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

231–240 of 413 posts

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

#231

Post by Amezarak »

0815test wrote: post #225
freehunter wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With an "a" the word can be a source of pride and community for black Americans, which is why it's used so commonly in black music. Non-black Americans are not commonly accepted into this community, so when non-black Americans say the word it's considered very rude. With an "er" on the end, it's almost always a racist term. Either way you spell it, it's pretty much only acceptable for black Americans to say it.

Fun fact: the word with an added "d" at the end is a very different word that actually means "cheapskate, overly parsimonious". I have a fringe theory that this is what all the music videos actually mean to refer to (it would kinda fit with the whole "bling bling" and "money is everything" theme) and that the whole thing is a really teh'ible misundah'standing which wee all vehwy sohwy about ! (I would love for the en…

Niggard has no etymological, denotational, or connotational connection to a racial slur. It’s a little astounding to me that it’s a bad word now that people are afraid to even type because it sounds sorta like one until you get the whole word out.

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

#232

Post by dondawest »

colordrops wrote: post #88
sethammons wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the disease requires treating them things at a lower level I feel that the anti-vaccine movement had such a large resurgence because they had very public platforms. So, yeah, I agree with you.

So you are suggesting any discussion about the merits of vaccination should be forcefully stifled. That's a pretty low bar and opens up the shaping of public discourse on countless topics because they are "dangerous".

If the anti vaxx bullshit were LITERALLY NOT ALLOWED, i for one would be SO MUCH MORE INTERESTED IN IT and about 200000x more likely to become a crazy anti vaxxer.

Banning “fat people hate” makes hating fat people seem totally radical, fringe, and thus badass.

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

#233

Post by CM30 »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #203
CM30 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I like free speech, for the most part, but if it means I can't boot somebody from my house when they are being an asshole, then I am 100% against it. I think most people's idea of free speech doesn't align with what you are saying.

Well the concept of free speech I mentioned wasn't 'anyone can say anything anywhere with no consequences', since that's something practically no one wants for obvious reasons.

Obviously you should be allowed to boot people from your house for being an asshole. And many businesses should probably also have the same right.

But there's also the ambiguities that mean it should be as simple as 'private property overrides everything else'. Some companies are utilities, and can't dictate whether someone can use their service based on personal views (electricity companies, water companies, telephone networks, etc). Sometimes someone's role means they can't be that selective about what they hear, like how a judge found it was unconstitutional for Trump to block people on Twitter. And there are issues about either public vs private property (like for company towns) or instances where a company is so large and has such a huge share of the market (like a monopoly) that you could argue whether they should be able to pick and choose what they like.

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

#234

Post by DFHippie »

kuzehanka wrote: post #60
p49k wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What evidence has shown that engaging with them is more effective? It seems to be like it’s nearly impossible to convince someone that their worldview is wrong; however people do feel the need and desire to be part of communities and knowing they might be excluded for having hateful views might be more of a motivator for them to rethink those views on their own terms, which is possibly a more effective method of chan…

> What evidence has shown that engaging with them is more effective? We have a lot of evidence that marginalising sufficiently large groups leads to tremendous backlash when they reach critical mass, e.g. almost every revolution in history. I think we can agree that doing exactly that which failed every time before is not a productive avenue. > having hateful views Let's not conflate hateful views with 'toxic' views.…

> Let's not conflate hateful views with 'toxic' views.

Is this a terminological distinction you just made up? In the usage I'm familiar neither "hateful" nor "toxic" is a term of art.

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

#235

Post by sdinsn »

pygy_ wrote: post #65

Collective response to those who claim that it pushed those users to other platforms: Only marginally. If you read the paper ( http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf ), you can see that ~20% of the users of the banned subreddits became inactive vs 10-15% in control communities. The difference for users that deleted their account is of the same magnitude. The users that stayed had a dramatic drop i…

You seem to be making some assumptions: (1) Users that went inactive on Reddit went somewhere else, and (2) Users that didn't go inactive didn't go anywhere else. I don't think either of these assumptions are true.

The fact is, we don't have a way to track users between platforms.

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

#236

Post by matz1 »

sagichmal wrote: post #227
matz1 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't care about what murderers or white supremacists think. Their morality is wrong, and they don't deserve a seat at society's table.

Likewise murderer or white supermacis can say the same thing, that they don't care what you think, your morality is wrong and you don't deserve a seat at society's table

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

#237

Post by NullPrefix »

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.

>with some success

How do you measure it?

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

#238

Post by dondawest »

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…

Smoking is a great example because NOW ITS A SEXUAL FETISH TOO

When you make something fringe you invite people to fetishize it. All you do is up the ante. Sure, some normies will stop being racists because there’s no longer a place to be racist. But other guys will fetishize racism and shoot up synagogues.

Is the benefit of subtracting normies from racist movements worth the cost of creating people who fetishize racism??????? HARD FUCKING QUESTION IMO!

I think we’d be better off with a million people who are “kinda anti Semitic but not anti Semitic enough to write books about it” than one Henry Ford.

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

#239

Post by sagichmal »

matz1 wrote: post #236
sagichmal wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care about what murderers or white supremacists think. Their morality is wrong, and they don't deserve a seat at society's table.

Likewise murderer or white supermacis can say the same thing, that they don't care what you think, your morality is wrong and you don't deserve a seat at society's table

Yes, and one of us is right, and another one of us is wrong. That's fine.

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

#240

Post by luord »

It's no skin off my back whatever reddit allows or doesn't. I despise discussing politics, specially online (I'm making an exception in this one comment, which I'm sure I'll regret), so I only follow technical and funny subreddits.

That said, I wanted to point out something that the people saying that this is a win are ignoring with their "fewer recruits" idea: The more you censor someone, the more they're likely to actively proselytize, I think.

I also saw someone saying that censorship could be a tool for the betterment of society and I'm kind of horrified now at this thread so I didn't read any further.

Post reply on HN