If you're a reddit 'refugee,' why did you leave?

submitted by [deleted] from self.AskSaidIt

Inspired by looking through old posts:

I felt like voat was supposed to be the chosen one to save us from reddit. Which is why I felt so let down when it got so taken-over. Which is why we had to make saidit.

I ended up here because I don't like reddit seeming to be so "far left," for lack of a better way to say it, though "left vs. right" doesn't really seem the best way to describe things. It generally seems pretty hostile to whites, and to people who think "sexual orientation" isn't a real thing. And the site admins don't seem to do anything to obvious abuse of their site (camping /r/againstgaymarriage, failing to protect the participation of non-leftists in /r/exchristian, were a few of my experiences). I like some non-political reddit subs but in general I don't really feel like I can speak my mind honestly, or like other people can, and I don't think that's a great environment. So I'm finding myself checking out alternatives. I saw someone on /r/debatealtright say "we should move to saidit!" so I ended up here.

It seems like there are other people from different backgrounds who found themselves here, though. I'm curious to know how other people ended up here, and what problems other groups have had while using reddit that lead them here.

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[–]zyxzevn 24 insightful - 8 fun24 insightful - 7 fun25 insightful - 8 fun -  (9 children)

Strange enough, I left after I got banned in science subreddits, after explaining the Maxwell equations. It was probably too complicated for the mods. They do not want to hear or discuss science, but want to hear futurism and scientism.

[–]MobiusRacetrack 9 insightful - 7 fun9 insightful - 6 fun10 insightful - 7 fun -  (2 children)

Facts interfere with opinions.

[–]a_man_a_plan_pancake 4 insightful - 4 fun4 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

Obligatory well that's your opinion man.

[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

Even opinions interfere with their opinions, and the fact they literally can't tolerate the discussion of conflicting opinions is just saddening

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

I had no idea that kind of thing was even happening. You don't happen have (and feel happy to share) the ceddit link to the removed content? What could possibly be objectionable? Did they think you were condescending, or something?

I remember learning about the Maxwell equations... or something like that... in physics class at some point. That seems about as non-objectionable and a-politically technical as it can get.

[–]zyxzevn 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

It was on askphysics, maybe a year ago.
About how a changing electric field is transferred over a distance.

Maxwell equations are the standard way to do it. I explained the maxwell equations in a conductor. It has moving particles in that case. With a dielectric there are also moving particles in a sense.

In vacuum it has not, and some persons thought that it was a bad explanation. The confusion is about the maxwell equations, not about my understanding. But the mods banned me for me explaining maxwell equations.

The idea gave me some thinking about how maxwell equations are very confusing, as they implicitly define some kind of aether.

The situation is a bit more complicated. A troll that I banned from my own subreddit thought that he needed to attack anything that I wrote on more subreddits. He only did personal attacks and other fallacies, even after warnings. Fair ban. The person itself does not understand physics, nor do many other people on the subreddit. They just repeat the schooled replies, as we can also see on wikipedia. You see that in the way they don't understand the maxwell equations or the criticism that I put in my subreddits.

[–]Theblueearth1 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Just curious, how is the electric field transmitted through a vacuum?

[–]zyxzevn 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The electrical field does not need a vacuum. Like the nucleus on an atom, does not need anything to attract the electrons around it.

There are theories about some things that might carry fields. We see many of those in Quantum Electro Dynamics (QED), where virtual particles are transferring forces. They even describe the Higgs field, which transfers some mass. The problem is that virtual particles do not really exist, so scientists try to work with fields instead of particles.

There are also theories about quantum foam and even superstrings. Older theories have ideas about some kind of aether, but the popular ones have problems with explaining relativity. The mainstream theories include relativity by adding other dimensions and complex mathematical transformations.

[–]Jesus 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

I was banned at skeptics and /r/engineering for asking about WTC7. Funny, engineers ban people for bringing up forensics.

[–]proc0 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

They didn't like the fact all colors combine to form white light.

[–]DffrntDrmmr 23 insightful - 4 fun23 insightful - 3 fun24 insightful - 4 fun -  (2 children)

Reddit's most glaring fault is it's censorship, built into the very design of the forum and further extended by a variety of moderator tools to force 'discussion' into controlled narratives.

In much of Reddit, and certainly in popular mainstream subreddits like r/news and r/politics, moderators abuse participants, sometimes on personal whim. It's unconscionable to hide censorship actions (shadow-banning) so that the participant doesn't even know they're not being heard.

Reddit is an unhealthy environment for exchanging news, facts and opinions.

