From what I can see the_donald is effectively dead and theredpill is also quarantined so it might as well be, since quarantined subreddits are always eventually banned.

/r/the_donald was quarantined a year ago and hasn't been banned yet.

No, it has effectively been banned. It was forcefully taken over by the administration. While it technically still exists, it actually moved entirely to its own dedicated website.

"Effectively banned" is not the same as banned, and it's these conspicuous half-measures toward /r/the_donald that resulted in criticism from Ellen Pao as noted above, among others.

These are the first examples that come to mind. There are many more with similar userbases that has migrated from them. Don't forget all the Pizzagate/QAnon stuff, incels, etc. Here's a longer list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communiti...

Also, quarantined != banned. It's still on reddit, and those users spread out onto other non-quarantined subreddits and spew the same kind of garbage.

Banning a subreddit doesn't ban it's users.

The problem with having a cesspool is that it attracts lots of those types of people to your site in the first place, and ingrains it in them that that kind of behavior is acceptable. They then start acting like that elsewhere on the site and lower the level of discourse everywhere.

Ban the cesspools and most of those people will actually leave the site for good, as what drew them to it in the first place is now gone. You also no longer have any cesspools serving as negative guideposts for making bad contributions. So if you moderate your site well, and just get rid of this kind of stuff, it ends up much better in the long run.

TD is gone for a long time now.

No, it's not.

https://www.reddit.com/r/the_donald

When I sort by date submitted the last post that came up was 2 months ago. That seems pretty dead to me.

Edit: Also the sidebar says there are 600 active users. I assume that includes me following your link. For comparison /r/news has ~68,000 users as of this writing.

It's really not - look at the dates. There was some bullshit going on, there is nothing left.

> Only approved users may post in this community.

So now it's the truest propaganda machine, you're saying. Approved users only for consumption by a dedicated subscriber base.

No the sub doesn't exist anymore. There was an admin takeover and they left it in this odd "technically existing" state for some reason. TD is gone - you can look for stories about it some months ago.

The top comment on the link you posted is, "Are we back?" Reply is "Still only approved posters I think."

The link itself is to a pinned, mod-posted, announcement link to an article about an executive order to strip social media platforms from liability protections from charges of bias.

The most recent non-announcement post was two months ago.

Other choice top-level comments:

- "Huh and coincidentally I see a TD post on my feed for the first time in months."

- "TD COME BACK"

- "The Phoenix shall rise from the ashes"

- "OMG it’s been so long, I have missed you all my friends!!!"

Meanwhile, taking a jaunt to thedonald.win, shows what is basically a reddit clone with much more activity, easily verifiable with two minutes examination.

I'm not a /r/the_donald reader/subscriber/whatever, and haven't followed whatever reddit drama has transpired, but it's pretty clear they've been shut down for a while.

2000 comments on a post by an approved submitter is the opposite of "been shut down."

To my earlier point:

> So now it's the truest propaganda machine, you're saying. Approved users only for consumption by a dedicated subscriber base.

/r/The_Donald has effectively been archived and marked read-only. There's no or little activity - the link you posted was an exception - all users have moved over to a third party site.

While one could argue that Reddit should have removed the subreddit sooner, I'm not sure that would have done them any favors (see Streisand Effect.)

They opted to strangle the community slowly, hoping it would dissipate. But it just moves elsewhere, like it always does.

that proves the point of the person you are replying to: there is no activity at all; they've moved on.

For the curious, everyone there has moved on to thedonald.win.

I get the feeling they are quite familiar with those communities.

Anecdotally, and interestingly, I've only ever seen the phrase "virtue signal" from the alt-right/white supremacist/Trump supporter group. I think I understand what it's trying to convey, but it seems to be used anytime someone sides with something with which that group disagrees. It's like a "dog whistle" for white supremacists and personally when I see it used, it makes me question everything else that person said.

I don't know. The minorities I talk to tend to be quite aware that some people are engaging in point-scoring for ultimately self-serving purposes. However, they are not usually loud about this observation, so the sentiment might get lost in the noise.

I am a hispanic and this is exactly how I feel. We are not pawns that need to be manipulated for social points.

Really? The lgbtq+ community has huge debates on virtue signaling every year. Many view pride as being completely overtakes by companies virtue signaling.

They are all 'quarintined' subr-ddits, that are not part of the larger community, and are more or less muted until you join them. Not quite the same. Don't get me wrong, I am no fan of r-ddit, but for very different reasons that are not fully relevant to this discussion.