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Reddit CEO Cracks Down on Abusive Content to Protect Users, Attract Advertisers
- brndnmtthws 9y agoWhen your business model is advertisement based, this is the inevitable outcome. The users are the product, and advertisers are the customer. Furthermore, non-government entities are under no legal obligation to protect speech in most jurisdictions.
- flunhat 9y agoAnd from what I understand, it's been quite effective, too [1]. It seems that removing abusive communities basically reduces the amount of abusive content overall, because there's one less community where that content is acceptable to share. So not as much of a "spillover effect" as feared, which is good news. [1] http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf
- rightos 9y agoThat study if I recall correctly completely misses the spillover to other websites, considering only reddit itself - but bans on sites like reddit and Twitter have lead to the rise of sites like Gab, 8chan and Voat in recent years. The spillover is very real, just not on the same site.
- flunhat 9y agoYou're right, but in the context of Reddit becoming a more palatable place for advertisers that's neither here nor there
- topgunsarg 9y agoRight, but the CEO of Reddit couldn't care less about that.
- abiox 9y agoi'm not sure they should. perhaps they shouldn't.
- eegilbert 9y agoOne of the authors here. That's correct. The spillover to other sites is not studied. Based on an (admittedly imperfectly) related paper with Stevie Chancellor & Munmun De Choudhury [1], I would expect that the spillover to other sites results in a 1) smaller, but 2) more committed group of users. http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw16.thyghgapp.chancellor.pdf http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw16.thyghgapp.chance... (see Summary of Findings, page 10)
- zimpenfish 9y ago> The spillover is very real, just not on the same site. Which is good - concentrate the hate speech into a single place and then take it down.
- ema 9y agoHow would that help? It's not exactly rocket science to open up yet another reddit clone for the untouchables afterwards.
- zimpenfish 9y agoSure but a registrar / hoster that has just closed one hate site isn't going to let someone spin up another immediately. And soon enough they'll be out of options.
- tambienben 9y agoYour brazen support of censorship is troubling.
- flunhat 9y agoWhy?
- zimpenfish 9y agoIf my earnest support for silencing Nazis, the alt-right, PUAs, MRAs, climate change deniers, woo peddlers et al troubles you, perhaps you need to start examining your own beliefs and figure out why you don't want them silenced.
- sintaxi 9y agoCensorship doesn't work. We must beat poor ideas with good ones. What happens if they are the ones who end up with the power to silence?
- abiox 9y ago
- godman_8 9y agoYah, except they're hosting /r/The_Donald which has been confirmed to violate Reddit rules. Just like Twitter they cherry pick for $$$.
- Fnoord 9y agoAt least you know what you get when you visit /r/The_Donald. Is it better to have a cesspit bubble/sandbox than having none?
- sintaxi 9y agoI don't see why people care so much. Its just another echo chamber that can be completely ignored. Clearly the benefits of free flow of information outweigh the drawbacks so its best to just accept the drawbacks.
- moojd 9y agoI filtered out /r/the_donald forever ago and I'm only reminded of it when a new anti-trump echo chamber spams its way to the top of /r/all. Now I have dozens of those filtered but its hard to keep up.
- SippinLean 9y agoIt's hardly a sandbox, but more of an inlet with a lot of spillover. There's anecdotally been a HUGE spike in bigotry and white supremacy on what used to be good subs since last year when that sub grew in numbers. Looking at the post history of these users, it almost always includes t_d.
- 52-6F-62 9y agoThey're also no strangers to organized brigading of other subs, unfortunately. It's a pretty irritating phenomenon.
- Helmet 9y agoWhat about r/The_Donald violates the rules other than going against your political preferences? There are left-wing sub-reddits that openly call for armed revolution, violence against the "bourgeoisie" and the police, destruction of property, etc; but I'm sure they're OK to exist, right?
- infodroid 9y agoSomeone needs to put a stop to this bad meme... On social media, advertising is not an endorsement of the content. This might be the case for traditional media, but social media is different. Advertisers and platforms need to recognize the difference, to accept the lack of control over user-generated content as a feature, and to push back on unfair criticism. But perhaps their real goal is increasing their control over social media content.
- chadgeidel 9y agoI don't see why it's not an endorsement. Money changed hands. The content of reddit's many forums is well known. No one is blind to this. "I didn't give the killer money for a knife, I bought him lunch!"
