Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 413 posts

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

#111

Post by DataWorker »

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."

Like removing homeless people from your neighborhood by moving them to another?

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

#112

Post by luckylion »

toss1 wrote: post #85
luckylion wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Actually, it specifically neither confirmed nor contradicted that assertion, as it was out of scope to track to other venues, or address the larger problem of the entire society. But it DID show that providing cesspools does increase the behavior of swimming in cesspools, AND show that moderation has an effect. Providing mainstream venues for anti-social behavior increases that behavior and harms society. Sure, it ma…

> Actually, it specifically neither confirmed nor contradicted that assertion, as it was out of scope to track to other venues, or address the larger problem of the entire society.

Yes, that's about the study. The article does suggest it:

Of course, it’s not so simple as all that. Naturally, many of the users who previously spewed racial slurs at CT just moved over to Gab or Voat, where their behavior is proudly fostered.

> The dedicated haters will still make the effort, but the vast majority of lazy bigots will just drift along elsewhere, without enhancing & aggravating their bigotry.

Again, that's what needs to be proven. All we know is that they didn't see it on reddit at the same rate, not that it happened less or that fewer new people engaged in hate speech, or that those engaging in it stopped.

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

#113

Post by dingo_bat »

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…

It's a classic example 9f slippery slope.

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

#115

Post by clucas »

pmarreck wrote: post #107
clucas wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's a much better argument than I thought you were making, so my apologies for misunderstanding.

I still disagree though - I think Reddit probably agreed with you for most of its existence, but evidence indicated that rationality and clear arguments weren't winning, and the virality of these ideas was too potent to be overcome by a few people who were willing to wade into the cesspool. So they drained the cesspool.

I agree with you that, if we could be sure that there would always be enough people to argue against racists, and do so calmly and rationally, then we would be better off not censoring racism, and instead letting the debate play out. But I don't think we live in that world.

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

#116

Post by glenstein »

There's a predictable cycle each time you ban toxic users. There is a core of incredibly toxic users, surrounded by a halo of sympathizers. When the toxic users get banned, the sympathizers will argue in bad faith, moving heaven and Earth to insist that the ban was either unfair, inconsistent, ineffectual, or extreme, or a violation of their interpretation of free speech.

To whatever extent there was an actual debate with neutral parties, I think it was likely inflamed by these kinds of actors, and the fact that there's no there there at the end of the day isn't entirely surprising, even in light of significant debate on the question.

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

#117

Post by simion314 »

Smithalicious wrote: post #98

A good opportunity to point out that "toxic" means exactly "people I disagree with" and absolutely nothing more.

That is not true, we disagree here on HN on many topics like software freedom, is Apple a monopoly, is Tesla autopilot good or bad etc but persons that disagree with my view points can disagree without becoming toxic. For me toxic comments are comments that are int the first place illogical, use false facts or speculation as truth, use personal attacks or aggressive language, generalize one or a few data points to the whole and mainly they are not people that can have a coherent, reasonale logical discussion.

My point toxic != someone that I disagree, your are generalizing.

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

#118

Post by CM30 »

joeyrideout wrote: post #25

An emergent ethical concern keeps bugging me in these situations. Of course, private companies reserve the right to refuse business and services to whomever they want. In a healthy society this is no problem. But if we slide towards a dystopian future where Big Tech is basically an oligarchy governing important chunks of society without due process and the democratic checks and balances we would expect from a governi…

I'd agree with this. As large companies get more powerful and their property becomes the equivalent of the public square, we seem to be ending up in a situation where rights de facto don't exist and everything's left at the whim of the public/stakeholders/owners.

Then again, I also worry that no one seems to want to make a neutral platform or service/piece of infrastructure any more, and everything seems to be designed as a pseudo platform/publisher instead.

Would we even create the telephone/email/postatal service infrastructure we use today if it didn't already exist? I suspect the answer is no. I suspect we'd end up with something like Slack or Discord or Facebook Messenger where the corporation can step in and ban people for wrongthink. No one wants to sell a dumb pipe or what not any more.

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

#119

Post by untog »

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 issue isn't where radicalised people go. It's how people get radicalised in the first place.

Both Reddit and YouTube are general purpose sites. Very, very few people go on there to discuss the e.g. racist beliefs they already have. But the algorithms on these sites ends up exposing people to extreme views - there are many, many examples out there of people watching an innocuous video on YouTube only to immediately suggested a 9/11 conspiracy video or a barely concealed white supremacist tirade.

If that content were removed from YouTube and Reddit people wouldn't be going underground for it, because they wouldn't be looking for it.

(and as a more general thought, invoking Nazis here isn't all that useful. Just because X had Y effect once in history doesn't mean it will every time. Germany has outlawed Nazis since the end of WW2 and guess what... they haven't taken over again.)

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

#120

Post by clucas »

DataWorker wrote: post #111
clucas wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Like removing homeless people from your neighborhood by moving them to another?

No, not like that at all. Could you explain the line of thinking that lead you to such a question?
Post reply on HN