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Highly relevant here would be the GCHQ/NSA slides on the topic of how they've infiltrated positions of power (i.e. moderation) in online communities - reddit is

Highly relevant here would be the GCHQ/NSA slides on the topic of how they've infiltrated positions of power (i.e. moderation) in online communities - reddit is specifically cited. It's all about FUD, discrediting, and censorship on fallacious grounds. It would not surprise me to learn that BipolarBear0 is a plant. It would also not surprise me to learn that he's a pedantic basement-dweller, but I don't think, given what we've learned, it's conspiratorial or paranoid to suppose that this is governmental control. It's perfectly feasible.

mturmon 13y ago
You have a point. It can sound like tinfoil-hattery, but there are several examples in which the FBI and other police had so thoroughly infiltrated radical groups that there were practically as many monitors as activists. This was not only a 60s and 70s thing, it has continued up to the present day in some cases.
- mattmanser 13y ago
  It's still happening today. Massive stink when one of the UK's undercover police broke down and admitted his guilt to the media in 2010: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kennedy_(police_officer) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kennedy_(police_officer) How many more of them are there? Who knows. Note that it claims 22 different countries used him. And he was explicitly called out as being an agent provocateur.
  - madaxe_again 13y ago
    It's important to note that his role was not just information gathering, but also agent provocateur, riling the group into criminal acts. Also worth noting that in order to maintain his cover he had sexual relationships with his targets... Which amounts to sexual intercourse by deception - also known as rape. Oddly, he was not prosecuted for this. Utterly shameful affair, and the absence of consequence indicates complete state sanction for his crimes.
    - scarmig 13y ago
      Rape is not the same as "sexual intercourse by deception." The key variable is consent. "Sexual intercourse by deception" could cover anything between having sex while lying about your age (definitely should not be illegal) to having sex while lying about your seroconversion status (often is and probably should be illegal). None of those count as rape, though, because consent had been granted before and during the actual act. Lying about your long term intentions in order to have sex with someone, or using sex to manipulate someone? That makes you a bad person, but it's not illegal, and you have a really long line of people to arrest if you think it should be.
mintplant 13y ago
BipolarBear0 isn't even the one who removed the links. When you're making wild accusations, at least try to point them in the right direction.
- mahranch 13y ago
  That's the problem with articles like these. They're written by people who, at best, only have a vague understanding of how reddit works. This article in particular isn't too bad, but the previous ones I've seen were laughably ignorant about reddit and it's infrastructure. Making things worse are the commentors who see "censorship" and get all worked up and start frothing at the mouth. This submission is only an hour old yet there are already comments here by people who honestly believe that the mods were infiltrated by the NSA and they're the ones who pulled the submission. The tin-foil hat crowd completely ignore the fact that the submission was only pulled in a single subreddit and that it wasn't pulled in dozen other subreddits, including /r/worldnews which is a larger subreddit with more subscribers. There are hundreds of thousands of subreddits on reddit and only one pulled the submission because it broke their rules. The other subreddits had no problem with the submission. But why report that? Because it doesn't generate as many hits.
  - mst 13y ago
    “As it stands, the Firstlook story is almost entirely comprised of analysis and a lack of objectivity. Not to say that’s necessarily a bad thing—in fact, the Firstlook story by Greenwald is, at least in my opinion, a great piece of investigative journalism.” This, honestly, seems like a perfectly reasonable response.
    - freyr 13y ago
      It does sound like a perfectly reasonable response. But any competent censor would be able to justify his actions with a reasonable sounding response. We want to hear a response like this, since it sets our minds at ease. But we should resist that urge and be objective ourselves. We can ask: * Is the article in question, in fact, composed entirely of analysis and does it lack objectivity? * Does the article lack objectivity to the same degree as other articles banned from r/new? As to the first question, my opinion is that the article in fact contains significant objective reporting. A major component of the article consists of the slide themselves, which are inherently objective. There are additionally quotes, responses, and factual contextual information presented on the parties involved. But the article also contains some analysis. Though the content analysis itself doesn't seem particularly bold or controversial, it does present a viewpoint. So if r/news only allows articles that present a litany of facts and provide no analysis, I suppose this article wouldn't fit the bill. But I'm not familiar enough with r/news to know whether if that's the case.
cryoshon 13y ago
Yep. Controlling the gatekeepers of public conversation is a measure that is squarely in the court of totalitarianism-- this leak was the evidence needed to begin calling the USA a right wing authoritarian/totalitarian state. I really wish the mainstream media had picked up this story, because it'd be an easy way to convince the public that the government is targeting them as an enemy. It's blatant evidence that the government is interested in controlling thought regardless of involvement with terrorism or national security. It's foolish to think that they wouldn't try to gain positions of power in bastions of alternative thought and activism. Admittedly, reddit is extremely mainstream-- but it's still a place for citizens to communicate with each other and discuss happenings. It'd be invaluable control-wise to be able to influence conversations there.
- wooter 13y ago
  really wish you had dropped the "right wing"... its a false dichotomy which we really need to stop perpetuating.
  - cryoshon 13y ago
