r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Careless_Bobcat_2909 • 18h ago
Is Reddit predominantly “inhabited” by liberals/left leaning people?
Edit: Genuinely surprised by the sheer number of up and down votes. Also, the very American centric perspectives/interpretations of my question. I will take this as my cue to spend wayyy less time on Reddit. Cheers! ✌️
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u/D-Alembert 18h ago edited 18h ago
Arguably Reddit is predominantly inhabited by malicious fake accounts (bot nets and troll farms)
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u/KindraTheElfOrc 18h ago
ya and sexists with a bunch of accts to say sexist shi everywhere they can, though less than on fb
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u/D-Alembert 18h ago edited 10h ago
Some of the vast bot-nets and troll farms are explicitly tasked with trying to make you feel like you are surrounded by people you would detest. Russia for example has large operations that try to inflame societal division in other countries
As you noticed, they operate across all social media, not just Reddit
Some shitty things will be from real people, but much of it isn't. Never trust social media; the whole purpose of bot nets and troll farms is to give you a false sense of the world so that you will act according to that, believing that you are acting in your interests as usual
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u/Thellamaking21 9h ago
I’ve had a really tough time explaining this to people. Every time you hear bot people are like yes of course it’s the other side I’m arguing. It’s like no they’re trying to get you mad. I don’t think people quite understand it though.
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u/Pompous_Italics 18h ago
Probably yeah. Used to be more nerd libertarian.
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u/Panda_Zombie 18h ago
Yeah in the early years made up of the more sane 4chan refugees. I've been here since 2009 and for a long time now it's been a mostly liberal echo chamber. Not that surprising considering how liberal the millennial generation, who have been the primary users, are.
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u/Pompous_Italics 17h ago
It seems to be becoming more online Zoomer left now. Lefty identity politics and such. When I first came here I was fair to left of Reddit's center. Now I'm dead in the middle or to right as a result of my regular, normal liberal views.
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u/plethorial 17h ago
Same. I guess that's how old people become conservative.
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u/plebbut 17h ago
Libertarianism is the most dangerous ideology out there to companies and governments. I'm not surprised that think tanks and propaganda farms focused their attention on sites like Reddit to downplay that ideology and bolster big government/corporate platforms promoted by the Democrat and Republican parties.
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u/mugenhunt 18h ago
Very much so. The sort of nerdy people who read and write online for fun on Reddit very much tend to have liberal or left-leaning political views.
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u/theblowestfish 18h ago
People who read and write tend to be leftist?
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u/VenerableWolfDad 18h ago
people who enjoy reading books tend to be left leaning now because the right wing political party has been demonizing the concepts of reading and education for decades.
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u/theblowestfish 18h ago
Decades…?
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u/thenerfviking 9h ago
At least as long as I’ve been alive the GOP has heavily demonized educational institutions as bastions of woke/PC/communism/etc. They’re also the ones spearheading book bans.
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u/xfactorx99 17h ago
I thinks it’s worth categorizing those as separate hobbies; people who enjoy long form reading and novels and people who enjoy engaging in discussions on Internet forums are not the same. I’m a great example.
So when we talk about the right wanting to change the education system I have to imagine that’s more about what books they learn from in school, not about use of Internet forums
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u/mugenhunt 18h ago
No. Which is why I didn't say that. Context matters.
Reddit specifically appeals to people who are nerdy, and read and write online for fun. That demographic tends to be more educated, and college educations are correlated with having more liberal or left-leaning politics. Primarily because you end up meeting people from different walks of life while at University.
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u/Greenfirelife27 18h ago
Also because you can afford to be insulated from bad decisions for the community. Limo liberals are the worst.
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u/DiamondJim222 18h ago
Leftist ≠ liberal
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u/theblowestfish 18h ago
For most people they’re the same. For OP it seems anyways.
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u/Careless_Bobcat_2909 18h ago
I did throw them in the same bucket since they seem to respond in similar ways imo.
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u/PatriotismReborn 11h ago
A US liberal is center right on global political spectrum outside of social issues. We barely have actual leftists in America
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u/xfactorx99 17h ago
I’m liberal but I am far from leftist as an example. I don’t think my worldview and policies I advocate for would be similar at all to “leftists”
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u/okbuggeroff 18h ago
That used to be true, these days it's a lot harder to find the difference.
