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Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

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Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#161

Post by tptacek »

searealist wrote: post #160
tptacek wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was banned for trolling after being repeatedly warned to stop. I have no idea why you thought that was "pressure from above". But there are people who think any ban on HN is an insidious plot by YC, so it's not worth arguing.

yummyfajitas was 95 percentile for sincerity on this site. Calling him a troll is just easy.

His whole comment history and the warnings he received are right there for everybody to read. But, no, I'm sure you're right: it's all an elaborate plot, because BayesianWitch threatened to upend the YC hegemony.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#162

Post by monksy »

jedberg wrote: post #8

I think the author doesn't understand that reddit mods don't work for reddit. In their discussion with the mods they mention "site-wide rules" which makes me think they don't understand that the mods of each reddit make their own rules. On that sub, their rules don't allow people who mostly post links to their own site. It's up to you if agree with their rule, but those are the rules they have chosen. The common resp…

You have now been banned from r/pyongyang

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#163

Post by searealist »

tptacek wrote: post #161
searealist wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yummyfajitas was 95 percentile for sincerity on this site. Calling him a troll is just easy.

His whole comment history and the warnings he received are right there for everybody to read. But, no, I'm sure you're right: it's all an elaborate plot, because BayesianWitch threatened to upend the YC hegemony.

He had no warnings for ages, then every comment was a warning. Obvious pressure from above for having an unpopular ideology.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#164

Post by ecf »

jedberg wrote: post #16
operatingthetan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For people who are saying "thankfully HN is different!", it really isn't. Yes it is. HN's moderation is run by HN. The rules are applied consistently because there are are no third party mods or rules. People know what to expect and that builds community better. You don't have to wonder if some edgelord mod is going to get home from school and delete your post based on their mood.

I think you missed my entire point then. > HN's moderation is run by HN No, it's run by a few humans. > The rules are applied consistently Yes, because those humans are awesome and consistent. > because there are are no third party mods or rules. That's not why reddit is different. It's because a lot of the humans that run the subreddits are inconsistent. But some run their subreddits just like HN. If you think of HN…

> No, it's run by a few humans.

And those humans work for HN. Hence, content moderation is run by HN.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#165

Post by hemogloben »

fleddr wrote: post #129
jimmygrapes wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it's because they feel more comfortable expressing themselves in a pseudoanonymous forum. Perhaps they discovered that they were trans by virtue of being eternally online. I believe it is the latter to a great extent. I don't know if there are any studies of this (or if studying such things is even permitted), but in my own fairly small family/friends groups there are 6 people (out of around 30 or 40) who hav…

Just learned this week that an extended family member is trans. Not a single sign of gender dysphoria throughout her entire 21 years of life. 6 months of university and surgery is pending. The social contagion is so plain to see but I guess talking about it is a taboo.

Obviously your family, but… What’s more likely?

That a person of a marginalized group _hid_ aspects of themselves and lied about about themselves to prevent harassment.

Or a person goes to college for 6 months and decides to get major surgery because it is socially popular?

Just because YOU didn’t see the signs doesn’t mean they didn’t and flippantly using your interpretation of their story as proof of a “social contagion” is unfair to them.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#166

Post by brhsagain »

tptacek wrote: post #55
Sunspark wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be so sure that some of the mods don't work for Reddit. Some of them are powermods modding multiple large subs in the millions of subscribers, and they seem to be able to get their way instantly with anything they want. Pretty lucky of Reddit to have people who can mod multiple huge subs for years for "free". Not only that, but Reddit wants to do a public IPO to raise more money. So let's see how that's going t…

People are entitled to run their own private sites in ways that restrict you from sharing your opinions that are not the same as theirs. The view of the law that you're espousing is one where, simply by dint of letting people sign up to a service you run, you take on an obligation to carry their messages. That's an intense amount of authority to give the government over private enterprise, and a stultifying precedent…

Calling sites like Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, etc "private sites" is a bit of an intuition pump, even if the terminology is legally correct. You're basically evoking an image of Bob's Diner where a guy runs a restaurant and kicks out rowdy patrons. The story changes when these websites are massively popular, have majority market share in their space, have taken massive amounts of funding, etc. Any successful social network is also almost by definition a pseudo-monopology (I'm using this word loosely, not legally) simply due to the massive advantages you get from network effects. Reddit is pretty much the first place people go to start and join niche communities of likeminded people. You can say "go start your own website" but now you are competing with, well, Reddit. The basic counterargument to what you're saying is that possession of that kind of market-leader advantage should come with some level of responsibility.

> The view of the law that you're espousing is one where, simply by dint of letting people sign up to a service you run, you take on an obligation to carry their messages. That's an intense amount of authority to give the government over private enterprise, and a stultifying precedent for anyone who wants to stand up a site of their own.

