An online information oasis of last resort
October 14, 2024 11:52 AM Subscribe
For years, the typical story about governments, politicians, or public figures showing up on Reddit focused on the unlikeliness of that match. Reddit was rowdy, weird, or nerdy, and it was sort of interesting or fun or strange for people with big platforms to show up there. In recent years, Reddit has grown from a large cluster of online communities into a sort of last refuge semi-protected habitat for online communities in general — that is, spaces where actual people gather to discuss or find information about certain topics or interests, organized and moderated by other actual people. Now, nobody is deigning to post on Reddit. They’re just hoping it might add to their audience a bit. from Is Reddit the Future of Crisis Comms? [Intelligencer; ungated]
See also: The White House started posting on Reddit to talk about Hurricane Milton
a-and: Is Reddit the Future of Crisis Communications? [Reddit]
See also: The White House started posting on Reddit to talk about Hurricane Milton
a-and: Is Reddit the Future of Crisis Communications? [Reddit]
Reddit is what you make of it. I love the Philadelphia subreddit.
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:40 PM on October 14 [17 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:40 PM on October 14 [17 favorites]
You know, we joke about how the government should nationalize one of the social media platforms, but our recent pair of hurricanes really highlighted to me how bad the government is at this, without the easy prop of Old Twitter. Hurricane news seemed to get mostly lost in the noise of twitter, aside from a couple of screenshots that kept getting passed around (esp that "the mathematical limits of earth's atmosphere" one). Emergency alerts were blaring out on our phones but they weren't sharing, like, a ton of useful information. On the other hand, Reddit felt...both too general and too hyperspecific? Like, if something showed up on news or popular, hopefully I would have seen it, but do people really subscribe to state-level subs rather than more local city/town subs? (Maybe they do!) After the hurricanes, it has been nice to see other people talking about the response, who has power, who has internet, etc., at that very local level, in a way that probably wouldn't be super-useful at the state or national level.
I mean, we live in a world where I got more support info from Lindsay Graham's mass email, than from billion-dollar social media companies, and that just feels wrong.
posted by mittens at 12:47 PM on October 14 [7 favorites]
I mean, we live in a world where I got more support info from Lindsay Graham's mass email, than from billion-dollar social media companies, and that just feels wrong.
posted by mittens at 12:47 PM on October 14 [7 favorites]
A pair of Atlantic articles:
Rumors on X are becoming the right's new reality
I'm running out of ways to explain how bad this is
posted by box at 1:19 PM on October 14 [7 favorites]
Rumors on X are becoming the right's new reality
I'm running out of ways to explain how bad this is
posted by box at 1:19 PM on October 14 [7 favorites]
Reddit is what you make of it.
This kind of reasoning excuses negligent ownership and management, and they should not be allowed to escape responsibility so easily.
posted by mhoye at 1:24 PM on October 14 [21 favorites]
This kind of reasoning excuses negligent ownership and management, and they should not be allowed to escape responsibility so easily.
posted by mhoye at 1:24 PM on October 14 [21 favorites]
really highlighted to me how bad the government is at this
It doesn't help that they've let agencies, especially cops, badly abuse the alert system. I gradually turned off every level, the final straw being when they pushed an amber alert through as an "Emergency alert: Extreme". That's supposed to be for disasters with extreme threats to life and property, not a custody dispute halfway across the state. So off it went. Apparently last week some rural sheriff woke up all of Texas at 4 am because a cop got injured.
posted by tavella at 1:40 PM on October 14 [22 favorites]
It doesn't help that they've let agencies, especially cops, badly abuse the alert system. I gradually turned off every level, the final straw being when they pushed an amber alert through as an "Emergency alert: Extreme". That's supposed to be for disasters with extreme threats to life and property, not a custody dispute halfway across the state. So off it went. Apparently last week some rural sheriff woke up all of Texas at 4 am because a cop got injured.
posted by tavella at 1:40 PM on October 14 [22 favorites]
This kind of reasoning excuses negligent ownership and management, and they should not be allowed to escape responsibility so easily.
Yep. To me, Reddit will be the place where, when given a choice to stand for women, instead chose to enable their abuse in the name of 'free speech'. Not to mention that, as I've said in other threads, pulling the curtains on toxic waste doesn't make it go away.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:44 PM on October 14 [12 favorites]
Yep. To me, Reddit will be the place where, when given a choice to stand for women, instead chose to enable their abuse in the name of 'free speech'. Not to mention that, as I've said in other threads, pulling the curtains on toxic waste doesn't make it go away.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:44 PM on October 14 [12 favorites]
Perfect weather for a streamlined world
There'll be RSS feeds, one for everyone
posted by credulous at 1:52 PM on October 14 [10 favorites]
There'll be RSS feeds, one for everyone
posted by credulous at 1:52 PM on October 14 [10 favorites]
I love the Philadelphia subreddit.
You're almost certainly talking about r/philadelphia but part of me is hoping you're talking about r/phillywiki.
I apologize in advance for anything you might read on r/phillywiki.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 2:08 PM on October 14 [4 favorites]
You're almost certainly talking about r/philadelphia but part of me is hoping you're talking about r/phillywiki.
