I have frequented r/de for a long time (German subreddit) and it's very much on the student life / left-leaning site of political opinions as a community. It is

I have frequented r/de for a long time (German subreddit) and it's very much on the student life / left-leaning site of political opinions as a community. It is fascinating how repeated reality checks with the rest of society regarding political and the social landscape (e.g. national polls, elections) seemingly violate the moralist self-image of this community over and over again which is represented in flabbergasted comments. How can all of these people be against my opinion? I happen to share many of the popular ideas on r/de - disagreement and mud-slinging is not my point. Just this notable lack of self awareness and the, frankly, authoritarian mods that enforce their political ideas on others in a de facto public forum. I really understand moderation is a hard problem but deleting entire comment sections and putting threads into contest mode if the left-leaning political opinion is in danger is painful to watch since the essence of democracy suffers: pluralistic (but respectful) discussions and arguments. The main points of debate here seem to be nuclear power, COVID and migration. Very divisive topics. There has been a very interesting example of this in the case of the Bavarian lockdown which enforced an actual curfew of citizens in March 2020 when COVID was new and entirely unpredictable. This law was later taken to the Verfassungsgericht ("Supreme Court") and the discussion did a complete 180 degree turn strictly for political reasons and social media dynamics. First, there was massive support (against COVID deniers) [1] where top commenters complain about the lockdown being too soft (!) and users even threatened others with violence (pepper spray to cite a specific comment) if they dont wear masks in public or take walks doing the curfew. But later, when the law was challenged in court, COVID became politically irrelvant and it was an opportunity to undermine the conservative leader of Bavaria, Markus Söder. Suddenly the curfew was a sign of a police state [2]. As long as the own agenda is propagated in a specific moment, you can collect upvotes with fitting comments. Facts and consistency just don't matter. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/de/comments/kcxnin/harter_lockdown_und_ausgangssperre_f%C3%BCr_bayern/ https://old.reddit.com/r/de/comments/kcxnin/harter_lockdown_... [2.1] https://old.reddit.com/r/de/comments/q2jtka/vgh_bayern_coronaausgangssperre_war/ https://old.reddit.com/r/de/comments/q2jtka/vgh_bayern_coron... [2.2] https://old.reddit.com/r/de/comments/z1vwuk/bundesverwaltungsgericht_ausgangssperre_in_bayern/ https://old.reddit.com/r/de/comments/z1vwuk/bundesverwaltung...