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

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

#81

Post by abandonliberty »

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.

Reddit already has a history of killing subs it doesn't like via 'quarantine' or outright bans.

"Restrictions on a quarantined community include:

Requiring an account with a verified email address Requiring an explicit opt-in No custom images Will generate no revenue, including ads or Reddit Gold"

This effectively kills subs unless it's lifted.

Subs targeted for this range from offensive to innocuous (E.g. freckles, female ejaculation, a racist anti-black community) https://www.reddit.com/r/GoldTesting/comments/3fxs3q/list_of...

Reddit is a business, not a bastion of free speech. They have killed communities for less than what The_Donald was doing. I'll let you speculate on the motives (:

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

#82

Post by ajkjk »

volak wrote: post #79
ajkjk wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to say this is burying conservative news , it's more like burying conservative meme-spamming. Especially because, well, now TD is going to be able to get on the page the same way every other subreddit normally does, which seems.. almost.. fair? Certainly if you turn your head one way it's fair. It's not inherently discriminatory for one-of-two political camps to have behavior that brea…

No what would appease practically everyone would be if r/all - the "frontpage of the internet" - had clearly defined rules as to what that means. Is it a collection of top up-voted content from a collection of subreddits? Apparently not due to this and other "algorithm changes." Take twitter shadow banning people as its an easier example. The rules of twitter are simple - someone tweets and it gets put at the top of…

Re the first paragraph: your "apparently not" is incorrect. This change helps restore it to being a collection of top up-voted content from a collection of subreddits, where previously it was not following that as much, due to the special-treatment of sticky posts.

I don't like the bias in r/politics, but I don't think it's nearly as bad. Certainly not equal.

I meant "turn your head" in the sense that there are two palatable perspectives and they can be sort-of chosen between. It's not taking on any perspective without discrimination.

I agree with your last paragraph, except that I don't think it impacts the 'future' that much; I think reddit will go on existing even if it's not solved and still be about as popular as it is. It's a small but vocal minority who care deeply enough about it to actually quit.

[this dictator-mod problem is huge in my city's subreddit, r/seattle; a competitor (r/seattleWa) recently emerged and everyone jumped ship because the mods of the first were so awful and refused to relinquish power. So I certainly agree this is an issue.]

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

#83

Post by mr_blobs »

hoppa_liza wrote: post #73
mr_blobs wrote: post #63

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." If you post something that doesn't conform to the current left-leaning narrative, you will be down voted by massive amounts of users because of your beliefs. I don't see…

> So it's fine for private organizations to discriminate against people simply based on their political beliefs? Do you really want to live in a world where this is accepted? An employee who keeps on yelling, throwing stuff around, harassing people and disrupting the workplace should be warned and eventually kicked out. Political views have absolutely nothing to do with this.

The extremists minority are being used as an excuse to go after anyone with a certain political view.

If this weren't the case, why isn't Reddit and Twitter banning the countless examples of left-wing extremists harassing and abusing people just as badly?

I think abusers and harassers should be kicked out, but Trump winning the election has brought out the true colors in many business owners and other people that would rather use their power for personal grudges.

It's pretty disgraceful.

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

#84

Post by internaut »

mediumdeviation wrote: post #57
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…

> To China and Iran - facebook is a "disruptive community." To use reddit's language. There is a vast difference between the government banning you and reddit banning you (which they are not actually doing here, but for the sake of argument). You have the right to free expression. You do not have the right to free expression on someone else's platform . reddit is not the Internet - if reddit does not like what you sa…

> There is a vast difference between the government banning you and reddit banning you (which they are not actually doing here, but for the sake of argument).

It isn't all about public vs private. There is another frame to view this subject in which is shared culture.

In China the majority of those running the firms agree with the government's positions on Internet use.

In the USA, Washington and large parts of the media have identical political perspectives.

The problem with this is insidious. Where you're surrounded by like minded people you grow kinds of assumptions that in another context are absolutely crazy.

Recently for example I heard a university professor claim biological sex does not exist. Further he claimed all scientists believe that biological sex does not exist.

This tends to happen in groups where dissenting opinion has been culled. Isolation does not generate balanced perspective.

