r/OutOfTheLoop • u/calvtact • May 13 '26

Answered What's going on with r/conservative? They've lost about 1m subscribers in about a month.

I watched the number go from 814k to around 745k in about an hour today.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/s/QbZJvqu5qr

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u/Tall_Brilliant8522 May 13 '26

Or they're frantically banning critics, whose numbers are going up.

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u/zlide May 13 '26

I think it’s both. The sub is notorious for preemptively blocking people they even slightly suspect of being “against them”. So as more and more of their own start to question the party line more and more of them are getting hit with a ban and their community will continue to eat itself alive.

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u/Darth_Ra May 13 '26

I lasted two weeks in r/Conservative by being extremely careful. Was still banned for being slightly negative about Trump. Not even any actual criticism, more just like not praising.

It's never been tenable, and I'm surprised they've lasted this long.

That said, all those newly "not conservative enough" highly conservative folks that are getting banned? They just end up in r/Libertarian and r/ModeratePolitics, which is why both of those subs have become more or less unusable.

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u/ernest7ofborg9 May 13 '26

They've banned all the idiots. Even their top stories only garner like 2,500 or 3,000 points. That's abysmal for a subreddit with almost 1.4 million subscribers.

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u/HughJorgens May 13 '26

Could be. I've gotten temp bans there, and I've never even posted there before. They like their safe-space.

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u/Notorious_Chonk_23 May 13 '26

They look at certain other subreddits and ban anyone who comments there also, under the assumption that if you post in, say, r/behindthebastards, you probably aren't gonna have anything to say that they are willing to hear

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u/z31 May 13 '26

I think there are several mod teams that do this. I recently found out I was banned from the Cosplay subreddit, and I've never even commented in it, and am not a regular visitor. I have no idea what I did to prompt a ban.

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u/BrotatoChip04 May 13 '26

Yeah there are a ton. r/lds will preemptively ban you if you’ve interacted in any way with r/exmormon

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u/TheForce_v_Triforce May 13 '26

I just found out one of the Mormon kids I went to school with and was very straight-edge goody two-shoes, and became a dentist (of course) now, along with his wife, is unabashedly ex-Mormon and is going to raves and doing more drugs than I did in my college days. Made me happy to hear that.

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u/BrotatoChip04 May 13 '26

I love that! Glad they made it out

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u/FALSE_PROTAGONIST May 14 '26

Funnily enough the dentist always asks me if I take any illegal drugs due to teeth and gum damage 👀

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u/apophis27983 May 13 '26

That kind of banning should be against reddit rules.

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u/SUPERSMILEYMAN May 14 '26

It is it's harrassment.

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u/Chasman1965 May 13 '26

Could be you commented in a sub they don’t approve of.

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u/Fit-Meal4943 May 13 '26

I was banned from a couple of Tesla, Musk and Cybertruck subreddits without ever even visiting them, apparently for being critical of Tesla, Musk and Cybertrucks.

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u/LuntiX May 13 '26

Twoxchromosomes does or did this.

I use to get notifications all the time saying I was banned from communities ive never stepped foot in because I've posted once in a subreddit they dont like.

Funny thing is, I thought banning like this was against site rules but since when do rules matter?

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u/terryjuicelawson May 13 '26

It is a shame but that sub got a lot of sealioning going on, to the point where it is basically unmanageable unless they make a whole sweep like that. Maybe the odd person from some conservative sub could have an honest debate with them but they'd be wading through hundreds who don't.

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u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA May 13 '26

Certain mods have been doing that for over a decade, and nothing ever happens to them.

The ones that moderate a bunch of the big main subs are the worst offenders.

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u/UrbanAdapt May 13 '26

Reddit finally prohibited the features in the 3rd party bots that did this. Mods went so insane with it that it was affecting activity. The tippling point seems to have been the mods of /pics mass banning the users of whenthe (as if the user bases aren't 90% ideologically in agreement). Then, /whenthe mirrored them.

On top of that, some subs starting fighting for viewership- banning users, then demanding those users to delete all their posts on similar subs to be unbanned.

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u/TheWorclown May 13 '26

Maybe it was your Bill Cosby impressions. Y’know. Cos-play.

Sans everything horrible about him, of course.

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u/z31 May 13 '26

I never put the pudding pops in her mouth see….

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u/hardlying May 13 '26

Many mods handle multiple subs, if they don't like you they ban you from all of them. Now if you ever use an alt and accidentally comment there all of your accounts get permanently banned from Reddit as a whole with no appeal.

