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‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

nymag.com

31–40 of 618 posts

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#31

What I can never reconcile with is that when mainstream media means 'toxic' they are never referring to the /r/latestagecapitalism plastered all over the front page of reddit. They protest the fact that somewhere, hidden from popular view a minority of people hold a different view from the extreme leftist one.

Reminds me of that quote about Puritanism being the fear that someone, somewhere is having fun.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#32

I've significantly reduced my time on Reddit. Used to pull up the website out of curiosity every day but the atmosphere is incredibly toxic. My front page was riddled with Russiagate stuff too for some reason and every time you'd bring up an argument that isn't the norm you get a mob after you.

It's hard to bring up without being attacked, even off of Reddit, but for long-time heavy users it's been obvious for a while that Reddit has purposefully undergone several changes to control the narrative at the behest of advertisers and the powers that be.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#33

I'm sure that's what most people could say about their time at, or on, Reddit.

Reddit is just a reflection of the world. There is both good and bad there. It is very easy to avoid the bad. Only visit the subreddits that you know are good. For instance, I'm a boardgamer and r/boardgames is a very friendly place. Other subreddits I frequent like r/woodworking, r/bodyweightfitness, r/campingandhiking are likewise places that positively contribute to the world.

The medium is the message.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#34

I've significantly reduced my time on Reddit. Used to pull up the website out of curiosity every day but the atmosphere is incredibly toxic. My front page was riddled with Russiagate stuff too for some reason and every time you'd bring up an argument that isn't the norm you get a mob after you.

I did the same and no longer login or use the front page.

I found that just going to a few subreddits on topics of personal interest that I can browse through for new ideas, user stories, etc. results in a much more positive experience.

Smaller communities for specific hobbies/videogames/etc (in most cases) seem to be less polarized on the platform.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#35
This is going to be an increasingly common realization, especially in Silicon Valley. Which got way too caught up in the idea that everything was making The World a Better Place.

But Zynga and Facebook are like fast food companies.

This realization started really kicking in with Free to Play mobile games a few years ago (also mostly here in the Bay Area). I worked in F2P early on, left and moved to a non-F2P company. One of the most common things we heard from interviewees is that they were looking to get out of the F2P side of the games industry.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#36
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Admins do nothing to prevent extreme moderation as occurs on there from deleting any comment with an alternative viewpoint. Yet it appears quite consistently on the front page with only agreement in its comments section.

right, because the rules of the subreddit indicate that. The subreddit has its own mods that follow its own rules. And the Admins of reddit do not get involved unless they're peventing a lawsuit. Which is kind of how the internet should be run. Free and safe from mass control, but communities controlling themselves.

I agree wholeheartedly, but I also think it should be called into question if something like that belongs on the front page. Admins have added specific rules banning right leaning subreddits from appearing, but not even the most extreme left leaning subreddits get that treatment. And if nothing else it makes for a toxic default view.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#37

I'm sure that's what most people could say about their time at, or on, Reddit.

Reddit is just a reflection of the world. There is both good and bad there. It is very easy to avoid the bad. Only visit the subreddits that you know are good. For instance, I'm a boardgamer and r/boardgames is a very friendly place. Other subreddits I frequent like r/woodworking, r/bodyweightfitness, r/campingandhiking are likewise places that positively contribute to the world.

No, it's a reflection of a white male internet world.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#38
post #15
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s wrong with r/latestagecapitalism?

Admins do nothing to prevent extreme moderation as occurs on there from deleting any comment with an alternative viewpoint. Yet it appears quite consistently on the front page with only agreement in its comments section.

Without specific circumstances extreme moderation is in the eye of the beholder.

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#39
post #17

I think there is a very important distinction that needs to be made. The popular reddit experience is vastly worse than the customized reddit. It took me a while to realize that my reddit experience was vastly improved once I was very picky about which subreddits I follow.

Is it the case that for the problems he's talking about, the popular experience is the only one that matters?

Re: ‘I Fundamentally Believe That My Time at Reddit Made the World a Worse Place’

#40
post #6

Reddit wouldn't be so toxic if the vote counts were hidden, but echo chamber validation is the ultimate badge of honor there. There is so much in this document that applies to all things Reddit (please note that I wrote it inspired by my time on Reddit) : https://github.com/prettydiff/wisdom/blob/master/Avoiding_Tr...

There are some subreddits where they are hidden for a period of time (not sure how long, but it's quite a while). I wonder if anyone has analyzed those?

A formal statistical experiment was done in /r/politics about the impact of hiding vote counts temporarily but it did not find statistical evidence that it made an impact on discourse: https://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://github.com/mitmediala...
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