A competitor crippled a $23.5M bootcamp by becoming a Reddit moderator • Hacker News Board

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

#571

Post by krapp » Thu, Oct 09, 2025, 12:03 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #454

throw-10-8 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remind me again how the American slaves were freed?

Slavery was violence. It can't exist without considerable violence and involved violence. So, we can say that it was violence problem that got solved by violence. Not just political problem.

If you want to go there, all governments and their laws (and thus politics) are predicated on their monopoly on violence, and civil society and the rule of law cannot exist without violence. Therefore all politics is violence and all political problems are also violence problems.

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

#572

Post by Lerc » Thu, Oct 09, 2025, 12:04 PM UTC

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…

Surely bad actors leave a fairly clear data trail. Are there no analytics being used to track this sort of behaviour? Much of the scale of this comes from being able to do it with impunity. If bad actors were exposed, even after the fact, it would be a deterrent to others.

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

#573

Post by debtta » Thu, Oct 09, 2025, 12:05 PM UTC

kranke155 wrote: post #540

debtta wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often posted on the internet at 4am local time before. How did you establish the posters were Russian or Iranian, other than by time zone? (4am London is working hours for around half the world population.) Not denying that there are people in these countries who want to cause trouble on the internet. But there are many such people in all countries...

There are huge influence operations basically on every national sub. I found one on r/portugal, clearly coordinated network spreading political news of a certain persuasion. R/donald became famous because the admins turned on national flags for users there revealing a significant percentage was Russian IPs without even a VPN. The Russian users called it “the mark of David” and compared it to Nazism.

> There are huge influence operations basically on every national sub.

I believe you. But I've also often been accused of being a bot or working for an intelligence service when posting my own opinion in political discussions, not in coordination with anyone at all, and not pretending to be anything I'm not. I think the people accusing me of this did genuinely believe it too.

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

#574

Post by inavida » Thu, Oct 09, 2025, 12:05 PM UTC

throwaway8902 wrote: post #108

Slow_Hand wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the story there? I'm curious to know how such behavior manifests in Zen Buddhism, of all things.

Many folks end up in r/zen after reading books like “Zen Mind, Beginners Mind” written by Japanese Zen Buddhists. Ewk is obsessed with the Chinese source material, written by Chan (Chinese for Zen) masters, and believes that the Chinese Chan masters were not Buddhist at all. Many people who come to the subreddit are interested in meditation. It is a big focus of Japanese Zen as practiced in the west. It is not partic…

I wonder if this is the same person behind a series of accounts and similar opinions in the taosim subreddit.

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

#575

Post by exasperaited » Thu, Oct 09, 2025, 12:07 PM UTC

safety1st wrote: post #226

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…

Reddit has a moderation problem, and it's a big one. They've now been asked to appear in front of Congress to address concerns about politically motivated violence being incited through their platform: https://oversight.house.gov/release/chairman-comer-invites-c... Personally I believe I've seen more people in the past few years wish a politically motivated death on somebody else via Reddit, than I have anywhere else…

Worth noting the heavy irony in talking about James Comer taking on bad-faith moderation, though.

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

#576

Post by tuesdaynight » Thu, Oct 09, 2025, 12:08 PM UTC

lyu07282 wrote: post #526

florkbork wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You already suspect this, but your expectations are out of line with the actual game/meta game/propaganda model there. You as a person who uses reddit have a general agreement most likely with the concept of reddiquette, and perhaps go to engage with diverse views, maybe to learn something, maybe to just have an argument. Normal internet forum stuff. However, you are arguing with a vertically integrated propaganda ma…

> a vertically integrated propaganda machine that is basically an experimental weapons testing facility for rhetoric This is great lol The specifics always depends on the subreddit, reddit doesn't pay moderators so its the wild west out there. You can find whatever echo-chamber you want honestly. Which subreddit does HN map to? Perhaps a mix of r/neoliberal and r/conservative (you know, healthy centrism /s)

Honestly, HN crowd is very diverse. I would say that it's a normal distribution here. There are some fascists/neonazi, some communists/anarchists and a lot of liberals/conservatives. I know that here is not the place for these kind of conversations, but it's funny how it's way better for that than other social media platforms. It's not perfect, of course, but perfect is not possible in real life.

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

#577

Post by pndy » Thu, Oct 09, 2025, 12:12 PM UTC

pkphilip wrote: post #340

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.

