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The absolutely broken moderator system of Reddit made me leave it forever after being a regular user for more than a decade. The “god-king” thing simply doesn’t

by p2detar 7mo ago

The absolutely broken moderator system of Reddit made me leave it forever after being a regular user for more than a decade. The “god-king” thing simply doesn’t work.

_cenw 7mo ago
And even if it does, the mods don't have real control to moderate communities either, so you get the worst of both worlds. I don't go to most queer reddit communities anymore because a lot of them have bots that downvote trans-positive posts, even if the community is specifically meant to be inclusive. There's nothing to couple active participation to voting weight or anything of that kind and voting is not considered "brigading" by reddit if the coordination happens off-site (at least not in a way that'd lead to any enforcement action). It's makes a great propaganda machine though, given humans have a tendency to measure their own opinions on social clues.
- gzread 7mo ago
  I still haven't been able to figure out how to make an account without it being immediately shadowbanned or normalbanned. Tried again the other day, it was something in between where logged-out users could see it was banned but I couldn't.
  - mschuster91 7mo ago
    You need to ditch and replace all your devices and acquire a new phone number. I'm serious. Virtually all large websites these days employ a lot of fingerprinting and persistence technologies. And yes, ditch them. Even well over a decade ago, Wikipedia of all places already employed IP address matching to link sockpuppet accounts. You must be extremely careful of never using any device that was associated with your old accounts on the same network as the devices associated with your new account. And that includes devices only seen by association.
    - kevin_thibedeau 7mo ago
      Just don't use apps. Then the only association is a discardable cookie and IP.
      - code_duck 7mo ago
        There’s also browser fingerprinting
    - happyopossum 7mo ago
      > and acquire a new phone number > Wikipedia of all places already employed IP address matching to link sockpuppet accounts That’s… well, that’s just not how tcp/ip works. Your phone number has nothing to do with your device IP…
      - beachy 7mo ago
        It does when your phone number is used for 2fa in a session running on tcp/ip
      - mschuster91 7mo ago
        Phone numbers are available to many apps if they target older SDK versions and serve as an additional unique identifier.
    - gzread 7mo ago
      How contagious is it? Can I get other people banned from Reddit by logging into my instantly banned account on their wifi network?
      - ssl-3 7mo ago
        Not that contagious, I'm afraid. My boss uses Reddit some. I'm banned. At the shop, we use the same IP address (and we do not use ipv6 there). I tried to log in with a ~10-year-old account that I'd never commented with. A perfect Beetlejuicing moment had arrived and I just wanted to play the game with a short, snarky comment. It logged in fine, and then: Insta-ban, just like that. (Maybe I should have used a new browser on a new network that I've never used before, but whatever -- nothing of value was lost here.) Meanwhile, the boss man's access continued unimpeded; this suggests that it is a rather targeted contagion. And it seems to follow the systems, not the networks. (If anyone wants banned, just let me know. I seem to have a well-poisoned system to play with.)
alex1138 7mo ago
[flagged]
- koolala 7mo ago
  I don't think the problem was spam content it was hate content. Hate can be organic
  - nichos 7mo ago
    Who decides what "hate" is though? Does it switch with every administration? Free speech, including "hate speech" should be allowed, as long as it doesn't violate the law (calls to violence, etc)
    - pwndByDeath 7mo ago
      I agree that free speech is free speech, the private org that runs the platform has a veto, the assumption that these platforms are the equivilant of stepping into the street to stand on a box is a not realistic. Even HN is only quasi-free speech, there are rules that will get one censored. If you love freedom, there are mailing lists and other platforms but they arnt as high on dopamine and the audience gets a little bit more sketch.
      - throwaway27448 7mo ago
        Even the US never had free speech—there was always stuff you could/can say to get you gagged by the courts or thrown in prison. Your freedoms always stop at impacting other people. Somehow we jut gave business owners more freedoms than we gave everyone else....
        pwndByDeath 7mo ago
        I guess I don't have a problem with a social media site blocking speech, we don't have to use them, if they are too draconian, nobody will. But IRL it gets harder if ISPs get involved. I'm more interested in democratized platforms with privacy baked in, if you want free speech you might have to at least give the orgs you depend on for access plausible deniability
leptons 7mo ago
Same here. The power-tripping of mods ruins reddit. Most don't care about the community as much as they care about exercising their absolute power over users.

by p2detar 7mo ago

The absolutely broken moderator system of Reddit made me leave it forever after being a regular user for more than a decade. The “god-king” thing simply doesn’t work.

