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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)

#131

Post by strict9 »

Hermel wrote: post #26

For a long time, I underestimated the power of the mods. Then, I saw how a few of them could turn the sentiment of a technical forum about a seemingly technical question upside down, simply by banning the right users and removing the right posts. Censorship works, regardless of whether it is used for good or for bad.

People frequently enter a forum/sub/thread/etc with a not-yet-completely formed opinion on an issue.

Sometimes to learn more, sometimes to further convince themselves, very rarely to change their mind.

When the right group of people are waiting to reply to everything with zealotry, it's easy to go from •leaning• toward a viewpoint to full on embracing it and becoming a zealot.

And let's face it, hate is the most effective weapon for this.

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

#132

Post by clucas »

lordlimecat wrote: post #124
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."

Bullshit is saying "We stand for free speech" and then later saying "the best way to deal with toxic and hateful viewpoints is to censor and hide them." Belief in free speech as a principle assumes that good and right arguments will win out every day in an open public forum.

It probably isn't obvious from my posts, so I'll put it here explicitly: I'm not pro-censorship. I think ideas should be out there. My ideal world is one where there are the "big" sites with millions of DAU generally keep racist content (or at least the really nasty stuff) off their platform, but there are plenty of little sites that "keep the dream alive" so to speak.

A lot of people aren't going to be willing or able to actually engage with the real logic of an anti-racist argument. Instead, people use heuristics for this sort of work. In my ideal world, the question of "was this on a big site? or some little blog and/or known racist publication?" would serve as a useful heuristic re: what arguments to bother with. This is how newspapers generally settled out. Is it in the paper? If yes, then there are at least some standards. If no, e.g. if it's some vanity publication, then squint a little harder.

These sorts of things have happened every time we've had a big shift in information distribution technology. There's an explosion of ideas with no real markers to differentiate them, and mass chaos for a while as people sort it out. Then eventually people identify the signs of trustworthy info distributors, and it settles back down. If a platform allows racists to flourish, they're not going to remain a place that people can trust. I would like to see Reddit remain a place that has some amount of trust, so I'm happy they banned the really nasty racists.

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

#133

Post by glenstein »

mirashii wrote: post #129
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”)

I would like to see evidence that “deplatforming” doesn't actually reduce 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”) While it's easy to be a critic and call someone else's view bullshit because you haven't seen evidence, it's not really adding anything to the discussion, it's just being needlessly inflammatory.…

And to your point, it's a question where the data, such as it may be, is going to be complicated, and hard to harness. And you can phrase a question about that lack of data in such a manner that it puts the burden of proof on whoever you want it to be on.

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

#134

Post by intertextuality »

matz1 wrote: post #109
intertextuality wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

> Gas the kikes Race War Now is not an illegal threat. The supreme court has ruled that a threat needs a place and a time to be considered actionable or illegal. example: We're gassing the kikes at the Freemont Synagogue on 5th avenue, Tuesday.

This is the most upvoted comment. We can say things like "it's a matter of perspective", but sometimes things are simply objectively shit.

edit, to those of you who think I'm exaggerating, here is one comment in that thread out of many:

"Fucking faggots...meanwhile Antifa gets run of every liberal city in the country while the nigs murder us daily...and we aren't even allowed to talk about clownworld."

Pretty much any place on the internet that promotes itself solely on being a "free speech zone/place" is trash. Theoretically they should be fine but in practice they just always attract assholes and people who want to say very edgy things. Someone should coin it, "the law of internet free speech zones" or something.

It has nothing to do with agreeing or disagreeing. Proper places of discussion don't have comments like "gas the kikes isn't technically hate speech so we should be allowed to say it here". You can always go ahead and host such a place if you want, but I'll stick to HN, Tildes, and Reddit instead so I can have reasonable discussion.

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

#135

Post by just_a_dev »

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

Islam is a race now?

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

#136

Post by CathedralBorrow »

EasyTiger_ wrote: post #61
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

To be fair I've seen worse on /r/politics, a subreddit that has way more exposure than the D

Can you provide some screenshots?

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

#137

Post by glenstein »

Buldak wrote: post #53
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". There are plenty of people who thought that it wouldn't work to that extent, either. They claimed that allowing a subreddit for toxic topic X at least had the benefit of segregating proponents of X; and that if such subreddits were banned their inhabitants would infect the rest of Reddit. But that didn't happen. I remember when posts from r/FatPeople…

>Then FPH was banned, and you know what, we didn't see it metastasize elsewhere, we just saw many fewer FPH-style posts, which I'd say is a good thing.

But what we DID see, for a while at least, was a lot of people sympathetic to that subreddit arguing in any way they could think of that the ban was either inconsistent, not needed, unfair or wouldn't work. But what do you know, by and large that content kind of just went away.

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

#138

Post by shadowtree »

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’re posting in a heavily moderated forum. HN too works, because a heavy hand forces good behavior.

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

#139

Post by intertextuality »

CM30 wrote: post #121
intertextuality wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, that's the first amendment. It does not equal freedom of speech, and the US constitution is not the be all and end all on how rights like that work. There's plenty of material in the philosophical world about freedom of speech in regards to censorship by private parties and other people.

Well, you can get as philosophical as you want. In the real world, for American companies and services, it comes down to basically doing what they want.

There is no real argument that a company like Reddit must adhere to free speech. No one forces you to use facebook, reddit, or any other website.

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

#140

Post by matz1 »

intertextuality wrote: post #134
matz1 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

https://voat.co/v/Voat/3178819 > Gas the kikes Race War Now is not an illegal threat. The supreme court has ruled that a threat needs a place and a time to be considered actionable or illegal. example: We're gassing the kikes at the Freemont Synagogue on 5th avenue, Tuesday. This is the most upvoted comment. We can say things like "it's a matter of perspective", but sometimes things are simply objectively shit. edit,…

Obviously for the people who posting it and maybe many more people, it is not shit.

Well, its trash for you but treasure for others.

To them you are the assholes for calling it trash or wanting to get rid of it.

Its all have to do with agreeing and disagreeing. To them proper places of discussion is the place where you can have comments like that.

Its all matter of prespective.

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