February 26, 2018
SHARE
CANADALAND
#220 We Need To Talk About Reddit
After years of dodging emails about the internal politics of the country's largest subreddit, r/Canada, Jesse finally jumps down the weirdo-message-board rabbit hole.
Jesse Brown
Host & Publisher

Nearly 340k people are subscribed to r/Canada, with many using it as their primary source of news. This past week, private messages were leaked between two of the subreddit’s moderators, in which one moderator named u/Perma wrote that they were “slowly becoming” a white nationalist.

Freelance journalist and CANADALAND contributor, Evan Balgord joins Jesse to get a sense of how one of Canada’s biggest informal, “non-partisan” news platforms begun skewing (alt)right and how Reddit influences mainstream media (and politics).

Jesse also speaks to the person responsible for leaking the conversation, “Neil” AKA u/UsedToDonateBlood, the founding moderator of r/OnGuardForThee — the breakout subreddit pushing back against the “censorious,” and increasingly “alt-right” editorial slant of r/Canada.


An earlier version of this episode made reference to a Justin Trudeau AMA on r/CanadaPolitics. That was in fact an April Fool’s hoax.


image source: Reddit user legit4u

More from this series
What is going on with Canada’s international relations? With all the recent stories about India and the Two Michaels time in China coming to the front again, reporter Sam Cooper helps break it all down.
December 4, 2023
Canadaland publisher Jesse Brown has been asked to stop talking about antisemitism.
November 29, 2023
Journalists report the news. They hear about a story, write it up, verify the facts, and then hit “publish”. Except for the times when they publish someone else’s story…
November 27, 2023
Nine sudden death cases of Indigenous people in Thunder Bay, Ontario were investigated so poorly that they had to be reinvestigated. But were they able to get it right this time?
November 20, 2023
For over five years, Canadaland has been investigating Thunder Bay, Ontario. Specifically, we have been trying to figure out why there were so many unanswered questions around the deaths of Indigenous people in this one Ontario town.
November 13, 2023
It’s easy to imagine medical science and research being done from the safety of a lab with all the proper controls in place. But sometimes, it all starts with one person, going underwater, and exploring caves for unique and mysterious sea creatures.
November 6, 2023
While at a production of the hit Broadway musical Come From Away in 2019, reporter Justin Brake is confronted with an old story about his family’s history, a story that challenges his sense of identity. He decides to find out what was true in that story, and what was false.
October 30, 2023
Canadaland’s official tenth anniversary celebration took place last Thursday at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, as part of the Hot Docs Podcast Festival. Today we bring you a condensed version of that event. Featuring appearances from all of the Canadaland hosts you know and love. Oh, and Jan Wong interviews Jesse for once… wait for it.
October 23, 2023
all podcasts arrow All Podcasts
CANADALAND