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Comment by maverick2007 | Hacker News Reader

maverick2007

I personally think that this article buried the lede as far as controversial Reddit actions go. Users now can be (and have been) banned for upvoting posts in quarantined subreddits (both on the right - T_D - and the left - Chapo Trap House - among others). I've seen controversy erupt all around Reddit about this and it doesn't feel right to me. If the content that people are upvoting is bad enough to get banned over shouldn't it just be removed from the site and not left up to upvote?

Edit: the official policy is that only upvoting rule breaking posts will be cause for banning which makes sense. The Redditors I've heard from claim differently but are obviously biased. So take what I said with a grain of salt.

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> Users now can be (and have been) banned for upvoting posts in quarantined subreddits

I've heard this thrown around, but I thought it was for upvoting posts that are later removed for violating Reddit's rules - not just upvoting any posts on quarantined subreddits.

I can't figure out if this is the case, though, here is what Reddit said, I think:

> Users who consistently upvote policy-breaking content within quarantined communities will receive automated warnings, followed by further consequences like a temporary or permanent suspension.

And that's fair. I should've done a better job differentiating between the official word and the word of random Redditors that have a vested interest in making themselves look better. I have to assume the actual implementation will look for like the former than the latter.

You may want to edit your original post to reflect this.

Correct me if I'm wrong and I read it wrong, but I think you're mixing up things here.

> Users that have more than 500 karma in quarantined subreddits outside of The Donald will not be allowed on the list of approved applicants [to be a moderator]

This is only for being a moderator. Simply upvoting posts (that don't break any rules) in quarantined subreddits does not get you punished.

> If the content that people are upvoting is bad enough to get banned over shouldn't it just be removed from the site and not left up to upvote?

What ends up happening in this subreddit is that the bad content doesn't get reported/deleted, which is what leads to the subreddit being quarantined in the first place. The whole point of a quarantine is exactly to push people to report bad content, and acts as a warning. This new change makes sense as far as pushing people to report said content and not keep promoting it.

I also don't think the content is being "left to be upvoted", but rather when found, they will retroactively flag anyone who upvoted it instead of reporting it. But the problem is that the content often doesn't get flagged/deleted until it gets to the top of the subreddit. This is the problem they are trying to fix with this change.

This article [1] says they announced it today.

I'm excited to see the fallout on this decision.

[1] https://reclaimthenet.org/reddit-banned-for-upvote-policy/

What would the fallout be? The collapse of quarantined communities? The policy only applies to individuals that consistently upvote policy-breaking[1] content within quarantined communities which is pretty clearly qualified. Those individuals will also receive a warning(s?) prior to being banned. Seems like a pretty fair policy all around seeing that upvoting is a conscious choice.

[1]: https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy

The actual source is the Transparency report [0] from yesterday:

> When we expanded our quarantine policy, we created an appeals process for sanctioned communities. One of the goals was to “force subscribers to reconsider their behavior and incentivize moderators to make changes.” While the policy attempted to hold moderators more accountable for enforcing healthier rules and norms, it didn’t address the role that each member plays in the health of their community.

> Today, we’re making an update to address this gap: Users who consistently upvote policy-breaking content within quarantined communities will receive automated warnings, followed by further consequences like a temporary or permanent suspension. We hope this will encourage healthier behavior across these communities.

Seems like their justification matches my guess in the parent post.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/f8y9nx/sprin...

> Simply upvoting posts (that don't break any rules) in quarantined subreddits does not get you punished.

The problem is that parenthetical, and determining it. Users were told that upvoting rule-breaking posts would risk a sitewide ban, without being told what content it was or what rules it broke.

Reddit says it gets to punish users by declaring any content "bad", by arbitrary or overly broad or even unspecified rules. That's the uproar.

This is not trying to improve behavior, this is trying to deplatform wrongthink.

> Users were told that upvoting rule-breaking posts would risk a sitewide ban

The consequences are very gradual, starting with warnings, then going up to temporary and eventually permanent ban. So it won't come out of nowhere, you will have plenty of change to adjust your behavior.

> Reddit gets to declare any content "bad" by arbitrary or overly broad or even unspecified rules. That's the uproar.

Not really, they have very precise rules and content policy, which they use to take down content.

I do agree that being told which content you're being punished for, and what specific rules said content broke, would help users adjust their behavior, but you also run the chance, as with any sort of moderation, to teaching abusers ways to bypass the system. That's why things like shadowbanning exists.