I apologize in advance for anything you might read on r/phillywiki.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 2:08 PM on October 14 [4 favorites]
One problem I have started noticing is the sheer number of bots. It started with comments but has now started to seep into posts too. Especially the kind of subs like AITA etc., which is so prone to creative writing to begin with.
I just assume all comments are from bots now. It would be nice if posts could at least be filtered from bots. But curated reddit still serves me. Used to be much better before the Mod exodus and ChatGPT invasion, that I agree.
It still is the best modern version of the USENET I grew up with.
posted by indianbadger1 at 2:20 PM on October 14 [9 favorites]
I just assume all comments are from bots now. It would be nice if posts could at least be filtered from bots. But curated reddit still serves me. Used to be much better before the Mod exodus and ChatGPT invasion, that I agree.
It still is the best modern version of the USENET I grew up with.
posted by indianbadger1 at 2:20 PM on October 14 [9 favorites]
Reddit? You mean that site that ousted all the great functional 3rd-party apps, and replaced it with Reddit’s very own nonfunctional app?
posted by Thorzdad at 2:33 PM on October 14 [11 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 2:33 PM on October 14 [11 favorites]
I'll keep using it for entertainment, even though I know 90% of it is bullshit and badly concealed marketing and/or disinformation. But the day they take away Old Reddit and make me use the shittier interface, or gods forbid their horrible "app" instead of a browser, sayonara.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 2:48 PM on October 14 [12 favorites]
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 2:48 PM on October 14 [12 favorites]
• 18h ago •
This would be entertaining to post on Metafilter (but not by me).
From NY Magazine: Is Reddit the Future of Crisis Comms? It's one of the only well moderated spaces left online.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MetaFilterMeta/comments/1g366vp/chat_thread_october_14_2024
posted by HearHere at 2:49 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]
This would be entertaining to post on Metafilter (but not by me).
From NY Magazine: Is Reddit the Future of Crisis Comms? It's one of the only well moderated spaces left online.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MetaFilterMeta/comments/1g366vp/chat_thread_october_14_2024
posted by HearHere at 2:49 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]
Elon Musk's X is accelerating our descent into a post-truth nightmare (Parker Molloy's The Present Age)
In the eye of the hurricane (Ctrl Alt Right Delete)
posted by box at 3:07 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]
In the eye of the hurricane (Ctrl Alt Right Delete)
posted by box at 3:07 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]
> Imagine scrolling through your feed and coming across claims that FEMA is abandoning Trump supporters, Democrats are manipulating the weather... Sounds absurd, right?
until recently
Elon Musk[]’s been spreading false hurricane conspiracy theories on a platform he owns and has optimized to amplify his voice, and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene who falsely claims that they (I assume “they” refers to Jewish people or Democrats or both) are capable of controlling the weather and causing a hurricane. Truthfully I don’t know who is a political opportunist, or who now lives in the MAGA Cinematic Universe. I suspect that it’s a mixture for a lot of these folks, but I also don’t want to spend too much time trying to parse it.
thanks box, as ever
posted by HearHere at 3:33 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]
until recently
Elon Musk[]’s been spreading false hurricane conspiracy theories on a platform he owns and has optimized to amplify his voice, and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene who falsely claims that they (I assume “they” refers to Jewish people or Democrats or both) are capable of controlling the weather and causing a hurricane. Truthfully I don’t know who is a political opportunist, or who now lives in the MAGA Cinematic Universe. I suspect that it’s a mixture for a lot of these folks, but I also don’t want to spend too much time trying to parse it.
thanks box, as ever
posted by HearHere at 3:33 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]
also, I apologize in advance for anything one might read on r/metafiltermeta
posted by HearHere at 3:39 PM on October 14 [5 favorites]
posted by HearHere at 3:39 PM on October 14 [5 favorites]
A thought I had during hurricane Helene was that Reddit has essentially replaced local news - well, not replaced exactly, since the product of a bunch of random people posting is not on par with a team of journalists with the resources, training, ethical guidelines, etc. that make for fairly trustworthy information. But whether it should be the source of Crisis Comms, it is at this point. I'd rather the government fund local news by taxing the rich, but seems unlikely to happen.
posted by coffeecat at 3:55 PM on October 14 [6 favorites]
posted by coffeecat at 3:55 PM on October 14 [6 favorites]
I'm running out of ways to explain how bad this is
We've gone from people denying climate change to politicians basically blaming the weather on the Elders of Zion. I'm trouble finding anything myself to top that. (Please don't top that. Please don't say, "Hold my beer.")
posted by jonp72 at 3:57 PM on October 14 [5 favorites]
We've gone from people denying climate change to politicians basically blaming the weather on the Elders of Zion. I'm trouble finding anything myself to top that. (Please don't top that. Please don't say, "Hold my beer.")
posted by jonp72 at 3:57 PM on October 14 [5 favorites]
The r/Asheville subreddit was a lifeline if you could get it to load. More than half the radio stations here got bought by iHeartRadio and they did 24-7 call in information, which was even more useful. During normal times the Asheville subreddit is half memes and shitposting, but any port in a storm.
posted by rikschell at 4:09 PM on October 14 [4 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 4:09 PM on October 14 [4 favorites]
Hm. Odd article. Very short and abbreviated, cut off before it could get really interesting.
