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Reddit launches harassment crackdown
- gdulli 11y agoIt would be nice if they would have a spam/self-promotion crackdown.
- cozuya 11y agoI can't agree with many of the comments here. I have a 7 year old reddit account, go there daily, am still subbed to many defaults, and I just haven't seen many of the accusations of terribleness and the inevitable downfall that have been professed here. In my experience, the growth of the site hasn't changed it much at all.. maybe more reposts to the front page but that's not a big surprise. It is what you make of it.
- adrianscott 11y agoIs this Reddit's Digg 4.0 moment?
- 5h 11y agoNot quite by my reckoning - but I think the tinder box is close to being lit, large parts of the community already takes a poor view of its CEO.
- akinder 11y agoMerely because she is a woman who had the guts to sue her employer. Or, because she is a woman really. I'm glad they are finally taking steps to clean up their toxic community.
- talmand 11y agoI agree. Starting something like this isn't necessarily the death knell, but the inevitable unequal application of it will be.
- untog 11y agoGiven that the vast, vast majority of Reddit use falls within these guidelines, I doubt it.
- alexc05 11y agoIt would really depend on implementation wouldn't it? The incredibly strict anti-trolling policies around HN do make it a great place to come back to years later. Though HN also takes care to engineer the social interactions here too. (scores are hidden, upvotes only until you get to a certain karma level) I do tend to worry a little about bias and inconsistent enforcement of their policies, but also believe that we'd have to see that play out over time. Without question the stated goal of "diversity" is noble, valuable and, deserves to be pursued. The problems arise in their definition of diversity. Does it mean what I think it means? What about their definition of "safe"? We're really going to have to wait and see. I think calling this the demise of reddit is a bit premature. Though I also struggle to believe that deleting the extremes will make it a more interesting or compelling place to be around. There's a reason that maniacs stop taking lithium.
- iopq 11y agoIt took me more than two years to be able to downvote people. This is not a good thing.
- edgarvaldes 11y agoI still can't downvote after almost 3 years. I don't comment very often, so I don't have an incentive to chase the downvote privilege. But the thing is, after all this time, I dont want to downvote anymore, like the first time I came here. I just read and enjoy the place.
- mreiland 11y agoI can't downvote people, nor do I have any interest in doing so. I don't upvote people either.
- Vaskivo 11y agoSure it is. I believe it is better to elevate good posts/posts that I like, than silencing bad posts/posts that I dislike. I think there should only be UPvotes.
- 11y ago
- cryoshon 11y agoPossibly. The frustration over Pao seems to be on the verge of going mainstream despite it being relatively pointless in terms of actual things changed. The shadowbanning of users discussing Pao is more of a problem than Pao herself so far IMO. My guess: the anti-SJW crowd will leave to go to voat (and if we're unlucky, here) and the SJW & neutral crowds will remain, warping reddit into something more along the lines of tumblr with more cat pictures. On the other hand, even before this recent Pao stuff, reddit had been getting a pretty solid reputation for being an advertising/PR platform. The shilling and advertising is pretty horrendous, and almost all of the default subs are completely overrun by paid content-- if you don't believe me, just take a gander at how frequently McDonalds, Doritos, TacoBell, etc make the front page with content-free posts that are often as simple as a picture of their products. I guess you can say "avoid the larger subreddits" but there is a lot of content-based shilling too-- try posting anything about Israel or Russia in the context of a serious discussion and see what happens. It isn't a coincidence.
- digi_owl 11y agoFirst i have heard of voat...
- Karunamon 11y agoGiven Reddit's already unequal application of the site rules (some people can shamelessly vote manipulate, others receive hellbans for merely following links), and the propensities for specific groups to treat mild disagreement as "harassment", this does not bode well. It gets really blatant if you've been on the site for any length of time. I really hope this doesn't kill the site, but it looks bad.
- MisterWebz 11y agoCan you elaborate a bit on the vote manipulation? Other than certain Reddit power users regularly getting their posts to the top of certain subreddits, I haven't really seen anything suspicious.
- Karunamon 11y agoSo Reddit's got this community called "Shit Reddit Says", also known as 'SRS'. It originally started as a group of Something Awful users doing what can be described as a trolling operation. SRS's stated goal is to highlight people on Reddit saying bad things (casual racism, stuff like that). Someone from the community finds a post somewhere on reddit they feel meets the criterion, and they post it there. Often immediately afterwards, the post, and the user who made it, begin losing karma at a rate that cannot be described as coincidental. One of the rules in SRS is "don't touch the poop" - you're not supposed to participate in a thread that gets linked there. However, looking at the relation between post time on SRS, and karma over time, there's no other explanation for what happens to the scores of comments that get posted there. Before you say "meh, racists, who cares?" - two problems. First, SRS's aegis has expanded to cover any criticism of the social justice movement, rather than actual hurtful comments. Second, what's happening is explicitly against the site rules regarding vote manipulation (vote brigading) - other subreddits who engaged in similar behavior had to institute rules that mandate either "no participation" links (a CSS hack that disables the voting buttons), or outright banning of intra-subreddit linking at the urging of site administration staff.