I can decide what comments I don't want to read. I'm not okay with denial of free speech and forced narratives.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

It's unconscionable to hide censorship actions (shadow-banning) so that the participant doesn't even know they're not being heard

yes, 100%. it's dirty as fuck.

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I'm interested in how others have stepped outside of those narratives, because it seems like they're different from the ways I've stepped outside.

[–]magnora7 18 insightful - 4 fun18 insightful - 3 fun19 insightful - 4 fun -  (8 children)

Mod censorship was out of control. I'm banned in like 50 subreddits, I'm basically blocked out from contributing. And the admins just sit by and let this happen. It's not a real community, and it doesn't reflect real-world opinions at all. Almost every subreddit is compromised by highly-motivated ideologues who work their way in to mod positions.

[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Which ones you were banned from?

[–]magnora7 9 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 children)

Basically every single one having anything to do with news or politics. I have actual opinions about things, and regardless of how kindly I voice them there seems to always be a problem with the mods removing what I say. I know it's not limited to me though because I see threads with 50%-90% of comments removed, quite often.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Basically every single one having anything to do with news or politics.

Weird thing is, in r/pics there was a thread about pro-choice message and people were actually (for the most part) doing proper representation of the opposing side https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/ea6kf5/this_really_still_shouldnt_be_a_debate/ , if you read through the comments it sounds reasonable and it's a major sub. It's mostly r/news and r/politics which is really weird, since I'd expect similar crowd to attend it.

Some times I suspect some kind of fuckery is going on reddit targeting certain subs.

[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I think you're right. The cost of brigading a reddit thread ten million people will see is cheaper than running a TV ad, and businesses and governments have started to realize this

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Do we have any safeguard to try and prevent that from happening here?

[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes, we don't have downvotes, so things can't be censored and votes can't be un-done. So they can't hide the complaints and such.

But it's one of the problems inherent in anonymous social media. There's no way to know what anyone's intentions are until they post.

[–]SaidOverRed 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The ban message should just be honest enough to be like "It's not how you say it, it's what you say." And they get mad when people say the phrase "echo chamber"...

[–]sproketboy 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah. I had an account suspended for reporting racism. Except it was on a leftist sub so I guess I was the racist! :)

[–]MobiusRacetrack 17 insightful - 5 fun17 insightful - 4 fun18 insightful - 5 fun -  (1 child)

Reddit was fine until it was taken over by sanctimonious hall monitors. The final nail was the owners making it 'friendly for advertisers'. Nothing fails like success.

[–]Jesus 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

ADL

[–]Jesus-Christ 15 insightful - 4 fun15 insightful - 3 fun16 insightful - 4 fun -  (1 child)

Was just tired of the site, it honestly seems to be getting shittier and shitter by the day now. I wasn't a fan of people pushing their bullshit political narratives into nearly every subreddit possible. I deliberately unsubscribed from all but 3 subreddits and I literally just couldn't escape the politics. I was sick of being downvoted for comments that had no ill intention, I would literally just say how I found a post unfunny or something and it would be downvoted to hell. I was sick of biting my tongue, you can't really say anything that's contrary to popular belief. If you did you'd have to put up with a bunch of shitty negative responses. Reddit is honestly a life-drain that I'm glad doesn't exist in my life anymore. Anyone that uses it for more than a year would understand how annoying the "thanks kind stranger" and "oh how the turn tables" become. It's so fucking lame.

[–]black_hole_son 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I wasn't a fan of people pushing their bullshit political narratives into nearly every subreddit possible

TBF this is happening A LOT here to.

[–]FollowTheMoney 12 insightful - 5 fun12 insightful - 4 fun13 insightful - 5 fun -  (0 children)

1) I hate the ads 2) Hate the hard left echo chamber it's becoming 3) I hate the you are commenting too much you must wait limtations. (Happens to me after commenting once, then I can't reply to someone that replied to me... i.e not spam ) 7+ year account multiple thousands of karma.. 4) I just miss the old community there. Used to have engaging conversations and was challenged, learned new things, helped others learn new things. Now it's if you have a conflicting view to the subreddit status quo you get banned and people attack you, say you're delusional and to seek professional help.

[–]Tiwaking 11 insightful - 4 fun11 insightful - 3 fun12 insightful - 4 fun -  (6 children)

Im not from Reddit, Im from Minds. Someone on Minds suggested this place.

I've never used Reddit before and find this place shiny. And new!

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 4 fun4 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 4 fun -  (4 children)

I considered Minds but haven't explored it much yet because the site wasn't working right for me at the time. Did you come here because you disliked Minds? Or because you were just exploring platforms?

