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A reddit user from Hong Kong was recently banned from the /r/pics/ subreddit for posting about their support for the Hong Kong protests against https://www.red

by cwkoss 7y ago

A reddit user from Hong Kong was recently banned from the /r/pics/ subreddit for posting about their support for the Hong Kong protests against https://www.reddit.com/r/chinareddits/comments/bz177v/got_banned_in_rpics_after_receiving_6_awards_in_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/chinareddits/comments/bz177v/got_ba... Tencent recently invested in Reddit. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-11/reddit-users-revolt-on-news-of-chinese-investment/10798584 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-11/reddit-users-revolt-o...

hiram112 7y ago
Speaking of Reddit, a citizen of Hong Kong had a post this morning make it to the front page giving out a bit of info about the protest. Nearly half the comments were purged by the mods. Reddit had gone down hell in the last few years, but this was something else.
- ethbro 7y ago
  Aren't all Reddit subs driven by their own moderators? Or are there core subs that are Reddit-moderated? I had a lawyer friend who liked to post in a legal advice sub, moderated by someone in law enforcement, who banned him for posting information about your rights if you're arrested.
  - cwkoss 7y ago
    I suspect that Reddit intentionally keeps the moderators of core subs a group of "normal users" (who will follow any requests by the admins) as a level of obfuscation for any corporate-driven censorship or vote-tampering.
    - ethbro 7y ago
      And I suspect there's a secret cabal of mole-men (and -women) who are selecting presidential candidates for the Democratic primaries. Are either of these claims falsifiable?
      - SkyBelow 7y ago
        Yes, their claim can be easily falsified by a full investigation.
        SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
        What is the answer if the result of said investigation is "well, we have no direct evidence"?
        burgerboy 7y ago
        Then the person who did the investigation is compromised obviously
        SkyBelow 7y ago
        That has no bearing on if the claim is falsifiable or not.
        SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
        > falsified by a full investigation Unless it's a term I'm not aware of, a full investigation is still limited to human actors and limits.
        SkyBelow 7y ago
        The result of the investigation isn't a factor in determining if a claim is falsifiable or not, only the question if the investigation is possible. This is confusing falsifiable with falsified.
        ethbro 7y ago
        A full investigation by whom? They've broken no laws. Voluntary? Ha. I realize what the parent was attempting to say, but internet rumormongering is poor form.
        7y ago
    - hiram112 7y ago
      I would agree with that, especially for their biggest and most influential subs like /r/news and /r/politics. Reddit's owners have shown they're not above selling out some of these subs to firms like ShareBlue. It would make sense as part of their contract, they'd ensure that the mods were 'suited' to their customers' goals.
      - akiselev 7y ago
        Shareblue was banned from r/politics and a bunch of other popular subs long ago.
        cwkoss 7y ago
        Linking to the domain was banned. I doubt reddit has the technical capabilities to effectively prevent them from continuing their alleged bot/vote-manipulation activities.
  - DEADBEEFC0FFEE 7y ago
    The lion share of subs are moderated by a relative few mods. There was a post showing the graph of control recently, I found it disturbing. Unfortunately Reddit has critical mass now, I think it can survive what ever it becomes. It could lose every user who wishes it was like the first 5 years and hardly notuce. There won't be a Digg moment for Reddit.
    - mc32 7y ago
      Does Reddit have a system to appeal mod decisionmaking for important (and not so important) subreddits? I think Flickr had this back when they were a big property. You'd have site admins look at your complaint and follow up as necessary. It's be nice to have and if they have it that it'd be more active to keep things from going off the rails --within reason.
    - Retric 7y ago
      Many dominate players on the internet have been kicked to the curve. It starts with complacency which lack of real competition seems to always create.
  - cmonnow 7y ago
    The blatant censorship situation in r/india 'official India subreddit' is similar. Any user supporting the incumbent government or speaking against Islamic terrorism gets banned. Similar scenario on r/worldnews. Anti-Muslim posts get removed and users banned, while Anti-Hindu posts get to the front-page. Reddit should make atleast the 'Official Country' subreddits from obvious bias/influence.
brownbat 7y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/byjify/arial_view_of_the_protest_today_in_hong_kong/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/byjify/arial_view_of_... A lot of comments still up are even more directly critical of Beijing than that post. Mods flagged it for "vote manipulation." So I don't know what to make of this. A sympathetic voting ring could have boosted the comment without the commenter knowing, confusing everyone here. Or maybe Tencent really is picking specific posts to complain about to Reddit admins, or planting mods in high profile subs (but those mods can only catch so much). Is there any way to sample which comments have been deleted by mods, to see if there's a consistent bias?
- cwkoss 7y ago
  You can change `reddit.com` -> `removeditt.com` to see (some) of the deleted comments on a thread. https://www.removeddit.com/r/pics/comments/byjify/arial_view_of_the_protest_today_in_hong_kong/ https://www.removeddit.com/r/pics/comments/byjify/arial_view...
cmonnow 7y ago
The blatant censorship situation in r/india 'official India subreddit' is similar. Any user supporting the incumbent government or speaking against Islamic terrorism gets banned. Similar scenario on r/worldnews. Anti-Muslim posts get removed and users banned, while Anti-Hindu posts get to the front-page. Not surprising, since there are 3 mods who moderate both r/worldnews & r/india
- happppy 7y ago
  Islamic terrorism? Indian Army is killing a number of people in Kashmir daily and still Muslims are terrorists? Indian Agency RAW is the major sponsor of terrorist attacks and still Muslims are terrorists. Muslims are being killed in Palestine by Israel and still Muslims are terrorists. US attacked Afghanistan for oil and still Muslims are terrorists. US threatening to attack Iran and still Muslims are terrorists.
  - siphon22 7y ago
    Other people doing bad things does not negate that Muslims also do bad things. I hate this deflection/whataboutism as if it means anything. On another note, >Muslims are being killed in Palestine by Israel and still Muslims are terrorists. >US attacked Afghanistan for oil and still Muslims are terrorists. >US threatening to attack Iran and still Muslims are terrorists. You can talk about and criticize all three of these things freely if you want, without worrying about being retaliated against physically by extremists or being censored by platforms who are afraid of the lashback if they fail to do so as Muslims are somehow a protected minority.
- seventhtiger 7y ago
  Moderators on reddit reserve the right to censor their subreddits. This is not censorship by reddit, this is censorship by the users who created that community. Some communities use it quite effectively like askscience and askhistory to limit responses to certified experts, others use to enforce some minimum standard of content and to deter shitposting, while some use it to control the narrative and shape opinion. In any case, to suggest Chinese influence on reddit censorship, either the reddit admins are doing the censorship, or the Chinese influence is somehow reaching the mods. No one has made a good case for that that I've seen.
diveanon 7y ago
I stand by my belief that reddit is one of the worst sites on the net and far far worse than Facebook when it comes to reinforcing echo chamber mentalities. I stopped visiting the site after the pulse shooting in Orlando when moderators deleted my post listing blood donation facilities in the Orlando area.

