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When you realise Reddit is moderated by unpaid megalomaniacs and teenagers, everything starts to fall into place. In some ways Reddit is worse than Facebook bec

When you realise Reddit is moderated by unpaid megalomaniacs and teenagers, everything starts to fall into place. In some ways Reddit is worse than Facebook because it is influenced by anonymous entities with zero checks and balances.

d23 4y ago
I'm having difficulty seeing how this comment relates to the post.
- c7DJTLrn 4y ago
  It's relevant because the moderator in the OP is a teenager and I question if kids should be handed the reigns to moderate like this no questions asked.
  - jstarfish 4y ago
    If nobody is being harmed, why not. It's unpaid management experience. Giving kids responsibilities drives maturity.
    - permalac 4y ago
      Add /s or people will not understand
    - colpabar 4y ago
      In my experience, moderation can absolutely be harmful to the moderator's own mental health, because it involves removing the posts that aren't allowed. Porn, gore, insane political ramblings... a moderator is responsible for cleaning all that up. A 13 year old should probably not be doing it. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57088382 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57088382
      - jstarfish 4y ago
        In my experience, it's 13-year-olds that are posting the porn, gore and insane ramblings in the first place. It's also a volunteer gig. If it makes you uncomfortable, stop doing it.
      - linker3000 4y ago
        There's also the occasional direct or thinly-veiled threats of death, doxxing, tyre slashing or public stalking for removing an off-topic post where subby knows better.
    - c7DJTLrn 4y ago
      Yeah but Reddit isn't mum and dad's little cafe. You can think of it as a public newspaper. Anyone can ask for their own page titled whatever they want and curate that content to their own biases as they please. I could have nabbed the r/StableDiffusion page of the news paper and decided to only allow posts that smear StabilityAI.
    - Ajedi32 4y ago
      Sure, but at the same time that's a lot of power to give to a random teenager (or anyone, for that matter). Case in point, I dug into it the drama here a bit more, and it seems like the kid basically just handed control of the entire Stable Diffusion Reddit and Discord communities to the Stability AI corporation, no questions asked. That creates all sorts of conflicts of interest, and it seems to have been done against the wishes of the community itself.
      - bawolff 4y ago
        Its an internet community. If the mod team screws up you make a new one. The stakes are really low.
        Ajedi32 4y ago
        That true to some extent, but it's also a bit like saying that if Facebook screws up we can just make a new Facebook and move everyone there. It's not that simple; there are huge network effects at play here. Other considerations: - Obviously from a purely technical perspective, making a new subreddit is easier than coding and deploying a new Facebook - It's less friction for a user to subscribe to a new subreddit than to sign up for a new website + The name of a subreddit can contribute to its popularity quite a bit. The community can make a new subreddit, but not a new /r/StableDiffusion
  - numpad0 4y ago
    They should be notified. He was not, from his claims.
baxtr 4y ago
Yeah, because they want to save on mod costs, I guess. Related to that: I am wondering, does @dang get a monthly paycheck for his incredible work?
- wsb_mod2 4y ago
  Yup, @dang is paid. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23810452 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23810452
  - aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
    How much?
    - themitigating 4y ago
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - lawrenceyan 4y ago
        I mean hopefully he's paid well? Making salary a private issue only hurts people in my opinion.
      - jjulius 4y ago
        Yes, but your approach is wildly unhelpful. Downvote it and move on.
        adventured 4y ago
        Or don't downvote it and disregard. It's very common on HN for people to openly discuss salaries and ask about salaries.
      - aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
silisili 4y ago
Way worse than FB, I'd argue. I used to think Reddit users skewed too heavily in certain ways, and didn't make sense. One day, using some tool (removeddit, reveddit, etc), I noticed how many posts and comments were removed by moderators - things that went against the skew. It's one of the reasons places like r/politics became such an echo chamber dumpster fire.
- NayamAmarshe 4y ago
  Totally agree with you but it's nowhere near how bad facebook is. At least on reddit, opinions aren't illegal or approved by how Zucc and team see fit. Facebook is extremely ban happy and you can do absolutely nothing about it. On reddit, at the very least you can create your own sub or join subs where people won't ban you for whatever you have to say.