[–]Tiwaking 7 insightful - 5 fun7 insightful - 4 fun8 insightful - 5 fun -  (3 children)

Minds is really good! The problem with minds at the moment is:

Censorship - A lot of accounts have been marked as mature now. This isnt too big a problem as you just click on what you want to see and say 'yes', but it does mean they are shadow banned from the news feed.

News Feed - They have thankfully fixed most of this, but the problem with the news feed is it usually has a lot of boosted content, that is posts that people have paid to have greater visibility. Most of the time it is good, but sometimes you get a whole lot of crypto spam.

Boosed Content not working - Some users are finding that the boosted content they paid for is getting 0 engagement, which means no one is seeing their posts.

In summary: Minds is like Facebook (which I dont use) and an Image board, but it doesnt have any crippling censorship. Its a lot of fun. I use it for memes :p

I like this place because the layout and format is clean, fun, and easy to use.

Oh and there is no one here and I like being by myself.

[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

Interesting, thank you for the review. I remember thinking Minds was interesting because of the integrated crypto.

I like the layout here too. It feels more comfortable to use than what Reddit has become. If you do ever use Reddit, you can access the old formatting style, that's more similar to what we have here at Saidit, using "old.reddit.com" instead of "www .reddit.com".

[–]sproketboy 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

I'm fine with marking accounts/pages "mature" or "nsfw" as long as they are not removed. The real problem in the end is shit parenting with putting kids in front of screens before they're teens. Much better to put them out in the dirt to play.

[–]Tiwaking 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

The thing is you can mark posts as NSFW or channels as mature, thats cool.

But if your entire channel gets marked as mature then everything you post will be marked as mature, even if it isnt mature. This has affected a lot of meme channels and political channels. Worst hit are Political Meme Channels i.e. https://www.minds.com/kalnwi/

This has made a lot of the white supremacists/pro-nazi's leave. Also some conspiracy channels have been affected.

[–]Airbus320 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

😮

[–][deleted] 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

I still visit reddit, but I believe it's voting system highly encourages echo chambers and outright stupidity.

It's near impossible to have a rational discussion and people are too entrenched in their beliefs. An example is askreddit, whenever there's a question targeted at a slightly unpopular group, instead of taking the opportunity to listen and getting insight in to other people views and working with it, the top comments are people "representing" (ridiculing/demonizing/strawmaning) other people views of which they know nothing and all the people who actually tell the truth get downvoted to hell and their comments hidden.

...add to that admins with double standards and the only good thing reddit seems to have left is cat pics.

[–]magnora7 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I agree. I think the up/down vote system puts people in a judging approve/disapprove kind of mindset, and that encourages cultural tribalism. People start "thinking" with their emotions rather than logic.

[–]Jesus 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Emotions trump logic for most of the population.

[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I agree, and also certain aspects of culture reinforce those bad habits instead of trying to tamp them down. Emotional people are easier to control, because they're less capable of subtlety in strategy

[–]Jesus 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Psychological warfare targeting the unconscious by the enemy. In the declassified papers I read, and don't think corproate entities liek reddit are not using these sort of tactics.

In spite of censorship a certain amount of material “unconsciously slips by because at face value it seems irrelevant or insignificant.”

The downvoting button is one way in which to do just this.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150116133924/http://mikemcclaughry.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/aims-of-psychological-warfare.pdf

[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Right. And I don't think it was necessarily planned that way, it just turned out that way. But now we know better because the downfalls of the up/downvote system have become obvious, so we have saidit's voting system as a next evolution.

[–][deleted] 8 insightful - 3 fun8 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

I left because every single thread sounded like the same people. It just got fucking boring. That and the censorship

[–]BoogerFukker 8 insightful - 3 fun8 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

My community s/Ice_Poseidon2 was banned from reddit and a majority ended up here from trying to relocate the community

[–]CorsannE 8 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

I left reddit because of design problems overpopulation and too many "modern" stuff. Plus a mod had personal "beef" so I started looking for something more "old school" and here I am. So far I am pretty happy with it.

[–]magnora7 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Welcome to saidit! Glad to have you here

[–]Cringe 5 insightful - 5 fun5 insightful - 4 fun6 insightful - 5 fun -  (1 child)

I'm switching to Sadit because Reddit banned me for calling someone a faggot

[–]SaidOverRed 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Welcome and call everyone a faggot all you want. I think even our faggots won't care.

[–]sproketboy 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

I still go old.reddit sometimes but I can't stand the downvoting. I much prefer if someone doesn't like a comment they can just leave it as-is. On reddit any edginess or even attempt at discussion I get downvoted. Only r/jordanpeterson seems to be good for that - or as best as you could get on shit reddit.

