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Comment by psychometry | Hacker News Reader

True, but The_Donald is always leaking. I've seen plenty of sexist/racist content on subreddits for cities, sports teams, memes, etc. Reddit has allowed itself to be a platform used in part for really despicable content, and the despicable people who generate that content regularly venture outside their cesspools.

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I feel that leftist movements are leaking much more than T_D.

Comments which — without being racist or sexist — go against the popular & politically correct leftist stance are downvoted to oblivion. Meanwhile, extremely statist stances are tolerated and celebrated by users.

Reddit's hive-mind is ultra-liberal.

which makes sense. It seems to have been built on libertarian principles and rejects authoritarian principles. not sure how much more liberal you can get.

You're mixing up liberal with libertarian.

Libertarians are at least related to liberals, but it seems the words left, liberal, and libertarian are often confusing, and they're not very fine grained descriptions anyway.

In the US they are related to conservatives as well. Libertarians share very little with liberals when it comes to views on what the government should regulate.

The thing they have in common is social liberalism (allow gay marriage, individual drug use, etc).

So heres the problem I'm seeing here. Liberal is not the opposite of Conservative. Conservatism opposes Progressivism, Liberalism opposes Authoritarianism. For the most part people in the US are liberal, they believe in general equality and freedom. Progressives are also generally liberal but also tend to stir the pot and want change. It is also very possible to be conservative and liberal, which a large minority in the US are. I'd also argue there are a lot of authoritarian conservatives and authoritarian progressives. But I think most believe in the basic principles of freedom and equality that define liberals.

The way I see it, the authoritarians in the US hijacked the word liberal and want to conflate it with progressive, despite the derivation of the word itself. If one is a proponent of liberty, forcing people to do things/ not do things is authoritarian, and therefore, not liberal. I'm all for change, but I despise force (other than Gandhi's 'force of truth', Satyagraha: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyagraha).

I don't think I am. I think perhaps you have conflated liberal with progressive.

It is worth noting that Russia's goal with its initial propaganda efforts was not necessarily to elect Trump, but instead to sow dissent against a likely Clinton presidency. This included a heavy pro-Trump campaign, but also a sizable pro-Sanders campaign. Therefore the extremist views you see on Reddit on both sides of the aisle have likely been spiked by Russian propaganda. I'm not saying Reddit doesn't lean liberal, just that the "ultra-liberal" side of the site that appeared during the 2016 primaries might not be completely genuine.

Ultra-liberal, in the USA meaning of 'liberal'.

Originally, the word referred to classical liberalism, which has freedom as its primary value.

Modern 'liberals' — the one's you're referring to — have values very different to the original liberals. They are, in fact, opposite in the current political landscape.

It's worth making the distinction to avoid confusion.

Downvotes without explanation are a pretty liberal use of the downvote button, either way.

Isn't this a symptom of a site growing to reflect the broader population? When communities are small, they typically cater to a niche audience, who invites their friends who are directly or tangentially related to that niche.

Once the site grows beyond those 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree connections, you get exposed to those 4th, 5th and 6th degree connections that might have some values and opinions that are shocking to you because they don't run in your orbit.

I feel bad that the author contributes his time to making a world a worse place. I see Reddit as giving more visibility to the world. It's true there's some crazy stuff from some loud people, but my guess is if it was quantified it would still be a small percentage of actual content on Reddit. But just like in life, a rare shocking event dominates our consciousness much more than persistent normal events.

Eternal September: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

I think Hacker News referenced it somewhere too but I can't find it now (maybe it's in the signup process).

You're talking about a world where Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, The Jersey Shore, and gameshows where you pick your spouse from a group of strangers are hit television shows. I think you may have tastes which are outside of the mainstream.

There was plenty of sexist and racist garbage on reddit prior to the creation of T_D. It's probably more virulent now, but it's definitely not new. Good mods are the key to keeping bad content off good subreddits.

This is the problem that so many people miss when they extol the virtues of a customized Reddit. If you make a site that is attractive to racists, bigots, sexists, and homophobes, those people are going to be using the whole site and not just their tiny vile corners.

This phenomenon might be easier to understand with a specific example like the recent Ghostbusters remake. It was by most accounts a bad movie. If you browse any movie related subreddit you will see plenty of valid criticism of that movie. Mixed in with that are comments about how that movie never should have been made with an all female cast and that is what caused the movie to be unsuccessful because women aren't funny. It is easy for some naive kid to see that and think "yeah, I saw that movie and it wasn't funny, maybe that comment has a point". Meanwhile it might never occur to them the user who originally left that comment came to Reddit to be a member of an incel community that is notoriously sexist and anti-women. This allows these communities to grow their size by spreading hate and feeding off the rest of the site.

