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Reddit purges 1/2 of The Donald’s moderators – replaces them with approved mods

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Re: Reddit purges 1/2 of The Donald’s moderators – replaces them with approved mods

#111

Post by ehsankia »

windyaskew wrote: post #50
ehsankia wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong and I read it wrong, but I think you're mixing up things here. > Users that have more than 500 karma in quarantined subreddits outside of The Donald will not be allowed on the list of approved applicants [to be a moderator] This is only for being a moderator. Simply upvoting posts (that don't break any rules) in quarantined subreddits does not get you punished. > If the content that people are…

This article [1] says they announced it today. I'm excited to see the fallout on this decision. [1] https://reclaimthenet.org/reddit-banned-for-upvote-policy/

The actual source is the Transparency report [0] from yesterday:

> When we expanded our quarantine policy, we created an appeals process for sanctioned communities. One of the goals was to “force subscribers to reconsider their behavior and incentivize moderators to make changes.” While the policy attempted to hold moderators more accountable for enforcing healthier rules and norms, it didn’t address the role that each member plays in the health of their community.

> Today, we’re making an update to address this gap: Users who consistently upvote policy-breaking content within quarantined communities will receive automated warnings, followed by further consequences like a temporary or permanent suspension. We hope this will encourage healthier behavior across these communities.

Seems like their justification matches my guess in the parent post.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/f8y9nx/sprin...

Re: Reddit purges 1/2 of The Donald’s moderators – replaces them with approved mods

#112

Post by blackflame7000 »

Someone1234 wrote: post #89
botwriter wrote: post #46

The comments here comparing the_donald to fascism. its a subreddit for people who support the democratically elected President of the US. Its not extreme its just shit posting and funny memes.

In response to this action the most upvoted thread was mocking WWII holocaust victims. The sub got quarantined for numerous rule breaking actions including racism, doxing (inc. Reddit and Imgur employees), sexism, harassment of other subs, and violent threats. The only way to believe that this has anything to do with supporting a political candidate is simply to ignore all the actual content and posters on that sub.

No, it was mocking the Admins branding people the deemed undesirable. That went way over your head.

Re: Reddit purges 1/2 of The Donald’s moderators – replaces them with approved mods

#113

Post by crystaldev »

Worth pointing out that Reddit up/downvotes have been heavily monitored for as long as Reddit fought voting rings. At least ten years. Any "suspicious" account has its voting rights neutered: The arrows become placebo buttons. I've observed this with every Reddit account I've owned (another certain website does this).

Re: Reddit purges 1/2 of The Donald’s moderators – replaces them with approved mods

#114

Post by markovbot »

shadowgovt wrote: post #16
maverick2007 wrote: post #7

I personally think that this article buried the lede as far as controversial Reddit actions go. Users now can be (and have been) banned for upvoting posts in quarantined subreddits (both on the right - T_D - and the left - Chapo Trap House - among others). I've seen controversy erupt all around Reddit about this and it doesn't feel right to me. If the content that people are upvoting is bad enough to get banned over…

"Don't encourage them" is a standard admonishment given to people in a group IRL when one member is acting out. And it's demonstrably impossible for moderators to find and remove 100% of content in violation of policy. It pushes added responsibility on the upvoters to think before they upvote, but perhaps that is a fair request to make of forum participants. (And taking off my "community moderator" hat and putting on…

>It pushes added responsibility on the upvoters to think before they upvote, but perhaps that is a fair request to make of forum participants.

That's nice in theory, but there's no clear guidelines for what you're not allowed to upvote, and there's no transparency on anything, just user reports.

For example, this post[0] from someone who claims to have received a warning from the reddit admins for upvoting a post titled "Reminder that the police steam more money each year than burglars. Totaly normal country", linking to a screenshot of an article about law enforcement seizing $181,000 from someone. In the comments, OP posted a screenshot[1] of the message they claim was sent to them, which states "abusive content is not acceptable on Reddit, nor is engaging with it".

This content doesn't seem abusive to me, it seems like a totally standard reddit post. There is _far_ more abusive content on the front page regularly. How would I have known not to upvote that?

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/comments/f9idzr/just...

[1]https://i.imgur.com/XCfErPv.png

Re: Reddit purges 1/2 of The Donald’s moderators – replaces them with approved mods

#115

Post by jedberg »

baybal2 wrote: post #54
maverick2007 wrote: post #7

I personally think that this article buried the lede as far as controversial Reddit actions go. Users now can be (and have been) banned for upvoting posts in quarantined subreddits (both on the right - T_D - and the left - Chapo Trap House - among others). I've seen controversy erupt all around Reddit about this and it doesn't feel right to me. If the content that people are upvoting is bad enough to get banned over…

FYI, Reddit's major investors include one big Internet company from Shenzhen Advance publications is also having huge exposure to China through Condenast's business in China

This is fearmongering. Tencent owns a small part of Reddit, has no board seat, and has no influence. They can’t “pull their money” so they would have no leverage to make threats.

And by the way do you know who is the majority owner of Tencent? Naspers, a South African media company.

