I think there is also another aspect that is not talked about when discussing downvotes and eco-chamber: the shills. Companies/lobbyists/govs have realised a f

I think there is also another aspect that is not talked about when discussing downvotes and eco-chamber: the shills. Companies/lobbyists/govs have realised a few years back that reddit was big enough/influential enough to shape some aspect of public opinion, it is now quite obviously that they are paying PR companies to defend their lobbies/brand/products on reddit. The other day I commented on a european sub-reddit, where they were discussing the move away from coal power plants as an energy source. I pointed out that the move away from coal was great but that we should remain sceptical of the "green" "clean" energy marketing around bio-mass power plants and also natural-gas power plants. Immediately the comment became controversial with wildly varying scores of up and downvotes. All the comments that followed where quite adversarial and flippant, mixed with bland marketing statements filled with buzzwords about how bio-mass is sustainable and 'renewable'. I doubt this situation would have occurred 6/7 years ago. In this case it was so obvious that I couldn't care less but probably for some users they would be intimidated to continue to comment on the topic after this. It's not just Energy lobby, you could say the same thing about Pesticides, Pharma, <insert major lobby group>. Also on the shills, I used to go to reddit as a source of legitimate product reviews and recommendations, now it's obviously that every marketing person uses the platform to name drop their product and do stealth marketing companies. As so many others before it, reddit has become a victim of its own popularity.