- mikeash 11y ago
- Vaskivo 11y agoI don't like it, but Reddit can do whatever it wants with it's platform. Reddit is not a "free speech platform", it is whatever it wants to be at any moment. In Portugal we have a saying that translates to something like this: "Who is not well/happy, should move to another place". And that's whats going to happen. Some users will go to another platforms. And, in the end, we'll always have the chans...
- Karunamon 11y agoThat is exactly what it is, by their own reckoning[1]: Create a safe space to encourage participation. Embrace diversity of viewpoints. Allow freedom of expression. Be stewards, not dictators. The community owns itself. As long as they claim to be holding themselves to that standard, people are fully within their rights to call them out on hypocrisy. [1]:https://www.reddit.com/about/values https://www.reddit.com/about/values
- mhomde 11y agoYeah, but it also says "a safe space", obviously some rules would have to be in place for that
- maxerickson 11y agoIt doesn't say Embrace all viewpoints. Allow total freedom of expression. There is a long tradition of seeking robust debate. There is also a long tradition of expecting some measure of decorum.
- talmand 11y agoI would say the original statements and your version of the statements are the same thing. If they were not they should read as: Embrace some viewpoints. Allow some freedom of expression. With whatever variation on the language as necessary. If the statement doesn't originally place a restriction on the idea, then it isn't necessary to specifically state there is no restriction. Therefore, I would say that technically: Embrace viewpoints. Embrace all viewpoints. Are, in fact, the same thing. As for maintaining decorum, that where the restrictions come into play and have to be specifically stated: Embrace diversity of viewpoints by permitting all statements that follow community guidelines on language pertaining to harassment, crudeness, personal attacks, etc. Any statements may be censored for not following community guidelines.
- mhomde 11y agoOn the surface it seems like a good thing. Taking a stance against the worst "systematic and continuing harassment" should help the most vitrolic cases. Some might argue that Reddit should be an "extreme free speech platform" and this obviously goes against it, but I'm not sure reddit sees itself that way. I think most people are afraid of the slippery slope and censorship if taken too far. Making Reddit "too political correct" would transform the current culture into something else. Many (or a loud minority) currently doesn't seem to trust Reddit to not do that. What makes things worse is people assume this is a "Monetization of a service"-story they've seen played out many times before with catastrophic results. In the end I guess it comes down to the execution and agenda.
- return0 11y agoIsn't reddit feeding off the entire nation of self-professed internet activists who are out to solve the world's injustices? These people are going to lose their sense of purpose if nobody is attacking them. Don't bite the hand that indirectly feeds you, reddit.
- existencebox 11y agoThis is a topic I'm legitimately curious about. 4chan existed in a form for a very long time such that (aside from any stated rules) harassment was ubiquitous (at least in /b). That being said, that same domain formed a basis for massive swaths of the internet community and culture we see today. In any place I've seen these sorts of gestures of "safe-ification", they seem to serve only to 1. be ineffective; for whatever moderation you have it's going to have edge cases and a time delay for enforcement. 2. Split the community, create _more_ (and often more subtler, now that it has to conform to some rulebook) harassment/drama between the split. 3. Drive away productive parts of the community, for any variety of reasons. (for me it's a mix of "I've seen this pattern before and don't like where it goes" and "I don't agree that trying to dictate social standards is the proper way.") Caveat, and I'm somewhat frustrated that I feel like I need to say this (whether that's at myself or the fear that I'll be jumped on if I don't), I was _VERY_ heavily bullied/harrassed for much of my childhood. I caveat as such to try and say that I don't hold this stance from a position of ignorance, but that if I hadn't interacted with bad actors in places that are frankly more insulated from real life (the internet) I would have never come to (yes, painful, but still VERY useful in hindsight) realizations about human interaction and my role in it. This rambled a bit, so tl;dr, Dealing with bad actors is how we learn to deal with bad actors, which is a _critical_ life skill. This even aside from that the strategy being applied does not have a successful history, from what I've seen. (I'm trying to avoid the slippery slope argument, although that's kinda implicit in my second conclusion, I'd rather hear what other people think on this concept of growth through pain, or if it's all in my head)
- digi_owl 11y agoAbout 2. One thing i have seen more and more as rules come into play on various sites is baiting. In particular when the rules are automatically enforced.
- mcantelon 11y ago"Think of the children" justifications for normalizing private sector censorship seem to be a contemporary ruling class focus. Pao's contribution is a smart career move.
