
Ellen Pao Responds to Reddit - KKKKkkkk1
https://twitter.com/ekp/status/1267689503797342208
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BitwiseFool
How exactly did Reddit "amplify" r/the_donald? First, they removed that
subreddit from r/all and created Popular so non subscribed users wouldn't see
it.

Then they quarantined it for being anti-police.

Then they tried to replace it's moderators with their own handpicked ones.

The old mods decided to lock it down so no one can post. It's been like that
for a few months. It's a shell that points people to a reddit clone
specfically for the_donald style posts.

What more do people want?

~~~
deminature
It was allowed to flourish as a hate forum for years before being quarantined.
Users brigaded other subreddits with little to no action from admins. Reddit
management always did the least possible until they were forced by the media
or user outcry.

It's incredibly cynical to now come out against internet bigotry after being
one of the premier destinations hosting it for the past few years.

~~~
s9w
That is a lie. TD was one of the most peaceful and rule-abiding political
subs.

~~~
deminature
They famously abused the stickying bug for years to get their content to the
homepage. Reddit even changed the /r/all algorithm to specifically address
gaming and exploitation by TD. The quarantine system was also introduced to
isolate TD from the rest of the site, like a gangrenous limb. It's simply not
the case that they were rule abiding.

~~~
s9w
That was not against the rules and was nerfed pretty fast - certainly not for
years. And then they were artificially censored, held down, attacked and lied
about and doxed.

~~~
deminature
Subs like /r/OurPresident are still using this mechanism to this day to get
election-influencing agitprop to the front page. It hasn't been nerfed.
Meanwhile Reddit sits on their hands and sighs wondering if anything can be
done about this, on the site they administrate.

~~~
s9w
Is this satire? I've never heard of that sub. And all conservative or even
center political subs are massively manipulated and will never show up on the
frontpage ever. Which is their good right of course, but Reddit is absolutely
overwhelmingly left with all the major default subreddits bought.

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hbosch
She's right, and not just about r/T_D but in so many other subreddits, -- some
stood up for the singular purpose of being racist, and some that are just
racist on top of whatever _other_ thing they represent -- and the
uncomfortable truth is that to some degree any profitable online
community/social network is forced to at minimum tolerate casual racism. To
stamp it out is too tall a task for any social media platform of any
significant mass... including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and so
on.

It's also worth mentioning, at least, the conspiracy theory that Reddit _is_
proactively censoring sinophobic speech on it's platform. But, I don't know if
that's been proven for certain.

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moojd
This mentality is why I believe every centralized social media platform has a
limited shelf-life. We don't have a lot of discussions like this about what
people should be allowed to say in an e-mail, or snail mail, or on a soapbox
in Times Square as long as they aren't harassing anyone directly. If you aim
to run a global social media platform, moderating in a way that is satisfies
every one is an unsolvable boolean satisfiability problem and acting on
outrage from users is a vicious cycle. Eventually the proprietors will
(understandably) start to feel responsible for the content that is posted on
their platform and take actions that anger large parts of their userbase. The
next generation will use the next hip platform that isn't encumbered by this
legacy and then the cycle will continue.

~~~
disposekinetics
I think that is a very interesting concept I had not given enough thought to.
Is the solution something like federation? Protocols over platforms?

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brodouevencode
Funny - people on the right say the exact opposite.

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RandallBrown
When r/The_Donald first started, I could have sworn it was a satire subreddit
that made fun of Trump. Does anyone else remember that or were the posts just
so outrageous I thought it was satire when it hit the front page?

~~~
hadrien01
I also believe it was satire the first few months, trolling pro-Sanders spam.
When it was confirmed Clinton and Trump would win their nomination, the pro-
Sanders spam sort of stopped and /r/The_Donald became a full support
subreddit.

Or maybe it was simply Poe's law: some of us thought it was satire when it
wasn't, and some of us thought it was Trump support when it wasn't.

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troughway
The New Playbook of Internet Censorship, by Ellen K. Pao et al.

