4 ms·

There were some interesting observations on r/law, particularly this one: https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/10h9vju/supreme_court_allows_reddit_mods_to_anon

There were some interesting observations on r/law, particularly this one: https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/10h9vju/supreme_court_allows_reddit_mods_to_anonymously/j5am1km/ https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/10h9vju/supreme_court_... From there: >The issue has been muddied by sites like reddit who have been keen to play up outlandish possibilities of individual users or volunteer moderators becoming liable, which has never been a likely outcome of this case. The bigger and more realistic threat to a site like reddit is the possibility that actions taken by tools like automoderators, slur filters, or recommendation algorithms (e.g., sorting by "hot") might become legally analogous to editorial decisions. >Because those tools are sometimes set up by moderators and influenced by user actions (e.g. voting/reporting), there are sort of fringe or edge-case scenarios where the lines could potential blur between algorithmic policies and user/moderator actions. But we as users don't really need to worry too much about every conceivable edge-case legal theory, because a site like reddit would presumably be incentivized to remove or disable any tools that could create such a liability, to protect Reddit's own self-interest. >The algorithms that keep people clicking/viewing/refreshing the site are critical to the business interests of sites like Reddit and Youtube. It's really important for reddit's bottom line to have broad latitude to gamify user engagement by showing more of what will keep people on reddit longer and more-frequently. That's a less flattering PR angle than playing up the possibility that reddit users or mods could get in legal trouble. >It's not so much that there is no possible way that any ramification of this case could ever put a user or a mod of a site like reddit in any jeopardy in any conceivable scenario...It's more like, sites like Reddit have a lot to lose if their algorithmic recommendations should become legally analogous to editorial decisions.

jedberg 4y ago
You know how the lawyers get upset when us engineers practice airchair lawyering? This is like the reverse of that. Hot is not a recommendation algorithm -- everyone has the same hot list. It's literally just a sort of votes. In fact, almost nothing reddit does is custom to the user. It's all based on votes and other user actions. The only thing custom is the recommended sort, which anyone can turn off, by choosing the other sorts. Saying that reddit is algorithmic would be akin to saying that voting for President is an "algorithm" because it adds up user votes and is biased because the voters are biased.
- parineum 4y ago
  > Hot is not a recommendation algorithm -- everyone has the same hot list. It's literally just a sort of votes. It doesn't have to be personal to be editorial. Newspapers, for example. I can sort by "top" which gives me the most votes in the given time period. I can sort by "new" which gives me the posts in chronological order. I can also sort by "hot" which serves posts in an unknown way that reddit has decided means they are driving interaction. To me, what makes "hot" different is that it's a trade secret. "hot" is the thing that other sites don't have. "hot" shows you posts that you're more likely to be interested in (as apposed to "new" or "top"), even if it's not personal, to drive engagement.
  - jedberg 4y ago
    Hot is not a trade secret. How it works is public information. Here the code: https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit/blob/master/r2/r2/lib/db/_sorts.pyx#L47 https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit/blob/master/r2/r2/l...
    - Am4TIfIsER0ppos 4y ago
      > Latest commit d990533 Aug 17, 2015 Unless you run your own instance of reddit how can you be sure that is what is used?
      - edgyquant 4y ago
        It’s definitely not what’s used anymore. Reddit went closed source and when they did so they gave one reason being their internal codebase had completely diverged and moved to micro services
    - edgyquant 4y ago
      No that is how old Reddit worked before it went closed source and evolved into a social media app over the top site with comments it used to be
  - MacsHeadroom 4y ago
nonethewiser 4y ago
> automoderators, slur filters, or recommendation algorithms These are nothing if not editorial decisions

jedberg 4y ago

You know how the lawyers get upset when us engineers practice airchair lawyering? This is like the reverse of that. Hot is not a recommendation algorithm -- everyone has the same hot list. It's literally just a sort of votes. In fact, almost nothing reddit does is custom to the user. It's all based on votes and other user actions. The only thing custom is the recommended sort, which anyone can turn off, by choosing the other sorts. Saying that reddit is algorithmic would be akin to saying that voting for President is an "algorithm" because it adds up user votes and is biased because the voters are biased.

parineum 4y ago
> Hot is not a recommendation algorithm -- everyone has the same hot list. It's literally just a sort of votes. It doesn't have to be personal to be editorial. Newspapers, for example. I can sort by "top" which gives me the most votes in the given time period. I can sort by "new" which gives me the posts in chronological order. I can also sort by "hot" which serves posts in an unknown way that reddit has decided means they are driving interaction. To me, what makes "hot" different is that it's a trade secret. "hot" is the thing that other sites don't have. "hot" shows you posts that you're more likely to be interested in (as apposed to "new" or "top"), even if it's not personal, to drive engagement.
- jedberg 4y ago
  Hot is not a trade secret. How it works is public information. Here the code: https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit/blob/master/r2/r2/lib/db/_sorts.pyx#L47 https://github.com/reddit-archive/reddit/blob/master/r2/r2/l...
  - Am4TIfIsER0ppos 4y ago
    > Latest commit d990533 Aug 17, 2015 Unless you run your own instance of reddit how can you be sure that is what is used?
    - edgyquant 4y ago
      It’s definitely not what’s used anymore. Reddit went closed source and when they did so they gave one reason being their internal codebase had completely diverged and moved to micro services
  - edgyquant 4y ago
    No that is how old Reddit worked before it went closed source and evolved into a social media app over the top site with comments it used to be
- MacsHeadroom 4y ago

nonethewiser 4y ago

> automoderators, slur filters, or recommendation algorithms These are nothing if not editorial decisions