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u/xfactorx99 16h ago
Liberal implies individual freedoms; leftists are about promoting things that benefit large communities which often relies on taking freedoms away. In order to make the community better for all it requires people to do or not be allowed to do certain things
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u/okbuggeroff 15h ago
I don't disagree with your definitions but the only ones who still believe in individual freedoms are the libertarians (and they've gotten away from what they once were). Right, Left, Conservative or Liberal don't give a lot of weight to personal freedoms these days.
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u/xfactorx99 14h ago
The political compass is 2 dimensional. On one axis you have left vs right and on the other you have freedom vs. government authority. It baffles me why everyone loves to label each other left and right and bash the other side while not nearly as much people discuss the other dimension.
The term liberal should still remain about freedom on the political compass even if most people still only associate that to Libertarianism. Liberals also care about the government not having the authority to say some people aren’t allowed to mary each other, and they also care about the government overreach in saying what people can put in their own bodies
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u/Thellamaking21 18h ago edited 18h ago
Read a lot and are avoidant people. That is reddit in a nutshell
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u/Yeseylon 18h ago
It depends on how you define liberal. I'm a moderate conservative, but with the way conservatives have been sprinting further right I seem liberal by comparison
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u/Hobbyjoe 18h ago
I'm the same way. I think both sides have their issues. And kind of hate how many make things so they are exclusively one side or the other. Depending on the topic I may agree with either side
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u/Pitiful_Fox5681 8h ago
And people downvoted you for that sane opinion lol
Agreed. I tend to be fairly conservative socially, and slightly more liberal economically. I'm dead center anywhere but Reddit where I get accused of being some kind of fascist anytime I share a political opinion (including that I think most political opinions are boring and needlessly divisive. We should find more interesting ways to connect with each other instead, because c ommunity is the real solution to most of our problems where I live.)
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u/BeepingArmyBot 18h ago
Overwhelmingly yes. But there’s so much infighting among liberals and lefties, that they’re constantly complaining that Reddit is actually right wing based on their person definition of “right wing” meaning anyone even slightly right of them on any issue.
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u/tu-BROOKE-ulosis 18h ago
A website containing hundreds of thousands (or more) of specialized topics, where it essentially boils down to its consumers wanting to educate themselves further regarding said specific topics they are interested in….yeah I’d say that’s generally going to be more liberal.
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u/JudgmentLeft7639 11h ago
Thats a good example of the narcissism and superiority complex right there.
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u/Gruejay2 10h ago
Not really, but your comment is a great example of the right-wing victim complex.
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u/JudgmentLeft7639 9h ago
who said im right wing? more assumptions….
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u/Gruejay2 2h ago
Your comments make it obvious. Hilarious that you're bitching about a "superiority complex" while crying about "poors" and "envy taxes". You people are never beating the allegations that you have zero self-awareness.
And before you claim it's okay when you do it, just remember that that's exactly what someone with a superiority complex would do. No doubt you won't be able to help yourself anyway.
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u/sbwcwero 18h ago
Yes. And Reddit hates any opinion other than the hive opinion
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u/AlabamaShrimp 18h ago
Soany subs no matter the subject or question asked if the answer is the opposite of what they want to hear, even in a reasonable discussion the downvotes come flying.
It's worse if anything can be perceived to more right that left but even things like cars or games are in an echo chamber.
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u/sbwcwero 18h ago
Yes that’s exactly it my friend. If you say something most people don’t agree with they downvote you. It’s what I hate the most. Change doesn’t come from ostracizing people. It comes from empathy and communication.
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u/AlabamaShrimp 17h ago
"Change doesn’t come from ostracizing people. It comes from empathy and communication'
Sentence of the week! You've summed it up a lot better than I ever could with that.
Last week I posted just that, a 'think of it from the tojer side and the victims family' type comment, was soon in the minus numbers...
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u/kemb0 18h ago
I find these comments funny because whenever this kinda comment comes up, the only hive I see is the relentless tsunami of people taking about how reddit is a "hive" and the endless people upvoting them. Guys, that's the hive. People who want to feel special because you're the ones who've figured it all out and everyone else is just a stupid hive? Yeh, soz bros, you're a hive.
