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But a decade after Reddit launched, it has blossomed into a platform for racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic and other hateful conversations. My eyes just about

But a decade after Reddit launched, it has blossomed into a platform for racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic and other hateful conversations. My eyes just about rolled out of my head. "Blossomed?" By volume, those "conversations" make up a minority of a minority of a minority of what happens on Reddit.

linkydinkandyou 11y ago
The forgot "fat hate." Weren't the anti-Obesity folks the straw that broke the camel's back?
- joefarish 11y ago
  It wasn't the fat hate as such, it was more that the users from that particular sub-reddit took it upon themselves to harass and mock other reddit users outside of that sub-reddit.
  - LesZedCB 11y ago
    That's correct. And as the reddit execs et. al. have stated, it's not that such communities, whether based around fundamentally hateful memes or not, can exist on reddit. In fact, many morally/ethically reprehensible communities have been explicitly allowed to continue existing. However, when they start moving outside of their communities and harass other communities through vote brigading or doxxing or PMing hateful messages, then it breaches a line (or smudged line) that allows reddit admins to take action.
    - Karunamon 11y ago
      I'd believe that if the behavior of the administrators were consistent with that explanation. Example, the ban you're talking about, communities which had the same idea, with different staff, that had existed before that one had, were also caught up in the ban. In other words, they were banned despite not breaking any stated rules. Another example: A racist subreddit, not getting banned because of harassment, not for breaking rules, but because they were a frequent target of admin attention. Another another example: Colluding with the governments of other non-US countries to censor content at those governments' request. It's their website, they can run it as they please, but I wish Ohanian and Huffman would stop playing lip service to "free speech" and "open discussion" (something that up until recently, they did loudly and often) if that's not the goal they intend to live by. Actions speak a lot louder than words.
      - linkydinkandyou 11y ago
        Exactly. People are saying that /r/fatpeoplehate "violated copyright" but every meme does that. (See https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/09/08/how-copyright-is-killing-your-favorite-memes/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/09...). And reddit never said they were getting legal takedown notices for material published there. Most of the posts I saw were responses to fat-acceptance bloggers and their postings on their blogs. Obviously these blogs were created to foster discussion and that was happening. When the discussion wasn't positive, they got upset. Obviously, it's a private website and they can do what they want with it. But it never was a place for "free speech." If you didn't go along with Reddit groupthink (which is an odd mix of socialism "college should be free" "Koch Brothers are Evil" and libertarianism "Go Uber!" "Open Access to the Internet") you would be quickly down voted away.
    - linkydinkandyou 11y ago
      I'm not so sure that /r/fatpeoplehate did anything worse than any other "funny pictures" subreddit. (For example, ones about "rednecks" or "ravers") I think just a lot of obese people got offended, and for some reason Ellen Pao felt for them.
      - amyjess 11y ago
        I've seen their page before the sub was banned. Half the posts fell into one of two categories: - Creepshots of people taken and published without the subject's permission in order to harass them. - Pictures taken from people's friends-only Facebook albums stolen and published on Reddit for harassment purposes in violation of the privacy settings chosen by the original uploader. Both are harassment, and the latter is a gratuitous copyright violation. The former probably also falls afoul of laws against using people's likenesses without permission. Oh, and once imgur began removing their images for TOS violations, they began acting like a pack of wild monkeys flinging their feces: they began targeting individual imgur staff members for harassment, and multiple people began inciting DDoS attacks against imgur. Reddit admins have been cracking down on witch hunts for quite some time, and DDoS attacks are highly illegal. They dug their own graves and deserved to be banned.
        monad2001 11y ago
        Just out of curiosity, are you personally for or against obesity? Does it make a difference how you feel about this topic?
        makomk 11y ago
