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I used to think so. I enjoyed Reddit a lot, despite people complaining about it. Then /r/the_donald happened. Now I tread carefully because you never know what

I used to think so. I enjoyed Reddit a lot, despite people complaining about it. Then /r/the_donald happened. Now I tread carefully because you never know what kind of propaganda is being spread around. People say stick to the subreddit. But I think that's silly. If the core of Reddit is rotten, then the subreddit themselves will be affected. It has happened to places I visit like /r/environment. There is a constant barrage of non-environmentally friendly comments. Not enough to change the overall makeup of the subreddit, but enough to make you wonder who is on the other side of the screen voting or down voting on stories. Then there are places like /r/technology, which is almost intolerable to me at times. People say I am paranoid, but like with anything, if you know a place well and visit it for years, you can sense when things change. And yes my opinion is subjective, but this is a subjective topic.

quchen 9y ago
What’s /r/the_donald, and how did it »then happen«?
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  It's a safe dwelling for a mix of sycophant bots, Trump supporters/red-pillers, trolls, and possibly Russians (depending on who you ask). Warning: once you see it, you can't un-see it.
  - ant6n 9y ago
    (Lots of downvotes here but no comments, so I gotta ask. What do people who disagree actually think?)
    - wand3r 9y ago
      I am guessing they hate the sub so much they are negatively responding to what could be a positive characterization "safe dwelling" or disputing that entirely.
      - untog 9y ago
        I doubt it - more likely they are only too aware of what it is, but seek to legitimise it, so downvote comments such as that. Similar to another one in this thread saying "it's just the same as /r/politics", it's important to normalise the_donald in the eyes of potential subscribers and to imply that what goes on in there is no different than in any other political subreddit. The difference, of course, could not be starker.
        mantas 9y ago
        /r/politics is pretty sad though. Looking from across the pond, Sanders hype was just ridiculous. The hysteria wether to switch to HRC or keep bashing her was fun. Now it's just endless anti-Trump circlejerk which is getting boring. There's a huuuuuuge difference from niche subreddits that try to stay on.. "scientific"? side of politics and discuss it from a distance.
    - traverseda 9y ago
      Rule of charity. If you don't understand why hitler wanted to kill all the jews, or more importantly why people voted for him on that platform, you can't keep it from happening again. No "these people are evil" is not an acceptable answer. The people who voted for trump may be wrong, but they are still perfectly understandable humans, doing what they think is right. Or at least what they think they have to do.
      - bduerst 9y ago
        I don't think OP has said "these people are evil". It's understandable that people who post in the_donald are heavily biased and even think they are doing the right thing. This American Life had a podcast where they interviewed these people at the DeploraBall, and one of them even said that he "Memed Donald Trump into the presidency". For some it seems this is part of their identity.
        traverseda 9y ago
        True, but that kind of dehumanization doesn't help anything, and I don't think it's a very good explanation of the problem.
        bduerst 9y ago
        What do you mean by dehumanization? How is that happening?
      - ant6n 9y ago
        But Trump voters != r/the_Donald. Calling one a cess pool doesn't imply calling the other also.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - Mouse47 9y ago
    Not sure why you're being downvoted. Every bit of what you're saying is true.
  - knowaveragejoe 9y ago
    To add to this, the ecosystem around this is what really enables their commentary to spread into threads with only the slightest relation to their hot topics(immigration, black people, islam, etc). There's a variety of IRC channels, Discord servers and other sites(4chan, gab, twitter) that are participating and orchestrating their activities on Reddit. I think that's the larger effect the above person describes. Even though they are generally heavily downvoted, I worry that their one-liner soundbites and gotchas will reach more people with weaker critical thinking skills.
    - 52-6F-62 9y ago
      Well put. In short, it's(they are?) insidious.
  - taylorswift_ 9y ago
    huh? what do you think most of reddit is? it's the same thing you're describing just bent on whatever flavor the subreddit is...
- traverseda 9y ago
