A response to this question I asked here. Both Twitter and Reddit have the absolute SHITTIEST communities on the entire internet. Both toxic userbases are pretty much identical in how childish they act and behave. But which one is truly the worst on society? I weight the pros and cons and see which site is truly the worst social media site on the entire internet; Reddit or Twitter.
1. Twitter doesn't allow you to say as much as Reddit does.
Twitter has a lot of super-garbage people on it, but it only limits you to about 280 characters or so. It was formerly 140. Where as people on Reddit can type up to 10,000 characters in a single post, or about 36 times more. If someone is trash talking or spewing nonsense, Reddit is the site that will have them say more of it, and more efficiently. This point goes to Reddit.
2. Twitter has less anonymity on it, where as Reddit allows for more anonymity, which means worse behavior.
Twitter doesn't allow you to be as anonymous as Reddit does, nor does it allow you to create "throw-away" accounts as easily as Reddit does. Even if you're getting harassed or doxxed on Twitter, it's harder for that person to come back onto the site. On Reddit, it's very easy for an asshole to join right back onto there, even after getting banned. This point goes to Reddit.
3. Twitter is run by Jack Dorsey, where as Reddit is run by the psychopath gate-keeping moderators.
Twitter perhaps isn't as bad as Reddit because Twitter has a smaller chain of command. Only a few people (admittedly, awful people themselves) run Twitter. Reddit is run by thousands of moderators and admins, and they are unregulated and unchecked, and most of them end of being complete shitbags and scum for human beings. This point goes to Reddit.
4. Twitter allows for more dissenting opinions due to being more corporate, while Reddit is run almost solely by volunteer moderators, which makes it less open for free-speech.
This isn't saying Twitter is more "pro-free speech," but that they can get away with less anti-free speech because it is more of a corporate website than Reddit is. Twitter allowed Donald Trump to post on there (for a short while anyway; they mostly had no choice) and allows conservatives and non-Progressives to post on there, as well.
Because Reddit is a site run by psychopaths and shitbags among their moderation community, it is far less for free speech, and has even shut down many subreddits LITERALLY just for not being part of the approved political ideology, such as /r/The_Donald, the Donald Trump subreddit, or any subs that are anti-feminist and anti-woke (although replacements sometimes pop back up, under the radar). But Reddit's anti-free speech goes further than that and even applies to subreddits that have nothing to do with politics or wokeness. Like the infamous SCP subreddit that had a bunch of pro queer and trans stuff on it, when the SCP subreddit is supposed to be dedicated to fan-made fictional urban legends from the SCP community.
Others, such as /r/Pokemon, have also been heavily politicized, where criticizing inappropriate, not-safe-for-work cosplays of women dressed as Pokemon anime characters or Pokemon themselves, is a bannable offense. In short, Twitter is held to more standards than Reddit is, and Reddit throughout the ENTIRE website with hundreds of thousands of subreddits on it, is still mostly run by shitty, horrible moderators that act more like gatekeepers and cyberbullies than doing any actual fair moderation or upholding of the rules. This point goes to Reddit.
5. Twitter is seen as a more important "source of news," where Reddit is mostly seen as a joke.
The simple fact is, while both sites have been around for about the same length of time, about 12 to 13 years, Twitter is actually taken seriously by United States senators and governors, while Reddit is not. Some people actually use Twitter as a source of news due to the corporate presence on there, as well as the site itself being designed with the purpose of gossip, while even the people on Reddit know that Reddit's /r/news, /r/worldnews, and /r/politics is heavily biased to the point of parody (again, due to the moderators being biased, corrupt assholes). While most people with a brain in the First World may not take Twitter seriously, it's a different story in Third World nations and places like China, where the mainstream news is (if you can believe it) even far more corrupt and insidious than it is in the US. To these people, Twitter is their closest source to news and information, as sad as that is. As far as who's worse, this point goes to Reddit.
6. Twitter affects real life more, where as most of Reddit is insular and isolated from the rest of the world.
The absolute assholes who infect both of these sites can affect your life in different ways. While the social justice brigade of shills and useful idiots love nothing more than to Cancel you on both, Reddit seems to rarely ever affect real life, outside of the Wall Street Stonks thing back in the Spring of 2021. While Twitter can and often times DOES try to reach into your real offline life through its Cancel Culture, doxxing, and harassment. Even if they don't know where you live or work, they can make a plea to your company or parent corporation to fire you, and the company or corporation is more willing to listen to "12 psychos" on Twitter than the losers on Reddit, for some reason. This point goes to Twitter.
7. Twitter is the only social media site to ban a United States president merely because they felt like it.
Speaking of real life consequences... Twitter is the only social media site (or at least, the first one) to ban a United States president, or former one, merely because they felt like it. They tried to justify banning US President Donald Trump by using the shittiest and most flimsy of reasons ("inciting violence" to the January 6th protest), but anyone with common sense knows they did it to de-platform and de-power the former US president. And they not only did that, but they applied peer pressure to make sure alternatives couldn't rise up, even BEFORE Donald Trump joined them, such as Parler. The social media site was completely innocent, but because it was seen as a *possible* competitor to the biased and corrupt sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit, it was preemptively struck down. It's mostly like Twitter, leading many to assume Jack Dorsey and the people at Twitter were the ones to rally against it. (Even the Wikipedia page for Parler is full of slanderous lies and bullshit, upon the very first paragraph.) Since Twitter is the one to lead the ban on Trump and Parlor, they are, in this one instance, BY FAR worse than Reddit, which even if they banned anyone, no one would care and they could easily pop back up. This point goes to Twitter.
