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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)

#101

Post by Razengan »

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…

Indeed. Simply removing the medium does not fix the cause. Many of the problems in human society stem from people not being able to talk about those problems.

Most of the popular subreddits have become sterile echo chambers with homogenization of opinion. HN is just as vulnerable to that.

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

#102

Post by wpietri »

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.

I don't think it's an end-of-history thing. I think it's cyclical.

In the US, most people have always had an understanding that speech should be used responsibly. The early Internet was overstocked with utopian idealists, me included, who thought this new age of instant communication meant that good ideas would quickly triumph over bad. That led to a lot of naive policies.

In practice, that didn't work. We hoped for a great age of dialog and understanding. Instead, we got an era of "don't read the comments", because it turns out the small number awful people are perfectly willing to spew awful talk all day long driving out the reasonable people who have better things to do. Now anybody running a significant platform knows they need to deal with abusers and monsters or they'll end up a cesspool.

The same utopian thinking has often gone with new technologies. Standage's "The Victorian Internet" makes clear that the telegraph was seen with the same rose-colored glasses. It was going to end war! To knit humanity together into a great brotherhood! Spoiler alert: it didn't.

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

#104

Post by rmtgk »

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.

We're already there and we didn't need to enter a dystopia. All big platforms (Google's YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, you name it) follow the same exact lines on politics and speech.

(btw, funny that the English UK dictionary from Chrome doesn't include the word dystopia ;P)

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

#105

Post by clucas »

pmarreck wrote: post #94
sagichmal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I would like to see evidence that “deplatforming” actually reduces hate globally instead of simply moving it elsewhere, because I haven’t seen any, and until then this is simply an unfounded belief (i.e., “bullshit”)

The thing is, Reddit isn't responsible for, and couldn't possibly begin be responsible for, hate in the whole world. They banned it on their site, and it cleaned up their corner of the world, and they're happy that the place they have control over has less hate. That's not bullshit.

Bullshit is saying "well, we can't possibly get rid of it, so may as well let it stay where ever it shows up."

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

#106

Post by jonwachob91 »

pmarreck wrote: post #94
sagichmal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I would like to see evidence that “deplatforming” actually reduces hate globally instead of simply moving it elsewhere, because I haven’t seen any, and until then this is simply an unfounded belief (i.e., “bullshit”)

The majority of online hate speech (of any variety) is driven by groupthink. If you make it harder to find the hate groups, you de facto reduce the groupthink.

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

#107

Post by pmarreck »

clucas wrote: post #105
pmarreck wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to see evidence that “deplatforming” actually reduces hate globally instead of simply moving it elsewhere, because I haven’t seen any, and until then this is simply an unfounded belief (i.e., “bullshit”)

The thing is, Reddit isn't responsible for, and couldn't possibly begin be responsible for, hate in the whole world. They banned it on their site, and it cleaned up their corner of the world, and they're happy that the place they have control over has less hate. That's not bullshit. Bullshit is saying "well, we can't possibly get rid of it, so may as well let it stay where ever it shows up."

Except that you can get rid of it. I’ve rationally argued against racism with some success. (And often while getting comments autoblocked for hate speech. Can’t clean up manure without getting your hands a little dirty, unfortunately.)

“Bullshit” is taking the easy way out by mass-automatic-deplatforming instead of addressing the bad thought head-on.

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

#108

Post by 0815test »

wpietri wrote: post #92
9HZZRfNlpR wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not American but I've been told the word nigga is not the n word. Do I have a wrong impression about it? I'm surprised a bit because the mainstream music is filled with the word nigga but also the n word. Isn't it workings against the idea of not using these words?

It's contextual. Many slurs have been reclaimed by the communities that they have been applied to. E.g., as a mild example, terms like "nerd" and "geek" were pejoratives that were adopted and reworked. E.g., Geek Pride: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geek_Pride_Day As with most of these slurs, positive in-group use is ok, but negative out-group use is still generally seen as abusive. I might talk about my geeky ways o…

> The N word is of course much more extreme given America's ugly, unresolved history around race, but it's the same rough deal.

I think this is quite dubious. "Nerd" and "geek" or even "freak" were never pejoratives in the way that the other word was. You could sympathetically say of someone, even as an outsider "He's a bit of a nerd/geek". But it would make no sense for one who was sympathetic to say something like "he's a bit of a "-- well, you get the idea. (This is also why I don't even claim or pretend that I'll ever understand this whole "reclamation" deal. I do accept that free speech is a thing and that a social ingroup can do whatever they want amongst themselves, but I still find it somewhat in poor taste, and counterproductive to its goal.)

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

#109

Post by matz1 »

intertextuality wrote: post #30
geofft wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 just became a cesspool because it was all about the "free speech". So you had an influx of the worst of reddit + the sort of people who are attracted to free speech areas online. It just died off since then, since 1. nobody really quits reddit, and 2. the aforementioned events made voat culture, well, not great.

You call it cesspool because you either don't like it or disagree with it. Its a matter of perspective.

Do you think the group of people you called cesspool will just accept that ? In their perspective by banning them, they are the one being oppressed. Of course they are going to fight back and try to create/move to alternative platform.

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

#110

Post by pmarreck »

jonwachob91 wrote: post #106
pmarreck wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to see evidence that “deplatforming” actually reduces hate globally instead of simply moving it elsewhere, because I haven’t seen any, and until then this is simply an unfounded belief (i.e., “bullshit”)

The majority of online hate speech (of any variety) is driven by groupthink. If you make it harder to find the hate groups, you de facto reduce the groupthink.

So you would prefer edgy platforms to move from open cleartext forums where they can be argued against and monitored, to private encrypted forums only populated by the choir, as it were?

This will not end well.

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