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I used to love using Reddit after Digg's disastrous redesign many years ago, but it really has devolved in a number of key ways: 1. Site design. I can't help b

I used to love using Reddit after Digg's disastrous redesign many years ago, but it really has devolved in a number of key ways: 1. Site design. I can't help but think that the site redesign lends itself towards dark patterns, echo chambers, and the kind of "hot take" reactionary culture that makes most of social media so unhealthy. As a user, I am mad that Reddit uses so many annoying nudges to get me to use their mobile app instead of the browser. I am wary of "old.reddit.com" being killed. I am frustrated by the site being slower. 2. Censorship. Reddit used to be a bastion of free speech. The late Aaron Swartz was a staunch defender of it. I think users should be allowed to discuss whatever they want and view Reddit's role as a "dumb" forum hosting layer. If people don't like some content for any reason, they are free to block those posters, or leave those particular subs, but they shouldn't impose their censorship on others. Unfortunately, today Reddit heavily censors content across the board, particularly when it goes against San Francisco-centric progressive political culture. And ultimately, they even omitted Aaron Swartz from their "founders" page (https://reclaimthenet.org/aaron-swartz-reddit-founder/ https://reclaimthenet.org/aaron-swartz-reddit-founder/), which is disgusting but also sad. After all, pg noted that as a result of the early Reddit-Infogami merger, Aaron is legally a founder of the combined company (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20219). 3. Weaponization. It is very hard to escape Reddit's prevailing leftist political culture. Even if you leave r/news and r/politics, you will find politics injected into every other subreddit, including ones that have nothing to do with politics (like r/pics). This is in part because it has been targeted by activists as a way to get their word out and a location on which to squash opposing thought by any means necessary (banning subreddits, banning users, vote brigading, astroturfing, etc). Reddit users don't value civil discourse as much as vote wars to win for their side, which is a key way in which it is different from Hacker News. It's also telling that 92 of the top 500 subreddits are controlled by just 4 people (https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/fko21a/92_out_of_the_top_500_subreddits_on_reddit_are/ https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/fko21a/9...). ----- I really hope one of the many Reddit competitors (https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/hi97fz/list_of_active_reddit_alternatives_v5/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/hi97fz/...) grows into a platform of its own. I have my eye on Ruqqus (http://www.ruqqus.com/ http://www.ruqqus.com/) and Saidit (https://saidit.net/ https://saidit.net/). I'm also looking at Parler (https://parler.com https://parler.com) as a Twitter alternative and MeWe (https://mewe.com/ https://mewe.com/) as a Facebook alternative. Unfortunately with network effects being what they are, the big issue is that these alternatives may attract mostly those who are victims of censorship from Reddit, leading to two separate echo chambers - one for liberals and one for conservatives. It's better than one echo chamber with a "tyranny of the majority" but I'd rather we just get back to the old open Internet days where free speech reigns supreme.

djsumdog 6y ago
Yea, it's a terrible network. I stopped using is as much after the warrant canary went away, and the new design pushed me away more. For a while I only used city subreddits for local stuff, but even those have gone full on hard-core-left and full-establishment. It's frightening. The recent banning of thousands of communities should scare everyone. I say this without a throwaway. I agree with you. Not only do I agree with you, but the fact that so many people don't see these very basic things you're pointed out greatly troubles me about the future of our society. As far as alternatives, don't go for new monolithic platforms like Parler or Ruqqus. Go distributed. Join some Mastodon/Pleroma servers, follow random people, post you videos to a PeerTube instance. The Internet wasn't originally just 40 big top-tier websites. It was tons of cool independent stuff. oh and one last thing, look up Glassine Maxwell and the reddit controversy. There's an account with her name that was very active, one of the most active account, up until her arrest. After that, Reddit started deleting TONS and TONS of of that comments. That is the world we live in. Stay safe citizen.
vehemenz 6y ago
1. I agree that old.reddit.com is the only way to use Reddit. Let's hope it lasts. 2. They have made some high-profile mistakes, like banning /r/gendercritial. However, they are legally allowed to remove subreddits that they find don't align with their values (or their advertisers' values). 3. I don't think that routine opposition to extremism viewpoints is "leftist". The defining qualities of the post-Trump Republican are gullibility, anti-intellectualism, and immorality; these are not really political viewpoints. Outside of the Trump bubble, who respects these values? If there were a political party that housed all the rapists, it would not be a political statement to deny their voice on your internet forum. Again, it is important to understand the lack of symmetry between so-called "conservative" and "liberal" viewpoints. Trumpists are 20-30% of the country and are largely insular. People opposed to Trump and his takeover the party are a clear majority of the country, even if a huge number of those are moderates or even right-leaning. In other words, mainstream platforms that discriminate against extremist/immoral views are not echo chambers. Echo chambers are echo chambers.
- throwawaysea 6y ago

djsumdog 6y ago

Yea, it's a terrible network. I stopped using is as much after the warrant canary went away, and the new design pushed me away more. For a while I only used city subreddits for local stuff, but even those have gone full on hard-core-left and full-establishment. It's frightening. The recent banning of thousands of communities should scare everyone. I say this without a throwaway. I agree with you. Not only do I agree with you, but the fact that so many people don't see these very basic things you're pointed out greatly troubles me about the future of our society. As far as alternatives, don't go for new monolithic platforms like Parler or Ruqqus. Go distributed. Join some Mastodon/Pleroma servers, follow random people, post you videos to a PeerTube instance. The Internet wasn't originally just 40 big top-tier websites. It was tons of cool independent stuff. oh and one last thing, look up Glassine Maxwell and the reddit controversy. There's an account with her name that was very active, one of the most active account, up until her arrest. After that, Reddit started deleting TONS and TONS of of that comments. That is the world we live in. Stay safe citizen.

vehemenz 6y ago

1. I agree that old.reddit.com is the only way to use Reddit. Let's hope it lasts. 2. They have made some high-profile mistakes, like banning /r/gendercritial. However, they are legally allowed to remove subreddits that they find don't align with their values (or their advertisers' values). 3. I don't think that routine opposition to extremism viewpoints is "leftist". The defining qualities of the post-Trump Republican are gullibility, anti-intellectualism, and immorality; these are not really political viewpoints. Outside of the Trump bubble, who respects these values? If there were a political party that housed all the rapists, it would not be a political statement to deny their voice on your internet forum. Again, it is important to understand the lack of symmetry between so-called "conservative" and "liberal" viewpoints. Trumpists are 20-30% of the country and are largely insular. People opposed to Trump and his takeover the party are a clear majority of the country, even if a huge number of those are moderates or even right-leaning. In other words, mainstream platforms that discriminate against extremist/immoral views are not echo chambers. Echo chambers are echo chambers.

throwawaysea 6y ago