Also some weird categorical assertions which reality debunks:
"Your posts on Facebook, which briefly assumed a role in basic civic communication across the country, are filtered through recommendation algorithms and submerged in slop."
Except a vast number of people use it to organize all kinds of stuff, including strikes.
"Your announcements on Instagram have no way to spread and people aren’t looking for them, anyway."
I agree - but there's a ton of people who use Insta instead of having a webpage these days.
"Your posts on X, which used to be at least marginally helpful as a sort of straightforward institutional newswire, are barely visible and overwhelmed by conspiracy theories."
Governments use X/Twitter at scale. That's where Biden announced he was no longer running for president.
"Now, nobody is deigning to post on Reddit."
Was this sentence an error? Because obviously people post on Reddit all the time, and he goes on to describe such.
posted by doctornemo at 4:35 PM on October 14 [2 favorites]
Also some weird categorical assertions which reality debunks:
"Your posts on Facebook, which briefly assumed a role in basic civic communication across the country, are filtered through recommendation algorithms and submerged in slop."
Except a vast number of people use it to organize all kinds of stuff, including strikes.
"Your announcements on Instagram have no way to spread and people aren’t looking for them, anyway."
I agree - but there's a ton of people who use Insta instead of having a webpage these days.
"Your posts on X, which used to be at least marginally helpful as a sort of straightforward institutional newswire, are barely visible and overwhelmed by conspiracy theories."
Governments use X/Twitter at scale. That's where Biden announced he was no longer running for president.
"Now, nobody is deigning to post on Reddit."
Was this sentence an error? Because obviously people post on Reddit all the time, and he goes on to describe such.
posted by doctornemo at 4:35 PM on October 14 [2 favorites]
That said, the article does gesture at a major communications problem.
In my world - higher ed - campuses have turned to push texts, although they can't always get them to everyone for various reasons. Then they use their websites and email for official announcements.
posted by doctornemo at 4:36 PM on October 14 [1 favorite]
In my world - higher ed - campuses have turned to push texts, although they can't always get them to everyone for various reasons. Then they use their websites and email for official announcements.
posted by doctornemo at 4:36 PM on October 14 [1 favorite]
Reddit is what you make of it.
Agreed. As usual, my social media experience differs from what most MeFiites describe. I participate actively and productively in about a dozen Reddits, and follow twice that many for reasons of research and entertainment.
posted by doctornemo at 4:38 PM on October 14 [7 favorites]
Agreed. As usual, my social media experience differs from what most MeFiites describe. I participate actively and productively in about a dozen Reddits, and follow twice that many for reasons of research and entertainment.
posted by doctornemo at 4:38 PM on October 14 [7 favorites]
https://www.reddit.com/user/wsdot/ is a good example of a government entity using Reddit well
They post lots of really useful stuff to local subreddits, like this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/1fnxzhc/monster_weekend_ahead_closures_on_sr_520_nb_i405/
posted by Jacqueline at 5:03 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]
They post lots of really useful stuff to local subreddits, like this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/1fnxzhc/monster_weekend_ahead_closures_on_sr_520_nb_i405/
posted by Jacqueline at 5:03 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]
As I've got family in different parts of the hurricane south( Texas, Louisana, Florida, and North Carolina which i honestly hadn't had in my i should worry about them radar but now I do!) I've now discovered the amateur meteorologist discords. Sometimes it is a bunch of chatter with them and their arguing over 1 millibar of pressure but they had ongoing clear information all in one place consistently. If there was an update they knew about it. Models? had them. Rain totals ? yes. Tornado warnings and tracks? On it.
I was using force 13 but something happened to the US one and I'm not quite sure I understand that drama. Right now I'm using the Ryan Hall Y'all and he seems like a pretty good guy with an interesting non profit and team. Way better than the coverage on the local news.
posted by AlexiaSky at 5:05 PM on October 14 [2 favorites]
I was using force 13 but something happened to the US one and I'm not quite sure I understand that drama. Right now I'm using the Ryan Hall Y'all and he seems like a pretty good guy with an interesting non profit and team. Way better than the coverage on the local news.
posted by AlexiaSky at 5:05 PM on October 14 [2 favorites]
In early internet days (in the NON-MONITIZED internet days) the quote was ... " the internet treats censorship like a virus -- it just reroutes around it." I still dream of this kind of 'organized chaos' online. I keep poking around to see if new/genz users are generating ways to move information in a self-organizing, self-moderating, "rerouting" system that is not dominated by monied interests.
Recently I checked out Reddit - a site I had avoided for years - and was pleasantly surprised [SO FAR]. In my brief time there, I've enjoyed some wit and wisdom that reminds me of old IRC-USENET days. As for communities, I've seen mostly 'echo chambers' ... which I don't mind too much. In fact, the contrast of r/Seattle and r/SeattleWA are hilarious.
posted by Surfurrus at 5:27 PM on October 14 [7 favorites]
Recently I checked out Reddit - a site I had avoided for years - and was pleasantly surprised [SO FAR]. In my brief time there, I've enjoyed some wit and wisdom that reminds me of old IRC-USENET days. As for communities, I've seen mostly 'echo chambers' ... which I don't mind too much. In fact, the contrast of r/Seattle and r/SeattleWA are hilarious.
posted by Surfurrus at 5:27 PM on October 14 [7 favorites]
One thing I find really dispiriting about Reddit is how some subs are bottled / spammed towards a specific goal. In the last couple years, r/WorldNews became almost entirely an Israeli op, doing massive amounts of flooding, brigading, and spamming to make it seem like Israel is 100% in the right, and the UN is overrun by terrorist sympathizers and rubes.
