Twitch Streamer Asmongold Critiques Reddit Culture and Moderation Practices
On March 9, 2025, Twitch streamer Zack “Asmongold”expressed strong opinions regarding the culture of Reddit during a live broadcast. He reacted to a post from the r/Wellthatsucks subreddit, which discussed Reddit’s warnings to users for upvoting content that breaches its policies on harassment and threats.
During his stream, Asmongold described Reddit as a “breeding ground”for individuals engaged in radical behavior. He voiced his concerns about users who upvote content promoting political violence.
“You have people that are upvoting and glorifying political violence all over this website. It’s completely become a radical terrorist breeding ground. Like, it’s actually insane how bad this is! Like, I’m surprised that Reddit hasn’t come out with a statement about it, considering how bad that is. Yeah, it’s awful!”
A live viewer defended a user named Luigi Mangione, asserting that he is “innocent until proven guilty.”In response, Asmongold agreed but maintained a focus on the wider implications of Reddit’s environment:
“‘Luigi is innocent until proven guilty.’ You’re right. He is. He deserves his day in court, and I sure hope as hell that I’ll be able to watch it.”
The streamer went on to criticize Reddit’s approach towards censorship, suggesting that the platform is quick to ban users with dissenting opinions. He highlighted a perceived hypocrisy among those now protesting against free speech restrictions:
“Imagine advocating for heavy content moderation and complain when it gets turned back on you.’ Yep, there it is! And I find this also to be funny that Reddit is a very censorial website. Like, they constantly ban people for things that are, like, wrong think. Right? Or having the wrong opinion or saying the wrong thing about something. And now, these people are on the receiving end of it, and they’re crying about free speech. But they were never crying about free speech when people that they disagreed with were getting banned.”
Asmongold Predicts Push for User Identification on Reddit
Asmongold further pointed out that the climate on Reddit may soon shift towards requiring real identities from its users. He argues this change is warranted due to the glorification of violence seen on the platform. Emphasizing that appropriate moderation must align with First Amendment rights, he stated:
“It’s getting real bad. These people are speedrunning internet real ID. I just hope that they understand that. ‘What’s the perfect amount of moderation?’ The perfect amount of moderation is that people who get banned… sorry, the perfect amount of moderation is moderating in accordance with the First Amendment. That’s the perfect amount of moderation.”
Timestamp – 00:30:02
On March 3, 2025, Asmongold gained media attention after expressing intentions to reach out to an Amazon executive. His aim was to address controversial remarks made by Hasan “HasanAbi”regarding US Senator Rick Scott.