5 ms·

Ellen Pao Responds to Reddit

45 points by KKKKkkkk1 6y ago

RandallBrown 6y ago
When r/The_Donald first started, I could have sworn it was a satire subreddit that made fun of Trump. Does anyone else remember that or were the posts just so outrageous I thought it was satire when it hit the front page?
- hbosch 6y ago
  When Trump started his campaign, the phrase "The Donald" was definitely more of a meme. The content of that sub was indeed "so-over-the-top-this-must-be-satire" type content... Pepe memes, crude photoshops of Trump as a God, the bots that would autoreply "THE WALL JUST GOT X FEET HIGHER!", the refrain of "GET THIS MAN A COAT" when a supporter of a dropped-out candidate would be lured in by the energy and the jokes. But that was more or less the entire facade of Trump's campaign. That language and those posts reached out to a significant constituency online of young, "edgy" men who love memeing and trolling. There was always an undercurrent of anti-black and anti-hispanic rhetoric, even when it seemed like satire.
- hadrien01 6y ago
  I also believe it was satire the first few months, trolling pro-Sanders spam. When it was confirmed Clinton and Trump would win their nomination, the pro-Sanders spam sort of stopped and /r/The_Donald became a full support subreddit. Or maybe it was simply Poe's law: some of us thought it was satire when it wasn't, and some of us thought it was Trump support when it wasn't.
hbosch 6y ago
She's right, and not just about r/T_D but in so many other subreddits, -- some stood up for the singular purpose of being racist, and some that are just racist on top of whatever other thing they represent -- and the uncomfortable truth is that to some degree any profitable online community/social network is forced to at minimum tolerate casual racism. To stamp it out is too tall a task for any social media platform of any significant mass... including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and so on. It's also worth mentioning, at least, the conspiracy theory that Reddit is proactively censoring sinophobic speech on it's platform. But, I don't know if that's been proven for certain.
BitwiseFool 6y ago
How exactly did Reddit "amplify" r/the_donald? First, they removed that subreddit from r/all and created Popular so non subscribed users wouldn't see it. Then they quarantined it for being anti-police. Then they tried to replace it's moderators with their own handpicked ones. The old mods decided to lock it down so no one can post. It's been like that for a few months. It's a shell that points people to a reddit clone specfically for the_donald style posts. What more do people want?
- deminature 6y ago
  It was allowed to flourish as a hate forum for years before being quarantined. Users brigaded other subreddits with little to no action from admins. Reddit management always did the least possible until they were forced by the media or user outcry. It's incredibly cynical to now come out against internet bigotry after being one of the premier destinations hosting it for the past few years.
  - s9w 6y ago
    That is a lie. TD was one of the most peaceful and rule-abiding political subs.
    - celticninja 6y ago
      No it was not.
    - deminature 6y ago
      They famously abused the stickying bug for years to get their content to the homepage. Reddit even changed the /r/all algorithm to specifically address gaming and exploitation by TD. The quarantine system was also introduced to isolate TD from the rest of the site, like a gangrenous limb. It's simply not the case that they were rule abiding.
      - s9w 6y ago
        That was not against the rules and was nerfed pretty fast - certainly not for years. And then they were artificially censored, held down, attacked and lied about and doxed.
troughway 6y ago
The New Playbook of Internet Censorship, by Ellen K. Pao et al.
moojd 6y ago
This mentality is why I believe every centralized social media platform has a limited shelf-life. We don't have a lot of discussions like this about what people should be allowed to say in an e-mail, or snail mail, or on a soapbox in Times Square as long as they aren't harassing anyone directly. If you aim to run a global social media platform, moderating in a way that is satisfies every one is an unsolvable boolean satisfiability problem and acting on outrage from users is a vicious cycle. Eventually the proprietors will (understandably) start to feel responsible for the content that is posted on their platform and take actions that anger large parts of their userbase. The next generation will use the next hip platform that isn't encumbered by this legacy and then the cycle will continue.
- disposekinetics 6y ago
  I think that is a very interesting concept I had not given enough thought to. Is the solution something like federation? Protocols over platforms?
- r00fus 6y ago
  The solution is more nuanced and powerful group (social) filters - just like RL.
brodouevencode 6y ago
Funny - people on the right say the exact opposite.