  - aliqot 4y ago
    > opinions aren't illegal The correct opinions aren't illegal. Reddit is not a bastion of free speech [0]. [0] - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/14/reddit-ceo-free-speech-ellen-pao https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/14/reddit-ce...
    - NayamAmarshe 4y ago
      I didn't say it is the bastion of free speech but it's much better than whatever Facebook is. 2 reasons: 1. Reddit does not usually participate in censorship itself. It's extremely rare for reddit accounts to be banned on the whole or for users to be banned from creating communities for like minded people. 2. Reddit allows you to create your custom feed. You could sort by new, you could create your own community, you could post opinions only on your account and reddit would not care. This is very different from how Facebook acts. The facebook algorithm is very biased, has checks for several trigger words and gradually profiles your political side and starts getting stricter as time passes. In my last 1-3 years on Facebook, I was been banned for at least 6 times and no I'm not a political person. I was banned for either posting an image that facebook algorithm didn't approve of, opinion on tech that somebody else attacked me for or in general, not being the person facebook ideologically asked me to be.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
TremendousJudge 4y ago
And in other ways, reddit has much better moderation than either Twitter or Facebook
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> In some ways Reddit is worse than Facebook because it is influenced by anonymous entities with zero checks and balances. The discourse in many subreddits is invisibly dictated by the moderators. It's not obvious when you browse posts because everything is organically coming from random people. However, moderators can entirely shape the conversation by only allowing posts that say what they want. In other words: The moderators are speaking through users, by selectively filtering out everyone else. Many subreddits are also famous for banning any commenters who say anything that doesn't support what the moderators want to see. The remaining unbanned users are effectively curated to echo what the moderators want you to see. Discord obviously has the same dynamics, but Discord makes it more obvious when you're switching between "servers". Reddit mashes it all into one feed that feels like something organic. In this case, I suspect the core issue is that the person used the Stable Diffusion trademark, which resulted in Stable Diffusion playing the legal card. The correct response would have been to force a rename of this Discord (if legally obligated), though.
- c7DJTLrn 4y ago
  Absolutely. And the front page is just full of this kind of specially curated content that aligns with the moderators' views. It's propaganda, basically. Question is whose?
  - tayo42 4y ago
    who is pushing for antiwork to hit the frontpage constantly?
    - squeaky-clean 4y ago
      The issue is more that if you make a post critical of some of the ideas in antiwork, expect it to get removed within about 10 minutes. While no individual in particular is pushing for those posts to reach the front page, only posts that fit the groupthink stay alive long enough to do so.
- NayamAmarshe 4y ago
  On the other hand, nobody forces the feed on you if you choose your own community. Yes popular subs can be very political and biased but it doesn't mean you have to join them. On reddit, you can totally avoid bans and still say something. On Facebook, your words and your whole account have no value if the algorithm decides you spoke a 'no no word'. Facebook feed is entirely controlled by the algorithm and that algorithm is controlled by the people at Facebook, the reddit feed can be controlled by you. That difference alone makes Reddit a little bit better than Facebook. Getting banned on Facebook is extremely easy, I got banned for quoting someone's comment and replying with 'ok' and unfortunately I'm not kidding. So far on reddit, haven't gotten any bans or warnings and I have always kept my discussions civil. Facebook wants conformity, it doesn't slap you on the wrist if you do something that Zuckerberg doesn't approve, it totally takes your voice away for a long time. I deleted my 10 year old Facebook account because the censorship was getting really crazy. Somebody could give you death threats and your comments would be the one getting deleted by Facebook, that's how bad it got near the end of 2020.
Karawebnetwork 4y ago
