science

Controversial Reddit communities

Controversial Reddit communities is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Controversial Reddit communities rather than just read about it. In short: On the social news site Reddit, some communities (known as subreddits or subs) are centred around explicit, violent, propagandist, or hateful material. Many such subreddits have been the topic of controversy, at times receiving significant media coverage.

Key takeaways

Controversial Reddit communities belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Controversial Reddit communities to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Controversial Reddit communities from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

On the social news site Reddit, some communities (known as subreddits or subs) are centred around explicit, violent, propagandist, or hateful material. Many such subreddits have been the topic of controversy, at times receiving significant media coverage. Journalists, attorneys, media researchers, and others have commented that such communities shape and promote biased views of international politics, the veracity of evidence-based medicine, misogynistic rhetoric, and other socially disruptive concepts. Contrary to popular opinion as well as previous staff practices and statements, the founders of Reddit have stated they did not intend the platform to be a "bastion of free speech", where hate speech would be tolerated. However, for a period of time, Reddit allowed these controversial communities to operate largely unrestricted. The site's general manager, Erik Martin, has argued that objectionable material is a consequence of allowing free speech on the site. Eventually, Reddit administrators instituted usage rules to allow for the banning of groups and members who stole or exposed personal information or images or promoted illegal activity, violence, shaming, race or gender-based hatred, harassment, or extremist speech. Nevertheless, there remain various active and heavily-trafficked subreddits which skirt the edges of the rules. Critics argue that while concerned Redditors and moderators often report these subs, they often remain open until a specific incident, or the actions of an individual, forces them to come under more intense scrutiny and requires administrators to decide between allowing distasteful content or suppressing dangerous or destructive communities. Critics have also charged that the site has been inconsistent in what it bans. Some banned users and communities have created or moved to other platforms, with some even saving a duplicate of their subreddit in order to preserve it elsewhere, in the event it gets banned.

History When Reddit was founded in 2005, there was only one shared space for all links, and subreddits did not exist. Subreddits were created later, but initially they could only be created by Reddit administrators. In 2008, subreddit creation was opened to all users. Reddit rose to infamy in October 2011, when CNN reported that Reddit was harboring the r/Jailbait community, a subreddit devoted to sharing suggestive or revealing photos of underage girls. In a 2011 incident, an r/Jailbait user posted a provocative image of an underage girl. A wave of Reddit users ("Redditors") sent private messages to the poster requesting more photos of the girl. Various news sources criticized r/Jailbait, and Reddit administrators closed the forum. In 2012, the subreddit r/Creepshots received major backlash for sharing suggestive or revealing photos of women taken without their awareness or consent. Adrian Chen wrote a Gawker exposé of one of the subreddit's moderators and identified the person behind the account, starting discussion in the media about the ethics of anonymity and outing on the Internet. In 2020, administrators banned the subreddit r/The_Donald for harassment, having previously instructed moderators to take down content in violation of site policies as well as imposing a quarantine to reduce the subreddit's visibility.

Quarantining In 2015, Reddit introduced a quarantine policy to make it more difficult to visit certain subreddits. To visit or join a quarantined subreddit, users must bypass a warning prompt. In addition, to prevent users from viewing their content accidentally, quarantined subreddits do not appear in non-subscription based (aggregate) feeds such as r/all. Additionally, quarantined subs do not generate revenue, and their user count is not visible. Since 2018, subreddits have been allowed to appeal a quarantine.

Misinformation Reddit is highly prone to the spread of misinformation and disinformation due to its decentralized moderation, user anonymity, and lack of fact-checking systems. A 2023 NPR article suggested that Redditors should exercise caution before taking user-created unsourced content as fact. Reddit communities exhibit the echo chamber effect, in which repeated unsourced statements come to be accepted among the community as fact, leading to distorted worldviews among users.

Medical misinformation A 2021 letter from the United States Senate to Reddit CEO Steve Huffman expressed concern about the spread of COVID-19 misinformation on the platform. A study the following year revealed an abundance of unsourced and potentially harmful medical advice on Reddit for urinary tract infections, like suggesting fasting as a cure.

Foreign influence Critics have argued that since 2019, Russian-sponsored troll accounts and bots have taken over prominent left-wing and right-wing subreddits such as r/antiwar, r/greenandpleasant, and r/aboringdystopia, "suggest[ing] a Russian-led attempt to antagonize and influence Americans online, which is still ongoing."

Drug use Some subreddits are dedicated to discussing unapproved or illegal drugs, including meth, opioids, novel psychoactive substances, performance-enhancing drugs such as anabolic steroids and SARMs, and 2,4-Dinitrophenol, a chemical compound used as a pesticide and herbicide and in the manufacture of explosives which has controversially been used as a weight loss drug, despite the FDA having declared it unfit for human use in 1938 due to its causing cataracts and fatal overdoses. However, drugs-related subreddits have also enabled research and could provide information that would be difficult or impossible to obtain otherwise. Reddit also contains subreddits dedicated to addiction recovery.

Snark subreddits

In snark subreddits, members (known as "snarkers") gossip about, express frustration towards, or "snark" on public figures. Some of these subs specifically target female influencers such as YouTubers and TikTokers.

Banned subreddits Banned subreddits refer to subreddits that Reddit has shut down indefinitely.

Antisemitic subreddits

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Controversial Reddit communities

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Controversial Reddit communities claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Controversial Reddit communities before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Controversial Reddit communities ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Controversial Reddit communities

In research: Controversial Reddit communities appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Controversial Reddit communities in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Controversial Reddit communities is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century controversies, Alt-right Internet forums, Child pornography websites, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Controversial Reddit communities outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Controversial Reddit communities in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Controversial Reddit communities means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Controversial Reddit communities out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Controversial Reddit communities in simple terms?

Why does Controversial Reddit communities matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Controversial Reddit communities?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Controversial Reddit communities.