by cwkoss 7y ago

hiram112 7y ago

Speaking of Reddit, a citizen of Hong Kong had a post this morning make it to the front page giving out a bit of info about the protest. Nearly half the comments were purged by the mods. Reddit had gone down hell in the last few years, but this was something else.

ethbro 7y ago
Aren't all Reddit subs driven by their own moderators? Or are there core subs that are Reddit-moderated? I had a lawyer friend who liked to post in a legal advice sub, moderated by someone in law enforcement, who banned him for posting information about your rights if you're arrested.
- cwkoss 7y ago
  I suspect that Reddit intentionally keeps the moderators of core subs a group of "normal users" (who will follow any requests by the admins) as a level of obfuscation for any corporate-driven censorship or vote-tampering.
  - ethbro 7y ago
    And I suspect there's a secret cabal of mole-men (and -women) who are selecting presidential candidates for the Democratic primaries. Are either of these claims falsifiable?
    - SkyBelow 7y ago
      Yes, their claim can be easily falsified by a full investigation.
      - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
        What is the answer if the result of said investigation is "well, we have no direct evidence"?
        burgerboy 7y ago
        Then the person who did the investigation is compromised obviously
        SkyBelow 7y ago
        That has no bearing on if the claim is falsifiable or not.
        SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
        > falsified by a full investigation Unless it's a term I'm not aware of, a full investigation is still limited to human actors and limits.
        SkyBelow 7y ago
        The result of the investigation isn't a factor in determining if a claim is falsifiable or not, only the question if the investigation is possible. This is confusing falsifiable with falsified.
      - ethbro 7y ago
        A full investigation by whom? They've broken no laws. Voluntary? Ha. I realize what the parent was attempting to say, but internet rumormongering is poor form.
        7y ago
  - hiram112 7y ago
    I would agree with that, especially for their biggest and most influential subs like /r/news and /r/politics. Reddit's owners have shown they're not above selling out some of these subs to firms like ShareBlue. It would make sense as part of their contract, they'd ensure that the mods were 'suited' to their customers' goals.
    - akiselev 7y ago
      Shareblue was banned from r/politics and a bunch of other popular subs long ago.
      - cwkoss 7y ago
        Linking to the domain was banned. I doubt reddit has the technical capabilities to effectively prevent them from continuing their alleged bot/vote-manipulation activities.
- DEADBEEFC0FFEE 7y ago
  The lion share of subs are moderated by a relative few mods. There was a post showing the graph of control recently, I found it disturbing. Unfortunately Reddit has critical mass now, I think it can survive what ever it becomes. It could lose every user who wishes it was like the first 5 years and hardly notuce. There won't be a Digg moment for Reddit.
  - mc32 7y ago
    Does Reddit have a system to appeal mod decisionmaking for important (and not so important) subreddits? I think Flickr had this back when they were a big property. You'd have site admins look at your complaint and follow up as necessary. It's be nice to have and if they have it that it'd be more active to keep things from going off the rails --within reason.
  - Retric 7y ago
    Many dominate players on the internet have been kicked to the curve. It starts with complacency which lack of real competition seems to always create.
- cmonnow 7y ago
  The blatant censorship situation in r/india 'official India subreddit' is similar. Any user supporting the incumbent government or speaking against Islamic terrorism gets banned. Similar scenario on r/worldnews. Anti-Muslim posts get removed and users banned, while Anti-Hindu posts get to the front-page. Reddit should make atleast the 'Official Country' subreddits from obvious bias/influence.

