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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)

#71

Post by anthony_doan »

Yep mods work.

I see that first hand from Jeff Hoogland, he twitch for a living and his niche is magic the gathering. His channel is very civil and he moderate the heck out of it. His motto is that he's responsible for the discourse so he have to moderate it. He disabled youtube comment for awhile because he doesn't have the time to moderate it. Then later on he enable comment and all the youtube comments were very civil, I believe his twitch rules just transfer over because all his fans know how to behave.

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

#72

Post by SiempreViernes »

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.

The majority by far follow most rules imposed on them.

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

#73

Post by posterboy »

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…

Having a separate subreddit whdre other views are not welcome, at the whim of the subreddit moderators is not exactly the open discourse that would be needed. The people weren't bannrd and if careful can still debate their opinion. Reddit just removed the explicit protection. And the pooling. The protection of the pool.

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

#74

Post by posterboy »

Veen wrote: post #40
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…

The influence works in both directions. If "bad people" are able to publish content that is easy to find on a platform used by millions, it's likely to be seen by people who would never have been exposed to or influenced by it otherwise. Personally, I'd be happy if easily-influenced people weren't exposed daily to Islamist propaganda and pedophillic imagery. If the price of that is those communities going underground…

Subreddits are not easy to find. WTF?

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

#75

Post by paulgb »

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.

I reckon there is actually more excitement to being part of an infamous fringe of a large mainstream community like Reddit, than to be part of an isolated fringe community that the mainstream is unlikely to ever see. Part of the appeal is surely in offending the mainstream users who share the platform.

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

#76

Post by luckylion »

toss1 wrote: post #51
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…

You seem to be overlooking at least two key findings. When the users moved to other Reddit groups, they did NOT exhibit the same level of hateful behavior. some of this was due to better moderation. This contradicts your view that they simply go away to deeper holes away from moderating influences, and supports your point that moderating influences do provide positive influence. The other key finding is that "bigotry…

> When the users moved to other Reddit groups, they did NOT exhibit the same level of hateful behavior.

As the article suggests: it's likely they found an off-reddit outlet for the stuff they no longer were able to do on reddit and continued to use reddit for their other interests (well, they left reddit at higher rates, too). That is, if you want to make sure that Twitter's hate speech rules work and make "the world a better place", you also need to look at gab.ai & co at the same time to see whether and how much of the hate speech "moved" and how much simply stopped.

This study confirms that pushing criminals out of one neighborhood "works" - for that one neighborhood. Reddit is such a neighborhood, Twitter is another.

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

#77

Post by fatbird »

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…

The study followed users internally as well and monitored their continued behaviour on Reddit. A significant number didn't simply leave, they remained in other subreddits and exercised much less of the objectionable behaviour, even if the new subreddit was comparable in viewpoint but stricter in moderation. Part of "it worked" includes the people actually improving their behaviour, rather than just finding a smaller echo chamber.

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

#78

Post by threeseed »

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.

Voat is already on its way to being shut down.

The owners posted last week a message telling some of their users to stop inciting violence as the Feds were in contact. Given that Voat is ultra-toxic now it's not going to be possible to moderate every piece of content ever posted.

https://voat.co/v/Voat/3178819

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

#80

Post by luckylion »

joeyrideout wrote: post #59
tyingq wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so worried about the free speech aspects of that...there's always somewhere to spew whatever opinion you have. I do agree, though, that Google and others wield a lot of power by being able to permaban a whole account/person for an alleged incident on just one of their platforms. Where "banned on YouTube" means, for example, that your Android phone no longer works.

Yes, but "there's always somewhere" may stop being true if we enter that dystopia. Competition for fringe discussion exists today so our society is healthy (thank goodness). If a true monopoly is allowed to form in these platforms, we will have a big problem. Thankfully we have anti-compete laws. Unfortunately it feels like we are flirting with monopolies when vertically integrated companies like Apple and Google hav…

> Yes, but "there's always somewhere" may stop being true if we enter that dystopia.

That's true. That "somewhere" might become TOR because everything else is well regulated. In the end, you can technically also always meet like minded people in your basement to do whatever the government doesn't want you to do in public, so there's always "somewhere" ;)

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