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Reddit has been compromised with actors who do not have free speech in their best interest. The other day there was an illuminating ask reddit post about transe

• dageshi 6y ago
  I imagine the mods have a fairly finely tuned sense of which threads will turn into a shitstorm and don't give a fuck about pre-emptively killing them. And honestly I WISH nobody used reddit anymore, maybe it could roll back 10 years when it was frankly more fun, but it sure seems like more people than ever are using it.
  • dvtrn 6y ago
    I imagine the mods have a fairly finely tuned sense of which threads will turn into a shitstorm and don't give a fuck about pre-emptively killing them. How do we feel about pre-emptive moderation? Is it warranted? Is it warranted every time? Only certain topics?
    • dageshi 6y ago
      Ultimately the mods are volunteers, they get to do what they want? More precisely I would imagine they don't care about facilitating/refereeing culture wars inside their subs, cause lord only knows how much work that would be.
      • dvtrn 6y ago
        Well sure, they get to do whatever they want, you're right. It's their community they're moderating. We agree. That wasn't what I was asking-however.
        • dageshi 6y ago
          I think it's probably warranted some of the time, mostly around topics where much heat but little light is generated.
          • tekknik 6y ago
            How does this method avoid the moderators implicit bias? Unless we get actual sitting judges how can these people be neutral and not impose their bias on what light is?
  • Spivak 6y ago
    I 100% support Reddit killing any thread in a popular subreddit about anyone trans or the trans community preemptively because every single thread turns into an absolute dumpster fire. Reddit on the whole shows a very different side whenever those kinds of threads show up.
  • yiyus 6y ago
    Many of the oldest users (me included) have just moved from the more general subreddits, where those shitstorms happen, into more and more specialized subreddits. But I miss the old reddit too.
• psychometry 6y ago
  "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."
• boxfire 6y ago
  Transexual is a porn term and derogitory. Transgender is preferred. Thanks.
  • hombre_fatal 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexual https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transsexual The second paragraph has four sources that cite some transexuals rejecting the label of transgender, so language-policing others based on your personal preferences is quite inappropriate here.
    • boxfire 6y ago
      I suggest you educate yourself, because wikipedia is not a reliable source. Here is a page that also happens to help: https://www.glaad.org/reference/transgender https://www.glaad.org/reference/transgender The bottom line is that transexual is a subset of transgender, which is an umbrella term. If you write transexual refering to a person whom you do not know particularly identifies as transexual in can be seen as hate speech in many places.
      • zozbot234 6y ago
        That page correctly notes that 'transsexual' "originates in the medical and psychological communities", much like Wiki itself does. While 'transgender' may be naturally broader, there's nothing hateful whatsoever about using that term; it's quite well-established.
• sukilot 6y ago
  How is it censored? There is a comment on that post with 5000 upvotes.
  • kache_ 6y ago
    It was removed from the front page; therefore culling any more engagement with the post. See the following comment https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/h9ctho/serious_are_there_people_within_the_trans/fuwrgy1/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/h9ctho/serious_a...
• kaybe 6y ago
  There is a whole subreddit about this topic however. https://www.reddit.com/r/detrans/ https://www.reddit.com/r/detrans/
  • bt4u2 6y ago
    Quarantined in 5... 4... Banned in 3... 2...
• antishatter 6y ago
  So it goes when you take that chinese money.
  • greenhatglack 6y ago
    Chinese money isn’t the reason why overly sensitive ideologically castrated white communists dominate pockets of reddit.
• centimeter 6y ago
  I don't think "reddit is dead", but I do think the relatively intelligent and interesting userbase that was there ~10 years ago has been almost entirely displaced by clickbait and propaganda targeted at the now mostly middlingly-intelligent read-only userbase. This almost inevitably happens when a site gets popular enough. There are only so many intelligent people actively posting on the internet, and it's impossible to have a site with 100,000 users (let alone the >400,000,000 of Reddit) with a high fraction of them providing good content. Certainly the heavy-handed censorship of the Reddit administration is a disincentive for people who are interested in topics at the edges of the overton window (i.e. most of the interesting people online).
• elicash 6y ago
  Reddits values aren't the same as yours. This isn't a bad thing. It's not like Reddit has monopoly powers. Some people want to belong to communities that have agreed-upon values.
  • luckylion 6y ago
    But the community would be a subreddit, not the site reddit.com, which is far too heterogeneous to be considered some kind of community.
    • elicash 6y ago
      You'd be surprised what percent of reddit visitors just browse popular or don't do specific subs outside the default. Most users aren't super users.
