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Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

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Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#381

Post by [deleted] »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #379
dalbasal wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes that's the obvious (and cynical) assumption. It's definitely true as a real pseudo-economic force on the internet and media generally, but let's not just assume reddit are following that "interest" blindly. If you think reddit doesn't have those values, I guess we disagree. I don't see any way of coming to that conclusion apart from fundamentalism, it's either absolute or it's bullshit.

Let's see - Vanity Fair, Wired, GQ - there seems good reason to think that Conde Nast are willing to compromise and go with the click bait, a lot. https://www.wired.com/story/bad-actors-are-using-social-medi... .. is the first entry Reddit, is it in the list, nope. I think Conde Nast are prepared to stoop pretty low in the search for dollars before integrity.

[deleted]

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#382

Post by mulmen »

newen wrote: post #361
mulmen wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you are correct. If I pay for something that suggests I am the customer and not the product.

Haha if you pay for SA it only suggests that you are a sucker who paid 10 bucks to post on SA for a couple of days before getting banned. They are very ban happy there.

I have had an SA account for years and never been banned. I don't appreciate being called a sucker and I think the price is fair for what I get.

When I use Facebook I am the product, not the customer. This means the platform is optimized to put my eyeballs on advertisements or provide data about me to marketers. It is not optimized to provide high quality conversation.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#383

Post by s73v3r_ »

allthenews wrote: post #313
s73v3r_ wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I detest this smug mentality that this subject is concerning things that are mere differences of opinion, like we're discussing tax policy. That's not the case in the least.

You don't seem to understand that terms like "toxic" are as arbitrary and subject to abuse as the word "obscene". In fact, I'm not even sure as to what you're getting at. Are you seriously suggesting that what is toxic is somehow universal? It does not bother you that dozens of serious contemporary, controversial topics, with severe consequences for our society, are regularly censored on websites like reddit under th…

"It does not bother you that dozens of serious contemporary, controversial topics, with severe consequences for our society, are regularly censored on websites like reddit under the guise of so called toxicity?"

I think you're gonna have to provide an example for this. An example of something that is being labeled as toxic, but wouldn't appear to be.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#384

Post by s73v3r_ »

prepend wrote: post #230
s73v3r_ wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a post on /r/The_Donald not long ago calling for shooting all refuges in the US on sight. Do you feel that is just "mean speech"?

It depends on the discussion and I’d need to see the link. While obviously calls for violence are illegal (FBI steps in), there are many possibilities where the discussion could be useful (eg, convincing people to better understand refugees). Largely I’ve been desensitized to complaints about TD as typically it results in hyperbole (eg, election was a direct threat to people’s lives).

"It depends on the discussion"

You're gonna have to provide a context in which this wouldn't be a terrible and unacceptable thing to say, cause I can't think of one.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#385

Post by s73v3r_ »

douglaswlance wrote: post #308
s73v3r_ wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a post on /r/The_Donald not long ago calling for shooting all refuges in the US on sight. Do you feel that is just "mean speech"?

People would downvote them or argue it out. If that person were never able to share that opinion, they would never get feedback that it is an unacceptable opinion; and might therefore act on it.

Moderators of T_D prevent that. Unless you subscribe to the subreddit, you're unable to vote, and despite constantly rallying against "safe spaces", they instaban anyone who goes contrary to the group.

That, and I find it impossible to believe that someone who is able to post that online would know that it is an unacceptable position.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#386

Post by white-flame »

floren wrote: post #339

I can't wait for the word "toxic" to drop out of favor. It implies that the person is not just giving a bad opinion, but is in fact fundamentally flawed and dangerous. Arsenic isn't toxic because it had a bad day at work, arsenic is by its nature a deadly poison and you can't change it, only avoid it. The vast majority of people labeled "toxic", though, are just humans with a variety of opinions and beliefs, some you…

Exactly. Giving a massive benefit of the doubt that their complaints can be non-partisan, some alternative terms that might be more correct to their concerns might be:

  - Polarizing
  - Extremist/Fundamentalist/Zealotry
  - Trolling
However, these sorts of things are legitimately "toxic" to a welcoming discussion environment (ie a large social site's revenue stream), but it's being conflated as being "toxic" to society in general, which itself is an extremist perspective. :-P

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#387

Post by s73v3r_ »

zaroth wrote: post #277
pjc50 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of actual prosecutions or even visits from the police is tiny, and when you look at the actual cases they tend to be racist death or rape threats.

"Arrests for offensive Facebook and Twitter posts soar in London" [1] "Arrests for 'offensive' Twitter and Facebook messages up by a third" [2] "British Police Arrest At Least 3,395 People for ‘Offensive’ Online Comments in One Year" [3] "Police arresting nine people a day in fight against web trolls" [4] "More than 3,300 people were detained and questioned last year over so-called trolling on social media and other…

None of those articles mention the content of the posts.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#388

Post by wnevets »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #368
wnevets wrote: post #47

Reddit has zero problem leaving post that threaten the lives of an entire religious group on their frontpage. If they were serious certain subs would be nuked.

Could you give examples, I've been there a lot and have never seen this (though I've been told "people like you should be killed" a few times because of my religious associations, so don't doubt it, just curious about specifics).

https://www.reddit.com/r/AgainstHateSubreddits/

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#389

Post by s73v3r_ »

UrukParthian wrote: post #249
s73v3r_ wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Dangerously minimizing?" Yes. Pretending that the problem of toxicity is just people who can't handle differing opinions is to be willfully ignorant of the problem. As such, a reasonable conversation can not be had. "And you lack imagination and historical hindsight if you think the concept of "toxicity" can only be wielded by whatever you consider to be the forces of light. So to speak." Nowhere did I say that in t…

You're spoiled beyond belief if you view "toxic" comments online as a serious problem. If it is truly "a problem", then the larger problem is tying your emotions to what anonymous people say. You live vicariously through an image of how offended someone else might be. Instead of tending to the garden you can actually protect and uphold. Do you think the poor bastards in Skid Row feel better because some (literal) whi…

Sorry, but this idea of "Sticks and Stones" hasn't been true for a long, long time. You may be able to shug off terrible, racist, bigoted slurs hurled at you, but people who have that slung at them day after day after day might not be, and I'm not going to blame them for not wanting to take it anymore.

Re: Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet

#390

Post by icanhackit »

Trundle wrote: post #372
icanhackit wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reddit is a 1960s Playboy magazine fifty years in the future [...] Just like the old saying about Playboy, I only read it for r/ama not the nekkid ladies. That's a thought-provoking way of putting it, though I'd add the /r/gonewild subreddit and its variants makes it considerably more meta. A lot of people, particularly females, are posting explicit imagery of themselves - revealing a hidden culture exhibitionism a…

Have any data on it mostly being girls doing it for the thrill? It seems like every time I like a photo and look the posters profile, they've got something else going on where the free photo was just marketing. Tons of underwear selling.

> It seems like every time I like a photo and look the posters profile

No offence intended but could it be that well-proportioned, model-like subjects are more likely to have their profile viewed, so it's a case of sample bias?

While no, I don't have any hard data so my points are anecdotal, I tend to be disinterested in subjects that are more model-like as the point for me is to look at everyday people getting their kit off. And from what I can tell those everyday people make up the lions-share of self-posted content.

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