That's a lot of bad words to express "people I don't like have a social life."

I kinda think if the balance can be maintained instead of reaching a tipping point that the interactions between those bigots etc. and the rest of us may actually ward off their bigotry. A bigot having a conversation with a non-bigot in a context that doesn't start off adversarial is probably the best context we can get for people to slowly drop their bigotry.

Sure, it can go the other way too, and that's scary.

I was pretty much in the sunlight-best-disinfectant camp until I heard https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/08/25/546127444/epis...

Now, I dunno. Clearly we can't expect independent well-meaning anti-racists to be as effective as extremely carefully crafted propaganda appealing to baser tribalist instincts. It's already uphill battle to get people to be open-minded. Those who argue for reinforcing people's existing biases have it easier.

But if there's any chance of getting the bigots to change their views, it seems it will be in respectful conversation with others, which Reddit at least is capable of, though I guess it doesn't seem the trend, unfortunately…

I agree with your premise, but I don't think that is something that realistically happens very often on the internet, especially on social media. The discourse dissolves too quickly once a comment has been called out for being hateful.

Another part of the issue is that not all hateful content has a big blinking sign on it saying "I am being hateful". It is often a lot subtler than that. One big example is how the Reddit community has handled the Me Too movement. If the big subreddits are your only source of news you might think that Terry Crews is the primary victim of Hollywood's sexual misconduct. There is nothing wrong with telling Crew's story. He is clearly a victim and he deserves for his voice to be heard. A single post or comment about Crews is not sexist, however he has been the primary focus of this discussion on Reddit. It is important to think about it deeper and why his story dominates this topic. Maybe it is because a sizable portion of Reddit simply doesn't care about female victims the way they care about male victims. This type of bias is only visible holistically and therefore is much harder to combat with open debate as you describe.

Well, FWIW, internet communication is still pretty damn new. No grown people are the kids of internet-natives even (i.e. no adults today were raised by parents and teachers who themselves grew up with the internet). So, in the long-run, we can see that this is pretty new still.

I am myself aware of all sorts of ideal communication habits that address the common failings. Perhaps there's some slim hope that this wisdom will eventually reach far more people and become dominant to where we actually learn how to communicate better than we do today.

I think of the cases where people met their trolls in real-life and had reconciliation of sorts, or that woman who grew up in the Westboro Baptist Church and got convinced to leave after someone on Twitter responded empathically and intelligently instead of antagonistically, leading to long-term exchange of perspectives… these stories are the exception today, but we have that at least…

As a moderate on reddit I see leaking from both sides, but leaking from r/the_donald is much more contained.

It is particularly annoying when a hobby subreddit gets swarmed by the fanatical social justice crowd and kills all conversatamd community that existed previously.

The leaked content from r/the_donald are downvoted to oblivion. The leaked contentent from r/shitredditsays has much more power.

However, if you are simply seeing conservatives from r/news posting, and assuming they are crazies from r/the_donald, then you are assuming bad intent and may need to re evaluate how many conservatives live on the internet. Regardless of your political affiliation, you will see opinions you disagree with and that’s a good thing for the most part.

the_donald or the like has never leaked into the many subreddits I frequent.

If you stick to very niche subreddits, you'll mostly escape it, but the reach seems to basically be increasing on a month by month basis at this stage.

To be fair, half the time I make even the slightest conservative arguments on Reddit I get told to bugger off to TD, a subreddit I've literally never visited.

What does that mean though? People who post in one sub aren't allowed to be in any other sub?

People in TD can write in others subs too, as can people from late stage capitalism. Wanting to forcibly segregate and silence people with different opinions is I think at the heart of the problem with silicon valley right now.

'remove those who disagree with me' has killed hundreds of millions over the years, and is a common and dangerous kind of groupthink.

It’s not about forcible removal but following the rules. People who came for a toxic subreddit tend to use the same style, memes, etc. everywhere and often go back to their home base to encourage fellow believers to back them up. Over time that spoils communities because reasonable people aren’t as driven to post as frequently as the ideologues.

We have this debate over and over again in r/berkeley, a community which I used to be an active part of. Essentially, every time Berkeley makes national news the sub gets brigaded by TD. Some of those trolls stick around and then post tired tirades anytime there is something remotely political on the sub. And some of them even try to pose as Berkeley students.

Almost everyone on the sub is tired of the constant brigading and would like more active moderation of the trolls. The main moderator refuses to do anything and has similar views to your own, thinking that we should welcome them with open arms. This has the effect where Berkeley students and residents can't even talk about things affecting their community as they get drowned out by the mass of right-wing trolls. And this usually comes at times when its most crucial for there to be an avenue for Berkeley students/residents to have a platform to speak with each other (e.g. protests, riots, local political issues).

