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

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

#381

Post by function_seven » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 8:17 PM UTC

dunnevens wrote: post #362

function_seven wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Internet discussions in the late 90's probably had more good faith participants

Not probably. I think definitely. There were tons of trolls back then, but they were trolling in good faith as well! (I mean that. They just posted shocking and vile things, for the lulz. They didn't promote their corporate brand or try to influence other nations' elections. They were good faith assholes :)

I think you're right. It's a really hard problem to solve; anonymity and reputation are difficult to combine. And meta-moderation itself could be seen as giving even more influence to the power users of these platforms (i.e. /u/gallowboob).

I kick around some ideas now and then about alternative rating and voting systems. Usually in the context of fake Amazon reviews, but the same general problem exists here.

What if users were limited to just 1 vote (up or down) each day? Or x ups and y downs? Whatever. Would that limit the votes on silly one-liner puns and encourage people to spend their precious vote on something more interesting? If you combine that with minimum account ages and maybe some minimum karma, I think it could work. Hell, you could vote more than once if you're willing to spend it out of your own karma. I'm sure I'm missing some aspect that tanks my idea. (Is there something for this like there is for spam-fighting ideas? [0])

If I don't stop tying now, I'm liable to bring up some sort of blockchain solution. And nobody wants that.

[0] https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt

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

#382

Post by cryptoz » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 8:18 PM UTC

cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #323

metalchianti wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like an anonymous imageboard with upvotes?

Why are karma / votes even necessary? Surely the popularity of content could be purely determined by the actual amount of clicks a given article/topic is given in a certain amount of time?

What's the difference between a click and an upvote then? It can still be gamed as easily (maybe even easier).

Also, it has a major problem: if users know that popularity is based on clicks, then they can't click on anything they might disagree with (to simply learn more about it) without amplifying the signal as well. The incentives of user behavior are changed in to a self-censorship of what the user allows themselves to read, likely enforcing bubbles even more.

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

#383

Post by fireattack » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 8:19 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #100

ilikehurdles wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a relevant totally hypothetical "long con" involving Ellen Pao's hiring-and-firing and re-hiring of the original founders: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/3cs78i/whats_the... The hypothesis is posed by Yishan Wong, an ex-CEO, with responses from Altman and Ohanian. edit: I made a mistake understanding this story. Please see the correct timeline in geofft's comment.

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…

Why was Victoria Taylor fired again?

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

#384

Post by eganist » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 8:22 PM UTC

jp_sc wrote: post #256

eganist wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've got a pretty straightforward stance, really. We don't tolerate intolerance, and mindful consent is a pre-requisite for all things. That's it. Amazing how much that weeds out. :)

The approved comments are actually the extreme ones. Eg.: Post: "After 10 years of marriage, today my husband didn't say good morning back to me. Is that normal?". Comments:"OMG the monster is probably planning to kill you, you must leave him at once and ruin his life."

> The approved comments are actually the extreme ones. Eg.: Post: "After 10 years of marriage, today my husband didn't say good morning back to me. Is that normal?". Comments:"OMG the monster is probably planning to kill you, you must leave him at once and ruin his life."

Two things:

1. Post: "After 10 years of marriage, today my husband didn't say good morning back to me. Is that normal?"

These should be reported - they fall afoul of the moral judgment rule. The subreddit is focused specifically on requests for advice, not retrospective analysis. Because of the volume of moral judgment posts we receive, we tend to ban submitters for a day simply because it's written both into the rules and as a pinned post on the sub.

2. "OMG the monster is probably planning to kill you, you must leave him at once and ruin his life."

We're not empowered to do anything about these - the only solution we have is to suggest that people try to disregard guidance that screams "dump" without going into why.

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

#385

Post by buttersbrian » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 8:22 PM UTC

ilikehurdles wrote: post #89

buttersbrian wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So much of what is happening now lies at your feet. I just don't know how much of a responsibility reddit has in strong-arming sub-reddits that are communities, whether we like them or not. So I struggle with Ellen's indictment. It makes it seem like Reddit is a root level cause for where we are at today -- It's not, and is only a symptom. I believe it is unfair to say reddit, and their (somewhat) hands off approac…

Reddit, among other social media websites, has been used as an avenue for the radicalization of, particularly, young males.

What hasn't been used as an avenue? The point being, how much is "reddit" proper actually responsible? How much of that burden do they actually carry in policing isolated (by nature) and self-managed communities? I just don't know where that line is, and whether it's fair of Ellen to characterize it this way. And to do it as a response to what he's saying -- that comes off as somewhat tactless to me.

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

#386

Post by adamrezich » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 8:23 PM UTC

colpabar wrote: post #254

asdff wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simple, you take the inverse. If you are looking for the right leaning accounts, look at the most downvoted and controversial comments in a given political thread. I will say that true conservatism is few and far between, and it doesn't help that the viral strategy the GOP has settled on in recent years is heaps and heaps of outright false or racist memes, so there just isn't much good right leaning content bein…

sorting by controversial is usually much more interesting anyway. top comments on reddit are almost always a meaningless quip that echoes the message of whatever is being shared.

