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I think you have it backwards. The moderation came after reddit, youtube, etc became mainstream. It didn't become mainstream because of moderation. Reddit, you

I think you have it backwards. The moderation came after reddit, youtube, etc became mainstream. It didn't become mainstream because of moderation. Reddit, youtube, etc became extremely popular precisely because they weren't censored. But once they got huge, corporate and political interests took over and you got censorship. It wasn't the "mainstream" that demanded moderation and censorship on these platforms, it was journalists and politicians working for powerful interests. The problem with voat, gab, etc are manifold. Firstly, their owners aren't pushing content and making the site more interesting. People forget that the creators of reddit, youtube, etc initially worked hard to provide content on their platforms. One of reddit's founders did an AMA a while back explaining how most of the content on reddit in the beginning were linked by the founders and then their employees. It took a long time before reddit became popular enough for it to be entirely user generated. Secondly, voat, gab, etc are trying to break into a saturated industry that already has large monopolistic competitors. Reddit, youtube, etc didn't have that. Sure digg existed but they weren't in a monopolistic position and there was plenty of space to grow. I hope they succeed but they have a much more difficult task trying to take market share from established companies. If they do succeed, they'll face the same problems that reddit, youtube, etc faced. Journalists and politicians hounding them to censor content at the behest of powerful interests. The fundamental problem is still there. I'm still not see how any of these platforms have solved this problem. Reddit and youtube were just as devoted to free speech until journalists and politicians started spreading propaganda and attacking them. If reddit and youtube folded under pressure, why would voat, gab, etc be any different? People forget how reddit staunchly defended free speech for years. If I remember correctly, their motto was "free speech platform". They aren't that anymore.

spookthesunset 8y ago
Maybe, just maybe, the determined that it isn’t cool to host obnoxious horrible people who incite violence. Maybe, just maybe, letting everybody post everything is not actually desirable or responsible.
- enobrev 8y ago
  Good for democracy. Bad for a social platform.
- tobylane 8y ago
  Agreed. I backed out of reading about Aether when I read peer to peer. I require moderation. It's not what makes it, but what it makes that I'm focusing on.
rtpg 8y ago
>Reddit, youtube, etc became extremely popular precisely because they weren't censored. But once they got huge, corporate and political interests took over and you got censorship. I... kinda get this argument for reddit, though only a bit. But this is just not true for Youtube. There was never a point where "well I wanted to put my video on X but Youtubue will actually let me do it without censoring" was ever true. There's the recent stuff about monetization, but all that was happening way later! Not to mention that Youtube was huge even before ad revenue sharing was a thing on the platform. Meanwhile, there are very well documented cases where lack of moderation on social networks lead to the people who actually make content taking their ball and going home. The revisionism of "the internet used to have no mods and corporate money has ruined it all" is so exhausting to read over and over again. Even 4chan has had mods and janitors! Turns out that just letting the worst actors on a network be loud is not fun.
- wmf 8y ago
  Didn't YouTube originally become popular because it was all pirated content? Then once they had an audience they forced out the pirates?
  - yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
    > Then once they had an audience they forced out the pirates? ... They did what now? I find it hard to believe that half the stuff on there is "properly" licensed.
    - Danieru 8y ago
      Early days of YouTube had pirate anime on the front page. The crack down was rather noticeable and I rmemebe thinking "what, does YouTube just want to be cat videos?". Yet they managed to carry through and now the majority of view hours are coming from made for YouTube content.
      - dotancohen 8y ago
        Interestingly, in the beginning, Youtube was mostly airplane videos. When I first was introduced to the site, before it was a Google property I believe, a significant portion of the site was Boeing 747s landing and taking off. I had later read that the airplane videos were seeded by early employees.
komali2 8y ago
Our memories are different... I always remember the raids from /b/ on Reddit leading to mass bans, way back in the early '10s. It was always 4chan where the overt racism and whatnot happened. Communities like /r/jailbait would slowly form, then be shut down. "Censorship" was applied like whack a mole from the beginning.
- nostrademons 8y ago
  Early '10s is not the early days of Reddit. 05-07 is early days of Reddit. Hell, I remember doing an IAmA [1] in 2012 about having discovered Reddit the day it opened, back in July 2005. Hard to believe that it's been as much time since then as it had been between then and Reddit's founding. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/r4td2/i_want_to_hear_from_the_first_generation_of/c42wkne/?context=5#c42wkne https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/r4td2/i_want_to_...
  - markdown 8y ago
    Hi, Alexis!
    - nostrademons 8y ago
      Not him. He commented on the thread, though.
      - markdown 8y ago
        It was a joke. Alexis and Steve seeded most of the content in the first year of reddit, so the joke was that anybody around then was one of these two people.
cc81 8y ago
reddit itself might have been a proclaimed free speech platform but the biggest strength of reddit after it started to grow was the good subreddits were heavily moderated. I think it was great that they banned /r/jailbait and I think that the people who are often heavily moderating and shaping their subreddits are doing a valuable job. I've been following /r/syriancivilwar for years and even though it is an incredibly sensitive and horrible subject it has incredibly contributions just because the mods have strict rules about content.
cbsmith 8y ago
> I think you have it backwards. The moderation came after reddit, youtube, etc became mainstream. It didn't become mainstream because of moderation. It's just a difference of semantics here... About what the inflection point is for "mainstream". I think there is a reasonable argument that moderation/centralization is needed to protect the "brand" once you get to a certain level of "mainstream".

