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I suspect this isn't going to accomplish much of anything and may even backfire. According to published statistics by Reddit as of this writing, this subreddit
by nilkn 7y ago
I suspect this isn't going to accomplish much of anything and may even backfire. According to published statistics by Reddit as of this writing, this subreddit has 755k subscribers and over 45,000 members online right now. For comparison, the official politics subreddit has 5.2 million subscribers but fewer online members (42,000). r/the_donald has an extraordinarily high level of activity and engagement. So long as r/the_donald exists and is maintained, it can act as a sort of black hole so that official subreddits can be heavily moderated to support certain platforms, politicians, and advertisers. If it were actually shut down, though, the users there are so numerous and active that it probably wouldn't be possible to maintain r/politics or other official subreddits in their current moderated state.
Perhaps worse, this quarantined state -- which really doesn't accomplish or do anything of substance -- just creates a sense of martyrdom in the already extremely active userbase there. I suspect this will energize them 10-fold.
- yummypaint 7y agoTD cant be directly tother subs due to the volume of fake/bot accounts
- tdb7893 7y agoIn my experience when Reddit banned the more toxic subreddits many of the other subreddits I actually did frequent became better. I think the people who would be in those subreddits are already there and when there are bans in subreddits some of the people leave and the community is better for it.
- nilkn 7y agoThose subreddits tended to be very small and inactive in comparison. r/the_donald is one of the most active communities on the entire website.
- tdb7893 7y agoThe thing is that those people are also on other subreddits, people generally don't frequent just one. So those people always bring in Reddit to comment on the Donald is also leasing to more engagement on other subreddits. It's possible that the Donald would organize more and be more of an issue in other subreddits but that wasn't how it worked in the past.
- altcognito 7y agoThe_donald is notoriously bot driven, the online user count is garbage. It’s not the only subreddit with large bot populations, I’m just saying it’s one of the more toxic influential ones.
- nilkn 7y agoIs there actual evidence of this? My experience is those in r/the_donald claim the numbers are artificially deflated by Reddit, and those on the other side claim r/the_donald is mostly bots. I suspect both views are wrong.
- altcognito 7y agoUnlike most subreddits, their upvote count to comment ratio is really out of whack. Usually a pretty reliable sign of botism. You see it on corporate driven posts on movie promotions a decent amount too. (Along with some pretty lame top voted comments)
- nilkn 7y agoThe subreddit's culture for years has been based on aggressively upvoting everything posted there. This started back when it was small and the community tried to get pro-Trump posts on the front page of Reddit, which invariably caused a lot of drama. So I don't think this means anything.
- altcognito 7y agoYes, I agree, their culture is contrary to the basic functioning of an online forum.
- nilkn 7y agoYour position seems to have backtracked from concern over bots to... disliking lots of upvotes within a community. Forgive me if I think you're being disingenuous with this latest statement.
- omegaworks 7y agoOn the contrary. Deplatforming fascism works[1]. This removes a small number of tools that they use to recruit. It is step in the right direction. 1. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media-bans-work https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media-ba...
- goodfight 7y agoCensorship is a step in the direction of fascism. You have become what you hate most.
- ssalazar 7y agoHow is a business censoring their own networks related to fascism? Is the downvote button fascist? This is the classic "paradox of tolerance."
- leereeves 7y agoWhy is it more acceptable when a business does it than when a government does it?
- locopati 7y agoBecause if you live in a country there's only one government. Business provide a service and you can find another service that meets your needs.
- ssalazar 7y agoThe same reason if I go to a stranger's house and start debating with them about my own political opinions they are free to kick me out. Free enterprise and private property are generally considered fundaments of modern civil society. Im all ears if you have an argument to the contrary.
- leereeves 7y ago
- Chardok 7y agoI thought that would have happened too when other subreddits were quarantined or banned (and it briefly did when fatpeoplehate was banned) but honestly the banned discourse does not show up on the front page or /r/all, as they intended. However, because of this, Reddit is becoming increasingly sterile, single-minded, and most importantly ad-friendly to the point where its fairly difficult to have an honest discussion about anything remotely controversial. Unfortunately their selective banning of communities that I would associate with the "far-right" has seriously hurt any attempt to migrate away from Reddit (specifically Voat.co is unbearable for me trying to participate). I don't know if there will ever be a straw to break the camels back, but I have been actively searching for reddit alternatives for years and have not found a truly viable replacement.
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- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- 0815test 7y agoThe FPH folks seem to have moved to /r/fatpeoplestories. A similar subreddit all things considered, just a lot less hateful (and not focused on the sort of doxxing that was ubiquitous on FPH), which is pretty much what we'd want I guess. Is a similar dynamic plausible for T_D? Not very clear.
- leereeves 7y ago> its fairly difficult to have an honest discussion about anything remotely controversial. Like most media companies, reddit wants to promote its political agenda. It's natural and common (and expected of the traditional media), but since reddit doesn't pay for their own content, can only be done with censorship. So they're making it difficult to have an honest discussion about anything they have an opinion about. That's particularly concerning because reddit seems to be a natural monopoly, having operated for years with no successful competition. Perhaps this censorship will be the impetus that finally allows some competition to break through.
- yread 7y agoThe 45,000 members of T_D online now might have something to do with the quarantine. When it reached 750K it was just 5,715 "winners" online https://old.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/bzau5s/we_just_cracked_750k_pedes/ https://old.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/bzau5s/we_just_...
- nilkn 7y agoGreat point. We'll have to see if it goes down over the next few weeks. My fear and prediction is this will cause it to go up by dramatically enhancing the censorship lore that r/the_donald has been increasingly invoking for a while now.
- bduerst 7y agoA lot of those subscribers are sock puppet accounts though, and the quarantine function on reddit prevents accounts without email verification from posting or voting, so there's going to be a hit in activity. There are no quarantined subreddits that have come back from being quarantined, regardless of size, so I think that it's safe to lean towards this subreddit slowly withering away.
- JaimeThompson 7y agoTD bans lots of people. When you are banned it doesn't unsubscribe you which is why their typical ratio of subs to active users was very low.
- basq 7y agoSo we can push those users out of thier censorship-laden safe space, and into the rest of the 'public' so to speak, thus they can be engaged and in cases of rule-breaking, reported.
- andygates 7y agoIt has extraordinarily high levels of bots, too. Unverified accounts can't get through the quarantine, so it'll be fun to watch that traffic tank.