Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies” • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies”

#101

Post by salawat » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 4:46 PM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #58

torben-friis wrote: post #22

I don't really get reddit's efforts to clean their site. They sometimes come up with measures like this, while routinely ignoring the development of horrible communities that they're aware of (since some users take any possible opportunity to mention them to the admins and are met with silence or half measures). They even came up with the concept of quarantined subreddits. I honestly can't think of a single honest re…

Reddit is an anonymous website, in a unique way that Facebook, Twitter, and even Hacker News (simply because of the small community) are not. A lot of its success is built on content which is not as acceptable as one might desire. See what happened to Tumblr when they cracked down.

Reddit isn't even remotely anonymous. Pseudonymous at best. Anonymous forums are completely incompatible with user identity centric moderation mechanisms (Karma, Gold, rep etc...)

Once you assign usernames and attach any type of value counter to an account, you've effectively dumped true anonymity out the window due to essentially creating a pseudonymic marketplace.

People may think "How pseudonymous do you need to be?" In today's world? Very. Especially given the propensity for deplatforming and reputation based social warfare.

Re: Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies”

#102

Post by kache_ » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 4:46 PM UTC

sukilot wrote: post #93

kache_ wrote: post #27

Reddit has been compromised with actors who do not have free speech in their best interest. The other day there was an illuminating ask reddit post about transexuals who decided to transition back and their experiences. That post got promptly removed by moderators; even though there was no hateful content within it at all. They effectively silenced the transexual population due to an ever so slight conflict of ideolo…

How is it censored? There is a comment on that post with 5000 upvotes.

It was removed from the front page; therefore culling any more engagement with the post.

See the following comment https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/h9ctho/serious_a...

Re: Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies”

#103

Post by yardie » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 4:46 PM UTC

s3r3nity wrote: post #29

godzillabrennus wrote: post #15

There is an alternative to the group think/hive mind called https://gab.com/ but it’s also a cesspool or horrible people sharing horrible ideas. Not sure what makes sense.

> it’s also a cesspool or horrible people sharing horrible ideas. I tend to follow Voltaire's ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.' I agree with your assessment of the quality of ideas thrown around there, but I'd prefer a world where the internet allowed sites like that to exist, rather than one that's increasingly owned & distributed by giant corporate conglomerates wi…

> I'd prefer a world where the internet allowed sites like that to exist

So these alt sites spring up all the time (8chan, 4chan, ruqqus, voat). No one has taken those sites off the night. And the public is free to vote with their time, clicks, and money on whether they support these sites.

Re: Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies”

#104

Post by elicash » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 4:47 PM UTC

kache_ wrote: post #27

Reddit has been compromised with actors who do not have free speech in their best interest. The other day there was an illuminating ask reddit post about transexuals who decided to transition back and their experiences. That post got promptly removed by moderators; even though there was no hateful content within it at all. They effectively silenced the transexual population due to an ever so slight conflict of ideolo…

Reddits values aren't the same as yours.

This isn't a bad thing. It's not like Reddit has monopoly powers. Some people want to belong to communities that have agreed-upon values.

Re: Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies”

#105

Post by Fogest » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 4:47 PM UTC

kache_ wrote: post #27

Reddit has been compromised with actors who do not have free speech in their best interest. The other day there was an illuminating ask reddit post about transexuals who decided to transition back and their experiences. That post got promptly removed by moderators; even though there was no hateful content within it at all. They effectively silenced the transexual population due to an ever so slight conflict of ideolo…

The post you are referring to was deleted by the user who made the post not the mods....

And that doesn't even relate to this topic as what you're referring to is on a subreddit basis and is determined by a set of volunteer mods not reddit admins.

Re: Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies”

#106

Post by darepublic » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 4:47 PM UTC

kache_ wrote: post #27

Reddit has been compromised with actors who do not have free speech in their best interest. The other day there was an illuminating ask reddit post about transexuals who decided to transition back and their experiences. That post got promptly removed by moderators; even though there was no hateful content within it at all. They effectively silenced the transexual population due to an ever so slight conflict of ideolo…

The fact that r/teenagers is often more open minded and mature than "important" subreddits like news and politics speaks volumes

Re: Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies”

#107

Post by Jonnax » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 4:47 PM UTC

I used Reddit a lot back in 2013ish but went off of it.

Looking at it now, it feels like that in general the site is really mean spirited.

Also upvoting means that you're just seeing whatever the majority of voters want you to see. It works on a smaller community like HN because comments get 10s of upvotes at most. It's not a site for good discourse.

However there's communities where there is interesting discussion still and often if you want an opinion of a product or an issue you might find a thread on it from a real user.

But generally they've done nothing to stop the nurturing of racist/sexist/bullying content over the years.

Now you can argue about free speech being important for an internet platform.

But Reddit trying to change the community attitudes of their site now seems a little late.

Also there is a real sense that some users believe that Reddit is the Sheppard of society and they're fighting on the forefront of society. Which I think stems from the millions of apparent subscribers to subreddits.

But it's just a fancy internet forum.

Like this linked post is on a subreddit called Watch Reddit Die. Apparently something about free speech being stifled in Reddit.

People need to realise they shouldn't waste their life on a website they don't like.

The internet hasn't been fully consolidated by Facebook and Google just yet, they can find or make a different community.

Re: Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies”

#108

Post by nend » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 4:47 PM UTC

Is there any evidence this is real? The image specifies /r/reddit.com, which was discontinued about a decade ago.

Obviously this practice is/would be awful. But it's really surprising and the image seems a little fishy.

Re: Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies”

#109

Post by haunter » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 4:48 PM UTC

numpad0 wrote: post #100

torben-friis wrote: post #22

I don't really get reddit's efforts to clean their site. They sometimes come up with measures like this, while routinely ignoring the development of horrible communities that they're aware of (since some users take any possible opportunity to mention them to the admins and are met with silence or half measures). They even came up with the concept of quarantined subreddits. I honestly can't think of a single honest re…

Probably they profit from horrible communities and lose on some, and there are no clear distinction between the two, so they started to quarantine less profitable ones to stigmatize before banning them. They’re profiting off anger so “old” ones being angry has no downsides.

>Probably they profit from horrible communities

There are no ads in quarantined subs and you can't buy any reddit awards to gift to others

Re: Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies”

#110

Post by klodolph » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 4:48 PM UTC

torben-friis wrote: post #22

I don't really get reddit's efforts to clean their site. They sometimes come up with measures like this, while routinely ignoring the development of horrible communities that they're aware of (since some users take any possible opportunity to mention them to the admins and are met with silence or half measures). They even came up with the concept of quarantined subreddits. I honestly can't think of a single honest re…

My take on quarantined subreddits is that it’s just a tool to remove certain communities from the mobile app so they don’t get in trouble with Apple / Google (mostly Apple, I’m sure).