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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)

#351

Post by kuzehanka »

DFHippie wrote: post #234
kuzehanka wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

As per TFA, reddit banned a list of 'toxic' demographics. A quick scan over those demographics makes it quite apparent that about half of them are not related to hate speech but rather some of the other categories I listed above.

Not sure how the distinction between 'hateful' and 'toxic' could possibly be contentious.

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

#352

Post by pengod »

I've come across some old time r/fatpeoplehate people and they pine for the olden days when they could freely say what they wanted about fat people. They aren't signing up for any reddit alternatives any more than anyone else is.

The hardcore haters, trolls and extremists will find other platforms, but the majority of toxic users are passive readers, or occasional commenters who randomly stumble upon subreddits, and aren't going to dedicate themselves to another platform.

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

#353

Post by Macha »

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…

While it didn't happen for the topic of FPH, my subjective experience is that it _did_ happen for racism. I've mostly been subscribed to smaller subreddits for about 5 years, and while the likes of r/European and r/coontown were at their peak, there wasn't the constant stream of insinuations about immigrants or outright racism at the low (and sometimes not so low) end in subreddits like r/Ireland or r/Europe there is now.

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

#354

Post by Gibbon1 »

clucas wrote: post #115
pmarreck wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 think Reddit probably agreed with you for most of its existence, but evidence indicated that rationality and clear arguments weren't winning

It's even darker than that. There is an organized effort to destroy any public forum that is a place of discourse. For the people and organization paying for the bots, troll farms and social media influencers discourse is exactly what they paying to get rid of. Considering that reddit doesn't have any other business model they had to start fighting back.

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

#355

Post by intertextuality »

Amezarak wrote: post #231
0815test wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I didn't even know of that word, so I don't know it's history, but niggardly is another similar word, or snigger.

Etymologically they may be unrelated but come on. Every single time you say one of those words we all know what word people are going to think of instead, as they're way too close in spelling and pronunciation. It doesn't help those words are not commonly used at all either.

So although they technically may not be bad words, I wouldn't say them. Languages do not follow rules or technicalities. Those words just got the short end of the stick, unfortunately.

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

#356

Post by snowwrestler »

aetherson wrote: post #311
marmada wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That assumption is false. Things like racism aren't motivated by rational arguments, so they cannot be cured through a rational tool, like free speech. Racism stems from fear, hate, and deeply embedded cultural tools. You can't "cure" racism through argumentation. Maybe, maybe, you can make people less racist in person -- but on an anonymous forum like Reddit, not a chance.

The world is less racist now than it was in the past. What mechanism do you posit for this?

The world is less racist because people have chosen to suppress racist speech and policies.

Are individual people any less racist than in the past? Who knows? Probably unprovable.

But our perception of the world is not governed by how people are, it is governed by what people do. And every person has a choice to promote, tolerate, or suppress racism. Choosing the latter is what makes the world seem less racist.

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

#357

Post by DangitBobby »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #278
XaoDaoCaoCao wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which means censorship vectors get to wrap things they want censored as "racist". Soviet censorship vectors were able to wrap dissenting viewpoints as "counter-revolutionary" or "bourgeois" without regard for the consistency of content to the wrapper.

No, sorry. Racism is pretty damn clear cut.

You want it to be, but in practice it's not. Enforcement of immigration policy is seen as racist by some and not by others, for example. So though _you_ claim to know (because obviously _your_ beliefs are correct), people disagree on this point.

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

#358

Post by Fins »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #244
reader5000 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inasmuch as different parts of society disagree on how to "improve" it, one part does not have the right to censor the other.

Racism and white supremacy are not valid viewpoints.

That well might be so, but when people get the power to decide who is a racist, results degenerate very quickly.

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

#359

Post by nyxxie »

Ok, lets suppose that banning discussion of "toxic viewpoints" worked as this title implies (overall spread of the viewpoints declined). Now for the tricky question: who defines what "toxic" means?

Is something a "toxic" viewpoint when it's holders take action that is harmful? Certainly that's why racism is bad, but what about more controversial opinions? People who spread the belief that abortion is OK are encouraging more people to get abortions, which the pro-life movement equates to murder (and therefore harm). What about meat consumption? Vegans and PETA-types would label this harmful as it involves the death of animals. What about weed? LGBT normalization?

This labeling of speech as being "harmful" is necessarily subjective. What happens when operators of major discussion platforms decide that things besides racism are too "harmful" to permit discussion of? Seeing that limiting the discussion of ideas shapes how a population propagates them (taking this study's claim at face value), do we really want to normalize this sort of censorship? Is it even moral for site operators to manipulate people's perception of reality like this by censoring what they see to shape a population to be politically homogeneous to the operator's views?

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

#360

Post by apasserby »

nyxxie wrote: post #359

Ok, lets suppose that banning discussion of "toxic viewpoints" worked as this title implies (overall spread of the viewpoints declined). Now for the tricky question: who defines what "toxic" means? Is something a "toxic" viewpoint when it's holders take action that is harmful? Certainly that's why racism is bad, but what about more controversial opinions? People who spread the belief that abortion is OK are encouragi…

Ideologies that if they should come to fruition would limit the very free speech they are currently abusing, in much the same way that tolerant societies should not tolerate intolerance.
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