It's not organic. This is merely the culmination of the last years worth of trajectory. Lots of political refugees made their way here, when subs like r/politics and r/wikileaks got coopted, and the shills that drove them out followed them here. r/conspiracy is a major battleground on Reddit right now, and it's one of the front lines in the information war being waged against the Public.

My advice- abandon /hot and browse by /new, that's how you can make the biggest difference. The tone of a post is already set by the time it reaches the front, in /new you have the opportunity top set that tone.

r/politics is useful when you actually follow links and read the articles. Even skimming is beneficial because you can determine quickly if it's an opinion piece or actual breaking news. You can then determine if the source or supplemental material is good enough for you to believe what is being claimed.

This can all be achieved by using a RSS reader if you can figure out how to set one up for yourself. Do not engage in the comment section on that sub. It's a time sink because of the astroturfing and brigading.

I used to frequent r/politics. I watched it go downhill, I saw it change overnight after the convention, I saw discussion stifled and topics censored. The sub is a lost cause. There are better subs, sites, and blogs for aggregating news sources than that cesspool called r/politics.

Do not engage in the comment section on that sub.

Disagree. Sorting by controversial usually yields good results.

For example,

Title: I’m a Depression historian. The GOP tax bill is straight out of 1929.

Top comment:

Things are going to get worse. Brace yourselves. The republicans are going to push us into another depression or worse with these policies. Most of us are already struggling with no help in sight.

Best comment:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Those who teach history are doomed to watch it happen again.

Controversial comment:

Its hard to take this piece seriously from the moment the term “trickle down” appears.

Trickle down economics is not a real economics theory and no one on the economic right supports it. Trickle down is a term that was created to strawman free market economics and supply side theory.

Sure enough, the author goes on to straw man the other side throughout the article.

Sky is falling, sky is falling, critique of the article.

I went to rPolitics and used the top post there.

It's not 100% guaranteed, but yeah. Also if you sort the sub by controversial, you'll find a lot of pro-Trump articles.

From experience, I’ve seen thought-out comments buried by whatever the circle jerk was for the week.

Maybe if you get in there at the right time you can engage with others skeptical about the top comments or spin going on, but I find much more constructive to just ignore the comments and hope to see discussion on this sub. I don’t see much cross posting on here though which is understandable because it’s not supposed to be alt-politics here.

There is always so much white noise that it is hard to determine what exactly has transpired that might warrant it. Personally, I feel like with or without a catalyst these things will continue. The DNC and Podesta leaks as well as Pizzagate was the start of all of this. That's when the censorship kicked into overdrive, and when the term "fake news" popped up. So I'm not sure if it is anything particularly recent as much as it is the continuing attack that started from events last year.

More than willing to hear others opinions though, it's easy to forget when exactly things happened in the last 1-2 months as they all start to blend together.

I was a /hot browser for the longest time.. this week I read to browse by /new and the difference it made!

To be honest I was shocked to see some of the posts that were still being written. I thought that they had all stopped.

It's hard to go back to just browsing /hot once you've seen what /new has to offer. Far more varied subject matter, interesting discussions, multiple points of view. It's like a completely different sub honestly.

While I agree with you that it's a battle ground for information, there is misinformation being spread by both sides. Yeah, it sucks to see so many comments that immediately shift that argument to "Oh, that Trump, what a butt! Am I right?" And then a string of comments that just talk about how much they hate Trump. I'm sick of reading about him in everything. All of those comments are upvoted to heaven. Then a post comes along about how a republican is unsurprisingly also accused of sexual assault/ rape/ whatever and that posts gets 200 upvotes in the first 30 minutes. I guess people don't want to worry about being TOO obvious with their bias or anything.

On the flip side, I'm also tired of seeing stuff coming from Trump be completely unquestionable in the eyes of some. Maybe it's just me, but I don't trust anyone who just wants me to accept what a person in power says without question. Or how some things are painted. Like pizzagate. Some times it seems like the only people that are "100% truly involved" are all Democrats and John McCain. It's like, come on. Yeah, sure I believe that the people in power could very likely be running a pedophile ring, but just the political opponents of your guy? Isn't that just a tad too convenient for you?

Last complaint about the battle for conspiracy is the strawman attacks all over the place. I didn't vote for Trump. That must mean I love Hillary and worship Satan. I didn't vote for Hillary. That must mean that I'm literally a slave owner. Everyone looks past the arguments and just tries to label anyone who disagrees with them.

Anyway, sorry for rambling. There is disinformation all around. We're being divided. The people who ask questions are being divided because of politics. I wonder what's really going on.

I was thinking the same thing omw home from work yesterday. People from across reddit have decided they can hold their nose to get past coming here for the fight. Anymore, I still call them shills. They are just stupid shills because they don't get paid.

What's the difference between a hooker and a ho?

What's the difference between a hooker and a ho?

Lmao excellent analogy. I think we are seeing a lot of uninformed bandwagonners who think they "know what's up" because they follow the MSM Corporate Propaganda line, so they feel good about belittling this sub and its users because they're convinced that we're wrong about everything.

They have no idea that they are providing their services, free of charge, at maintaining the fucked up status quo and spreading propaganda.

Exactly. My mother is like my best buddy. But we can't have any conversations about current events because she thinks she puts a lot of effort into staying informed. But all she does is watch CNN and MSNBC. It sucks, she has almost redpilled herself on the pedophilia stuff though. If the indictments yield any dramatic arrests in that space, I might be able to get her over all the way into crazytown haha.

It sucks, she has almost redpilled herself on the pedophilia stuff though. If the indictments yield any dramatic arrests in that space, I might be able to get her over all the way into crazytown haha.

It's all about them baby steps :D

Absolutely. Its pretty strange to see people in here who parrot MSM talking points and mock conspiracy theories. Its also pretty strange that those users aren't banned, and yet authentic users will get banned for "trolling" for the smallest things. Really makes you think...

They are so invulnerable, they even have a private sub to make fun of others. I have an inside guy already.

Started coming to this sub last month after the Vegas shooting because the info here made much more sense than what was being peddled by the mainstream media. There are a few whackjobs but many people here want to solidly prove or disapprove theories being tossed around no matter how outlandish they seem. Overall an intelligent group of people in this sub.

I believe reddit calls it subtle advertising. I read it once on their TOS. We are being influenced by paid professionals who pretend to be individual users.

What's the difference between a hooker and a ho?

Lmao excellent analogy. I think we are seeing a lot of uninformed bandwagonners who think they "know what's up" because they follow the MSM Corporate Propaganda line, so they feel good about belittling this sub and its users because they're convinced that we're wrong about everything.

They have no idea that they are providing their services, free of charge, at maintaining the fucked up status quo and spreading propaganda.