8. Twitter is used and abused by corporations and celebrities, Reddit is mostly corpo-free.
Getting to this point, actual corporations and celebrities are on Twitter. In fact, Twitter is completely useless and irrelevant WITHOUT actual corporations and celebrities on it. Back in 2009, it seemed that corporations completely missed all the other social media bandwagons like MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube. While they managed to later catch up on YouTube, Twitter was really the first social media community to get heavily corporatized. Now, like many things, they have heavy sway on it, which actually explains their power, which I'll get to later. But Reddit has almost no official corporate-approved and owned subreddits, and is still mostly run by independent fans. So this point goes to Twitter.
9. Twitter has more corporate shills and bots on it than Reddit.
Because Reddit requires a lot more real engagement on it, and conversations with real users, it is harder to exploit by shills and bots. Twitter's short character length and general layout makes it easy for shills and bots to exploit it. Almost nobody in real life uses Twitter. Twitter has four kinds of people on it: Celebrities, Company Spokespeople, 50 Cent Army Shills (Useful Idiots), and Bots. Celebrities use it to promote their brand and image. Companies use it to advertise their companies, but they ALSO secretly use it to be their personal army and shake down and harass all those that get in their way.
Amazon Prime's "The Boys" displayed how social media followers can be exploited by corporations in their second season. But in real life, Kathleen Kennedy and her "story group" at Lucasfilm unintentionally displayed how they exploited social media (mainly Twitter) to harass and Cancel Culture Gina Carano out of Star Wars and Disney itself. These corporations astroturf by either hiring real people to be their shills or having paid employees shill from within by pretending to be "regular people" not associated with the corporations or on the payroll. They trigger the Cancel Culture witch mobs, the mainstream media (also on the payroll) pick up the story, and the genuine Useful Idiots on Twitter jump onto the bandwagon for free, thinking the 50 Cent Army shills are real people like them. Bots may be paid to do the rest and also fool people into thinking a hate campaign led a corporate target, such as Gina Carano, are real accounts.
Celebrities are the closest thing to genuine people on Twitter, followed by the people stupid enough to jump on hate campaigns for free, often far-left, mentally unstable teenagers. And corporations and bots control the platform. By comparison, Reddit only has two kinds of people on it: Complete pieces of shit (who are at least real people, even if they're the scum of the Earth), and the innocent people who get banned by them. This point goes to Twitter.
10. Both sites seem equal when it comes to cyberbullying, doxing, and harassing, but Twitter has more serious consequences for it.
Make no mistake, both sites are full of extremely shitty people who love to cyberbully, talk shit, harass, and generally be assholes to all of those not in their club of douchebags and dipshits. But which is worse when it comes to it? While Redditors are FAR more vicious and disgusting about it (often "checking your post history," even if it has nothing to do with the current post, and making a public "dirt sheet" to harass and dogpile you for disagreeing with their opinions on the internet), Twitter's harassment and cyberbullying has worse effects.
Take the case of Alec Holowka, who was falsely accused of "abuse" (without evidence; spoiler alert: there is none) by fake Gamer Girl, professional Victim, and master Shitty Human Being, Zoe Quinn. He was promptly fired from his job... Over Twitter. Not too much later, after Twitter harassment from Zoe's feminist Tweet mob, he committed suicide.
This week, allegations of past abuse have come to light regarding Alec Holowka, who was coder, composer, and co-designer on Night In The Woods. We take such allegations seriously as a team. As a result and after some agonizing consideration, we are cutting ties with Alec.
— Night In The Woods (@NightInTheWoods) August 28, 2019
That's not enough? Don't care because it was a white male who offed himself? What about the case of porn star August Ames? Ames was said to be a generally super-sweet and pleasant person, but suffered with depression and low self-esteem for a long time. She said she refused to have bareback sex with a male porn star due to his reputation and possibility of having STD's and didn't want to risk it (which is very logical and a fair concern), but was harassed online and accused of being "homophobic" and peer pressured and bullied into having unprotected sex with said queer male porn star who has had lots of unprotected gay sex in the past. She took her own life, as well.
fuck y’all
— August Ames (@AugustAmesxxx) December 5, 2017
So a porn star named August Ames died today by suicide because of cyber bullying. She did not want to have a scene with a gay man (crossover is the term) and people in the industry and all over social media attacked her to the point of wanting to die. CYBER BULLYING IS NOT OKAY!!
— Alex Scherer (@Alex_R_Scherer) December 7, 2017
https://torontosun.com/news/world/august-ames-death-twitter-bullying-of-porn-queen-explored
These are just the two that are documented and have semi-famous people attached to them. How much more misery has Twitter caused in its pointless existence? As SHITTY as Reddit is (and it is VERY MUCH a putrid pile of shit), it's harder to find any deaths directly due to it. Though one of the Reddit cofounders did die before reaching 30, it's unknown (and unlikely) it was directly tied to Reddit.
https://www.businessinsider.com/26-year-old-reddit-co-founder-aaron-swartz-has-died-2013-1
Of the two sites, Twitter users are the only ones that have blood directly on their hands. So... Yeah. Twitter definitely fuckin' takes this round.
FINAL SCORE
So, it's 5 to 5, a tie. But you know what, Reddit users haven't directly caused people to kill themselves (that we know of), and then congratulated themselves for doing it, so FUCK Twitter. Twitter is the worst social media site on the entire internet. It's definitive.
Most Helpful Opinions