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

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

#231

Post by at-fates-hands » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 6:16 PM UTC

stronglikedan wrote: post #113

ralusek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is responsible for the fact that 24% of people killed by police are black?

> 24% of people killed by police are black > African Americans, however, account for 24 percent of those fatally shot and killed by the police despite being just 13 percent of the U.S. population. As The Post noted in a new analysis published last week, that means black Americans are 2.5 times as likely as white Americans to be shot and killed by police officers. [0] [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-natio…

The problem with any of these statistics is they lack context. How many of those incidents were justified? How many times did the suspect point a gun at the police? How many times did a suspect engage the police and attempt to assault the officer or grab his gun?

Without context, its easy to sit her and say that black americans are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by cops than whites and just assume that NONE of those incidents were justified or the cops had to use lethal force as a last resort.

Which is counter to two things.

All of the data in the UCR (Uniform Crime Report) would indicate murders align more along racial lines. Look at the data from 2018:

Number of blacks killed by other black: 2,600 Number of blacks killed by whites: 234

Likewise you see the same pattern with whites:

Number of whites killed by other whites: 2,677 Number of whites killed by blacks: 514

Likewise, if you look at the raw numbers by race of people shot by police, you get similar numbers:

2017

Whites: 457

Blacks: 223

2018

Whites: 399

Blacks: 209

2019

Whites: 370

Blacks: 235

2020

Whites: 172

Blacks: 88

Again, what do these statistics really tell us? You can't really dig any deeper because we have no context on what lead up to these, where they happened (urban vs. suburban) or what was the actual situation that lead to someone being shot by the police?

Also, just purely from a numbers perspective, you can say that since there are far more white cops than black cops, then yes, it would make sense that there is a higher percentage of white cops that are shooting and killing black people. Again, without context, and proper reporting (which police departments and the FBI don't track) its hard to tell what those statistics are actually telling us.

Understand, I'm not saying there isn't a problem with police brutality as there very much so. The MPD has had a long history similar to that of the LAPD. It took 25+ years to get from the LA riots in 1992 to Minneapolis in 2020 and to finally realize they have major problems with how they're policing their minority communities.

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

#232

Post by mst » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 6:17 PM UTC

FeepingCreature wrote: post #135

JoeSmithson wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Bannon has spoken about specifically targeting Gamergate for political recruitment, I think the role of Reddit in radicalizing young men is quite important, actually. I don't think you could write a reasonable history of the last 10 years of US politics without reference to Reddit, Twitter, Facebook and 4Chan.

To be fair: that doesn't mean social media has any relevance, just that some people on both sides think it does.

Right. Dig into campaign actions and - as an example - it looks a lot like the trump campaign won wisconsin with robocalls more than with social media.

Hard to tell for sure, of course, but the recent blanketing of facebook with political advertising doesn't seem to have achieved that much except for buying Brad Parscale a ferrari.

Social media does presumably have some effect but I'm not sure how you'd tell how much/how little compared to other approaches for reaching people.

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

#233

Post by ralusek » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 6:17 PM UTC

stronglikedan wrote: post #113

ralusek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is responsible for the fact that 24% of people killed by police are black?

> 24% of people killed by police are black > African Americans, however, account for 24 percent of those fatally shot and killed by the police despite being just 13 percent of the U.S. population. As The Post noted in a new analysis published last week, that means black Americans are 2.5 times as likely as white Americans to be shot and killed by police officers. [0] [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-natio…

Correct, but then the subsequent question, as the other user pointed out, is WHY? The default position to fill in the gap seems to be that "racist discretion on the part of the police is responsible," but is that actually a reasonable and defensible assumption?

Note that I pointed out that 96% of people killed by police are male, but men only make up 50% of the population. Do you assume that the difference between their per-capita representation is best explained by anti-male sexism? Aren't there a series of other relevant factors you could use to explain the disparity? I suggest you reflect on it honestly.