It's such a shame because the coverage of world events over the years has become the playground for FSB's around the world, and it's getting harder and harder to stay informed without accidentally falling for some horseshit. One would hope that the commons of world news coverage might help alleviate that, but it ends up just being a blaring mouthpiece for whichever government has influence at Reddit HQ or enough of a bot system to shut down legitimate discussion.
posted by Philipschall at 5:51 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]
It's such a shame because the coverage of world events over the years has become the playground for FSB's around the world, and it's getting harder and harder to stay informed without accidentally falling for some horseshit. One would hope that the commons of world news coverage might help alleviate that, but it ends up just being a blaring mouthpiece for whichever government has influence at Reddit HQ or enough of a bot system to shut down legitimate discussion.
posted by Philipschall at 5:51 PM on October 14 [3 favorites]
mhoye: "This kind of reasoning excuses negligent ownership and management, and they should not be allowed to escape responsibility so easily."
Also worth noting that the handful of times Reddit has done the right thing by users and backtracked on an unpopular policy in the past -- poor volunteer relations, ejecting hate subs, cracking down on vaccine disinformation -- it's only been because of sustained "blackout" protests by engaged mods and users in influential communities. The last, largest protest, over the API mess, came after Reddit completely ignored extremely negative feedback from their supposed community relations channels, and the site responded by absolutely steamrolling people instead of compromising in any way. This was swiftly followed by rugpulling the site's rewards system, doing sweet fuck-all to make good on their accessibility promises or replace the shuttered volunteer anti-bot and spam projects they'd killed off, and most recently nixing longstanding site rules regarding community independence to make effective user protests impossible. I'm sure shutting down the Old Reddit UI (which a majority of mods use to do their work) is next on the list; they've already done prep work like deprecating subdomains (an unpopular, pointless change that broke countless links while conveniently boosting traffic to the front page algorithmic view).
Now that the precedent has been set that Reddit corporate does not give a shit about mod autonomy, users as stakeholders, or the quality or authenticity of subs beyond raw traffic numbers, there is no incentive for the company to care about user well-being at all -- certainly not when set against the all-consuming profit motive. The old Reddit, for all its faults, was not like this -- they supported and enabled people doing cool creative things to advance the platform and at least paid lip service to the idea that the sentiment of users mattered. It was originally an open source project co-founded by Aaron Swartz, for chrissakes! But that quirky community ethos is long gone. How long it can coast on that reputation before the ongoing enshittification becomes intolerable remains to be seen (though the death march of zombie Twitter suggests there's a long way to fall).
posted by Rhaomi at 5:58 PM on October 14 [8 favorites]
Also worth noting that the handful of times Reddit has done the right thing by users and backtracked on an unpopular policy in the past -- poor volunteer relations, ejecting hate subs, cracking down on vaccine disinformation -- it's only been because of sustained "blackout" protests by engaged mods and users in influential communities. The last, largest protest, over the API mess, came after Reddit completely ignored extremely negative feedback from their supposed community relations channels, and the site responded by absolutely steamrolling people instead of compromising in any way. This was swiftly followed by rugpulling the site's rewards system, doing sweet fuck-all to make good on their accessibility promises or replace the shuttered volunteer anti-bot and spam projects they'd killed off, and most recently nixing longstanding site rules regarding community independence to make effective user protests impossible. I'm sure shutting down the Old Reddit UI (which a majority of mods use to do their work) is next on the list; they've already done prep work like deprecating subdomains (an unpopular, pointless change that broke countless links while conveniently boosting traffic to the front page algorithmic view).
Now that the precedent has been set that Reddit corporate does not give a shit about mod autonomy, users as stakeholders, or the quality or authenticity of subs beyond raw traffic numbers, there is no incentive for the company to care about user well-being at all -- certainly not when set against the all-consuming profit motive. The old Reddit, for all its faults, was not like this -- they supported and enabled people doing cool creative things to advance the platform and at least paid lip service to the idea that the sentiment of users mattered. It was originally an open source project co-founded by Aaron Swartz, for chrissakes! But that quirky community ethos is long gone. How long it can coast on that reputation before the ongoing enshittification becomes intolerable remains to be seen (though the death march of zombie Twitter suggests there's a long way to fall).
posted by Rhaomi at 5:58 PM on October 14 [8 favorites]
Reddit is what you make of it.
This kind of reasoning excuses negligent ownership and management, and they should not be allowed to escape responsibility so easily.
ummm....
posted by 2N2222 at 6:59 PM on October 14 [1 favorite]
This kind of reasoning excuses negligent ownership and management, and they should not be allowed to escape responsibility so easily.
ummm....
posted by 2N2222 at 6:59 PM on October 14 [1 favorite]
One thing I find really dispiriting about Reddit is how some subs are bottled / spammed towards a specific goal.
