
Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet (2018) - anarbadalov
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/19/reddit-and-the-struggle-to-detoxify-the-internet
======
superkuh
There is nothing "toxic" about the internet except for the centralization of
communication on a handful of corporate controlled social networks that have
perverse incentives to censor anything that might impact their advertising or
other income.

There is no single solution for content moderation that is good. That is why
giant communities controlled by a single entity with a single standard are
inherently toxic themselves. The solutions are innumberable and should be.
That's how the gordian knot of moderation is cut. Not one set of standards but
a diversity of them.

Federation and peer to peer seem to be the only way forwards. Unfortunately
most users of the big sites are there for monetary reasons and these reason
don't translate to smaller sites. So they'll stick around until the censorship
gets so tight the money dries up (ie, what google/youtube is doing now).

~~~
sbarre
> There is nothing "toxic" about the internet except for the centralization of
> communication on a handful of corporate controlled social networks that have
> perverse incentives to censor anything that might impact their advertising
> or other income.

Give me a break. There is PLENTY of toxicity online, just like there is in
real life.

In fact the lack of accountability in the online world lets people get away
with MORE toxicity than they would in the physical world.

Yes, centralized/privatized control of the spaces in which we congregate and
interact online is also a big problem, but it's a completely different
problem.

Solving one won't solve the other.

~~~
XaoDaoCaoCao
Dealing with physical "toxicity" is an order of magnitude more relevant than
ensuring that online spaced are composed of doubleplusgood thoughts. With the
definition of doubleplusgood being ever more amphorous and ever more
transparent as a social climbing strategy...

I've been homeless enough that reading about "toxicity" is like reading about
a toddler saying lime applesauce is too sour. There are physical realms where
such concern would be far better directed. Where you could secure future
safety and security for your child with far more impact!*

Your child is probably swalliwing little bits of plastic on a daily basis, is
probably being fed diabetic inducing diets, is subject to a regime of hyper
stimuli, etc... Toxicity is omnipresent but not because of the Russians.

* - via helping create the garden of neighborhoods and communities that are sane

~~~
sbarre
I never said it was a zero sum game. But the discussion was about online
spaces.

I agree with you 100% that solving real-world problems like the ones you
describe is vitally important, it's just not the topic at hand.

------
umvi
Social media is toxic because of its ability to distill extremism.

Say you have a person with an extremist view on dating and women - a 1 in
1,000,000 type view. Well, social media gives them a place where hundreds of
like-minded individuals can gather in one spot and reinforce their extremism.
Then, people with non-extremist views take notice of the community and stop by
with popcorn because it's outrageous, disgusting, but above all, entertaining.

I think sometimes we overestimate how toxic a community is by doing bad math:
"Oh, /r/incels has a subscription count of X and growing?? It must be
converting more users to its extremism!! Quick, ban it!" What percentage of
subs were just popcorn bystanders and what percentage of content creators were
trolls? I would guess much higher than one would expect.

~~~
gowld
I don't see how popularity is relevant to a decision to content-based ban.

~~~
astine
It's relevant to a discussion of free-speech absolutism in a public forum.
Free speech as a principle is valuable and if the cost of millions of people
being able to express their views is that one random Nazi gets to have his
say, then I think most people would think that it's worth it. If that one Nazi
were to turn into a thousand Nazis, then I suspect people would be more
circumspect about the whole thing. So the question about how prevalent hate-
speech is on Reddit has a lot to say about to what extent Reddit will be
willing to censor its users.

~~~
0x445442
> If that one Nazi were to turn into a thousand Nazis, then I suspect people
> would be more circumspect about the whole thing.

Why? I mean what do you care how many people say the earth is flat? As for
Nazis, Antifia and whatever other group you care to use an example, it seems
like we already have a descent set of laws in place to protect people from
direct harm from those groups.

I'm sorry but I think what's going on at these social media companies and with
the legacy media is blatant political censorship.

------
itg
In my experience, especially on Reddit, toxic is defined as anything
admins/moderators don’t agree with. Meanwhile other toxic behavior such as
doxxing/harassment/raids are ignored, and done by the meta-subreddits such as
subredditdrama and topmindsofreddit.

------
malvosenior
_" According to the ranking service Alexa, the top three sites in the United
States, as of this writing, are Google, YouTube, and Facebook. (Porn, somewhat
hearteningly, doesn’t crack the top ten.) The rankings don’t reflect
everything—the dark Web, the nouveau-riche recluses harvesting bitcoin—but,
for the most part, people online go where you’d expect them to go."_

The author is technically clueless. Nice swipe at Bitcoin, too bad it doesn't
even make sense to compare Bitcoin "harvesting" with people going to a web
site.

These are all the same lame arguments that have been made over and over. No,
r/The_Donald doesn't represent the end of the world. Yes, Reddit had some subs
that many people would find objectionable. The totally valid and correct
argument is: Don't go visit a site when the content offends you.

------
aksss
>>an attempt to “self-investigate” claims that the restaurant’s basement was a
dungeon full of kidnapped children. Comet Ping Pong does not have a basement.

