
Is Reddit Dead? Welcome to the Propaganda Machine - nkurz
https://thetechnologicbrain.wordpress.com/2016/06/10/is-reddit-dead-welcome-to-the-propaganda-machine/
======
zxcvvcxz
If reddit is dying, is going to be because of censorship and poor treatment of
their users.

The latest debacle was the incredible mishandling of the Orlando nightclub
terrorist attack this Sunday. The moderation team on the r/news subreddit
blocked and censored users, almost certainly over a fear of political
correctness [1]. People couldn't even share information for donating blood to
the potential victims in the area. People in the gay community had to go to
the damn Trump subreddit to get the news and information.

And it doesn't seem appropriate anymore to blame this on a few bad apples.
This is a systemic problem with reddit. It is a site where cronyism decides
the moderation teams on huge subreddits read by millions of people.

Reddit may not be dead, but it certainly is dying.

[1] - [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3639181/Facebook-
Red...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3639181/Facebook-Reddit-
accused-censorship-pages-discussing-Orlando-carnage-deleted-wake-terrorist-
attack.html)

~~~
2bitencryption
The worst part of that whole debacle was that the Trump subreddit began
touting itself as a champion of free speech and unbiased discourse, which is
hilarious because you'd have one post with 3k upvotes titled "We are now the
only subreddit to have a fair and even discussion!" and the one right below it
with even more upvotes called "DEPORT ALL MUSLIMS". The only thing worse than
being absurdly biased is being absurdly biased and then thinking you're not...

~~~
lurkinggrue
And say the wrong thing in there and expect to be banned and called a cuck.

------
rm_-rf_slash
Urgh, I feel like I just ate a second lunch reading that. The author is in
dire need of an editor.

Either way, this piece is nothing new: shilling has been around for as long as
time, and the bedrock of propaganda has always been guiding people into
drawing conclusions that they believed they came to on their own. The Internet
has only sped up and quantified the process.

The solution (which the author leaves the reader to determine) is obvious:
spend less time on the Internet, don't get caught up in pointless debates (and
don't let them dwell on you when you're offline), and read more books,
preferably by people who are long dead.

EDIT: Speaking of books, I am reminded of the space-Rastas from (the very much
alive) William Gibson's Neuromancer. Since they lived in their isolated space
station, they avoided the Sprawl's relentless homogenization and retained
their own identity. The same holds true for online communities: the bigger
they get, the more valuable they become to marketers, who inevitably bring
corporate-culture-crushing with them.

~~~
Frenchgeek
[https://xkcd.com/386/](https://xkcd.com/386/)

------
kristiandupont
<meta>

it's interesting to me that if this massive wall of text was written by an
author who I know and trust will give me a combination of entertainment and
insight, I would be willing to read it. However, I don't know this author and
a quick skim of the text didn't give me any clues to what the point is. Thus,
I made the decision not to read it.

The one thing that can change my mind is if the HN community (which I also
trust) makes it clear that it's worth it. But still, it made me realize that
there are certain things that you can't really do before you have a loyal
audience, even if you do have the skills in place already.

</meta>

------
mey
Looking at /r/all on any given day shows an interesting combination of meme's,
astroturfing and what I would describe as 4chan leaking. Except for some very
specific subreddits around some niche hobbies, the site has lost any value to
me. Even then, I feel like those hobbies would be better going back to the
pre-reddit days of one off phpbb forums etc.

~~~
rudolf0
I would consider reddit's post quality even worse than 4chan's, honestly.
(Depending on board.)

------
2bitencryption
The sad thing is I still really do like Reddit for the little communities,
especially the ones around programming languages and technology. r/cpp,
r/python, r/c_programming, etc. I have them all in those "meta" reddit groups
or whatever they're called, and when I log in I actually get a rather nice
list of discussions and links. In years passed it seemed the "bad" part of
Reddit was just a little growth on the "good" whole, but now it seems to be
the reverse... It's strange having a nice discussion on r/cpp on the same site
which is so full of racism and bigotry at the top level.

~~~
mercer
AskHistorians is a particularly good one too.

~~~
emptyfile
It's probably the best place to talk about history in general that I've found
on the internet. It's orders of magnitude better than the rest of the site
IMHO.

------
dhdjdhf
tldr

How about the author lays off the flowery language and pseudo philosophy, and
gets down to the actual issues instead?

~~~
legodt
If this article is too long to read for you, HackerNews might not be
delivering the kind of content you would be interested in.

~~~
pessimizer
It's not the length, it's the length to content ratio.

~~~
alirazaq
Ironically that is the real issue I see with reddit. Half truths or
exaggerations shrouded in psuedo-intellectual rhetoric are taken seriously and
as a comment passes a certain threshhold it becomes impossible to refute.

At least on HN, the community does an excellent job of downvoting low quality
comments that don't contribute to the discussion. Although there are times
where it seems like reddit is leaking into this site.

------
viewer5
I'm not sure how this would be avoidable anywhere, without heavy moderation by
mods (who are, on reddit, volunteers) that had to read every single comment
and consider its place on the line between 'shilling' and 'talking about
products they like'.

Reddit isn't dead, it's a place where people talk, and on the modern internet,
that means that companies send people to talk, too.

~~~
ap3
Do mods have to read every comment? There is a report button next to the
comments

------
technofiend
He could tighten up his writing: high idea density and conciseness are welcome
even in an opinion piece.

Even so I happen to agree that Reddit has unfortunately been overrun by paid
commercial and political interest shills. Much like I did with Facebook, I'm
probably overdue to delete my account and move on because I just want to have
a legitimate conversation and not a marketing interaction.

