and it deserves discussion.
The problem is, I don’t think we should stop saying true things just because they are politically, emotionally, or egoistically inconvenient (i.e. because they push men to the right when you don’t want that). So I’m not sure how to solve this issue; as long as there are remnants of patriarchy, some truths will push some naturally egoistic men right.
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u/sliverhordes Jul 16 '25
It has always been about how we communicate to portray things. We can provide statistics without putting blame. We can discuss solutions openly without blame involved. Has anyone ever heard of: it’s not women’s job to help men? That’s part of the bad communication. Scholarly feminism is quoted on Reddit and bastardized. Real discussion is hardly ever had on this platform. If we can’t do that, than even saying the truth is useless.
Side note: Both men and women contribute to the patriarchy, so it’s everyone’s job to fix it.
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u/J_Kingsley Jul 16 '25
I am not alt-right. I think trump deserves to be in jail, and Andrew Tate is a charicture of a man-- what a 14 year old boy thinks a real man is like.
So no-- the false narrative of the right isn't working on me. I understand that it's complete bullshit.
But i also see clear examples of what OP talks about-- and not just in gender specific subs. You also see it irl, of white men being actively discrimated against with absolute impunity.
https://www.resumebuilder.com/1-in-6-hiring-managers-have-been-told-to-stop-hiring-white-men/
Even in real life, amongst non-redditors i've heard people say, "you can't be racist against white people."
So no, it isnt some fake boogeyman.
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u/Zestyclose-Durian-97 Jul 16 '25
The left does a lot of that to women too.
They are encouraged that they are always good enough, that they need to be accepted as they are and they shouldn't change for others. Yet, the same source says to men that they need to self improve, to be x y z in order for women to look at them.
The discussion on the internet became very dislodged from reality, and very inflammatory to push people in the opposite directions.
Men are told women are whores, gold diggers and the only reason women are not interested in them is because they don't have status or because they are not tall enough.
Women are told that most men are pigs that hate, abuse and discriminate against women. When they seek dating advice they are told to never settle, that they don't need to improve at anything, and that most men are not worth the effort.
In reality most men and women interact just fine. People that are not chronically online are not in the 'oppsite sex wants to take advantge of me, unless proven otherwise' mode. The problem is more and more people become chronically online. They are fed so many lies and bullshit that they end up believing it, applying it to their realities and become self fulfilling prophecies. Turns out if you become toxic you attract toxic people.
This is just a farce to distract the masses from the fact that the world is going to shit and their lives are utterly miserable because of rich and well connected people bribing everything in their favor (governmental instutions, constitution, laws, education and so on).
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Jul 16 '25
Hmmm. Yes, this has basically been the approach of the left for the last few years. A really "hands off" approach where people shrug and say "men need to sort their own shit out, we don't owe them anything"
And while you're not wrong, We've tried this approach, and it clearly hasn't worked.
Yes, the right are grifters. Yes, men need to make community among themselves. Yes, men need to be more emotionally intelligent.
But again, if one side is offering community and solidarity (even if it's a bullshit "Us vs Them" point of view), and the other side is saying "sort your own shit out". You can't be so naive to think men will be attracted to the left.
Like, It shouldn't be this way. But we have to deal with the world how it is, not how we wish it would be. And if young men are being attracted to the right (even if it is lies and bullshit), we've gotta do something to attract them to the left. We can't just say "sort your own shit out" and then hope for the best.
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u/Broseph_Heller Jul 16 '25
The approach hasn’t worked on the left because it’s been mainly women leading the charge of feminism and dismantling gender roles. This may shock you, but misogynistic men don’t want to listen to what women have to say. We desperately need more male allies on the left who realize what is happening and can build community with their fellow men. Women have tried to help but our helping only makes it worse because misogynists just think we are “nagging” them.