I think anyone could say that about an opinion they didn't agree with, oh it's all bots. It feels like this is simply the end result of the Reddit voting algorithm - if a subreddit has even a slim majority of users who have a certain opinion (60/40) then countervailing opinions simply get downvoted to invisibility, and those users get discouraged and either leave or stop posting, then the ratio goes to 90/10 and then the subreddit gets accused of being "all bots".
Reddit is overwhelmingly left-wing (due to skewing college educated), and the right-wing basically got their subreddits banned and users kicked out of the site during the Donald Trump era, with a small refugee community remaining in /r/Conservative who regularly have to lock threads to stop themselves being brigaded by the left.
Now Reddit seems to be the remaining left arguing amongst itself, or the left accusing itself of being bots...
posted by xdvesper at 7:34 PM on October 14 [1 favorite]
I think anyone could say that about an opinion they didn't agree with, oh it's all bots. It feels like this is simply the end result of the Reddit voting algorithm - if a subreddit has even a slim majority of users who have a certain opinion (60/40) then countervailing opinions simply get downvoted to invisibility, and those users get discouraged and either leave or stop posting, then the ratio goes to 90/10 and then the subreddit gets accused of being "all bots".
Reddit is overwhelmingly left-wing (due to skewing college educated), and the right-wing basically got their subreddits banned and users kicked out of the site during the Donald Trump era, with a small refugee community remaining in /r/Conservative who regularly have to lock threads to stop themselves being brigaded by the left.
Now Reddit seems to be the remaining left arguing amongst itself, or the left accusing itself of being bots...
posted by xdvesper at 7:34 PM on October 14 [1 favorite]
xdvesper: "I think anyone could say that about an opinion they didn't agree with, oh it's all bots. It feels like this is simply the end result of the Reddit voting algorithm - if a subreddit has even a slim majority of users who have a certain opinion (60/40) then countervailing opinions simply get downvoted to invisibility, and those users get discouraged and either leave or stop posting, then the ratio goes to 90/10 and then the subreddit gets accused of being "all bots"."
Understand that the bot activity being cited is not "comments pushing an agenda" (though that's one of the potential outcomes). It starts out a lot more prosaic -- automated accounts that essentially farm karma, either with saccharine ChatGPT-generated content or by reposting old popular posts and comments verbatim. They're a plague on large, poorly-moderated subs, and some are entirely dominated by them -- annoying for core users who care about the integrity of the community, but gravy for disengaged zombie phone-scrollers (the ideal Reddit user). These accounts also frequently delete their old activity, which fucks over feed readers and searchers. Once they've aged and acquired enough karma, they go dark and get sold to other interests -- often T-shirt or porn spammers. They can be used by sophisticated threat actors to push a concerted message, but day-to-day they're just a constant irritant that makes the site worse. Engaged mods used to be able to keep them in check with sophisticated third-party tools and anti-spam initiatives, but the API changes wrecked all that and either booted or demoralized a huge swath of mods; now some subs are more bot than human -- Dead Internet Theory come to life.
posted by Rhaomi at 9:03 PM on October 14 [9 favorites]
Understand that the bot activity being cited is not "comments pushing an agenda" (though that's one of the potential outcomes). It starts out a lot more prosaic -- automated accounts that essentially farm karma, either with saccharine ChatGPT-generated content or by reposting old popular posts and comments verbatim. They're a plague on large, poorly-moderated subs, and some are entirely dominated by them -- annoying for core users who care about the integrity of the community, but gravy for disengaged zombie phone-scrollers (the ideal Reddit user). These accounts also frequently delete their old activity, which fucks over feed readers and searchers. Once they've aged and acquired enough karma, they go dark and get sold to other interests -- often T-shirt or porn spammers. They can be used by sophisticated threat actors to push a concerted message, but day-to-day they're just a constant irritant that makes the site worse. Engaged mods used to be able to keep them in check with sophisticated third-party tools and anti-spam initiatives, but the API changes wrecked all that and either booted or demoralized a huge swath of mods; now some subs are more bot than human -- Dead Internet Theory come to life.
posted by Rhaomi at 9:03 PM on October 14 [9 favorites]
In the last couple years, r/WorldNews became almost entirely an Israeli op, doing massive amounts of flooding, brigading, and spamming to make it seem like Israel is 100% in the right, and the UN is overrun by terrorist sympathizers and rubes.
On the flipside r/anime_titties is an ironically-named but legitimately useful news source, supposedly created years ago by users mad that r/WorldPolitics wouldn't moderate content, allowing users to flood the sub with actual anime titty pics, leading to the aforesaid ironic naming of the new subreddit.
posted by WhyamIhereagain at 2:30 AM on October 15 [3 favorites]
On the flipside r/anime_titties is an ironically-named but legitimately useful news source, supposedly created years ago by users mad that r/WorldPolitics wouldn't moderate content, allowing users to flood the sub with actual anime titty pics, leading to the aforesaid ironic naming of the new subreddit.
posted by WhyamIhereagain at 2:30 AM on October 15 [3 favorites]
I think anyone could say that about an opinion they didn't agree with, oh it's all bots.