    The US is far to the right relative to the rest of the world, but I get where you're coming from. I didn't mean to imply that the "right wing" was the crux of the problem-- totalitarianism is the problem.
    - jamiesonbecker 13y ago
      Right. (hah) The non-establishment right wing and tea party appears just as much angry/worried about the increasing collusion between government and wall street as the non-establishment left, if not even more. Increasingly, big govt and big business are becoming harder to tell apart. Corruption is everywhere, but the scariest part is the ability of US govt to silence and intimidate critics both without and within.
  - jbooth 13y ago
    When short-haired, god-fearing and country-loving patriots are the good guys (no cops bust up a tea party rally), while the long-haired hippies are the bad guys (see COINTELPRO, police treatment of occupy or the WTO protests), what else you want to call it? Yes, there are more dimensions to politics than 'left' and 'right', but it does indeed seem that the security services are always worried about a certain type.
NegativeK 13y ago
> It would not surprise me to learn that BipolarBear0 is a plant. If he is, I hope he's fired. Removing an article like that to cover your ass seems like an inordinately stupid thing to do. > It would also not surprise me to learn that he's a pedantic basement-dweller This characterization bothers me. "Basement dweller" and "neckbeard" seem to have become the way that fellow nerds can insultingly call each other nerds.
- eco 13y ago
  > If he is, I hope he's fired. Reddit moderators are not employees of reddit. They're just regular users with moderation powers for a particular subreddit.
  - rz2k 13y ago
    I think NegativeK meant fired by whatever organization supposedly planted him.
    - NegativeK 13y ago
      I did.
- wpietri 13y ago
  This may be too much of a tangent, but I think there's a line between being a nerd who functions as a normal citizen and one who doesn't. For me, that's what the "basement-dweller" thing is pointing at, as I think the long version of that is "mom's basement". I think if anybody's equipped to usefully judge how people deploy their nerdiness, it's other nerds.
  - NegativeK 13y ago
    If someone is being a pedantic asshole, it's enough to say that. > I think if anybody's equipped to usefully judge how people deploy their nerdiness, it's other nerds. I think my point is that calling someone a basement dweller or a neckbeard isn't useful. It doesn't help the point being made; it just insults the other person -- it stands out, in my mind, of nerd being thrown around as an insult in high school. And, no. I don't think nerds will usefully judge how people deploy their nerdiness.
lotsofmangos 13y ago
It would not surprise me to learn that BipolarBear0 is a plant. Sounds more like some form of mammal.
maxerickson 13y ago
But nobody takes /r/news seriously! I guess it might be worth $5 to the government to occasionally bump a page off the front of reddit, but they should probably spend that money on cute pictures of kittens or donate it to AdviceAnimals before they spend it on infiltration.
spindritf 13y ago
BipolarBear0 is a name I recognize from reddit. He's always there, and on Snoonet (unofficial Reddit IRC network). Now, he could be a plant but more likely he's just another kid power-tripping on Reddit over some silly policy. If you scan subs like the mentioned /r/subredditdrama, or /r/shitredditsays, you can see how deeply people are invested into what others say in throw-away comments on the Internet. Off-colour jokes can lead to discussions with hundreds of participants across multiple subreddits.
- eridius 13y ago
  > he's just another kid power-tripping on Reddit over some silly policy The primary purpose of the subreddit moderators is to enforce the rules. If the moderator does not enforce this so-called "silly policy" then he is not doing his job.
- paul_willis 13y ago
  BipolarBear0 has stated that he's an independent contractor for the DoD: http://reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1z0zao/reddit_mods_bury_glenn_greenwalds_story_on/cfqfpsv?context=3 http://reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1z0zao/reddit_mods_bu...
  - madaxe_again 13y ago
    Well, then. That suggests, at the very least, partisanship - which has no place in news moderation unless you're an overtly partisan outlet. To be clear, I don't mean partisan in the traditional GOP/dem fashion, rather pro-apparatus and anti-apparatus. It also means easy contact with intel types - he may not even realise that he's being influenced, if he is.
    - RexRollman 13y ago
      No it doesn't. Speaking as someone who was a contractor for many years, I find your presumption annoying.
      - 13y ago
Kapura 13y ago
It is wrong to accuse people of being plants without strong, specific evidence of their misdeeds. Being an opinionated Internet commenter, I have seen unjust charges levelled against others and myself, and it absolutely destroys productive discourse. I'm not saying that GCHQ or the NSA don't have moderation positions on Reddit, but you should listen to the user's explanations of their actions before calling them traitors. The explanations brought forward in the updates to the Salon article do not seem unreasonable; let's not jump to conclusions.
adamors 13y ago
They actually ban entire websites from /r/news, not just articles. Here's a post that contained the list of banned domains: https://web.archive.org/web/20130831135727/http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/18jgbj/hi_rnews_how_are_you_we_are_preparing_a_list_of/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130831135727/http://www.reddit... Here's BipolarBear0 commenting on it: http://np.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1yxlxa/claims_of_censorship_after_a_new_snowden_document/cfoprt1 http://np.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1yxlxa/claims... Also, since /r/conspiracy was discussing this topic heavily in the last couple of days, BipolarBear0 started flooding the subreddit with anti-semitic content. Here he is admitting it: http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1ywspe/new_snowden_doc_reveals_how_gchqnsa_use_the/cfow0mp?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1ywspe/new_snowde...
acqq 13y ago
See the comment of paul_willis: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7320581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7320581 BipolarBear0 has stated that he's an independent contractor for the DoD