  /r/the_donald is a subreddit devoted to donald trump. Reddit didn't ban it. It follows the "safe-space" "you're not allowed to dissent" model pioneered by some "leftist" subs, and will ban people for having perfectly legitimate dissent. It managed to exploit some loopholes in how reddit works to take-over the front page. The most interesting one was "stickying" new posts so they were shown on their front page. They did this to a new post pretty frequently. This let them * Coordinate which posts got to the front page of reddit and * Exploited the reddit algorithm for determining "hotness" For a while, 8 out of every 10 posts on the front page were from /r/the_donald. It marks the first major incidence of the community engineering tools (that I believe were pioneered by subs like /r/shitRedditSays) being used by the right.
  - 24gttghh 9y ago
    Wouldn't the solution be to un-follow /r/all? I've never seen a post from the subreddits-which-shall-not-be-named...
    - Karunamon 9y ago
      /r/all isn't even a thing you can subscribe to or even see unless you explicitly link to or type reddit.com/r/all into the address bar. It used to be the front page while logged out was /r/all, but that was replaced with /r/popular a while back (which has a completely non-transparent filter applied to it)
  - borne0 9y ago
    reddit works much better if you unsubscribe from all the default subs, then subscribe to ones that interest you. Discovery is a bit harder but much of the reddit 'culture' is absent if you choose wisely.
  - eplanit 9y ago
    It follows the "safe-space" "you're not allowed to dissent" model pioneered by some "leftist" subs, and will ban people for having perfectly legitimate dissent. Exactly -- and why I lasted only a week on Reddit. It's nothing but a collection of echo chambers. No matter how sincere and thorough I would try and make arguments, if they're weren't in line with the herd I'd get downvoted to oblivion (no counter argument except insults) if not outright banned (never had been banned before). It's no fun participating when the only accepted input is "me, too!"
- vinhboy 9y ago
  A bunch of really hateful, and racist people came to reddit because of /r/the_donald. Unfortunately they did not keep to their subreddit. You can see influences of their hateful ideology in other subreddits. They also game the reddit voting system so their stories and comments are constantly being featured in /r/all -- so much so reddit had to take action. Their purpose is to troll, and they are damn good at it.
  - knowaveragejoe 9y ago
    Indeed. Pick a thread even vaguely related to race(usually black people) or religion(usually Islam). Most of the time they are heavily downvoted so they'll appear near the bottom(sort by "controversial"), but every now and then one of their hateful copypasta screeds is upvoted near the top. I guess their brigade gets to it first in that case.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - EStudley 9y ago
    Also, Reddit can't ban them because of the inevitable "LIBERAL WEBSITE BANS PRO-DONALD FORUM" headlines. So, even though a massive amount of their userbase pushes for genocide against "Mdslimes" or "Kbabs", Reddit admins let them exist.
    - taylorswift_ 9y ago
      Really? I've been an avid TD reader since it's inception and I've never seen an active call for genocide ever, in fact quite the opposite. This is the same made up twisted liberal rhetoric that fuels trump supporters and resulted in a Trump Presidency in the first place. Donald === Hitler! He's going to kill all the Muslims and Mexicans! Hmm I don't know, tell me how he's doing that now that he's been in office for a bit?
  - taylorswift_ 9y ago
    ive never seen more hate and racism than that towards trump supporters from the insane "progressive" left...
Chardok 9y ago
The core of Reddit has become rotten not from the_donald; the site admins are 100% at fault. Trying to make their site 100% advertiser friendly has subsequently killed all transparency in what votes do, how subreddits are ranked, and killed a lot of discourse that was not corporate palatable. I still enjoy the smaller subreddits. Unfortunately anything political becomes brigaded, but things like /r/gamingsuggestions and local city subreddits still make the site worthwhile to me.
- dionidium 9y ago
  "things like /r/gamingsuggestions and local city subreddits still make the site worthwhile to me." Local city subreddits are one of the best things about reddit. National politics sometimes leak in, which is when they're at their worst, but, overall, it's probably my favorite thing there.
  - rhcom2 9y ago
    Maybe for the smaller cities it is different but I've stopped visiting /r/boston because every single thread someone brings up politics and it becomes a flamewar between left/right.
    - dionidium 9y ago
