Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Reddit cracks down on abuse as CEO apologizes for trolling the trolls

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 99 posts

Re: Reddit cracks down on abuse as CEO apologizes for trolling the trolls

#21

Post by AceJohnny2 »

boomzilla wrote: post #12
minimaxir wrote: post #7

Former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao made a good comment on the controversy: https://reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/5frg1n/tifu_by_e...

That's very childish and lame for Steve Huffman to say "Ellen wasn't the first Reddit engineer, so she probably lacked the expertise to do it, and even if she did, she was smart enough to not". I think this guy needs to grow up.

I think you're misreading this. I understand it to mean: "She didn't have the technical knowledge of the internals nor the past experience of doing such hacks to do this"

Re: Reddit cracks down on abuse as CEO apologizes for trolling the trolls

#23

Post by michaelvoz »

meritt wrote: post #18
michaelvoz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that is true, then they should present evidence of such action and ban it! Applying rules with extremely heavy discrimination is never the way to manage a community.

They have, overwhelmingly. The problem is it's an anonymous platform and bans are irrelevant for most internet users today. This was all nicely summarized by John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory in 2004.

Pardon, I should have been clearer - ban the subreddit.

Re: Reddit cracks down on abuse as CEO apologizes for trolling the trolls

#24

Post by [deleted] »

meritt wrote: post #11
michaelvoz wrote: post #9

I would hardly call this an apology. Also kind-of bold of him to use this as a platform to implement new abusive rules. I don't like the subreddit, but selective enforcement and targeting a single community is very toxic to what little trust I had left in the reddit admins.

The problem is they aren't their own little community. They actively target, brigade (large group upvoting/downvoting), and intentionally troll other communities with their only goal being to fuck with people and overwhelmingly push their rhetoric. Reddit strives to have a positive community and when you let the trolls run the system, you end up with an utter cesspool (e.g. https://voat.co/ ), and that kills your com…

[deleted]

Re: Reddit cracks down on abuse as CEO apologizes for trolling the trolls

#25

Post by icanhackit »

michaelvoz wrote: post #14
meritt wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is they aren't their own little community. They actively target, brigade (large group upvoting/downvoting), and intentionally troll other communities with their only goal being to fuck with people and overwhelmingly push their rhetoric. Reddit strives to have a positive community and when you let the trolls run the system, you end up with an utter cesspool (e.g. https://voat.co/ ), and that kills your com…

If that is true, then they should present evidence of such action and ban it! Applying rules with extremely heavy discrimination is never the way to manage a community.

> they should present evidence of such action and ban it!

How would they do that adequately without a public display of user activity?

> Applying rules with extremely heavy discrimination is never the way to manage a community.

It's less than ideal but when the targeted group seeks to ultimately control or destroy your platform then what you have is a cancer that will spread unless it's removed.

Re: Reddit cracks down on abuse as CEO apologizes for trolling the trolls

#26

Post by michaelvoz »

meritt wrote: post #18
michaelvoz wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that is true, then they should present evidence of such action and ban it! Applying rules with extremely heavy discrimination is never the way to manage a community.

They have, overwhelmingly. The problem is it's an anonymous platform and bans are irrelevant for most internet users today. This was all nicely summarized by John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory in 2004.

Was not familiar with the theory - I disagree with it. This site is a wonderful example of the opposite. My experience with reddit (6+ year old account, at this point) is that, just like in life, most people on reddit are fine. The illusion of toxicity comes from a large vocal minority.

Re: Reddit cracks down on abuse as CEO apologizes for trolling the trolls

#27

Post by MBCook »

meira wrote: post #10
tossaway1 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Trolling the trolls" was language spez used. What does this have to do with the mainstream media?

Top down narrative. Reddit CEO didn't troll the trolls, it was a huge mistake that can put in check the entire company. TechCrunch could write 99 better stories about this issue than this piece of propaganda. It also reminds me Hillary campaign (and their MSM friends) calling half of US voters deplorable.

He changed statements against him by trolls of the_donald to say the_donald so it appeared they were insulting themselves.

Seems like a (mild) form of trolling to me.

Re: Reddit cracks down on abuse as CEO apologizes for trolling the trolls

#28

Post by jessriedel »

tossaway1 wrote: post #4
meira wrote: post #2

"Trolling the trolls" is a very stupid euphemism. The mainstream media is losing all credibility built in the past decades and seems to not be able to figure out how to halt the proccess (while changing nothing about the "values" [and people] they protect).

"Trolling the trolls" was language spez used. What does this have to do with the mainstream media?

> "Trolling the trolls" was language spez used.

In this case it would be appropriate to put quotation marks in the article title.

Re: Reddit cracks down on abuse as CEO apologizes for trolling the trolls

#29

Post by meritt »

SixSigma wrote: post #19
meritt wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is they aren't their own little community. They actively target, brigade (large group upvoting/downvoting), and intentionally troll other communities with their only goal being to fuck with people and overwhelmingly push their rhetoric. Reddit strives to have a positive community and when you let the trolls run the system, you end up with an utter cesspool (e.g. https://voat.co/ ), and that kills your com…

> They actively target, brigade (large group upvoting/downvoting), and intentionally troll other communities with their only goal being to fuck with people and overwhelmingly push their rhetoric. [citation needed] I'm there every day and I don't know about that, quite the opposite. We don't link outside the sub, heck we are not even allowed to mention /r/politics in post titles under threat from Reddit admins. It is…

http://gizmodo.com/reddit-is-tearing-itself-apart-1789406294 has a decent summary of the problems over the past few months.

> Centipede Central is the chat Reddit is referring to—a chat room within the Slack-like Discord program ... its users have encouraged the harassment of other moderators, artificially inflated the vote count on posts, rigged off-Reddit polls, and posted John Podesta’s personal Netflix login information for the chat’s 1000+ members to use at will.

Re: Reddit cracks down on abuse as CEO apologizes for trolling the trolls

#30

Post by Mao_Zedang »

volak wrote: post #20

I don't really want to comment - but I'd just say to anyone (including the writer of this article) to imagine someone artificially limiting the impact of your favorite platform of free expression. Hell just turn the mental corner and consider your arguments FOR net neutrality. Or try to recall your disappointment every time you read about some site being banned in China or Iran. To China and Iran - facebook is a "dis…

Like facebook maybe this is just them pivoting to countries like China and Iran?
Post reply on HN