      • luckylion 6y ago
        That's probably true, but people who just look at popular post and aren't engaged in anything aren't really part of any community either, unless we expand community to literally mean anybody that's visiting the site, at which point it becomes somewhat meaningless because it's too homogeneous again. Terms that have no distinctive power have little value, so while I'd certainly consider them "users", I wouldn't consider them part of the community, much like a tourist staying in a village for a weekend isn't a part of the village's community.
        • elicash 6y ago
          I don't go to my city council meetings, but am still a member of our local community. This is quick becoming a debate over definitions, but I think reddit thinks of itself as both having a community and also as having individual communities. For example, anybody who has had a post in their niche community get to the front page understands that there's a larger community they're a part of that is different from their smaller one.
• Fogest 6y ago
  The post you are referring to was deleted by the user who made the post not the mods.... And that doesn't even relate to this topic as what you're referring to is on a subreddit basis and is determined by a set of volunteer mods not reddit admins.
  • goodluckchuck 6y ago
    > The post you are referring to was deleted by the user... How do we know that? The body just says [removed] and the user is marked as [deleted]. If the admins can alter the content of your posts, then surely they can delete / remove content and have it show whatever they choose.
  • elpocko 6y ago
    > The post you are referring to was deleted by the user who made the post not the mods.... Not true. The post body says [removed]. If the user deleted it, it would say [deleted].
    • tantalor 6y ago
      It says "Sorry, this post was deleted by the person who originally posted it." https://imgur.com/a/8ZeyR7N https://imgur.com/a/8ZeyR7N
      • dmonitor 6y ago
        Old reddit says “removed”, which implies it was done by the moderators https://imgur.com/a/jowwaq6 https://imgur.com/a/jowwaq6
    • surround 6y ago
      Indeed, it was removed by moderators. Here’s the OP’s response: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/h9ctho/serious_are_there_people_within_the_trans/fuwuizt/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/h9ctho/serious_a... Edit: another user determined it was both removed and deleted.
• darepublic 6y ago
  The fact that r/teenagers is often more open minded and mature than "important" subreddits like news and politics speaks volumes
• conradfr 6y ago
  Not exactly the same thing but the other day I got banned from r/ADHD for a (moderate from my POV) comment about pronouns. The mod then gloated about banning dozens of people other this and that "LGBTQIA+ people run the subreddit", and that "the lack of discrimination (...) for being cis or being white or being straight or being a man overshadows any discrimination they would receive for their adhd" I don't think that's great moderation given the subject of the subreddit but what can you even do about it that would not be time consuming and pointless?
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • greenhatglack 6y ago
    I think your ADHD prevents you from writing coherently. Jesus Christ that was hard to parse and I’m still not sure what you tried to convey.
  • globular-toast 6y ago
    The moderation is the worst thing about reddit. Reddit mods are some of the most corrupt people I've encountered but there's no way of telling how much the accepted groupthink is being carefully shaped by the mods. My model for moderation would be opt-in. I want to be able to see everything by default but be able to see what moderators have flagged as inappropriate. I could then grow to trust some or all of those moderators and just hide everything they flag by default. But I'd always be able to go and quickly evaluate whether I still trust those moderators to be doing the right thing and not just hiding things they disagree with.
    • bobdole12345 6y ago
      I think it's unfortunate that reddit chose the term moderator, because it implies an impartiality that you're not going to get from what is effectively the "owner" of a community. These are just folks who either showed up early, or demonstrated they thought about the issue the same way as the person who started the reddit thought.
• surround 6y ago
  > Do you think there was a way for you avoid this path? Like more understanding parents, other friends, another therapist? Or was it unavoidable? >> It was a combination of things, so I can't say for sure what could have prevented this. More understanding parents definitely would have helped. Other perspectives online, as well. Detransitioners frequently get shut down on the internet, as their experiences are often labeled "transphobia." Which is utter bullshit, in my opinion. Perhaps if I had read a similar story as my own those years back, I would have had second thoughts. https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/h9ctho/serious_are_there_people_within_the_trans/fuwkl8g/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/h9ctho/serious_a... Ironically, the AskReddit mods contributed to this problem by removing the post.
  • zozbot234 6y ago
    Strictly speaking, that's not ironic at all; it's quite in line with what's routinely experienced by people trying to provide accurate and nuanced information about gender dysphoria, gender-dysphoric identity etc., and how to best help folks who may be affected by it.
• cmdshiftf4 6y ago
  >Reddit is dead and no one I know uses it anymore. It's not dead, and I say thankfully because it not being dead retains its state as a containment mechanism of what is easily the worst group of internet users in internet history. I fear for the day Reddit falls and its userbase spills out looking for another avenue to be comforted with groupthink, newspeak and feel goods for the Brands We Love.