      Yes, you're right, I think. I am active on /r/stlouis and /r/nyc and the former is a far better community.
- danlindley 9y ago
  > Unfortunately anything political becomes brigaded, but things like /r/gamingsuggestions and local city subreddits still make the site worthwhile to me. I believe that some kind of accessible and open platform will eventually take the place of place in the local discovery field.
ajross 9y ago
Nothing you're saying is untrue, but is no less true than any other internet forum. There were discussion cesspools on CompuServe and USENET and Myspace. Facebook has its shady groups too, and 4chan is worse than any of these. There's nothing about "reddit" that makes it much different, other than its size. Good and bad people everywhere. It sucks.
zeep 9y ago
/r/politics is similar to /r/the_donald but it is the exact opposite (it could have been called /r/the_hillary)
- mrkrabo 9y ago
  And what's even worse: /r/politics doesn't look like a parody (like the_donald does) so some people take it like it's a neutral place for discussion :P
- vinhboy 9y ago
  No it's not. This exactly the kinda of propaganda you should be aware of. /r/the_donald specifically exists to spread false information, and to dox and harass people. /r/politics is opinionated because of it's user base. It's not intentionally a propaganda machine.
  - weirdstuff 9y ago
    And /r/the_donald would say just the opposite. The thing about propaganda – why it works so well – is that it's presented as authentic civil discourse. There's no clear cut demarcation between the two types of speech. One could argue that /r/the_donald uses the banhammer to maintain order (the narrative), and /r/politics uses shill comments+downvoting to do the same.
    - 52-6F-62 9y ago
      What you just described sounds to me like an authoritarian court versus a democratic forum. That is, excepting the "shill" name-calling -- it leads me to believe that you are in fact speaking on behalf of r/the_donald. If that's true, then I know why the term was used. If not, what leads you to believe that anybody involved in discussion in r/politics are "shills".
      - rdtsc 9y ago
        > If not, what leads you to believe that anybody involved in discussion in r/politics are "shills". Because Hillary had hired people to do exactly that: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-clinton-digital-trolling-20160506-snap-htmlstory.html http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-clinton-digital-trolli... http://www.thedailybeast.com/hillary-pac-spends-dollar1-million-to-correct-commenters-on-reddit-and-facebook http://www.thedailybeast.com/hillary-pac-spends-dollar1-mill... Remember someone leaked a private Slack chat of Reddit admins where one was boasting of receiving their CTR check.
dionidium 9y ago
This is silly. I follow a number of subreddits on topics ranging from baseball, local news (city subreddits), credit card churning, maps, history, and many others. None of them have been affected by /r/the_donald.
- knowaveragejoe 9y ago
  I take it you don't browse many comment threads, then. Anything vaguely related to black people or Islam and they are virtually guaranteed to show up, spreading their soundbites and gotcha's.
  - EStudley 9y ago
    For anyone who doubts this: next time you see a vaguely or directly racist comment on Reddit, go check where that persons posts.. 75% of the time they're directly from /r/the_donald.
    - knowaveragejoe 9y ago
      I'd venture that >90% of the time they post in T_D and the various other hate subs.
  - dionidium 9y ago
    "I take it you don't browse many comment threads, then. Anything vaguely related to black people or Islamd and they are virtually guaranteed to show up" Of course I read the comments. Two comments, here: 1) We don't have a lot of conversations about race or Islam or intersectional feminism (or whatever) over on the credit card churning sub (for example). Not everything is political. 2) Of course, we do have a lot of these conversations on /r/stlouis, some of which, I'm sure, include comments the Hacker News contingent would find obnoxious. But, you know what? They're fine. We get through it. It doesn't dominate every thread. People are downvoted when they're particularly vitriolic. And it's mostly names I recognize from other threads (not outsiders brigading). It's really not a big deal, like, at all.
- pat_space 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
alikoneko 9y ago
How is /r/t_d different from /r/theredpill or any of the other racist/sexist/terrible subs? I haven't really seen any overflow in a lot of the not-default subs, but it could also be the subs I visit. I mostly stick to subs for games I play, programming, and a couple BP support subs. For me, the crucial change of how I curate my subs happened when 2x became a default. I hated the sudden influx of bad posts, mansplaining, and terrible/abusive comments.
