Talking Politics Online

So, since I don't use a ton of different social media platforms frequently, for this post I'll be focusing on the one I know best: Reddit. The unique thing about Reddit is that since no real follow or subscribe system exists to get updates on a certain user, anyone's ideas can be heard if popular enough. It's also separated into thousands of subreddits however, meaning those with similar viewpoints often end up discussing the same points, and of course, progressing nowhere. While I'm sure their are several left-wing communities who have this problem, a lot of the worst instances are in conservative communities. For instance, two popular communities, one dedicated to praising everything Donald Trump says or does, and another dedicated to "red pilling" or converting people to conservative ideologies, do exactly that, and as such, never have any meaningful discussion. Say what you will about facebook, at least there you don't get reported and banned for having ideas that go against the hive mind. And thanks to relative anonymity, there's no way to know whether an anecdote someone gives is true, or if the person is even a valid source. Furthermore, a large number of program operated accounts exist on the platform, so it can even be hard to tell when you're hearing from one of them. 

Another large issue with the platform and social media in general is people's love of starting heated arguments on the internet that get nowhere. This is common under posts that mention anything remotely political even when they are in a community that has nothing to do with politics. Make a joke about religion? Prepare to get yelled at by someone who probably doesn't really care that much about the issue in real life. And because Reddit has a downvote/dislike feature, people can bury the opinions they don't like instead of having any sort of meaningful discussion or argument. Even when discussion does occur, those involved tend to use fancy words and demean others to look more intelligent, which makes no sense given that they are, again, anonymous. But no overarching changes to these platforms is likely to work without restricting how people express themselves, so really, we just all need to grow up.