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Another clear red line was when spez started editing comments.[0] It was childish and non-consequential, but should have resulted in an immediate exodus from th

Another clear red line was when spez started editing comments.[0] It was childish and non-consequential, but should have resulted in an immediate exodus from the platform. I'm not politically aligned with r/The_Donald, but I think this sort of petty power abuse should not be forgiven; the platform needs to die, as an example to other platforms. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5ekdy9/the_admins_are_suffering_from_low_energy_have/dad5sf1/ https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5ekdy9/the_admi...

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
That was beyond unacceptable because it didn't show the comment as have been edited with an asterisks. Which means they have and use special admin powers at will. The only issue to Reddit it seems was that he was caught doing it.
- Zecar 8y ago
  There are people sitting in prison RIGHT NOW from Reddit posts. Now think about the damage admins editing posts can do. You're right, it is beyond acceptable.
  - kazinator 8y ago
    > Now think about the damage admins editing posts can do. Why, their actions can lend plausible deniability to incriminating information in posts that have not been edited.
- qgsrw3fd 8y ago
  I don't think admins can edit comments using the regular website interface. The CEO edited the comments directly in the database. That's why the asterisk never appeared. (Which, by the way, means the CEO has direct access to the database. Why?)
ForHackernews 8y ago
Really? I thought it was a fantastic reminder to users: they hold all the cards, and pretending otherwise is just diluting yourself. If only other online platforms were that honest! Imagine Google sending out misleading gmails in your name, or Facebook mining your private messages for incriminating secrets and offering to "share" them with all your friends. There's nothing technical preventing any of these kinds of abuses, and the sooner average users understand that, the sooner we'll have support for strong legal protections to rein in big tech companies.
- scarmig 8y ago
  For the record, systems at both FB and Google prevent internal employees from doing either. "There's nothing technical preventing any of these kinds of abuses" is only true in the sense that you can imagine implementations that don't prevent these kinds of abuses.
  - ForHackernews 8y ago
    You're claiming that a rogue employee can't take it on themselves to do that on their own initiative. Either of those companies could trivially choose to do those things as a management decision. Maybe it doesn't make good business sense today, but who knows what the business landscape of 2025 or 2030 looks like?
    - scarmig 8y ago
      And then my comment would be false. But as it stands today, it's true. I do think you overestimate how trivial it would be for "management" (who? a senior PM? Sergei? Zuck?) to decide to turn off all internal security controls so individual Googlers could send emails using someone else's identity--it would likely run afoul of multiple current laws and contracts, to speak nothing of the universal, strong internal objections there'd be to that change and the high engineering cost to migrate off those systems. And I can't imagine a business landscape that would encourage any company to let individual employees do that. There are tons of things to worry about wrt BigTechCos, but preventing and auditing rogue employees are something where their incentives align pretty strongly with the public good. FWIW I do support stronger legal and privacy requirements (with some caveats, mostly because compliance is very expensive and potentially harmful to smaller companies).
Liru 8y ago
Also, when they created comments and manipulated their timestamps to make it seem like they were created far earlier than they actually were, for advertising purposes.
- 6cd6beb 8y ago
  They also obfuscate the real upvote/downvote numbers, purportedly to stop vote manipulation but I don't really see how it does anything but provide a mask of plausible deniability for editing the up/down figures for advertisements, subversive posts, etc.
  - nhooyr 8y ago
    It ensures batters cannot tell if their account has been shadow banned.
- JoeSmithson 8y ago
  What incident is this referring to? I can't find anything via a quick search...
  - Liru 8y ago
    It didn't blow up like the comment-editing incident, but I was referring to https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/7a2mle/possible_reddit_database_corruption/ https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/7a2mle/possible_...

SlowRobotAhead 8y ago

That was beyond unacceptable because it didn't show the comment as have been edited with an asterisks. Which means they have and use special admin powers at will. The only issue to Reddit it seems was that he was caught doing it.

Zecar 8y ago
There are people sitting in prison RIGHT NOW from Reddit posts. Now think about the damage admins editing posts can do. You're right, it is beyond acceptable.
- kazinator 8y ago
  > Now think about the damage admins editing posts can do. Why, their actions can lend plausible deniability to incriminating information in posts that have not been edited.
qgsrw3fd 8y ago
I don't think admins can edit comments using the regular website interface. The CEO edited the comments directly in the database. That's why the asterisk never appeared. (Which, by the way, means the CEO has direct access to the database. Why?)

ForHackernews 8y ago

Really? I thought it was a fantastic reminder to users: they hold all the cards, and pretending otherwise is just diluting yourself. If only other online platforms were that honest! Imagine Google sending out misleading gmails in your name, or Facebook mining your private messages for incriminating secrets and offering to "share" them with all your friends. There's nothing technical preventing any of these kinds of abuses, and the sooner average users understand that, the sooner we'll have support for strong legal protections to rein in big tech companies.

scarmig 8y ago
For the record, systems at both FB and Google prevent internal employees from doing either. "There's nothing technical preventing any of these kinds of abuses" is only true in the sense that you can imagine implementations that don't prevent these kinds of abuses.
- ForHackernews 8y ago
  You're claiming that a rogue employee can't take it on themselves to do that on their own initiative. Either of those companies could trivially choose to do those things as a management decision. Maybe it doesn't make good business sense today, but who knows what the business landscape of 2025 or 2030 looks like?
  - scarmig 8y ago
    And then my comment would be false. But as it stands today, it's true. I do think you overestimate how trivial it would be for "management" (who? a senior PM? Sergei? Zuck?) to decide to turn off all internal security controls so individual Googlers could send emails using someone else's identity--it would likely run afoul of multiple current laws and contracts, to speak nothing of the universal, strong internal objections there'd be to that change and the high engineering cost to migrate off those systems. And I can't imagine a business landscape that would encourage any company to let individual employees do that. There are tons of things to worry about wrt BigTechCos, but preventing and auditing rogue employees are something where their incentives align pretty strongly with the public good. FWIW I do support stronger legal and privacy requirements (with some caveats, mostly because compliance is very expensive and potentially harmful to smaller companies).

Liru 8y ago

Also, when they created comments and manipulated their timestamps to make it seem like they were created far earlier than they actually were, for advertising purposes.

6cd6beb 8y ago
They also obfuscate the real upvote/downvote numbers, purportedly to stop vote manipulation but I don't really see how it does anything but provide a mask of plausible deniability for editing the up/down figures for advertisements, subversive posts, etc.
- nhooyr 8y ago
  It ensures batters cannot tell if their account has been shadow banned.
JoeSmithson 8y ago
What incident is this referring to? I can't find anything via a quick search...
- Liru 8y ago
  It didn't blow up like the comment-editing incident, but I was referring to https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/7a2mle/possible_reddit_database_corruption/ https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/7a2mle/possible_...