Anyone can become a Facebook influencer and own pages that will be seen on everyone's news feed. Anyone can moderate Facebook pages and groups. There are few differences. It's web 2.0 by design. I'm now over 30 years old, but I started being a mod/admin on online spaces when I was about 13. Back then it was IRC, several BBS's, flash chat and flash games. If I do a total count, I personally supervise over 250k people in Facebook groups alone. Add to that the fact that anyone can comment on Facebook pages and you get an even higher number (millions). I do it out of love for my communities but I know people who do it just for the power. You'd be surprised at how many pages there about major franchises that share the same admin/mods with the sole goal of controlling what is said there. I know people who create a page the minute a new trailer for a product or franchise comes out without even being interested themselves.
kache_ 4y ago
reddit is awful this is why i prefer 4ch
yoz-y 4y ago
TBH in the 90's most of forums I visited were also moderated by teenagers. If you build your community then you should be able to moderate it, as simple as that.
- dahfizz 4y ago
  The internet was very different 30 years ago. What works for a niche, small community often does not scale.
  - ElevenLathe 4y ago
    Why does this child's forum where people post silly AI-generated pictures need to "scale"?
bitlax 4y ago
https://old.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/r45a5n/here_is_the_evidence_that_reddit_user_maxwellhill/ https://old.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/r45a5n/here_is_...
sam1r 4y ago
>>> In some ways Reddit is worse than Facebook because it is influenced by anonymous entities with zero checks and balances. Couldn’t one say the same about hacker news? Great quality content, from possibly anonymous profiles.
bawolff 4y ago
I'd rather have unpaid megalomaniacs and teenagers (read: people who care) than a faceless souless corporate bureaucracy. However both suck in very real but different ways.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  You don't have to pick one or the other. I quit both.
that_guy_iain 4y ago
I remember at some party I was talking to some guy who moderated something. He took it super serious and took everything a bit more serious than everyone else. I got the feeling from him that he held quite a low job. So it made sense to me that he would decide the desire to do something and have power somewhere so seriously. He talked about how hard it was to place clean. I kind of felt bad for him, but the thing is, without people like this we don't have Reddit. It just doesn't exist. Community forums and discords don't exist. Honestly, I find them annoying at times but at the same time I understand the need for them.
- bt4u 4y ago
dj_mc_merlin 4y ago
The sheer amount of propaganda on Reddit is insane. You could take a random selection of titles off /r/popular and repost it to the /r/circlejerk of 5 years ago and it would've been a top post. I think that's part of the reason for its declining popularity: it's hard to make more absurd posts than what actually becomes popular nowadays. Every community develops its own biases, HN included, but Reddit is in late-stage groupthink. It wouldn't be a bad thing if what got traction wasn't doom and gloom. So many posts boil down to "the world is a mess"/"I am a mess"/"other political side is so stupid how can other people think different?"/"hate this person for expressing X opinion or doing Y (at least for like 3 days)". It's not just an online thing only, I've seen many people who have internalized some of these beliefs since they see them expressed so much online. Being ruled by what the internet thinks is acceptable is a horrible way to live your life, but if you're an awkward teen you might very well end up like that. Maybe I'm just nostalgic but the early internet had this care free spirit where every interaction, good or bad, seemed somewhat fun at least since it was crazy you were able to at all, and there were no stakes. People would flame you for your political opinions but you'd just shout at each other until a moderator told you to shut up, not have an entire community go against you since you don't agree with them. It was fun!. This "ganging-up" OTOH induces the brain to start modifying its beliefs to fit the group. A very normal process, but harmful. And younger people, the audience of Reddit, are exactly the most vulnerable to this online peer pressure.
ChildOfChaos 4y ago
This is the problem. I got banned from one of the main subreddits for asking an innocent question on something I knew nothing about, something kicked off, I heard about it first on the reddit, couldn't find much info about it as most content around it had already been removed online, questioned if it was really that bad as I could only find one bit of information and was instantly banned for supporting sexual abuse. I stupidly, avoided the ban by going to a different account as i felt I hadn't done anything wrong, after trying to speak to the mods about it but then Reddit managed to discover this and then my whole account was banned that i'd used for years on reddit. Insane. Now I just make new accounts every few months and access via VPN's, but I don't get involved in most discussions, only use it for when i want to ask someone a question.
