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‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

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Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#301

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

projektir wrote: post #274
gottam wrote: post #256

The comments here have this mentality of "there are people with different opinions from me, why don't these websites deal with these opinions". It's dangerous thinking that can be applied to your opinions. The internet always worked this way. There are the cesspools, maybe things you don't like, but if you don't feel like engaging with these communities you simply keep going. Problem with these social media forum sit…

> The comments here have this mentality of "there are people with different opinions from me, why don't these websites deal with these opinions". It's dangerous thinking that can be applied to your opinions. It has nothing to do with opinions. It has never been about opinions, and you know it. It has to do with antisocial behavior . Antisocial behavior is inherently hostile and doesn't deserve a platform, which has b…

>Antisocial behavior is inherently hostile and doesn't deserve a platform

How many posts would we need to go back and forth for you to tell me who gets to decide what “Antisocial behavior” is?

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#303

Post by wyldfire »

petepete wrote: post #185
wyldfire wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I first started using reddit, there were no accounts/logins and no comments! Just vote buttons for each story. Truly "reddit" as in "I read this [and it was interesting so I'm sharing it here]". Slashdot without all of the noise.

The best things about HN and (a narrow, personalised) Reddit are the comments. A knowledgeable, enthusiastic community provides lots of background, alternative views, tit bits of related info and random facts. Without comments and discussion most of the value is gone.

Oh, agreed! At very first blush I thought comments would sully reddit's simple essence, but I very quickly realized how wrong I was when I grew to really appreciate the comments and the discussion.

I mentioned this merely as a historical footnote to show how far reddit's come.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#304

Post by dsfyu404ed »

projektir wrote: post #274
gottam wrote: post #256

The comments here have this mentality of "there are people with different opinions from me, why don't these websites deal with these opinions". It's dangerous thinking that can be applied to your opinions. The internet always worked this way. There are the cesspools, maybe things you don't like, but if you don't feel like engaging with these communities you simply keep going. Problem with these social media forum sit…

> The comments here have this mentality of "there are people with different opinions from me, why don't these websites deal with these opinions". It's dangerous thinking that can be applied to your opinions. It has nothing to do with opinions. It has never been about opinions, and you know it. It has to do with antisocial behavior . Antisocial behavior is inherently hostile and doesn't deserve a platform, which has b…

>This is not news, and the real dangerous trend that I'm seeing is that antisocial behavior doesn't matter and should be protected. No, it shouldn't.

There was a time when approving of gay marriage or suggesting that women are equal to men in most regards would have been considered "antisocial" by a good chunk of the population.

There was also a time when it was not antisocial at all to suggest that certain races of people are superior to others.

Times change. Today's acceptable could very well be tomorrows antisocial and vise-versa.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#305

Post by coatmatter »

optimuspaul wrote: post #250
spike021 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? I find "really interesting places with extremely insightful and meaningful content" all the time. If not for Facebook or Twitter I likely would've never found The Athletic, a newer news media website for sports. I doubt they'd have just advertised on ESPN or some other sports broadcast channel website. Some of the content there has been incredibly insightful and meaningful. I even find articles from there on…

I might argue that you are in a minority there. I don't doubt that finding good content is possible on Facebook and Twitter, but to be fair it was outside those conclaves that the quality content was actually residing. Back in the day I definitely discovered new things on those platforms, but it has been some time. Most things I see there now are short attention span low quality memes and crap. Might have more to say…

I used to think that I knew how to use Facebook properly and that it was everyone else who was using it wrong and getting the wrong rubbish things in their feed. Then I realised what was more likely the case was that only a small proportion out of my friends going back over a decade is interesting in any way. And out of that segment, only a small number are on my level reciprocally communicative terms - the rest are way above my "league" (I don't comment on their posts, and they don't comment on mine).

So here was the conundrum: Continue trusting the sorting algorithm by posting and sharing links to a very small obliging audience (as well as continuing to read and comment on links shared by another, but not necessarily the same small group), or change something? I went for the deactivation experiment. So far so good (I think?).

At least Twitter has a larger pool of "talent" to start with, but it still doesn't make "curation" any easier and most users* would probably concede it's a massive waste of time. Admittedly, Facebook Memories has made me realise that past-me is a poorer version of current-me and if the trend (hopefully) continues, future-me will also cringe at current-me.

Seriously, there's so little time to waste: https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/life-weeks.html

* Of course, there's probably a minority who have gotten employment or work connections through Twitter but I'd say that's a small minority compared to main userbase.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#306

Post by [deleted] »

abnry wrote: post #17

I think there is a very important distinction that needs to be made. The popular reddit experience is vastly worse than the customized reddit. It took me a while to realize that my reddit experience was vastly improved once I was very picky about which subreddits I follow.

[deleted]

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#307

Post by notMick »

streb-lo wrote: post #295
notMick wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still a nothing burger, it's paid political propaganda on those default reddits, paid teams pushing bs and noise. Share blue for example was given a budget of 40+ million a year to do just that. (Over 100k a day) The other paid campaign is 'deplatforming' (their term). They do your best to silence opinions which don't match the paid script.

I'm sure it's being brigaded by both sides for political points/fire control. But you'd have to be willfully blind to describe the events up to now as a "nothing burger."

There is nothing, except a large paid hoax propaganda campaign. With the same team we could make mother Teresa seem like an imperialist religious nut. But anyway, let's agree to disagree. Because the world is nicer that way.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#308

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

tomcam wrote: post #245

Reddit has been a completely positive force in my life. I subscribe to hundreds of subreddits and they all seem quite well-moderated. If I want to ask a question of doctors, engineers, lawyers, or manufacturers, I can. If I want to spend some time look at cute baby elephant pictures, I can. If I want to learn about a new GarageBand feature, it's easy. I literally didn't know about the things like jailbait until they…

I’ve seen absolute junk science on gun control posted in reddit science. Comments that questioned the “study” were flat out removed. Millions of subscribers on that sub, at the time it was a default.

No one is implying that gonewild or programmerhumor are bad forces... but news censors, worldnews is manipulated, politics is beyond a joke. Those three particularly are almost certainly bought and paid for.

Reddit is pretty bad, particular subreddits can be great. You need to understand the content vs the company.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#309

Post by Puer »

abnry wrote: post #17

I think there is a very important distinction that needs to be made. The popular reddit experience is vastly worse than the customized reddit. It took me a while to realize that my reddit experience was vastly improved once I was very picky about which subreddits I follow.

This is my filter list for Reddit using RES (not including keyword filters like Net Neutrality or meme filters):

https://i.imgur.com/Ybmk6fZ.gifv

All the subreddits I want to see I subscribe to directly. For everything else I browse All with these filters.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#310

Post by chillwaves »

pjc50 wrote: post #252
wvenable wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What ever happened to neutrality? Moderators shouldn't be promoting an ideology left or right. I understand that Reddit admins themselves don't want to promote an ideology either -- they want to remain neutral -- but they are sacrificing their platform to people who don't hold he same ideals. The biggest change I've noticed is just how political the city/country subreddits have become. A few years ago, they used to b…

Neutrality is impossible. Either you ban people for racism or you don't.

Right, so people are arguing against that baseline rule.

A baseline rule prohibiting threatening violence, most people agree with, but apparently it is a controversial attack on free speech if a private website wants to moderate the use of its platform to promote hatred against people based on the color of their skin.

And banning racism is being held as an example of liberal bias! Amazing.

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