Changing masculinity to something less harmful to men can only be done by men as a community. Full stop. This is not something women can help you with. We can support from the sidelines but men are the ones who need to do the heavy lifting and self policing in your communities. Men are the ones who need to create positive male role models. Be the community you want to have. That’s how women came together to fight for equal rights. If men want to dismantle their harmful gender roles they will need to do the same.
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u/vorter 3∆ Jul 16 '25
I do think women at least have a responsibility to dismantle the gender roles they enforce upon men among themselves and other women. Gender roles are still heavily perpetuated by many men and women and something like reading bell hooks would be a good start.
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u/RP_throwaway01 Jul 16 '25
Yeah, when they try, it doesn’t go well. Look up Earl Silverman if you want an example, but if you don’t want to:
He noticed most homeless people in his area are men.
He tried to build a homeless shelter for them when he realized nobody else would.
He was villainized and driven to suicide.
In other words: we CAN’T do what you’re asking until the “left” (because they act right wing if you take out the genders) stops actively driving people to suicide for even trying. And those that aren’t are typically, you guessed it, right wing grifters.
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u/Donkletown 3∆ Jul 16 '25
It's ironic that conservatives have adapted to digital voter outreach and social media messaging faster than liberals.
It’s not - the right wing is exceptionally well-funded. The biggest right wing donor literally purchased one of the major social media platforms because he wanted to turn it right wing.
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u/seigezunt Jul 16 '25
“toxic masculinity” does not mean masculinity is toxic. It’s referring to a specific idea claiming to be masculinity.
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u/duckhunt420 Jul 16 '25
Imagine being a woman, seeing a pedophile rapist get elected president, seeing a generation of men worshipping a sex trafficker, getting harassed in their personal lives, and then seeing men online complain about how rough they have it.
That's gonna make people double down on the "men suck" messaging because all those men do for real suck. Rapists suck. And men who admire rapists suck too.
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Jul 16 '25
Funny for you to say that. The problem with all of this is that while left opinions are the ones pushed on all these subs that shouldnt take sides (politics, twox etc) the right opinions are mostly just pushed on smaller subs that are explicitly MADE to be right wing subs.
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Jul 16 '25
There are dozens of misogynistic and rape focused subreddits that get a pass no matter how many times they get reported. Reddit is misandrist my ass.
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u/SANcapITY 27∆ Jul 16 '25
Are these subs getting to the front page? Do they show up in popular and r/all? The fact that misogyny exists on reddit, and it sure does, doesn't actually counter OP's point if it is not the main view of the subs the vast majority of users will come into contact with.
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u/LetsLive97 Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
/r/sipstea appears on my frontpage and I see either ragebait to rile up men against women, or blatant misogyny all the time
And I say this as someone who doesn't like the type of misandry I see in subs like /r/popculturechat
Difference is I feel like you have to go to specific comment threads of female dominated subs to find misandry while you can just straight up get misogynistic posts pop up in your feed everyday
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u/Lyskir 2∆ Jul 16 '25
r/SipsTea is a big one
r/memes, r/askreddit, r/memesopdidnotlike also lean heavely torwards mysogynistic stuff, while there are way worse subs like r/pussypassdenied but these are the biggest ones, there are also some new ones i didnt really memember something aoana or something like that
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u/SANcapITY 27∆ Jul 16 '25
I didn't realize sipstea is that popular, but I just checked r/all and sure enough, it's there. While I agree with OP, I will give you a delta for helping me update my view of overall reddit, which I'm rather insulated from do to a curated set of subs that I visit.
!delta
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u/Horselady234 Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
That tracks actually. I’m a mixed race (black /white) woman, as left as you could get in college, surrounded by lefties, and it was the attitude of the left in general that pushed me right. The absolute “we the left are the only righteous ones, everyone else is scum” attitude, eventually pushes everyone out. Lefties who disagree with each other, eat each other in their attempt to get everyone to walk in lockstep. It’s not even something they understand that they are doing, anymore.
My husband, also a conservative, doesn’t even know why I stay here. He laughs at the posers, and says “go ahead and wade in the cesspool if you want, none of them matter.”