Re: Reddit purges 1/2 of The Donald’s moderators – replaces them with approved mods

#116

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #72
Traster wrote: post #21

I find it kind of funny that people are getting so excited. Reddit has long had a policy of banning users who breach the site rules. /r/The_donald has long had a policy of breaching site rules including brigading, harassment, threats and sharing personal information. The users of that forum have literally been linked to public shootings. Given how often the breaches occur it seems quite reasonable to actually step in…

That's not true. It's plastered all over not to brigade. NP links are required to prevent it. Ironically T_D deals with brigading from other subs all the time. The mods at T_D have followed every rule to the tee. Other subs are not expected to control all of their users, but at least to enforce the site rules, T_D mods have done this. I haven't seen any evidence otherwise. Guilty until proven innocent if we want to u…

NP links aren't 100% effective in stopping brigading. You can simply remove the "np." from the URL.

Re: Reddit purges 1/2 of The Donald’s moderators – replaces them with approved mods

#117

Post by Someone1234 »

blackflame7000 wrote: post #112
Someone1234 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In response to this action the most upvoted thread was mocking WWII holocaust victims. The sub got quarantined for numerous rule breaking actions including racism, doxing (inc. Reddit and Imgur employees), sexism, harassment of other subs, and violent threats. The only way to believe that this has anything to do with supporting a political candidate is simply to ignore all the actual content and posters on that sub.

No, it was mocking the Admins branding people the deemed undesirable. That went way over your head.

It was a photo of WWII holocaust victims that was used in a meme to mock the admins. It was also the top most post on the sub for hours.

You cannot spin this into an acceptable thing.

Re: Reddit purges 1/2 of The Donald’s moderators – replaces them with approved mods

#118

Post by defertoreptar »

ehsankia wrote: post #25
maverick2007 wrote: post #7

I personally think that this article buried the lede as far as controversial Reddit actions go. Users now can be (and have been) banned for upvoting posts in quarantined subreddits (both on the right - T_D - and the left - Chapo Trap House - among others). I've seen controversy erupt all around Reddit about this and it doesn't feel right to me. If the content that people are upvoting is bad enough to get banned over…

Correct me if I'm wrong and I read it wrong, but I think you're mixing up things here. > Users that have more than 500 karma in quarantined subreddits outside of The Donald will not be allowed on the list of approved applicants [to be a moderator] This is only for being a moderator. Simply upvoting posts (that don't break any rules) in quarantined subreddits does not get you punished. > If the content that people are…

> This is only for being a moderator. Simply upvoting posts (that don't break any rules) in quarantined subreddits does not get you punished.

That was a requirement given for being a new mod at /r/the_donald. There is also a separate, new rule change revealed in the recent "Transparency Report" that says that users who consistently upvote rule-breaking content will be banned.

> The whole point of a quarantine is exactly to push people to report bad content, and acts as a warning. This new change makes sense as far as pushing people to report said content and not keep promoting it.

That may be the case. On the other hand, that may only be the pretense. Every four years we see the same thing happen on Reddit. We saw massive upvoting of anything related to Obama, which at that time it was just thought to be organic (and maybe it even was).

Then in 2016 we saw massive Bernie Sanders support to a swift and sudden change to Hillary Clinton support. That was followed by the "Correct the Record" movement and then later "Share Blue." These were all coordinated efforts to inorganically promote one political party and suppress another.

But that wasn't enough to keep r/the_donald posts from regularly popping up on r/all. That's when they quarantined it. Now they're taking it even further.

Before, political minority users may not post out of fear of being downvoted or targeted by those searching through their post history, but they felt safe upvoting content they agreed with. But now, there is this implication that they could face repercussions for simply upvoting the wrong thing.

Sure, we're told it's only for things like illegal content or racial slurs, and only in quarantined subs. However, we'd be stupid not to see the political bias on Reddit. There's ambiguity over what counts as the wrong thing to upvote. They don't tell you what content you upvoted that you're being punished for. The net result? The "wrong" type of political content will be naturally suppressed by users now being reluctant to upvote it.

Re: Reddit purges 1/2 of The Donald’s moderators – replaces them with approved mods

#120

Post by macinjosh »

Someone1234 wrote: post #89
botwriter wrote: post #46

The comments here comparing the_donald to fascism. its a subreddit for people who support the democratically elected President of the US. Its not extreme its just shit posting and funny memes.

In response to this action the most upvoted thread was mocking WWII holocaust victims. The sub got quarantined for numerous rule breaking actions including racism, doxing (inc. Reddit and Imgur employees), sexism, harassment of other subs, and violent threats. The only way to believe that this has anything to do with supporting a political candidate is simply to ignore all the actual content and posters on that sub.

> In response to this action the most upvoted thread was mocking WWII holocaust victims.

So what? Obviously, it is in poor taste and is a bad look but its just idiots on the internet trying to be edgy and generate outrage.

Knee-jerk reactions to shut them down are exactly what they want and feed off of. Trump himself does the same thing. He says and does things specifically to rile up journalists and the left to cause more chaos and entertain his followers. We should stop falling for it!

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