Former Reddit CEO says the site's about to be purged
engadget.com
engadget.com
> This, at least to me, seemed to be new information.
Is it significant new information? I wouldn't say so. Here's one criterion that we have found surprisingly useful: an announcement of an announcement is not substantive. This story doesn't even rise to that level. Yes, the drama is riveting, but part of HN is not to confuse dramatic episodes with information.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9884949
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9880424
We take conflict of interest questions seriously, enough that it trumps other concerns overall, but not at the level of every single individual post. I can understand people disagreeing with this particular call—indeed, if enough people disagreed we'd happily reverse it; we're not attached to any particular decision—but no one paying attention to HN is going to think that we're banishing the Reddit saga or anything like that.
The main thing I thought was salient new information was Yishan revealing that the board wanted to ban the hate groups but Pao was the only one holding them back, which absolutely contradicts the earlier myth that Pao wanted to get rid of all the hate groups.
(I don't personally know anything about this and am just following it from the outside like everyone else.)
If Costco had a corner in every store where people were allowed to stand around yelling racist commentary all the time, and Costco laid out a policy to remove this from their stores, I think the majority of people would applaud this move, thus improving business. Reddit is a business and is free to do what it believes is best to grow. If it thinks this is the right move for them? Great, go for it.
I actually doubt that Reddit is going to miss most of these people when they inevitably migrate somewhere else, it's not exactly a very marketable audience to begin with.
As for profitability, I'd argue that stupid people with strong opinions and a need to vocalize them are advertisers favorite kind of people. They're probably surprisingly profitable.
[1] Don't assume I'm putting any of those on the same level as each other, just making a list of what I suspect are violatile items to some groups.
Then they decided to remove some crazy political party's items for sale. Say one of the anti-immigration parties in Europe. Then they took out the US Tea Party. Then ex-Costco leaders said a purge was coming. Now people are left wondering which party is next. That if their political party's goal doesn't align, they may be kicked out. Not a massive problem, except that Costco picked up a lot of the market share and thus has not insignificant voice in larger matters. Do now the political parties are pulling back and thinking they need to pick some other entity as their official seller.
Not a great analogy since the subreddits that are analogous to the examples you listed are all permitted on reddit without question. There are plenty of sex/flag/bible/gun related subs and nobody on either side of the reddit debate is trying to ban them. A better analogy would be if a group of patrons meeting up in one section of the store, proceeded to roam about the premises harassing overweight customers who are there to make purchases. Naturally, store management would seek to remove these individuals from the store so that the other customers can shop in peace.
People who are pissed are angry because it looks and sounds like bait and switch.
Usually the slippery slope argument is a fallacy, but if a company says "our standard is and always will be 1" and then comes out later and says "our standard is 2," it's hard to believe.
Well, what's that time worth? If they can find a site that will pay them all for that time investment, then maybe we could start to attach a value to it.
Most of Reddit's users aren't going to find their subreddits of choice interfered with.
And honestly, the people who are going to get smacked by this are well capable of forming social connections that transcend Reddit, so they haven't lost all of their investment. But investment of time doesn't in itself guarantee a refund---never does, shouldn't be expected to without a contract in place.
There's free speech and free speech. Reddit can advocate that it's in favor of free speech while simultaneously banning the sharing of child pornography, bestiality, death threats, and revenge porn. So does Twitter. So does Facebook. So does Google.
If there's an argument to be had here, it's an argument about where the line should be drawn between "acceptable" and "never acceptable." Reddit's in favor of moving the line to acquire more interest from the outside world---a world that has generally (read: "in the markets Reddit's funders care about") categorized revenge porn and overt racism to be never acceptable. The existence of the line itself is not in question, and entities that have such a line are not in general accused by reasonable people of standing against free speech.
Revenge porn specifically?
(Follow the train of thought to its conclusion).
So either you can draw this distinction by saying "these topics are legal/illegal in most countries", at which point IMO you're back at making a subjective call.
OR, you could say they are operating from within the legal framework of the country from where they run their main business. Which is the USA. I'm not even sure whether this can still be said about Google or Facebook, given their Irish/Dutch tax haven constructions (I'm unaware if Reddit and Twitter do this too).
But then you have to claim the USA legally has the most free-est speech in the world, the superset of all things considered freedom of speech globally (admittedly, the US has less restrictions on free speech than the Netherlands, where I live), which I don't think is the case actually (though the US' few particular restrictions are quite sensible IMO).
I'm quite happy with the fact that we don't (really) have a global encompassing legal framework to define what is and what is not free speech. Even if that means some (nation) states will get it "wrong", it provides us with perspective, hopefully both with examples to avoid, and others to look up to.