        They also reposted images from other subreddits, causing hordes of FPH regulars to find the original post and spam the poster with PMs telling them how much FPH hated them and how awful they were. Some of the posts even pointed people at the right subreddit, with the knowledge and complicity of the FPH moderators. We know this because at least one person who was on the receiving end of this complained to the mods, and they responded by posting another post drawing more attention to the original one and posting her photo in the subreddit sidebar. She later posted on r/suicidewatch saying she was thinking of killing herself, and FPH regulars piled into that with some nasty comments too. It got to the point that some subreddits started discouraging people - especially women - from posting selfies solely because they kept getting posted on FPH.
LesZedCB 11y ago
I mean, if you read the comments on many of the default subs, there is a clear undertone of those cultures. I don't believe that's an editorial statement, but really a pretty accurate depiction of how many people (both inside and out) perceive the reddit community. It's sad.
- Karunamon 11y ago
  but really a pretty accurate depiction of how many people (both inside and out) perceive the reddit community. Shout something long enough and hard enough, and people will widely begin to believe it. Wired doing what they just did here is at least part of the reason that perception exists. Certain rabble-rousers within the community itself are another. It's an accusation. A smear. For it to be otherwise, there'd need to be proof, something sorely lacking from this meme.
  - kaitai 11y ago
    But it's pretty easy for the average user to find offensive content on Reddit -- things that would upset them if they or one of their children was involved. An existence proof for ugly stuff on Reddit is trivial, while it's much harder to give an average user a feel for what ratio of content they find offensive vs not.
    - sonnyz 11y ago
      I think a lot of the offensive comments that are easy to find on Reddit can also be found on other popular sites, such as Youtube, Facebook, or comment sections on news sites.
    - tomjen3 11y ago
      So? That is an excellent argument for not including those subreddits in the default home page (for users who are not logged in) or /r/all. But you can find offensive things, or things you don't want your children to see, on just about any site (also, yes, your teens know about redtube).
    - johnward 11y ago
mahouse 11y ago
Breaking news! People of the world are prejudiced against some grups due to their past experiences in real life.
oldmanjay 11y ago
One current dominant media narrative is that any sort of intolerant thought is intolerable, and that the emotional state of a listener is the responsibility of the speaker. There are clear problems with this point of view vis a vi reality, which is why it is a narrative, not actual reporting. This divorcing from reality allows journalists to comfortably include the narrative everywhere that it can possibly fit with no regard for the actual applicability to anything. I suspect that overall it's about as likely to be successful as religious attempts to sell the narrative that teen sex is wrong. Shame and guilt don't really ever teach the lesson that is intended, but those are the only tools the media truly has.
- eli 11y ago
  I don't buy the "Media vs Reddit" narrative. I don't think this has anything to do with journalism or even intolerance. I just don't like hanging out with racists and sexists (in real life or online). If Reddit wants to keep me as a contributor to their site, they need to do something about that or I will not return. I doubt I'm alone in feeling that way.
  - johnward 11y ago
    Most of the sub reddits I hangout in don't have those tones or maybe I'm used to ignoring those types of comments online. I think any community starts to have those problems as they grow. HN isn't immune but it's still a small enough niche that we tend to still get higher quality comments than your average site. If you're in r/funny you're going to get comments from the lowest of the low just like youtube. I don't see it as a reddit issue it's more of a human nature problem. When you get enough of people in one area you're going to find the assholes.
    - mreiland 11y ago
      I don't see those issues either, OTOH I have a tendency to stick with specific subreddits of interest to me. I've never viewed reddit as a community, but as a community of communities, and I've always chosen to be a part of specific communities, ignore others, and stay the hell away from yet others. I don't go anywhere near /r/politics or /r/programming, for example. I just can't deal with the people in either. But I love me some /r/cpp and /r/startrek.
Spivak 11y ago