- techar 11y agoJust like how intelligence organizations wraps their methods with "hunting pedophiles and terrorists".
- techar 11y agoHas anyone heard of something called "ignore"? It is possible to do online.
- mrwnmonm 11y agowhat do you mean? is it like facebook's "hide all from X"?
- digi_owl 11y agoReddit do not officially have such a thing. The closest would be to use a browser equipped with the Reddit Enhancement Suite.
- techar 11y agoAs in ignoring by not acknowledging the messages. This is not reddit specific, but for all sites. I can demonstrate on you right now.
- DanBC 11y agoLess possible when you're getting hundreds of messages per day on all your online accounts with eg pictures of your children leaving school or your workplace.
- undersuit 11y agoNo that actually sounds like a really good time to start ignoring things. You don't feed the trolls, real life or internet. What's more inflammatory, ignoring a troll after he happens to find a picture of your children, or aggressively attacking their actions on their medium of choice? Don't feed the trolls.
- revelation 11y agoWell, at least they are doing something. It seems like Reddit has tripled staff and VC money but has been doing exactly zero, nada, zilch. The site is the same, as are the ads, the downtimes, the loading problems, the ...
- cryoshon 11y agoHint: it's an ad revenue based cash-out. They don't actually need more servers or features, they need more curators and ways to channel money. Sell off the valuable real estate and make the site cleaner for advertisers so that there's less bad PR when one of the uglier subreddits gets critical mass and finds public attention.
- edgarvaldes 11y agoI said it in another thread, I visit a subreddit with very strict moderation. Very strict. The place is wonderful for regulars and newcomers. It is healty and strong. One of the rules is: >If we find that you are active in any subreddits that promote hatred toward any particular group of individuals, your participation rights in this sub will be revoked. And another: "Mod abuse will not be tolerated" Those rules have worked for years.
- mreiland 11y agoI'm really interested in knowing what subreddit that is.
- undersuit 11y agohttp://www.reddit.com/r/redditgetsdrawn http://www.reddit.com/r/redditgetsdrawn
- dvdcxn 11y ago>If we find that you are active in any subreddits that promote hatred toward any particular group of individuals, your participation rights in this sub will be revoked. Nice thoughtcrime ya got there.
- dmfdmf 11y agoI'd just like to point out the Pao and Reddit can do anything they want on their property and it is not censorship. Private parties cannot censor, only the government can censor which why the recent nationalization of the US Internet by the FCC is so dangerous for Free Speech. When the FCC comes out with their "Internet Anti-Harassment and Diversity Guidelines" that must be followed at the threat of shutting down your blog, that is true censorship and should not be tolerated.
- briandh 11y agoActually, the everyday meaning of censorship quite clearly includes the private suppression of speech. Them having the right to engage in it is independent of that.
- dmfdmf 11y agoWell, if that's the case we'd better be careful with our definition and use of concepts or we will lose our freedoms.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- dvdcxn 11y agoJust because you have a right to do something does not make it right. Just because there is a law against something does not make it wrong.
- forgottenpass 11y agoSo, what's the driving force behind this? They're not doing it out of the good of their hearts, so I see three obvious possibilities: making the website a more attractive place to advertize, external pressure hurting their image (like that time they banned some subreddits only after being featured on CNN) or trying to appeal to more women. Did I miss anything? I assume it's some combination of the above leaning heavily towards advertizement. Considering the number of house ads I see them running, and the anecdotal things I've heard about advertizement sales on 4chan or other uncouth websites.
- afeafbfba 11y agoReddit is a propaganda site and has been for a while now. Many years ago, it was predominantly run by the users ( commenting and voting ). Now it's just a tool for admins and mods to push their agenda/views. They might as well get rid of the voting system. Reddit is a joke and the sooner it goes away the better.
- _greim_ 11y ago> Censorship should be the subreddit's decision. It's fun to watch parallels develop between reddit site operators versus subreddit moderators, and federal government versus state's rights. (For anyone not familiar with this long-running American political theme: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States%27_rights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States%27_rights)
- hoopd 11y ago> It added that it defines harassment as "systematic and/or continued actions to torment or demean someone in a way that would make a reasonable person (1) conclude that reddit is not a safe platform to express their ideas or participate in the conversation, or (2) fear for their safety or the safety of those around them". In point (1) she basically just described how SRS operates...I doubt they'll be willing to use this to punish them, though. Speaing of SRS, maybe it's time the community starts asking A) how many reddit employees are involved with SRS and B) how many other subs the anonymous* SRS mods also moderate. *mostly anonymous. It's public knowledge one of their mods used to be a site admin.
- forgottenpass 11y agoI see the submission title has been edited so that it's no longer the title the BBC used. I get what the social pressures are around here, but c'mon son.