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A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

larslofgren.com

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Re: A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

#331

Post by AngryData »

twibs_io wrote: post #204

Pretty shocking that someone whose business is being actively attacked on a subreddit, one that is not only relevant to them but is one of the biggest drivers of student interest and a major recruiting tool, has no recourse in this situation. A lot of people mentioning the legal angle don’t realize what a nightmare that kind of litigation would be. It’s frankly outrageous that Reddit doesn’t take the time to investig…

Im not shocked at all. Not only do I think they were knowingly letting this kind of thing happen for years, I think they were actively participating in such sketchy practices for profit. Which easily explains how reddit could "lose" money for years and years but continuously be given more and more funding and increasingly hosting more and more content on their own servers. If they were actually losing money, they wouldn't have started hosting images and then later videos on their own servers while pushing people away from 3rd party hosts.

Re: A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

#332

Post by athrowaway3z »

neilv wrote: post #84

I don't know about this particular case, but, generally... bad actor subreddit moderators have been an occasional thing for well over a decade. And it's also been widely known for that long that Reddit is an influential venue in which to take over a corner -- for marketing or propaganda. What's an equal concern to me is how insufficiently resilient Reddit collectively appears to be, in face of this. A bad actor mod o…

This is how the entire internet functions.

We need to separate the web into data, identity, and moderation.

Users need to become aware that they're not using platforms, they are subscribing to moderator control.

Somebody owns ycombinator.com, can decide what is discussed, and if they ban you - us peasants can't tweak who is a moderating / recover your identity and data.

I'm convinced we'll get there eventually, but it starts with recognizing that the only thing special about Reddit is its multi-level-unpaid-moderator-marketing.

Re: A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

#333

Post by extr »

SilverElfin wrote: post #323
fancyswimtime wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this seems to be happening on city based subs as well where the split is political; creating echo chambers for each side. This feels dangerous as any potential middle ground gets eroded away.

Example?

r/sandiego. The mods are political and territorial. I posted once about the suggestion to create a discord for the sub and they removed my post and DMed me this:

> What experience do you have modding such channels and the reddit community?

> Managing city subs are among the most difficult on the site... these are not single topic communities and discord is not organized in the same way so that bad actors can creep in and cause problems without being back lined to the site.

> There's more to this than people saying they're interested. It's also what kind of interest and what is being said and done that has to be in support of the sub and not a backdoor community that leeches activity from the sub / site and forwards it to something off site.

> Lots of concerns here.

Basically, we will not have the same kind of absolute power there that we have here, and we can't risk it becoming a rival community. This was to the innocent suggestion/question as to why there wasn't one already.

Re: A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

#334

Post by idk1 »

raincom wrote: post #183

That's common. A marketing company took over r/mattress in order to get rid of any unfavorable reviews and pump up any bed in box mattress company as long as these companies pay to that market company. For more, https://www.reddit.com/r/MattressMod/comments/1c28g7b/recent...

I'm not interested in doing this at all, but how does a person take over a subreddit? That sounds like a very difficult thing to do.

Re: A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

#335

Post by AngryData »

blindriver wrote: post #15
petesergeant wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reddit should not be considered an authoritative source. Period. At this point it's the most astroturfed place on the internet. Accounts are bought and sold like cheap commodities. It's inherently unreliable. I don't disagree with any of this, but I'll note that in addition, it's also the most reliable place to get a general crowd-sourced opinion on the internet. There are specialist forums for specialist subjects,…

This isn't true. It leans extremely heavily left-wing so you won't get an accurate crowd-source opinion that disagrees with left-wing politics. There are pockets of conservative views but it's generally heavily left wing and you will get banned from many subreddits if you espouse any views to the opposite. EDIT: I don't know why I'm getting so many downvotes, nothing I said is controversial at all.

If by leftwing you mean neoliberal, maybe. The bans ive gotten over the years for posting leftwing views and ideals tells me it isn't leftwing at all.

Re: A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

#336

Post by [deleted] »

idk1 wrote: post #334
raincom wrote: post #183

That's common. A marketing company took over r/mattress in order to get rid of any unfavorable reviews and pump up any bed in box mattress company as long as these companies pay to that market company. For more, https://www.reddit.com/r/MattressMod/comments/1c28g7b/recent...

I'm not interested in doing this at all, but how does a person take over a subreddit? That sounds like a very difficult thing to do.

[deleted]

Re: A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

#337

Post by thinkingemote »

idk1 wrote: post #334
raincom wrote: post #183

That's common. A marketing company took over r/mattress in order to get rid of any unfavorable reviews and pump up any bed in box mattress company as long as these companies pay to that market company. For more, https://www.reddit.com/r/MattressMod/comments/1c28g7b/recent...

I'm not interested in doing this at all, but how does a person take over a subreddit? That sounds like a very difficult thing to do.

"Hi I noticed you weren't that online as recently as you were are you ok?"

Wow that must be a lot of work

Wow I feel for you, friend

Yea id be happy to help out from time to time.

--- But needs to happen with other things.

Quite often seen in GitHub where an attacker can contribute to build trust. With Reddit, mini modding, regular submissions, good comments etc

Defense includes not being shamed or pressured when life seems more important.

Re: A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

#338

Post by madaxe_again »

dragnettle wrote: post #252
twibs_io wrote: post #204

Pretty shocking that someone whose business is being actively attacked on a subreddit, one that is not only relevant to them but is one of the biggest drivers of student interest and a major recruiting tool, has no recourse in this situation. A lot of people mentioning the legal angle don’t realize what a nightmare that kind of litigation would be. It’s frankly outrageous that Reddit doesn’t take the time to investig…

[flagged]

It’s weird to refer to yourself by your own surname, dude.

Re: A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

#339

Post by baubino »

neya wrote: post #268
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mods here are paid that's why.

But getting paid doesn't guarantee being neutral. I think it's more about the principle and vision than just the pay.

Getting paid means the mod has been vetted, is (presumably) being supervised in some way or reporting to someone, and thus is expected to adhere to some standard or protocol (however loose it might be). Getting paid comes with rules of the job and that alone makes paid moderation far more structured and with more potential for effectiveness than unpaid moderation.

Re: A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator

#340

Post by pkphilip »

Reddit has a huge moderation issue. Mods run the place like their fiefdoms with no regard to being fair. There should be a way of flagging reddit users and especially mods if they are seen to have a clear conflict of interest (as is the case with Michael Novati) and Reddit should not allow them to run groups where they are openly harassing their competitors.
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