This makes Freedom of Speech, in the context where it does not pertain to legality within a particular (nation) state, but in the context of transnational businesses like Reddit/FB/G/Twitter/etc, more an ethical consideration rather than a legal one.
And I prefer it that way, laws are just The Rules, you need to follow to (say) operate a business (hopefully the Rules work for the greater good of that particular society). But Ethics is the stuff that makes your decisions Right or Wrong.
And that is what I'm going to judge a company by, if they operate where I live, but are bound by legal rules from elsewhere.
Terrible impression to make on new customers, thus Costco decides, eh, fuck it, let's just get rid of the little room entirely to avoid this repetitious problem.
Its a meaningful argument from the POV of Reddit management, and their effort to build a profitable business, given that what people can be linked to that is tied to Reddit -- unlike what people can be linked to that is not tied to Reddit -- impacts the perception of Reddit and both the audience it attracts and its attractiveness to advertisers.
Oh absolutely. I'm not disputing that. Of course they are doing all of this in pursuit of profit (or at least in pursuit of pleasing their board). The trouble is that, in my view, there is a conflict between the goal of pleasing the reddit board and the goal of creating a vibrant community.
If you can't run a business that brings in the money to keep the lights on, you can't maintain a vibrant community, either.
I think a lot of the issue is that lots of people are attached to conditions that are only made possible by the willingness of investors to tolerate Reddit's lack of profitability in the expectation that that will be turned around in the future, but that that willingness is not sustainable.
But they're also free to wander around the rest of the store shouting whatever they want. They hang out by the front door with the greeters even! Up until now, Costco hasn't cared that they're providing a comfy space for these loudmouthed assholes to congregate.
You can't just not go to the corner if you want to avoid them, you have to avoid all the parts of the store that they are shouting in.
And, I will note that we're all talking on HN which has always had relatively strict guidelines and heavy-ish moderation (compared to most of reddit). If anyone hates moderation and a strict set of content guidelines, you're in the wrong place, because HN is stricter and has more active/aggressive moderation than reddit will ever have site-wide.
Sure. It's also literally impossible for reddit to perfectly prevent all such content from being posted, so I don't see this as a particularly strong argument.
> If you don't find reddit obnoxiously bigoted as it currently is, it is because you are predominantly visiting subs that already have stricter content policies than any reddit is likely to impose site-wide.
Not necessarily. I subscribe mostly to very small subreddits that only attract people who actively go looking for a subreddit dedicated to the topic. They're not a target for trolls until they get larger, and by then I've usually moved on.
> If anyone hates moderation and a strict set of content guidelines, you're in the wrong place, because HN is stricter and has more active/aggressive moderation than reddit will ever have site-wide.
I actually do dislike ("hate" is too strong) the strict moderation of HN, but it's not all or nothing. I still think HN is a great community with good content and discussion. HN is also different than reddit, because it's more like a single subreddit. Reddit is a host for subreddits, which can have their own moderators who are not affiliated with reddit the corporation.
I certainly don't see how this is an argument that they shouldn't bloody well try to prevent such content from being posted on their platform. I can't prevent all spam from hitting my inbox, but you can sure as hell bet that I've got SpamAssassin, greylisting, etc. running on my server.
What's offensive is what causes offense (that's what the word means.)
Its pretty much the textbook example of something that is completely subjective.
Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing is worth debating. But it absolutely must be said that the anarchy defines what Reddit is. With active moderation, it won't be Reddit, it'll be something else. Maybe that something else will be nicer, friendlier, or whatever. But it will be filling a different need.
People who defend the hands-off Reddit are not advocating in favor of racism (to use your example). They're saying, essentially, "a discussion forum with absolute freedom of expression has value, even if (unfortunately) that lack of controls means sharing the site with racists."
Maybe that applies here. It's to big to be free.
Most of the filtering put in place during the first (to my knowledge) purge was to filter unsavory but legal content due to a public image problem it was causing.
Seems like there is some sort of middle-ground where questionable (though not illegal) content could still exist but be relegated in a way where there would be effort required to see it.
Most of the reddit history tolerated even most ugliest form of sickness and suddenly they want to clean it up? I am not sure how successful this effort will be. Either it will be that a bunch of arrogant assholes who equate freedom of speech with saying BS would leave or the another Digg fiasco would happen.
I do think Reddit is going to miss most of these people. Personally, I say good riddance, to these people and to Reddit.
If you're a public figure (with archive.org if you publish anything on the web), you need to say you changed your mind when you change your mind. This "we were always..." thing politicians do just looks silly.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3dautm/conte...