No, the Reddit bots are commenting super obviously AI-written content. There's a certain writing style you learn to recognize, and if you click on the username and see that the account is relatively young, everything they've ever commented is formulaic like that, and they've written an unreasonablely high number of comments in a short amount of time, then it's a pretty good chance it's a bot.
Not sure what the purpose of some of these bots are as many don't seem to be pushing any sort of agenda. Building credibility on the account for future use? Faking engagement? Training bots to converse online? I don't know. But the number of bot-like comments on Reddit seems to be dramatically increasing over time.
Maybe someone should write a bot that recognizes other bots and calls them out for being a bot lol.
posted by Jacqueline at 2:56 AM on October 15 [2 favorites]
No, the Reddit bots are commenting super obviously AI-written content. There's a certain writing style you learn to recognize, and if you click on the username and see that the account is relatively young, everything they've ever commented is formulaic like that, and they've written an unreasonablely high number of comments in a short amount of time, then it's a pretty good chance it's a bot.
Not sure what the purpose of some of these bots are as many don't seem to be pushing any sort of agenda. Building credibility on the account for future use? Faking engagement? Training bots to converse online? I don't know. But the number of bot-like comments on Reddit seems to be dramatically increasing over time.
Maybe someone should write a bot that recognizes other bots and calls them out for being a bot lol.
posted by Jacqueline at 2:56 AM on October 15 [2 favorites]
There also seems to be families of bots where one bot will steal and repost content on a delay and the other bots will all comment verbatim the top comments from the original thread.
So if you have a good memory, it's a constant experience of deja vu where you're like "didn't I read this exact conversation once before?" and then occasionally a human comes along and does the detective work of linking to the original post to expose the poster and top commenters as being a bunch of karma-farming bots and you're like "oh so that's why it's familiar -- I *did* read this exact conversation once before."
Again, no idea what the ultimate purpose is for these bots as they don't yet seem to be pushing an agenda, they're just endlessly remixing old Reddit content over and over under new user names.
posted by Jacqueline at 3:04 AM on October 15 [4 favorites]
So if you have a good memory, it's a constant experience of deja vu where you're like "didn't I read this exact conversation once before?" and then occasionally a human comes along and does the detective work of linking to the original post to expose the poster and top commenters as being a bunch of karma-farming bots and you're like "oh so that's why it's familiar -- I *did* read this exact conversation once before."
Again, no idea what the ultimate purpose is for these bots as they don't yet seem to be pushing an agenda, they're just endlessly remixing old Reddit content over and over under new user names.
posted by Jacqueline at 3:04 AM on October 15 [4 favorites]
with a small refugee community remaining in /r/Conservative who regularly have to lock threads to stop themselves being brigaded by the left.
Hoo boy.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 4:17 AM on October 15 [6 favorites]
Hoo boy.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 4:17 AM on October 15 [6 favorites]
The bots that aren't doing anything are generally doing the prep work for their later main duties. For a really clear example, go to /r/sciencememes. All the posts are by accounts that are between 1 week and 6 months old. None of the accounts appear to be doing anything besides posting short comments and memes. But their eventual use is pretty clear when you look at the user names. For example, the top posts right now are by Busty_4Flower, hornybbygurlll901, mommyy_livv, futuremilff93...you get the idea.
Once they've built up enough karma, they'll post, for example, to /r/CQS, which stands for "Contributor Quality Score". The CQS itself is an internal metric used to identify how much an account looks like a spambot based on things like things the account has done, where it's accessing reddit from, whether its email is verified, etc. The CQS sub, on the other hand, is run by an account that tells users who ask what their own CQS scores are. In other words, if you're a bot, and you're prepping an account to be used for botty things and you think you're ready, you post there and they tell you your CQS score. If it's a good score, you know your bot looks (to subs that use CQS for modding) like a real account and probably won't set off any automods to immediately delete your post. If it's a bad score, you go back and do some more prep by posting innocuous stuff/reposting stuff.
So the bots you're seeing that don't seem to be pushing an agenda are still in this stage.
Once they're prepped, then the main things they're usually unleashed to do is:
posted by Bugbread at 4:19 AM on October 15 [16 favorites]
Once they've built up enough karma, they'll post, for example, to /r/CQS, which stands for "Contributor Quality Score". The CQS itself is an internal metric used to identify how much an account looks like a spambot based on things like things the account has done, where it's accessing reddit from, whether its email is verified, etc. The CQS sub, on the other hand, is run by an account that tells users who ask what their own CQS scores are. In other words, if you're a bot, and you're prepping an account to be used for botty things and you think you're ready, you post there and they tell you your CQS score. If it's a good score, you know your bot looks (to subs that use CQS for modding) like a real account and probably won't set off any automods to immediately delete your post. If it's a bad score, you go back and do some more prep by posting innocuous stuff/reposting stuff.
So the bots you're seeing that don't seem to be pushing an agenda are still in this stage.
Once they're prepped, then the main things they're usually unleashed to do is:
- OF spam
- Political activity (pushing political agendas, etc.)
