Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian Resigns from the Board of Reddit • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian Resigns from the Board of Reddit

#121

Post by WorkingDead » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

staycoolboy wrote: post #93

WorkingDead wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, the healthy discussions over r/politics is what they should encourage. /s

Yes, /r/politics is an echo chamber. But there is an enormous difference between that and T_D. I don't ever recall seeing posts on /r/politics being stickied that called for violence, whereas that happened routinely on T_D. Your comment is not sarcastic, it is misleading, misiniformed and ultimately destructive.

BS. The only difference between the two discussion groups is that TD dropped all the pretense. I have seen the same kinds of things that are loosely defined as 'calls to violence' in both places.

Re: Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian Resigns from the Board of Reddit

#122

Post by z9e » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

sevenf0ur wrote: post #55

logicslave wrote: post #20

Reddit is so manipulated at this point. The front page always has a political agenda, unbelievable what happened to that website.

Yes, I routinely see left leaning political ads on the front page. I really don't see what good could come from Alexis's resignation. The site is already a left leaning echo chamber and most of the controversial subs are quarantined or outright banned. Any new ones that crop up are routinely removed. The most controversial (the_donald) has been effectively shutdown for months and removed from r/all for years. What mo…

Funny how much this is being downvoted.

Re: Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian Resigns from the Board of Reddit

#123

Post by geofft » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #42

purephase wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, TD alone was huge in 2016-2017 and was a huge contributor to the dynamic we have in the world today. Ellen is 100% right here and Alex did absolutely nothing to address it. Good on her for publicly calling it out.

You're giving a message forum way too much credit for Trumpism in the United States. Do you actually think that social media is representative of a majority?

Reddit's advertising tool once said that /r/The_Donald had six million daily unique visitors. Sixty-two million people voted for Trump and sixty-five million for Clinton. Six million isn't a majority, but it's absolutely influential.

Brad Parscale, the Trump campaign digital director, and Dan Scavino, Trump's social media manager, regularly visited the site.

Re: Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian Resigns from the Board of Reddit

#124

Post by rglovejoy » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

appleflaxen wrote: post #41

ceejayoz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. https://www.reddit.com/r/the_donald

that proves the point of the person you are replying to: there is no activity at all; they've moved on.

For the curious, everyone there has moved on to thedonald.win.

Re: Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian Resigns from the Board of Reddit

#125

Post by disposekinetics » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #118

disposekinetics wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know of any federated/distributed alternatives to reddit? Although, maybe the argument is we don't actually need a social media platform at all just RSS.

Most of the sites that attempt to be an alternative to reddit are filled with groups that reddit banned.

That's the problem I run into too.

Re: Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian Resigns from the Board of Reddit

#126

Post by hckr_news » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

hart_russell wrote: post #39

jimbob45 wrote: post #23

Reddit mods wantonly abuse their power and I'm not even talking about politics. Ever been to r/science? 8/10 comments are deleted and those posts can't be read ever again (I'm understating that number, if anything). Honestly, half the reason I come here is because you can still view dead comments - censorship is a surefire way to get me to leave your community.

Agreed. I hope hacker news doesn't become what reddit became. Contrary to the link, Reddit admins/mods actively police its content to be left leaning. Silencing/hiding content has the opposite intended effect on those being silenced, to those wondering why it's a bad thing.

Right wing discourse tends to incite racism, violence and hate against minority groups and people of color. How do you moderate such without regular mod teams intervening, or users moderating each other if you want to provide a welcoming environment?

Re: Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian Resigns from the Board of Reddit

#127

Post by pstuart » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

kube-system wrote: post #54

hart_russell wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's why she was ousted: https://www.wired.com/2015/07/reddit-ceo-ellen-pao-steps-dow... Turns out only allowing speech that you deem acceptable makes for a pretty boring internet forum.

This one seems pretty decent.

This site one is one of the best. If political dialog could be moved to a peer site it would be even better.

I'm guilty of engaging in discussing politics here (and tried to do so in a factual and respectful manner) but it's pointless. It just becomes people talking past each other and generates arguments rather than dialog.

Re: Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian Resigns from the Board of Reddit

#128

Post by elliekelly » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

tootie wrote: post #110

minimaxir wrote: post #3

Relevant context: recently, former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao called out Reddit for their policies after Reddit did a statement on Black Lives Matter: > I am obligated to call you out: You should have shut down the_donald instead of amplifying it and its hate, racism, and violence. So much of what is happening now lies at your feet. You don't get to say BLM when reddit nurtures and monetizes white supremacy and hate all da…

I don't know if it's specifically because of Ellen Pao's note, but I'm sure he is feeling the exact same thing. And I'm sure his wife is in his ear about it too. I am slightly surprised that he's washing his hands of it instead of leveraging his position to do something about it. Maybe he tried and failed behind the scenes.

He doesn’t strike me as the type of person to sit back and watch if he disagrees with something. If he’s washing his hands of Reddit I would venture to guess he’s explored many other avenues first.

Re: Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian Resigns from the Board of Reddit

#129

Post by belltaco » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

throwaway45783 wrote: post #26

psychometry wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must be kidding. Please tell me you're kidding. Ever been to /r/the_donald? /r/conspiracy? /r/protectandserve?

What's wrong with /r/conspiracy?

It has a lot of far right misinformation, fake news and articles from fishy sites. The mods are biased and wont moderate those.

E.g from yesterday https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/gwgv6i/awfully_...

Re: Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian Resigns from the Board of Reddit

#130

Post by logicslave » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

alecb wrote: post #57

logicslave wrote: post #20

Reddit is so manipulated at this point. The front page always has a political agenda, unbelievable what happened to that website.

What "political agenda"? If anything, the original core of the site was very left-leaning or heterodox technophiles that didn't have a home on Slashdot. The political parts of the site are now very much deadlocked in the center-right frame of the Democratic party, pretty far away from what the site once was.

Posts and content that have an agenda behind them are unnaturally surfaced on the front page.