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Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Steps Aside, Focuses on Initialized Capital

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Re: Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Steps Aside, Focuses on Initialized Capital

#81

Post by coryrc »

slg wrote: post #77
ythn wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is still just as much hate on the site except now it is just seething under the surface Yeah but if your vast majority of users doesn't see it or know where to find it, who cares? I've been a reddit user for 2 years and never encountered the subreddits you are talking about nor have I sought them out. The "solution" you are talking about is heavy-handed speech moderation

These things never stay contained though. The hate subreddits feed off of and seep into the rest of the site. In the old days someone had to make a conscious decision to visit a site like Stromfront. You weren't going to go there unless you already were interested in racist ideals. On Reddit those ideals are mixed in with everything else. This makes it harder to notice you are being exposed to hate and/or influenced…

In the old days someone had to make a conscious decision to visit a site like SPLC. You weren't going to go there unless you already were interested in racist ideals. On Reddit those ideals are mixed in with everything else.

Re: Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Steps Aside, Focuses on Initialized Capital

#82

Post by Karunamon »

etjossem wrote: post #72
pentagonpapers wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correct_the_Record

From your source: - The DNC was not paying Correct The Record. Like all super PACs, Correct The Record made independent expenditures on behalf of supportive donors around the country, and you can find their names here: https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgave2.php?cycle=2016&cmt... - Correct The Record had about a dozen full-time content producers writing favorable posts about the Democratic candidate online. I'm not…

Why the whataboutism here? No, I would not like to address these accounts and the questionable methodology that was used to get that "328 million" number, because it's irrelevant to the question.

As to the question, the answer unfortunately requires some familiarity with Reddit and having been a regular user there for a while. /r/politics is the big one since it was a "default" community up until that concept was eliminated a while ago (basically it was automatically on the front page if you browsed the site while logged out, and if you made an account, you were automatically subscribed to it).

I bring them up, because they're the largest political community on the site, and had a level of privilege that comes with that.

CTR is used as shorthand for the pro-Hillary tonal shift in /r/politics that happened fairly rapidly[1], combined with fairly obvious botting[2]. While there's no proof that any particular organization was responsible for those posts, or that Reddit's owners tacitly permitted their behavior, CTR is to my knowledge the only organization who had social network promotion (beyond the usual writing their own obvious posts or buying ads) of Hillary Clinton as its goal, going to the point of addressing actual individuals. AFAIK, this is new.

[1]: https://www.thedailybeast.com/hillary-pac-spends-dollar1-mil...

[2]: https://i.imgur.com/uYZuRBc.jpg

Re: Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Steps Aside, Focuses on Initialized Capital

#83

Post by maxpupmax »

hglaser wrote: post #60
zerostar07 wrote: post #52

I wondef how they manage to increase revenue. Their self serve ad manager looks like a joke.

It's likely that the largest advertisers don't use the self-serve ad manager. They call their rep who operates the system for them. This is why the self-serve ad managers for AdWords, Facebook Ads, etc. are all pretty unloved.

Facebook ads has gotten a decent amount of love over the last year.

Re: Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Steps Aside, Focuses on Initialized Capital

#84

Post by etjossem »

Karunamon wrote: post #82
etjossem wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your source: - The DNC was not paying Correct The Record. Like all super PACs, Correct The Record made independent expenditures on behalf of supportive donors around the country, and you can find their names here: https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgave2.php?cycle=2016&cmt... - Correct The Record had about a dozen full-time content producers writing favorable posts about the Democratic candidate online. I'm not…

Why the whataboutism here? No, I would not like to address these accounts and the questionable methodology that was used to get that "328 million" number, because it's irrelevant to the question. As to the question, the answer unfortunately requires some familiarity with Reddit and having been a regular user there for a while. /r/politics is the big one since it was a "default" community up until that concept was eli…

I did some digging, and your evidence of "obvious pro-Hillary botting" (your [2] above) is an alt-right photoshop. They couldn't find any real evidence of this happening, so they fabricated their own. Here's how.

The William_Trevino post is a real post on Reddit that was used as a template:

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/search?q=author%3AWilliam_...

But all the other "FirstName_LastName" entries were edited in by the creator of the image. Unlike William_Trevino's entry, they have no associated Reddit post. You can try to find users by those names or posts with those entries' title, but they don't exist.

- https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/search?q=author%3AHoward_L...

- https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/search?q=author%3ATerry_Mo... etc.

