Admins ban harassment subs and Reddit goes crazy

Regarding the curation of your own Reddit experience, this is a really good article about the ethical dubiousness of doing that (via Jullian's twitter): So long, Reddit.

bnpederson wrote:

Regarding the curation of your own Reddit experience, this is a really good article about the ethical dubiousness of doing that (via Jullian's twitter): So long, Reddit.

Was just about to post that same thing. Regardless of what subreddits you go to, a presence on the site is helping to support what has pretty clearly become a haven for white supremacists, racists, and other extremist scumballs. I don't go to Reddit for the same reason I don't eat at Chick-Fil-A; regardless of how my individual experience goes, I don't want to support in any way an organization that helps push ideas I find utterly reprehensible.

So why does Twitter get a pass? Or Facebook?

Chik-fil-a is different. They funded anti-LGBT groups via a non-profit that they run. Their COO publicly opposed same-sex marriage. Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook are social media platforms that try to operate in "common carrier" mode. The companies themselves are not promoting hate speech, their users are.

To me, avoiding Reddit because bad people post there is like not using Verizon Wireless because they let pedophiles use Verizon cell phones.

I can appreciate the sentiment, wanting to distance oneself from the kind of awful things that lurk on these social media platforms. Everyone must be guided by their own conscience. In the case of that writer, I applaud him for taking a stand even though it will affect his livelihood.

From my perspective, though, his aim is off. Better to go up against the actual sources of hatred than the social media platform some of them use.

NSMike wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:
NSMike wrote:

There are blanket statements that could be made about the entire internet that mirror everything you could say about reddit.

My thoughts on Reddit are complicated enough I'm unwilling to lock into a stance, but this is very spurious reasoning. There isn't a CEO of the internet, or a mod team of the internet. When I come to GWJ, that doesn't get lumped in with someone else visiting whatever Stormfront moved on to with the same significance as two people visiting Reddit--in the former, we are the fairly meaningless group "internet users," in the latter, Reddit users, which is something Reddit has sought to commoditize. Reddit bears some level of culpability in how their platform gets used, even if that culpability only extends to saying "Unfortunately, this is one of the many uses people have found for our platform."

I don't know what you're doing other than reinforcing my point, so I don't get why you're saying it's spurious reasoning.

It's true that at large, anyone can use the internet for anything, and make a website they host out of their basement on a spare box, but... Seriously, every useful platform DOES have a CEO. Reddit doesn't have a "mod team," either, they have admins, who do very little with the platform other than develop for it (and apparently, occasionally make decisions that really piss people off). Moderators are just other users who registered a subreddit before everyone else, or ended up being put in a moderator position.

And I don't know how you commoditize a reddit user. The traffic the site drives is useful, sure, but Google does the same. Reddit users themselves don't care to be a commodity, and in fact I'd say would rebel against being used as one. I don't think there's a bigger single user base out there who more consistently employs ad blockers.

I guess I just don't know what you're getting at.

I'd like to add that, at the time of this post, I didn't know what Stormfront was. I had assumed, dubiously using context clues, and an assumption that the shift key was pressed mistakenly, that it was just a metaphor for a large group of users making their way across the internet.

BadKen wrote:

So why does Twitter get a pass? Or Facebook?

They're not as centralized as Reddit is. You have to purposely follow someone to see the horrible things they say on either. I wouldn't say they get a pass either. I don't use twitter for the same reason I don't use Reddit, too many assholes, not worth my time to custom-craft a non-horrible experience, though at least Twitter doesn't start me off following crappy people by default. Facebook I only use because it's the most convenient way to talk to people and organize get-togethers with them.

You also have to purposely click the comments sections on reddit to see beyond the headlines. Are the default subreddit headlines truly that bad these days?

Should we also hold news sites with open comments sections as responsible for human ugliness?

Stengah wrote:
BadKen wrote:

So why does Twitter get a pass? Or Facebook?

They're not as centralized as Reddit is. You have to purposely follow someone to see the horrible things they say on either. I wouldn't say they get a pass either. I don't use twitter for the same reason I don't use Reddit, too many assholes, not worth my time to custom-craft a non-horrible experience, though at least Twitter doesn't start me off following crappy people by default. Facebook I only use because it's the most convenient way to talk to people and organize get-togethers with them.

Twitter has also at least taken some steps to try to handle online harassment, such as shareable block lists. Reddit effectively surrendered to harassment this week. Ken, as you've pointed out, you have to specifically customize your Reddit experience to avoid the trash, and, based on the recent reports that the Polygon subreddit was effectively hijacked because it's so easy to shift around mod status, the site effectively has a built-in tendency for the experience to be sh*t.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:
Stengah wrote:
BadKen wrote:

So why does Twitter get a pass? Or Facebook?

They're not as centralized as Reddit is. You have to purposely follow someone to see the horrible things they say on either. I wouldn't say they get a pass either. I don't use twitter for the same reason I don't use Reddit, too many assholes, not worth my time to custom-craft a non-horrible experience, though at least Twitter doesn't start me off following crappy people by default. Facebook I only use because it's the most convenient way to talk to people and organize get-togethers with them.

Twitter has also at least taken some steps to try to handle online harassment, such as shareable block lists.

Most people still heavily criticize Twitter for how terrible it is at silencing harassers. Even with shareable block lists, the nasty people still have a platform in Twitter. In fact, I'd say shareable block lists are a solution that is indistinguishable from curating your subreddits.

