‘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’

#461

Post by cl0ne » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 8:35 PM UTC

moomin wrote: post #436

naasking wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if we ignored the logistics of such a challenge and agreed on the conclusion, why is the same logic not applied to things like alcohol and all the harms that results (drunk driving, alcoholics ruining their lives, etc). Indeed, and we already tried that, and it led to the rise of organized crime. But I think it's important not to get sucked into "slippery slope" style reasoning. There can be good reasons why b…

The thing is, you don’t really need to theorise about how to stop school shootings. It’s been done. It just required people to prioritise children’s lives over a minority hobby. (I’m from a country where owning a gun is legal, but controlled, and has no school shootings. We used to have less control, and school shootings happened.)

It's not a hobby to everyone, some people survive by subsistence hunting.

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

#462

Post by str33t_punk » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 8:35 PM UTC

IAmEveryone wrote: post #353

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.

However stereotypes about journalists from the tech crowd doesn’t have much visibility.

The journalist crowd thinks a bunch of stereotypes about tech. And they have the platform to broadcast their prejudice to the world. Some of their stereotypes are quite insulting to any quality Engineer.

Why is it bad when we stereotype them, when they have been doing it aggressively for years?

Rather, I believe it is our duty to start reporting on the media and our opinions about the media, as no one does. The media holds all the power in broadcasting opinions on the populace, and there are very little entities that check their power.

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

#463

Post by komali2 » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 8:36 PM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #418

komali2 wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird, that sounds a lot like the billboards I used to see in South Carolina along the lines of "if you don't like [guns, god, trucks], you can GIIIIIIIT OUT!" Are you telling me I shouldn't be exercising my free speech right to argue that reddit should remove alt-right subreddits? Are you placing barriers around acceptable free speech?

You can do whatever you want. That's the great part about places like reddit. I am merely informing you of the fact reddit isn't going to go along with your idea to engage in mass censorship because they are strongly pro free speech, and only ban subreddits in very rare situations. They aren't perfect on free speech, but Id give them a solid A-. You have lots of other options if you like censorship, and you can feel…

I don't know why you seem to think I have some kind of authority. I feel like I'm being propped up as some sort of powerful villain here, or maybe that there are strikes being taken at my agency.

>Reddit isn't going to take away OTHER people's choice because you say so

Why use language like this? I bring it up because this is exactly the sort of haughty writing style I'm used to hearing when I engage t_d users... I don't know if it's a dialect or simply an artifact of shared mindset.

Reddit does censor, don't forget! They've even banned self proclaimed safe spaces such as mgtow hangouts.

I'm also curious where you get your sense of authority, saying things like "I'm informing you of the fact that reddit...". That's powerful language! Do you work at Reddit? If so, can you offer further insight?

Using words like "facts" seems silly. Given enough advertiser pressure, I bet reddit would content tweak. If t_d lost it's fragile control over it's users and went full blown hate speech, I bet it would vanish. So, where does this confidence come from?

EDIT: Shit, we've hit the reply depth limit or whatever. I'm happy to continue this conversation privately if you wish, my email's in my profile.

To reply in an edit, I agree that typically spez has taken a pro-free speech line, but given that we're discussing this in an article that contradicts this from an insider perspective with lines like

>and then, ultimately, these things will bubble up, make it into the press, and then we would make a decision to change things. We would deal with the immediate impact, which was painful, would last a week or two, and then it would go away.

Which leads to my belief that if t_d lost just a little bit of control, and the press caught wind, that reddit would cave and ban it.

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

#464

Post by shostack » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 8:37 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.

It feels like increasingly they are shifting away from focusing on the comments and discussion, to trying to get readers to click, consume, leave and keep scrolling (to generate more impressions).

I'm saddened by this, and in digital battlegrounds (and I'm not using that term lightly) like /r/politics or /r/worldnews where it has been very obvious for a long time that hostile foreign nations are conducting operations there, it can result in a lot of the important meta-chatter being pushed down, or troll comments being gamed to the top without the accurate counter-response being visible anymore. This results in further distortion of the truth (or at the very least exposure to multiple sides of an argument).

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

#465

Post by bhandziuk » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 8:41 PM UTC

rockostrich wrote: post #44

lechiffre10 wrote: post #18

I've significantly reduced my time on Reddit. Used to pull up the website out of curiosity every day but the atmosphere is incredibly toxic. My front page was riddled with Russiagate stuff too for some reason and every time you'd bring up an argument that isn't the norm you get a mob after you.