brownbat 7y ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/byjify/arial_view_of_the_protest_today_in_hong_kong/ https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/byjify/arial_view_of_... A lot of comments still up are even more directly critical of Beijing than that post. Mods flagged it for "vote manipulation." So I don't know what to make of this. A sympathetic voting ring could have boosted the comment without the commenter knowing, confusing everyone here. Or maybe Tencent really is picking specific posts to complain about to Reddit admins, or planting mods in high profile subs (but those mods can only catch so much). Is there any way to sample which comments have been deleted by mods, to see if there's a consistent bias?

cwkoss 7y ago
You can change `reddit.com` -> `removeditt.com` to see (some) of the deleted comments on a thread. https://www.removeddit.com/r/pics/comments/byjify/arial_view_of_the_protest_today_in_hong_kong/ https://www.removeddit.com/r/pics/comments/byjify/arial_view...

cmonnow 7y ago

The blatant censorship situation in r/india 'official India subreddit' is similar. Any user supporting the incumbent government or speaking against Islamic terrorism gets banned. Similar scenario on r/worldnews. Anti-Muslim posts get removed and users banned, while Anti-Hindu posts get to the front-page. Not surprising, since there are 3 mods who moderate both r/worldnews & r/india

happppy 7y ago
Islamic terrorism? Indian Army is killing a number of people in Kashmir daily and still Muslims are terrorists? Indian Agency RAW is the major sponsor of terrorist attacks and still Muslims are terrorists. Muslims are being killed in Palestine by Israel and still Muslims are terrorists. US attacked Afghanistan for oil and still Muslims are terrorists. US threatening to attack Iran and still Muslims are terrorists.
- siphon22 7y ago
  Other people doing bad things does not negate that Muslims also do bad things. I hate this deflection/whataboutism as if it means anything. On another note, >Muslims are being killed in Palestine by Israel and still Muslims are terrorists. >US attacked Afghanistan for oil and still Muslims are terrorists. >US threatening to attack Iran and still Muslims are terrorists. You can talk about and criticize all three of these things freely if you want, without worrying about being retaliated against physically by extremists or being censored by platforms who are afraid of the lashback if they fail to do so as Muslims are somehow a protected minority.
seventhtiger 7y ago
Moderators on reddit reserve the right to censor their subreddits. This is not censorship by reddit, this is censorship by the users who created that community. Some communities use it quite effectively like askscience and askhistory to limit responses to certified experts, others use to enforce some minimum standard of content and to deter shitposting, while some use it to control the narrative and shape opinion. In any case, to suggest Chinese influence on reddit censorship, either the reddit admins are doing the censorship, or the Chinese influence is somehow reaching the mods. No one has made a good case for that that I've seen.

diveanon 7y ago

I stand by my belief that reddit is one of the worst sites on the net and far far worse than Facebook when it comes to reinforcing echo chamber mentalities. I stopped visiting the site after the pulse shooting in Orlando when moderators deleted my post listing blood donation facilities in the Orlando area.