I've gone ahead and flagged you for posting a completely deceptive photoshop of the truth. Please make an effort to fact-check yourself next time.

Re: Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Steps Aside, Focuses on Initialized Capital

#85

Post by FireBeyond »

throwahey wrote: post #55
pentagonpapers wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's laughable. We know for a fact the DNC was paying people to sit on Reddit all day long with talking points to sway public opinion. It's the failure of Reddit to be transparent about thier political goals. It's clear to anyone who isnt blind that in the last four years Reddit has been structurally attacked by the left and turned places like politics, world news, even conspiracy into liberal talking points.

Reddit is not even pretending to be fair and balanced. They lean far to the left (or pander to them) and the front page is often filled with anti-Trump, pro-Democrat propaganda. Free and fair discussion is a lost cause on that platform, 45 has made anyone with conservative values an enemy.

Just like the banned subreddit /r/The_Donald, right?

Reddit would not allow Pro Trump posts.

Re: Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Steps Aside, Focuses on Initialized Capital

#86

Post by wldcordeiro »

debacle wrote: post #61
zerostar07 wrote: post #52

I wondef how they manage to increase revenue. Their self serve ad manager looks like a joke.

Far more advertising, better CPMs, sponsored content (AMAs), and selling dark patterns as marketing strategy.

They've already started! They're A/B testing the sign-up modal being uncloseable which of course means it'll pass because some marketing schmuck can say "See we get conversions!"

Re: Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Steps Aside, Focuses on Initialized Capital

#87

Post by petecooper »

kn0thing wrote: post #75
hglaser wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's likely that the largest advertisers don't use the self-serve ad manager. They call their rep who operates the system for them. This is why the self-serve ad managers for AdWords, Facebook Ads, etc. are all pretty unloved.

Yes. The team has started making some good improvements to self serve, though, and it'll keep getting better.

For completeness, from kn0thing's HN bio (excerpt):

>Co-founder @Reddit. General Partner @InitializedCap.

Re: Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Steps Aside, Focuses on Initialized Capital

#88

Post by pentagonpapers »

etjossem wrote: post #84
Karunamon wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the whataboutism here? No, I would not like to address these accounts and the questionable methodology that was used to get that "328 million" number, because it's irrelevant to the question. As to the question, the answer unfortunately requires some familiarity with Reddit and having been a regular user there for a while. /r/politics is the big one since it was a "default" community up until that concept was eli…

I did some digging, and your evidence of "obvious pro-Hillary botting" (your [2] above) is an alt-right photoshop. They couldn't find any real evidence of this happening, so they fabricated their own. Here's how. The William_Trevino post is a real post on Reddit that was used as a template: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/search?q=author%3AWilliam_... But all the other "FirstName_LastName" entries were edited in by…

Is it possible that those users were deleted after this was revealed?

Re: Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Steps Aside, Focuses on Initialized Capital

#89

Post by pentagonpapers »

FireBeyond wrote: post #85
throwahey wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is not even pretending to be fair and balanced. They lean far to the left (or pander to them) and the front page is often filled with anti-Trump, pro-Democrat propaganda. Free and fair discussion is a lost cause on that platform, 45 has made anyone with conservative values an enemy.

Just like the banned subreddit /r/The_Donald, right? Reddit would not allow Pro Trump posts.

Except - they explicitly state something along the lines of being a "24/7 pepe rally". /r/politics was a default sub that all new users saw when they signed up for reddit, or browsed without logging in.

Re: Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Steps Aside, Focuses on Initialized Capital

#90

Post by etjossem »

pentagonpapers wrote: post #88
etjossem wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did some digging, and your evidence of "obvious pro-Hillary botting" (your [2] above) is an alt-right photoshop. They couldn't find any real evidence of this happening, so they fabricated their own. Here's how. The William_Trevino post is a real post on Reddit that was used as a template: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/search?q=author%3AWilliam_... But all the other "FirstName_LastName" entries were edited in by…

Is it possible that those users were deleted after this was revealed?

Nope. The fake entries added by the photoshopper don't even produce any associated posts in title search results [1]. If they were real posts from a deleted user, they'd still appear in title queries with [deleted] as their author. [2]

It's a photoshop and you've been lied to. I hope this teaches you to think more critically about things, especially when they're what you want to believe. Thanks for playing.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/search?q=title%3APaul+Ryan+Sides+with...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/18ejnd/are_old_posts_...

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