I had similar issues running /r/ronpaul where there was a sustained, concerted effort by opponents to disrupt the conversation. One of said opponents went on to found /r/the_donald.

It's fairly hard to ban people on a site where account creation is as easy as it is on reddit. Moderator tools have improved a little since, but remain inadequate for dealing with sustained brigading.

The internet is not your save space. Neither is reddit. If everbody were thinking your way, those posts would be downvoted into obliviation. I am sorry that you have to face the fact thst many people don't share your personal value judgement of what is considered to be racist/sexist.

I think this is an oversimplified view, especially when it is nearly a known fact reddit's votes are manipulated by automated imposters/"troll farms"/etc. The internet is not my safe space, but I think it's very reasonable for the subreddit about Canada to be moderated as a "safe space" free of racist ramblings. The people holding those opinions can go elsewhere, for example to The_Donald, where any dissent is quickly deleted by moderators. Even beyond the manipulation question, moderation exists to refine a community beyond mob rule.

I think it's very dangerous to conceive of social subreddits as any sort of "safe space" due to competing access needs.

I think it's very reasonable for the subreddit about Canada to be moderated as a "safe space" free of racist ramblings.

The problem with even mild forms of censorship, is that bad actors can combine it with emotional manipulation and media manipulation to push their own agenda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LofV6cJzILA

Right now, bad actors on the far left are using outrage as a tool to push their own authoritarian agendas. In this, they are aided and abetted by the far right. Both extremes thrive on outrage, especially the outrage that comes from intellectually dishonest censorship.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiRnbNT5uE

By that same logic, reddit is allowed to outright ban all right-positive content, correct? It's not the right's safe space, after all.

But they aren't doing it. So if you don't like the fact that reddit supports free speech, you can feel free to leave.

Reddit is fully within its right to support free speech. It is the reason why it is successful.

Weird, that sounds a lot like the billboards I used to see in South Carolina along the lines of "if you don't like [guns, god, trucks], you can GIIIIIIIT OUT!"

Are you telling me I shouldn't be exercising my free speech right to argue that reddit should remove alt-right subreddits? Are you placing barriers around acceptable free speech?

You can do whatever you want. That's the great part about places like reddit.

I am merely informing you of the fact reddit isn't going to go along with your idea to engage in mass censorship because they are strongly pro free speech, and only ban subreddits in very rare situations.

They aren't perfect on free speech, but Id give them a solid A-.

You have lots of other options if you like censorship, and you can feel free to use those instead.

That's the great thing that reddit offers. You can join moderated communities as well as unmoderated. It's your choice which to engage in, and reddit isn't going to take away OTHER people's choice because you say so.

I don't know why you seem to think I have some kind of authority. I feel like I'm being propped up as some sort of powerful villain here, or maybe that there are strikes being taken at my agency.

>Reddit isn't going to take away OTHER people's choice because you say so

Why use language like this? I bring it up because this is exactly the sort of haughty writing style I'm used to hearing when I engage t_d users... I don't know if it's a dialect or simply an artifact of shared mindset.

Reddit does censor, don't forget! They've even banned self proclaimed safe spaces such as mgtow hangouts.

I'm also curious where you get your sense of authority, saying things like "I'm informing you of the fact that reddit...". That's powerful language! Do you work at Reddit? If so, can you offer further insight?

Using words like "facts" seems silly. Given enough advertiser pressure, I bet reddit would content tweak. If t_d lost it's fragile control over it's users and went full blown hate speech, I bet it would vanish. So, where does this confidence come from?

EDIT: Shit, we've hit the reply depth limit or whatever. I'm happy to continue this conversation privately if you wish, my email's in my profile.

To reply in an edit, I agree that typically spez has taken a pro-free speech line, but given that we're discussing this in an article that contradicts this from an insider perspective with lines like

>and then, ultimately, these things will bubble up, make it into the press, and then we would make a decision to change things. We would deal with the immediate impact, which was painful, would last a week or two, and then it would go away.

Which leads to my belief that if t_d lost just a little bit of control, and the press caught wind, that reddit would cave and ban it.

The confidences comes from listening to the thing that reddit and its founders say and claim themselves.

They self identify as being strong supporters of free speech and strong opponents of censorship.

They literally founded their platform based on these ideas.

This stuff isn't a secret or some mystery. Just listen to the actual words that come out of their mouth and read the things that they actually write.