You can only "sort by controversial" on Old Reddit—New (default) Reddit doesn't have this functionality anymore

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

#387

Post by ng12 » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 8:24 PM UTC

sailingparrot wrote: post #346

derefr wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anyone browsing /r/all would see their posts all day long I feel like that's only right and correct; in a sufficiently-large community (i.e. a society), anyone intentionally exposing themselves to "everything" should be prepared to view the worst of the worst (of the worst) of "everything." That's what "everything" means! Honestly, I don't get why /r/all even exists, if it's not there for the people who want to vol…

> anyone intentionally exposing themselves to "everything" should be prepared to view the worst of the worst (of the worst) of "everything." That's what "everything" means! That would be ok if you saw that in propotion. The issue is when you have a group of people intentionally gaming the upvote system, making /r/all inundated with alt-right content (tbf, /r/t_d weren't the only one doing that), completly skewing wha…

> but mass amplification via the platform's algorithm shouldn't be a right.

Right. No amplification is the solution. /r/all and the homepage need to be removed. Left wing subs and right wing subs should exist in peaceful isolation and subs like AHS which try to police what other subs are doing should be shut down.

I'm sure that would negatively impact Reddit's income, however.

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

#388

Post by mcintyre1994 » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 8:26 PM UTC

javagram wrote: post #379

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure that he could to be honest. From an advertising PoV I don't think they'd have much luck - I listened to Ben Shapiro's podcast for a few weeks out of curiosity a while back and his advertisers are really bottom of the barrel stuff. If you've ever checked out Breitbart then.. yea. I doubt you could sustain the server costs. TBH I doubt the Daily Wire would be profitable from its advertising alone, and t…

My thought would be that it might be funded by his campaign, similar to his other campaign apps and website. Completely hypothetical of course but they could either just make it owned by the campaign, or stand it up at arms-length and have it funded by dark money donations from trump supporting billionaires, kind of like a super PAC? Or just have the campaign buy millions of ads itself on the site to fund server cost…

The campaign or Trump's personal wealth could definitely pay for a social media network for some time, I'd agree. I just think the real money coming into right wing media is based on them being able to get loads of views on Facebook/YouTube and spread things widely, and a pro-Trump social media network is really a dead end for that. Without that I don't think you could make it profitable.

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

#389

Post by koheripbal » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 8:31 PM UTC

newsbinator wrote: post #353

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 have no idea what the skin color or gender or sexual preferences of other users on HN are and you don't know mine. That's how I prefer it. The other day I unsubscribed from a popular Javascript mailing list, after the writer switched from writing about Javascript to writing about how white people and black people should interact. Or rather I didn't unsubscribe right away: I emailed the writer politely and mentioned…

In such a polarized emotionally charged environment, some people are unable to emotionally segregate world news from their personal and professional lives.

These people have become paralyzed and unable to function normally. They allow world events to bleed into every conversation, and feel obligated to support their side and ostracizing anyone that disagrees - further isolating them in their bubble.

I think that social media has increased society's emotional surface area to world events. We no longer isolate 30-60 minutes per day to watch balanced reports on the 6 o'clock news - now it's all the time, hyperbolic, and often deceptive.

Our emotions are being weaponized - and November is going to be a real wake-up call where we will see the magnitude of disruptive power that these polarized social media messages can wield.

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

#390

Post by chrischen » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 8:34 PM UTC

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'm not sure if I agree with the policies of censorship being endorsed right now. It's like the new "fighting child exploitation."

To play devil's advocate, here are some potential negative consequences of censorship:

1) Censored communities may still find other uncensored platforms to move their speech to, and it may be a platform even worse for fostering "bad" speech that is hidden from the public and festers in the dark. For example, Islamic terrorists do pretty well without connecting their members on Reddit or Twitter, and as such, we don't really have an insight into the state of their thoughts.

2) Best case scenario is that banned speech and thought becomes repressed in society due to the difficulty in these people connecting/sharing ideas. This creates a latent risk as at some point all these repressed people may realize they are not alone in thought. It also delays the cure to the problem by treating the symptom.

This brings me to my point that racism, bigotry, and prejudice largely stem from a lack of understanding, experience, and fear. Silencing hate speech or thought is just treating the symptom of the problem. Hiding symptoms and ignoring the underlying causes will result in the disease breeding—in the worst case in the dark—until it becomes explosive. If you address them and fight them by educating, and showing, and assuaging their fears, this will do much more than a temporary censorship will fix for the long term.

Racists are people too, and often just misguided. Censorship, eradication, and vilification are only really viable strategies if you truly believe these people are intrinsically evil and irredeemable. Such tactics will just push them deeper into their entrenched thoughts and solidify their understanding that others don't care about why they think a certain way, but that it's just an Us vs Them fight (which of course they are already inclined towards). See China's handling of Falun Gong. There's no doubt that Chinese elimination strategies towards Falun Gong just entrenched its supporters and gave the Scientology-esque movement more strength than it could have otherwise derived.