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Honestly, some of the trending memes that been popping up these past few months gave off this vibe. I don't get bothered by this stuff, but I counted at least fourteen trending memes that either pandered to the far right, shat on left-leaning beliefs, was something that embraced cancerous 4chan /pol/ culture, or had a blatantly racist caricature.

Of course I'm open minded enough to accept jokes and memes, but when it seems the meme a shitty half-baked joke that seemingly only exists to push a political ideal, then that's where the problem comes. And almost always, the right-leaning cases of this seem to embrace the bad things, such as blatant racism.

I couldn't really tell ya honestly though. I'm not that much of a frequenter nor do I really care. But so far, I'd say it's definitely heading in that direction.

The memes themselves shouldn't be what you measure the political bias of the site, they're just what KYM observes not necessarily what it supports. Most of the moderation, administration, and a lot of the top contributors are very transparent about their left-wing beliefs. If a bias exists, it is likely a left-wing one that causes some spin on minor things like entry descriptions and user moderation. I've seen plenty of cases where the top comments on a meme were "Matt why did you write the front page description in such a skewed way" or where the moderation team was very slow to punish an outspoken radical left-wing user versus an outspoken radical right-wing one. I'd also say that the KYM collector bot selects from a lot of left-wing dominant subreddits, but that thing is just flawed for other reasons outside of political bias.

On a whole though, even with all these examples, I don't think the site is strongly biased towards anything really. Memes are kept more towards reporting what others say and do, if a user is especially bad they'll definitely see the boot, and the content here is community driven so if content was the true problem here we could easily go try and balance it out ourselves to bring more perspective to opposing sides.

I have examples that suggest otherwise. You are using very broad, easily-disprovable claims to argue a bias. Do you have anything better to support this claim?

The comments sometimes attract right-wing people, but that's usually people who just post once or twice on specific right-wing memes.

Keep in mind that just because someone doesn't agree with a "leftist" opinion doesn't make them right-wing.

is this website pro trump than? And If someone criticize trump they get down voted also.

If this site were, then we wouldn’t have like over 9000 entries on trump’s bullshit

But the anti trump post are downvoted?

As are some pro-Right Wing posts getting rightfully downvoted. Can you prove that there are more anti-Right ones getting downvoted on average than pro-Right ones?

KnowYourMeme is one of the most politically diverse sites I've ever used. I've seen plenty of comments from both the right and left sides of the spectrum get downvote bombs.

You have some right wing users and you have left wing users. But by and large KYM is centrist, annoyingly so.

You average kym commentator is basically the enlightened centrist meme.

More relevant question is: Where does KYM fall in terms of Echo Chamber vs Idea Lab spectrum? It's definitely not a full echo chamber but how far it goes into idea lab?

Browse right-leaning memes and it looks like KYM is right-wing. Browse left-leaning memes and it'll look the opposite. It seems that the most partisan memes attract politically homogenous crowds, which implies people just aren't that interested in memes that don't suit their political views, therefore they don't comment on them or create content for them. So that makes it hard to gauge the site's general political consensus. Based on what I've seen, I'd say the site is largely centrist to center-left.

KYM isn't a circlejerk of either side
It's why I like it

Personally it doesn't matter as long as we can feel free to express our opinions, which I do. But if nobody responds to you, or you get downvotes, that's okay! You could always post again later on, and even improve the wording.

Ive never feared downvotes for my posts or comments. Ive seen other people delete their stuff the moment it starts getting buried though.
As far as I was aware the site itself tries to remain mostly as neutral as it can be when it comes to any event or news thing (its just theres a lot of Trump stuff because hes rather… Infamously open and loud with his thoughts online and in real life). I see users from both political wings come and go.
Im right wing and get along just fine with most people here because you can be opposite politically and not be dicks to each other constantly despite what a few notable sites may think.