- MBCook 9y agoIt’s an endorsement of content on TV (see Sean Hannity). It’s an endorsement of content on radio (Dr. Laura lost her show because of it). Why would anyone think the internet is different? Complaining to advertisers has been very effective for a long time.
- sintaxi 9y agoIn a free country you can sell a pair of sneakers to someone with different set of political beliefs if you want to. Thats what you do in a civil society.
- josefresco 9y ago"This might be the case for traditional media, but social media is different. " Please explain. Unlike "traditional social media" Reddit is organized into "like-minded" or themed mini-communities. Advertisers certainly know the type of content posted to these communities.
- infodroid 9y agoI'm thinking of the bigger picture here, especially taking into account the way YouTube was unfairly attacked. The whole point of social media is for users to generate the content and to decide for themselves what makes content good or bad. In the past, advertising would fund the service, targeting specific demographics. It was never seen as endorsement of specific content. Now advertisers want to start dictating the terms, to decide what specific content they approve of. Social media starts to look like traditional, sponsored, top-down media. This defeats the whole purpose. Social media is selling out, and we are mistakenly cheering this on as a good thing.
- bitL 9y agoSo what are reasonable Reddit alternatives that don't act as outlets of banned subreddits? Once you start banning stuff left and right, it's a slippery slope, making large groups of population feel weird/forcing them to learned hopelessness. It would be better instead to train some ML for content classification, then set user preferences about what triggers them, and then warn users that some submission might disturb them, requiring additional click to see the content in question. There ML would be just a helper, not sole arbiter-of-truth, and even an imprecise one won't have a stifling effect on free speech. Of course, if Reddit owners/investors feel they need to fully submit to requirements of their advertisers, there is little they can do, and should just max profit and see if they can survive with a lot less "love" from their users.
- YCode 9y agoI wonder if they couldn't institute some scheme where they flag subs as "dirty" or some more politically correct term when those subs contain offensive but legal content. This would allow showing advertisers a checkbox when they post an ad that asks whether they are okay with showing their ad on a dirty sub. Pitch it to advertisers as you'll reach more people for the same cost, but your content may be shown by user posts that some may consider offensive.
- ufo 9y agoThey have a "quarantine" system they use for highly offensive subreddits (like gore and violent content). These don't appear on the /r/all aggregate listing and can only be viewed if you associate an email with your account. But for subreddits that break sitewide rules (doxxing, inciting violence, etc) they just ban the subreddit outright instead of quarantining it. https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3fx2au/content_policy_update/ https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3fx2au/conte...
- cannonedhamster 9y agoHow exactly does one put a warning on "Posting here may cause you to get death threats, brigaded, doxxed, etc..."? I think Reddit's problems are that their most fervent users are their biggest problems. They actively encourage trolls. Whatever was good about Reddit needs a better site to go to.
- malvosenior 9y agoI would love to see a statement from Reddit/Twitter... explicitly stating that they will remain politically neutral. There’s certainly content that should legally be taken down, there’s probably content that isn’t advertising friendly and could be taken down. It seems like these companies are being very slanted in their evaluation of the latter category. Basically right leaning = bad, left leaning = good. All I want is impartial.
- artursapek 9y agoIt's kind of an inside joke on reddit now how left-leaning /r/politics is. It frames itself as a generic political news page but it's so biased it's incredible.
- Pigo 9y agoLook at /r/politics right now, or any day of the week. Good luck finding one article that isn't about how Trump is literally Hitler. Whether you agree with it or not, I don't see how anyone can say it doesn't have an agenda.
- lordCarbonFiber 9y agoOr maybe he's an example of incompetence; creating national and international gaffs literally every day. Refusing to normalize his behavior isn't a devious agenda when it's that behavior that has paralyzed the government such that there isn't anything else to report on.
- Pigo 9y agoWell, that does make sense that it's a daily story to you if you think that way. I just wish the people who do think this could understand how tiresome it is to see every story infused with a Trump angle. Like this Al Franken story for example, there are no posts about the topic that don't focus on the Trump accusations foremost. Why can't it be examined by itself?
