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Anonymous speech works... until it doesn't. And it doesn't at scale. At that point, you require active moderation by admins and/or users to keep an semblance of

by ethbr0 5y ago

Anonymous speech works... until it doesn't. And it doesn't at scale. At that point, you require active moderation by admins and/or users to keep an semblance of usefulness. The best of reddit and HN can only exist because they're niche subcommunities. We should be under no illusions what would happen to HN if 5% of YouTube commenters showed up tomorrow.

kd913 5y ago
Reddit isn't a niche subcommunity. It has 430 million monthly active users. Yea you get toxic, cancerous, illegal subcommunities etc... On the whole though I am happy with the upvote, downvote curation compared with the algorithmic trash provided by FB. Even before reddit went overly filtering for advertisement purposes, I was happier on Reddit/Digg than the trash that came aftewrards. In my opinion, humanity would be significantly better off without Twitter/Facebook. I have seen death threats, anti-vaccer junk, brexit/trump/le Pen, Cambridge Analytica style election manipulation (including for Bolsonaro and Modi), the Myanmar genocide and human trafficking on a massive scale via FB/twitter. I remember being pitched specifically about several cases of groups/companies using Facebook/Twitter to subvert democratic processes via selective targeted propaganda.
- MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  Subreddits are niche subcommunities. Nobody subscribes to all of Reddit.
  - kd913 5y ago
    Youtube are a niche collection of youtubers. Nobody subscribes to every Youtube channel. So what is your point? It's a model that work and scales to half a billion users per month.
    - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
      Youtube's moderators are youtube employees. Reddit's moderators are volunteers with iron fists who only police tiny sections of reddit. Admins get involved in TOS violations, not direct moderation. Your comparison makes no sense.
      - kd913 5y ago
        > Youtube's moderators are youtube employees. What moderation? For what are you talking about? From what I gather they predominantly rely on automatic filtering, with barely any human filtering. They don't even moderate some of their largest channels. E.g. LinusTechTips complaining about spam junk and community fed solutions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo_uoFI1WXM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo_uoFI1WXM MarquesBrownLee doing the same. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cw-vODp-8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cw-vODp-8Y Reddit does the same broad stroke in that yea they have broad generic spam/bot detection, and also rely on reporting moderation and community driven tool. They already operate in a similar/better model than youtube. The original argument was that Reddit/HN couldn't handle 5% of Youtube community and I am calling nonsense to that.
      - JacobThreeThree 5y ago
        >Admins get involved in TOS violations, not direct moderation. That's false, admins do get involved in direct moderation, and Reddit has a whole team of admins (Reddit employees).
raxxorraxor 5y ago
I think it is working quite well and is preferable. Depends on the community and I am not a Twitter user. But the problems began with social networks, not with anonymity, even at great scales.
baq 5y ago
> The best of reddit and HN can only exist because they're niche subcommunities. disagree. it's about - and has always been since the first usenet message - moderation. lots of free speech absolutists confuse moderation with censorship and Elon will learn the difference with sweat, blood and tears if he doesn't know it already (note: I can hardly imagine why he wouldn't know it).
JacobThreeThree 5y ago
>Anonymous speech works... until it doesn't. And it doesn't at scale. It's not a question of scale, it's a question of culture. Also, Reddit and HN do have active moderation.

by ethbr0 5y ago

kd913 5y ago

Reddit isn't a niche subcommunity. It has 430 million monthly active users. Yea you get toxic, cancerous, illegal subcommunities etc... On the whole though I am happy with the upvote, downvote curation compared with the algorithmic trash provided by FB. Even before reddit went overly filtering for advertisement purposes, I was happier on Reddit/Digg than the trash that came aftewrards. In my opinion, humanity would be significantly better off without Twitter/Facebook. I have seen death threats, anti-vaccer junk, brexit/trump/le Pen, Cambridge Analytica style election manipulation (including for Bolsonaro and Modi), the Myanmar genocide and human trafficking on a massive scale via FB/twitter. I remember being pitched specifically about several cases of groups/companies using Facebook/Twitter to subvert democratic processes via selective targeted propaganda.

MisterBastahrd 5y ago
Subreddits are niche subcommunities. Nobody subscribes to all of Reddit.
- kd913 5y ago
  Youtube are a niche collection of youtubers. Nobody subscribes to every Youtube channel. So what is your point? It's a model that work and scales to half a billion users per month.
  - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
    Youtube's moderators are youtube employees. Reddit's moderators are volunteers with iron fists who only police tiny sections of reddit. Admins get involved in TOS violations, not direct moderation. Your comparison makes no sense.
    - kd913 5y ago
      > Youtube's moderators are youtube employees. What moderation? For what are you talking about? From what I gather they predominantly rely on automatic filtering, with barely any human filtering. They don't even moderate some of their largest channels. E.g. LinusTechTips complaining about spam junk and community fed solutions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo_uoFI1WXM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zo_uoFI1WXM MarquesBrownLee doing the same. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cw-vODp-8Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cw-vODp-8Y Reddit does the same broad stroke in that yea they have broad generic spam/bot detection, and also rely on reporting moderation and community driven tool. They already operate in a similar/better model than youtube. The original argument was that Reddit/HN couldn't handle 5% of Youtube community and I am calling nonsense to that.
    - JacobThreeThree 5y ago
      >Admins get involved in TOS violations, not direct moderation. That's false, admins do get involved in direct moderation, and Reddit has a whole team of admins (Reddit employees).

raxxorraxor 5y ago

I think it is working quite well and is preferable. Depends on the community and I am not a Twitter user. But the problems began with social networks, not with anonymity, even at great scales.

baq 5y ago

> The best of reddit and HN can only exist because they're niche subcommunities. disagree. it's about - and has always been since the first usenet message - moderation. lots of free speech absolutists confuse moderation with censorship and Elon will learn the difference with sweat, blood and tears if he doesn't know it already (note: I can hardly imagine why he wouldn't know it).

JacobThreeThree 5y ago

>Anonymous speech works... until it doesn't. And it doesn't at scale. It's not a question of scale, it's a question of culture. Also, Reddit and HN do have active moderation.