And they aren't shy about this kind of stuff. They speak frequently on these topics, both online, in person, and in their public official media posts.

There's a certain sub I like that is full of sexist and racist stuff and nobody there likes Trump at all. What I mean to say with this is, when you see stuff you don't like on Reddit, that does not mean it's coming from T_D, or that getting rid of T_D would get rid of stuff you don't like.

Yes, and even places that are anti-racism, anti-sexism, and hate trump are often filled with emotionalism and thoughtless group think shouting. Comments decrying anything bad in a caustic way are near useless.

Comments decrying anything bad in a caustic way are near useless.

Yes. The kind of mentality which is drawn to social condemnation has been a mental substrate to all kinds of bad stuff throughout history. No matter how positive the cause for which it's done, it often becomes toxic and authoritarian. Witness various religions throughout history, as well as the high ideals of the early international communists.

Outrage culture is the word your looking for. Its one of the most toxic things on the internet.

>There's a certain sub I like

why even post this comment if you're not going to name the sub?

Those subs only last long if they manage to stay under the radar. I am afraid someone in here might know someone who works for Reddit and... you know the rest ;P

You're just asserting that though. There was a study done on the removal of two of the racist/hate subreddits on reddit that indicated a positive affect.

"In this paper, we studied the 2015 ban of two hate communities on Reddit, r/fatpeoplehate and r/CoonTown. Looking at the causal effects of the ban on both participating users and affected communities, we found that the ban served a number of useful purposes for Reddit. Users participating in the banned subreddits either left the site or (for those who remained) dramatically reduced their hate speech usage. Communities that inherited the displaced activity of these users did not suffer from an increase in hate speech. While the philosophical issues surrounding moderation (and banning specifically) are complex, the present work seeks to inform the discussion with results on the efficacy of banning deviant hate groups from internet platforms."

http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf

I've always been skeptical of this study, mostly because of how fluid reddit accounts are.

I have at least three accounts that I know of (I've probably forgotten about others).

I'm sure people who participate in terrible behavior like that probably also have multiple accounts.

How does the study account for those users simply abandoning the accounts they used for those hateful subreddits? I find it far more likely that they didn't "leave the site entirely", and instead just migrated to their other accounts not associated to the banned subreddit.

I only use one account and I’ve been called off multiple times in the “mainstream” subs for posting to the right-wing ones, sometimes when not even talking about politics. I’m sure most people who post to right-wing subs keep two accounts or even more to keep their activity “segregated”.

That paper I imagine terrifies Reddit. They depend upon their users to create and engage with content, if they're willing to leave to create and engage elsewhere they then become another Digg.

This was done with small "hate" subreddits too. Imagine they did that with some of the largest controversial subreddits, that would probably make half the users pack up and go.

It seems like a right-wing contingent has taken over the moderation of a lot of smaller subreddits, specifically city/country subreddits, and both the content posted and the commentary reflects that.

It's a dangerous trend for both society and reddit itself.

Not sure why this is downvoted, this is well documented.

Seems incredibly biased to say that right-wing moderators are dangerous to society. Just because someone has a more conservative outlook, doesn't mean they are a menace. A little bit shocking that needs to be pointed out.

I didn't read OP as saying that right-wing moderators are per se are "dangerous to society", but that it being just one viewpoint represented (especially if, as "a right-wing contingent" implies", it's a single group of people) could be,].

If you're a left-wing moderator or a right-wing moderator, there is no way I should know that unless you tell me. Any moderator that is actively and purposely applying their political philosophy to a forum that reaches thousands of people is dangerous to society.

Where is this documented?

> It's a dangerous trend for both society and reddit itself.

Wouldn't squashing the voices of the "right-wing contingent" just lead to an (already implied) echo chamber of leftist thought?

Your one single comment sums up the problem I have with user-moderation systems like reddit (and HN).

>Wouldn't squashing the voices of the "right-wing contingent" just lead to an (already implied) echo chamber of leftist thought?

That implies it's only possible to be "right-wing" or "leftist".

What ever happened to neutrality? Moderators shouldn't be promoting an ideology left or right. I understand that Reddit admins themselves don't want to promote an ideology either -- they want to remain neutral -- but they are sacrificing their platform to people who don't hold he same ideals.

The biggest change I've noticed is just how political the city/country subreddits have become. A few years ago, they used to be more fun places but now nearly all the content is very hateful and polarizing.

It's literally impossible for moderators to be neutral, for anyone to be neutral. Even judges are well known for leaning to one side or the other.

But even judges attempt to be neutral. There are law/rules and you attempt to judge every case/comment based on that. As a moderator, I don't simply delete comments because they don't fit my political views -- I'm capable of that and so are most other people.