If they're going to attack Reddit, they should at least point out that the same is true for any platform with user generated content. For example, the comments section of every news site, Facebook, Twitter, IRC, etc.. I think the world, and especially the corporate world is struggling with the idea that people hold disgusting, ignorant, or hateful opinions and that we're not nearly as nice as we believe ourselves to be. But of course I don't hold any opinions like that -- obviously I'm better than those people. There isn't a minority group of hateful people who have are expressing their hateful opinions on social media -- it's that each person's hateful opinions are a minority of their total opinions which are expressed in proportional frequency.
- 7952 11y ago
  For a lot of people the whole point of Reddit is the comment threads. The voting turn it into a game, and oppositional views are an intrinsic part of that. People learn which arguments are most insidious or effective. I don't think Facebook is like this as unsound arguments are more likely to be tolerated. Reddit may have hotrrible offensive comments but they will often be razor sharp and highly effective at winning arguments. That makes it endlessly interesting. Of course HN has this to a lesser degree. I live in fear of being accused of "anecodotal". Looking at this comment that is ironic.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
6stringmerc 11y ago
Care to back up that critique with some stats? And, if you've got stats, would you mind sharing what percentage of Reddit activity/traffic is porn?
kaonashi 11y ago
Those minorities can and do spill out into other subreddits, degrading their quality.
psaintla 11y ago
You're absolutely right but that doesn't mean those small subreddits didn't have an impact, /r/fatpeoplehate and /r/imgoingtohellforthis were increasingly showing up on the frontpage.
- jtuente 11y ago
  Neither of those were small when they started to show up on the frontpage. /r/fatpeoplehate was definitely growing very quickly in the six months leading up to it's demise.
vernie 11y ago
I must just be really good at finding them then.
gcb0 11y ago
i just went to the front page. clear cookies and un-logged. 4/25 posts were "/r/blackpeopletweeter" how inclusive.
opsforgotmypass 11y ago
> By volume, those "conversations" make up a minority of a minority of a minority of what happens on Reddit. Right, because the rest of them are just non-sequitur memers fishing for upvotes. Such meltdown. Very epic. --- Unfortunately it doesn't matter if it's a minority of all the content on Reddit if it's what's on the frontpage 24/7 since that's what everyone is going to be looking at. Yay feedback loop!
wil421 11y ago
Has the wired blogger ever been to 4Chan or read youtube comments? The same could be said about both of those sites. Main subs have their share of filth but it's not only those things. There are some very racist and morally challenged subs but I wouldn't conclude all of reddit is like that.
- eli 11y ago
  I think Reddit has a problem and pointing out that there are other sites that have an even bigger problem doesn't help.
RexRollman 11y ago
Everyone wants freedom of speech until it become uncomfortable.
- rodgerd 11y ago
  Everyone wants freedom of speech until someone calls them a racist, then they're triggered.
draw_down 11y ago
Another way to phrase it: "Reddit is part of the internet."
intopieces 11y ago
>By volume, those "conversations" make up a minority of a minority of a minority of what happens on Reddit. This hardly matters when that content makes the front page of the site and is given positive votes continually. Every time someone complains about the offensive content in a "default" subreddit, the refrain goes like this: "That's just because it's a default man. You gotta unsub from the defaults and pick your own." Let's consider that for a minute. The standard view of your website, the view that is presented to any new member, is so clogged with terrible content that the active members recommend you change it immediately. When we buy phones and computers like this, we call it bloatware; we nuke the entire filesystem and start over. But when it's actual people generating content that most agree is worthless and often offensive: "well that's just a minority of a minority." Nonsense.
- personjerry 11y ago
  You seem to have asserted that this type of content regularly makes it to the front page, but in my experience that's not true at all.
  - d2xdy2 11y ago
    In my 5+ years, I tend to agree with you; there are occasionally little spats that I see, but by and large-- I'd never have known about all of this "bad" stuff if it weren't for other people telling me about it.
    - intopieces 11y ago
      >I'd never have known about all the "bad" stuff if it weren't for other people telling me about it. This is precisely the issue with "bad" stuff. It draws better attention to itself than the good stuff does. All the more reason for Reddit to get control of it if they want to inspire user growth and maintain ad revenue.
      - d2xdy2 11y ago
