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

china-underground.com

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

#291

Post by ggm »

newsbinator wrote: post #12
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…

Can you imagine the reaction if a user's post on HN were edited by YC? I guess it'd be the instant death of the network. That this action a) happened on Reddit + b) was mostly/quickly forgotten says a lot about the different demographics. Audiences who largely come for cat pictures and political snark don't have to worry about CEOs breaking the 4th wall. I've been a Redditor for 9+ years and I still am one. But today…

Can you imagine the reaction if a user's post on HN were edited by YC? I guess it'd be the instant death of the network.

No. It's moderated and we love it that way. I might even have been shadowbanned and I still love it. Moderation rocks!

(Not being sarcastic btw. I really do like HN moderation)

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

#292

Post by dehrmann »

asdff wrote: post #278
analyst74 wrote: post #127

How would tencent owning a minor stake in reddit allow it to censor the site? Or is this outrage mostly because tencent is a Chinese firm? I mean, censorship only works if you have the government backing you, are people legitimately fear the US government is going to bow down to a Chinese company?

There was a very similar reaction years ago when Conde Nast bought reddit about how things would now be censored by the corporate overlord and the platform would be inundated by ads and sponsored posts pushed to the top just like what happened with Digg. It never happened and the outrage came to pass. As an aside: how does reddit look like a good investment for tencent? The size of the site alone? I bet 9/10 reddit u…

At least Condé Nast is a privately held magazine publisher. Separation of church and state is already part of their DNA.

> how does reddit look like a good investment for tencent? The size of the site alone?

Good question. It's either user count, betting than an IPO is soon, a bet that it can have Facebook-level appeal (and ad targeting), or dumb money that's tired of sitting on the sidelines. Not sure if I buy any of those stories.

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

#293

Post by dehrmann »

devoply wrote: post #99
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…

As Digg found out many years ago. There is nothing stopping Reddit users from leaving. The question is which straw breaks the camel's back... and also lack of viable alternatives, a la Reddit to Digg.

Not sure what reddit's user growth rate is these days, but remember that a large proportion of users weren't around for some of reddit's other crises.

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

#294

Post by dehrmann »

analyst74 wrote: post #127

How would tencent owning a minor stake in reddit allow it to censor the site? Or is this outrage mostly because tencent is a Chinese firm? I mean, censorship only works if you have the government backing you, are people legitimately fear the US government is going to bow down to a Chinese company?

If they get a seat on the board, they become a pretty loud voice in the company.

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

#295

Post by learc83 »

yourbandsucks wrote: post #283
learc83 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You think the CCP would be making investments into foreign social networks that they block? No, that's why they are allowing Tencent to do it for them. You think this deal doesn't have CCP approval? Tencent has an executive Party Committee who's explicit purpose is to make sure the company is advancing the Party's goals.

There are 100 million party members in China. It's a big part of getting ahead. Of course the deal was approved in the boring sense. Neither that nor party membership mean that this is strategically interesting to the government.

So the largest companies in China going around buying up pieces of social media and entertainment companies around the world isn't strategically interesting?

The Chinese government forced a US company to publicly apologise when their website merely listed Hong Kong on the same level as China in a dropdown.

The government attempts to control the global narrative about China in any way they can. Of course they were involved with this.

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

#296

Post by Gaelan »

IvyMike wrote: post #246
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.

> I feel like this is possible on every website ever made. Idea: Reddit, but the comments are a blockchain.

Don’t need that, just signed messages.

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

#297

Post by planktonite »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #66

Are there examples of companies that said “this is enough money” and stopped concentrating on having ever increasing profits every quarter to satisfy VC or stock investors? I think of this a lot lately. It seems companies don’t want to just do what they do well anymore and be satisfied with that. Can someone give me some inspiration? Companies that have such pride in their work that they aren’t constantly looking for…

Craig’s list

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

#298

Post by yourbandsucks »

learc83 wrote: post #295
yourbandsucks wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 100 million party members in China. It's a big part of getting ahead. Of course the deal was approved in the boring sense. Neither that nor party membership mean that this is strategically interesting to the government.

So the largest companies in China going around buying up pieces of social media and entertainment companies around the world isn't strategically interesting? The Chinese government forced a US company to publicly apologise when their website merely listed Hong Kong on the same level as China in a dropdown. The government attempts to control the global narrative about China in any way they can. Of course they were inv…

I'm trying to get something out of this comment beyond "any international business by Chinese companies is nefarious by definition", and I have to admit that I can't.

I guess if they know their role and stick to manufacturing it's ok?

As far as Hong Kong.. they've got a pretty fair reason to be oversensitive about westerners implying it's not part of China.

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

#299

Post by zeroDivisible »

IvyMike wrote: post #246
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.

> I feel like this is possible on every website ever made. Idea: Reddit, but the comments are a blockchain.

What if someone drops a comment with a link to child porn?

Don't get me wrong, as much as I support the idea of no censorship, there's always a need for a janitor to clean somebody's graffiti on the wall. In an online world, those janitors tend to abuse their power though.

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

#300

Post by rdtsc »

intopieces wrote: post #114
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…

>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 CEO changed a single post from "fuck " to "fuck " for an hour. While certainly this action was not received well, the drama it caused is way overblown and isn't evidence of being 'plagued with censorship.' If anything it's plagued with shills from governments and corporations.

> drama it caused is way overblown and isn't evidence of being 'plagued with censorship.'

Maybe "plagued" doesn't apply but that was an important event, at least because it showed that it wasn't just a theoretical possibility and but something that has happened already. So now imagine if there is a court case and content posted on Reddit is used as evidence, I can see an argument being made "it can't be relied one as it could have been edited just like that one time by the CEO himself"

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