Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people • Hacker News Board

Re: Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people

#311

Post by rhaksw » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 6:01 AM UTC

deorder wrote: post #310

rhaksw wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may well have believed what they shared. In this case, other subs were not removing more content, despite the claims [1], and it was simple to verify. [1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7jqbx/reddit-cant-quarantin...

Thank you. Really appreciate your input. I did read that Vice article before and recently shared it here as well. From what I remember at the time /r/coronavirus and /r/china_flu removed any discussion about "leaks" (or were they?) from China. On the other hand, not all the "leaks" discussed in /r/Wuhan_Flu turned out to be what they seemed (videos of people "dropping dead" on the streets etc.).

> Thank you. Really appreciate your input. I did read that Vice article before and recently shared it here as well.

Sure thing.

> From what I remember at the time /r/coronavirus and /r/china_flu removed any discussion about "leaks" (or were they?) from China.

I'm no expert on the content. I only know that the amount of posts removed as shown on reveddit is going to look the same at first glance regardless of what subreddit you are looking at. As for which topics were removed, someone could do a research project on that.

> On the other hand, not all the "leaks" discussed in /r/Wuhan_Flu turned out to be what they seemed (videos of people "dropping dead" on the streets etc.).

I agree and think the top comment on that OOTL post you referenced gives a more balanced view of what was going on [1],

> For background, everyone agrees the outbreak in Wuhan in late 2019 is an easily spread, relatively lethal [edit: relatively lethal compared to influenza], brand new virus. Unfortunately, outside that, details are very sparse and major organizations WHO, CDC are non-committal about predictions.

> Since “official” details are very sparse, true details are emerging outside official channels along with a whole lot of conspiracy theorizing. The two are extremely mixed at this point. A quick review showed the sub in question contains all levels. For example, excellent NEJM articles showing that the virus can spread prior to symptoms interspersed with video footage of a bunch of black birds flying into China because they can apparently smell all the dead bodies.

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/f6jpm7/what_i...

Re: Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people

#312

Post by krsdcbl » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 8:41 AM UTC

asutekku wrote: post #37

elzbardico wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, because for some reason this is suddenly unacceptable but it is ok to have an Indian variant or a Brazilian variant.

There's a semantic difference with "X virus" and "Y variant". "X virus" denotes the virus was caused by country X and is behind it all, whereas "Y variant" denotes it was mutated in there but is not the root cause of it all.

I don't think there is so much, the distinction between "caused by" and "discovered there" escapes most people in casual use

Imho the reason this time it was different with terms like "China flu" is not that it's generally unacceptable to nickname an illness by it's region of first discovery, but that Trump was actively using this terminology to push an agenda

Re: Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people

#313

Post by deorder » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 11:58 AM UTC

rhaksw wrote: post #311

deorder wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. Really appreciate your input. I did read that Vice article before and recently shared it here as well. From what I remember at the time /r/coronavirus and /r/china_flu removed any discussion about "leaks" (or were they?) from China. On the other hand, not all the "leaks" discussed in /r/Wuhan_Flu turned out to be what they seemed (videos of people "dropping dead" on the streets etc.).

> Thank you. Really appreciate your input. I did read that Vice article before and recently shared it here as well. Sure thing. > From what I remember at the time /r/coronavirus and /r/china_flu removed any discussion about "leaks" (or were they?) from China. I'm no expert on the content. I only know that the amount of posts removed as shown on reveddit is going to look the same at first glance regardless of what sub…

Yeah, that sounds about right. The point is that this sub allowed for free discussion about the virus and what was happening in China / Wuhan at a time when not many people were talking about it or knew what was going on. This indeed included "leaked" videos from China of people in hasmat suits, suddenly falling to the ground, spraying streets and buildings etc. It was alarming (in the end I think those videos were created to misdirect).

Those videos were only a small part of the discussion going on there. Quarantining the sub acted for many only as confirmation that certain information was really being suppressed from higher up.

As I said here before. Because of this sub I bought N95 masks early on (some of which I later gave to doctors/nurses in my family), stocked up on food and warned others to stock up before the panic set in. Every once in a while I posted the latest numbers and estimations of the CFR/IFR. The last one I did which was on /r/coronavirus turned out to be accurate a year later. Sadly /r/Wuhan_Flu is now only a shell of its former self.