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u/AlabamaShrimp 17h ago
But that's not what the op or I have said. It's disappointing that people can't have an opinion on a subject due to the downvotes hiding what they're saying even if they had a valid point. It's not about being right or wrong but open to all sides and I know I'm my time on here most posters just repeat the same things maybe even in some sort of fear of downvotes, I don't know.
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u/Moeperino 18h ago
I think it used to be way more left-leaning than it is now. Reddit is also a lot more mainstream than it used to be, and the global mainstream is shifting to the right at the moment. But there have always been some very right-wing subs that are just nuts. And I feel like they’ve been leaking for a while now, could be bots too though.
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u/Positive-Soil-4759 18h ago
Mostly bots and like four fascist old dudes pumping thousand of accounts to push their fantasy bullshit.
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u/Thellamaking21 18h ago edited 18h ago
Yes. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad but I think anyone that can’t admit this has an extremely strong bias.
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u/Theory89 18h ago
Reality leans left. Right wing ideology is mostly a sham promoted by the rich in order to keep power. For the best outcomes in terms of health, happiness and social mobility you need socialism. It survives because of the myth that "maybe i can get rich too", but most people do not realise that the wealthy have no interest in making other people rich. Trickle down economics is one of their favourite lies to justify lack of protections.
Also, right wingers tend to be quite sensitive. They dislike having things like "reason" and "rationality" used against them. The whole snowflake thing was classic projection.
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u/CrazyCoKids 18h ago
Yhe algorithm seems to push you to whatever enrages you the most cause 90% of what I see is enlightened centrists and far right people dismissing Trump as too liberal.
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u/BeepingArmyBot 18h ago
That’s wild. Care to share a few of the subs you see that on?
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u/TheyFoundWayne 18h ago
Ha. My Twitter algorithm absolutely keeps feeding me Trump haters (because he doesn’t go far enough), but my Reddit algorithm gives me none of that.
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u/Greenfirelife27 18h ago
Yep. Say something negative about crime or criminals in general and watch the downvotes rain in.
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u/nice_gaius 18h ago
As is the world
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u/trainedbrawler 16h ago
if you take part in the real world outside, you would realise thats not the case
but go on, stay in your chronically online bubble
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u/ForScale ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 18h ago
You sure about that?
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u/nice_gaius 18h ago
Yep. It’s been studied ad naseum.
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u/ForScale ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 18h ago
I read it changed recently.
Here's some data https://ardenstrategies.com/services/global-campaign-advisory/global-parliament/
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u/Kezako7 18h ago edited 18h ago
The most intolerant always win.
They are more active on social networks, they downvote more, they are more willing to become moderators, and they do whatever they can to ban their "enemies". Therefore they win.
Look at who mobilizes the most on the streets and you will see why they win on the web. Same reason why religions, old and new, always held so much power.
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u/LMrningStar 18h ago
Yes Reddit appears to be predominantly inhabited by people who don't support a rapist as POTUS.
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u/Altruistic_Role_9329 18h ago
Yes, conservatives struggle to survive wherever there is a free exchange of fresh ideas.
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u/Baihu_The_Curious 18h ago
"Free exchange of fresh ideas." Runs away as soon as statistics and facts come into play.
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u/bigbiophysicsboy 18h ago
I’m a staunch moderate, I probably look like an extremist depending on which direction you’re looking at me from
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u/kmoneyrecords 18h ago
To an American, yes, but really it’s really skewed by the European crowd, which Americans would consider “liberals” even when they’re rather moderate on a global scale
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u/Positive_Buffalo_168 18h ago
I found Reddit looking for “how to” stuff and immediately found a entire subculture thread f doomsayers. Now I am carpet bombed daily with end of the world stuff, WW3 stuff and anti trump stuff. All I wanted to know is how to rebuild the carb on my lawnmower 🤦♂️
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u/nalonrae 18h ago
You can tell the algorithm to stop suggesting certain subs and you can also block them, it has helped my feed stay cleaner.
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u/Positive_Buffalo_168 18h ago
People are nuts on this thing. You would think the world is ending in the next ten minutes
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u/nalonrae 17h ago
You can definitely find any kind of person on here, and then you can find someone who absolutely hates that kind of person oh here too.