- WaxProlix 9y ago
  t_d is different because they actively organize to interact with other subs, whereas TRP, mensrights, etc mostly operate in their own worlds. T_D is sort of like /pol/ in that they see themselves as propagandists and influencers more than just participants in a movement.
  - alikoneko 9y ago
    That makes more sense, less like the hate subs, and more like SRS. I guess I'm less exposed to it than the average Redditor.
    - WaxProlix 9y ago
      Mmm not really like SRS either, from what I know of it. SRS will link to things and mock them, but t_d is more interested in actively swaying peoples' minds. So they astroturf, race-bait, "just asking questions!" and concern troll pretty assiduously outside of their own home sub.
danlindley 9y ago
Reddit has been demonstrated time and time again that it is subject to, and vulnerable to, blatant manipulation and propganda. Whether it's a celebrity endoresement masquerading as an interview, threads defending corporations and/or their actions, the manufacturing of consent, the anti-democractic activities of shill accounts, or being subject to blanket disinformation, Reddit is a net-negative to society in my opinion.
- vinhboy 9y ago
  You know, even the military monitors reddit to keep on top of new trends and ideas. It has really become a social force, and that's why I agree with you, it is ripe for manipulation. > Reddit is a net-negative to society in my opinion. I did not agree with this before, but after /r/the_donald, I am re-considering my position.
  - Stanish 9y ago
    It's not just the_donald, sandersforpresident was literally shut down and scattered by shill mods after the election, despite having a community several hundred thousand strong of people ready to mobilize for progressive values. Arguably the central force that made Sanders such a phenomenon in the election was taken over and destroyed in the matter of a couple months. Incredibly chilling when you think about it. I think the worst mistake people can make is assuming this is just about alt-right meme factories. It is much more about the manipulation of self-described centrists to keep them pro-corporate, and divided on superficial issues (ie the same as it has always been, they are figuring out how to port their TV strategy to the internet, it is just taking some time).
  - nextlevelwizard 9y ago
    I do not get this opinion at all. Just because there exists a thing you do not agree with does not mean it should not exist. It seems like many people on HN are for free speech as long as it's speech they agree with. There will always be people who do not think like you and do not believe in same things as you, but you are not helping any situation by no platforming them. Join the debate and use your words, like adult human beings, don't use force (even if it's virtual and not physical)
spike021 9y ago
>If the core of Reddit is rotten, then the subreddit themselves will be affected. This is a pretty broad claim. While I don't disagree that toxicity can spread to different subreddits, that doesn't automatically mean it will spread to all of them, especially if the subreddits have solid rules and moderators to enforce them. Take /r/baseball, for instance, it's a great, topical subreddit and I've pretty much never seen serious political commentary anywhere on it, even during the worst of the recent election.
- vinhboy 9y ago
  Ok sure... I can see how /r/baseball is immune from politics. But what about the example I gave, like /r/environment, or even more niche /r/CampingandHiking -- The other day there was story about federal recreation land on there and it was overrun with negative comments for a brief while. So yes, places like /r/programming and /r/netsec is still pretty insular. But it's like asking me to visit a bad neighborhood, because there is a good restaurant there. At some point it's just not worth the risk.
  - jetti 9y ago
    I think at a certain point it becomes a mod issue rather than a site issue. I visit /r/tattoos and the mods are quick to get rid of comments that don't adhere to rules and because of that you get comment that are constructive, with even those who say they don't like a tattoo will explain why.
hrktb 9y ago
I have a hard time articulating it, but I feel like what’s happening with /r/the_donald and like minded subreddits is more a reflection of the real world reaching our online communities than the communities rotting by themselves or because of pure admin mismanagement. Perhaps we thought our little islands of posh culture would stay on their own when reality is taking a dive ?
ufo 9y ago
And before r/the_Donald there were also subs like r/fatpeoplehate, which also served as a festering pit of hate that spilled into the rest of the site. But the_donald definitely brought it to another level...