datalopers 4y ago
HN is moderated by upvotes/downvotes in a similar fashion. Hivemind floats to the top the most mundane of viewpoints. imo, we need to eliminate upvotes/downvotes and just have a single flag/report type system for vitriolic content.
- vlunkr 4y ago
  Getting downvoted is not at all the same as having comments deleted, or getting banned, which is incredibly common on some subreddits. Also not giving new users access to downvotes hopefully means that those downvoting are somewhat good citizens.
  - datalopers 4y ago
    I agree it's not the same as mods literally removing content or banning users but it still yields the same result. People observe what type of thought gets upvotes and repeat those views/opinions over and over. This of course is exactly how reddit works too outside of mods. > hopefully means that those downvoting are somewhat good citizens. Definitely not. It only takes a few flags on HN to completely remove something from the front-page. It only takes a few downvotes to grey it nothingness.
  - Brusco_RF 4y ago
    Lets not kid ourselves, the main reason HN is much higher quality than Reddit is because of the users. It could all change tomorrow if they find out about us. People forget that Reddit used to look a lot like HN does today in like 2006-10 before the Digg exodus. Today Reddit is almost entirely kids.
    - vlunkr 4y ago
      Also the quantity of users and comments. You can still see comments that have been downvoted by scrolling a bit. On Reddit, unpopular comments will be buried and require extra clicks to access.
  - chiefalchemist 4y ago
JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
In many ways HN is worse than Reddit because comments get flagged way too easily here for being unpopular or off topic. That’s what downvotes are for. It feels really gross and censored in a way Reddit never does. Bury it under downvotes fine on Reddit but it is never just flagged and removed for the tiniest reason. I do agree with you greatly though that Reddit mods have way too much power. The /r/movies subreddit is pretty garbage because of it. I wish they had just a daily thread for people to discuss movies. They refuse any sort of thing like this and persist their perverse love affair with movie posters.
- nullcaution 4y ago
  > In many ways HN is worse than Reddit because comments get flagged way too easily. Ive never had that problem, but this is a tech and entrepreneurship forum and not a general form. >That’s what downvotes are for If you get enough karma here you can down vote, 500 iirc. They do this so you can't create fake accounts to downvote people multiple times.
- int_19h 4y ago
  When comments get downvoted rapidly here, it is usually because their tone is deemed unacceptable by the community. Which, yes, is unabashed tone policing in the most literal sense of the word - but I think that's exactly why HN is much more pleasant to have conversations on than most other platforms online these days. Also, when something gets downvoted solely for content, if you come back later, it often gets upvoted right back (and then some), with some comments below to the effect that downmodding is not a proper way to express disagreement. I've upvoted greyed-out comments that I strongly disagreed with myself more than once, solely on the basis that they make a valid argument that ought to be a part of the conversation - even if only to debunk it properly.
holoduke 4y ago
I got banned on /r/world news supposedly because I said something negative about Ukraine. The only thing I wanted was a healthy dialog without picking a side. I asked for clearification. Didn't hear anything. Got fed up with reddit anyway.
- paganel 4y ago
  That sub has been long gone, unfortunately. The same goes for /r/europe, even though in this latter case I think the hive-mind is at least a little bit more genuine, as in there are real people holding those views, unlike what happens on /r/worldnews.
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VLM 4y ago
Reddit's admins are even worse people.
seydor 4y ago
I wish it was teenagers. Reddit is terrified of old moderators leaving so they allow them free reign with zero accountability or even a way for users to dispute anything. They re probably having a hard time finding young people (they prefer discord) and are stuck with the same aging people moderating for 15 years. And those have become way worse megalomaniacs over time Evidently, teenagers are not the problem
shmde 4y ago
> When you realise Reddit is moderated by unpaid megalomaniacs True, there was a recent post on r/India talking about an IMF twitter post talking about India's projected GDP growth and the user was banned from the subreddit because it showed India in good light. This is just one instance, there are lots of big subreddits out there having the tag of being an Official subreddit which are nothing more than propaganda machines.
fomine3 4y ago
I don't know why Reddit moderation audit log isn't available for everyone. This is toxic.