        Well, like I said, I'd have never known about it if other people hadn't told me. I can't speak to what Reddit "should" do; in _my_ niche area, Reddit works just fine the way it is. If they were to start "doing something about it", it'd likely not affect me in the least.
tsotha 11y ago
This. If you stay out of subreddits specifically devoted to that kind of stuff (plus a handful of others), you're not going to see it. I'm amazed at the extent to which people are willing to attack posts they have to go out of their way to see. Reddit is going to lose far more people trying to police out non-PC stuff than they will ever gain from it. And when people move on they do so quickly and in large numbers.
makeitsuckless 11y ago
You have to put this in the context of it being almost two decades since Wired was relevant.
code_sterling 11y ago
Funny, I see it in every other comment thread.
jordigh 11y ago
Well, it's a very visible minority on the front page.
InclinedPlane 11y ago
The core problem with reddit is there's no firewall between communities. So the fact that there are communities specifically set up with the goal of hating blacks or fat people or women or what-have-you means that those people spend a lot of time on reddit and end up spilling over into other popular communities. The moderation tools and admin support on reddit are comparatively underpowered so for a lot of popular sub-reddits it's very easy for the overall quality to plummet when a tiny group of vocal assholes decides they want to squat there. And for most sub-reddits this just starts a spiral of death as good people decide not to waste their time wading through toxic garbage and just find somewhere else to be, while the toxic minority gets stronger and more brazen. Imagine you have several subscriptions to a bunch of different print magazines. Every couple days a new magazine shows up. Stuff like Scientific American, The Economist, Better Homes and Gardens, National Geographic, TV Guide, Rolling Stone, Cat Fancy, etc. All fine and good. Except sometimes, maybe once every quarter per magazine, maybe less often even, there's some really weird stuff in your magazines. There's a 10 page article praising the KKK in your copy of Rolling Stone. Or there's a thing about how the jews did 9/11. Or the ads in Cat Fancy are all relentlessly making fun of fat people. Or there's an insert in the October edition of Scientific American that's actually a personal letter to you that is filled with hate and vitriol and ends with a plea for you to commit suicide. Who would put up with that? They wouldn't. But that's what people have been asked to deal with on sites like reddit, and it's beyond a reasonable level. How much shit is acceptable in your drinking water? Just a tiny bit? How about just 1 hour a year where the tap pours out 50/50 shit & water? Is that acceptable? No, it's not. There's far too much shit in the drinking water at reddit, the fact that the drinking water is not, in fact, mostly shit is not a defense.
- qu4z-2 11y ago
  Reddit is not a magazine, though. (Although Upvoted is!) EDIT: That said, I think better moderation tools and stronger firewalls between subs would be a huge improvement. The existence of /r/fph absolutely shouldn't spill over into /r/worldnews or wherever.
  - InclinedPlane 11y ago
    It's not, but it's a comparison that helps clarify. I've been participating in online communities since 1994, I've seen the full range. I've watched, and participated in, epic flame wars on Usenet that went on for weeks. I've had people make death threats against me. I've seen legitimately mentally ill people spew all kinds of nonsense. And in comparison to all of that I'd say reddit is worse. I like many things about reddit, it's got plenty of good parts. But there are fundamental weaknesses in the design and administration of the site which mean that it's difficult to avoid incredibly terrible interactions with assholes on a regular basis.
JeremyBanks 11y ago
Have you been to Reddit in recent years? A majority of the site may not exhibit this individually, but most highly-visible threads that touch race will be dominated by racists, and most highly-visible threads that touch gender will be dominated by sexists. It's very gross.
TrevorJ 11y ago
Agreed. There were and are some terrible subreddits, but they aren't the default subs, you had to go looking for them. In that sense it's really no better or worse than the rest of the internet. I also think the article is pretty misguided in saying that somehow wealthy white men are treated better on the site. First of all, unless you tell people who you are, nobody knows. Secondly, the idea that revealing your wealthy white dude status would lead to better treatment on Reddit it laughable to anybody who's used the site for more than a few minutes.
loco5niner 11y ago
And the same could be said about google... "It will send you directly to the most racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic and other hateful websites!"