At the end of the day, as yesterday's ruling for Youtube showed [0], these websites are not public forums, and they are free to have any rules they want. If you're not happy or you don't trust that they apply their content policy fairly, you can move to a different website with different rules.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51658341

https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy

That's Reddit's content policy, and it's not precise at all. Pretty much anything can be deemed to fall under "threatens, harasses, or bullies" if it speaks against any group or opinion whatsoever. And the enforcement has been entirely selective and biased, targeting conservative subreddits and supporters, while "eat the rich" type posts are celebrated.

Right, Reddit is a private platform and can choose to host or not any content it wants. I don't think anyone is disputing that. We can still wish Reddit would choose to act in favor of free speech and openness rather than choosing to deplatform opinions that fall on the unpopular side.

> This is not trying to improve behavior, this is trying to deplatform wrongthink.

100% correct.

> This is only for being a moderator. Simply upvoting posts (that don't break any rules) in quarantined subreddits does not get you punished.

That was a requirement given for being a new mod at /r/the_donald. There is also a separate, new rule change revealed in the recent "Transparency Report" that says that users who consistently upvote rule-breaking content will be banned.

> The whole point of a quarantine is exactly to push people to report bad content, and acts as a warning. This new change makes sense as far as pushing people to report said content and not keep promoting it.

That may be the case. On the other hand, that may only be the pretense. Every four years we see the same thing happen on Reddit. We saw massive upvoting of anything related to Obama, which at that time it was just thought to be organic (and maybe it even was).

Then in 2016 we saw massive Bernie Sanders support to a swift and sudden change to Hillary Clinton support. That was followed by the "Correct the Record" movement and then later "Share Blue." These were all coordinated efforts to inorganically promote one political party and suppress another.

But that wasn't enough to keep r/the_donald posts from regularly popping up on r/all. That's when they quarantined it. Now they're taking it even further.

Before, political minority users may not post out of fear of being downvoted or targeted by those searching through their post history, but they felt safe upvoting content they agreed with. But now, there is this implication that they could face repercussions for simply upvoting the wrong thing.

Sure, we're told it's only for things like illegal content or racial slurs, and only in quarantined subs. However, we'd be stupid not to see the political bias on Reddit. There's ambiguity over what counts as the wrong thing to upvote. They don't tell you what content you upvoted that you're being punished for. The net result? The "wrong" type of political content will be naturally suppressed by users now being reluctant to upvote it.

I'm sorry but this is classic tinfoil conspiracy theorizing. I do regularly check T_D out of curiosity, and almost every single time I see rule breaking comments in top posts. Threats of violence, doxxing, etc. If you can find similar content on left leaning subreddits on a regular basis that doesn't get reported and deleted right away, then I'd be happy to entertain your theory, but I have not seen it.

Also, the Donald wasn't quarantined until a few months ago, which is long long after The_Donald peaked and started popping up on r/all.

I wasn't just talking about the_donald, but the broader effects of no longer having the promise of a "secret ballot." When people know their vote is being observed, they change their behavior. My point is how this will favor Reddit's political majority and disfavor the minority.

> My point is how this will favor Reddit's political majority and disfavor the minority.

If you cannot support a political position without consistently violating Reddit's rules that do not restrict any normal behaviors of reasonable political debate, then what you're supporting probably shouldn't be described merely as a "political minority".

Your assumption here is that the enforcement of the new rule will be executed perfectly and without bias, and further that people will believe it will be enforced that way. This totally misses my central point.

> Your assumption here is that the enforcement of the new rule will be executed perfectly and without bias,

Not at all. Even if Reddit was completely biased and never enforced the rules against liberal-oriented cesspools, that wouldn't make T_D's current norms and behaviors any more acceptable.

The only problem is if you believe that Reddit will go far beyond their stated content rules and start punishing civilized discourse on the basis of political alignment. That would have a damaging chilling effect, but I think it's pretty clear Reddit has their hands full with rebellious mods and users who aren't even trying to stay within the posted rules and are making plenty of posts that really should be removed no matter where you fall on the spectrum of political beliefs.

Then they should remove those rule-breaking posts and ban the posters, but that's already the case.