d23 4y ago

I'm having difficulty seeing how this comment relates to the post.

c7DJTLrn 4y ago
It's relevant because the moderator in the OP is a teenager and I question if kids should be handed the reigns to moderate like this no questions asked.
- jstarfish 4y ago
  If nobody is being harmed, why not. It's unpaid management experience. Giving kids responsibilities drives maturity.
  - permalac 4y ago
    Add /s or people will not understand
  - colpabar 4y ago
    In my experience, moderation can absolutely be harmful to the moderator's own mental health, because it involves removing the posts that aren't allowed. Porn, gore, insane political ramblings... a moderator is responsible for cleaning all that up. A 13 year old should probably not be doing it. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57088382 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57088382
    - jstarfish 4y ago
      In my experience, it's 13-year-olds that are posting the porn, gore and insane ramblings in the first place. It's also a volunteer gig. If it makes you uncomfortable, stop doing it.
    - linker3000 4y ago
      There's also the occasional direct or thinly-veiled threats of death, doxxing, tyre slashing or public stalking for removing an off-topic post where subby knows better.
  - c7DJTLrn 4y ago
    Yeah but Reddit isn't mum and dad's little cafe. You can think of it as a public newspaper. Anyone can ask for their own page titled whatever they want and curate that content to their own biases as they please. I could have nabbed the r/StableDiffusion page of the news paper and decided to only allow posts that smear StabilityAI.
  - Ajedi32 4y ago
    Sure, but at the same time that's a lot of power to give to a random teenager (or anyone, for that matter). Case in point, I dug into it the drama here a bit more, and it seems like the kid basically just handed control of the entire Stable Diffusion Reddit and Discord communities to the Stability AI corporation, no questions asked. That creates all sorts of conflicts of interest, and it seems to have been done against the wishes of the community itself.
    - bawolff 4y ago
      Its an internet community. If the mod team screws up you make a new one. The stakes are really low.
      - Ajedi32 4y ago
        That true to some extent, but it's also a bit like saying that if Facebook screws up we can just make a new Facebook and move everyone there. It's not that simple; there are huge network effects at play here. Other considerations: - Obviously from a purely technical perspective, making a new subreddit is easier than coding and deploying a new Facebook - It's less friction for a user to subscribe to a new subreddit than to sign up for a new website + The name of a subreddit can contribute to its popularity quite a bit. The community can make a new subreddit, but not a new /r/StableDiffusion
- numpad0 4y ago
  They should be notified. He was not, from his claims.

baxtr 4y ago

Yeah, because they want to save on mod costs, I guess. Related to that: I am wondering, does @dang get a monthly paycheck for his incredible work?

wsb_mod2 4y ago
Yup, @dang is paid. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23810452 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23810452
- aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
  How much?
  - themitigating 4y ago
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - lawrenceyan 4y ago
      I mean hopefully he's paid well? Making salary a private issue only hurts people in my opinion.
    - jjulius 4y ago
      Yes, but your approach is wildly unhelpful. Downvote it and move on.
      - adventured 4y ago
        Or don't downvote it and disregard. It's very common on HN for people to openly discuss salaries and ask about salaries.
    - aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago

silisili 4y ago

Way worse than FB, I'd argue. I used to think Reddit users skewed too heavily in certain ways, and didn't make sense. One day, using some tool (removeddit, reveddit, etc), I noticed how many posts and comments were removed by moderators - things that went against the skew. It's one of the reasons places like r/politics became such an echo chamber dumpster fire.