Couldn't you use this formulation to say that anti-discrimination laws make it so that, simply by dint of providing a service, you take on an obligation to provide that service to everyone? That's an intense amount of authority to give the government over private enterprise, and a... you get it. We accept government intervention when we believe it benefits society. The argument being made here is that it would benefit society if these massive pipes of information that in practice everyone uses were similarly regulated in the types of discrimination they can engage in.

There's a calculus to be made about what level of control platforms having over their content would best serve the interests of society. It might be that despite all the things I listed above, the result of that calculus remains the same, but it is not immediately obvious that that is the case, as your "private sites can do what they want" formulation would have one believe.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#167

Post by yellowapple »

brhsagain wrote: post #166
tptacek wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are entitled to run their own private sites in ways that restrict you from sharing your opinions that are not the same as theirs. The view of the law that you're espousing is one where, simply by dint of letting people sign up to a service you run, you take on an obligation to carry their messages. That's an intense amount of authority to give the government over private enterprise, and a stultifying precedent…

Calling sites like Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, etc "private sites" is a bit of an intuition pump, even if the terminology is legally correct. You're basically evoking an image of Bob's Diner where a guy runs a restaurant and kicks out rowdy patrons. The story changes when these websites are massively popular, have majority market share in their space, have taken massive amounts of funding, etc. Any successful social n…

> The story changes when these websites are massively popular, have majority market share in their space, have taken massive amounts of funding, etc.

Not really. The only substantial change is that getting thrown out of such a large and all-encompassing diner is a lot less convenient. The fundamental reality is still there: no website (maybe unless it's owned by your government, and even then) no matter how large is obligated to carry your message, and it is increasingly affordable and trivial to start your own website if other websites exercise their inherent rights of refusal to carry your message.

> Couldn't you use this formulation to say that anti-discrimination laws make it so that, simply by dint of providing a service, you take on an obligation to provide that service to everyone?

The obligation is to not make membership in a protected class or lack thereof a condition of providing a service. Bob can't throw you out of his diner on the basis of you being some race he doesn't like; he can nonetheless throw you out if you're shouting advertisements at everyone else in the diner. Same deal for a website. There is no implication there of any obligation to serve everyone: only an explication of constraints on the reasons someone can refuse to serve someone.

Marketers are, in short, not a protected class.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#168

Post by DiscourseFan »

nostromo wrote: post #118
Toutouxc wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have similar questions about the apparent over-representation of LGBT people among high-profile software developers, but it feels like it's never okay to ask those questions.

Part of it is Alphabet Tourism. I'm gay and many of my legit LGBT friends have noticed a trend where lots of younger folks are claiming to be queer, bi, non-binary, asexual, pansexual, trans, etc., without a lot of evidence that they're anything other than a straight person looking to feel special.

I'm done with even calling myself gay or straight or anything, the moment you do you are surrounded by insufferable people.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#169

Post by brhsagain »

yellowapple wrote: post #167
brhsagain wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling sites like Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, etc "private sites" is a bit of an intuition pump, even if the terminology is legally correct. You're basically evoking an image of Bob's Diner where a guy runs a restaurant and kicks out rowdy patrons. The story changes when these websites are massively popular, have majority market share in their space, have taken massive amounts of funding, etc. Any successful social n…

> The story changes when these websites are massively popular, have majority market share in their space, have taken massive amounts of funding, etc. Not really. The only substantial change is that getting thrown out of such a large and all-encompassing diner is a lot less convenient. The fundamental reality is still there: no website ( maybe unless it's owned by your government, and even then) no matter how large is…

I know that that is the current state of the law. I’m not disputing that there is currently no legal framework to force Reddit to allow content.

I’m arguing the “ought” rather than the “is” here. I disagree with the philosophical stance that simply because Reddit is a private website, they are entitled to control the content as they want and that no level of qualitative difference between Reddit and the average website is enough to change this.

In general, we regulate private enterprise when it has negative externalities on society, and I think there is a discussion to be had about what those externalities are here. I don’t think “private companies can do whatever they want” is a sharp enough tool to engage this issue with.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#170

Post by yellowapple »

lmm wrote: post #155
tptacek wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That law is an OTC anti-fraud measure. The Constitution has something to say about the ability of Congress to nationalize and impose its own speech controls on private websites that happen to become popular. Congress also doesn't get a say in who performs the Super Bowl Halftime Show, despite its immense audience.

"Private" corporations exist on the people's, via Congress', sufferance. Any entity benefitting from limited liability is not fully private and does not deserve the same rights as private individuals.

> "Private" corporations exist on the people's, via Congress', sufferance.

All aspects of a capitalist socioeconomic system exist on the people's, via Congress', sufferance. The very land on which you stand is - at the end of the day - the territory of some government (unless you live in international waters, in space, or in Bir Tawil), and said government carves off subsets of that land for its people to use as they see fit.

Fortunately, we the people here in the US have already long decided that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Those rights are not conditional on whether an entity is an individual person or a limited-liability corporation or an anarcho-syndicalist commune or what have you.

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