linkydinkandyou 11y ago

The forgot "fat hate." Weren't the anti-Obesity folks the straw that broke the camel's back?

joefarish 11y ago
It wasn't the fat hate as such, it was more that the users from that particular sub-reddit took it upon themselves to harass and mock other reddit users outside of that sub-reddit.
- LesZedCB 11y ago
  That's correct. And as the reddit execs et. al. have stated, it's not that such communities, whether based around fundamentally hateful memes or not, can exist on reddit. In fact, many morally/ethically reprehensible communities have been explicitly allowed to continue existing. However, when they start moving outside of their communities and harass other communities through vote brigading or doxxing or PMing hateful messages, then it breaches a line (or smudged line) that allows reddit admins to take action.
  - Karunamon 11y ago
    I'd believe that if the behavior of the administrators were consistent with that explanation. Example, the ban you're talking about, communities which had the same idea, with different staff, that had existed before that one had, were also caught up in the ban. In other words, they were banned despite not breaking any stated rules. Another example: A racist subreddit, not getting banned because of harassment, not for breaking rules, but because they were a frequent target of admin attention. Another another example: Colluding with the governments of other non-US countries to censor content at those governments' request. It's their website, they can run it as they please, but I wish Ohanian and Huffman would stop playing lip service to "free speech" and "open discussion" (something that up until recently, they did loudly and often) if that's not the goal they intend to live by. Actions speak a lot louder than words.
    - linkydinkandyou 11y ago
      Exactly. People are saying that /r/fatpeoplehate "violated copyright" but every meme does that. (See https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/09/08/how-copyright-is-killing-your-favorite-memes/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/09...). And reddit never said they were getting legal takedown notices for material published there. Most of the posts I saw were responses to fat-acceptance bloggers and their postings on their blogs. Obviously these blogs were created to foster discussion and that was happening. When the discussion wasn't positive, they got upset. Obviously, it's a private website and they can do what they want with it. But it never was a place for "free speech." If you didn't go along with Reddit groupthink (which is an odd mix of socialism "college should be free" "Koch Brothers are Evil" and libertarianism "Go Uber!" "Open Access to the Internet") you would be quickly down voted away.
  - linkydinkandyou 11y ago
    I'm not so sure that /r/fatpeoplehate did anything worse than any other "funny pictures" subreddit. (For example, ones about "rednecks" or "ravers") I think just a lot of obese people got offended, and for some reason Ellen Pao felt for them.
    - amyjess 11y ago
      I've seen their page before the sub was banned. Half the posts fell into one of two categories: - Creepshots of people taken and published without the subject's permission in order to harass them. - Pictures taken from people's friends-only Facebook albums stolen and published on Reddit for harassment purposes in violation of the privacy settings chosen by the original uploader. Both are harassment, and the latter is a gratuitous copyright violation. The former probably also falls afoul of laws against using people's likenesses without permission. Oh, and once imgur began removing their images for TOS violations, they began acting like a pack of wild monkeys flinging their feces: they began targeting individual imgur staff members for harassment, and multiple people began inciting DDoS attacks against imgur. Reddit admins have been cracking down on witch hunts for quite some time, and DDoS attacks are highly illegal. They dug their own graves and deserved to be banned.
      - monad2001 11y ago
        Just out of curiosity, are you personally for or against obesity? Does it make a difference how you feel about this topic?
      - makomk 11y ago
        They also reposted images from other subreddits, causing hordes of FPH regulars to find the original post and spam the poster with PMs telling them how much FPH hated them and how awful they were. Some of the posts even pointed people at the right subreddit, with the knowledge and complicity of the FPH moderators. We know this because at least one person who was on the receiving end of this complained to the mods, and they responded by posting another post drawing more attention to the original one and posting her photo in the subreddit sidebar. She later posted on r/suicidewatch saying she was thinking of killing herself, and FPH regulars piled into that with some nasty comments too. It got to the point that some subreddits started discouraging people - especially women - from posting selfies solely because they kept getting posted on FPH.

