

SXSW and Reddit’s Introspection Problem - tokenadult
http://skepchick.org/2013/03/sxsw-and-reddits-introspection-problem/

======
kn0thing
"To balance things out, Farhad invited Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, but he
dropped out, so it was just the three of us."

False. On 8/13/12, I got a Google News Alert showing my name listed on a panel
on the SXSW Panel Picker that I had never even heard of, let alone agreed to.

The way SXSW works, people submit panel concepts (presumably with the
knowledge of everyone involved) in order to get 'votes' that help the SXSW
team decide which panels to approve. I have no idea how long that post was
getting 'votes' with my name falsely associated with it.

I immediately emailed Farhad, who was listed as the organizer:

> my email to Farhad

I wasn't even planning on being at Sxsw interactive this year.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt but this appears to be
remarkably unprofessional.

Please have my name removed from this immediately:
<http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/3709>

Let me know when it's done.

Thanks Alexis

> Farhad's reply (Jason, reddit's PR, CCed)

Hey Alexis,

I'm sorry, I guess there's been a misunderstanding. I asked Jason Bellinger at
Reddit PR -- CCd here -- a couple months ago if you would do it; he said that
either you or Erik Martin likely would be able to.

I thought that we were submitting a generic "Reddit representative" for the
event, but apparently we put in your name. (This entry was being coordinated
by Slate's PR company -- I didn't create it.) I'll contact them to get your
name removed ASAP.

Jason, do you know if Erik will be able to take part -- should we switch his
name in there?

> Jason (reddit PR)

Hey Farhad -

I had said that I'd get back to you if they were interested, and as they
aren't going this year, I didn't confirm it with you. I'm sorry if there was a
misunderstanding here.

> Farhad

Ah, it's my mistake, then; I understood that to be either/or. I do apologize
and will get it taken care of.

\---

I do believe there's a discussion to be had about promoting civility (and
curbing bigotry, assholish behavior, etc) on social media -- these ills exist
on wordpress, on youtube, on twitter, and yes, on reddit -- but when one can't
even honestly invite participants, let alone frame the debate, we all miss an
opportunity.

I've had & heard frank & thorough discussions on the subject with friends like
Latoya Peterson (www.racialicious.com) and Christina Xu
(www.awesomefoundation.org) so I know it's possible, but my concern is that
there are people engaged who'd prefer pageviews over progress.

~~~
thwest
Why do you imply that the members of this panel are being disingenuous?

\- Yes you never agreed to the panel, but how does this email chain not
reflect an honest invitation?

\- Of course the debate was framed; it is impossible for an event to not have
context. Would you have preferred it framed differently? How so?

\- Are you implying that these panelists prefer pageviews over progress? If
not, who are the boogeymen you are invoking here?

~~~
EliAndrewC
> Why do you imply that the members of this panel are being disingenuous?

The original article claimed, "To balance things out, Farhad invited Reddit
founder Alexis Ohanian, but he dropped out, so it was just the three of us."
Saying that Alexis "dropped out" is simply wrong, so the statement is
disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst.

~~~
dclowd9901
Farhad didn't know what happened. All he knew is that Ohanian was supposed to
at least be _asked_ , and he supposedly wasn't even corresponded with, which
could, by all accounts, not even be true. He was on the invite list, and
decided against. I'm not sure what part doesn't correlate with "dropped out."

~~~
mpyne
How can you possibly "drop out" of a panel that you explicitly said you were
_never planning on attending_?

Dropping out means that you were planning to go and then you had to cancel.
Whether Farhad knew this before or not, Alexis's email was _very_ clear and so
there's no excuse to claim today that Alexis dropped out of anything.

------
mnicole
I preface this by saying I don't know the author and I don't recall ever
having read anything by her previously before, so all of this drama about past
things she's spoken about is new to me.

Regardless, this is a great example of how the challenges women face
(particularly on the anonymous web) are even further worsened by inappropriate
skepticism from those who claim those challenges don't exist at all. All of
her points were unmistakably valid and yet she was publicly shamed, her Wiki
vandalized (it says this happens 2-3 times a month, and that her page has been
on a watchlist for years because of this), and most of these people weren't
even at the talk.

And she's right; truly civil discourse just doesn't happen in most subreddits
except in very rare instances where someone decides to take the high road.
Regardless of gender, because karma exists, people'd rather not risk their
worthless points over being the guy that says "Hey, that's not cool." Social
janitorial work isn't pretty, but it needs to be done. If Reddit won't take
responsibility for the direction of the discourse on the primary subreddits,
users that value stimulating conversation over the same tired [pointlessly
offensive] jokes will flock elsewhere.

~~~
weareconvo
> Social janitorial work

This is the most hilarious euphemism for "censorship" I've ever heard.

~~~
thwest
Your comment is wrong and rude.