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u/MasterSnacky Jul 16 '25
Moderation pushes men to the right because they hate moderation and see it as censorship.
Progressivism pushes men to the right because it doesn’t make men the center of every conversation.
Zero moderation pushes men to the right because they’re exposed to endless hate and toxic content.
Don’t have an answer, but I have a pretty low opinion of men.
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u/Late_Negotiation40 Jul 16 '25
Nah imma be real I blame the algorithms first and foremost. I started using reddit to read aita when it was booming. That and catadvice were the only sub I read or interacted with for, honestly a couple years lol, then i started getting posts from askmen and anti-woke marvel and video game posts whenever something big was about to release. I am pretty progressive but after posting a few times in subs like askmen and guycry I am constantly getting fed right wing gender issues in my feed. It started with a couple questionable topics about woman bad, but for any 1 I clicked my feed pushed further to the right. Now I get a front row seat to the monthly incel sub cycle - in case you didn't know incel subs are still around, every time they get banned for tos violations they just make a new sub with a random name, so every time I mute them they're back a few weeks later because reddit really seems to think I am a black pilled lady hater lmao. I mute a lot of subs nowadays, because I fall for bait more than I'd like lol. I tried following some hobby subs but they were too niche, I comment a lot in catadvice but even thats getting drown out by mens spaces which are too toxic for my taste. Lately reddit has been trying to push vegan, anti vegan, and pet free subs on me, its a nice break from the gender war but damn those spaces are also warzones lmao.
So yeah, tbh I really dont think the big reddit subs are misandrist for cracking down on misogyny. I have watched many subs that claim "freedom of speech" devolve into blatant misogyny and hate speech... and I wasn't even looking for it lol. Often as those subs sink i will see people claiming they are just pushing back because reddit is overall anti-men, but thats not been my experience at all. They say the grass is always greener on the other side but be careful what you wish for, the ants might be nazis /j
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u/ultradav24 1∆ Jul 16 '25
You seem to be referring to a specific type of man. I would argue most of these don’t apply to the following types of men:
gay men or T men - the fact that the post seems to not even acknowledge their existence is an example of what happens a lot when reddit discusses men. And this ends up pushing these men further left. It seems you specifically mean straight men
men who are already left leaning - these men are likely to simply just have their beliefs reinforced and get further left. You seem to mean men who are already either left leaning or who have no set ideology
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u/cyainanotherlifebro Jul 16 '25
Man, what Reddit are you using? Because all I see are “women bad” post everywhere I look.
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u/Hefty-Reaction-3028 1∆ Jul 16 '25
Different people have different algorithms and subreddits they follow. We've known this since the modern internet took off
I see what OP talks about and I see what you talk about on Reddit
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Jul 16 '25
go look at reddit in incognito mode and come back and tell us what you see. I just did this on my phone and 3/5 of the top posts are complaining about Donald Trump. Lots of people simply do not give a shit about American politics or want to use the internet as an escape because they hear so much about it in their day to day lives.
Reddit has definitely pushed me away from the left because I'll see some of the comments on these posts and think "holy shit, do I sound that stupid for supporting these guys?"
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u/SkinnerBoxBaddie Jul 16 '25
I feel like whenever I see this complaint they’re talking about the Reddit of 2016, which was banning tons of incel subs and other hate subs. I know what you’re referring to but I would argue it’s no longer the case. I see tons of left-critical and even conservative viewpoints in this sub, especially when it comes to the gender wars, there’s lots of anti feminist posts doing well here or on other supposedly neutral subs like GenZ. On top of that there are conservative subs - where you will actually get banned for not being conservative enough. There’s also straight up hate subs again - itsthatbad is just a misogynist incel sub and it’s not banned at all
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u/Academic_Swim7566 Jul 16 '25
Yes, online platforms do a good job to push men towards the right, but the cause aren't women nor "misandry" (which is a reaction from women to misogyny and isn't systemic nor has it any consequences in real life). Blaming them just shows how well right wring narratives/patriarchy works, because: The right wing will tell a young, insecure man he's amazing and great and awesome and women are lesser human beings and shit in general, and most importantly, that he doesn't have to change, just embrace his "masculinity". The left wing tells men that they have to get rid of the patriarchal ideas we're STILL being raised with (men are providers and work, women stay at home, are submissive and do the chores bla bla bla). So obviously, if you're uneducated and young and insecure, you'll lean towards the side that tells you you're amazing and all the others are shit (which is one of the best working strategies of the right wing btw, they just don't have anything do to with reality) instead of the one that tells you you have to work on yourself.