[2] https://www.reddit.com/rules/
[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3dautm/conte...
[1] http://www.sfgate.com/living/article/No-sex-please-we-re-2-0...
Not a trait I'd want to see in all the CEOs out there, but seeing it in one former founder is... Refreshing. ;)
The only rational argument people can make against the "purging" (of blatantly racist etc. subreddits) is the "slippery slope" argument, which is usually known as a fallacious logical device. There is some merit to it, as reddit seems to be moving the line of appropriateness, but the line just has to be clearly drawn somewhere.
That said, anything Yishan Wong says at this point should be taken with a grain of salt. When you are starting your comments with "AYYYY LMAO" and admittedly take a pleasure in hoping to watch the company that fired you crumble, you're not exactly a neutral or reliable source.
Not at all true. I don't like any removal of content by reddit employees (as opposed to subreddit moderators) beyond what is required by law. Whether it leads to more and more removal in the future is irrelevant. I would like reddit to be a place for completely free, uncensored expression.
And before the political philosophy experts pounce, I am well aware of the argument. It's not a free speech violation when it's a private company choosing what content to host. I'm not saying reddit doesn't have the right to censor. I'm just saying I would prefer that they didn't.
I'm genuinely curious as to why. Do you feel your experience on reddit is harmed if /r/coontown is gone? Or is it just the principle of the matter?
Not directly, of course. My experience on reddit isn't directly harmed if any community I don't visit is removed. But it would be pretty obviously unrealistic for me to propose that reddit remove all subreddits except for the couple of dozen that I'm subscribed to.
I mean, what we're basically seeing is this;
Yishan Wong, 2012: "We stand for free speech. This means we are not going to ban distasteful subreddits. We will not ban legal content even if we find it odious or if we personally condemn it."
spez, 2015: Wow, that REALLY didn't work. So we're not going to do THAT anymore. Tune in on Thursday and we'll talk about what we'll do instead.
Does this mean your favorite subreddits might get killed? Possibly. But probably not. And that's likely to be good enough for an awful lot of users. More importantly, "an Internet with a front page that doesn't have a CoonTown is a better internet" is a pretty easy assertion to buy.
That's why the contrast between the quotes is so notable: "Neither Alexis nor I created reddit to be a bastion of free speech, but rather as a place where open and honest discussion can happen"
I guess I just disagree on what we're basically seeing.
This is nice in theory, but it basically requires defending the rights of hate groups to silence those they hate. It's hard to freely express yourself when there are people calling for your extermination, or treating everything you say as if it came from the mouth of a five year old.
I am 100% certain that I could go to the comments of any top post on pics, videos, funny, games and probably a dozen other default subs and find some hate speech with a positive score.
Remove the subreddits that these people call home, and they automatically feel less welcomed on the site.
You're saying you could go look for hate speech and find it. That doesn't seem all that troubling to me. Don't go look for it, and you will find it much less frequently.
I'm saying that it is everywhere. Not "I could find some hatred in some submissions", but "I could find hatred in any submission".
> I would like reddit to be a place for completely free, uncensored expression.
By saying:
> This is nice in theory, but it basically requires defending the rights of hate groups to silence those they hate.
Allowing the hate groups a home on reddit makes them feel comfortable. Deleting the hate group subreddits reduces their ability to silence others. It sends a message to both the haters and their targets that the hate is not welcome.
If it's a choice between censoring a bunch of evil bigots, and letting their uncensored speech censor the people they hate, I will pick censoring the bigots every time.
In short, I don't care about racist's "right" to rant on reddit. They can go write it on the wall of the cave they live in, for all I care.
HN is roughly the equivalent of a single subreddit on reddit. I don't have a problem with individual subreddits with strict moderation, because those policies don't affect the policies of other subreddits. HN doesn't (as far as I know) intend to be a host for a plethora of communities each dedicated to a specific topic or hobby.
> Reddit is still vastly more "free" than HN, and yet...the caliber of conversation here is generally higher (not always, and the HN demographic has its blind spots), and I believe it is precisely because it has no tolerance for fools.
HN generally has high quality discussion, but so do many (mostly small) subreddits.
If not, there's very little to be concerned about.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
The comparison of this quote, which is about people literally being thrown into jail for their beliefs, to racists being told they can't post hate speech on a privately owned website, is disingenuous, at best.
As is readily apparent, literally anything can be considered offensive and obscene.