NayamAmarshe 4y ago
Totally agree with you but it's nowhere near how bad facebook is. At least on reddit, opinions aren't illegal or approved by how Zucc and team see fit. Facebook is extremely ban happy and you can do absolutely nothing about it. On reddit, at the very least you can create your own sub or join subs where people won't ban you for whatever you have to say.
- aliqot 4y ago
  > opinions aren't illegal The correct opinions aren't illegal. Reddit is not a bastion of free speech [0]. [0] - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/14/reddit-ceo-free-speech-ellen-pao https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/14/reddit-ce...
  - NayamAmarshe 4y ago
    I didn't say it is the bastion of free speech but it's much better than whatever Facebook is. 2 reasons: 1. Reddit does not usually participate in censorship itself. It's extremely rare for reddit accounts to be banned on the whole or for users to be banned from creating communities for like minded people. 2. Reddit allows you to create your custom feed. You could sort by new, you could create your own community, you could post opinions only on your account and reddit would not care. This is very different from how Facebook acts. The facebook algorithm is very biased, has checks for several trigger words and gradually profiles your political side and starts getting stricter as time passes. In my last 1-3 years on Facebook, I was been banned for at least 6 times and no I'm not a political person. I was banned for either posting an image that facebook algorithm didn't approve of, opinion on tech that somebody else attacked me for or in general, not being the person facebook ideologically asked me to be.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

TremendousJudge 4y ago

And in other ways, reddit has much better moderation than either Twitter or Facebook

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

> In some ways Reddit is worse than Facebook because it is influenced by anonymous entities with zero checks and balances. The discourse in many subreddits is invisibly dictated by the moderators. It's not obvious when you browse posts because everything is organically coming from random people. However, moderators can entirely shape the conversation by only allowing posts that say what they want. In other words: The moderators are speaking through users, by selectively filtering out everyone else. Many subreddits are also famous for banning any commenters who say anything that doesn't support what the moderators want to see. The remaining unbanned users are effectively curated to echo what the moderators want you to see. Discord obviously has the same dynamics, but Discord makes it more obvious when you're switching between "servers". Reddit mashes it all into one feed that feels like something organic. In this case, I suspect the core issue is that the person used the Stable Diffusion trademark, which resulted in Stable Diffusion playing the legal card. The correct response would have been to force a rename of this Discord (if legally obligated), though.

c7DJTLrn 4y ago
Absolutely. And the front page is just full of this kind of specially curated content that aligns with the moderators' views. It's propaganda, basically. Question is whose?
- tayo42 4y ago
  who is pushing for antiwork to hit the frontpage constantly?
  - squeaky-clean 4y ago
    The issue is more that if you make a post critical of some of the ideas in antiwork, expect it to get removed within about 10 minutes. While no individual in particular is pushing for those posts to reach the front page, only posts that fit the groupthink stay alive long enough to do so.
NayamAmarshe 4y ago
On the other hand, nobody forces the feed on you if you choose your own community. Yes popular subs can be very political and biased but it doesn't mean you have to join them. On reddit, you can totally avoid bans and still say something. On Facebook, your words and your whole account have no value if the algorithm decides you spoke a 'no no word'. Facebook feed is entirely controlled by the algorithm and that algorithm is controlled by the people at Facebook, the reddit feed can be controlled by you. That difference alone makes Reddit a little bit better than Facebook. Getting banned on Facebook is extremely easy, I got banned for quoting someone's comment and replying with 'ok' and unfortunately I'm not kidding. So far on reddit, haven't gotten any bans or warnings and I have always kept my discussions civil. Facebook wants conformity, it doesn't slap you on the wrist if you do something that Zuckerberg doesn't approve, it totally takes your voice away for a long time. I deleted my 10 year old Facebook account because the censorship was getting really crazy. Somebody could give you death threats and your comments would be the one getting deleted by Facebook, that's how bad it got near the end of 2020.