  • cygx 6y ago
    of what is easily the worst group of internet users in internet history. Oh, you sweet summer child.
  • umvi 6y ago
    Reddit is a collection of communities. I like several of them, and think they are generally good and uplifting, /r/pixelart for instance. Some communities have some pretty bad people in them, but it is impossible to create a social media site at scale without like-minded bad users creating and/or flocking to bad communities. People are in different stages of life and seek solace in other people having similar experiences. Thus, the sexually frustrated congregate, the depressed congregate, drug enthusiasts (and abusers) congregate, disgruntled ex-<insert organization> congregate, you name it, and angry/sad/anxious people with a shared condition will congregate in search of validation/confidence. But the opposite is also true - people with a shared hobby/passion/vision congregate as well and create some really fun and uplifting communities.
  • tekknik 6y ago
    Unfortunately this style of moderation has already has spilled out. Even on HN people are insulted for not agreeing with the groupthink, usually as an attempt to bully their point of view off of the internet. Now these people are becoming mods and have real power to suppress counter narratives. This is a systematic problem of people trying to oppress views outside of theirs.
  • muyuu 6y ago
    Yep reddit is increasing its conformity and intolerance to dissent at a very quick pace, maybe because it's election year? But in the past such forays have been one way only. As the subs where you can speak with some degree of openness are ever smaller, it's not worth the time anymore.
• michaelcampbell 6y ago
  > Reddit is dead This is just absurd. * https://foundationinc.co/lab/reddit-statistics/ https://foundationinc.co/lab/reddit-statistics/ * https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/reddit.com https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/reddit.com > and no one I know uses it anymore. You say this as if it is relevant to your point.
• nebulosa 6y ago
  I think the core of a lot of these issues is the distinction between universal findings which almost always are in favour of "progressive" worldviews and anecdotes which aren't necessarily. The example of trans people detransitioning is a good one here - the general truth that transgender people are very happy with their decision to do so (regardless of what that may mean for them) conflicts with individuals and their anecdotes regarding their (or people they know's) transition. Whilst there isn't inherently incorrect or morally wrong about detransitioning in itself, often when brought up it can lead a person to an idea which is incorrect - essentially applying the anecdotal evidence of a Reddit thread to all situations. Thus, moderators of subreddits (and administrators, although I think that whilst it is bad when they do so, it isn't as common as many would believe) feel conflicted on the matter. Should they allow the discussion to continue, almost guaranteeing that somebody is going to form misconceptions from the thread? Or should they shut it down, stifling free speech but at the same time reducing the level of overall animosity towards minorities in the community, and preventing people from forming misconceptions? Ultimately, I think that it should always really come down on the side of free speech, as long as they aren't being blatantly hostile. However, in my opinion, if we really want to have a positive "marketplace of ideas", as some describe it, we really need to educate people from a young age on logical reasoning, cognitive biases and argumentative fallacies the same way we would teach history, geography or the arts. Whilst I think that's unlikely to happen in our current political climate, given that keeping people uneducated is a very effective way to make them vote for those who make the most compelling surface-level arguments, it seems to be the only good solution for the conflict laid out above.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
    • nebulosa 6y ago
      I'm curious, can you point me towards some examples of the data you suggest? I personally haven't seen anything of the kind, although perhaps newer data may suggest slightly lower rates of overall satisfaction given that increasing awareness of something to an otherwise unaware population is always going to increase false negatives. Still, the figures I see are always approximately in the 95%+ positive range.
• globular-toast 6y ago
  It's easy to see why that post was removed. The current reddit "truth" is that transsexuality is perfectly normal and even common. But the real truth is it's not common and it should be treated like any other mental illness. But what tends to happen is certain people like the idea of transsexuality so encourage mentally ill people to make permanent and devastating changes to their body, often leading to eventual suicide. Many of the comments in that thread were showing the real truth, so it had to be removed.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• dcsilver 6y ago
  Agree. There's just nothing even remotely interesting or real being said on Reddit anymore. I'd honestly rather do anything else. I'd rather stare at a wall with my own thoughts than spend time on Reddit. Here's an exercise - check out /r/unpopularopinion today. Full of perfectly boring normal opinions like "MTV should go back to showing music videos". All of the content just seems completely fake. There's not an unpopular opinion in sight. Now go the Wayback Machine and take a look at that same sub from say, three to five years ago (which feels like a short time to me these days). Plenty of deeply unpopular, controversial, thought-provoking opinions. You don't have to like them, but they were real.