LesZedCB 11y ago

I mean, if you read the comments on many of the default subs, there is a clear undertone of those cultures. I don't believe that's an editorial statement, but really a pretty accurate depiction of how many people (both inside and out) perceive the reddit community. It's sad.

Karunamon 11y ago
but really a pretty accurate depiction of how many people (both inside and out) perceive the reddit community. Shout something long enough and hard enough, and people will widely begin to believe it. Wired doing what they just did here is at least part of the reason that perception exists. Certain rabble-rousers within the community itself are another. It's an accusation. A smear. For it to be otherwise, there'd need to be proof, something sorely lacking from this meme.
- kaitai 11y ago
  But it's pretty easy for the average user to find offensive content on Reddit -- things that would upset them if they or one of their children was involved. An existence proof for ugly stuff on Reddit is trivial, while it's much harder to give an average user a feel for what ratio of content they find offensive vs not.
  - sonnyz 11y ago
    I think a lot of the offensive comments that are easy to find on Reddit can also be found on other popular sites, such as Youtube, Facebook, or comment sections on news sites.
  - tomjen3 11y ago
    So? That is an excellent argument for not including those subreddits in the default home page (for users who are not logged in) or /r/all. But you can find offensive things, or things you don't want your children to see, on just about any site (also, yes, your teens know about redtube).
  - johnward 11y ago

mahouse 11y ago

Breaking news! People of the world are prejudiced against some grups due to their past experiences in real life.

oldmanjay 11y ago

One current dominant media narrative is that any sort of intolerant thought is intolerable, and that the emotional state of a listener is the responsibility of the speaker. There are clear problems with this point of view vis a vi reality, which is why it is a narrative, not actual reporting. This divorcing from reality allows journalists to comfortably include the narrative everywhere that it can possibly fit with no regard for the actual applicability to anything. I suspect that overall it's about as likely to be successful as religious attempts to sell the narrative that teen sex is wrong. Shame and guilt don't really ever teach the lesson that is intended, but those are the only tools the media truly has.

eli 11y ago
I don't buy the "Media vs Reddit" narrative. I don't think this has anything to do with journalism or even intolerance. I just don't like hanging out with racists and sexists (in real life or online). If Reddit wants to keep me as a contributor to their site, they need to do something about that or I will not return. I doubt I'm alone in feeling that way.
- johnward 11y ago
  Most of the sub reddits I hangout in don't have those tones or maybe I'm used to ignoring those types of comments online. I think any community starts to have those problems as they grow. HN isn't immune but it's still a small enough niche that we tend to still get higher quality comments than your average site. If you're in r/funny you're going to get comments from the lowest of the low just like youtube. I don't see it as a reddit issue it's more of a human nature problem. When you get enough of people in one area you're going to find the assholes.
  - mreiland 11y ago
    I don't see those issues either, OTOH I have a tendency to stick with specific subreddits of interest to me. I've never viewed reddit as a community, but as a community of communities, and I've always chosen to be a part of specific communities, ignore others, and stay the hell away from yet others. I don't go anywhere near /r/politics or /r/programming, for example. I just can't deal with the people in either. But I love me some /r/cpp and /r/startrek.

Spivak 11y ago

If they're going to attack Reddit, they should at least point out that the same is true for any platform with user generated content. For example, the comments section of every news site, Facebook, Twitter, IRC, etc.. I think the world, and especially the corporate world is struggling with the idea that people hold disgusting, ignorant, or hateful opinions and that we're not nearly as nice as we believe ourselves to be. But of course I don't hold any opinions like that -- obviously I'm better than those people. There isn't a minority group of hateful people who have are expressing their hateful opinions on social media -- it's that each person's hateful opinions are a minority of their total opinions which are expressed in proportional frequency.