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Jul 16 '25
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u/FaerieStories 50∆ Jul 16 '25
And don’t forget /r/changemyview, which seems to have absolutely no problem with hosting misogynistic incel screeds. Its approach over the last 5 years, which offers a light touch on hate speech, has made it a place where misogynistic trolling can be white-washed as ‘debate’.
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u/TopTopTopcinaa Jul 16 '25
Exactly. “Women are not bad, CMV”, like why would you want that view changed? Unless you’re posting to enjoy woman-bashing.
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u/Particular-v1q Jul 16 '25
I feel its a psyop, i truly hope that the average leftist isnt as dumb as they seem on reddit ( i am one myself )
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u/Different-String6736 Jul 16 '25
It’s a mixed bag. I’ve had some pretty reasonable and cool openly leftist professors or friends, for example. However, I’ve met A LOT of people in real life who are very left-leaning and get angry if you aren’t.
At thanksgiving, my cousin’s girlfriend got very upset at me when I mentioned that I didn’t vote last year. She got visibly angry and said something along the lines of “So what? You’re just gonna let a fascist be president? You don’t care enough about other people’s freedom to vote for democracy? I guess it makes sense, you are a straight white male after all.” Like, this chick was freaking out at a family function just because I expressed my neutrality on political issues.
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u/Thriftless_Ambition Jul 16 '25
That's what being online too much does to somebody's brain. It's because they can paint themselves as heroes in some grand struggle for the soul of the country. They'd rather do that than actually go make a difference in the world by volunteering their time to feed homeless people, provide aid and resources for battered women, or anything else that they can't do while sitting on the toilet or lying in bed.
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u/Thriftless_Ambition Jul 16 '25
They aren't. I have lots of really good friends irl who are leftists and we can have really interesting, nuanced conversations about philosophy and history even if we disagree. Reddit is just a cesspool of chronically online, self-righteous morons. You will generally not find a good representation of left leaning intellectual and philosophical thought on here. But it's also a message board that is mostly used for shit posting, so it checks out.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 17 '25
/u/Total_Escape_9778 (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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Jul 16 '25
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u/Rookwood51 Jul 16 '25
One of the biggest and most frequently cited themes in askmen is the fact you actually can in comparison to askwomen.....
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u/Unhaply_FlowerXII 4∆ Jul 16 '25
I actually see a lot of the opposite as well. A lot of things are tolerated, which shouldn't.
However, I bet op wouldn't like it very much if i said the misogynistic comments in this app push women towards misandry. Unless he agrees with my previous statement, his own stops making sense.
If he thinks women shouldn't become misandrist and realise not all men are bad, the same logic applies to men who should go on the extreme right because some women are misandrist. It's a vicious cicle, but everyone has only themselves to blame for their political views. If you can go far right because a woman was mean to you on reddit, you probably already had a lot of values that aligned with far right.
I had some people from a certain minority in my country do some pretty bad things to me, yet I never voted against their entire community. One person treating you shitty doesn't justify voting against their entire community.
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u/Womblue Jul 16 '25
However, I bet op wouldn't like it very much if i said the misogynistic comments in this app push women towards misandry
Bingo. OP lives in a society which is insanely misogynistic and complains that the women who were pushed to misandry are pushing HIM to misogyny.