"This website is right-wing biased, right?", asked the 3 year old KYM user on our 8th to 9th consecutive month of talking shit about Trump, OAG, Proud Boys, Lauren Loomer, anti-maskers, Turning Point USA and turbo Trump supporters because he found one or 2 posts mentioning SJWs in a bad way.

yes

far-right viewpoints are entertained here while far-left viewpoints are buried

Now, I'd say that images can be more right-wing, while comments are more centered. Example: https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1881727-twitter
On this image, it has lots of downvotes/upvotes but still 65 points, while most comments are disagreeing with it

On the forums, it's pretty different, I'd say actually left-leaning. But there's way less activity on forums. By and large, on comment sections of political entries, the comments will be somewhat center but will lean right rather than lean left

You may by misinterpreting the usersbase's disdain for the frequent & low quality politically related memes, memes have dominated IRL and online since the 2016 primaries thus the disdain is justified.
When your meme of the latest Trump-ism is met with overwhelming disapproval it's because it sucks; it's not funny or exploitable, and by next week there's another 10 Trump memes of equally bad or worse quality; but no one really parades or celebrates the "democrats DE_STROYED" memes, because they're shit.

It's all so tiresome.

You haven't lurk hard enough. We have plenty of lefties on this site, mods included.

I was hesitant in posting this. After seeing a Reddit comment in r/civvie11 indicates to me that the average user only read the right wing shlock and not everything else. So if I may, I would like to provide a minute spotlight on some lovely reds:

vit – A shitposter who is still adamant that Vic Mignogna is a pedophile and has posted images expressing his distaste. One of the few guys who praised the now deleted Poochyena for being more intelligent than the entire userbase of this site.

princeso bubblegum – Male to Female trans-person with a deep desire to see the western world destroyed with a strong socialist government taking its place.

TransexRBetterThanWomen – Not much is known as they rarely comment, but their gallery is loaded to the brim with anti-Bolsonaro memes.

moxbox – A fairly new user, but created their account on the peak to Rittenhouse controversy to express their distain on the both the aftermath and the current situation of said debacle. Self-proclaimed SJW as stated on their profile.

The Glorious Lobster Emperor – A Marxist Crustacean who happens to be an Emperor of all sea-faring invertebrates. Also has a huge hard-on for Mao Zedong as well.

Red Pyra – Filthy red with a surprisingly good taste in regards to waifus. Also a lover of the Doktor's Sausage/Kolbasa.

David 'Garsedj' Touchdown – An enigma of sorts, but putting up here anyway due to his immense hatred towards Count Dankula. There's probably better examples, but his activity feed is absolute chaos.

I am probably missing more examples. But I do hope I provided a decent summary on the well-known.

IMO, I'd say a lot of people on KYM are moderates, if anything.

The redditor who said "KYM is the type of site you see homophobic/race ''realist'' propaganda between femboy/black girl hentai images" is spitting straight facts

@Master Pain

To some extent yes. Like this image was trending recently and when someone in the comments pointed out that a quick look on the Twitter of the artist shows there is clearly an extra agenda behind the comic as the creator follows known alt-righters like StoneToss and Mr. Pumpkinface they got downvoted in a way that to me almost sounds like the downvotes were from alt-righters going "shut the fuck up and stop trying to expose our true intentions behind this comic!"

Also there's something that's been bothering me about how it feels like some (note the "SOME," I'm NOT saying "all") people on this site will be all like "boy who looks like a girl? Please be my husband and let me suck your dick!" when discussing femboys or "girl who likes masculine things? Be my wife and peg me please!" when discussing tomboys, but bring up actual trans people who either have or have not undergone hormone replacement therapy or sex reassignment surgery suddenly they're going "SHUT THE FUCK UP TRANNY AND ACCEPT TRADITIONAL GENDER ROLES YOU UGLY FAGGOT."

Yes.

Yes it is.

Well..the mods are left but the users are mostly to the right.

Its weird honestly

If it is biased to the right, it's not very strongly, imo.

Discussing trans issues brings the /pol/locks and their alts out more than anything else

If by "right wing bias" you mean posts and comments aren't instantly wiped and banned if they're critical or negative towards anything vaguely "leftist" then sure, this isn't an echo chamber. If your main concern is "why do right wing/mean spirited memes and comments get more traction than "leftist" ones?" Then that's pretty simple, more people than not enjoy racey, edgy humor, which hinges on the idea of "everyone and everything is fair game". Speaking in general senses, "the right" doesn't really care, everything's fair game, while "the left" wants it filtered and curated so certain topics, themes, people, etc are exempt while others, specifically the topics, themes, people, etc THEY don't like are fair game.

