automod filters made reddit an absolute nightmare. pouring my heart out on the depression sub and getting it removed because it didn’t have 300 characters or it was image post saturday or god knows what. you basically just don’t get to post on any sizable sub — before it was at least a lottery! post, see if people will like it! but now you can’t even get a post through!
there are 50 automod filters on everything, forbidden words or topics, perfectly good questions cast away to megathreads no one reads!
it’s a dire, awful landscape, and really terrible user experience, having something on your chest and wanting to post, but oh hey this won’t be posted until our ‘mod team’ ‘reviews’ it. isn’t that what voting is for? please stop treating me like a spambot or troll by default!
I was on reddit for a long time, and at first it was a great place to discuss and debate, but over time I noticed it became more and more locked down until the only thing you were allowed to do was agree with the stated opinions or you’d face mod actions and downvote brigades.
I tried some alternatives like voat, but I just felt like going from being free to agree with one set of opinions I don’t really agree with to being free to agree with another set of opinions I don’t really agree with.
I have gone all-in on the fediverse because it feels like the one place where I see all kinds of people being themselves, and that’s what I want to see. I might hate people’s opinions, but with the structure of the fediverse at least I have a better impression that they’re authentic opinions and not just what it’s acceptable to say.
Voat was batshit crazy, but some of the things done there were done well. I really liked that the ‘big subs’ were considered voat run, so the moderators didn’t get to make their own little kingdoms of folly in the most popular areas. The commitment to free speech was great. It just went down so hard because the first people who went to it were the type to scrawl on the walls of their house in pastel crayon and neon spray paint.