- adekok 9y agoSimilarly, Youtube is demonetizing videos with "bad words". Such as referring to "the naked eye". See here for a deconstruction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlRFoYr-XuY&t=306s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlRFoYr-XuY&t=306s This kind of censorship is nice, until it turns into censorship of "things the company dislikes", versus "bad / illegal things." See recent vidcon for an example. Despite rules against harassment, a panelist out-and-out harassed an attendee... and the organizers did nothing. This shows that power and political agendas trump peopl's alleged morality.
- boobsbr 9y ago> See recent vidcon for an example. Anita Sarkeesian and Sargon of Akkad?
- adekok 9y agoYes. Or, Twitter banning people because they didn't do anything, but someone who claimed to like them did things? And as always... the "good" people engage in harassment, and they don't do anything. The "bad" people don't harass, and get banned.
- distances 9y ago> This shows that power and political agendas trump peopl's alleged morality. I'm not familiar with the incident, but I don't think it proves this. If the harassment was real, the organizers could just be incompetent/afraid of interfering/incapable of reading the situation. In which case they're perhaps not suitable for organizing, but doesn't mean it's political.
- adekok 9y agoIt's political. The harassment was excused because the harasser was traditionally a victim, and the harassed person was a white male.
- SolaceQuantum 9y agoI’m not familiar with vidcon- can you provide a link to the incident?
- SquareWheel 9y agoThis article's content has nothing to support the title. It's just an empty retelling of the site's last year's history. What's actually being reported here? Feels like clickbait.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Pxtl 9y agoThey'll have to dig themselves out of a pretty deep hole, reputation-wise. While there are specific subject subreddit with fantastic content, most of the regional subs they carry lots of news and politics have a well-earned reputation for racism and xenophobia, and the more discussion-oriented subs add in misogyny into the mix. Only the subs with obsessively strict moderation like the science subs (or /r/Canada politics) seem to succeed in discussing issues without hatred. Meanwhile, Twitter maintains mainstream acceptance despite being the online home of David Duke and various other infamous white supremacists.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- sintaxi 9y agoTwitter never should have started down the road of censorship. The only people who agree on what should and should not be censored are the people who don't believe in censorship.
- Mikeb85 9y ago/r/Canada isn't too bad because that's how Canadians are. Even when we disagree we generally try to be civil.
- Pxtl 9y agoNo, I meant /r/CanadaPolitics, but the name got autocorrected away. /r/Canada is a hive of racism and getting worse since the last election or so.
- 52-6F-62 9y agoIt seems to have a pretty heavy swing back and forth, depending on the time of day. I've seen this noted before, and seen the effect to some extent. It can definitely get hairy, sadly.
- Mikeb85 9y agoIt's not a hive of racism, Americans just have become such virtue signalling morons that they call everything racism. There happens to be a middle ground on many issues. Debating immigration policy isn't racist. Hell, even Emmanuel Macron and Merkel have started to control migration. No country can accept all the world's poor. It's simply not feasible. And the truth is, that is the concern that most Canadians are having. The economy's not great, working class wages and jobs are disappearing, the few places with good jobs have unaffordable housing, and Trudeau's talking about increasing immigration. You guys can talk about how everyone that wants to debate certain topics is racist, but that doesn't change the fact that politics all over the west are moving a certain direction. The only question is whether we'll simply adjust policy, or wait too long and elect someone extreme as a knee jerk reaction.
- threepipeproblm 9y agoBut who will protect the users from Reddit's CEO, who has admitted to editing posts to make his arguments look better, and suffered no consequences?
- whywhywhywhy 9y agoActual abusive content or just abusive content Reddit staff dislike? Some bullying subs have been rightly banned but major ones like /r/cringe /r/srs and /r/cringeanarchy remain.
- stevekemp 9y agoThis is just like the banning of /r/jailbait, /r/fatpeoplehate, etc from the the last time reddit "cleaned house". Some of the most blatant subs will be banned, or quarantined, and despite repeated calls for action things that are still-bad, but slightly-less-bad, will remain. Until the next purge - including /r/srs, /r/the_donald, and similar.
- Cknight70 9y agoWhat I don't understand about this new trend of companies trying to make their content "Advertiser friendly" is that those same advertisers seem to be fine advertising during events like the Vegas Shooting. I'm just hoping this trend of making your websites rated G dies off sooner rather than later.
- dnate 9y agoI don't see the connection between the shooting and advertisers. If you are American I understand that the Las Vegas shooting probably affected you very much. There is a lot of violence going on around the world, so what do you suggest?
