Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#261

Post by strathmeyer » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 8:29 PM UTC

beaner wrote: post #179

IvyMike wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the admins can edit comments without any indication to the users... I feel like this is possible on every website ever made.

But in how many cases has a CEO of a multi-million-user site done it themselves, off the cuff? It means there's no oversight. Oversight isn't expected if you're using Joe Schmoe's 2 person game forum. It's expected at Reddit.

No one tell this guy about Fark. It's always unclear which propagandists are the ones blowing this out of proportion.

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#262

Post by amanaplanacanal » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 8:37 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #160

ajross wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, though, that's what you say you want, but it's not what you want. You want moderation, you want focused discussion, you want to be free of objectionable garbage, you want high signal to noise ratio, and the proof of that is that you're having this argument on a heavily moderated discussion forum as we speak . There's no lack of "true" free speech opportunity on the internet. Sites like stormfront and 4chan rem…

I don't want the government to hold platforms accountable for user generated content. I want private organizations to choose between being objective platforms like libraries or subjective organizations with a voice like The Washington Post. And I want norms, not laws, to enforce that distinction. I don't want jerks interrupting my conversations with spam, but that's a very different matter than censoring people's tho…

I certainly see some people saying they want unmoderated forums, but they seem to be a pretty small minority.

It sounds like you have a pretty good idea of what kind of moderation you are looking for. Have you found a forum that is aligned with that?

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#263

Post by YUMad » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 8:41 PM UTC

CM30 wrote: post #75

dpau wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the presence of a controversial subreddit like the_donald is good for business, increasing discussion, site traffic and thus revenue? Perhaps Reddit has a financial incentive to encourage (or at least not punish) subreddit drama.

Most probably. It's about the current US president after all, and it's the closest thing to an official forum/social network his fanbase/supporters have. If Reddit banned it, then they'd likely drive said users to a competitor (like Voat) and divert all that media attention from Reddit to said competitor in the process.

IMO, reddit banning t_d would create much more serious issues for them. The last thing they want is to get attention as a possible campaign financer. Even tho political choice is not a protected category and it's not illegal for reddit to ban t_d, since t_d clearly defines itself as rally sub for president, t_d mods follow rules and ban offending accounts quickly, and, most importantly, President Trump filed his campaign for 2020. with FEC almost immediately after becoming president.

Banning t_d could be construed as political speech, and a form of political donation. And reddit most definitely doesn't want legal inquiries of that kind, I bet they have a lot of dirty laundry there - did you guys forget how "cleanly" /r/politics switched overnight (literally) from bernie central to hillary propaganda?

They most definitely want to ban it, as demonstrated in leaked logs from private admin chat some time ago, but they do not dare.

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#264

Post by YUMad » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 8:44 PM UTC

jumbopapa wrote: post #9

Reddit has long been plagued with censorship. The CEO edited the post of a user because they criticized him or something. I can't believe how quickly that's been forgotten. The Reddit situation reminds me of the post about failing to build a billion dollar company a few days ago. Reddit is trying to make VCs happy and continue to grow the business, but a platform like Reddit is best as a less reliant on growth, but s…

They changed the rules by vall8ng it harassment, so if you do the same now (write "fuck /u/modname") you get muted and then banned on reoffending.

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#265

Post by YUMad » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 8:45 PM UTC

YUMad wrote: post #264

jumbopapa wrote: post #9

Reddit has long been plagued with censorship. The CEO edited the post of a user because they criticized him or something. I can't believe how quickly that's been forgotten. The Reddit situation reminds me of the post about failing to build a billion dollar company a few days ago. Reddit is trying to make VCs happy and continue to grow the business, but a platform like Reddit is best as a less reliant on growth, but s…

They changed the rules by vall8ng it harassment, so if you do the same now (write "fuck /u/modname") you get muted and then banned on reoffending.

*calling

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#266

Post by amanaplanacanal » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 8:45 PM UTC

stronglikedan wrote: post #182

thewhitetulip wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. My acc was suspended for saying "violent thing" All I said was quote VD Savarkar's statement on Cows. Now note that I've been threatened on reddit and much worse but I do not see them getting any bans or things like that. Stupidity.

I was constantly banned from subreddits only recently (past 2 years or so). When I would ask them to show me the rule I broke, the mods would just say something along the lines of, "you don't have to break a rule since bans are at mod discretion, yada, yada, yada." Basically, I was only offending their delicate sensibilities that they didn't care to share. I finally threw my hands up and haven't been back in months.…

Mods for individual subreddits can do whatever they want with their own subreddits. That is completely different issue from the reddit admins that run the whole site.

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#267

Post by supercanuck » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 8:50 PM UTC

bdcravens wrote: post #173

supercanuck wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish Reddit could be run as a non-profit. Its benefit to society is immense.

It only has that benefit because of investment, and that investment would have never come had it been a non-profit.

that's bullshit. It could be run similar to Wikipedia.

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#268

Post by stronglikedan » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 8:53 PM UTC

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #266

stronglikedan wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was constantly banned from subreddits only recently (past 2 years or so). When I would ask them to show me the rule I broke, the mods would just say something along the lines of, "you don't have to break a rule since bans are at mod discretion, yada, yada, yada." Basically, I was only offending their delicate sensibilities that they didn't care to share. I finally threw my hands up and haven't been back in months.…

Mods for individual subreddits can do whatever they want with their own subreddits. That is completely different issue from the reddit admins that run the whole site.

Correct, and most of the mods I've encountered are very user-hostile. I miss the times when the admins would smack them down for that kind of crap. Oh well, the times they are a changin'!

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#269

Post by marpstar » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 9:00 PM UTC

Novashi wrote: post #247

marpstar wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see your point, but it's bad for Reddit, too. Can their users (and consumers of their ads) trust that posts aren't being doctored?

It's bad for reddit, but it isn't some kind of injustice against speech. >Can their users (and consumers of their ads) trust that posts aren't being doctored? So far one post has been doctored that we know of out of millions (billions?) of posts on the site, so reasonably, yes you can.

But the next post you read could be the 2nd-in-a-billion(s). I could see this behavior from a "mod" who had such capability or a rogue employee with database access, but the CEO personally??

Where does it end? What threshold must be crossed until it can't be trusted? Who knows how many times it's been done. He got caught ONCE. Who knows how many OLD posts have since been slightly altered for FUTURE visitors who weren't there to see the original?

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#270

Post by HoppyHaus » Sat, Feb 09, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

Pharmakon wrote: post #152

jmknoll wrote: post #96

There have been a number of planned exoduses from Reddit over the years (the banning of FatPeopleHate, some kind of succession crisis with the CEO, and the banning of the AMA mod, to name some off the top of my head), but none of them has actually materialized into anything. My question is - What is preventing this? Is it just a matter of getting enough critical mass onto the new platform? Or is there some other logi…

There have been a number of planned exoduses from Reddit over the years (the banning of FatPeopleHate, some kind of succession crisis with the CEO, and the banning of the AMA mod, to name some off the top of my head), but none of them has actually materialized into anything. My question is - What is preventing this? Is it just a matter of getting enough critical mass onto the new platform? Or is there some other logi…

Voat wasn't made in retaliation, it was a college project for a guys C# class. It was a small community that did their own thing, but was pushed as an alternative when the FPH ban occurred. The sad part is that its features are amazing, and while the general look could be a bit better, there is some fantastic ideas put in there, and the current lead dev is dedicated to the site, even if he doesn't agree with the context.

A shame, really.