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wiffleaxe  ·  4306 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Ganging up on Reddit

Sure, but it's about visibility and about normalizing attitudes and behaviors. A post with 500 upvotes saying "OP is a faggot" and a response at -20 saying "hey, that's not cool to say" is going to make people think that it's 1. okay to call others faggots and 2. discouraged to speak up against that kind of language.

Downvotes really are distributed silencing mechanisms. They reduce people's ability to see, and willingness to consider, contradictory viewpoints.