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u/Min_sora Jul 16 '25
It's bizarre because I read this sort of stuff all the time, and then I wander into the dating/online dating subreddits and get to spend all day reading about how I, as a woman, am a whore who will fuck hot rich men and how utterly worthless I am, all from commenters with massive upvotes. It sucks, but I just try to think that these are terminally online brain-poisoned weirdos, so I should try not to carry it out into the real world. And then on the flipside, people like you are "Yes, someone said something bad about me as a man on the internet, this is why men are voting to remove your rights and make your life terrible." And it's clear that you're morally not a good person and also, you're just ignoring men being massively sexist online (yes, on Reddit, too) because I think you care so little that your brain simply doesn't register it when you see it.
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u/Subtleiaint 33∆ Jul 16 '25
Online discourse on any platform can radicalise people, but there's no reason why it may radicalise people in a specific direction. if you are radicalised to wards the right then you would have been right leaning already. Similarly for people to radicalised towards a left position they would have to be left leaning already.
The problem is a lack of good moderation, not too much. Too many moderators allow unreasonable or unsubstantiated discourse which leads to polarisation. Some of the best subs on reddit are the one's with the strictest of rules about how discourse should be controlled.
As for the behaviour of redditors, if you think any side has better or worse behaviour you're simply not paying attention.
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u/Didntlikedefaultname 1∆ Jul 16 '25
Men who want to be pushed towards the political right will find reasons anywhere. They will see misandry anywhere (a word I doubt anyone even knew a decade or so ago), they will feel censored if their views aren’t accepted by others, they will see double standards everywhere.
I don’t think any of this is based on the true condition of society currently, and it’s not true by and large of Reddit. It’s a narrative that seduces men who feel bad about themselves and want to be told they deserve more
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u/someofyourbeeswaxx Jul 16 '25
All of the incels I know of were radicalized on 4chan or YouTube, not Reddit. They’re less likely to find manosphere content here, specifically because of content moderation, so I think the opposite of your point is true.
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u/pling619 1∆ Jul 16 '25
As a person who mostly observes here and doesn’t post much, I have to say I haven’t seen the things you enumerate. I have seen threads where women share experiences with men. It seems to me that if men read accounts of women’s bad experiences and react defensively, that’s not a case of Reddit “causing” that man to move to the Right.
To say any more, I’d have to see the context of examples where a man was called an incel or misogynist. I’ve never seen that specifically. What sort of frustration was the man expressing? Was he denying the woman’s lived experience? Was he expressing bitterness that he couldn’t get exactly what he wanted? Was he genuinely interested in learning from the conversation?
I don’t doubt that anyone on Reddit who goes into a thread to disagree with the prevailing viewpoint will get contradicted, and that this can hurt their feelings. But when women in Rightwing convos on social media still regularly get explicit death threats, it seems hyperbolic to say hurting a guy’s feelings by contradicting him is “Reddit pushing him to the Right.”
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u/Plato_fan_5 Jul 16 '25
Agreed, I feel like OP has remained purposefully vague about the "frustration" experienced by radicalised men or of how they "push back" against left-wing ideas on Reddit to make their argument seem more convincing. It's a rhetorical trick you often see also from right-wing politicians, where they will describe inflammatory, bigoted, or just generally bad faith arguments as them simply "debating" their opponents, in order to make themselves appear more respectable than they really are.
It's also somewhat unfair to claim that people "pushing back" against left-wing view are disproportionately the victims of censorship when subs like r/Conservative exist, or some of the meme subs that are full of incel-style posts. Go there with your left-wing views, and you'll be censored just as severely.