Karawebnetwork 4y ago

Anyone can become a Facebook influencer and own pages that will be seen on everyone's news feed. Anyone can moderate Facebook pages and groups. There are few differences. It's web 2.0 by design. I'm now over 30 years old, but I started being a mod/admin on online spaces when I was about 13. Back then it was IRC, several BBS's, flash chat and flash games. If I do a total count, I personally supervise over 250k people in Facebook groups alone. Add to that the fact that anyone can comment on Facebook pages and you get an even higher number (millions). I do it out of love for my communities but I know people who do it just for the power. You'd be surprised at how many pages there about major franchises that share the same admin/mods with the sole goal of controlling what is said there. I know people who create a page the minute a new trailer for a product or franchise comes out without even being interested themselves.

kache_ 4y ago

reddit is awful this is why i prefer 4ch

yoz-y 4y ago

TBH in the 90's most of forums I visited were also moderated by teenagers. If you build your community then you should be able to moderate it, as simple as that.

dahfizz 4y ago
The internet was very different 30 years ago. What works for a niche, small community often does not scale.
- ElevenLathe 4y ago
  Why does this child's forum where people post silly AI-generated pictures need to "scale"?

bitlax 4y ago

https://old.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/r45a5n/here_is_the_evidence_that_reddit_user_maxwellhill/ https://old.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/r45a5n/here_is_...

sam1r 4y ago

>>> In some ways Reddit is worse than Facebook because it is influenced by anonymous entities with zero checks and balances. Couldn’t one say the same about hacker news? Great quality content, from possibly anonymous profiles.

bawolff 4y ago

I'd rather have unpaid megalomaniacs and teenagers (read: people who care) than a faceless souless corporate bureaucracy. However both suck in very real but different ways.

MichaelCollins 4y ago
You don't have to pick one or the other. I quit both.

that_guy_iain 4y ago

I remember at some party I was talking to some guy who moderated something. He took it super serious and took everything a bit more serious than everyone else. I got the feeling from him that he held quite a low job. So it made sense to me that he would decide the desire to do something and have power somewhere so seriously. He talked about how hard it was to place clean. I kind of felt bad for him, but the thing is, without people like this we don't have Reddit. It just doesn't exist. Community forums and discords don't exist. Honestly, I find them annoying at times but at the same time I understand the need for them.

bt4u 4y ago

dj_mc_merlin 4y ago

The sheer amount of propaganda on Reddit is insane. You could take a random selection of titles off /r/popular and repost it to the /r/circlejerk of 5 years ago and it would've been a top post. I think that's part of the reason for its declining popularity: it's hard to make more absurd posts than what actually becomes popular nowadays. Every community develops its own biases, HN included, but Reddit is in late-stage groupthink. It wouldn't be a bad thing if what got traction wasn't doom and gloom. So many posts boil down to "the world is a mess"/"I am a mess"/"other political side is so stupid how can other people think different?"/"hate this person for expressing X opinion or doing Y (at least for like 3 days)". It's not just an online thing only, I've seen many people who have internalized some of these beliefs since they see them expressed so much online. Being ruled by what the internet thinks is acceptable is a horrible way to live your life, but if you're an awkward teen you might very well end up like that. Maybe I'm just nostalgic but the early internet had this care free spirit where every interaction, good or bad, seemed somewhat fun at least since it was crazy you were able to at all, and there were no stakes. People would flame you for your political opinions but you'd just shout at each other until a moderator told you to shut up, not have an entire community go against you since you don't agree with them. It was fun!. This "ganging-up" OTOH induces the brain to start modifying its beliefs to fit the group. A very normal process, but harmful. And younger people, the audience of Reddit, are exactly the most vulnerable to this online peer pressure.

ChildOfChaos 4y ago

This is the problem. I got banned from one of the main subreddits for asking an innocent question on something I knew nothing about, something kicked off, I heard about it first on the reddit, couldn't find much info about it as most content around it had already been removed online, questioned if it was really that bad as I could only find one bit of information and was instantly banned for supporting sexual abuse. I stupidly, avoided the ban by going to a different account as i felt I hadn't done anything wrong, after trying to speak to the mods about it but then Reddit managed to discover this and then my whole account was banned that i'd used for years on reddit. Insane. Now I just make new accounts every few months and access via VPN's, but I don't get involved in most discussions, only use it for when i want to ask someone a question.

datalopers 4y ago

HN is moderated by upvotes/downvotes in a similar fashion. Hivemind floats to the top the most mundane of viewpoints. imo, we need to eliminate upvotes/downvotes and just have a single flag/report type system for vitriolic content.