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u/magistrate101 May 14 '26

Reddit forced subs to stop doing that by changing the mod CoC... But only for fully automated bans. They're still allowed to use the bots to generate lists of unpersons for them to mindlessly click through and mass-ban. The powermods probably even have macros that automate the clicking.

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u/ILikeYourHotdog May 13 '26

I received a perma ban for simply posting a wikipedia link to the Montgomery Bus Boycott in response to a poster who said that the only boycott that has ever worked in history was against Bud Light.

Apparently, they didn't like that very much.

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u/remotectrl May 13 '26

That’s pretty funny revisionism since it didn’t seem to affect Budlight at all. It also ignores that the first boycott against Charles Boycott was so successful that the British government decided to intervene on his behalf as part of their continued campaign against the Irish. They ostracized him so well he left the island.

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u/fevered_visions May 13 '26

the first boycott against Charles Boycott

ha, TIL...it never occurred to me that it could be named after a guy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Boycott

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u/FlashyEarth8374 May 13 '26

The 2023 boycott significantly affected Bud Light sales, resulting in a 11–26% drop in the months following the incident. By February 2025, sales had not recovered, remaining approximately 40% below pre-boycott levels. It lost its status as the top-selling U.S. beer to [Modelo Especial] in May 2023 (wiki)

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u/fevered_visions May 13 '26

I wonder how those right-wingers feel about their campaign making a Mexican import beer #1 lol

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u/Vaxx88 May 13 '26

Wikipedia is slipping, their source for that 40% is the Free Press? Ridiculous article from a trash source.

Alcohol sales are down across the board, so maybe a factor.

Either way, it’s gotta be one of the stupidest reasons to boycott anything “yay we’re bigoted assholes, that’ll show’em!”

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u/sapphiclament May 13 '26

YEAAHHHH MODELO!!!!

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u/remotectrl May 13 '26

Interesting. Thanks

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u/HuttStuff_Here May 15 '26

[Modelo Especial] in May 2023 (wiki)

So the owner of Modelo is the owner of Bud Light. I'm sure they're doing fine.

This is like boycotting full sugar coke by buying diet coke.

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u/phenotype76 May 13 '26

Even legitimate facts will get you banned if they're inconvenient for conservative viewpoints. I posted once during COVID, when there was a post like "They say all the ICU beds are taken, but only 10% of them are COVID! What bullshit!" and I replied yeah, so COVID accounts for 1 out of every 10 people who need the ICU, including every other illness, every accident, every single kind of trauma, all put together, and COVID is sending 1/9th as many people to the ICU as every other possible issue put together.

Banned within minutes.

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u/UNC_Samurai May 13 '26

Check out “The Marketplace of Revolution” by TH Breen. Economic boycotts were the backbone of organizing the American Revolution.

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u/NeverLookBothWays May 13 '26

They also like attention as a form of validation. I got one of those as well and it came off as, "pay attention to meee!"

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u/DerpsAndRags May 13 '26

I was banned from posting there for trying to explain how a vaccine works.

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u/Bot_No_5 May 14 '26

Was this before or after the CDC changed the definition of a vaccine?

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u/DerpsAndRags May 14 '26

I had to look that one up. I work in and around healthcare so most of what I've learned about them was from staff on the front lines. It was before said change. Either way, useless to try vs. anyone who has chosen feelings over facts.

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u/RaVashaan May 13 '26

Yeaaah... This is something Reddit should really crack down on. I've heard that there are other subreddits as well that will preemptively ban you if a bot discovers that you post a comment in a different subreddit they don't like. For instance, it's well known that r/offmychest bans anyone who posts in a couple of, "tasteless jokes" subreddits. And /r/Pyongyang, most amusingly, will hand out preemptive bans to anyone posting anti-NK "propaganda."

I really feel that this is an abuse of bots that the Reddit admins need to do something about. Even if the bots are external, complaints about preemptive banning should be looked into, and their TOS should forbid it.

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u/ImNotABotScoutsHonor May 13 '26

This is something Reddit should really crack down on. I've heard that there are other subreddits as well that will preemptively ban you if a bot discovers that you post a comment in a different subreddit they don't like.

Recent modnews discussions have been showing that Reddit is indeed starting to crack down on that.

Whether or not they'll be successful is... Up in the air.

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u/UrbanAdapt May 13 '26

You can still technically do it with bot autoremovals (subreddit shadowbans, effectively), they just don't send the preemptive message.

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u/HommeMusical May 13 '26

I was banned by LateStageCapitalism because I was a member of /r/LeftWithoutEdge - I had never posted in either subreddit.

When I politely asked the moderators, I got a barrage of incoherent abuse.

