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Reddit CEO Cracks Down on Abusive Content to Protect Users, Attract Advertisers

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241–250 of 407 posts

Re: Reddit CEO Cracks Down on Abusive Content to Protect Users, Attract Advertisers

#241
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politics wasn't always like that ... it's now a counter-balance to The_Donald. Hard to remain "neutral" when right next door there's not even an attempt.

Why would r/The_Donald be neutral? It's literally called "The_Donald". It's like expecting r/hillaryclinton to be neutral. r/politics is for all political discussion, but it's just a left-wing echo chamber where ideological conformity and cognitive dissonance are at their peak. This is coming from a 2x Obama voter and lifelong liberal btw.

> This is coming from a 2x Obama voter and lifelong liberal btw.

fwiw, it is extremely easy to label oneself thus and not be "left leaning" in any meaningful respect.

Re: Reddit CEO Cracks Down on Abusive Content to Protect Users, Attract Advertisers

#242
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open platforms for discussion are actually one of the best ways to prevent something like the Nazi party from coming into power. And if the Nazi party did come into power, you would not expect there to be impartiality in any major discussion forums in the nation. Example: A lot of folks are flabbergasted at /r/The_Donald, but I've always contended that that subreddit exists and developed into its current culture prec…

I'm not at all convinced that this actually works. It's a nice liberal idea and it would be great if it worked but the evidence doesn't look good. The US media thought they were doing everybody a favour by giving Trump loads of airtime to expose his awful views. It backfired massively. I think the biggest problem is that it only works when the other side is willing to play by the rules of the game. If the opposition…

> The US media thought they were doing everybody a favour by giving Trump loads of airtime to expose his awful views.

Isn't this just an example of the same phenomenon I was describing? Sure, they gave him airtime, but it was virtually never positive. There was a tremendous lack of impartiality in the media's coverage of the two candidates. This led to the idea of "fake news" and ended up boosting his supporters even more, giving them reason to band together.

I dare say the outcome of the election could have been different if the media had spent less time trying to demonize Trump and simply reported equally on the two candidates with minimal editorializing.

Re: Reddit CEO Cracks Down on Abusive Content to Protect Users, Attract Advertisers

#243
post #4

Yah, except they're hosting /r/The_Donald which has been confirmed to violate Reddit rules. Just like Twitter they cherry pick for $$$.

I've seen worse on other political subreddits which are given a free pass Is the Donald even allowed on /r/all anymore?

It's not blocked, some posts do make it there occasionally. Previously they were able to rocket things to the front page by taking advantage of the fact that Reddit places a huge weight on the first few upvotes, so getting a lot of votes quickly almost always meant making the front page. Reddit had since changed the algorithm so that technique isn't as effective anymore. I would wager they just don't have the actual numbers normally to make the front page without gaming the algorithm. They have lots of subs but there active user count was always very low for the number of subs they have.

Re: Reddit CEO Cracks Down on Abusive Content to Protect Users, Attract Advertisers

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The subs I've heard about banning were echo chambers dedicated to the idea that "this group of people I don't like ought to be [starved|exiled|thrown from helicopters|raped|enslaved]" and such things. If that makes you think the policy is "right leaning = bad, left leaning = good," that says some pretty nasty things about the modern right, doesn't it?

Ah, that's the crux: racism and misogyny are terrible enough that if you hate it, you must be correct. For me personally, the echo chamber on both sides is enough to keep me far away from both /r/politics and /r/The_Donald. For example, you cannot say anything positive about Trump on /r/politics. Nothing. There was a screenshot showing that there were 231 negative articles posted and zero positive articles. It's lite…

[deleted]

Re: Reddit CEO Cracks Down on Abusive Content to Protect Users, Attract Advertisers

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, that's the crux: racism and misogyny are terrible enough that if you hate it, you must be correct. For me personally, the echo chamber on both sides is enough to keep me far away from both /r/politics and /r/The_Donald. For example, you cannot say anything positive about Trump on /r/politics. Nothing. There was a screenshot showing that there were 231 negative articles posted and zero positive articles. It's lite…

> Are you sure it's true that Trump's entire political franchise has had zero good ideas? You're not wrong in that its important to hear both sides, but its also important to hear an appropriate amount from each side corresponding to the acceptableness of the ideas. Minority voices are important. When we find ourselves in the majority, we should be responsible for ensuring that those minority voices have a way to be…

And yet political parties around Europe are and have been popping up representing the same kind of voters. Who don't look to the future with optimism but with skepticism.