quchen 9y ago

What’s /r/the_donald, and how did it »then happen«?

52-6F-62 9y ago
It's a safe dwelling for a mix of sycophant bots, Trump supporters/red-pillers, trolls, and possibly Russians (depending on who you ask). Warning: once you see it, you can't un-see it.
- ant6n 9y ago
  (Lots of downvotes here but no comments, so I gotta ask. What do people who disagree actually think?)
  - wand3r 9y ago
    I am guessing they hate the sub so much they are negatively responding to what could be a positive characterization "safe dwelling" or disputing that entirely.
    - untog 9y ago
      I doubt it - more likely they are only too aware of what it is, but seek to legitimise it, so downvote comments such as that. Similar to another one in this thread saying "it's just the same as /r/politics", it's important to normalise the_donald in the eyes of potential subscribers and to imply that what goes on in there is no different than in any other political subreddit. The difference, of course, could not be starker.
      - mantas 9y ago
        /r/politics is pretty sad though. Looking from across the pond, Sanders hype was just ridiculous. The hysteria wether to switch to HRC or keep bashing her was fun. Now it's just endless anti-Trump circlejerk which is getting boring. There's a huuuuuuge difference from niche subreddits that try to stay on.. "scientific"? side of politics and discuss it from a distance.
  - traverseda 9y ago
    Rule of charity. If you don't understand why hitler wanted to kill all the jews, or more importantly why people voted for him on that platform, you can't keep it from happening again. No "these people are evil" is not an acceptable answer. The people who voted for trump may be wrong, but they are still perfectly understandable humans, doing what they think is right. Or at least what they think they have to do.
    - bduerst 9y ago
      I don't think OP has said "these people are evil". It's understandable that people who post in the_donald are heavily biased and even think they are doing the right thing. This American Life had a podcast where they interviewed these people at the DeploraBall, and one of them even said that he "Memed Donald Trump into the presidency". For some it seems this is part of their identity.
      - traverseda 9y ago
        True, but that kind of dehumanization doesn't help anything, and I don't think it's a very good explanation of the problem.
        bduerst 9y ago
        What do you mean by dehumanization? How is that happening?
    - ant6n 9y ago
      But Trump voters != r/the_Donald. Calling one a cess pool doesn't imply calling the other also.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- Mouse47 9y ago
  Not sure why you're being downvoted. Every bit of what you're saying is true.
- knowaveragejoe 9y ago
  To add to this, the ecosystem around this is what really enables their commentary to spread into threads with only the slightest relation to their hot topics(immigration, black people, islam, etc). There's a variety of IRC channels, Discord servers and other sites(4chan, gab, twitter) that are participating and orchestrating their activities on Reddit. I think that's the larger effect the above person describes. Even though they are generally heavily downvoted, I worry that their one-liner soundbites and gotchas will reach more people with weaker critical thinking skills.
  - 52-6F-62 9y ago
    Well put. In short, it's(they are?) insidious.
- taylorswift_ 9y ago
  huh? what do you think most of reddit is? it's the same thing you're describing just bent on whatever flavor the subreddit is...
traverseda 9y ago
