What's with Reddit and politics?

[LAS14]

I recently joined reddit to participate in a couple of groups. When you log on you're presented with hundreds of new posts to random groups. Today I took the time to scroll through for several minutes. Most posts were not political, but the three that were were clearly geared toward the liberal side of the spectrum. That can't be chance. How'd they know? I haven't joined any political groups, just books stuff and HumanforScale and DataIsBeautiful.

Are they looking at my computer?

The e-mail address I used to join isn't used for anything else.

tia
las

[wcast]

1. Main Reddit political threads run progressive.

Conservative viewpoints have their own dedicated forums, that is where the crazies go, like Free Republic.

[IbogaProject]

2. Reddit skews young & educated

Reddit skews younger and while demographically broad its users are brighter than average. They did have a basket case sub-reddit the-Donald but it was eventually dropped. The newer .win sites & parler grew out of that exodus.

I suggest you find sub reddits for your interests. And accept it has a shoot the ship kind of vibe w jokes popular for all but the most serious threads.

I like reddit tech and scientific coverage plus culture and memes. I usually get to them through jimmyr.com which has a few other sites in a nice one page to find a set of daily reading.

[RKP5637]

6. Yes! I also find Reddit exceptionally interesting ... I am always amazed at

how much is there and is interesting. I might be spending too much time there!

[mainer]

3. The reddit subthread for QAnon survivors is fascinating

People in desperate need of support because they've lost their loved ones to Q.

[Politicub]

4. Reddit has an algorithm like everything else.

It could be that others who participate in the same forums also frequent political groups.

Reddit is wonderful, and my favorite social network. People speak more freely than they do on FB groups because friends and family are not exposed to their interests. It reminds me of the internet before Facebook.

Sometimes its recommendations are downright bizarre, but they get more tuned to your preferences the more you use the platform.

[RKP5637]

7. It's really amazing and great!!! There's just a universe of groups and interesting

information across many areas!!!

[Politicub]

8. I love the weirdness of Reddit. The list of subreddits I follow is

crazy long.

[RKP5637]

9. Yep, same here! Crazy long list and some on the weird side! n/t

[FakeNoose]

5. On Reddit you need to join groups that interest you

The groups you join will then direct you to the posts from that interest group. I will occasionally post a comment, but I'm not too engaged there.

My Reddit page is setup so that I can access my own groups that are listed on the left. If I do that, then I skip over the latest "hot" posts that aren't in my groups. They're trying to interest me in other random groups, but I don't have to read them.

For example I'm in groups called "Jokes," "Made Me Smile," "Gifs that Keep on Giving," and "Pennsylvania" but there are others that I will occasionally check out.

They have many political newsgroups with lively discussions, but you can also skip all of that. I enjoy reading the posts from younger liberal/progressives on Reddit that is sometimes missing here on DU. But many people on Reddit seem to have no interest in politics at all.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

10. Probably from your IP address.

They're focusing those selections to a computer with a given IP address, not you by name.

I believe data agglomerators such as Google collect preference info from billions of IP addresses based on web site hits and then companies like Reddit buy it for presenting "the best user experience" (which is bullshit).

Anyone that's an IT geek please correct me if I'm wrong......