mturmon 13y ago

You have a point. It can sound like tinfoil-hattery, but there are several examples in which the FBI and other police had so thoroughly infiltrated radical groups that there were practically as many monitors as activists. This was not only a 60s and 70s thing, it has continued up to the present day in some cases.

mattmanser 13y ago
It's still happening today. Massive stink when one of the UK's undercover police broke down and admitted his guilt to the media in 2010: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kennedy_(police_officer) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kennedy_(police_officer) How many more of them are there? Who knows. Note that it claims 22 different countries used him. And he was explicitly called out as being an agent provocateur.
- madaxe_again 13y ago
  It's important to note that his role was not just information gathering, but also agent provocateur, riling the group into criminal acts. Also worth noting that in order to maintain his cover he had sexual relationships with his targets... Which amounts to sexual intercourse by deception - also known as rape. Oddly, he was not prosecuted for this. Utterly shameful affair, and the absence of consequence indicates complete state sanction for his crimes.
  - scarmig 13y ago
    Rape is not the same as "sexual intercourse by deception." The key variable is consent. "Sexual intercourse by deception" could cover anything between having sex while lying about your age (definitely should not be illegal) to having sex while lying about your seroconversion status (often is and probably should be illegal). None of those count as rape, though, because consent had been granted before and during the actual act. Lying about your long term intentions in order to have sex with someone, or using sex to manipulate someone? That makes you a bad person, but it's not illegal, and you have a really long line of people to arrest if you think it should be.

mintplant 13y ago

BipolarBear0 isn't even the one who removed the links. When you're making wild accusations, at least try to point them in the right direction.

