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Reddit Founder Alexis Ohanian Resigns from the Board of Reddit

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

#311

Post by cmdshiftf4 »

GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #285
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…

And? De-platforming works very effectively. Look at 8chan, Gab and Voat. All drowning in server costs trying to host "safe spaces" for certain opinions.

>De-platforming works very effectively

It does, and it is wonderful if those platforms are following along with the same narrative as you at a given point in time.

Google, Reddit et al. have shown themselves to pretty flexible when it comes to their morals though, particularly when it comes to the needs and wants of the Chinese government and their investors, so while you may be clapping your hands to your ideological opponents being "de-platformed" today, it could very well be you tomorrow.

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

#312

Post by syshum »

meowface wrote: post #248
vegannet wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Everything you describe is happening every single day and has been since before Donald Trump and will continue after him. Yes, it has been and it is and it will, but everything is relative. No matter how bad a bad situation is, it can always get worse. You may not like the US now, but for all we know you could be begging to return to June 2020 when June 2021 comes around. Every little thing like this increases his…

>> that could actually turn some non-Trump voters into Trump voters

That ship has already sailed most likely. I voted Libertarian in 2016 as I have for every presidential election that I have voted in.

2020 there is a high probability that I will vote Republican for president for the first time in my life, not for sure yet but it is EXACTLY because of the extreme support for censorship, de-platforming and cancel culture that is coming from the Authoritarian left that has my vote is wavering

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

#313

Post by throwmehaweh »

jayd16 wrote: post #263
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?

The mods would ban opposing views and leave hateful, violent, and racist views. Its not complicated.

I've browsed TD since it's inception and haven't seen any violent, hateful, or racist posts.

That's not to say that they haven't ever existed, but certainly not anything remotely close to how it's perceived. And definitely not any worse than you would see right now on r/politics.

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

#314

Post by meowface »

GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #285
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…

And? De-platforming works very effectively. Look at 8chan, Gab and Voat. All drowning in server costs trying to host "safe spaces" for certain opinions.

I disagree. I think de-platforming is rarely ever effective, and is very often counter-productive and achieves the opposite of the intended effect. 8chan, Gab, Voat, other imageboards, and distributed semi-private things like Discord servers continue to grow in popularity and continue to further radicalize people far beyond where they were before they first came to those places.

I recommend this post: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/22/freedom-on-the-central...

Key excerpt: "There’s an unfortunate corollary to this, which is that if you try to create a libertarian paradise, you will attract three deeply virtuous people with a strong commitment to the principle of universal freedom, plus millions of scoundrels. Declare that you’re going to stop holding witch hunts, and your coalition is certain to include more than its share of witches."

If you have relatively moderate people looking to discuss non-mainstream things without being censored, and they can't do that, then you're forcing them into the witches' dens, where they'll probably become increasingly less moderate and increasingly more paranoid and polarized. They feel like the other side hates them and is out to get them... and in this case, their point is being proven. This is exactly why Trump won in 2016 and why he'll probably win again.

Sure, it certainly isn't profitable or fun to run 8chan, Gab, or Voat if you're the owners, but this is just about the users who don't particularly care what site they're using. They'll just use whatever site won't get rid of them. (Also, it isn't even profitable or fun to run reddit, either.)

And this isn't even getting into the possible ethics of de-platforming and censorship and what should and shouldn't be permitted; just the practical effects. Practically speaking, I don't think it's an effective tactic, if the effect you want is to disempower your opponents. It empowers them and energizes them.

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

#315

Post by eganist »

invalidOrTaken wrote: post #302
eganist wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/gshffi/trump_si... The sub clearly exists, comments are clearly recent, and CovfefeBucks (the most recent mod) is clearly submitting content (linked). Not sure why you insist on gaslighting, but that makes this our last interaction.

The top comment on the link you posted is, "Are we back?" Reply is "Still only approved posters I think." The link itself is to a pinned, mod-posted, announcement link to an article about an executive order to strip social media platforms from liability protections from charges of bias. The most recent non-announcement post was two months ago. Other choice top-level comments: - "Huh and coincidentally I see a TD post…

2000 comments on a post by an approved submitter is the opposite of "been shut down."

To my earlier point:

> So now it's the truest propaganda machine, you're saying. Approved users only for consumption by a dedicated subscriber base.

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

#316

Post by canada_dry »

asdff wrote: post #209
alecb wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The site became mainstream while still being extremely vulnerable to manipulation by a very small pool of individuals. They've done next to nothing to address how effective and rampant brigading is (among other tactics).

