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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   36242 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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does anyone happen to know how reddit /r/all correlates to the real popularity and engagement of the content? i ask because it seems like the current state is for junior high caliber political content from subs like "murderedbywords" and "clevercomebacks" to be at the top of "hot". somehow i just can't believe this is the most popular reddit content, probably because i'm in denial.

/r/The_Donald proved years ago that the Reddit algorithm can be trivially gamed. Tribal groups are really good at this kind of informal coordination. Users of these subs are already used to regular political content. Users who don't like it get driven out. Users who agree with the political content see their upvotes as a way to influence public opinion. Emotions are high due to the inauguration. All it takes is a few tens of thousands of Redditors who hate Elon Musk to upvote every single clip to the top of every single sub.

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