There definitely are real people on there too, but they're mostly teenagers and the kind of people who stay home on the internet all day. So take solace in that even if all the posts and comments were from real people, the opinions and beliefs on there aren't representative at all of the general population.
Imagine we ask reddit, seniors in a Florida nursing home, truck drivers, banking CEOs, university professors, high school students, inmates in prison, or soldiers what they think about police. I'd expect wildly different answers from each that don't give me insight into what the "general" opinion is.
There definitely are real people on there too, but they're mostly teenagers and the kind of people who stay home on the internet all day. So take solace in that even if all the posts and comments were from real people, the opinions and beliefs on there aren't representative at all of the general population.
Imagine we ask reddit, seniors in a Florida nursing home, truck drivers, banking CEOs, university professors, high school students, inmates in prison, or soldiers what they think about police. I'd expect wildly different answers from each that don't give me insight into what the "general" opinion is.
True about the astroturfing... and of course the mods of major subreddits are part of the rot.
Sadly my experience is that real people do hold these shocking opinions as well. Hopefully you're right, and reddit badly misrepresents the proportions.