By Steve Pak, | May 06, 2016
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Adolf Hitler or Nazi Germany is mentioned in 78 percent of long Reddit threads, based on a new study. A data scientist evaluated 4.6 million public Reddit comments to discover that subreddits with over 1,000 comments mentioned the World War II politician or German political party.
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A blogger with the pen name Curious Gnu reported the statistics. The subreddit titled "History" had the highest number of comments about Nazis at 2.5 percent. It also included comments about related topics including Nazi Germany's leader.
The topics were included in other history subreddits such as "AskHistorians," "European," and Italy."
Curious Gnu discovered that the number of comments a subreddit had was related to whether Nazis or Hitler was mentioned at least once, according to CNN. More comments increased the likelihood.
The non-history subreddit with the most Hitler references was "Forwards from Grandma." It catalogs e-mails from Reddit users' grandmothers.
However, about 2 percent of the "GamerGhazi" subreddit also mentioned Hitler or Nazis. The thread is related to the GamerGate controversy. Game developer Brianna Wu has co-founded a gaming studio that makes games to empower women.
Meanwhile, about 1 percent of subreddits supporting Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump mentioned Nazi Germany. They included "Ask TrumpSupporters" and "The Donald."
It is common for comment threads to get off topic. That can result in discussions about topics such as politics, race, and Nazism.
There is even an old Internet saying called "Godwin's Law." It says that the longer an online discussion gets, the greater the chance Nazis or Hitler will be mentioned at least once.
Curious Gnu's figures show that when a non-history subreddit has 900 to 1,000 comments the chance that Hitler or Nazis will be mentioned spikes to 46 percent. If 100 comments are added the percentage skyrockets to 70 percent.
Reddit has been criticized as an open forum where people talk about or share nearly anything. However, the company has started to close subreddits and block users who harass or bully other Reddit users.
In related news, strange comments have been showing up on unrelated Reddit threads from a user named "MHE" who seems to be posting pieces of a novel, according to Gizmodo. The writing is heavily based on world history and religion.
Here's an interview with a Reddit co-founder:
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