- Dropshipping spam
- Posting links to malware sites/malware software
posted by Bugbread at 4:19 AM on October 15 [16 favorites]
Thanks, chavenet, neat article. I think there are many and strange assumptions built into discussions about social media for "official" use. Personally, I always get a little weirded out by even a whiff of that in the subreddits I frequent. I went to Reddit after Twitter's Elonification, and I was delighted by the quality of discussion, diversity of opinion, and just... "people talking about their thing" aspect, along with a few local and hyper-local news subreddits. The occasional bot shows up, but I don't think it's worse than Facebook's suggested posts, MetaFilter main characters, or Bluesky bad-Twitter-reinventers.
Again, speaking personally, I don't have any expectation of "the government" moving in lockstep to communicate via whatever the popular social media platform is. Finding timely ways to get the news out? Sure. But should I have an expectation that I can get up-to-the-minute updates about whatever news crisis or natural disaster is happening? I think that's beyond an unreasonable expectation, though it's lovely when it's feasible. I think the moment that we had (or is it ongoing?) where we do get that level of update is basically an anomaly.
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:24 AM on October 15 [1 favorite]
Again, speaking personally, I don't have any expectation of "the government" moving in lockstep to communicate via whatever the popular social media platform is. Finding timely ways to get the news out? Sure. But should I have an expectation that I can get up-to-the-minute updates about whatever news crisis or natural disaster is happening? I think that's beyond an unreasonable expectation, though it's lovely when it's feasible. I think the moment that we had (or is it ongoing?) where we do get that level of update is basically an anomaly.
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:24 AM on October 15 [1 favorite]
Jeff Jackson, who is running for attorney general of NC, has used reddit and other social media in the service of radical transparency in a way that is pretty stunning.
posted by rikschell at 4:28 AM on October 15 [3 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 4:28 AM on October 15 [3 favorites]
xdvesper: "I think anyone could say that about an opinion they didn't agree with, oh it's all bots."
Sure, but the thing is that lately you can say that about opinions you do agree with. Like, there are entire subs where I agree with pretty much every post, but I have to filter the sub out because it's just all bots. You'll see that User A has reposted the same Twitter screenshot you've seen 100 times (which is also something humans do), but you do a search and find that they reposted it with the exact same title, word-for-word, as a 3 year old post. And then you look at their other posts and they're also word-for-word reposts of years-old posts. And then you look at their account and it's 28 days old. And you look at the top comment, by User B, and you see that User B's account is also 28 days old, and that their comment is a repost of a years-old comment on the same post. And then the second top comment is by User C, and User C's account is also 28 days old. And their comment is also verbatim from the same years-old post. And then you see that User A, B, and C are all commenting on each others' posts.
Like, at this point, you're not claiming User A, B, and C are bots because you disagree with them. In fact, you agree with them (or, rather, the humans they're copying). You know they're bots for a whole host of other reasons.
There have always been a lot of bots (or humans manually copying old posts), but in the past few months (6 months or so?) its gotten truly insane. Bots integrated with LLMs are making things even harder to spot. Word-replacement bots have existed a long time, but you could spot them by the incorrect replacements ("I prefer using a mouse to using touch control" becoming "I prefer using a small rat to using touch control"). Now, because of LLMs, you have comments that look normal and are almost impervious to looking up their sources. For an actual example, this was posted as a comment three years ago in response to a posted Tweet:
"Remember the time that ol' Benji told the world he's never satisfied his wife, or any other woman? Good times."
And this was posted as a comment one month ago, on a repost of the same Tweet:
"Remember when Benji admitted to the world he’s never pleased his wife—or any other woman for that matter? Classic moment."
This isn't claiming that there's a rise in bots out of disagreeing with people, it's out of there just being so many bots recently.
(Sorry, little off topic. I'll stop now.)
posted by Bugbread at 4:49 AM on October 15 [9 favorites]
Sure, but the thing is that lately you can say that about opinions you do agree with. Like, there are entire subs where I agree with pretty much every post, but I have to filter the sub out because it's just all bots. You'll see that User A has reposted the same Twitter screenshot you've seen 100 times (which is also something humans do), but you do a search and find that they reposted it with the exact same title, word-for-word, as a 3 year old post. And then you look at their other posts and they're also word-for-word reposts of years-old posts. And then you look at their account and it's 28 days old. And you look at the top comment, by User B, and you see that User B's account is also 28 days old, and that their comment is a repost of a years-old comment on the same post. And then the second top comment is by User C, and User C's account is also 28 days old. And their comment is also verbatim from the same years-old post. And then you see that User A, B, and C are all commenting on each others' posts.
Like, at this point, you're not claiming User A, B, and C are bots because you disagree with them. In fact, you agree with them (or, rather, the humans they're copying). You know they're bots for a whole host of other reasons.
There have always been a lot of bots (or humans manually copying old posts), but in the past few months (6 months or so?) its gotten truly insane. Bots integrated with LLMs are making things even harder to spot. Word-replacement bots have existed a long time, but you could spot them by the incorrect replacements ("I prefer using a mouse to using touch control" becoming "I prefer using a small rat to using touch control"). Now, because of LLMs, you have comments that look normal and are almost impervious to looking up their sources. For an actual example, this was posted as a comment three years ago in response to a posted Tweet:
"Remember the time that ol' Benji told the world he's never satisfied his wife, or any other woman? Good times."