The default/popular subreddits are toxic. The smaller, niche subreddits are rarely toxic and usually good communities. As for the Russiagate stuff, the front page is riddled with it because it's a very important subject in the US, Reddit's user base is primarily people from the US, and there are bombshells dropping every day.

City specific subreddits are really hit or miss. Often it's people complaining about newcomers and how the drivers "here" are the worst drivers anywhere ever. Sometimes a good news story comes through. Some are better than others but that kind of discussion/complaining bores me.

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

#466

Post by pathseeker » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 8:42 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #424

notMick wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your attitude of batching everything not matching the "side" you happened to pick and calling it a "large paid propaganda campaign" is dangerous and the world is certainy not "nicer that way". This attitude is something you find everywhere because it's simpler for people who believe something strongly, to also believe that anyone who disagrees has been paid to do so. So it's attractive to dismiss anti-trump articles…

> As others have said, arrests and indictments aren't a "nothing burger"

Arrests and indictments for things unrelated to illegal dealings with Russia, except for maybe failing to renew registration as a foreign agent but that's a stretch.

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

#467

Post by naasking » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 8:43 PM UTC

TomMckenny wrote: post #458

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…

>...blames gun manufacturers for school shootings... If a new item today entered the market and was misused to the tune of 30,000 deaths per year. Misused far more often than legitimately like stopping an intruder. And the manufacturer knew in advance this would be the outcome, I think we would be right to blame them. There are many extremely dangerous substances with legitimate uses that would instantly be widely ab…

> Misused far more often than legitimately like stopping an intruder. And the manufacturer knew in advance this would be the outcome,

Yeah, I'm not convinced. If enough people enjoyed using the item in question recreationally, there'd be enough pushback to an outright ban.

> I think we would be right to blame them.

This doesn't follow from the premises. I'd wager that every item has an ethical use.

> There are many extremely dangerous substances with legitimate uses that would instantly be widely abused that we wisely restrict.

"Restrict" does not entail "forbid". There are already "gun restrictions", just as there are "chemical restrictions" and so on with all the other items you're no doubt thinking of.

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

#468

Post by abritinthebay » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 8:44 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #258

abritinthebay wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vote counts on HN are hidden - doesn't stop a lot of toxic behavior on here. The problem is down votes are not a good comment tool . Especially combined with hiding and such. Upvote only systems are much more resilient to the kind of gaming mechanics you see here and on reddit.

What is meant by "gaming mechanics you see here"? Could you be more specific? Of course, voting does affect what gets posted, but that's the point. If your authentic voice doesn't appeal to HN voters, then develop another voice that does appeal to us!

That’s completely compatible with an upvote only system. So I don’t see your objection?

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

#469

Post by pathseeker » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 8:44 PM UTC

rockostrich wrote: post #44

lechiffre10 wrote: post #18

I've significantly reduced my time on Reddit. Used to pull up the website out of curiosity every day but the atmosphere is incredibly toxic. My front page was riddled with Russiagate stuff too for some reason and every time you'd bring up an argument that isn't the norm you get a mob after you.

The default/popular subreddits are toxic. The smaller, niche subreddits are rarely toxic and usually good communities. As for the Russiagate stuff, the front page is riddled with it because it's a very important subject in the US, Reddit's user base is primarily people from the US, and there are bombshells dropping every day.

>As for the Russiagate stuff, the front page is riddled with it because it's a very important subject in the US,

Not really. Describe how each news articles has impacted your day-to-day life. It's only important in that it keeps readers coming back who are excited about a big conspiracy taking down the president they don't like.

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

#470

Post by skybrian » Thu, Apr 19, 2018, 8:44 PM UTC

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #403

skybrian wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some programmers see a problem and say "I know, I'll add federation". Now you have 7 problems. More seriously, I'm not seeing how federation solves any social network problem better than subreddits did? In either case, the quality of the discussion will depend on the moderators, who can be good, bad, or evil.

Federated social networks give you the ability to change allegiance or fork. Don't like a particular moderator on an instance? Leave to another instance, or start your own. Things can get problematic if other instances refuse to federate your own, but if you maintain even a bit of social capital, most instances will not block an instance with a single user. There's a growing culture (and a set of actions in the ecosy…

But the problem with Reddit doesn't seem to be that subreddits don't have enough independence and ability to make their own choices?