My point is that I think political minority users will believe that they may be punished for upvoting content that doesn't explicitly break the rules. It doesn't even need to be true. As long as users believe it, that will be enough to impact their behavior. In fact, it's already enough just to know that big brother is watching what you upvote. This passively results in upvoted political content being more in line with Reddit's political bias.

> I see rule breaking comments in top posts. Threats of violence, doxxing, etc.

I also check out t_d occasionally and have never seen a single threat of anything.

On the contrary, the community seems well self-regulated. I have often seen comments that are overly harsh (such as unnecessary personal insults) being condemned by other posters for being disrespectful. I have never seen this on any other forum. IMO t_d is a model for free, open and respectful self-regulated discussion.

>Then in 2016 we saw massive Bernie Sanders support to a swift and sudden change to Hillary Clinton support. That was followed by the "Correct the Record" movement and then later "Share Blue." These were all coordinated efforts to inorganically promote one political party and suppress another.

I see this claim often, and having been a Reddit user from back when there no comments and no subreddits, I can tell you what you're claiming is not remotely the most plausible option.

Right from the beginning Reddit swings left wing and libertarian, their first preference is someone like Ron Paul and Sanders. That's why you see competing candidates demonized, and those candidates idolized. They don't like the mainstream GOP at all.

The sudden swift that you're talking about happened it was clear that Sanders would lose the primaries and after he conceded the race, and told his supporters to support Clinton. Reddit didn't like Clinton in 2008 and in 2016, but they would take her any day over Trump or any other GOP candidate except Ron Paul.

Why would you expect Reddit to keep supporting Sanders after he conceded the race? Who would that help? That would help Trump. That's why a lot of right wingers including Russian trolls encouraged making Sanders supporters angry to suppress turnout. That's why you saw the massive shift after the primary because that sub on Reddit does not like Trump at all and would even have Clinton over Trump. Think of the typical Sanders or Warren supporter, would they support Trump or Clinton as President?

All these complaints about Shareblue and CTR are just noise, and what T_D and conspiracy subs convinced a bunch of people was happening.

Why couldn't CTR or Shareblue suppress Sanders support and chime up Clinton support on Reddit before Sanders gave up? The Sanders sub was regularly multiple times in r/all and Clinton support and subs weren't popular at all even in r/politics. If they were so powerful, why can't SB or CTR suppress Sanders support over the past few months when he has become a viable candidate?

No one can give a straight answer, because there isn't one, yet they are absolutely convinced of their version of events. It's the modern day version of an urban legend given how many people believe in the narrative you posted.

"Don't encourage them" is a standard admonishment given to people in a group IRL when one member is acting out. And it's demonstrably impossible for moderators to find and remove 100% of content in violation of policy.

It pushes added responsibility on the upvoters to think before they upvote, but perhaps that is a fair request to make of forum participants.

(And taking off my "community moderator" hat and putting on my "sysadmin" hat---both dusty from lack of use---using sock-puppets or a like-minded collective to brigate-upvote content so that it is visible before it gets banhammered is a known attack vector against the infrastructure itself, and mitigating that attack vector via added penalty for the supporting accounts doesn't seem unreasonable).

Yes, if a user can be banned for repeatedly upvoting posts that encourage brigading or actual violence, I don’t see why users who repeatedly upvote the same content shouldn’t be included. Either there are rules which have meaningful sanctions or there aren’t.

>It pushes added responsibility on the upvoters to think before they upvote, but perhaps that is a fair request to make of forum participants.

That's nice in theory, but there's no clear guidelines for what you're not allowed to upvote, and there's no transparency on anything, just user reports.

For example, this post[0] from someone who claims to have received a warning from the reddit admins for upvoting a post titled "Reminder that the police steam more money each year than burglars. Totaly normal country", linking to a screenshot of an article about law enforcement seizing $181,000 from someone. In the comments, OP posted a screenshot[1] of the message they claim was sent to them, which states "abusive content is not acceptable on Reddit, nor is engaging with it".

This content doesn't seem abusive to me, it seems like a totally standard reddit post. There is _far_ more abusive content on the front page regularly. How would I have known not to upvote that?

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/comments/f9idzr/just...

[1]https://i.imgur.com/XCfErPv.png

Misleading summation.

Reddit will ban users for upvoting RULE BREAKING posts on quarantined subreddits. In other words, they're going to ban the people posting rule breaking content and also people promoting it via upvotes (after warnings/repeat behaviour/etc).