I always try to make sure I give a politician as much credit for their intent as possible not just those I agree with but everyone.

No one is just a bag of evil or only good. Yet when we discuss politics we always end up there as this thread is a good example of.

Whatever legacy Trump will end up leaving we don't know yet. It might lead to something amazing even if it wasn't on purpose (certainly happened to Reagan) or it might be that just the right kind of irrationality is actually quite rational in hindsight.

Political decisions often have decades of decay. It's impossible to say what Trumps (the few he has actually made) are going to mean.

It's never that simple.

Re: Reddit CEO Cracks Down on Abusive Content to Protect Users, Attract Advertisers

#246
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Ah, that's the crux: racism and misogyny are terrible enough that if you hate it, you must be correct. As is required to maintain what I would call a "democracy" with "individual rights". We have to be vehemently intolerant of intolerance and marginalization (in general), and this is more important than free speech. Free speech is an artefact of-, not a requirement for democracy. Tolerance is required, however. Some…

And who defines who is intolerant in this democracy of yours.

Consensus, or consensus of representatives.

Re: Reddit CEO Cracks Down on Abusive Content to Protect Users, Attract Advertisers

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The subs I've heard about banning were echo chambers dedicated to the idea that "this group of people I don't like ought to be [starved|exiled|thrown from helicopters|raped|enslaved]" and such things. If that makes you think the policy is "right leaning = bad, left leaning = good," that says some pretty nasty things about the modern right, doesn't it?

No, it means that Reddit has a left leaning bias.

Maybe to give a concrete example:

When /r/anarchism (left leaning sub about anarchism, antifa, communism, ...) mods refused to enforce reddit's rules relating to the incitement to violence, reddit only removed the mods in question instead of closing the sub.

When /r/physical_removal (right leaning sub about pinochet 'memes') mods refused to enforce reddit's rules relating to the incitement to violence, the sub was removed.

When /r/nazi (third position leaning sub about national socialism) - well, I don't actually know whether the mods there refused to enforce reddit's rules. It's been removed.

Re: Reddit CEO Cracks Down on Abusive Content to Protect Users, Attract Advertisers

#248
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Ah, that's the crux: racism and misogyny are terrible enough that if you hate it, you must be correct. As is required to maintain what I would call a "democracy" with "individual rights". We have to be vehemently intolerant of intolerance and marginalization (in general), and this is more important than free speech. Free speech is an artefact of-, not a requirement for democracy. Tolerance is required, however. Some…

>Free speech is an artefact of-, not a requirement for democracy. Tolerance is required, however. That seems like a pretty grand statement to make offhand and pretend like it's objective. Free speech is in the very first amendment. #1. Yet you feel so comfortable hand-waving it away. Freedom of Association implies just the opposite of your argument, that intolerence is specifically protected.

"Is the Second Amendment the Second Most Important?" - "The order of that list, however, still reflects Madison’s view: They come in the same order as the sections of the Constitution that they would have modified."

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...

Re: Reddit CEO Cracks Down on Abusive Content to Protect Users, Attract Advertisers

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The subs I've heard about banning were echo chambers dedicated to the idea that "this group of people I don't like ought to be [starved|exiled|thrown from helicopters|raped|enslaved]" and such things. If that makes you think the policy is "right leaning = bad, left leaning = good," that says some pretty nasty things about the modern right, doesn't it?

Ah, that's the crux: racism and misogyny are terrible enough that if you hate it, you must be correct. For me personally, the echo chamber on both sides is enough to keep me far away from both /r/politics and /r/The_Donald. For example, you cannot say anything positive about Trump on /r/politics. Nothing. There was a screenshot showing that there were 231 negative articles posted and zero positive articles. It's lite…

> Are you sure it's true that Trump's entire political franchise has had zero good ideas

Some of the stuff he said on the campaign sounded great - in fact enough to get him elected. It appears he has no intention of implementing it. Does that make it worth discussing? No.

As we say about startups, ideas are cheap and execution is everything.

Re: Reddit CEO Cracks Down on Abusive Content to Protect Users, Attract Advertisers

#250

I would love to see a statement from Reddit/Twitter... explicitly stating that they will remain politically neutral. There’s certainly content that should legally be taken down, there’s probably content that isn’t advertising friendly and could be taken down. It seems like these companies are being very slanted in their evaluation of the latter category. Basically right leaning = bad, left leaning = good. All I want…

This is happening all over. Twitter is banning/de-verifying mostly right-wing users, Shopify is stopping carrying stores for right wing people like Milo etc etc.

perhaps this is an opportunity to start their own services (seriously).
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