spookthesunset 8y ago

Maybe, just maybe, the determined that it isn’t cool to host obnoxious horrible people who incite violence. Maybe, just maybe, letting everybody post everything is not actually desirable or responsible.

enobrev 8y ago
Good for democracy. Bad for a social platform.
tobylane 8y ago
Agreed. I backed out of reading about Aether when I read peer to peer. I require moderation. It's not what makes it, but what it makes that I'm focusing on.

rtpg 8y ago

>Reddit, youtube, etc became extremely popular precisely because they weren't censored. But once they got huge, corporate and political interests took over and you got censorship. I... kinda get this argument for reddit, though only a bit. But this is just not true for Youtube. There was never a point where "well I wanted to put my video on X but Youtubue will actually let me do it without censoring" was ever true. There's the recent stuff about monetization, but all that was happening way later! Not to mention that Youtube was huge even before ad revenue sharing was a thing on the platform. Meanwhile, there are very well documented cases where lack of moderation on social networks lead to the people who actually make content taking their ball and going home. The revisionism of "the internet used to have no mods and corporate money has ruined it all" is so exhausting to read over and over again. Even 4chan has had mods and janitors! Turns out that just letting the worst actors on a network be loud is not fun.

wmf 8y ago
Didn't YouTube originally become popular because it was all pirated content? Then once they had an audience they forced out the pirates?
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
  > Then once they had an audience they forced out the pirates? ... They did what now? I find it hard to believe that half the stuff on there is "properly" licensed.
  - Danieru 8y ago
    Early days of YouTube had pirate anime on the front page. The crack down was rather noticeable and I rmemebe thinking "what, does YouTube just want to be cat videos?". Yet they managed to carry through and now the majority of view hours are coming from made for YouTube content.
    - dotancohen 8y ago
      Interestingly, in the beginning, Youtube was mostly airplane videos. When I first was introduced to the site, before it was a Google property I believe, a significant portion of the site was Boeing 747s landing and taking off. I had later read that the airplane videos were seeded by early employees.

komali2 8y ago

Our memories are different... I always remember the raids from /b/ on Reddit leading to mass bans, way back in the early '10s. It was always 4chan where the overt racism and whatnot happened. Communities like /r/jailbait would slowly form, then be shut down. "Censorship" was applied like whack a mole from the beginning.

nostrademons 8y ago
Early '10s is not the early days of Reddit. 05-07 is early days of Reddit. Hell, I remember doing an IAmA [1] in 2012 about having discovered Reddit the day it opened, back in July 2005. Hard to believe that it's been as much time since then as it had been between then and Reddit's founding. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/r4td2/i_want_to_hear_from_the_first_generation_of/c42wkne/?context=5#c42wkne https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/r4td2/i_want_to_...
- markdown 8y ago
  Hi, Alexis!
  - nostrademons 8y ago
    Not him. He commented on the thread, though.
    - markdown 8y ago
      It was a joke. Alexis and Steve seeded most of the content in the first year of reddit, so the joke was that anybody around then was one of these two people.

cc81 8y ago

reddit itself might have been a proclaimed free speech platform but the biggest strength of reddit after it started to grow was the good subreddits were heavily moderated. I think it was great that they banned /r/jailbait and I think that the people who are often heavily moderating and shaping their subreddits are doing a valuable job. I've been following /r/syriancivilwar for years and even though it is an incredibly sensitive and horrible subject it has incredibly contributions just because the mods have strict rules about content.

cbsmith 8y ago

> I think you have it backwards. The moderation came after reddit, youtube, etc became mainstream. It didn't become mainstream because of moderation. It's just a difference of semantics here... About what the inflection point is for "mainstream". I think there is a reasonable argument that moderation/centralization is needed to protect the "brand" once you get to a certain level of "mainstream".