Ah, but did you look for the secret passage under the prep station? The recent
JRE episode with AJ was talking about how we have this mix of people on the
Internet having fun with ideas, sometimes just to get a laugh, sometimes
because they are just wondering out loud, and then this subpop of genuinely
mentally disturbed people who take it all very literally and too seriously.
That there's no filter between these groups is one of the dangers of the
Internet, I guess.

~~~
tha_nose
How is that any different than the new yorker or traditional media spreading
lies and hate about jussie smollet, covington or any other incident and
causing mentally unstable people to attack others?

I find it strange how new yorker feels they should be allowed to be toxic but
everyone else isn't. It's strange how they feel they aren't responsible for
the mentally unstable they accidentally influence but everyone else is
responsible.

Using that logic, every movie director, author, journalist, musician, etc
would be liable for the actions of the mentally unstable. That would be the
end of all media, including the new yorker.

------
anarbadalov
A year late to this, but it's a fantastic and still relevant topic (content
moderation)

------
ralusek
So long as Reddit has very specific rules regarding what is forbidden, i.e.
posting personally identifiable information, then I think the subreddit system
is already as close to a perfect solution as I'd want. Subreddits are opt-in
and opt-out, and are moderated with VASTLY different tolerances and tastes. I
tend to prefer highly controversial conversations, at the expense of
pleasantness, and there are subreddits that cater to this just fine. There are
others whose sensibilities do not tolerate that, and there subreddits for that
too.

What I cannot stand is people demanding that subreddits be removed. I filtered
out posts from t/The_Donald immediately, and yet I still see people that
cannot believe that subreddit still exists. The_Donald is just a highly
moderated right wing echo chamber, not unlike r/LateStageCapitalism or
equivalent left wing subs. I hate, and am banned, from most of them...but I'm
happy they exist for those who subscribe.

~~~
obpacheco
just wondering what subreddits do you subscribe to? I enjoy talking about
politics but r/politics is insufferable, I've found r/news to have much better
discussions, but it all depends on the post and which type of people a
specific headline will attract.

------
sleepysysadmin
Define what's even toxic?

If you look into what is being removed from youtube, twitter, patreon, etc.
It's not people calling for genocide that are being removed. Nobody would
argue over those.

The 'toxicity' being removed seems to be political views.

Patreon is a perfect example of the system working correctly however. They
started banning people over politics. The right-wing left patreon and went to
subscriber-star. Patreon is now in money problems.

“Patreon needs to build new businesses and new services and new revenue lines
in order to build a sustainable business,” said Patreon CEO Jack Conte.

------
0815test
(2018)

------
tha_nose
"Detoxify"? Reddit and the internet was fine until the establishment decided
to take control of it and censor it. If people didn't like reddit's or the
internet's "toxicity", they wouldn't use it. Nobody is forcing anyone to use
reddit. If the puritans at the new yorker or the rest of the media don't like
reddit, they simply don't have to use it. It would be like me complaining
about the toxicity of the new yorker and demanding the new yorker be
"detoxified". Or, I could simply not consume the new yorker's content.

The new yorker along with the rest of the media uses the same excuse that
china, russia and others use to censor. I guess "detoxify" sounds better than
"clean up".

[https://news.sky.com/story/china-cracks-down-in-clean-up-
of-...](https://news.sky.com/story/china-cracks-down-in-clean-up-of-internet-
services-including-vpns-10740188)

All this "detoxify" or "clean up" internet nonsense is just cover to censor
and control the masses.

~~~
davidw
> Reddit and the internet was fine until

You need to spend some more time with the Usenet archives.

~~~
tha_nose
What about it? What you find "toxic", others might not find "toxic". That's my
point. And if there is "toxicity" in usenet, don't use it. Or use the
newsgroups that you find less "toxic".

But you are missing my point. My point isn't about "toxicity", it's about
censorship. "Toxicity" is just an excuse to censor and control.

Usenet had been around for decades and has always been "toxic". So what? Did
the world end?

~~~
davidw
Because normal people don't want to frequent toxic environments. It's
unpleasant.

~~~
tha_nose
Is that why reddit is so popular? It was "toxic" and yet it grew and normal
people used it in droves. Your argument contradicts itself. Most people don't
mind reddit or usenet or the "toxicity". It's a handful of busybodies with
power trying justify censorship. No different than the church ladies whining
about "toxic" rap or "toxic" tv or "toxic" whatever when they themselves are
toxic too.

And who defines normal? The saudis? The chinese? The catholic church? The US
government? The media? Or do you get to decide?

If you find it unpleasant, then don't use it. If you don't like baseball, then
don't watch it. Go watch something else. Everytime we as a society get beyond
the puritanical blasphemy craze, it rears its ugly head again.

------
nkkollaw
Another leftist publication that advocates censoring unwanted speech.

It's only a matter of time before "hate speech" will get you automatically
deplatformed. It's going to be fun seeing how what's considered "hate speech"
evolves.

------
featherrust
IMO there's very little on the internet that's significantly more toxic than
Hollywood movies and pop music. Porn, I guess.

If you do find it: congrats, you must be pretty inventive.

On the extremist content: those people are not well versed. If you reaaaally
want to you can let it brainwash you, but at that point a book could do the
job as well.

And: internet extremists don't have significant attention spans and can barely
act in the world. If they learned how to read, well... they'd soon know
better.

Are "book extremists" still a thing?

~~~
featherrust
Too cynic? IMO the topic demands a huge grain of salt, but perhaps I was
otherwise unproductive.