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

#234

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 6:19 PM UTC

vegannet wrote: post #208

meowface wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if TD were banned in 2016, there's a decent chance the world would look even worse and more polarized today, due to the backlash and chain reactions that would have occurred. Picture "TOP SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANY BANS SUPPORT OF THE PRESIDENT" headlines running for months. Picture Trump bringing it up in hundreds of speeches and tweets, demanding regulation and saying how unfair it is that he and his supporters a…

I don’t think this alarmist view makes much sense because all of that has happened, and more. The Right (the group of angry young white men inhabiting r/the_donald not conservative voters) spend every moment outraged about censorship and supposed sleights against them — real or not. Everything you describe is happening every single day and has been since before Donald Trump and will continue after him. If the_donald…

[deleted]

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

#235

Post by gootdude » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 6:19 PM UTC

nromiun wrote: post #109

beamatronic wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "far left"? Can you give an example?

Just take any (communism, revolution etc) agenda from the far left and try to post against that in some popular subreddit. I guarantee that you will get banned immediately. At this point they should just post a "Only Leftists allowed" banner. That would be so much easier.

Interesting, instead of providing an example you just confirm your own bias.

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

#236

Post by BobbyJo » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 6:20 PM UTC

There are two problems with social media:

1) Group Isolation. You can be banned from groups and not the platform. This allows for the notion of being toxic in a specific context, but not in the broader context, which I don't believe is possible. Either you are a toxic user, or not. If not, disagreeing with the zeitgeist of a specific group should be a welcome part of the groups discourse, otherwise the group only serves to radicalize.

2) Free for all discourse. If everyone gets an unlimited platform, the loudest and most absurd will speak the most, and subsequently be heard the most. You need level, artificial, limits to how much a single person can contribute to any given discussion in order for it to be balanced.

When switching from a physical medium to discuss things, to a digital medium, we lost key limiting factors which helped free speech be an effective way for society to operate. You can only yell so loud and at so many people on a street corner, and you can only avoid hearing others' opinions so much when leaving your house. The internet has done away with both of those, and an ideal platform for discussion needs some mechanism of providing both.

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

#237

Post by colinmhayes » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 6:20 PM UTC

bobcostas55 wrote: post #201

forbiddenlake wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ever been to r/science? 8/10 comments are deleted and those posts can't be read ever again Note that this is clearly spelled out in the subreddit rules, and is by design. 8/10 comments on reddit as a whole are jokes, anecdotes, off topic, or simply low quality. /r/science tries to promote high-quality discussion of actual science, does so by heavy moderation, and doesn't pretend they're not deleting most comments.…

The moderation in /r/science is mostly about removing politically incorrect but true posts, nothing to do with "cruft".

Source?

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

#238

Post by psychometry » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 6:20 PM UTC

devado wrote: post #139

psychometry wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same thing that's wrong with conspiracy theories (e.g. Q). Lunatics flock to platforms that let them disseminate their lies.

but everything is cleanly tagged under /r/conspiracy ?

Yes and the people who populate that subreddit comment everywhere else, too. Same goes for other misogynist/racist/right-wing subreddits. The proliferation of these subreddits leads to a proliferation of low-quality users.

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

#239

Post by ddoolin » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 6:22 PM UTC

jimbob45 wrote: post #99

Sharlin wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best subreddits are those that are either a) very tightly moderated or b) obscure enough for the Eternal September not (yet) having happened to them. Most of the rest of the content is extremely low quality.

4chan only removes illegal content and I enjoy it just fine. Reddit’s voting system pushes down low-quality content well enough on its own.

I completely disagree with your latter statement. Redditors constantly push garbage replies to the top of nearly every post. So, so often I come across top comments which are attempted witty one-liners which contribute next to nothing are followed by _tons_ of equally useless comments OR it is clear the top comments didn't read the article or are pushing their anecdotes as evidence to the contrary, etc (the irony of that is not lost on me right now).

I don't think all forums need to operate the same, and it's beneficial that they don't. There should be places for people to say whatever the heck they want, and places that are moderately moderated (heh) and places that are tightly moderated.

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

#240

Post by psychometry » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 6:22 PM UTC

sevenf0ur wrote: post #69

lksaar wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

r/mgtow, r/metacanada, r/KotakuInAction, r/TumblrinAction, r/unpopularopinion, r/politicalcompassmemes are candidates. The subreddit about the upcoming AAA game "The Last of Us 2" is pretty vile aswell.

Sounds like you aren't fan of those subreddits but should they be shut down if they are not violating the site rules? The fact is that those subs are heavily moderated. If they weren't they'd be the first to go.

The point is that the rules should be changed to disallow those sorts of subreddits. Let those users go somewhere else; reddit has no responsibility to society to host them.