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

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

#351

Post by 2xlbuds » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 6:56 PM UTC

md224 wrote: post #50

I still can't get over the fact that their official mobile app stops rendering comments past a certain level of nesting. There's no indication that anything is missing, no "continue this thread" link, nothing... the comments just aren't there. I don't understand how one of the world's largest social media platforms could have a mobile app that silently hides content from the user. Just blows my mind.

If you're on iOS, I recommend Apollo for reddit, I actually was using Alien Blue for the longest time because I also hated the official app, but I switched to Apollo a few months ago and it has been great.

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

#352

Post by sah2ed » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 6:57 PM UTC

cowpig wrote: post #154

SeanLuke wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fundamentally the problem, I think is anonymity. On the Internet no one knows you're a dog. I have both pseudonymous handles on reddit and also I go by my own name. On Hacker News I only go by my own name. And I have found that it made me a much, MUCH better person when posting. So now I post on reddit about 95% of the time under my own name as well. When you have no skin in the game -- such as your reputation to uph…

Maybe you "become a better person" when you post under your real name, but Facebook, which has a real name requirement, is a cesspool, and this community, where most people use pseudonyms, is relatively civil. You can have an identity and "skin in the game" without using your real name. You can also use your real name and not care/be aware of the consequences of things you say online.

Agreed, but note that for a lot of people on Facebook, their primary audience are friends, family & acquaintances; people who will mostly tolerate your (contrarian) views, whether you display tact or otherwise. People are the center of conversations on FB.

This contrasts with a place like HN which has no concept of friends and family -- the center of everything here is the comment box. That's a great trade-off as it allows us to focus attention on debating contrarian ideas, and less on the one who is airing it.

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

#353

Post by IAmEveryone » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 6:59 PM UTC

nemild wrote: post #151

I've been actively working on a media literacy guide for engineers, contributions welcome: https://github.com/nemild/hack-an-engineer (Think Reddit influences so much of engineering thought from things like r/learnprogramming to all the cryptocurrency subs)

This is just a collection of stereotypes of journalism that are already commonly believed among the tech crowd.

Just one example: it’s insulting and hurtful to any quality journalist (ie at the NYT, WSJ, or Economist) to suggest that their reporting is motivated by personal financial incentives, or their employer’s.

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

#354

Post by wvenable » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 6:59 PM UTC

aldoushuxley001 wrote: post #153

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why this is downvoted, this is well documented.

Seems incredibly biased to say that right-wing moderators are dangerous to society. Just because someone has a more conservative outlook, doesn't mean they are a menace. A little bit shocking that needs to be pointed out.

If you're a left-wing moderator or a right-wing moderator, there is no way I should know that unless you tell me. Any moderator that is actively and purposely applying their political philosophy to a forum that reaches thousands of people is dangerous to society.

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

#355

Post by naasking » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 7:00 PM UTC

> I had conversations with Jason [Citron] a year ago about the problem of white supremacy on his site, and he said, “I don’t want to invade their privacy by going into their channels and reading what they’re doing.” And I said, “They’re gonna cause deaths because you’re not doing that.” And he said, “You really think so?” And I said, “Yeah.” And sure enough they didn’t do anything, and sure enough deaths were caused because of the shit going on in their channels.

I'm not sure I can agree with this kind of moralizing. It's the same argument that blames gun manufacturers for school shootings. Clearly the latter argument is absurd, and yet very intelligent people subscribe to the former argument. So either some step is missing here that differentiates these two arguments, or we should be focusing on the real problem.

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

#356

Post by naasking » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 7:02 PM UTC

md224 wrote: post #50

I still can't get over the fact that their official mobile app stops rendering comments past a certain level of nesting. There's no indication that anything is missing, no "continue this thread" link, nothing... the comments just aren't there. I don't understand how one of the world's largest social media platforms could have a mobile app that silently hides content from the user. Just blows my mind.

> I still can't get over the fact that their official mobile app stops rendering comments past a certain level of nesting. There's no indication that anything is missing, no "continue this thread" link, nothing... the comments just aren't there.

More than that, half the time I go into a reddit profile on my desktop and try to click a link to a comment, it just doesn't work. Literally does nothing. They changed the rendering a short time ago from straight links to some type of JS, and now profiles are broken half the time.

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

#357

Post by LordHumungous » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 7:03 PM UTC

douglaswlance wrote: post #23

Reddit is the only popular website where rational discourse can actually happen, thanks to the infinitely threaded conversations and complete markdown. While there is objective rude comments on there, this is why some people call it, "toxic," because their ideas are challenged, and they'd rather preserve their ideological bubble than seek to understand reality.

Exactly. It's rather revealing that Facebook is his example of a well functioning forum for the exchange of ideas.

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

#358

Post by raquo » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 7:04 PM UTC

testvox wrote: post #332

raquo wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say the general public's level of intelligence in general, and the effect of dumb content on it specifically is definitely significant enough to need a solution. Many solutions, probably. Of course no one will seriously suggest a gif prohibition (I hope), but regarding fake news specifically, regulation such as the FCC Fairness doctrine could possibly work. The point is not to eliminate undesired behavior ent…

The Supreme Court ruled that the fairness doctrine was justified given the scarce nature of the radio spectrum. The doctrine never applied to cable TV and certainly wouldn't be able to be applied to the internet.

You can certainly apply and enforce such regulations on mainstream media, both TV and online. The world will benefit even without US getting onboard with it, and without the need to police every last website.

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

#359

Post by return1 » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 7:05 PM UTC

SeanLuke wrote: post #107

austincheney wrote: post #4

Reddit wouldn't be so toxic if the vote counts were hidden, but echo chamber validation is the ultimate badge of honor there. There is so much in this document that applies to all things Reddit (please note that I wrote it inspired by my time on Reddit) : https://github.com/prettydiff/wisdom/blob/master/Avoiding_Tr...

Fundamentally the problem, I think is anonymity. On the Internet no one knows you're a dog. I have both pseudonymous handles on reddit and also I go by my own name. On Hacker News I only go by my own name. And I have found that it made me a much, MUCH better person when posting. So now I post on reddit about 95% of the time under my own name as well. When you have no skin in the game -- such as your reputation to uph…

HN has a different audience and moderation so i m not sure its just your name. When people are posting with real name, it changes the dynamic, the post becomes part of the social signaling, which can lead them to refrain from saying some truths, or to support things they don’t really believe but align well with their real life identity.

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

#360

Post by Joeri » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 7:07 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #355

> I had conversations with Jason [Citron] a year ago about the problem of white supremacy on his site, and he said, “I don’t want to invade their privacy by going into their channels and reading what they’re doing.” And I said, “They’re gonna cause deaths because you’re not doing that.” And he said, “You really think so?” And I said, “Yeah.” And sure enough they didn’t do anything, and sure enough deaths were caused…

Guns are a bad analogy because manufacturers have no control over their use post purchase. If gun manufacturers could take back their guns (ban users) when somebody threatened illegal violence the analogy would be closer, and it would be quite reasonable to expect them to do so.