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How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

theguardian.com

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Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#111

Post by [deleted] »

vinhboy wrote: post #35
quchen wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s /r/the_donald, and how did it »then happen«?

A bunch of really hateful, and racist people came to reddit because of /r/the_donald. Unfortunately they did not keep to their subreddit. You can see influences of their hateful ideology in other subreddits. They also game the reddit voting system so their stories and comments are constantly being featured in /r/all -- so much so reddit had to take action. Their purpose is to troll, and they are damn good at it.

[deleted]

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#112

Post by EStudley »

vinhboy wrote: post #35
quchen wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s /r/the_donald, and how did it »then happen«?

A bunch of really hateful, and racist people came to reddit because of /r/the_donald. Unfortunately they did not keep to their subreddit. You can see influences of their hateful ideology in other subreddits. They also game the reddit voting system so their stories and comments are constantly being featured in /r/all -- so much so reddit had to take action. Their purpose is to troll, and they are damn good at it.

Also, Reddit can't ban them because of the inevitable "LIBERAL WEBSITE BANS PRO-DONALD FORUM" headlines.

So, even though a massive amount of their userbase pushes for genocide against "Mdslimes" or "Kbabs", Reddit admins let them exist.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#113

Post by komali2 »

bredren wrote: post #13
rifung wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What bad things have come out of it?

This isn't necessarily a good or bad thing, but the sheer number of people and crawlable public content it is an ever-growing training dataset for AI. This has potential to be dangerous.

If you are going to make that point, you must concede the equal potential for it to be the opposite of dangerous (vergy very good :P )

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#114

Post by mantas »

untog wrote: post #31
zeep wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/r/politics is similar to /r/the_donald but it is the exact opposite (it could have been called /r/the_hillary)

That simply isn't true. The most obvious evidence of why: there was a huge, endless, sprawling debate about Sanders vs Clinton. I wouldn't deny that /r/politics leans to the left, but it's a big stretch from that to a subreddit dedicated entirely to promoting a single candidate at all costs.

And that debate frequently ended with HRC people being called corporate shills and whatnot. Meltdown after Sanders loosing was sweet though!

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#115

Post by e40 »

gooseus wrote: post #62

What I find fascinating and disappointing is how much the opioid crisis isn't being talked about or addressed proportional to other societal issues. Billions of dollars of private research being poured into self-driving cars by our greatest minds and millions of dollars in lobbying against gun laws all in the name of preventing unnecessary human deaths... yet according to Ben Bernanke (and his references), opioid ove…

What I find fascinating and disappointing is how much the opioid crisis isn't being talked about or addressed proportional to other societal issues.

I'm not surprised at all, and the only emotion I feel is complete disgust, directed at politicians that refuse to work together. It started the second Obama was elected POTUS and the opposing party declared they would not work with him, and that lasted the full 8 years.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#116

Post by pyre »

rhizome wrote: post #105
danans wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that a lot more funds for treatment are needed to fight the opioid epidemic, it is really a fundamentally different problem that road fatalities. The only thing they really have in common are the fatalities. The opioid crisis seems like a symptom of our social problems (hopelessness in the rust belt, unscrupulous over-prescribing of pain meds) that has fatal consequences. Short of a drug that provided a…

Short of a drug that provided a permanent cure for opioid addiction itself, I'm not sure what sort of solutions can be pursued by scientific/tech research Along with its therapeutic cousins Cannabis and MDMA, look what else we have on the list of substances for which federal research funds are banned (Schedule I): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibogaine

> Ibogaine causes long QT syndrome at therapeutic doses, apparently by blocking hERG potassium channels in the heart.

Yea. That doesn't necessarily sound good:

> Clinical studies of ibogaine to treat drug addiction began in the early 1990s, but concerns about cardiotoxicity led to termination of those studies. There is currently insufficient data to determine whether it is useful in treating addiction.