7952 11y ago
For a lot of people the whole point of Reddit is the comment threads. The voting turn it into a game, and oppositional views are an intrinsic part of that. People learn which arguments are most insidious or effective. I don't think Facebook is like this as unsound arguments are more likely to be tolerated. Reddit may have hotrrible offensive comments but they will often be razor sharp and highly effective at winning arguments. That makes it endlessly interesting. Of course HN has this to a lesser degree. I live in fear of being accused of "anecodotal". Looking at this comment that is ironic.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

6stringmerc 11y ago

Care to back up that critique with some stats? And, if you've got stats, would you mind sharing what percentage of Reddit activity/traffic is porn?

kaonashi 11y ago

Those minorities can and do spill out into other subreddits, degrading their quality.

psaintla 11y ago

You're absolutely right but that doesn't mean those small subreddits didn't have an impact, /r/fatpeoplehate and /r/imgoingtohellforthis were increasingly showing up on the frontpage.

jtuente 11y ago
Neither of those were small when they started to show up on the frontpage. /r/fatpeoplehate was definitely growing very quickly in the six months leading up to it's demise.

vernie 11y ago

I must just be really good at finding them then.

gcb0 11y ago

i just went to the front page. clear cookies and un-logged. 4/25 posts were "/r/blackpeopletweeter" how inclusive.

opsforgotmypass 11y ago

> By volume, those "conversations" make up a minority of a minority of a minority of what happens on Reddit. Right, because the rest of them are just non-sequitur memers fishing for upvotes. Such meltdown. Very epic. --- Unfortunately it doesn't matter if it's a minority of all the content on Reddit if it's what's on the frontpage 24/7 since that's what everyone is going to be looking at. Yay feedback loop!

wil421 11y ago

Has the wired blogger ever been to 4Chan or read youtube comments? The same could be said about both of those sites. Main subs have their share of filth but it's not only those things. There are some very racist and morally challenged subs but I wouldn't conclude all of reddit is like that.

eli 11y ago
I think Reddit has a problem and pointing out that there are other sites that have an even bigger problem doesn't help.

RexRollman 11y ago

Everyone wants freedom of speech until it become uncomfortable.

rodgerd 11y ago
Everyone wants freedom of speech until someone calls them a racist, then they're triggered.

draw_down 11y ago

Another way to phrase it: "Reddit is part of the internet."

intopieces 11y ago

>By volume, those "conversations" make up a minority of a minority of a minority of what happens on Reddit. This hardly matters when that content makes the front page of the site and is given positive votes continually. Every time someone complains about the offensive content in a "default" subreddit, the refrain goes like this: "That's just because it's a default man. You gotta unsub from the defaults and pick your own." Let's consider that for a minute. The standard view of your website, the view that is presented to any new member, is so clogged with terrible content that the active members recommend you change it immediately. When we buy phones and computers like this, we call it bloatware; we nuke the entire filesystem and start over. But when it's actual people generating content that most agree is worthless and often offensive: "well that's just a minority of a minority." Nonsense.

personjerry 11y ago
You seem to have asserted that this type of content regularly makes it to the front page, but in my experience that's not true at all.
- d2xdy2 11y ago
  In my 5+ years, I tend to agree with you; there are occasionally little spats that I see, but by and large-- I'd never have known about all of this "bad" stuff if it weren't for other people telling me about it.
  - intopieces 11y ago
    >I'd never have known about all the "bad" stuff if it weren't for other people telling me about it. This is precisely the issue with "bad" stuff. It draws better attention to itself than the good stuff does. All the more reason for Reddit to get control of it if they want to inspire user growth and maintain ad revenue.
    - d2xdy2 11y ago
      Well, like I said, I'd have never known about it if other people hadn't told me. I can't speak to what Reddit "should" do; in _my_ niche area, Reddit works just fine the way it is. If they were to start "doing something about it", it'd likely not affect me in the least.