Guess which one lends itself to a meme community more?

If the right wing bias is the existence of right wing memes on this site, then I don't know if that's really a bias. Granted, the votes a meme get could show but then again that should also require asking users that gave it an upvote since, going by an example of what Mistress Fortune posted, I doubt those upvoting the image Mistress Fortune are all gonna be alt-right idiots that will REEEEEE hard at anything non-white, non-male, and non hetero.

Granted the example Mistress Fortune brought up is a good one since some artist can have an agenda to push and upvoting the image could no doubt look bad. Granted, that would require people on this site to actually look at the artist further though, going by my own experience, I doubt most users will look at an artist' Twitter page and see who they follow or retweet if said KYM user just likes to go around, upvote and favorite images before saving them on their hard drives.

It should be politically neutral. It is just my opinion otherwise we would have too many communists or national socialist or other people with far political views.

Indeed. This is a site that's about archiving memes of all kinds and the images spawned from them. The site shouldn't really show any preference for one political idea or the other. It should be neutral at least in the sense that it shouldn't show preference in regards to the memes. That said, I can imagine a number of users, assuming they aren't socks or throwaways or raids from a place like 4Chan, could make one think otherwise. Still for right wing bias, I honestly wonder how much of that is actually there and to what extent.

I feel like in terms of political preferences, it is best to think of the site as divided into these categories, each as sub-communities* that have different levels of bias. Here are some examples:

Comments under images or entries. Some viewers would see content worded a certain way, and these can evoke strong emotions, some of which are rooted in political views. Comments are usually the first sub-community of Knowyourmeme that newcomers see, and this leads them to make an account for the purpose of responding to the image/entry or to another comment. Due to the lower barrier in comparison to other sub-communities, these comments can be mean, poorly worded, or bad in some other way. Right-wingers are more protective of their right (no pun intended) to free speech and some, not all of them, try to push the limits of this freedom. The admins have been very active in making entries, making up for the activity lost for reasons I'll explain later in this post. Because of this, many of them have put their focus in certain categories of memes, such as political ones. The commentators point out the entry's word choice, feeling certain viewpoints have been portrayed unfairly in their eyes.

The forums are known for not being active, and while this is partly due to the risen popularity of a certain chat client I'll talk about in the next point, this has been true across the internet before. Because forums are designed to host more serious discussion, the rules tend to be strict, making Knowyourmeme's forum rules look lenient in comparison. Also, forum communities tend to develop its own social norms which requires viewers to read threads and posts more, new and old. For Knowyourmeme, the older community is more left wing than the current one. This is because the userbase at the time documented memes more often, and this research would expose them to other online cultures, many of which are left-leaning. The reason why entries stopped being made is because when the site's database became more comprehensive, those who weren't actively looking for memes in the wild experienced difficulty in filling the gaps, so to speak. When some users openly state that a forum is "inactive" or "dead," the mentality spreads, creating a negative feedback loop where many new users find greater difficulty with lurking and are discouraged from participating. The older userbase is therefore over-represented in many boards, though not all of them lean left.

Discord has gained major popularity due to many preferring it to skype. The KYM server on it was created quite early in discord's lifespan, and had been growing, while the IRC consequently declined. Because the discussion is divided into channels, many users have found it to be a fresh new alternative to forums on sites which seldom update their code. Chat clients, designed for fast pace discussion, can sometimes create the illusion of greater activity than forums, which becomes more real as more users fall for it. For whatever reason, users have developed strong opinions on something as volatile and ever-changing as politics. This is more pronounced on Discord, which fits its namesake.

On the internet, louder voices continue to shape the consensus of site communities. The voices which call for agreement and compromise are drowned out by divisive and aggressive ones. Still there is hope, for with better site design, better (neither noisy nor stagnant) activity, and clearer posts, among other things, comes an environment better suited for quality discussion.

Yes, a bit, but I'm probably biased about that. I remember when there was a lot of alt-righters on this site a few years ago, and that impression never really went away.