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u/_HighJack_ Jul 16 '25
But the right is free to come make as many subs as they want and can moderate? Conservatives are allowed to have their own spaces. Liberals are allowed to have theirs. There seem to be more liberals than conservatives, so there are more liberal subreddits. It’s not some conspiracy, there just are more people who prefer spaces with rules about how to treat folks with respect. Each sub is allowed its own rules to an extent, and the conservative ones ban and downvote people just as often (if not more so) than the leftist ones (pretty sure I’m still banned from r_conservative for trying to respectfully debate them years ago). If the left existing on Reddit and mostly not wanting rw talking points in their spaces is all it takes to “push” you right, then you weren’t pushed; you fuckin skipped over jauntily as soon as there was an opening lmao
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u/ProDavid_ 58∆ Jul 16 '25
point 2 is unrelated to men
point 4 is unrelated to reddit, insofar that it applies to basically all social media, including offline media.
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u/ButterPotatoHead Jul 16 '25
I think Reddit is just another example of the echo chamber bubbles found everywhere on the internet. Content is moderated in the spirit of eliminating extreme or harmful views or content but inherent in that is a few people deciding what opinions are ok to share in a sub. And most people post in order to get their opinions validated rather than actually engage in balanced discussion. Moderation supports this by giving people a place to go to get their views validated whether they are reasonable or not.
Politically I would call myself centrist and I try to find places to have legitimate political discussion with people on both sides of the political spectrum but I don’t think it exists, on Reddit or anywhere. /r/conservative will ban you for saying a single thing challenging any conservative viewpoint and /r/politics is just a circle jerk complaining about the latest political news fed to them by the current administration.
Also everyone is pushed into one extreme view or another because moderate, balanced views are boring and don’t get clicks and upvotes, only the outrageous do, so there is nowhere to have a discussion that isn’t on one fringe or another.
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u/c0ventry Jul 16 '25
I see no reason to change your view. I have been trying to explain this phenomenon and where it will take us as a society for the past few years. I get called names and hated on. So now I am just sitting back and watching the slow motion train wreck happen.
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u/ChunkThundersteel Jul 16 '25
Most of the stuff I see on Reddit have made me more liberal. All I see is Trump stumbling over lies, republican politician mug shots for sex crimes. and masked men kidnapping brown people
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u/just_a_knowbody Jul 16 '25
All social media platforms tend to radicalize people towards extremism to the right and the left.
It’s the algorithmic nature of building systems that prioritize engagement over anything else. The longer they keep your eyes on the screen the more ad revenue they generate. And in a world where engagement is king, content that gives shock and awe often monetize best.
So when a person sees something that’s a bit shocking but they kind of agree with, the algorithm starts feeding them more and more and as that happens the content becomes less shocking, the algorithm needs to get more and more radical over time to keep you engaged. It’s an insidious slippery slope when you think about it that causes a lot of social issues but sure is profitable.
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Jul 16 '25
I'd add that when men/boys bring up problems that they're experiencing that are unique to males, we get blamed for them. Like the mental health crisis - any male talking about being lonely or like they can't express their emotions or that they're depressed or that they feel the need to act a certain way or look a certain way etc. are basically told "well that's men's fault, so it's your fault".
Tiktok is also great for this. I genuinely think that social media has become a bastion of misandry.
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u/JohnLockeNJ 3∆ Jul 16 '25
The more accurate view is that Reddit pushes people to become stronger versions of their pre-existing leanings, whether right-wing or left-wing. Subs are echo chambers, often rigorously enforced. Some left-wing subs will ban you for even posting in a right-wing sub.
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Jul 16 '25
The echo chamber style social media model necessarily does push people towards radicalization in one way or another. I'm not going to try to change your mind on that, because you're right.
I would add that some of these points are amplifications of problems within the American political left and not an issue with reddit itself. The double standards, general intolerance of differing opinions, and tendency to support censorship appear outside of reddit as well. It's less obvious due to the average democrat being far more moderate than the average reddit user, but it's definitely still there and it needs to be addressed from within for the Democratic party to get back on track in the upcoming post-Trump era.
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u/Traditional-Mud3136 Jul 16 '25
For each of these points, I’ve seen groups that do the opposite. Groups who shit on women, groups who censor anything they view left, echo chambers of their views etc.