Later many things turned out to be true as well. All subs were guilty of spreading information which later turned out to not be the case. I really do not like censorship and want to hear from all sides. Luckily there is the website you created, reveddit.

Re: Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people

#314

Post by rhaksw » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 1:23 PM UTC

deorder wrote: post #313

rhaksw wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thank you. Really appreciate your input. I did read that Vice article before and recently shared it here as well. Sure thing. > From what I remember at the time /r/coronavirus and /r/china_flu removed any discussion about "leaks" (or were they?) from China. I'm no expert on the content. I only know that the amount of posts removed as shown on reveddit is going to look the same at first glance regardless of what sub…

Yeah, that sounds about right. The point is that this sub allowed for free discussion about the virus and what was happening in China / Wuhan at a time when not many people were talking about it or knew what was going on. This indeed included "leaked" videos from China of people in hasmat suits, suddenly falling to the ground, spraying streets and buildings etc. It was alarming (in the end I think those videos were c…

> Luckily there is the website you created, reveddit.

Thanks for saying so. It builds on top of similar work. I think there will always be a way to review what gets removed. And as we use more social media with opaque moderation it may become standard practice to check whether your posts are "live" or not.

Re: Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people

#315

Post by pzumk » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 2:33 PM UTC

slightwinder wrote: post #149

pzumk wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit launched an International Ambassador Program a few months ago[1] and they are paying German power users 20 EUR per hour to create German niche subreddits + 250 EUR bonus for each launched subreddit[2] [1] https://reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360060476592-Intern... [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/n8g2om/redd...

Fascinating. Not sure whether this is good or bad. German subreddits are usually either trashy or dead. The german community already did something similar some years ago, and created a dozen localized subs of english topsubs and some localized cultural subs. Most of those did not grew very well IMHO. I think a major problem for this was the limitations of german community. It's seems most are very young with very spe…

There are a more than a handful good and active German subreddits. Especially finance-related one like r/finanzen (113,151 readers) and r/mauerstrassenwetten (109,592), or subreddits like r/de (480,614), r/600eur (33,871), and r/germanrap (22,459 readers).

But I agree with you and personally spend most of my time on reddit on international subs. But it doesn't make sense for a German to spend much time on r/personalfinance for example because it's too US-centric. That's where r/finanzen (and r/mauerstrassenwetten (like r/wallstreetbets)) is the better place.

Re: Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people

#316

Post by DoItToMe81 » Sat, Aug 28, 2021, 3:17 PM UTC

observantpigeon wrote: post #269

I recently joined r/afghanistan to get better real time updates on the situation there. I'm not the only one; the forum has basically doubled in size in the past week. Turns out the mods are conservative-leaning think tanks like the Westminster Institute and Hoover Institute. They self-promote their own content by pinning it to the top of the page, and censor criticism of their orgs. I don't see why Reddit tolerates…

Reddit hasn't been a neutral forum for at least a decade. It's explicitly a commercial astroturfing zone.

Re: Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people

#317

Post by jobigoud » Sun, Aug 29, 2021, 9:33 AM UTC

johnnywasagood wrote: post #161

hajile wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit seems more like an antisocial network.

I would say it more like site that has some sort of glare of anonymity. That sort of anonymity ables person to be a bit of antisocial (e.g. not everyone would be happy to connect their real life identity to reddit account) but still it is social network.

But there is no network of users on reddit, HN or other similar forums.

Re: Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people

#318

Post by grae_QED » Sun, Aug 29, 2021, 9:37 PM UTC

zibzab wrote: post #116

What I really want is a big list of subs with actual useful stuff. No memes, no hate or soft-hate [1] but useful things like electronics or how to play the piano. [1] have you noticed that many of top subs are about either watching others humiliation or judging people? idiotsincar, iamatotalpieceofshit, maliciouscompliance, etc. Do I actually become a better person by following these?

Go to the reddit sidebar/wiki's. For example, if you want to learn another language, r/languagelearning has a very helpful wiki that is pretty comprehensive[1].

[1]https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/wiki/guide

Re: Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people

#319

Post by ddtaylor » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 10:11 AM UTC

swiley wrote: post #300

ddtaylor wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The domain is read.cash

Looking at the site it’s not surprising that they’ve banned it but yeah you’re right. It’s completely hidden.

Meh, I mean I think there is lots of trash content on Medium and such and we don't ban those.