mahranch 13y ago
That's the problem with articles like these. They're written by people who, at best, only have a vague understanding of how reddit works. This article in particular isn't too bad, but the previous ones I've seen were laughably ignorant about reddit and it's infrastructure. Making things worse are the commentors who see "censorship" and get all worked up and start frothing at the mouth. This submission is only an hour old yet there are already comments here by people who honestly believe that the mods were infiltrated by the NSA and they're the ones who pulled the submission. The tin-foil hat crowd completely ignore the fact that the submission was only pulled in a single subreddit and that it wasn't pulled in dozen other subreddits, including /r/worldnews which is a larger subreddit with more subscribers. There are hundreds of thousands of subreddits on reddit and only one pulled the submission because it broke their rules. The other subreddits had no problem with the submission. But why report that? Because it doesn't generate as many hits.
- mst 13y ago
  “As it stands, the Firstlook story is almost entirely comprised of analysis and a lack of objectivity. Not to say that’s necessarily a bad thing—in fact, the Firstlook story by Greenwald is, at least in my opinion, a great piece of investigative journalism.” This, honestly, seems like a perfectly reasonable response.
  - freyr 13y ago
    It does sound like a perfectly reasonable response. But any competent censor would be able to justify his actions with a reasonable sounding response. We want to hear a response like this, since it sets our minds at ease. But we should resist that urge and be objective ourselves. We can ask: * Is the article in question, in fact, composed entirely of analysis and does it lack objectivity? * Does the article lack objectivity to the same degree as other articles banned from r/new? As to the first question, my opinion is that the article in fact contains significant objective reporting. A major component of the article consists of the slide themselves, which are inherently objective. There are additionally quotes, responses, and factual contextual information presented on the parties involved. But the article also contains some analysis. Though the content analysis itself doesn't seem particularly bold or controversial, it does present a viewpoint. So if r/news only allows articles that present a litany of facts and provide no analysis, I suppose this article wouldn't fit the bill. But I'm not familiar enough with r/news to know whether if that's the case.

cryoshon 13y ago

Yep. Controlling the gatekeepers of public conversation is a measure that is squarely in the court of totalitarianism-- this leak was the evidence needed to begin calling the USA a right wing authoritarian/totalitarian state. I really wish the mainstream media had picked up this story, because it'd be an easy way to convince the public that the government is targeting them as an enemy. It's blatant evidence that the government is interested in controlling thought regardless of involvement with terrorism or national security. It's foolish to think that they wouldn't try to gain positions of power in bastions of alternative thought and activism. Admittedly, reddit is extremely mainstream-- but it's still a place for citizens to communicate with each other and discuss happenings. It'd be invaluable control-wise to be able to influence conversations there.

wooter 13y ago
really wish you had dropped the "right wing"... its a false dichotomy which we really need to stop perpetuating.
- cryoshon 13y ago
  The US is far to the right relative to the rest of the world, but I get where you're coming from. I didn't mean to imply that the "right wing" was the crux of the problem-- totalitarianism is the problem.
  - jamiesonbecker 13y ago
    Right. (hah) The non-establishment right wing and tea party appears just as much angry/worried about the increasing collusion between government and wall street as the non-establishment left, if not even more. Increasingly, big govt and big business are becoming harder to tell apart. Corruption is everywhere, but the scariest part is the ability of US govt to silence and intimidate critics both without and within.
- jbooth 13y ago
  When short-haired, god-fearing and country-loving patriots are the good guys (no cops bust up a tea party rally), while the long-haired hippies are the bad guys (see COINTELPRO, police treatment of occupy or the WTO protests), what else you want to call it? Yes, there are more dimensions to politics than 'left' and 'right', but it does indeed seem that the security services are always worried about a certain type.