/r/the_donald is a subreddit devoted to donald trump. Reddit didn't ban it. It follows the "safe-space" "you're not allowed to dissent" model pioneered by some "leftist" subs, and will ban people for having perfectly legitimate dissent. It managed to exploit some loopholes in how reddit works to take-over the front page. The most interesting one was "stickying" new posts so they were shown on their front page. They did this to a new post pretty frequently. This let them * Coordinate which posts got to the front page of reddit and * Exploited the reddit algorithm for determining "hotness" For a while, 8 out of every 10 posts on the front page were from /r/the_donald. It marks the first major incidence of the community engineering tools (that I believe were pioneered by subs like /r/shitRedditSays) being used by the right.
- 24gttghh 9y ago
  Wouldn't the solution be to un-follow /r/all? I've never seen a post from the subreddits-which-shall-not-be-named...
  - Karunamon 9y ago
    /r/all isn't even a thing you can subscribe to or even see unless you explicitly link to or type reddit.com/r/all into the address bar. It used to be the front page while logged out was /r/all, but that was replaced with /r/popular a while back (which has a completely non-transparent filter applied to it)
- borne0 9y ago
  reddit works much better if you unsubscribe from all the default subs, then subscribe to ones that interest you. Discovery is a bit harder but much of the reddit 'culture' is absent if you choose wisely.
- eplanit 9y ago
  It follows the "safe-space" "you're not allowed to dissent" model pioneered by some "leftist" subs, and will ban people for having perfectly legitimate dissent. Exactly -- and why I lasted only a week on Reddit. It's nothing but a collection of echo chambers. No matter how sincere and thorough I would try and make arguments, if they're weren't in line with the herd I'd get downvoted to oblivion (no counter argument except insults) if not outright banned (never had been banned before). It's no fun participating when the only accepted input is "me, too!"
vinhboy 9y ago
A bunch of really hateful, and racist people came to reddit because of /r/the_donald. Unfortunately they did not keep to their subreddit. You can see influences of their hateful ideology in other subreddits. They also game the reddit voting system so their stories and comments are constantly being featured in /r/all -- so much so reddit had to take action. Their purpose is to troll, and they are damn good at it.
- knowaveragejoe 9y ago
  Indeed. Pick a thread even vaguely related to race(usually black people) or religion(usually Islam). Most of the time they are heavily downvoted so they'll appear near the bottom(sort by "controversial"), but every now and then one of their hateful copypasta screeds is upvoted near the top. I guess their brigade gets to it first in that case.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- EStudley 9y ago
  Also, Reddit can't ban them because of the inevitable "LIBERAL WEBSITE BANS PRO-DONALD FORUM" headlines. So, even though a massive amount of their userbase pushes for genocide against "Mdslimes" or "Kbabs", Reddit admins let them exist.
  - taylorswift_ 9y ago
    Really? I've been an avid TD reader since it's inception and I've never seen an active call for genocide ever, in fact quite the opposite. This is the same made up twisted liberal rhetoric that fuels trump supporters and resulted in a Trump Presidency in the first place. Donald === Hitler! He's going to kill all the Muslims and Mexicans! Hmm I don't know, tell me how he's doing that now that he's been in office for a bit?
- taylorswift_ 9y ago
  ive never seen more hate and racism than that towards trump supporters from the insane "progressive" left...