Oh look, I just did some social janitorial work. Was your comment somehow
deleted by my act?

Should I presume that Convo provides no moderation mechanisms because they
would constitute censorship?

~~~
weareconvo
I took "social janitorial work" to mean cleaning up other peoples' comments,
which really isn't possible without altering or deleting them.

If it was used to mean "indicating disapproval", then I have absolutely no
problem with it.

~~~
potatolicious
The original context was:

> _"Regardless of gender, because karma exists, people'd rather not risk their
> worthless points over being the guy that says "Hey, that's not cool." Social
> janitorial work isn't pretty..."_

Which doesn't read like it implies editing or deletion.

------
dclowd9901
I full-on ditched Reddit about 3 months ago and haven't looked back. Any sort
of criticism I lodged against the site for its insipid circle-jerking nature,
to the small-minded, deep-south like approach to cultural issues were met with
extreme hostility, or simply downvotes, so as to keep unpopular opinions
ignored.

I was a user of that site for _6 years_. I had over 85k karma points for
comments, and several thousand story karma points. It seems like the audience
has changed greatly in more recent years, and I want no part of it.

The users who evangelize that site, or are so devoted to it as to attend
meetups are pathetically biased, and contribute nothing to the advancement of
internet culture, or the culture of idea exchange.

I feel very sad for the site, as I thought, at one point, it was a great
bastion of freely-exchanged ideas. And now it's just a great place to espouse
radical views for worthless internet points.

~~~
potatolicious
I still use reddit, but I have literally unsubscribed from every default
subreddit (save /r/gaming since it tends to stay pretty light/fun).

Reddit sans the default subreddits is substantially more pleasant. I'd go as
far as to say that subreddits like /r/politics, /r/atheism, /r/worldnews, and
even /r/technology are just cesspits.

I'm not sure what causes large subreddits to spiral into utter shit, but it
does. I'm also of the general opinion that most of the large subreddits are
poorly moderated - mods will rarely take action even against egregious trolls,
and there is no attempts at leadership.

The main subreddit I use, /r/photography, has a relatively new mod team that
actually actively ban trolls and initiate weekly/monthly events to steer the
conversation (e.g., "no talk about gear" threads, "weekly photographers that
inspire you", etc).

~~~
jlgreco
> _I'm not sure what causes large subreddits to spiral into utter shit, but it
> does._

My money? Karma systems.

I don't think they scale as well as many would like. When you get up to
"default subreddit" sized karma systems just turn into some sort of currency
system that rewards those who are ultimately detrimental to the conversation:
specifically those making repeated boring puns/memes because they are easy and
formulaic, and those making formulaic complaints about superficial elements of
the post in question (flooding entire comment sections with complaints about
grammar/spelling/limited vocabulary).

I don't think these behaviors would be nearly so prevalent without a karma
system. Why would the 200th person to comment on an article make the 200th
comment about a "there/their" error, if not because they thought they would
get imaginary internet points?

Karma systems take the initial reward for discussion (intellectual
satisfaction) and out-bid it with gamification induced endorphin rushes.

------
tibbon
I normally expect trolls at certain events, especially cheaper ones. However,
I'm utterly _shocked_ at the behavior of some of these people at SXSW who are
in all likelihood representing a company, and/or paid $1000+ for a badge. The
comments that some of the attendees made at this were something I'd expect at
a PAX or ROFLcon (due to the price and age of participants), not SXSW.

Also, its unfortunate to hear about how they tried to rope in Alexis.

~~~
biotech_anon
Having money or connections does not transform one from being a
jerk/troll/bigot. It's not surprising that there were such people at SXSW. It
_is_ somewhat surprising the panel did not have better moderation.

------
supercanuck
Violentacrez is like the gift that keeps on giving for Adrian's and this
women's career.

She asked some interesting questions, It would be nice if she took the same
amount of time that she took in shaming Redditors to answer her own questions.

------
mynewwork
This article seems to take SRS as a legitimate subreddit. I always thought SRS
was a satire, an over-the-top parody of extremist feminist/minority groups.

Have I fallen victim to Poe's law or has the panelist? Is SRS mostly 'real' or
mostly satire?

~~~
likpok
SRS started as one guy who would post lists of quotes from Reddit (iirc,
upvoted comments in mainstream subs) and Stormfront, with the object being to
guess which quote came from which. It was harder than most Redditors would
like to admit. Eventually, he quit the site entirely.

At some point a bunch of SA goons took over the then-defunct subreddit, to use
it as a platform to take down the highly active /r/jailbait. The effort
continued to hold a mirror up to some of the more racist/misogynistic/etc
comments of reddit.

