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[–]0_0 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

The short answer is that Reddit's model for free speech discussion doesn't scale. It worked great when it had a small user base but nowadays a combination of platform design and Admin decisions rendered the place a complete echo chamber.

Somewhere along the line the downvote button went from being a useful tool for subs to automoderate by filtering spam and off-topic comments to silence any opinion that was even remotely contrary to the user base current sensitivities.

This created a vicious cycle where users from progressive and left ideology silenced well thought out comments from the other side, which in turn discouraged interesting well put together comments from the right, which in turn pushed the user base even more to the left, including power mods, which in turn discouraged comments from the center, which turned the user base and power mods to the extreme left that it is now.

During all this Admins not only didn't do anything to stop it, they actively made decisions to fuel the vicious cycle, like banning subs they explicitly said wouldn't ban because of a strike from the mods instead of sticking to their guns, showing that, indeed, the mods own the place now.