tsotha 11y ago

This. If you stay out of subreddits specifically devoted to that kind of stuff (plus a handful of others), you're not going to see it. I'm amazed at the extent to which people are willing to attack posts they have to go out of their way to see. Reddit is going to lose far more people trying to police out non-PC stuff than they will ever gain from it. And when people move on they do so quickly and in large numbers.

makeitsuckless 11y ago

You have to put this in the context of it being almost two decades since Wired was relevant.

code_sterling 11y ago

Funny, I see it in every other comment thread.

jordigh 11y ago

Well, it's a very visible minority on the front page.

InclinedPlane 11y ago

The core problem with reddit is there's no firewall between communities. So the fact that there are communities specifically set up with the goal of hating blacks or fat people or women or what-have-you means that those people spend a lot of time on reddit and end up spilling over into other popular communities. The moderation tools and admin support on reddit are comparatively underpowered so for a lot of popular sub-reddits it's very easy for the overall quality to plummet when a tiny group of vocal assholes decides they want to squat there. And for most sub-reddits this just starts a spiral of death as good people decide not to waste their time wading through toxic garbage and just find somewhere else to be, while the toxic minority gets stronger and more brazen. Imagine you have several subscriptions to a bunch of different print magazines. Every couple days a new magazine shows up. Stuff like Scientific American, The Economist, Better Homes and Gardens, National Geographic, TV Guide, Rolling Stone, Cat Fancy, etc. All fine and good. Except sometimes, maybe once every quarter per magazine, maybe less often even, there's some really weird stuff in your magazines. There's a 10 page article praising the KKK in your copy of Rolling Stone. Or there's a thing about how the jews did 9/11. Or the ads in Cat Fancy are all relentlessly making fun of fat people. Or there's an insert in the October edition of Scientific American that's actually a personal letter to you that is filled with hate and vitriol and ends with a plea for you to commit suicide. Who would put up with that? They wouldn't. But that's what people have been asked to deal with on sites like reddit, and it's beyond a reasonable level. How much shit is acceptable in your drinking water? Just a tiny bit? How about just 1 hour a year where the tap pours out 50/50 shit & water? Is that acceptable? No, it's not. There's far too much shit in the drinking water at reddit, the fact that the drinking water is not, in fact, mostly shit is not a defense.

qu4z-2 11y ago
Reddit is not a magazine, though. (Although Upvoted is!) EDIT: That said, I think better moderation tools and stronger firewalls between subs would be a huge improvement. The existence of /r/fph absolutely shouldn't spill over into /r/worldnews or wherever.
- InclinedPlane 11y ago
  It's not, but it's a comparison that helps clarify. I've been participating in online communities since 1994, I've seen the full range. I've watched, and participated in, epic flame wars on Usenet that went on for weeks. I've had people make death threats against me. I've seen legitimately mentally ill people spew all kinds of nonsense. And in comparison to all of that I'd say reddit is worse. I like many things about reddit, it's got plenty of good parts. But there are fundamental weaknesses in the design and administration of the site which mean that it's difficult to avoid incredibly terrible interactions with assholes on a regular basis.

JeremyBanks 11y ago

Have you been to Reddit in recent years? A majority of the site may not exhibit this individually, but most highly-visible threads that touch race will be dominated by racists, and most highly-visible threads that touch gender will be dominated by sexists. It's very gross.

TrevorJ 11y ago

Agreed. There were and are some terrible subreddits, but they aren't the default subs, you had to go looking for them. In that sense it's really no better or worse than the rest of the internet. I also think the article is pretty misguided in saying that somehow wealthy white men are treated better on the site. First of all, unless you tell people who you are, nobody knows. Secondly, the idea that revealing your wealthy white dude status would lead to better treatment on Reddit it laughable to anybody who's used the site for more than a few minutes.

loco5niner 11y ago

And the same could be said about google... "It will send you directly to the most racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic and other hateful websites!"