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

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

#141

Post by metalchianti » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

sfkdjf9j3j wrote: post #87

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #66

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 Can you elaborate as to why? I'm not really sure how a subreddit is responsible for hate + violence + racism. How does freedom of speech/thought only work one way?

It was by far the largest online conservative community, and it funneled people into even more extreme communities. I don't really get bringing up the freedom of speech angle here - r/the_donald has always aggressively deleted posts and banned users for expressing anything but complete loyalty to Donald Trump.

This opinion bothers me. TD was always an explicitly pro-Trump subreddit. You expect anti-Trump content to be modded or removed. The modus operandi of /r/politics is much more nefarious. It is branded as a general politics-related subreddit but content that doesn't fit the left-leaning narrative is removed for ambiguous reasons.

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

#142

Post by izzydata » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

MarcellusDrum wrote: post #32

Reddit got too mainstream for its own good. The company desperately wants to become the new social media (think Facebook or Twitter), but many users are standing in the way, making the change from a discussion website to a social media website slow. What made me and many others use Reddit in the first place is that it didn't really matter who you are and what's your political and religious background, the only thing…

I don't like reddit because discussion is always influenced by what needs to be said in order to be more popular. If reddit got rid of usernames and karma then I think it would be ideal.

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

#143

Post by alecb » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

nromiun wrote: post #86

Reddit and 4Chan are the two sides of the same coin for me. Just their ideologies are different. At least the people on 4Chan are self aware about how toxic they are. But the mods (at least on the popular subreddits) on reddit love to ban anything that isn't far left. I don't mind echo chambers but the lack of self awareness always rubs me the wrong way.

How do you develop a worldview where the grotesquely status quo mainstream of Reddit is considered "far-left"?

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

#144

Post by hckr_news » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:40 PM UTC

tmpz22 wrote: post #43

“After making a shit ton of money, raising way more money then we needed to, and ultimately handing the future of the platform to soulless investors, I’ve decided to leave to better support people oppressed by police brutality” seems like a more honest statement to me but I guess it doesn’t read as well. Edit: Snark aside, his actions and financial commitments to various organizations (as well as some of his future e…

You have a point but it doesn’t make anything he said any less true.

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

#145

Post by jungletime » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:40 PM UTC

What's wrong with waiting a few months to vote out Trump fairly? If you believe in Democracy and majority rule. The other side has a right to organize and communicate online. Attempts at censorship seem to be backfiring, and people have a long memory of these things.

Since Trump has been in office, there have been several attempts at getting rid of him which do not involve people voting him out in a direct democratic way.

1. Accuse him of being a Russian asset and a traitor from day one.

2. Impeach him based on dubious claims *supported by only one side, again accuse him of being a Traitor.

3. Organized mob attacks on the White house, to the point where he needed to hide in a bunker.

4. Riot, burn churches and synagogues and businesses.

5. Try to change the rules of voting next election to mail in ballots. Which are less secure than voting in person. If people can wait in line in a grocery store, why can't they wait in line to vote. I don't get it.

6. Performative news coverage, where the anchors and journalists give a performance. Ask questions that can be answered without Trump even being there.

7. Organized censorship online.

The US hasn't had a clean slate of new politicians in a very long time. So I hope it will come. Just through democratic means, and without blood shed. And a free internet.

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

#146

Post by minimaxir » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:40 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #98

minimaxir wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/r/the_donald was quarantined a year ago and hasn't been banned yet.

No, it has effectively been banned. It was forcefully taken over by the administration. While it technically still exists, it actually moved entirely to its own dedicated website.

"Effectively banned" is not the same as banned, and it's these conspicuous half-measures toward /r/the_donald that resulted in criticism from Ellen Pao as noted above, among others.

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

#147

Post by at-fates-hands » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

purephase wrote: post #12

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…

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 saying Reddit has that big of an influence on how people see and interact with the world as opposed to say Identity Politics which by its very nature puts different groups into direct conflict with each other and where "cancel culture" came from??

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

#148

Post by jaywalk » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:41 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.

The fact that you'd describe Reddit as "center-right" currently is enough to tell me you're coming at this from a very different perspective than the average person.

I would say that Reddit began as libertarian, and is now far-left.

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

#149

Post by thelean12 » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

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.

Then only subscribe to subreddits that you want to see. Like FB, most (not all) complaints could be solved by doing a few minutes of work to hide what you don't want to see.

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

#150

Post by MarcellusDrum » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:42 PM UTC

disposekinetics wrote: post #90

MarcellusDrum wrote: post #32

Reddit got too mainstream for its own good. The company desperately wants to become the new social media (think Facebook or Twitter), but many users are standing in the way, making the change from a discussion website to a social media website slow. What made me and many others use Reddit in the first place is that it didn't really matter who you are and what's your political and religious background, the only thing…

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.

It took me some time to have my RSS feed setup the way I want it, but it is such a fresh breath of air. A thing I noticed is that my opinion about a certain subject gets influenced a lot by the top comments, whether here or on Reddit. I sometimes even read the comments before reading the article. Having to read an article and giving myself enough time to form my own opinion without directly checking what the comments "want" me to believe was refreshing. But still, having comments is important to see something from a different angle, which is why I still browse HN and reddit.