Reddit effectively surrendered to harassment this week.

But they didn't. They haven't reinstated any of the subreddits they deleted. They "let go" of Pao but are keeping her on as a consultant. She was an interim CEO already, so she wasn't going to be staying. And they're not undoing any of her decisions. Essentially, nothing has changed.

Ken, as you've pointed out, you have to specifically customize your Reddit experience to avoid the trash, and, based on the recent reports that the Polygon subreddit was effectively hijacked because it's so easy to shift around mod status, the site effectively has a built-in tendency for the experience to be sh*t.

It also has built in workarounds. /r/gaming became awful, so /r/games stepped in. /r/LGBT was inherited by some absolutely insane mods, and /r/ainbow came into existence.

The crux of the argument in the article above isn't even about the default experience on reddit, it's about how they fund themselves using those who perpetuate hate speech. Facebook and Twitter are still doing the same thing.

To counter the sense of hopelessness about the problem of online abuse, Riot has managed to reduce the toxicity in League of Legends. So communities can be changed.

All the groups I follow or read on reddit were fine. Twitter I have no problems with. You have to actively follow people on twitter to see posts from them. I don't follow any awful people. Youtube is a cesspool for comments. Each time youtube makes a change to comments it seems to make things worse.

Gremlin wrote:

To counter the sense of hopelessness about the problem of online abuse, Riot has managed to reduce the toxicity in League of Legends. So communities can be changed.

I was going to actually cite LoL as a great example of something I might otherwise enjoy, if it weren't for the overall tenor of the community. Glad to see Riot has still been looking at ways to improve the community and experience for LoL - I remember being impressed when I heard they were beginning this process, in part because they acknowledged the toxicity of their overall community as a first step in figuring out how to improve things. Hope Reddit is taking notes.

In the meantime, I may have to give LoL another shot some time.

(For what it's worth - for folks who have managed to self-curate experiences with Reddit which are super positive, that's great. My experiences were pretty different, and the effort / benefit ratio for wading through self-curating a positive Reddit experience just isn't there for me.)

Baron Of Hell wrote:

All the groups I follow or read on reddit were fine. Twitter I have no problems with. You have to actively follow people on twitter to see posts from them. I don't follow any awful people. Youtube is a cesspool for comments. Each time youtube makes a change to comments it seems to make things worse.

That's why I installed Herp Derp for Chrome!

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/d...

Isn't it kind of tacky for former and current Reddit execs to air their dirty laundry publicly on Reddit? I mean, this popcorn is delicious, but geez...

Gremlin's link from a few days ago already made mention of that. It had a link to the Ohanian's comment where he sort-of claims responsibility for changing how they "work with AMAs."

Stengah wrote:

Gremlin's link from a few days ago already made mention of that. It had a link to the Ohanian's comment where he sort-of claims responsibility for changing how they "work with AMAs."

Yeah, Pao took the brunt of the negativity but it's the executive board who should also be held accountable.

BadKen wrote:

Isn't it kind of tacky for former and current Reddit execs to air their dirty laundry publicly on Reddit? I mean, this popcorn is delicious, but geez...

Seems par for the course at this point. Right?

Reddit's Chief Engineer Quits

Reddit’s chief engineer Bethanye Blount quit just days after interim CEO Ellen Pao left the high-profile online community.

In an interview, Blount confirmed her departure after only two months at Reddit, having come there from Facebook. She said her move was not directly linked to Pao’s exit, but noted that she had lost confidence in the new direction of the company.

Nope, it is you that is wrong not reddit.

This... is... AWESOME!

Thanks for retweeting this, sometimesdee.

BadKen wrote:

This... is... AWESOME!

Thanks for retweeting this, sometimesdee.

Well, this is turning out much better than I thought it would.

That thread is a goldmine, especially this: https://www.reddit.com/r/announcemen...

BadKen wrote:

This... is... AWESOME!

Thanks for retweeting this, sometimesdee.

If this is true, it is amazing. For the past month the sh*tlords have been calling her General Mao and screaming about her being a fascist. And now maybe it turns out she was the only one protecting them? The irony is so thick it's almost physical.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

Raping subreddit is fastest-growing subreddit.

*vomits*

Terrible, but the bottom of the article offers a correction:

CORRECTION
The subreddit r/rapingwomen was not the fastest-growing on Reddit for July 13. An earlier version of this story misstated that it was.

So, there's that at least.

Isn't Voat going to face the same problems in short order?

This is how I'm viewing reddit right now:

IMAGE(http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view3/3697068/whack-a-mole-o.gif)

Robear wrote:

Isn't Voat going to face the same problems in short order?

That's the thing, right? It's the Big Problem of the Internet. Any sites that deals with the issues of free speech and community-directed discussion will inevitably have to deal with shady side of it, and at that point they either moderate or deal with the consequences. That's what the Deep Web or Dark Web or Dank Web is for, I guess.

I suspect trolling is somewhat different on a covert network populated by people who can find you, show up at your door, and beat you silly.

This is the thing that actually makes me smash my head into the wall - this painting of free speech as the right to be a grade-A arsehole to minorities when actual, brutal, unthinkable acts of government quashing free speech are going on right now.

I'm specifically thinking about Australia's laws making it illegal to blow the whistle on acts of child abuse perpetrated at immigration detention centres. This is real free speech. This is what the right to free speech applies to. Whistleblowers. Critique of power. Not being a screaming entitled sh*tlord.

Sorry you all know this. I'm just fed up.