NegativeK 13y ago

> It would not surprise me to learn that BipolarBear0 is a plant. If he is, I hope he's fired. Removing an article like that to cover your ass seems like an inordinately stupid thing to do. > It would also not surprise me to learn that he's a pedantic basement-dweller This characterization bothers me. "Basement dweller" and "neckbeard" seem to have become the way that fellow nerds can insultingly call each other nerds.

eco 13y ago
> If he is, I hope he's fired. Reddit moderators are not employees of reddit. They're just regular users with moderation powers for a particular subreddit.
- rz2k 13y ago
  I think NegativeK meant fired by whatever organization supposedly planted him.
  - NegativeK 13y ago
    I did.
wpietri 13y ago
This may be too much of a tangent, but I think there's a line between being a nerd who functions as a normal citizen and one who doesn't. For me, that's what the "basement-dweller" thing is pointing at, as I think the long version of that is "mom's basement". I think if anybody's equipped to usefully judge how people deploy their nerdiness, it's other nerds.
- NegativeK 13y ago
  If someone is being a pedantic asshole, it's enough to say that. > I think if anybody's equipped to usefully judge how people deploy their nerdiness, it's other nerds. I think my point is that calling someone a basement dweller or a neckbeard isn't useful. It doesn't help the point being made; it just insults the other person -- it stands out, in my mind, of nerd being thrown around as an insult in high school. And, no. I don't think nerds will usefully judge how people deploy their nerdiness.

lotsofmangos 13y ago

It would not surprise me to learn that BipolarBear0 is a plant. Sounds more like some form of mammal.

maxerickson 13y ago

But nobody takes /r/news seriously! I guess it might be worth $5 to the government to occasionally bump a page off the front of reddit, but they should probably spend that money on cute pictures of kittens or donate it to AdviceAnimals before they spend it on infiltration.

spindritf 13y ago

BipolarBear0 is a name I recognize from reddit. He's always there, and on Snoonet (unofficial Reddit IRC network). Now, he could be a plant but more likely he's just another kid power-tripping on Reddit over some silly policy. If you scan subs like the mentioned /r/subredditdrama, or /r/shitredditsays, you can see how deeply people are invested into what others say in throw-away comments on the Internet. Off-colour jokes can lead to discussions with hundreds of participants across multiple subreddits.

eridius 13y ago
> he's just another kid power-tripping on Reddit over some silly policy The primary purpose of the subreddit moderators is to enforce the rules. If the moderator does not enforce this so-called "silly policy" then he is not doing his job.
paul_willis 13y ago
BipolarBear0 has stated that he's an independent contractor for the DoD: http://reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1z0zao/reddit_mods_bury_glenn_greenwalds_story_on/cfqfpsv?context=3 http://reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1z0zao/reddit_mods_bu...
- madaxe_again 13y ago
  Well, then. That suggests, at the very least, partisanship - which has no place in news moderation unless you're an overtly partisan outlet. To be clear, I don't mean partisan in the traditional GOP/dem fashion, rather pro-apparatus and anti-apparatus. It also means easy contact with intel types - he may not even realise that he's being influenced, if he is.
  - RexRollman 13y ago
    No it doesn't. Speaking as someone who was a contractor for many years, I find your presumption annoying.
    - 13y ago

Kapura 13y ago

It is wrong to accuse people of being plants without strong, specific evidence of their misdeeds. Being an opinionated Internet commenter, I have seen unjust charges levelled against others and myself, and it absolutely destroys productive discourse. I'm not saying that GCHQ or the NSA don't have moderation positions on Reddit, but you should listen to the user's explanations of their actions before calling them traitors. The explanations brought forward in the updates to the Salon article do not seem unreasonable; let's not jump to conclusions.

adamors 13y ago

They actually ban entire websites from /r/news, not just articles. Here's a post that contained the list of banned domains: https://web.archive.org/web/20130831135727/http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/18jgbj/hi_rnews_how_are_you_we_are_preparing_a_list_of/ https://web.archive.org/web/20130831135727/http://www.reddit... Here's BipolarBear0 commenting on it: http://np.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1yxlxa/claims_of_censorship_after_a_new_snowden_document/cfoprt1 http://np.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1yxlxa/claims... Also, since /r/conspiracy was discussing this topic heavily in the last couple of days, BipolarBear0 started flooding the subreddit with anti-semitic content. Here he is admitting it: http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1ywspe/new_snowden_doc_reveals_how_gchqnsa_use_the/cfow0mp?context=3 http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1ywspe/new_snowde...

acqq 13y ago

See the comment of paul_willis: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7320581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7320581 BipolarBear0 has stated that he's an independent contractor for the DoD