Also - they still are too incompetent to fix a bug where you submit a link with a "&" and the title puts the HTML "&" instead. saidit fixed that immediately.

[–]Jesus 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Yeah, but bring up the 'juice' or Bolsheviks or anything about Israel on Jordanpeterson and the downvotes will come in hoards. No critical thought from them. They attacked me when I posted 200 Years Together by Solzhenitsyn.

[–]sproketboy 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The jq is a hive of landmines.

[–]black_hole_son 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Censorship and power hungry Nazi moderation.

[–]a_man_a_plan_pancake 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Well I haven't left Reddit, because I still haven't found a better place to start when I'm looking for help or suggestions on a specific topic. But even in specialized subs I have to watch what I say because even the most bland, innocuous statement can elicit unwanted attention. And of course sometimes it's too hard to resist the urge to troll, though admittedly it's very low hanging fruit and I should be ashamed of myself.

But the overt bot activity, blatant editorializing and pandering, and flat out made up content is irksome and disheartening, because I remember when it truly was a wild and free frontier and I miss those days.

Now Reddit's only real value, other than in specific subs as mentioned above, is as a good source of kitty gifs and the occasional breaking headline.

[–]EzraPound 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Main account banned. + IP2 subreddit was shut down.

[–]Nemacolin 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I was banned from r/news. Further, I was banned with a four-word message. Seems to me that there must be some intermediate step between nothing and banning. How about a friendly message?

They treated me rudely.

[–][deleted]  (1 child)

[deleted]

    [–]Jesus 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    Mostly just bots, corproate shills and the ADL who pay reddit to censor anyone. SJW term is dumb as shit. It was created by right wing Zionists. Social Justice is a fine ideology to have, as long as it brings about liberty and freedom, and peace. The admins and mods at reddit are just being tribal.

    [–]Jesus 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

    Banned dozens of times, mostly on syriancivilwar and then conspiracy and every other sub, until various admin bands, with IP address bands. Then I said, well I got twitter and YouTube and Bitchute. Twitter banned several times, the last time I was shadowbanned and could not be searched in search index, then I made a new account, posted one tweet and was banned. YouTube locked me out of all of my accounts and censored all my videos, Bitchute censored my UK Critical Thinekr videos that I uploaded and made them unsearchable. FUCK BITCHUTE, a Zionist controlled opposition site for Zionist right wingers and Bolsheviks posing as neo-nazis. Plus, Bitchute is located right near MI6. So, saidit has yet to ban me, and won't because I'm here to tell what I believe is the truth. Saidit is the new reddit, but not really at all, because its saidit.

    [–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

    Thanks for sharing your experience. Are there any alternatives to bitchute that you like? They've been my go-to lately but I know there are some other options out there.

    [–]Jesus 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    Not sure. Gab is owned by a Zionist and it stands for Gabbai, or doing works for the synaggouge, and they had a whole synaggouge shotoing with GAB, which leads me to believe it also is a controlled op front. Not many video services, I know there are decentralized forums and you might want to check on Github for others. As for Bitchute, no not really. 153news is censorship free, accept for that fact that it is too owned by an Israeli and a former google programmer, which is odd. I think what they are tryning to do right now with their controlled opposition Zionists like Crowder and Paul Joseph Watson are to push truth seekers to other platforms by censoring them. These people will claim youtube is over, as they have done on twitter, this will set up a media narrative. They are not the target, the lower tier, real truth seekers and people who speak agaisnt power are. They will surely help to cover up this purge.

    Balkanization is the agenda! If they can get people off YouTUbe, they can push their agendas free of interruption on children and the asleep forever, without them being able to see different viewpoints.

    [–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    stands for Gabbai, or doing works for the synaggouge

    !

    "A gabbai, also known as shamash (sometimes spelled shamas)" (w)

    haven't I heard...

    "A History of Britain is a BBC documentary series written and presented by Simon Schama" (w)

    Balkanization is the agenda! If they can get people off YouTube, they can push their agendas free of interruption on children and the asleep forever, without them being able to see different viewpoints.

    Interesting take.

    [–]asg101 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

    "left vs. right" doesn't really seem the best way to describe things.

    I agree, it is more an "anything that challenges the corporate narrative" gets banned. I got banned from /r/"freethought" for pointing out that "both" U.S. political parties serve the corporate plutocracy, and not the people.

    [–]CleverFox 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    I was banned from one of my favorite subreddits for commenting in a completely different sub. Nothing in my comment was derogatory in any way. But I felt that was a huge abuse of power by the mods. Way too “big-brother”.