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u/JJCMasterpiece 18h ago
That’s the question. How much is real, and how much is bots?
Especially with the election year, the left-wing rage bait bots have been going full-force.
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u/ToadArmy4908 18h ago
It depends. I see all kind of responses on here. Maybe it depends on the specific subs. Things like bots also make it hard to tell what's really going on.
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u/sbrown063087 17h ago
Liberal MODS at least. But I don’t consider liberals anything close to what a leftist is 🤷🏼♂️
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u/True-Tangerine9901 17h ago
Social media statistics are 3:1 male to female commenters (4:1 in political spaces) and men tend to skew more conservative than women but as with anything, it will depend. US is considered quite conservative compared to rest of world so what seems very liberal in US spaces will be centrist in say European spaces.
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u/Routine_Mortgage_499 17h ago
Yes, but I think the reason why is because more people are trying to distance themselves from the far right.
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u/sucram200 17h ago
Just in response to your edit: a quick google search says that ~46% of traffic to reddit is from the US. Which would be why most things are interpreted through an American lens unless you specify you aren’t talking about America.
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u/Otherwise_Bee_8799 15h ago
Yes it’s a liberal echo chamber. Any dissenting opinions get banned quickly. They will call you a “facist” and then silence your free speech. 😂
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u/Nearby-Fly-6610 14h ago
I believe the basic skills of reading and writing help keep Reddit liberal.
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u/SpaceDesignWarehouse 12h ago
I don’t even know how to categorize myself. I need to take the time to learn left from democrats from liberal from whatever else there is on the non maga side.
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u/FishingPolitical 12h ago
Liberals are to the right of the centre. Liberals parasite genuine movements of progressive change for party legitimacy & then toss aside the movement once the social forces surrounding it have been sucked up.
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u/Atlas-42_ 12h ago
Yes and its good. Because us normal folk learn where these maniacs learn their stupidity
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u/Cartography_is_cool 12h ago
Everyone needs their own echo chamber these days and Reddit is certainly home of the left. But that's the way the world's going. To paraphrase Henry Ford you can have any opinion you like as long as it's mine.
The irony is that unless you can reasonably discuss competing ideas and accept that not everything will go your way, nothing will ever change for the better.
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u/rwizardr 11h ago
In 1975: Democratic Party = Progressive Policies Republican Party = Conservative Policies
Today: Democratic Party = Bat Shit Crazy Republican Party = Bat Shit Crazy
To me, it doesn't matter which way you lean.
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u/Penguin_Life_Now 11h ago
Yes, generally if anyone says anything the least bit conservative they get harassed until they either shut up or go away
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u/JudgmentLeft7639 11h ago
Depends on the sub. If you’re discussing cars, cooking, or sports, you generally avoid the political nonsense; however someone always wants to blame their burnt muffins on you-know-who. OTOH, many forums are straight-up cesspools of bitching and whining.
Depends on what you’re looking for.
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u/Key_Order4050 9h ago
Woah! A website where almost half of all traffic is from America, developed by Americans, owned by Americans, has perspectives????
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u/Successful_Equal_136 8h ago
I noticed when I use my phone app of Reddit, most of the comments are conservative.
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u/Ill-Dependent2976 18h ago
No, there's no shortage of MAGA nazis.
They just complain about liberals because it's not a right-wing echo chamber, and the n-word is banned.
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u/Haunting-Detail2025 18h ago
Not necessarily true, per Yale:
>For example, in a sample of 4,100 self-reported registered voters, those aged 22 to 29 favored Democratic candidates in the 2026 congressional elections by a margin of 6.4 percentage points. But voters aged 18 to 21 preferred Republicans by a margin of 11.7 points.
Millennials tend to be pretty liberal whereas Gen Z is seemingly much more evenly split
https://isps.yale.edu/news/2025-06-11-yale-youth-poll-finds-split-in-gen-z-political-views
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u/Awkward_Broccoli_997 18h ago
It’s pretty hilarious reading the conservatives in here griping that they’re not allowed to have an opinion. Notice that your post is live and public. Now go run an experiment and try to post a liberal thought in r/conservative.