It really doesn't take much to brigade. Write some scripts to get 100 accounts upvoting your posts while they are on new, and chances are after that initial hump you've surmounted with your bots it will catch exponential viewership over the course of the day and make it to the front page.

> It really doesn't take much to brigade

What's frightening is that groups like politicians, unions, and extreme right-wing groups could very easily use this technique to quickly and pretty effectively promote or quell discussion.

I just recently saw an example of where this might have happened. Very suddenly a comment in a discussion I was following - what initially was a popular up-voted opinion (i.e discussing police brutality) - got down-voted into oblivion (from +5 to -25) in less than 5 minutes. The comment was deleted soon after - probably to protect their score.

This kind of quick/easy manipulation by bots can't be easy to detect/deal with yet I fear it may become mainstream.

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

#317

Post by lksaar »

s9w wrote: post #76
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.

If you consider KIA, unpopularopinion and making fun of TLOU2 as vile then I'm not sure what that word even means. plus: There are regular calls to murder all cops these days on reddit. In plain sight. Just imagine what would happen for any of those "bad" subs if they wouldn't remove those within seconds.

>KIA The mods had to stop in and tell their own subreddit to stop celebrating the death of a trans e-sport player [1]. A year ago or so they also had issues with white supremacists.

>TLOU2 Just some choice picks from a recent thread [2]

"Everyone that is part on lgbtq should go live on an island. I wanna see how long you last. Since you hate straight people. And dont know how to reproduce because you think ass holes feel better than pussy."

"They'd need migration to reach replacement level for their plummetting birth rates "

"Because their fuckery and meddling has brought us to this, be gay in silence instead of shoving ity down everyone's throat. You are the fucking minority. LGBTQ is an evolutuionary dead-end for a reason"

"SJWs need to be castrated. Yikes."

"Gays are parasites. They don’t reproduce but steal instead, corrupting the youth through pedophilia. See: Milo. See: Steve Huffman. Many such cases!"

>unpopular_opinion It used to be pretty questionable a few months ago, but maybe it got better. I haven't really bothered staying up to date on it.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/eho1nb/remi... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastOfUs2/comments/g9825v/what_t...

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

#318

Post by izzydata »

vharuck wrote: post #295
izzydata wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's 4chan

If the content was less temporary, was more like a forum than an image board and had a bit more of a modern look / feel to it.

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

#319

Post by syshum »

GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #309
syshum wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes.. Censorship is wonderful and make no mistake "de-platforming" is censorship

We make value judgements all the time. Reddit puts a NSFW spoiler on violence, porn, etc. Is that considered censorship? Is it really censorship if r/t_d had violated numerous Reddit ToS rules? Rules which all users agreed on when signing up. Make no mistake, it's a no brainer to ban a community that is both outwardly hateful, and regularly abuses the rules of the site they're hosted on.

>>Reddit puts a NSFW spoiler on violence, porn, etc. Is that considered censorship?

yes and no. It is lesser because it empowers the user to self select if they want to see NSFW items. That is the key.

I put the quarantine on the same level as this, so I have less of an issue with that than if they just banned it outright.

>Is it really censorship if r/t_d had violated numerous Reddit ToS rules?

yes, let me be clear Reddit is perfectly in its legal rights to censor anything they want. They can censor directly all Republicans if they want.

They however can not magically make it not censorship simply because they add a line in their ToS.. that is not how free expression works.

a Website that only allows car related topics censors all speech not related to cars

The problem for Reddit is for years they advertised themselves as a Open Access forum for all topics and discussions, the point 6 font terms of service not with standing.

If reddit has a BIG BOLD header on the HomePage that reads "Conservatives not welcome here" then it would be a different discussion for me

>> outwardly hateful,

Ahh the old "hate speech" non-sense. I reject this premise as "hate speech" is such a subjected term that if you ask 10 people what qualifies as "hate speech" you will get 30 different answers based on context and other things

Further Reddit ignores their own policy on hate speech and promotion of violence provided the speaker is the "correct" political affiliation and that target is the "wrong" political affiliation

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

#320

Post by [deleted] »

Avicebron wrote: post #169
na85 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the real problem facing the reddit corporate folks is that people on that site are slowly but inexorably coming around to the realization (if they aren't there already) that what makes a site good from the user's standpoint is pretty much antithetical to making it profitable. Unfortunately for reddit, the site owes its existence to the users who built communities there, and when heavy-handed changes are intro…

It's also the case that users are losing places to have free and open anonymous conversations with a bit of fun. I don't think it's just reddit, I've felt the squeeze on the whole internet. "The world is still a big place, there's just less in it" - Captain Jack

[deleted]
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