vlunkr 4y ago
Getting downvoted is not at all the same as having comments deleted, or getting banned, which is incredibly common on some subreddits. Also not giving new users access to downvotes hopefully means that those downvoting are somewhat good citizens.
- datalopers 4y ago
  I agree it's not the same as mods literally removing content or banning users but it still yields the same result. People observe what type of thought gets upvotes and repeat those views/opinions over and over. This of course is exactly how reddit works too outside of mods. > hopefully means that those downvoting are somewhat good citizens. Definitely not. It only takes a few flags on HN to completely remove something from the front-page. It only takes a few downvotes to grey it nothingness.
- Brusco_RF 4y ago
  Lets not kid ourselves, the main reason HN is much higher quality than Reddit is because of the users. It could all change tomorrow if they find out about us. People forget that Reddit used to look a lot like HN does today in like 2006-10 before the Digg exodus. Today Reddit is almost entirely kids.
  - vlunkr 4y ago
    Also the quantity of users and comments. You can still see comments that have been downvoted by scrolling a bit. On Reddit, unpopular comments will be buried and require extra clicks to access.
- chiefalchemist 4y ago

JohnJamesRambo 4y ago

In many ways HN is worse than Reddit because comments get flagged way too easily here for being unpopular or off topic. That’s what downvotes are for. It feels really gross and censored in a way Reddit never does. Bury it under downvotes fine on Reddit but it is never just flagged and removed for the tiniest reason. I do agree with you greatly though that Reddit mods have way too much power. The /r/movies subreddit is pretty garbage because of it. I wish they had just a daily thread for people to discuss movies. They refuse any sort of thing like this and persist their perverse love affair with movie posters.

nullcaution 4y ago
> In many ways HN is worse than Reddit because comments get flagged way too easily. Ive never had that problem, but this is a tech and entrepreneurship forum and not a general form. >That’s what downvotes are for If you get enough karma here you can down vote, 500 iirc. They do this so you can't create fake accounts to downvote people multiple times.
int_19h 4y ago
When comments get downvoted rapidly here, it is usually because their tone is deemed unacceptable by the community. Which, yes, is unabashed tone policing in the most literal sense of the word - but I think that's exactly why HN is much more pleasant to have conversations on than most other platforms online these days. Also, when something gets downvoted solely for content, if you come back later, it often gets upvoted right back (and then some), with some comments below to the effect that downmodding is not a proper way to express disagreement. I've upvoted greyed-out comments that I strongly disagreed with myself more than once, solely on the basis that they make a valid argument that ought to be a part of the conversation - even if only to debunk it properly.

holoduke 4y ago

I got banned on /r/world news supposedly because I said something negative about Ukraine. The only thing I wanted was a healthy dialog without picking a side. I asked for clearification. Didn't hear anything. Got fed up with reddit anyway.

paganel 4y ago
That sub has been long gone, unfortunately. The same goes for /r/europe, even though in this latter case I think the hive-mind is at least a little bit more genuine, as in there are real people holding those views, unlike what happens on /r/worldnews.

deleted 4y ago

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VLM 4y ago

Reddit's admins are even worse people.

seydor 4y ago

I wish it was teenagers. Reddit is terrified of old moderators leaving so they allow them free reign with zero accountability or even a way for users to dispute anything. They re probably having a hard time finding young people (they prefer discord) and are stuck with the same aging people moderating for 15 years. And those have become way worse megalomaniacs over time Evidently, teenagers are not the problem

shmde 4y ago

> When you realise Reddit is moderated by unpaid megalomaniacs True, there was a recent post on r/India talking about an IMF twitter post talking about India's projected GDP growth and the user was banned from the subreddit because it showed India in good light. This is just one instance, there are lots of big subreddits out there having the tag of being an Official subreddit which are nothing more than propaganda machines.

fomine3 4y ago

I don't know why Reddit moderation audit log isn't available for everyone. This is toxic.