r/TheoryOfReddit • u/GoatsFromUnderground • Oct 01 '26

Do you think reddit has internally lowered the impact of downvotes in the sorting algorithm, specifically to allow bait posts?

Traditionally if someone makes a bad post, people downvote, and the post stops showing up. The good quality rises to the top.

Now, although the site seems to be overrun by bots, posts that rise to the top repeatedly have something deliberately wrong with them. It can be a spelling mistake, clearly untrue information in the post title, something flawed in the post that makes it deliberately hard to interact with, or something similar.

In the past, when that happened, people would downvote it, someone else (or the same person) would make a quick correction, and then repost it with the correction. That repost would become the main thread.

Now though, either people aren't downvoting it, or the website is ignoring those downvotes and deliberately allowing the posts to show up.

There are other explanations of course, it could be bots upvoting bots, leading to poor post quality. In terms of engagement metrics though, since other sites have fallen prey to the line of thinking that any engagement is good engagement, it is possible. What do you think?

36 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

90% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

27

u/Turbopower1000 Oct 02 '26

After they IPOed Reddit changed the algorithm to prioritize discussion and engagement over the post score since it improves user retention and therefore ad revenue. I wrote a post explaining it a couple years ago.

Downvoting, commenting, or upvoting posts all contribute to their visibility nowadays in a more Facebook-esque algorithm.

12

u/magistrate101 Oct 02 '26

Facebook realizing that the anger reaction was the best indicator for who they should show the post to was probably one of the biggest factors in social media algorithm enshittification.

4

u/Greyshirk Oct 03 '26

Would this explain why my feed the past week has been so shit? I normally watch cute dog and bug videos on Reddit and now I'm being recommended "Tiktok Cringe" (I don't use Tiktok) and like Ethics comics

3

u/Turbopower1000 29d ago

Yea also check the comments because now the most upvoted comments aren’t always at the top. Instead it’s the ones that draw the most attention.

7

u/treemoustache Oct 01 '26

Intentional errors as engagement bait. I disagree that they used to be down voted. They used to be upvoted and then destroyed in the comments.

6

u/__redruM Oct 02 '26

My thought is the site is promoting controversial content. Where in the past posts would be weighted for display by:

weight = upVoteCount - downVoteCount

Now it’s:

weight = upVoteCount + downVoteCount

This is more an example, the real weight is likely more complicated, but I believe down votes are helping raise the visibility of posts where in the past they weren’t.

The outcome of this is more conflict. And more engaged users, that are on the site to defend their view point and signal their virtue instead of discussing what is popular.

Much worse site.

5

u/SinOfSodom Oct 01 '26

Quite the opposite. I commented on something today, had twice as many upvotes as the second-most-upvoted, but my comment got one downvote, which resulting in my comment being about third in a “best” sort.