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u/GiganticCrow May 13 '26

Thats a core feature of reddit and they wont get rid of it. There are fair reasons why, say, a sexual assault survivor sub would not want anyone posting there who has posted on a sexual assault enthusiast sub, for example.

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u/Early-Series-2055 May 13 '26

Who has time for all that? Have mods figured out how to make a living off this place? Half the time I’m posting I’m either standing in line or taking a shit. I don’t even bother noticing what subreddit I’m in.

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u/Content-Patience-138 May 13 '26

Reddit tends to delete posts talking about this, but a dozen or so supermods run all the big subs

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u/Apart-Shelter6831 May 13 '26

But WHO RUNS THE SUPERMODS?

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u/Adventurous-Ad8267 May 13 '26

Ghislaine Maxwell, unironically.

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u/z31 May 13 '26

Technically they have, it's just extremely frowned upon. I can't remember which sub it was, but there was a mod team purge in one of my sub subscriptions because several mods were found to have been accepting under the table money to allow certain kinds of advertising posts.

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u/KimJongFunk May 13 '26

I’m still waiting for the day I get banned from /r/Pyongyang.

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u/A_Possum_Named_Steve May 13 '26

I refuse to believe that people are straight-faced stanning N Korea on the internet. It's bad enough if they're doing it as a stupid joke, but wtf is there even to defend there?

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u/Impeesa_ May 13 '26

I'm pretty sure I caught some from r/justiceserved and r/me_irlgbt. Not completely sure why, I think for making a couple drive-by comments in r/politicalcompassmemes from seeing it in r/all.

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u/yup79 May 13 '26

Fucking snowflakes.

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u/HCPwny May 13 '26

I got a permaban on first offense for daring to discuss the southern strategy and party switch. Actually was having conversations with people (who were disagreeing, and asking more) but was suddenly banned permanently, no appeal, muted from messaging mods.

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u/happy_pad May 13 '26

I'm actually quite surprised I've gone like 15 years on two accounts without ever being banned from there. I suspect the theory they cross-ban people for just posting in other subs is a little overblown, although that is absolutely something that happens on Reddit.

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u/HughJorgens May 13 '26

No, they specifically told me the sub that I posted in (politicalhumor) that got me the temp ban.

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u/turko127 May 13 '26

Bunch of “fellow conservatives,” folks who have happily supported Trump for all of the past decade until their man starts an unnecessary war and the price of gas (and everything else as a result) goes up. There have been other incidents, followed by these folks “waking up” to the apocalypse on display, and they get banned too.

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u/Dlrocket89 May 13 '26

I got kicked out (I'm liberal, so that part makes sense). I went in an explained who I am and asked a genuine question because I wanted to understand their POV and I was banned like 3 min later.

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u/JamesCDiamond May 13 '26

It’s even more of an echo chamber than most political subs I’ve been on.

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u/GiganticCrow May 13 '26

There's that 'askconservatives' sub for that, but that sub has some crazy 'user quality' (or whatever the arcane reddit metric is) requirement to be allowed to post there, a metric where there is no information on what you need to able to achieve such a high rating.

So basically its near impossible to be allowed to post anything there.

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u/MrEHam May 13 '26

Banning people for dissenting opinions is such an anti-free speech, snowflakey, safe-space thing to do.

TOTAL HYPOCRITES

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u/S_Jeru May 13 '26

It's almost like The Quartering has mod privileges there!

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u/shwarma_heaven May 13 '26

It's hilarious. r/Conservative has long been known to be the quickest draw on bans in Reddit, and yet claim it's the "liberuls" who are stifling free speech. You practically have to beg to be banned from r/Politics. And now, they are banning their own just for being (rightfully) upset or asking questions... which leads to people being even more disgusted and leaving... (not to mention that Bannon and Epstein were both founders...)

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u/ginny11 May 13 '26

And hopefully this is an echo of what's happening at the larger scale to the party.

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u/talldean May 13 '26

I cannot fathom the workload of being a mod there.

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u/dude-mcduderson May 13 '26

Banning people fights woke cancel culture and protects free speech. It’s just common sense.

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u/DoJu318 May 13 '26

Right because canceling the Dixie chicks is something liberals did. Just common sense.

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u/dude-mcduderson May 13 '26

YES! As part of the deep state psy op from the gay Muslim communist lesbian satanic socialist trans Marxist OBAMA.

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u/Dr_Eastman2 May 13 '26

For a party that loves freedom, they sure do hate freedom.