Chardok 9y ago

The core of Reddit has become rotten not from the_donald; the site admins are 100% at fault. Trying to make their site 100% advertiser friendly has subsequently killed all transparency in what votes do, how subreddits are ranked, and killed a lot of discourse that was not corporate palatable. I still enjoy the smaller subreddits. Unfortunately anything political becomes brigaded, but things like /r/gamingsuggestions and local city subreddits still make the site worthwhile to me.

dionidium 9y ago
"things like /r/gamingsuggestions and local city subreddits still make the site worthwhile to me." Local city subreddits are one of the best things about reddit. National politics sometimes leak in, which is when they're at their worst, but, overall, it's probably my favorite thing there.
- rhcom2 9y ago
  Maybe for the smaller cities it is different but I've stopped visiting /r/boston because every single thread someone brings up politics and it becomes a flamewar between left/right.
  - dionidium 9y ago
    Yes, you're right, I think. I am active on /r/stlouis and /r/nyc and the former is a far better community.
danlindley 9y ago
> Unfortunately anything political becomes brigaded, but things like /r/gamingsuggestions and local city subreddits still make the site worthwhile to me. I believe that some kind of accessible and open platform will eventually take the place of place in the local discovery field.

ajross 9y ago

Nothing you're saying is untrue, but is no less true than any other internet forum. There were discussion cesspools on CompuServe and USENET and Myspace. Facebook has its shady groups too, and 4chan is worse than any of these. There's nothing about "reddit" that makes it much different, other than its size. Good and bad people everywhere. It sucks.

zeep 9y ago

/r/politics is similar to /r/the_donald but it is the exact opposite (it could have been called /r/the_hillary)

mrkrabo 9y ago
And what's even worse: /r/politics doesn't look like a parody (like the_donald does) so some people take it like it's a neutral place for discussion :P
vinhboy 9y ago
No it's not. This exactly the kinda of propaganda you should be aware of. /r/the_donald specifically exists to spread false information, and to dox and harass people. /r/politics is opinionated because of it's user base. It's not intentionally a propaganda machine.
- weirdstuff 9y ago
  And /r/the_donald would say just the opposite. The thing about propaganda – why it works so well – is that it's presented as authentic civil discourse. There's no clear cut demarcation between the two types of speech. One could argue that /r/the_donald uses the banhammer to maintain order (the narrative), and /r/politics uses shill comments+downvoting to do the same.
  - 52-6F-62 9y ago
    What you just described sounds to me like an authoritarian court versus a democratic forum. That is, excepting the "shill" name-calling -- it leads me to believe that you are in fact speaking on behalf of r/the_donald. If that's true, then I know why the term was used. If not, what leads you to believe that anybody involved in discussion in r/politics are "shills".
    - rdtsc 9y ago
      > If not, what leads you to believe that anybody involved in discussion in r/politics are "shills". Because Hillary had hired people to do exactly that: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-clinton-digital-trolling-20160506-snap-htmlstory.html http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-clinton-digital-trolli... http://www.thedailybeast.com/hillary-pac-spends-dollar1-million-to-correct-commenters-on-reddit-and-facebook http://www.thedailybeast.com/hillary-pac-spends-dollar1-mill... Remember someone leaked a private Slack chat of Reddit admins where one was boasting of receiving their CTR check.

dionidium 9y ago

This is silly. I follow a number of subreddits on topics ranging from baseball, local news (city subreddits), credit card churning, maps, history, and many others. None of them have been affected by /r/the_donald.

knowaveragejoe 9y ago
I take it you don't browse many comment threads, then. Anything vaguely related to black people or Islam and they are virtually guaranteed to show up, spreading their soundbites and gotcha's.
- EStudley 9y ago
  For anyone who doubts this: next time you see a vaguely or directly racist comment on Reddit, go check where that persons posts.. 75% of the time they're directly from /r/the_donald.
  - knowaveragejoe 9y ago
    I'd venture that >90% of the time they post in T_D and the various other hate subs.
- dionidium 9y ago
  "I take it you don't browse many comment threads, then. Anything vaguely related to black people or Islamd and they are virtually guaranteed to show up" Of course I read the comments. Two comments, here: 1) We don't have a lot of conversations about race or Islam or intersectional feminism (or whatever) over on the credit card churning sub (for example). Not everything is political. 2) Of course, we do have a lot of these conversations on /r/stlouis, some of which, I'm sure, include comments the Hacker News contingent would find obnoxious. But, you know what? They're fine. We get through it. It doesn't dominate every thread. People are downvoted when they're particularly vitriolic. And it's mostly names I recognize from other threads (not outsiders brigading). It's really not a big deal, like, at all.
pat_space 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

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alikoneko 9y ago

How is /r/t_d different from /r/theredpill or any of the other racist/sexist/terrible subs? I haven't really seen any overflow in a lot of the not-default subs, but it could also be the subs I visit. I mostly stick to subs for games I play, programming, and a couple BP support subs. For me, the crucial change of how I curate my subs happened when 2x became a default. I hated the sudden influx of bad posts, mansplaining, and terrible/abusive comments.