- Cknight70 9y agoI don't think advertisers associate their ads with violence when cnn reports on it and I don't think they should associate social media websites with the minority of offensive content they host. Reddit and YouTube aren't identified by their edgy content.
- koolba 9y ago> Reddit also has a business incentive to clean up its act: It needs to appeal to marketers—and live up to its investor’s expectations. In July, Reddit raised $200 million at a $1.8 billion valuation. > [truncated] > Mr. Huffman didn’t give specific numbers, but said Reddit’s ad revenue had grown fivefold over the past two years, from a small base. I'm sure given the scale of the userbase the property is worth something substantial, but $1.8 billion for a 10-year old company that, AFAIK, has never turned a profit is nuts. Either 1) investors saw something in the revenue growth numbers that painted a rosier picture about the future, 2) the entire valuation is illegitimate, or 3) the tech world is really that bubbly right now.
- aaron-lebo 9y agoYeah, it really doesn't make sense. Reddit was stagnant for a decade, never made money, now they are taking on $200 million and scaling up? Completely unjustified, people just want something to throw money at.
- randomerr 9y agoWe're heading to another tech bubble. I've been talking with local economists and fund managers, Most of them that unless the new tax plan really takes off the tech and housing bubble is going to burst late 2018 or early 2019. Yes, housing is coming back hard again. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4050332-new-housing-bubble-unique-chart-proves https://seekingalpha.com/article/4050332-new-housing-bubble-...
- empath75 9y agoReddit is swarming with Russian bots and they still have a whole network of white supremecy and various hate subs, operating both out in the open and ‘quarantined’.
- cxzdyn 9y agoIs it really easier to believe that Russian bots are behind the lion's share of this content rather than other westerners?
- RulingWalnut 9y agoThey didn't attribute any kind of percentage to the bots. Just that the bots exist and the subs exist which are both bad.
- alexc05 9y agoIs there a difference between writing the content yourself and upvoting fringe content with 1,000 fake accounts while suppressing the inverse with the same? The fringe is emboldened and encouraged and given an artificial air of legitimacy. The challenge or alternative viewpoint is suppressed. It is still psychological warfare and the key point isn't really the individual composing the post. Though in all fairness - based on the articles about the IRA and the experiences I've had I do think that that they have individuals posting and writing their own content. (for those that haven't read about the Internet Research Agency yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency)
- Cknight70 9y agoAll these companies have been pushing this "Russia did it!" narrative with very little evidence or reason backing their claim. My theory why the whole Russian conspiracy is a thing is because its easier to dehumanize Russia as "the bad guys" rather than face the facts of how many people are opposed to you in your own country. Edit: I'm not in denyal that Russia had nothing to do with the election but I think Russia's involvement is grossly over represented. Its so much easier to say "Russia did it" while ignoring why subreddits like /r/thedonald or the right propaganda caught on so much.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- misterHN 9y agoIsn't Reddit just usenet for the social media generation? Isn't Reddit just a platform for launching abuse at public figures? Everything about Reddit is oriented toward abuse and mob mentality.
- Razengan 9y agoAny other non-Americans just fed up with this peurile black-and-white, Left-vs-Right tribalism that all discussions of US politics have seemingly devolved into over the last few years? It’s like watching a bizarre caricature of some dystopian satire.
- stevenwoo 9y agoI follow UK politics a bit and am American and have difficulty seeing any substantive difference between the right/left divide in the UK and the USA, but I am only reading the BBC headlines. In the USA, many people can trace the right left not working together to 1990's or so with Newt Gringrich, so it's not a recent phenomena either.
- CaptSpify 9y agoI'm an American and I'm fed up with it. What pisses me off the most is that, IME, nobody fits into either of these categories. It's devolved into a one-dimensional Left or Right, when really most people are mixed on every issue.
- hankhill 9y agoHN is either filled to the brim with Russian state sponsored trolls, or Silicon Valley really is the most disgusting cesspool of human garbage ever concieved.
- stevenwoo 9y agoThere are a lot of people who might be smart in one arena and then open their mouth about some other subject and reveal how not smart they might be in a whole lot of other ways. Recent example #1 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/16/james-damore-google-memo-interview-autism-regrets https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/16/james-dam...
- hankhill 9y agoWhat gets me is the whole culture of arrogance, where they refuse to step back and think before deciding they are absolutely an expert on every possible topic.