> You do not have the right to free expression on someone else's platform. reddit is not the Internet

The problem with this reasoning is that the entire Net is private. The feeling of the public sphere is a kind of collective illusion similar to how we perceive the Net to be a 'space'.

I would hope that doesn't mean the use of a server doesn't have to be contingent on what political views I held yesterday or today.

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

#85

Post by nkurz »

nindalf wrote: post #52
SixSigma wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I have tried on many occasions to read posts on that sub but I found the hatred, the ALL CAPS, the doublethink and the crushing of any dissent nauseating. For example, members of that sub demonised a pizzeria owner with no evidence whatsoever, spreading lies and harassing him and anyone tangentially related to him. This incident is only the most recent one, by no means the worst. What do you love about it that makes…

For example, members of that sub demonised a pizzeria owner with no evidence whatsoever

I'm guessing that you say that based mostly on media coverage like the recent New York Times article? I think Scott Adams (author of Dilbert) has a more accurate view, which is that there is in fact a mountain of "obvious" evidence, but despite this almost all the connections and conclusions are likely false. I think it's worth the time to contrast his view with the "no evidence whatsoever" explanation that most of the media has taken: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/153821538056/about-pizzagate.

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

#86

Post by nindalf »

nkurz wrote: post #85
nindalf wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have tried on many occasions to read posts on that sub but I found the hatred, the ALL CAPS, the doublethink and the crushing of any dissent nauseating. For example, members of that sub demonised a pizzeria owner with no evidence whatsoever, spreading lies and harassing him and anyone tangentially related to him. This incident is only the most recent one, by no means the worst. What do you love about it that makes…

For example, members of that sub demonised a pizzeria owner with no evidence whatsoever I'm guessing that you say that based mostly on media coverage like the recent New York Times article? I think Scott Adams (author of Dilbert) has a more accurate view, which is that there is in fact a mountain of "obvious" evidence, but despite this almost all the connections and conclusions are likely false. I think it's worth th…

Would you be satisfied if I amended "no evidence" to "no credible evidence"? Because that's how I see it. I didn't see a single valid thing being said throughout that fiasco.

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

#87

Post by SixSigma »

ajkjk wrote: post #64
SixSigma wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Downvotes are not citations, but citations are, and when you ask for and receive citations and then pretend they don't exist you get downvoted. (Admittedly I don't know the order of your downvotes, your edit, and the replies to your comment, but this is a pattern that happens all discussions about that subreddit. "There's no evidence for X" posters maintain their stance by simply ignoring all the evidence that gets r…

It was -1 with no replies at that point. I now have the Gizmodo article which mentions a chat room off reddit.

Which is all chat from Moderators which openly want us banned. It is rather one sided because our mods didn't respond.

Gizmodo is owned by Univision Communications, not exactly objective.

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

#88

Post by SixSigma »

meritt wrote: post #29
SixSigma wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 info…

There are 300k+ subscribers to T_D

I am one of those who have never even heard of that chat room, nor visited. And I am on T_D all day long every day since February.

We have posts with 7k+ points and 56% upvoted.

https://i.redditmedia.com/RbqqP0Cpfs-o-B1DVWIwIqtUU8-dtxUahf...

If anyone is under attack, it is us.

Even the famous Ellen Pao thinks Spez made a huge mistake and says "I would have immiediately fired anyone did that [edited user posts]"

https://i.redditmedia.com/-VmuoYhuKv-Uj-Ild8_FAhGgQgXM68OsuN...

/r/all is now a safe space for people who can't handle seeing certain text !!

And the stupidest part is : Reddit is a commercial enterprise.

300k t_d subscribers. Instead of embracing a customer base and working out how to profit from it, he's pissed everybody off my repeatedly kicking the nest. Either directly or by letting CTR take over r/politics. They should have had a sales team focussing directly upon us and building an income stream. Instead they've generated a whole bunch of people who actively boycott buying Reddit Gold, will never click on your ads, even in other subreddits.

What would you give for 300k high energy cross demographic customers with a tight focus on conservatism. I wouldn't be giving them annoyance and grief.

"Front Page of the Internet" is the greatest joke of all

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

#89

Post by inimino »

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).

Techcrunch is MSM now?

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

#90

Post by meira »

inimino wrote: post #89
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).

Techcrunch is MSM now?

And Google. And Facebook.
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