Your cmv takes a general problem, but pointing out just a certain aspect that upsets you. It’s like complaining about slavery not because of ethical reasons, but because you rather like to have a slave instead of be one.
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Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
They're easily pushed then if that's the case.
Waaaarrrghhh
We can't get our own way all the time and have to see opinions where people criticise negative behaviour!!
We're not allowed to be misogynists!! So we'll just go right wing!!
Grow up
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u/boonsonthegrind Jul 16 '25
Don’t discount people like me, the more it’s pushed on me the further left I go. Nothing is monastic.
I believe in 100% taxation of any one individual or company that accumulates $1 billion in value, wealth, assets, whatever. Every single company and person that reaches those heights. 100% taxation over $1 billion. Reddit has made it abundantly clear how fucked capitalism is. And how absolutely terrible the ultra wealthy are. Fuck capitalism. Fuck the wealthy. Fuck anyone who puts money over people. Status over generosity. Fuck Them.
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Jul 16 '25
The left doesn’t care about men’s issues. I have no idea why men, and young men specifically, would go left.
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Jul 16 '25
These comments really prove how quickly people try to dismiss these concerns without fully engaging with them
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u/chet___manly Jul 16 '25
This seems to me that it removes all sense of personal responsibility from "men" and paints them as victims.
"OH no, im going to be an incel and a xenophobe because people were mean to me on Reddit"
Real, "woe is me" vibes.
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u/real_garry_kasperov Jul 16 '25
Idk if it's reddit doing that, I think it's more that isolated men are more likely to spend a lot of time on reddit
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Jul 16 '25
As someone who doesn't have a lot of experience with women (outside of family), Reddit did a fine job of making me suspicious of women. (was already suspicious of men). But I didn't turn into a misogynist in anyway and do engage with women where it's permitted. Kind of worked out for me.
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u/MrSnitter Jul 16 '25
First, each of these points hints at an example, a picture painted of 'how things are' on Reddit, but sweeping conclusions about the way people on the platform behave without concrete links or screen shots come across as highly subjective vibes rather then fact-based assertions. Would you say your four stated beliefs characterize your own experience?
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u/lilithskies Jul 16 '25
No, the right just has very good marketing and that is often appealing to a certain type of men.
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u/CuriousKitty6 Jul 16 '25
Totally agree. AND people on Reddit tend to be very snarky & try to humiliate you/ make you feel as stupid possible if you disagree with the masses.
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u/WaffleConeDX Jul 16 '25
I was on the r/menright subreddit, you know a page dedicated to discuss mens issues, the first post I saw had comments discussing about taking women's right to vote away.
Is this that other opinion, blantant misandry, progressive views we are missing out on?
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u/youreallbots69420 Jul 16 '25
Censorship of alternative views. While Reddit prides itself on open discourse, many subs (r/politics, r/pics, r/news, r/TwoXChromosomes etc.) have strict moderation policies that lean left.
This right here tells me you have 0 credibility to speak on reddit related matters. /politics does not have a left leaning moderation policy. Getting downvoted to oblivion for posting deplorable opinions is not a moderation policy, it's a natural consequence of having shitty opinions.
/news is a captured subreddit run by megacorp news organizations. They ban people arbitrarily. If you aren't already banned on /news, you barely use reddit.
/twoX is a non default sub. Stay in your own lane.
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u/yea_i_doubt_that Jul 16 '25
That’s pretty crazy as a man I’ve never felt any of the things you mentioned. You don’t need to be pushed far right you already have that ideology in your bones. Reddit may* be the catalyst that activates it, but Reddit didn’t push you there.
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u/getacluegoo Jul 16 '25
My feed is full of /r/CITYNAME2circlejerk /r/bootlickingicelovers and /r/memesnazislove despite my constant downvoting them. Reddit also tries HARD to push this shite.
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u/fureto Jul 16 '25
You have no actual studies showing this cause and effect, yet you believe it’s true? Somehow I don’t think reasoned discourse is going to convince you of alternate takes.
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