4 ms·

There's nothing wrong with a sub banning/censoring people. That's a critical part of having a trust value within a social network and if moderators of a popula

by AdamN 4y ago

There's nothing wrong with a sub banning/censoring people. That's a critical part of having a trust value within a social network and if moderators of a popular sub don't think a poster is meeting the bar to post it is good for them to ban it and become higher trust. If they go too far than there won't be content on the sub at all though. For instance /r/AskHistorians has a very high bar for posting and threads are commonly removed. As a result (and because they still have posters that meet that bar), the sub is considered very high trust. Some other subs anybody can say anything and I go so far as to filter the entire sub out so I never see it again.

000ooo000 4y ago
>There's nothing wrong with a sub banning/censoring people. That's a critical part of having a trust value within a social network I would not characterise a community moulded according to the whims of a few anonymous individuals as high in trust.
- regularfry 4y ago
  It's high in trust of a very specific type. Not, perhaps, the type we want or need, but the type we have nonetheless.
- AdamN 4y ago
  I muted USA Today in Apple News recently because their filtering was below the bar (click bait headlines, low quality writing). I don't know who the editors are that are making their decisions but I no longer trust that outlet anymore. Channels with higher quality selection (Financial Times) now have more of my time because I trust them more based on previous decisions they have made (to show me fewer low quality articles under click bait headlines).
  - ilyt 4y ago
    > I muted USA Today in Apple News recently because their filtering was below the bar (click bait headlines, low quality writing). I don't know who the editors are that are making their decisions but I no longer trust that outlet anymore. YOU MUTED is the key here. "Majority of subreddit didn't like it so it got downvoted" is somewhat democratic will of community. You muted a user coz you don't want their content is personal choice. Moderator choosing to do so on a whim is neither of those. You do need moderators coz some people won't behave but many times rules of subreddit are basically there so moderator can point to excuse on banning or removing whatever they don't like, not to ban something people don't want there.
    - AdamN 4y ago
      USA Today is the moderator ... and they do a poor job so I muted the entire 'sub'. USA Today is not an analogue for the user.
isaacremuant 4y ago
There's absolutely something wrong. They're not banning people for not adhering to posting rules in a sub, they're literally banning wrongthink, they're often banning political opinions they dislike or don't align with US democrat party hegemony. They suppress subs or influence mods to suppress them for them. There's a myriad of ways in which censorship to shape a narrative happens, and that narrative is as true as the narrative a few twitter users can set, if highlighted as "the majority opinion/the people have spoken" by mainstream media. There's intervention via subterfuge, not an open contract you either adhere or not.
h9h9h9 4y ago
High bar is subjective, you're only filtering by the most superficial aspects: are there swear words? Do they have citations? Do they "sound" smart? Are they saying something "problematic"? Same here. There's no cadence. (I'm not talking about /r/AskHistorians though) I've found hidden gems in free for all, no-karma, no-upvote forums such as 4chan. And you pay attention there, because people are not trying to sound smart.
account42 4y ago
> That's a critical part of having a trust value within a social network and if moderators of a popular sub don't think a poster is meeting the bar to post it is good for them to ban it and become higher trust. If they go too far than there won't be content on the sub at all though. That's implying that there is a single one-dimensional quality metric. The problem is when moderators of popular subreddits (for a particular niche) or those with the most obvious names for a particular topic start to enforcing their own personal biases in the discussion rather than sticking to keeping the discussion on-topic.
grumple 4y ago
I completely agree with the point that banning/censoring people is necessary in order to operate any internet forum. But I know from firsthand experience that bans are used to stifle valuable discussion both on major subreddits and niche ones. I've seen it happen to me and to others. For example, on an r/news post a few years ago about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, I replied to another comment where my content was basically the following: "If someone threatened to bomb your house, and they had a history of bombing houses, would you respond? What about after they destroyed your house?". That's almost exactly the wording I used (wish the comment hadn't been deleted so I could repost it exactly). This not only got me permanently banned from r/news, but also reported to the admins who censored the account. I suspect I pissed off a reddit admin or power user who followed me around reporting me, as shortly afterwards in a niche sub, I made another post discussing the continuum of force when it came to violent crime, quickly received several reports, and my account was permabanned from reddit. Note that both the content and tone of my posts there were similar to how I post on HN, which I think is generally appropriate. This sequence of events bothered me a lot, because I think discussion of the use of force continuum and the ethics of preemptive or retributive force are highly relevant to today's world, and that the places where I continued (didn't start) discussion of them were the appropriate places for them. If this conversation can't happen on reddit, which it appears it can't, then we need another forum. It is clear to me today that reddit has hit it's eternal september. I can't bring myself to respond to the multitude of low effort posts that typically bombard you when you post something other than memeing.

