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 Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’
531–540 of 618 posts
Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’
#532Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know what to tell you, but I see the full thread on my iOS reddit app: https://photos.app.goo.gl/tqoooN7gJ7zNKZLB3 Maybe it's an Android thing?
There are more replies to the first thread that you’re not seeing. Note the “Continue Thread” links in the web view: https://ibb.co/nPtibn
Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’
#533Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think I worded it poorly. Reddit.com/r/all will show you what's tops throughout the site. You can filter subs out of that view.
I see. That makes sense but also why not use your home page instead of /r/all? or are you not logged in?
There’s some surprisingly entertaining stuff that floats to the top. I don’t always want to see the posts on /r/gardening but when somebody grows a zucchini the size of a baseball bat, yeah I’ll look at it.
Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’
#534Earlier quoted context omitted.
Federation makes a lot of moderation decisions easier. If an instance chooses to stop federating with another instance, it's not like the entire other instance disappears and those users now do not have a place to discuss their ideas, all that happens is that their ideas cannot spread into the Federated network they were cut off from. Likewise if an individual is banned from one Fediverse, then they can join one more…
That's a good point. But this sounds a lot like user blocking tools? At one time, making sure that users could block other users on the same social network might have seemed like it might enough to prevent abuse and keep social networks out of the moderation business. Users that don't get along can just block each other. Good enough? Maybe not. You say you know the "worst case" but that might not be imaginative enoug…
Even in the above botnet+phishing situation, nothing is stopping instances from cutting federation off completely and then banning suspected users, a move that a growth-oriented network would think many times before instituting.
Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’
#535Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I would still hesitate to say that we should lay the blame on these forums though, or undeniably conclude that that's where we should be making changes to prevent such problems. I wouldn't say lay the blame on the forums for the actions for their members, however I do think it would be somewhat justified to lay the blame on forums for knowingly allowing these hateful ideologies to spread to more and more people due…
> It's been shown that banning hateful subreddits reduces the amount of hate speech on the site by users who used to post on those banned subreddits. But as you say, it doesn't necessarily reduce hate or hate speech overall. In fact, it may even galvanize it further. How do you think the US got all of those conservative news networks like Fox? Because rich conservatives got tired of their opinions being ignored or si…
I think this is a false equivalence. The extreme right is deeply racist/homophobic/sexist, denies science, advocates for a theocracy and for the shutting down of government services to the extent that millions of people will die. Say what you want about the "extreme" left's social policies but they're really not on that level.
Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’
#536Earlier quoted context omitted.
This line of logic is so so so dangerous. I hope you understand what you're suggesting. "People deciding what people should watch / read / consume."
Are people not deciding what people should watch / read / consume? Netflix chooses which shows to show in its spotlight section / email blast. TV stations decide which shows to put in prime time slots. Newspaper editors decide which articles get placed where. Your friends decide which articles to share in their feed (and thus expose you to them). Companies advertise their products on TV, create retail spaces in our n…
The key difference is that editorializing affects individual outlets, or groups of outlets under one owner. In that case other parties can simply create the own competing outlets to provide a balance, aka a marketplace of ideas. But when it's a top down control from government or mega-corps then the controls applies across the entire marketplace and across all organizations/mediums, and is therefore far more harmful, open to abuse, and ultimately chills speech.
Not to mention in the top-down scenario the source of what's "appropriate content" is usually the most vocal special interest groups, lobbyists, or worse the latest public outrage of the day - not some editor/company trying to deliver what they think consumers want most. But instead other parties trying to control what content other people should and should not be allowed to produce/consume.
The only way to push back is by rallying your own outrage, lobbyists, and special interest groups - a highly unoptimal process, valuing the powerful and entrenched parties, not what is "right" and moral. And if history is any indication, bad laws/regulations rarely get removed anywhere near as quickly as they are added.
Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’
#537Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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…
I am not sure what is the point you're trying to make. If we define a behavioral set, such as "antisocial", meaning, behavior not welcome in a society, why does the fact that we later expand this set indicate a problem with using the set?
In addition, there is the problem of who 'we' is here. Today, the fringe on one side seems to feel it is self evident that they get to decide what is antisocial. They seem to be unaware that ~50% of the population is on the opposite side. And even more, they seem to be unaware that not everyone on their side takes it to such an extreme.
Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’
#538Earlier quoted context omitted.
Their mobile website is equally bad. A gigantic pop-up takes up half of the screen to tell you to use their app. Third party apps make Reddit so much more usable.
I always use https://i.reddit.com . It's their years-old mobile site and it's super fast and reliable.
Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’
#539I 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…
Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’
#540Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Also, you overstate this "compatibility". For humans, loss hurts more than gain feels good. Voting with negative as well as positive reinforcement is simply more effective at changing comment styles.