This isn't limited to reddit - normal forums and discord also suffer from mods with overgrown egos who treat maintaining the order as personal fight of good versus evil where they're of course the omnipotent gods of truth you can't argue with.

What is particularly specific to reddit is that subs associated with big media titles, companies etc. originally were ran by normal people, fans so to speak but at some point become marketing tools with entrusted mods whose job is to make sure no criticism of any kind - even the slightest is present. Some communities moved elsewhere, some gave up and some pretend everything is as it used to be.

There are niche places on reddit with little moderation, where actual votes people cast on posts are the moderating tool but even there, some hijackers tend to appear. Their MO is to spew dangerous content, make sub locked and then gracefully arrive as saviors who are from that point in control of what's actually posted.

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

#578

Post by grafmax » Thu, Oct 09, 2025, 12:16 PM UTC

safety1st wrote: post #226

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…

Reddit has a moderation problem, and it's a big one. They've now been asked to appear in front of Congress to address concerns about politically motivated violence being incited through their platform: https://oversight.house.gov/release/chairman-comer-invites-c... Personally I believe I've seen more people in the past few years wish a politically motivated death on somebody else via Reddit, than I have anywhere else…

How can we know that this or that example of speech is illegal if there are no charges and no trial? This rule by corporate fiat is exactly what we don’t need. It lacks democratic oversight. To say nothing of the way that disingenuous claims of “political violence” is being used to suppress legitimate dissent in our country.

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

#579

Post by jacquesm » Thu, Oct 09, 2025, 12:22 PM UTC

nomdep wrote: post #569

jacquesm wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That subreddit was taken over just like the conservative party in the USA was taken over. If you allow that to happen (both the party and the subreddit) then that's your problem. In other countries Trump would have had to found his own party, he'd still have captured a chunk of the vote but at least the Republicans that once were would not have squandered their identity. Now the house is on fire and it doesn't look l…

Keeping the country in one piece is exactly why Trump won, the alternative was falling off the cliff.

So, how is it working out for you so far? I find it hard to believe that otherwise intelligent beings can both make claims like this and at the same time observe reality. The USA has in all of its history since the civil war not been this divided. And it is falling off a cliff as we speak.

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

#580

Post by llm_nerd » Thu, Oct 09, 2025, 12:23 PM UTC

user34283 wrote: post #559

llm_nerd wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it is hardly relevant The entire basis of your argument was that it is for conservatives, so non-conservatives should be banned. And FWIW, I am classically a conservative. An actual conservative, not the cult of personality sort. In this new era suddenly I'm some weird liberal. >many moderators, just like you Like me? LOL, I'm not a moderator on Reddit, and can't fathom wasting my time like that. But, eh, people hav…

That is what it says in the subreddit description and name, not my personal opinion of its content. There are not numerous other mainstream news subs where you would not get banned for conservative opinions. In fact I believe worldnews may be the most conservative leaning one. I know that /r/news is far more left. You don't think that's a problem with the platform?

Worldnews is only "conservative" in its zealously pro-Israel position. On a number of other topics it is very left-leaning in moderation. On immigration, for instance. As a classic conservative I actually believe in strong borders and that immigrants need to be in service of the citizens of a country and align with its values, which put me at odds with that pro-Israel but also pro-mass migration sub.

Regardless, and to rehash, the foundation of your position was that conservatives have their own place and non-conservatives should be banned on sight to give them their zone. But it isn't a conservative sub, it's a Donald Trump cult subreddit. Which everyone knows at this point -- it certainly isn't a secret -- but again I only brought it up because it was so comedic to mention that sub but not offer as an example of absolutely insane subreddit moderation.

If there is a problem with moderation on reddit, /r/conservative is the perfect example of power tripping moderation and an inability for casual visitors to understand how one-sided the perspective has been curated to be. Again, I only pointed out how hilarious it was to mention that sub, but only to criticize other subs.

>You don't think that's a problem with the platform?

It is a reality on any curated or moderated site (including HN). Every single human on this planet has biases and agendas and conflicts of interest.

Should every sub have a firehose of moderated away comments and or banned users and their reasons? Sure, probably, in the same way that HN has showdead. I mean, there's going to be a lot of heinous stuff among it, but it would make for a fascinating analysis.

EDIT: Every comment I made suddenly got a -4 applied to it, which is kind of funny in the context of this discussion. I am 100% convinced that HN has "super arrow" users, though this has never been disclosed or detailed. But, eh...