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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)

#191

Post by gnadx »

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.

> You call it cesspool because you either don't like it or disagree with it.

This is a bogus argument and I wish people would stop making it.

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

#192

Post by freehunter »

wpietri wrote: post #83
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…

It's still the Internet. Anybody can run and host software. Anybody can post a link to that. I agree tech's concentration of power in a few large companies is a big problem. I just don't think it's a significant concern for freedom of speech. Hopefully we'll return to enforcing pro-competition laws vigorously.

This is always my response when people say "the Internet is dying, woe to us, big tech is destroying the Internet". It doesn't matter if 90% of Internet users exclusively use Facebook, Facebook does not and can not stop you from creating your own website and distributing links the old fashioned way. There is absolutely nothing "dead" about the Internet of the 90s. It still exists and it's still possible to be a part of. The fact that Facebook and Google and etc built on top of that does not matter one bit.

If you create your own website are you going to get Facebook-level traffic? No, of course not. But you wouldn't in 1998 either because there just weren't that many people interested in visiting your website. Facebook didn't make them less interested, because they never had that interest to begin with.

If I run a health food store, I don't cry because an ice cream shop opened up across the street. I don't cry when I see how many people walk right past my door to get to the unhealthy treats. I know I'm in a niche market, and I know that ice cream will always be more popular than kale and wheatgrass. The people who go for ice cream aren't going to go for kale and wheatgrass anyway, so I'm not losing customers to the ice cream shop. The ice cream customers are not my customers.

What the ice cream shop did was put more people on the sidewalk. They didn't steal my customers, but if I have a really good value proposition I may be able to steal some of theirs. That unhealthy ice cream shop is a good thing for my business, even if it's a bad thing for overall community health.

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

#193

Post by freehunter »

matz1 wrote: post #170
sagichmal wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do get to say that some perspectives are right and some are wrong. Humans are moral agents, we have that ability. And those are wrong.

Yes human are moral agents and at the same time every human are different. What one called "wrong" might not be wrong for other.

For example, Ted Bundy thought that murdering people was not wrong. We need to respect his morals and allow him to murder freely, because every human has different morals and although the murder victim thinks it's "wrong", we need to respect the opinion of the murderer too.

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

#194

Post by jonnydubowsky »

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.

You've laid the groundwork for one part of what would be a valuable media psychology study.

You've identified an example where being part of the open conversation led to a woman leaving a hate-driven community.

Other comments point to a scenario where it could be harder for people to find these communities online, as they would have to have significant motivation to find them. I've seen "playbooks" for white nationalist groups where they describe a slow ramping up of ideology that gradually indoctrinates people outside the overton window.

The question is, is the outcome more or less hate crimes if this type of hate speech is deplatformed?

You point to examples in Germany where the effect of deplatforming was negative.

Current forms of media, attention and culture are significantly different.

I'm not sure how to go about this research when each platform simply aims to maintain their own private, profit driven goals?

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

#195

Post by jonathanstrange »

0xfffafaCrash wrote: post #8

So, it "worked" in the sense that the users likely moved to more toxic echo chambers where they can be further radicalized in their toxic viewpoints? Yay?

Why do people who are banned always think this is about them, as if they were the centre of the universe? Banning people is not for their benefit, to somehow make them better people, keep them from forming radical views or nonsense like that. It's solely for the benefit of the remaining users and the forums themselves. That means you have to strike a balance between banning/removing too much or banning/removing too few. It's not about making the world a better place, it's about making the forums a better place.

Besides, why should I, if I am a forum administrator or company running forums, force myself to run forums for users with world views that are completely opposed to what I can stand behind with my conscience? By providing them with a forum I support those people and groups. Why should I support people whose views I find disgusting and appalling, and, in addition to that, not helpful for the discussions of the majority of regular users? I cannot find any reason why.

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

#196

Post by berrynice »

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.

>Belief in free speech as a principle assumes that good and right arguments will win out every day in an open public forum.

This is demonstrably not the case. Just look at the chans.

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

#197

Post by geofft »

tastroder wrote: post #185
matz1 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that there are no one correct action that everyone will agree. There are no specific line that everyone will happy with. Its boil down to whoever win on the battle. The winning side get to decide the meaning of free speech, the meaning of radicals, right or wrong or where the line is.

I guess don't get what you're trying to say then. Yes, society as a whole has a collective opinion that forms the mainstream and defines a) what's outside of that and b) what to do with those outside of it. Do you see a problem in excluding these opinions from mainstream platforms like Facebook and reddit? Even with a pretty open stance towards free speech I see excluding people posting racist death threats from a pl…

I think matz1's position is quite clear: there is no absolute right or wrong, and the only thing that makes "gas the kikes" unacceptable is that the majority of humans find it unacceptable and are willing to go to war to stop it from happening. If we weren't, it wouldn't be unacceptable any more.

It's almost a Poe's Law of moral relativism in general, but there's the additional step of "and therefore, I will not have opinions on right and wrong and will let others do as they please, because who am I to have moral opinions about others"—but that in itself is a moral opinion about others.

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

#198

Post by amanaplanacanal »

reader5000 wrote: post #142
sagichmal wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 me…

Whoever is in power determines what is "ethical society" or what makes society "better". Censorship is a form of physically violent oppression and is never justifiable.

So who gets "physically violent" against who when Reddit bans some subs?

Or do you mean to say that isn't censorship?

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

#199

Post by faissaloo »

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?

Homeless people are not undeserving of things based o their actions, fascists are.

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

#200

Post by sagichmal »

dcolkitt wrote: post #146
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 feel like you're disregarding the concept of the "marketplace of ideas". Pretty much the entire corpus of post-enlightenment thought rests on the (IMO well-founded) belief that good ideas will naturally win over bad ideas when presented on equal footing. Someone from 1500 would be very much concerned about censoring "heresies", because they'd believe that people are easily swayed and manipulated by evil. I think we…

> I feel like you're disregarding the concept of the "marketplace of ideas".

I’m not disregarding it at all. I’m directly confronting it, and calling it both naïve and insufficient as a strategy for improving society.

Bad actors have weaponized our elevation of “the marketplace of ideas” to an ends rather than a means, and so it’s both necessary and appropriate to recontextualize it, and where it makes sense to call forth.

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