WaxProlix 9y ago
t_d is different because they actively organize to interact with other subs, whereas TRP, mensrights, etc mostly operate in their own worlds. T_D is sort of like /pol/ in that they see themselves as propagandists and influencers more than just participants in a movement.
- alikoneko 9y ago
  That makes more sense, less like the hate subs, and more like SRS. I guess I'm less exposed to it than the average Redditor.
  - WaxProlix 9y ago
    Mmm not really like SRS either, from what I know of it. SRS will link to things and mock them, but t_d is more interested in actively swaying peoples' minds. So they astroturf, race-bait, "just asking questions!" and concern troll pretty assiduously outside of their own home sub.

danlindley 9y ago

Reddit has been demonstrated time and time again that it is subject to, and vulnerable to, blatant manipulation and propganda. Whether it's a celebrity endoresement masquerading as an interview, threads defending corporations and/or their actions, the manufacturing of consent, the anti-democractic activities of shill accounts, or being subject to blanket disinformation, Reddit is a net-negative to society in my opinion.

vinhboy 9y ago
You know, even the military monitors reddit to keep on top of new trends and ideas. It has really become a social force, and that's why I agree with you, it is ripe for manipulation. > Reddit is a net-negative to society in my opinion. I did not agree with this before, but after /r/the_donald, I am re-considering my position.
- Stanish 9y ago
  It's not just the_donald, sandersforpresident was literally shut down and scattered by shill mods after the election, despite having a community several hundred thousand strong of people ready to mobilize for progressive values. Arguably the central force that made Sanders such a phenomenon in the election was taken over and destroyed in the matter of a couple months. Incredibly chilling when you think about it. I think the worst mistake people can make is assuming this is just about alt-right meme factories. It is much more about the manipulation of self-described centrists to keep them pro-corporate, and divided on superficial issues (ie the same as it has always been, they are figuring out how to port their TV strategy to the internet, it is just taking some time).
- nextlevelwizard 9y ago
  I do not get this opinion at all. Just because there exists a thing you do not agree with does not mean it should not exist. It seems like many people on HN are for free speech as long as it's speech they agree with. There will always be people who do not think like you and do not believe in same things as you, but you are not helping any situation by no platforming them. Join the debate and use your words, like adult human beings, don't use force (even if it's virtual and not physical)

spike021 9y ago

>If the core of Reddit is rotten, then the subreddit themselves will be affected. This is a pretty broad claim. While I don't disagree that toxicity can spread to different subreddits, that doesn't automatically mean it will spread to all of them, especially if the subreddits have solid rules and moderators to enforce them. Take /r/baseball, for instance, it's a great, topical subreddit and I've pretty much never seen serious political commentary anywhere on it, even during the worst of the recent election.

vinhboy 9y ago
Ok sure... I can see how /r/baseball is immune from politics. But what about the example I gave, like /r/environment, or even more niche /r/CampingandHiking -- The other day there was story about federal recreation land on there and it was overrun with negative comments for a brief while. So yes, places like /r/programming and /r/netsec is still pretty insular. But it's like asking me to visit a bad neighborhood, because there is a good restaurant there. At some point it's just not worth the risk.
- jetti 9y ago
  I think at a certain point it becomes a mod issue rather than a site issue. I visit /r/tattoos and the mods are quick to get rid of comments that don't adhere to rules and because of that you get comment that are constructive, with even those who say they don't like a tattoo will explain why.

hrktb 9y ago

I have a hard time articulating it, but I feel like what’s happening with /r/the_donald and like minded subreddits is more a reflection of the real world reaching our online communities than the communities rotting by themselves or because of pure admin mismanagement. Perhaps we thought our little islands of posh culture would stay on their own when reality is taking a dive ?

ufo 9y ago

And before r/the_Donald there were also subs like r/fatpeoplehate, which also served as a festering pit of hate that spilled into the rest of the site. But the_donald definitely brought it to another level...