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Study finds Reddit’s ban of its most toxic subreddits worked (2017)

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Re: Study finds Reddit’s ban of its most toxic subreddits worked (2017)

#41

Post by tlarkworthy »

DeusExMachina wrote: post #29

It "worked" only if the definition is "it removed it from Reddit". As the article mentions, these people did not just disappear or change their mind. They just moved to more obscure places, where they can continue and be evem more motivated, because now they have been censored. And you might still consider this to be a satisfiable definition for "it worked". Out of sight, out of mind. Except that, these people are no…

I think having extremists in the open improves their recruitment rates and leads to greater number of extremists. Ideas, good and bad, need a medium to spread.

Re: Study finds Reddit’s ban of its most toxic subreddits worked (2017)

#42

Post by [deleted] »

sagichmal wrote: post #36
DeusExMachina wrote: post #29

It "worked" only if the definition is "it removed it from Reddit". As the article mentions, these people did not just disappear or change their mind. They just moved to more obscure places, where they can continue and be evem more motivated, because now they have been censored. And you might still consider this to be a satisfiable definition for "it worked". Out of sight, out of mind. Except that, these people are no…

> It "worked" only if the definition is "it removed it from Reddit". As the article mentions, these people did not just disappear or change their mind. They just moved to more obscure places, where they can continue and be evem more motivated, because now they have been censored. What about all of the new people who would have more easily stumbled into those cesspools, but now have to take quite a bit more effort, an…

[deleted]

Re: Study finds Reddit’s ban of its most toxic subreddits worked (2017)

#44

Post by intertextuality »

lsd5you wrote: post #34
sagichmal wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A substantial amount of people went from reddit to voat because at the time voat was new, had signups open, and advertised itself on free speech. Luckily, we're collectively beginning to grow past the naïve belief that free speech is a virtue in itself, an ends, and understand it properly as a means, a tool, which we're all obliged to use ethically and responsibly to make our society better.

This feels to me like hubris, a kind of 'end of history' prediction that we have finally progressed to at least the beginnings of a final moral order. Personally I don't believe this to be the case, and the ways it can go wrong will leave us wishing that freedom of speech protection had not been eroded.

No one is eroding anything, please don't be melodramatic. Free speech is a protection from the government, not products offered by corporations; end of story.

You are free to not use reddit, or create your own reddit.

Re: Study finds Reddit’s ban of its most toxic subreddits worked (2017)

#45

Post by baq »

1337biz wrote: post #28
Waterluvian wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting perspective. I mean, it's kind of like kicking the KKK out of your local YMCA. Sure they go have Klan rallies elsewhere but at least my kids aren't bumping shoulders with them anymore when they're using the water fountain between basketball games.

Yeah, because kids are not attracted to things that are forbidden.

It doesn’t matter if they can’t find them or access them.

Re: Study finds Reddit’s ban of its most toxic subreddits worked (2017)

#46

Post by DanBC »

DeusExMachina wrote: post #29

It "worked" only if the definition is "it removed it from Reddit". As the article mentions, these people did not just disappear or change their mind. They just moved to more obscure places, where they can continue and be evem more motivated, because now they have been censored. And you might still consider this to be a satisfiable definition for "it worked". Out of sight, out of mind. Except that, these people are no…

By pushing it to the underground you by definition make it harder to access, and as you've said it becomes more extreme and thus less appealing - even repellant - to a mainstream audience who stumbles across it.

This is what we want.

Re: Study finds Reddit’s ban of its most toxic subreddits worked (2017)

#47

Post by r3bl »

1337biz wrote: post #31
r3bl wrote: post #15

> Migration was common, both to similar subreddits (i.e. overtly racist ones) and tangentially related ones (r/The_Donald). Tangentially-related? I'm pretty sure this crosses the line of being tangentially-related to racism. https://i.redd.it/ua1ukmoi8ls21.jpg

Congratulations, you found a few idiots amongst 700.000+ people.

This screenshot is about half a month old. I've just opened two of these at random and they both still post in t_d.

If it were a few idiots, they'd be easy to ban. I've moderated a controversial sub for years and I guarantee you that a few idiots are easy to ban way before they reach the stage in which they're comfortable with posting shit like this. They know that they won't face any consequences.

Re: Study finds Reddit’s ban of its most toxic subreddits worked (2017)

#49

Post by Dumbdo »

geofft wrote: post #21
intertextuality wrote: post #3

Reddit back in the day: bans /r/fatpeoplehate, /r/coontown, /r/jailbait, and other awful subreddits. Reddit today: effectively bans (quarantines) /r/waterniggas simply because of the subreddit's title. It was quite literally a joke subreddit about being hydrated. Doesn't ban subreddits like /r/hapas. Edit: The problem with reddit is that it's wildly inconsistent about banning subreddits. Insane subreddits can exist f…

Did anything happen with Voat, though? I hear frequently (just yesterday, in fact!) about terrorists radicalized on 8chan. I see screenshots of Gab quite often. I only hear about Voat in the context of "A few years ago, some people left Reddit." If the net effect is that certain people left Reddit for a platform inviting the worst of Reddit, and then didn't stay there either, that seems like a win.

> Did anything happen with Voat, though?

Voat is very small luckily, that may be the reason why you're hearing so few of it. If you visit the frontpage, it's full of jewish conspiracies and "gas the jews", as expected.

Re: Study finds Reddit’s ban of its most toxic subreddits worked (2017)

#50

Post by sagichmal »

lsd5you wrote: post #34
sagichmal wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A substantial amount of people went from reddit to voat because at the time voat was new, had signups open, and advertised itself on free speech. Luckily, we're collectively beginning to grow past the naïve belief that free speech is a virtue in itself, an ends, and understand it properly as a means, a tool, which we're all obliged to use ethically and responsibly to make our society better.

This feels to me like hubris, a kind of 'end of history' prediction that we have finally progressed to at least the beginnings of a final moral order. Personally I don't believe this to be the case, and the ways it can go wrong will leave us wishing that freedom of speech protection had not been eroded.

Free speech has only ever been a means. Some elements of enlightened society got caught in the local optima for awhile (Locke, Hume, etc.) but that only worked out as long as the bad-faith actors could be marginalized or overpowered in a given context. Now that we have the ubiquity of the internet, coupled with the N-chans and Voat and whatever, the trolls have successfully weaponized the unthinking elevation of a means to an end. Ethical society is both justified and obliged to develop more sophisticated responses to more sophisticated attacks against it.

Free speech is a tool, like democracy and discussion and rhetoric and liberty and communalism and a thousand other things besides, which we should judiciously and precisely in order to make our society better.

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