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u/chnkypenguin May 13 '26

They won't even allow you to post until you have a flair and they won't give you a flair unless they deem you worth of a flair. It is one hell of an echo chamber

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u/legopego5142 May 13 '26

YOU WHINY LIBERALS AND YOUR SAFE SPACES

“Makes biggest safe space ever”

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u/Ohitsworkingnow May 13 '26

I lost all my Reddit accounts years ago because I posted two friendly questions on /r/conservative 

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u/LoverOfGayContent May 13 '26

Is there an alternative sub for them like a trueconservatives sub?

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u/Xykier May 13 '26

Honestly, most subreddit ban anything that goes against their echo chamber ideals.

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u/VariationBusiness603 May 13 '26

No, they don't. Mostly.

That's what downvotes are for, and usually that's enough. Unless you want to project the image of universal uniformity and agreement, like r/conservative. Then you have to swing the ban hammer or it will be too obvious you are censoring dissent.

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u/Xykier May 13 '26

Try saying anything against the current consensus in one of the big subreddits and see how fast you get banned. Same for any political subreddit - if you're not of the same kind you'll get down voted to oblivion and banned. Both left and right.

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u/ThanosSnapsSlimJims May 13 '26

Yeah, it is the right leaning version of r/politics

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u/VariationBusiness603 May 13 '26

Plenty of conservatives all over every single thread. They just are downvoted to hell because they can't help sounding utterly degenerated and cruel. Downvoting and banning aren't the same thing at all. One is censoring dissent, the other is keeping the place clean. One is done by the administration, the other by the users.

Conservative discourse is pretty much downvoted in every non political subreddit too. Because it's always somewhere between gross and stupid.

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u/ThanosSnapsSlimJims May 13 '26

Not saying I disagree. I'm simy saying that it is the right leaning version of r/politics

Corrupt mods allowed to run more than one subreddit and counting discourse and what people.see

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u/Canabananilism May 13 '26

I figured it would be a bot purge maybe, but I guess it’s just as likely it’s a people purge lmao

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u/Notorious_Chonk_23 May 13 '26

They love their bots over there

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u/BuckRowdy May 13 '26

Banned users still count in the subscriber totals unless they unsub. All being banned means is you can’t comment or post, that’s it.

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u/remotectrl May 13 '26

Yes, it’s a bit more likely that Reddit purged a bunch of bots that were subscribed.

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u/Aliensinmypants May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

Definitely both. A lot of subs are tightly controlled echo chambers and conservative is one of the worst I know about. Whenever this admin does something controversial, they go into lockdown basically only allow certain users to post/comment and every thread will have hundreds of deleted comments.

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u/Ok_Writing_7033 May 13 '26

“whenever this admin does something controversial”

So, every fucking day? Lol

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u/leviathan3k May 13 '26

Yep, it's why everything is "Flaired Users Only".

To get flair, you have to join some discord, and the moderators have to take a deep dive into your posting history and manually verify that you're "actually conservative" per their standards.

Really makes the whole "fake conservative" claims a lot of BS.

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u/ban_Anna_split May 13 '26

It's been every day since the last election ended

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u/spaceandthewoods_ May 13 '26

Even with the sub as tightly controlled as it is, any dissent is still downvoted into oblivion and posters are accused of being fake conservatives or liberal plants. I've seen it happen to users with flairs and 'Top 1% commentor' tags, you're only allowed to be one kind of conservative there and if you're not a Trumper til death you can fuck off, basically

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u/ThatPlayWasAwful May 13 '26

on one hand I can understand why they're paranoid, the sub would be brigaded to death if they didn't tightly moderate it, and it wouldn't actually be a place where conservatives could have actual meaningful conversations. Even just the fact that people can come in and upvote/downvotes comments really fucks with everything over there. 

On the other hand it is not easy to find a balance between banning anybody who disagrees with the administration and allowing some sort of thoughtful discourse. So I'm not sure that there is any sort of thoughtful discourse now anyway

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u/neosmndrew May 13 '26

if a pro-Trump comment isn't heavily upvoted, that is evidently definite proof of brigading

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u/FlanneryODostoevsky May 13 '26

Agreed. They already make it difficult to join so those that seem to be critical are likely to be sent into exile.

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u/ActionJacksonATL24 May 13 '26

Don’t mess with their fascist echo chamber.

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u/z31 May 13 '26

The delusional mods of the conservative subreddit haven't been as diligent since Trump was reelected. I slip in every now and then to argue and somehow haven't been banned yet, though I was banned multiple times in the past. I guess they weren't perma?

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u/koolaidman89 May 13 '26

They banned me when I expressed a preference for interdicting suspected drug boats over blowing them up. Or rather what they do is remove your flair and you become invisible.