To let others know about this without including the RULE BREAKING part is misleading.

Given they don't have to specify the rules broken nor the posts which broke the rule, that clarification is essentially irrelevant to the way in which this policy will likely be used.

You didn't even mention the worst aspect of the upvote policy which is that when they warn you not to upvote content that goes against their content policy they don't tell you what you upvoted that was found to infringe it. You have to try to guess what you did wrong I guess?

Each post on the forum has an forced-visible explanation of what content should be flagged. Reddit was careful to remove plausible deniability as an excuse before taking more drastic steps.

It's Pavlovian conditioning- you don't issue the corrective measure until the subject performs the undesirable behavior.

>If the content that people are upvoting is bad enough to get banned over shouldn't it just be removed from the site and not left up to upvote?

Honeypot.

The sub mods don't remove the rule breaking content allowing it to be upvoted so the site admins step in to remove those accounts. Now they are working on that first part by adding mods that will remove rule breaking content.

Anything said by supporters of this and the other subs you mention are coming from an echo chamber of self victimization. The Youtube related first amendment case form earlier in the week is directly analogous to this but Reddit Admins are trying to handle this on site and not draw media attention to their actions or the sub.

The actual policy as stated is if a user consistently upvotes policy violating content that is later removed in a quarantined sub they will be warned and banned if they continue. They are removing violating content it's just adding the fact that you shouldn't be upvoting this content because upvotes = higher visibility and support, it's supposed to mean 'this is good content.'

Were they upvoting posts that violated the Reddit participation guidelines?

As far as I understand none of the people who are being warned for upvoting are given a copy of the post that triggered the warning. This makes it quite difficult for people to adjust their behaviour because they might be upvoting content the genuinely believe is not breaking the rules. If you weren’t assuming good faith on Reddit’s part then you might suspect they were doing this so they could distribute warnings to users who were supporting wrong opinions. The more innocent explanation is they either overlooked this or they don’t want to distribute the rule breaking content. I believe twitter often shows you a copy of the offending tweet when you get temporarily suspended.

There is much more content than people. To the extent that a platform engages in policing thought, people will always be a much cheaper enforcement target than content.

FYI, Reddit's major investors include one big Internet company from Shenzhen

Advance publications is also having huge exposure to China through Condenast's business in China

What?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Publications

"Owned" is a bit generous. But Tencent has a financial investment in reddit.

> In February 2019, Chinese company Tencent invested $150 million into Reddit as part of its Series D.

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reddit

Which company is that? Wikipedia says they're independent with the majority shareholder being a New York company called Advance Publications

https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/11/18216134/reddit-tencent-i...

"Reddit gets a $150 million investment from Tencent and users are posting memes to mock the deal"

Half of one funding round and "owned" are substantially different things.

Condenast has a huge PR, advertising, and media business in China, which would've been a near impossible task even for a domestic Chinese company, let alone foreign, or American one on top of that.

The propaganda ministry razed the media landscape to the ground over the last 5 years. Even completely apolitical companies like publishers of professional literature, science textbooks, photo journals, and children books got a boot.

The state has also been said to forcefully breaking up big media groups, denying mergers in between ad/pr/media companies.

Seeing Condenast thriving in China, knowing how things there are now, is very suspicious.

Oh interesting. I thought it was a Conde Nast company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reddit says it's headquartered in San Francisco and owned by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Publications which is headquartered in NYC. Where do the Chinese come into play?

Tencent invested in reddit's series D financing round in 2019. Can't figure out what % they "own", but OP implying full ownership is not entirely correct.

Edit: and looks like OP edited their comment to clarify.

Condenast has huge business in China — unique for being a foreign company in the media business there.

One doesn't get such concessions in China for just nothing.

This is fearmongering. Tencent owns a small part of Reddit, has no board seat, and has no influence. They can’t “pull their money” so they would have no leverage to make threats.

And by the way do you know who is the majority owner of Tencent? Naspers, a South African media company.

> And by the way do you know who is the majority owner of Tencent? Naspers, a South African media company

Naspers does not own a majority position in Tencent. They own closer to ~31% of the company. A large position, however that means very little given it's a Chinese juggernaut (see: Yahoo vs China in the Alibaba & Alipay spats).

https://www.investopedia.com/news/nasper-set-earn-10b-tencen...

Punishing users for voting the wrong things was actually invented on HN as far as I know

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