That's entirely different from people that are explicitly not trying to be neutral and are trying to promote a specific political ideology. I expect that majority of moderators on Reddit are not trying to promote anything. However there is definitely a growing contingent that don't want neutrality and they are taking over.

Sure it is possible. You can be neutral by banning nothing.

Or at the very least only ban something when the authorities literally force you to do so.

Banning nothing is fine if you want your community to die.

In theory, everyone has equal ability to share their opinions and all have equal weight. In reality, you have a lot less influence than someone willing to post 24/7 everywhere they can. The quickest way to drive away reasonable people is to do nothing.

> they used to be more fun places but now nearly all the content is very hateful and polarizing.

I don't think this is a reddit thing - it's a societal thing.

Other platforms are also getting far more acerbic in general. City council meetings, local news, etc. It seems the country is in a period of time where politics is both forefront and rather contentious.

I feel the stuff on-line is simply reflecting the greater societal trends - jut with the typical amplification everything on-line breeds.

I think it's a societal thing because it's a Reddit thing. That typical amplification of everything online is leaking into real life.

See this excellent post: Neutral vs. Conservative - The Eternal Struggle http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-conservative...

Neutrality is impossible. Either you ban people for racism or you don't.

Right, so people are arguing against that baseline rule.

A baseline rule prohibiting threatening violence, most people agree with, but apparently it is a controversial attack on free speech if a private website wants to moderate the use of its platform to promote hatred against people based on the color of their skin.

And banning racism is being held as an example of liberal bias! Amazing.

Sticks and stones.

Not all speech is protected, for good reasons that cannot be blithely dismissed with a truism.

By "right-wing" he means the particularly virulent ur-fascist type of characters.

If you don't think that is a problem then... well, I can't help you.

Then he should say "virulent ur-fascists."

Can’t argue with that, but contextually it was reasonably clear. Also it is a right wing position, just not the only one.

There is "right wing" and there is "far right nationalism." Reddit has an issue with the latter. I have talked with many conservatives lamenting the loss of their given subreddits to trolls and /r/t_d devotees.

Furthermore, it is the internet - I've never been convinced by any argument that HN or reddit or even facebook has any obligation to give "fair time" to far-right nationalism. For as long as Fox News exists and promotes itself as an actual news agency (HAH!), I don't think community-generated content websites need to bother.

Why doesn't the far-right just "pull itself up by its boostraps" and make a reddit for the far-right? (sidenote, sometimes this does happen, and it almost always is full of the most comically hateful people: see voat)

sidenote, sometimes this does happen, and it almost always is full of the most comically hateful people: see voat

I'd feel much better if reddit and twitter were even handed with their condemnation of comically hateful people. As someone on the Left, what I've seen is that Left-leaning media bias tends to give indirect license to the most extreme authoritarian and even toxic fringes of the Left. It also fuels a reaction from the far Right.

For as long as Fox News exists and promotes itself as an actual news agency (HAH!)

The mechanism I cite above has been in operation at Fox, just in the other direction.

I'm not sure I agree, based on the near universal mockery of /r/shitredditsays since well before even the Kotakugate/gamerghazi/zoe quinn clusterfuck.

"Why doesn't the far-right just "pull itself up by its boostraps""

Umm, why would they do that when they can instead use reddit?

Reddit sells itself as being a strong supporter of free speech. THEY SELF-identify as being a neutral platform.

If the censorship supporters want to interact in a censored forum, then they can make their own subreddit and moderate it how ever they feel like, or make their own website.

The right doesn't need to do anything, because reddit wants to be neutral.

The far-right/neo-fash has numerous platforms that never censor them and will gladly embrace their content: gab, voat, 4chan/8chan to name a few.

I honestly don't see what the big deal is. For example, lots of lefty subs have banished "Tankies", communists who think Stalin did nothing wrong, from their communities.

Ultimately, neither a fascist nor communist can oppose such a purge/restriction without being a hypocrite. Such actions are well within either group's ideological wheelhouse and therefore they should stop complaining.

People are challenging this "undocumented" claim

Here's a lot of users talking about how it happened to /r/canada

https://www.reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/7z1wap/forg...

https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/7z706y/whats_...

My suspicion is that whatever entity is behind massive twitter troll farms of far-right content (as well as inflammatory far-left content) is also doing everything it can to stir the shitpot over at reddit. /r/conspiracy is another one "lost" to the far-right. I even catch whiffs of it in the bay area subreddits sometimes.

I'd say the same for /r/shitredditsays but for the far-left, except it's been that way for as long as I can remember (LONG before any of the bot farm stuff).

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