by AdamN 4y ago

000ooo000 4y ago

>There's nothing wrong with a sub banning/censoring people. That's a critical part of having a trust value within a social network I would not characterise a community moulded according to the whims of a few anonymous individuals as high in trust.

regularfry 4y ago
It's high in trust of a very specific type. Not, perhaps, the type we want or need, but the type we have nonetheless.
AdamN 4y ago
I muted USA Today in Apple News recently because their filtering was below the bar (click bait headlines, low quality writing). I don't know who the editors are that are making their decisions but I no longer trust that outlet anymore. Channels with higher quality selection (Financial Times) now have more of my time because I trust them more based on previous decisions they have made (to show me fewer low quality articles under click bait headlines).
- ilyt 4y ago
  > I muted USA Today in Apple News recently because their filtering was below the bar (click bait headlines, low quality writing). I don't know who the editors are that are making their decisions but I no longer trust that outlet anymore. YOU MUTED is the key here. "Majority of subreddit didn't like it so it got downvoted" is somewhat democratic will of community. You muted a user coz you don't want their content is personal choice. Moderator choosing to do so on a whim is neither of those. You do need moderators coz some people won't behave but many times rules of subreddit are basically there so moderator can point to excuse on banning or removing whatever they don't like, not to ban something people don't want there.
  - AdamN 4y ago
    USA Today is the moderator ... and they do a poor job so I muted the entire 'sub'. USA Today is not an analogue for the user.

isaacremuant 4y ago

There's absolutely something wrong. They're not banning people for not adhering to posting rules in a sub, they're literally banning wrongthink, they're often banning political opinions they dislike or don't align with US democrat party hegemony. They suppress subs or influence mods to suppress them for them. There's a myriad of ways in which censorship to shape a narrative happens, and that narrative is as true as the narrative a few twitter users can set, if highlighted as "the majority opinion/the people have spoken" by mainstream media. There's intervention via subterfuge, not an open contract you either adhere or not.

h9h9h9 4y ago

High bar is subjective, you're only filtering by the most superficial aspects: are there swear words? Do they have citations? Do they "sound" smart? Are they saying something "problematic"? Same here. There's no cadence. (I'm not talking about /r/AskHistorians though) I've found hidden gems in free for all, no-karma, no-upvote forums such as 4chan. And you pay attention there, because people are not trying to sound smart.

account42 4y ago

> That's a critical part of having a trust value within a social network and if moderators of a popular sub don't think a poster is meeting the bar to post it is good for them to ban it and become higher trust. If they go too far than there won't be content on the sub at all though. That's implying that there is a single one-dimensional quality metric. The problem is when moderators of popular subreddits (for a particular niche) or those with the most obvious names for a particular topic start to enforcing their own personal biases in the discussion rather than sticking to keeping the discussion on-topic.

grumple 4y ago

I completely agree with the point that banning/censoring people is necessary in order to operate any internet forum. But I know from firsthand experience that bans are used to stifle valuable discussion both on major subreddits and niche ones. I've seen it happen to me and to others. For example, on an r/news post a few years ago about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, I replied to another comment where my content was basically the following: "If someone threatened to bomb your house, and they had a history of bombing houses, would you respond? What about after they destroyed your house?". That's almost exactly the wording I used (wish the comment hadn't been deleted so I could repost it exactly). This not only got me permanently banned from r/news, but also reported to the admins who censored the account. I suspect I pissed off a reddit admin or power user who followed me around reporting me, as shortly afterwards in a niche sub, I made another post discussing the continuum of force when it came to violent crime, quickly received several reports, and my account was permabanned from reddit. Note that both the content and tone of my posts there were similar to how I post on HN, which I think is generally appropriate. This sequence of events bothered me a lot, because I think discussion of the use of force continuum and the ethics of preemptive or retributive force are highly relevant to today's world, and that the places where I continued (didn't start) discussion of them were the appropriate places for them. If this conversation can't happen on reddit, which it appears it can't, then we need another forum. It is clear to me today that reddit has hit it's eternal september. I can't bring myself to respond to the multitude of low effort posts that typically bombard you when you post something other than memeing.