Though the "I know it when I see it" definition of obscenity is frustratingly open, it actually works in practice. Real human societies have implemented it and continue to implement it. This is not something you can write a script for, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work (I find technically-minded people generally have a bias against things that can't even be scripted in theory... Those things make up a lot of the world, inconveniently).
And yes, that means Redditors live in a world of ambiguity. Welcome to the world, I guess. Such ambiguity doesn't imply that, say, /r/science or /r/popmusic would be on the chopping block, and it'd be absurd to argue it does.
At least, the fact that /r/coontown is on the chopping block doesn't threaten /r/science any more than some hypothetical change in leadership in the future that decides Reddit is more profitable without any subreddits, and that can be a good enough point to settle on.
So relax; your favorite subreddit is not under threat, unless it probably should be. Ambiguity is the nature of real social structures, because humans are ambiguous creatures. ;)
Maybe we'll have to agree to disagree on that as well. There is nowhere near as much freedom of expression in the world as I would like. I'm not sure if you have a definition for "it works in practice" other than "real human societies have implemented it." I suspect there is a huge correlation between people who think that current policies are working fine and people who have never been affected by those policies.
> So relax; your favorite subreddit is not under threat, unless it probably should be.
Good grief. That is a very troubling statement.
Do you believe everyone who touches /r/science cannot, or will not, touch these other subreddits (and vice versa, the people in /r/coontown cannot post in /r/science?).
On what do you base that belief?
Reddit's owners are moving in a direction where they've decided to take a small stand against the worst of the worst harmful subreddits, and people seem to be taking this as a dog-whistle that every forum is up for possible deletion at the whim of some arbitrary, uncontrolled bogeyman tomorrow. That's not how obscenity censorship works and it isn't how human decency works. It's how people of a certain political bent like to pretend they work (because the world would be easier to understand and predict if that were true), but that belief doesn't stand the test of reality.
As for your fixation on /r/coontown.
Can you remind me, wasn't there a famous person once who made a quote about the unpopular opinions being the ones that needed defending?
There's a clear difference between what /r/fatpeoplehate was doing and /r/coontown. You may not like that they exist, but your offense should not be enough to get that subreddit banned.
OTOH, reddit is a private company and they can do what they want, but taking the moral highroad in this argument from your side is silly, especially seeing how you seem to be wanting to infringe on others' free speech because you don't like what they use it for.
And wasn't there a famous person that had a quote pertaining to that? I think so.
This is why the quote is applicable and your response is lazy.
The amazing part about reddit is the sheer spectrum of people you meet. For you that's obviously not interest, but for me, I'd much rather have that experience than what HN gives me.
But I also don't choose, I simply experience both, which is the answer to your original question.
It's also the answer to Hubski's complaints about reddit. I like being able to have a deep conversation with someone about software dev, laugh at a cat pic, and learn something new about a subject I know little about, all in the span of a few hours.
HN will never give that sort of experience.
Dwight Eisenhower initially supported purging communist books. But later, he had a change of heart, telling students:
> Don't join the book burners. Don't think you are going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book, as long as that document does not offend our own ideas of decency. That should be the only censorship.
> How will we defeat communism unless we know what it is, and what it teaches, and why does it have such an appeal for men, why are so many people swearing allegiance to it? It is almost a religion, albeit one of the nether regions.
> And we have got to fight it with something better, not try to conceal the thinking of our own people. They are part of America. And even if they think ideas that are contrary to ours, their right to say them, their right to record them, and their right to have them at places where they are accessible to others is unquestioned, or it isn't America.
... which, actually, may draw an interesting parallel between book burning and gentrification. Perhaps a topic for another day. ;)
HN is the equivalent of a single sub-reddit. Readers see the titles of all submissions that make it to the top pages or to the RSS feed they are using. They also see the user name that submitted the story, and the site it is from.
This necessitates restrictions on content, because nearly everyone has some kind of content they do not want to read to the point that they will choose not to visit sites where they cannot avoid it. Without restrictions, it would be too much effort to pick out the things you are interested in from among the things that you find extremely distasteful or offensive that it just would not be worth the effort for most people.
Reddit has sub-reddits. As long as an offensive sub-reddit is not made a default sub-reddit, and you do not subscribe to it, and you aren't subscribed to sub-reddits (or external sources) that discuss whether or not Reddit should allow offensive sub-reddits, you will rarely or never see that offensive sub-reddit.
For example, I had no idea that /r/coontown existed until it was mentioned several times here on HN.
Reddit would be best off in the long run, I think, if they set the line at legality under the laws applicable in whatever state they are incorporated, along with a no doxing and no FPH-like material, combined with a logical split of Reddit into two sets of sub-reddits: Prime Time Reddit (PTR) and Uncensored Reddit (UR).