_cenw 7mo ago

And even if it does, the mods don't have real control to moderate communities either, so you get the worst of both worlds. I don't go to most queer reddit communities anymore because a lot of them have bots that downvote trans-positive posts, even if the community is specifically meant to be inclusive. There's nothing to couple active participation to voting weight or anything of that kind and voting is not considered "brigading" by reddit if the coordination happens off-site (at least not in a way that'd lead to any enforcement action). It's makes a great propaganda machine though, given humans have a tendency to measure their own opinions on social clues.

gzread 7mo ago
I still haven't been able to figure out how to make an account without it being immediately shadowbanned or normalbanned. Tried again the other day, it was something in between where logged-out users could see it was banned but I couldn't.
- mschuster91 7mo ago
  You need to ditch and replace all your devices and acquire a new phone number. I'm serious. Virtually all large websites these days employ a lot of fingerprinting and persistence technologies. And yes, ditch them. Even well over a decade ago, Wikipedia of all places already employed IP address matching to link sockpuppet accounts. You must be extremely careful of never using any device that was associated with your old accounts on the same network as the devices associated with your new account. And that includes devices only seen by association.
  - kevin_thibedeau 7mo ago
    Just don't use apps. Then the only association is a discardable cookie and IP.
    - code_duck 7mo ago
      There’s also browser fingerprinting
  - happyopossum 7mo ago
    > and acquire a new phone number > Wikipedia of all places already employed IP address matching to link sockpuppet accounts That’s… well, that’s just not how tcp/ip works. Your phone number has nothing to do with your device IP…
    - beachy 7mo ago
      It does when your phone number is used for 2fa in a session running on tcp/ip
    - mschuster91 7mo ago
      Phone numbers are available to many apps if they target older SDK versions and serve as an additional unique identifier.
  - gzread 7mo ago
    How contagious is it? Can I get other people banned from Reddit by logging into my instantly banned account on their wifi network?
    - ssl-3 7mo ago
      Not that contagious, I'm afraid. My boss uses Reddit some. I'm banned. At the shop, we use the same IP address (and we do not use ipv6 there). I tried to log in with a ~10-year-old account that I'd never commented with. A perfect Beetlejuicing moment had arrived and I just wanted to play the game with a short, snarky comment. It logged in fine, and then: Insta-ban, just like that. (Maybe I should have used a new browser on a new network that I've never used before, but whatever -- nothing of value was lost here.) Meanwhile, the boss man's access continued unimpeded; this suggests that it is a rather targeted contagion. And it seems to follow the systems, not the networks. (If anyone wants banned, just let me know. I seem to have a well-poisoned system to play with.)

alex1138 7mo ago

[flagged]

koolala 7mo ago
I don't think the problem was spam content it was hate content. Hate can be organic
- nichos 7mo ago
  Who decides what "hate" is though? Does it switch with every administration? Free speech, including "hate speech" should be allowed, as long as it doesn't violate the law (calls to violence, etc)
  - pwndByDeath 7mo ago
    I agree that free speech is free speech, the private org that runs the platform has a veto, the assumption that these platforms are the equivilant of stepping into the street to stand on a box is a not realistic. Even HN is only quasi-free speech, there are rules that will get one censored. If you love freedom, there are mailing lists and other platforms but they arnt as high on dopamine and the audience gets a little bit more sketch.
    - throwaway27448 7mo ago
      Even the US never had free speech—there was always stuff you could/can say to get you gagged by the courts or thrown in prison. Your freedoms always stop at impacting other people. Somehow we jut gave business owners more freedoms than we gave everyone else....
      - pwndByDeath 7mo ago
        I guess I don't have a problem with a social media site blocking speech, we don't have to use them, if they are too draconian, nobody will. But IRL it gets harder if ISPs get involved. I'm more interested in democratized platforms with privacy baked in, if you want free speech you might have to at least give the orgs you depend on for access plausible deniability

leptons 7mo ago

Same here. The power-tripping of mods ruins reddit. Most don't care about the community as much as they care about exercising their absolute power over users.