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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

#361

Post by luckylion »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #189
pnako wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly do you mean by 'radicalization'? Do young males have opinions that are fundamentally different from their fathers or grandfathers?

The radical right capitalized on the whole gamergate scandal to push their agendas, and their fathers and grandfathers wouldn't have generally identified as gamers.

Well, yes, in that way nothing that happens today can be in any way, shape or form similar to something that happened 50 years ago. After all, they didn't have cell phones and Twitch back then.

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

#362

Post by dunnevens »

function_seven wrote: post #282
rootusrootus wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 8/10 comments on reddit as a whole are jokes, anecdotes, off topic, or simply low quality. I would guess that is a significant underestimate. I had one post become reasonably popular, and I was amazed at how awful, low quality, and incredibly redundant the replies were. 99% of all the top level replies were some version of the same low-effort comment.

This is what I miss from the old Slashdot. There you didn't just up- or down-vote comments. You specified if it was "funny" or "insightful" or "redundant" etc. [0] I could then filter comments by what I was looking for. Between that and the meta-moderation, they did a great job. I would love to see something similar on reddit. Instead of mindless updoots. Or maybe let me filter out comments that aren't at least n cha…

I liked the old Slashdot moderation system. I wonder how it would scale to Reddit's traffic. My gut feeling is that it wouldn't scale well at all, but I could easily be wrong about that.

The biggest problem would be bad actors. Internet discussions in the late 90's probably had more good faith participants. People chosen for moderation would be more likely to take it seriously. In ways both good and bad, the culture was very different then.

I (possibly naively) still think the majority of people online are acting in good faith according to whatever they believe. But, with the massive online population increase comes an increase in the absolute numbers of people acting in bad faith. Even if they're still a small percentage of the whole. A Slashdot moderation system would give those trolls, bots, and astroturfers some considerable power to shape the direction of a discussion. Probably would increase the number of bot or sockpuppet accounts in order to snag a greater percentage of the randomly assigned moderation slots.

But, that's just my assumption. Would be interesting to see it tried as an experiment. Maybe for the next Reddit April Fool's project.

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

#363

Post by blockmarker »

canada_dry wrote: post #316
asdff wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pol…

Extreme right-wing(and center-right) are countered by the extreme left moderators and administrators. I assure you, if left-wing posts started being vote brigaded, Reddit would ban all those involved. They can already detect and ban vote brigading, they just don't care to stop it.

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

#364

Post by redditadmin1499 »

bananabreakfast wrote: post #288
KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting how sexual harassment has long-term implications for one's career. You're a VC partner who is sexually harassed by another partner, as a consequence you get pushed out, as a consequence you're forced to take a position at a failing company, as a consequence you're forced to take the role of the fall guy by the failing company's founders, and as a consequence your career in tech is over. It's remarkab…

Keep in mind that it was found that all of her allegations of sexual harassment were completely unfounded and she was likely just trying to get a settlement to help her dire financial situation

The Vanity Fair piece on her and her husband is a good read. It was written before she became CEO, or really got that much attention. I have no idea how true her allegations were, but she's the sort of person who would take advantage of situations.

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/scandal/2013/03/buddy-fletc...

The best commentary I read on her case with Kleiner Perkins was it was an imperfect case with imperfect parties. The press presented it as representative of gender discrimination in the valley, but it was really bad actors on both sides. While I didn't have any personal issues with Ellen, I know people who did, and I can absolutely see her taking advantage of the situation, so it was pretty appalling to see people who don't know her making her a champion of women in tech.

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

#365

Post by redditadmin1499 »

dwaltrip wrote: post #255
geofft wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relevant, but I think the timeline is a bit subtler than that. (Mostly, the CEO referenced in that story is Wong himself, not Pao.) - Reddit was acquired by Condé Nast in 2006. - Founders Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman left in 2009. - Yishan Wong became CEO in March 2012. - Reddit raised its Series B in September 2014, led by Sam Altman. Wong was one of the investors. - Wong resigns in November 2014. Ellen Pao beco…

Thanks for this, very helpful. I had no idea Ohanian was the root cause of that incident.

Even on a throwaway, I can't share more, but Alexis royally fucked Victoria on that one. But don't think Ellen didn't have anything to do with it. The management structure at that time was pretty weird.

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

#366

Post by devado »

psychometry wrote: post #238
devado wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

doesn't reddit have that extension (forget the name) to ban users across all subreddits and tag them etc ? (not from the site but for your own browsing)

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

#367

Post by foldr »

jcims wrote: post #357
foldr wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't, but I think it's important to be sensitive to what people are actually protesting about. It's mostly these outrageous cases and (in the case of black folks) lived experience that make people angry. People cite statistics to illustrate the fact that these cases are part of a bigger problem of systematic racism. Some people expend a lot of effort trying to explain the statistics away, but that largely misse…

The problem is that this emotionally charged state will lead directly to policies designed to defuse the situation rather than solve the underlying problem. This is how systemic issues persist (well, the main reason is 'doing nothing', but i digress)

I don't think it's fair to characterise a response as (merely) emotional just because it's a response to a specific incident rather than a broader trend.

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

#368

Post by jayd16 »

syshum wrote: post #304
GaryNumanVevo wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

I would argue that "de-platforming" is the platform owner's use of speech/protest.

Platforms shouldn't have the power to completely squash voices but monopoly power and such is a different issue.

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

#369

Post by inappropriately »

throwmehaweh wrote: post #313
jayd16 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're a liar.

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

#370

Post by monocularvision »

throwanem wrote: post #199
chrisco255 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech isn't hard to understand as a concept. If someone says something you disagree with, you debate them. Echo chambers radicalize us all. No one is immune to the effects of groupthink.

So, how do you feel about the fire-in-a-crowded-theater exception?

I recommend you check this out:

https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...

Note that I don’t think that Reddit policing its content is censorship, I am only responding to the “fire in a crowded theater” Internet trope.

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