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Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse

#231

Post by kmfrk »

parliament32 wrote: post #9

Whether you agree with the move or not, it's funny how Reddit's stance has changed over time. Under the old ownership, 2012: "At reddit we care deeply about not imposing ours or anyone elses’ opinions on how people use the reddit platform. We are adamant about not limiting the ability to use the reddit platform even when we do not ourselves agree with or condone a specific use. We have very few rules here on reddit;…

Perhaps they are consistent in only acting based on convenience, and they might finally have reached the inflection point where doing all this was the easiest, laziest thing they could do.

Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse

#234

Post by bitexploder »

ryankemper wrote: post #207
duxup wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would something decentralized help? I don't think people want that. The_Donald involved a lot of spreading their message / fake news sites / spamming across other subs and etc. Do people want to be on a platform where other folks on the same platform are targeting their community with dishonest and often bigoted content? I'm also not sure how much The_Donald was as a community. The sheer volume of users at its height…

> I'm also not sure how much The_Donald was as a community. It was very clearly a real community, as you can see evidence from the fact that they migrated to thedonald.win when Reddit made it clear that they wouldn't be treated fairly. > So you'd be in your other community and one day they all show up and down votes and the vitriol begins... it was no mystery that this happened, it was spoken of openly in The_Donald…

Well, if you had any doubt about the character of TD and what it has become at its new home, just cruise around it. It’s full of conspiracy theories, misogyny, racism, and outright calls to violence. It is a common sentiment there that the only good Democrat is a dead one. These “edgy” takes receive many upvotes.

Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse

#235

Post by a_t48 »

numpad0 wrote: post #177
pjc50 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. The average user, especially women, does not enjoy having their boundaries pushed by an escalation of shocking (but not illegal!) and pornographic (but not illegal!) images, which you will get if you don't have moderation, and even a bit if you do. As proven by Slashdot twenty years ago. Oh, and the plain spam. C1al1s spammers can fill your entire board if you let them.

Having seen countless female gore/porn artists on social networking I’m not so sure how important of a problem it is... especially the porn part

Consent is important here.

Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse

#236

Post by filoleg »

john-shaffer wrote: post #87
nullc wrote: post #20

I'm confused by the article. My understanding was that reddit replaced the moderators of /r/The_Donald months ago after initially making in quarantined. The Wikipedia article seems to agree with my understanding: > In February 26, 2020, Reddit administrators removed a number of r/The_Donald moderators "that were approving, stickying, and generally supporting content in this subreddit that breaks [Reddit's] content po…

> What's wrong with just saying that it's their platform and they have the right to set the rules? 1) They don't want to alienate people who care about free speech. 2) A lot of people liked reddit because it was user-driven, and don't like it when the content they see is selected by admins and mods. They want to keep the illusion of being user-driven as long as they can.

Fully agreed. I think people get up in arms over "but they have the rights to do it", making it look like those opposing decisions of admins believe that admins don't have those rights.

Admins own the platform and they totally have the right to set whatever rules they want. No one is debating that. The thing that people point out is that despite admins having those rights, they might be exercising those rights in a way that people disagree with (for whatever reasons), which might ultimately lead to the demise of that platform.

I, personally, find your reasons against the ham-fisted approach they have been taking to be very compelling. While r/The_Donald ban was probably warranted, and I have nothing against that ban, the overall vibe of reddit definitely feels like it has changed over the past 10 years. It feels like it went from "user-driven content under the umbrella of basic global reddit rules" to "heavily-directed content that admins seem to approve of or content that they cannot justify getting rid of just yet (but probably will soon enough)".

Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse

#237

Post by el_cujo »

nullc wrote: post #20

I'm confused by the article. My understanding was that reddit replaced the moderators of /r/The_Donald months ago after initially making in quarantined. The Wikipedia article seems to agree with my understanding: > In February 26, 2020, Reddit administrators removed a number of r/The_Donald moderators "that were approving, stickying, and generally supporting content in this subreddit that breaks [Reddit's] content po…

The_Donald was neutered a long time ago. The real story is the 200 other subs getting shut down and Reddit essentially saying the wild west days on their site are actually over now. Several publications have focused on The_Donald at least in the headline because I assume it makes for a sexier, more political story than about a website cracking down on moderation.

Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse

#238

Post by andybak »

ryankemper wrote: post #207
duxup wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would something decentralized help? I don't think people want that. The_Donald involved a lot of spreading their message / fake news sites / spamming across other subs and etc. Do people want to be on a platform where other folks on the same platform are targeting their community with dishonest and often bigoted content? I'm also not sure how much The_Donald was as a community. The sheer volume of users at its height…

> I'm also not sure how much The_Donald was as a community. It was very clearly a real community, as you can see evidence from the fact that they migrated to thedonald.win when Reddit made it clear that they wouldn't be treated fairly. > So you'd be in your other community and one day they all show up and down votes and the vitriol begins... it was no mystery that this happened, it was spoken of openly in The_Donald…

> from any subreddit that toes their party line

There's plenty of right-leaning subreddits. What set The_Donald apart was how close it sailed to being outright cultishly crazy.

Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse

#239

Post by seph-reed »

ve55 wrote: post #7

Worth taking note that in today's climate, you really cannot win when you are in a position to moderate important things that a lot of people use. There is constantly tremendous pressure on you to perform opposing actions, and even making no decision at all will cause you significant mental stress and harassment, regardles of what the issue is. You have to pick who you want to cave to, and to what extent, and no matt…

There is a right way to do this which minimizes the issues, but it's counter-intuitive: reflect the negative aspects of The_Donald.

It's called "closed loop hypocrisy" and the theory is that all negativity or opposition is inherently hypocritical (given we are all very similar in the end). But being hypocritical does not mean opposition is bad, if anything the issue is long loop hypocrisy where someone pretends to be righteous when really it's just hypocrisy with extra steps.

Most people solve problems with long loop hypocrisy and those who support them can easily choose to overlook the hypocrisy by focusing on the convoluted steps and rhetoric in between. Meanwhile, it's obvious to those being attacked just how hypocritical they are.

In contrast, closed loop hypocrisy is about applying the form of negativity to itself. It seems kind of dumb, but that's the point: to show how dumb X form of negativity is directly to X form of negativity.

It's a form of inception and it's hard to pull off, but there is a better way.

Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse

#240

Post by simple_phrases »

spaced-out wrote: post #219
ryankemper wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm also not sure how much The_Donald was as a community. It was very clearly a real community, as you can see evidence from the fact that they migrated to thedonald.win when Reddit made it clear that they wouldn't be treated fairly. > So you'd be in your other community and one day they all show up and down votes and the vitriol begins... it was no mystery that this happened, it was spoken of openly in The_Donald…

>And yet Reddit happily ignores vote brigading and other negative externalities from any subreddit that toes their party line, so it seems bizarre to single T_D out Do you have evidence for this, or is it just your gut feeling?

I am a member of several non-conservative political and non-political groups that were banned because of the bad behavior of members of those subreddits.

Users of The_Donald regularly got away with behavior that got other communities wiped off of Reddit entirely.

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