I'm not really sure this is some sort of miracle drug that the establishment just doesn't want us to know about.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#117

Post by vkou »

pat_space wrote: post #44
dionidium wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is silly. I follow a number of subreddits on topics ranging from baseball, local news (city subreddits), credit card churning, maps, history, and many others. None of them have been affected by /r/the_donald.

I agree with you and think the hubbub around r/the_donald is amusing. In my opinion, r/the_donald is a "beautiful" example of mob trolling. If a subreddit doesn't interest you, just unfollow it. If you are browsing /r/all, you're probably procrastinating anyways!

> I agree with you and think the hubbub around r/the_donald is amusing. In my opinion, r/the_donald is a "beautiful" example of mob trolling. If a subreddit doesn't interest you, just unfollow it.

The problem with having something r/the_donald on reddit is that its posters don't stay in r/the_donald. They go out to other reddits, and post hateful shit.

It's like having a shared space for clubs, that also includes a local chapter of the KKK.

It'd be fine if they just played dungeon and wizard dressup and complained about black people in the confines of their club room every Tuesday.

The problem is that they spill out, and start burning crosses and handing out beatings to the other users of the shared space. Pretty soon, the entire community turns into a dumpster fire, and people who don't want to deal with that bullshit leave.

The owners of the space can then pat eachother on the back, and congratulate themselves for encouraging freedom of expression.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#118

Post by mantas »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #77
clamprecht wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You basically justified the First Amendment guarantee of free speech. You have to take the bad with the good, because we don't all agree on what's good.

I agree in general, but some communications platforms (like Reddit, and like Facebook...and probably like HN) can be more or less accomodating of "echo chambers" that validate and magnify extremist viewpoints. On the other hand, similar effects can nourish minority cultures and communities...it's a hard problem. I agree that free speech is a good thing, and I think that "You have to take the bad with the good, becaus…

If the extremes were banned, then the promoted neutral/centrist view would become extremist on it's own.

Cross-subrreddit trolling and genuine spills at least minimises echo chamber effect somewhat. If that was limited or non-centrist subreddits/users were banned, the centrist (or whatever was supposed to be OK) echo chamber level would go off the charts.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#119

Post by scottmf »

jimmaswell wrote: post #71
lsmarigo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit has some fantastic and fascinating communities and really interesting cult-like ones (/r/nofap) However I'd like to point out the admin policy towards hate groups and speech on reddit is in my opinion incredibly dangerous and damaging to our society. They will take action against subreddits like FPH (fat people hate) because of "real life" actions, meawhile there are thousands of highly upvoted calls to violen…

It's often said that the admins simply only shut down a subreddit once its negative publicity is enough to start hurting the website's brand or ad revenue in some way.

Yep. They turn a blind eye to all of it because they profit from it.

If I weren't so politically burnt out right now I'd call for a Reddit boycott.

Either way this thread has reminded me to block it and delete my account because I'm done with that site after 10+ years.

Re: How a Reddit forum has become a lifeline to opioid addicts in the US

#120

Post by jetti »

vinhboy wrote: post #68
spike021 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If the core of Reddit is rotten, then the subreddit themselves will be affected. This is a pretty broad claim. While I don't disagree that toxicity can spread to different subreddits, that doesn't automatically mean it will spread to all of them, especially if the subreddits have solid rules and moderators to enforce them. Take /r/baseball, for instance, it's a great, topical subreddit and I've pretty much never see…

Ok sure... I can see how /r/baseball is immune from politics. But what about the example I gave, like /r/environment, or even more niche /r/CampingandHiking -- The other day there was story about federal recreation land on there and it was overrun with negative comments for a brief while. So yes, places like /r/programming and /r/netsec is still pretty insular. But it's like asking me to visit a bad neighborhood, bec…

I think at a certain point it becomes a mod issue rather than a site issue. I visit /r/tattoos and the mods are quick to get rid of comments that don't adhere to rules and because of that you get comment that are constructive, with even those who say they don't like a tattoo will explain why.
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