The two would share accounts, but only PTR shows up on your front page, and there would be a link to take you to a UR front page (or maybe an option to show UR top content after PTR content on a unified front page, with a separator between the two sections).
Both would require (1) legality, and (2) no doxing and FPH-like behavior. PTR would in addition require that sub-reddits (including their topic, their acceptable submissions, and their comments) be things that would be acceptable if they were part of a US nationwide prime time television show.
Advertisers would be able to specify whether their ads just go to PTR, just to UR, or both, and maybe there should also be separate Reddit Gold systems on the two.
I probably should have went with US cable television, with the premium networks (HBO, Showtime, Starz, and so on) excluded, and with a more European approach to nudity and sex.
Reddit doesn't have a sticky network effect. The content decays. People can easily jump ship.
I don't understand why they are obsessed with raw 'ratings' numbers anyway. Part of what makes their user base valuable is that they are self-segmented -- it is the small, focused communities. Also that they are used to hopping off site then back again to re-engage. They are missing a huge opportunity, not to merely get more people in the door, but figure out how to serve the valuable communities that already exist there.
If they keep staring at that bone in the water and open their mouths to grab it, they will lose the tasty morsel they could currently be enjoying.
What they really need is some people that know how to target ads effectively to small valuable clients and some technologists with the chops to help them make a profit from that valuable connection making. Some deep experts from Google's Adwords team, for example. And they need to make the whole process above board and transparent so the userbase doesn't feel like they are being used secretly. Reddit and their commercial offerings should feel like a partner for users, a valuable available resource, not a slimy shill machine. I think that's possible to do but it is going to take a hell of a lot more finesse and openness than they've shown recently.
That tasty morsel of hardcore racism, rabid misogyny and all sorts of other fun hate groups, and the people that defend them because anyone should be allowed to say anything they want?
I don't understand why so many people think that getting rid of these groups is going to suddenly implode all the thousands of smaller, more focused communities that you mention.
You might say, 'that wouldn't happen' and it probably wouldn't but the leadership has not been very open about what they are doing and where they draw the line so people fill the unknown with the worst case.
They need a policy of containment, not eradication except in the most egregious circumstances or where the content is actually illegal. What they do need is better tools to wall them off and detect brigaiding so that kind of business, where the hate spills out, can be nipped in the bud.
A lot of people in this thread are mentioning the default subs - how is a mod of a sub with 8 million subscribers supposed to make sure every single thing posted isn't 'offensive'?
It's an odd hodgepodge. Another reason why it is probably worrying people more than it probably should.
Also, look at the subreddits that u/spez is moderator of. For example, his subreddit r/Cannibals has a top post: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Cannibals/comments/3cxp5e/to_stop_w...] where a highly scored post from 3 days ago reads, "To stop world hunger we must simply eat all the poor people." While obviously satire, it begs the question of who decides what belongs and does not.
>We tried to let you govern yourselves and you failed.
On what metric?
None. A former CEO claimed the current CEO had the "moral authority" for the predicted coming purge.
In the past your consent wasn't required to be made a moderator of a subreddit; that's probably how u/spez became a moderator of r/cannibals.
Reddit is a mean-spirited and self-destructive community, a fearsomely ugly website and all run by an incompetent and blasé bunch of chancers, and yet somehow it still manages to become less than the sum of its parts.
It's probably far too late to do anything about it, mind.
They won't really be able to get much else attention for anything else. When they try, the conversation will be hijacked and diverted to "When will you ban subreddit X?"
Once the door for this kind of thing is open this wide, it's all they're going to be able to talk about, for years.
From a purely cold-blooded business perspective, it's a fatal move, just in a way that may not be immediately obvious to them.
If they start banning content, users will leave and start their own racist/misogynistic/xenophobic/... communities.
Reddit's community is based on certain fundamental principals and, once they start to be violated, it's not like you can't start your own 'country'.
I'm not a huge fan of Reddit, but it seems like news on this whole debacle has been pulled/silenced from HN. I know Reddit is a one of Y-Combinator's biggest success stories, so curious if this is really happening or if I'm just imagining it.
I can't say I am, either. To abuse Lincoln, "I believe this site cannot endure, permanently half adult conversation and half hateful filth."
[1] you could try reddit search if you are feeling lucky or masochistic. Or maybe it's really good at binary date searches and I just don't know how to use it.
The tears from all the haters will be delicious.
Eventually everyone will want their definition played out and in this generation of "I am offended, you must be silent" free speech is the real loser. You do not have the right to not be offended.