A lot of the criticism of SRS comes from the fact that people don't like being
called racist. Nearly everyone agrees that racists are bad people who deserve
terrible punishments for their actions. No one wants to accept culpability for
the fact that by upvoting a racist comment they are supporting racism.

~~~
freehunter
I would say a lot of the criticism comes from the fact that they commonly take
quotes out of context, or take quotes meant as dark humor and use them to
portray the poster as a horrible person. Combine that with their immature
attitude and one-track mind and you're getting closer to understanding why
even open-minded redditors don't support SRS.

Sure, there's plenty of legitimate cases where reddit needs to be called out
and have a community effort around fixing some of their problems. But no one
takes SRS seriously because, for all the good they have the potential to do,
they're publicly harming their own image by crying wolf (or as they might say,
crying poop).

------
ChuckMcM
Interesting discussion. I've looked at Reddit off and on over the years and to
an outsider like me it seems to have become less and less civil over time.
I've wondered about that.

Clearly the Internet gives the broken and angry people a voice they didn't
have before. Sometimes that helps them, but often it seems to result in just a
bunch bile being spewed around.

At what point does the combination of IP address + bile start to become a
corpus for focusing our efforts at community remediation? Is there a common
good to be had by finding out if these are communities of angry people or are
they just scattered about in the general population. Can we help them? Should
we?

~~~
DanBC
There is a problem where dysfunctional people can meet online and their
behaviour feels more normal to them.

Thus, peeping toms would normally be alone and feel some kind of shame, and
maybe want to seek help, but now they have /r/creepshots and a receptive
audience and validation.

------
theg2
This really does match up with my current view of reddit as a brutal hivemind
of anonymous posters with a true lack of moderation (lest mod's get the "free
speech" card pulled on them).

I admit to being an active user there but there is a true lack of acceptance
of criticism and the inability to see things from multiple points of view.

Unfortunately, it seems like getting an objective view on what happened at the
panel would be impossible now but those tweets in response are pretty vicious
and uncalled for.

------
asdfaoeu
If she actually answered the questions she proposed the article might have
some weight. But instead she spends most of the article complaining about the
people criticizing her.

Unfortunately people like this make their money from stirring up controversy
so it is a never ending cycle.

~~~
nollidge
Yeah, man, you just know she's buying private jets with her blog ad money.

------
biotech_anon
It continues to amaze me how seriously people take Twitter comments--good or
ill, and that we can have entire posts citing 140 character insults from
assholes.

The jerks were in the wrong, but I think the wrong approach is to engage them
in their own medium. They are vocalizing their beliefs because they know it
will provoke a reaction. You'll never convince them, so the best thing is to
ignore them and get on with your life. In the case of reddit, the problematic
set is best left to fester and dealt with at higher levels (bans, filtering)
or discussed out of band (as in the linked post). "Arguing with a fool only
proves that there are two," as they say.

------
eqdw
Only Rebecca Watson would accuse someone of wink-nod ignoring child porn, and
cite it with a link that says "We weren't aware of this content and our DNS
host couldn't reach us to tell us because our contact info was out of date"

------
snake_plissken
Your first mistake was using Reddit. Your second was going to South by
Southwest.

That might be backwards, I am undecided.

------
DanBC
SRS is a troll sub reddit. There are only two uses for SRS. i) A nice
centralised location for the bigoted or otherwise idiotic thing that many
people on reddit say. ii) trolling reddit.

There are plenty of other meta subreddits where criticism is welcome. Reddit's
only problem with those other subreddits is "brigading".

------
cbs
_What would an ideal question have been, in my mind? How about this: [...]_

If they wanted to have that kind of discussion, why not use a panel moderator
to ask those questions and invoke that conversation in the portion of the
event the panelists were driving?

I didn't attend this, but based on Skepchick's own summary, the presence of
Chen on the panel, relying on the audience to challenge their criticism, other
posts online covering the panel and the fact MrGrimm felt the need to strait
up "filibuster"; I get the impression they were there to recite well-known
criticism rather than engage in analysis of reddit.

I wonder if, out of an audience of 300, nobody was able to meaningfully
challenge the panel's position or if those that could just didn't bother. Why
didn't they?

------
drivebyacct2
Those tweets are infuriating. That having been said SRS has a shit ton of
baggage and as long as Laurelai roams there I have no problem disparaging it.
Laurelai's behavior, and the cover-up and apologetic behavior of the mods of
/r/lgbt are a stain upon the feminist movement and I hate that they're the
snapshot of feminism on reddit, because they're not.

Take the top post in SRS right now as an example, there are things in that
subreddit that are _very_ obviously misogynistic and then there are things
that they simply "don't like" or are unwilling to even have a discussion
about. The comments in that subreddit are just as insidious and redunctionary
as the commentary they proclaim to be against. It's done in some sort of
tongue-in-cheek irony style, but it's not, it's gross and annoying to read.

The mob mentality is bad either way, and the tweets are a gross depiction of
the dark side of reddit. But for every post in SRS, I encounter dozens of
trolls every day that are downvoted for homophobia, racism and misogyny.