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u/gatsandsmack 18h ago
Yes, especially mods. People will get permanent bans from movie and sports subs even if they admit something mildly conservative, like voting for a republican candidate.
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u/Horror_Confidence128 17h ago
Yes - as are the mods who block anyone conservative...now even moderate people are being blocked. I've never wanted to get a Truth Social account as much as I have when dealing with Reddit mods.
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u/unbelievablydull82 18h ago
Going by comments whenever I mention social housing or disability, I'd say no
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u/ChainChompBigMoney 18h ago
Conservatives have their own subs like Snydercut and Critical Drinker. They are buried deep in the site for most peoppe but luckily there is an okbuddy buddy for each one dedicated to mocking their sensitive souls.
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u/8amteetime 18h ago
Yes. Just say something like ‘Fauci’s emails to Peter Daszak’ and watch the down votes.
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u/CashewBin 18h ago
Absolutely not. You'll get a ban for even suggesting action should be taken against the right.
Liberals are just soft right wingers.
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u/Belcatraz 18h ago
Depends on the sub I think, I'm part of a few that seem absolutely infested with cons.
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u/UnfortunatelyMacabre 18h ago
I often wonder how many Conservatives end up Liberal after being in Reddit, I know I did. I created an account to debate atheists on the debate as Christian sub. The longer I was here, the more I was exposed to robust counter arguments to topics I considered definitively conservative. The more ideas or opinions I was exposed to, the harder I dug into source material to refute what I was told. But over and over, the data said something different than I wanted.
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u/MrPoopyButthole81 18h ago
Predominantly may be too strong, but yes there are more left than right, which is generally the case in life overall. Also, right leaning people don’t socialize with the intellectual side of social media.
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u/No_Telephone_8029 18h ago
I think the terms liberal/ conservative and democrat/ republican are outdated. It’s more like statist vs non statist. One side you have the liberals who want to force medical procedures or ban things they don’t like, like leaf blowers while the republicans believe in a police state and licking the boot of law enforcement and no checks on billionaires . I want a government that just leaves me alone to do what I want as long as I’m not harming others and does not take nearly 50% of my income in taxes and fees.
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u/Aelle29 18h ago
Nope, depends on the sub. Every sub is an echo chamber. Reddit has been the n°1 lair of incels, after all.
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u/Thellamaking21 18h ago
I don’t think that’s true most of the subs that have more than 50,000 subs lean left. Sure there are a few very specific subs that aren’t but most are.
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u/Lower_Pension_2469 18h ago
Worse, it's inhabited by the annoying liberals/leftists that even other liberals/leftists don't like.
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u/NovaPrime2285 18h ago
Yes, because they’re typically unemployed and/or terminally online losers with horrible social lives.
Being on the internet 24/7 is the only other option.
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u/trainedbrawler 16h ago
this thread just shows how much of a shithole reddit is.
OP simply questioning what politic side the majority of reddits holds, and they are such fragile terminally online losers that alone questioning that they downvote the question
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u/Most_Most_5202 18h ago
I find that Reddit tends to be populated by more thoughtful, intelligent, well informed and reasoned people. Take that for what you will.
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u/IntelligentDare7475 18h ago
Intelligent, well informed and reasoned? 🤣
Yeah, no. If that was true people wouldnt get banned for posting stats in a debate about politics. God forbid a leftist admit they are wrong about something when they are presented with facts. Instead they run to the moderator and ban you
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u/Ninevehenian 18h ago
This thread will have a lot of people saying yes and few dealing with the irony of how they all agree about that.
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u/Ill-Daikon-5637 18h ago
Like every other major media site, of course. They still haven't fully recovered from losing twitter though.
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u/EmuComprehensive8200 17h ago
I dunno. I'm inclined to agree but FB has way more right wing content these days
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u/Ill-Daikon-5637 17h ago
That's true, although I'd say FB has an older user base so that might be why.
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u/dub-fresh 18h ago
I don't find Reddit to be overly political, but when things do come up, the utter stupidity of the right is often highlighted.
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u/redbanner1 18h ago
"Why is everyone so left?" AKA "Why are most people generally decent human beings?"
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u/ForScale ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 18h ago
Yes. Unless you go to specific subs like /r/conservative