45 points by KKKKkkkk1 6y ago

When r/The_Donald first started, I could have sworn it was a satire subreddit that made fun of Trump. Does anyone else remember that or were the posts just so outrageous I thought it was satire when it hit the front page?

hbosch 6y ago
When Trump started his campaign, the phrase "The Donald" was definitely more of a meme. The content of that sub was indeed "so-over-the-top-this-must-be-satire" type content... Pepe memes, crude photoshops of Trump as a God, the bots that would autoreply "THE WALL JUST GOT X FEET HIGHER!", the refrain of "GET THIS MAN A COAT" when a supporter of a dropped-out candidate would be lured in by the energy and the jokes. But that was more or less the entire facade of Trump's campaign. That language and those posts reached out to a significant constituency online of young, "edgy" men who love memeing and trolling. There was always an undercurrent of anti-black and anti-hispanic rhetoric, even when it seemed like satire.
hadrien01 6y ago
I also believe it was satire the first few months, trolling pro-Sanders spam. When it was confirmed Clinton and Trump would win their nomination, the pro-Sanders spam sort of stopped and /r/The_Donald became a full support subreddit. Or maybe it was simply Poe's law: some of us thought it was satire when it wasn't, and some of us thought it was Trump support when it wasn't.

hbosch 6y ago

She's right, and not just about r/T_D but in so many other subreddits, -- some stood up for the singular purpose of being racist, and some that are just racist on top of whatever other thing they represent -- and the uncomfortable truth is that to some degree any profitable online community/social network is forced to at minimum tolerate casual racism. To stamp it out is too tall a task for any social media platform of any significant mass... including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and so on. It's also worth mentioning, at least, the conspiracy theory that Reddit is proactively censoring sinophobic speech on it's platform. But, I don't know if that's been proven for certain.

BitwiseFool 6y ago

How exactly did Reddit "amplify" r/the_donald? First, they removed that subreddit from r/all and created Popular so non subscribed users wouldn't see it. Then they quarantined it for being anti-police. Then they tried to replace it's moderators with their own handpicked ones. The old mods decided to lock it down so no one can post. It's been like that for a few months. It's a shell that points people to a reddit clone specfically for the_donald style posts. What more do people want?

deminature 6y ago
It was allowed to flourish as a hate forum for years before being quarantined. Users brigaded other subreddits with little to no action from admins. Reddit management always did the least possible until they were forced by the media or user outcry. It's incredibly cynical to now come out against internet bigotry after being one of the premier destinations hosting it for the past few years.
- s9w 6y ago
  That is a lie. TD was one of the most peaceful and rule-abiding political subs.
  - celticninja 6y ago
    No it was not.
  - deminature 6y ago
    They famously abused the stickying bug for years to get their content to the homepage. Reddit even changed the /r/all algorithm to specifically address gaming and exploitation by TD. The quarantine system was also introduced to isolate TD from the rest of the site, like a gangrenous limb. It's simply not the case that they were rule abiding.
    - s9w 6y ago
      That was not against the rules and was nerfed pretty fast - certainly not for years. And then they were artificially censored, held down, attacked and lied about and doxed.

troughway 6y ago

The New Playbook of Internet Censorship, by Ellen K. Pao et al.

moojd 6y ago

This mentality is why I believe every centralized social media platform has a limited shelf-life. We don't have a lot of discussions like this about what people should be allowed to say in an e-mail, or snail mail, or on a soapbox in Times Square as long as they aren't harassing anyone directly. If you aim to run a global social media platform, moderating in a way that is satisfies every one is an unsolvable boolean satisfiability problem and acting on outrage from users is a vicious cycle. Eventually the proprietors will (understandably) start to feel responsible for the content that is posted on their platform and take actions that anger large parts of their userbase. The next generation will use the next hip platform that isn't encumbered by this legacy and then the cycle will continue.

disposekinetics 6y ago
I think that is a very interesting concept I had not given enough thought to. Is the solution something like federation? Protocols over platforms?
r00fus 6y ago
The solution is more nuanced and powerful group (social) filters - just like RL.

brodouevencode 6y ago

Funny - people on the right say the exact opposite.