And this was posted as a comment one month ago, on a repost of the same Tweet:
"Remember when Benji admitted to the world he’s never pleased his wife—or any other woman for that matter? Classic moment."
This isn't claiming that there's a rise in bots out of disagreeing with people, it's out of there just being so many bots recently.
(Sorry, little off topic. I'll stop now.)
posted by Bugbread at 4:49 AM on October 15 [9 favorites]
(Sorry, I said I'd stop, but I just found this account that's using ChatGPT to build karma and the use of the exact same tone in such different comments tickled me enough I wanted to drop it in here. Now I'll stop.)
Comment 1:
"It's essential to prioritize your own well-being and feelings; while it's understandable to want to protect yourself from further emotional turmoil, having an open and honest conversation with your boyfriend about the pregnancy is crucial, as both of you deserve to navigate this situation together, regardless of your current relationship dynamics."
Comment 2:
"You're not the asshole for feeling frustrated; it's reasonable to want support from your friends in dealing with conflict, and if they're not willing to address the issue or take a stand, it may be worth reevaluating whether this friend group is the right fit for you."
...aaaand Comment 3:
"You’re not an asshole for needing to pee in a difficult situation, but it’s understandable that K is upset about the impact on her project; it might be best to apologize sincerely and offer to help her restore the bushes as a gesture of goodwill."
posted by Bugbread at 4:58 AM on October 15 [2 favorites]
Comment 1:
"It's essential to prioritize your own well-being and feelings; while it's understandable to want to protect yourself from further emotional turmoil, having an open and honest conversation with your boyfriend about the pregnancy is crucial, as both of you deserve to navigate this situation together, regardless of your current relationship dynamics."
Comment 2:
"You're not the asshole for feeling frustrated; it's reasonable to want support from your friends in dealing with conflict, and if they're not willing to address the issue or take a stand, it may be worth reevaluating whether this friend group is the right fit for you."
...aaaand Comment 3:
"You’re not an asshole for needing to pee in a difficult situation, but it’s understandable that K is upset about the impact on her project; it might be best to apologize sincerely and offer to help her restore the bushes as a gesture of goodwill."
posted by Bugbread at 4:58 AM on October 15 [2 favorites]
Reddit is overwhelmingly left-wing (due to skewing college educated), and the right-wing basically got their subreddits banned and users kicked out of the site during the Donald Trump era, with a small refugee community remaining in /r/Conservative who regularly have to lock threads to stop themselves being brigaded by the left.
Citation needed, especially on the whole "leftists have taken over Reddit" meme, which seems to be just absolute nonsense. Remember, at one point Reddit was by far the largest source of hate speech on the internet, and it took years of advocacy and media attention just to get the worst of them banned. Same goes for all the subs that were dedicated to doxxing/stalking, lolicon/CSAM/"teen fashion", violence towards women, and the gore-and-war shock videos. After all of that, all it took was people siding with George Floyd and subs like /r/antiwork taking off for so-called "moderates" to all of the sudden assume a huge jump to the left. If anything, it's these "moderates" who have taken over, many of whom are really just temporarily embarrassed conservatives (just like in real life!) who were upset at so many of their fellow travelers saying the quiet part out loud. That's why idiots like Asmongold (who just went on a super-racist rant against Muslims and Arabs, with a focus on Palestinians) are so popular that they often show up even if you visit the website with a fresh browser or incognito mode but don't log in.
And then, of course, we have the awfulness of other front-page subs, like the straight-up hasbaranik /r/worldnews, which might as well be renamed /r/welovegenocide; the AI-written slop that is most large general-interest and advice subs; and lots of single-topic and niche subs that have been taken over either by bots, bigots, or both. Almost every gaming sub, whether PC, console, tabletop, or board, has had drama in recent years over hate speech and brigading that ends with a chunk of users spinning off a new sub either to escape the hate or promote it, depending on the moderators' own personal views.
As for communities, I've seen mostly 'echo chambers' ... which I don't mind too much. In fact, the contrast of r/Seattle and r/SeattleWA are hilarious.
In relation to the FPP, this is actually really fucking bad, because the "echo chambers" in localized and city-specific subreddits that split like this are often because of lots of users being massively bigoted assholes or disinformation peddlers. This has always been a problem, but once 2020 hit, it exploded, and lots of these subs became devoted to sensationalizing criminal behavior and then applying it to entire communities, which were almost invariably POC or other marginalized groups. As with the gaming subs, it required coordinated moderator efforts and topic bans for many of them just to return to halfway-decent. However, since halfway-decent is just too leftist for a large segment of users, now most of these localities and cities have multiple subreddits, often with at least one overwhelmingly devoted to "discussing" crime, i.e. being bigoted as fuck and reposting from hate sites like the Daily Wire.
All of this is to say, using Reddit for disseminating crucial information, especially the kind that saves lives, depends on knowing who exactly is telling the truth and who cares about you no matter who you are, in an environment that is pretty much just as politicized as real life. If you're already a seasoned Redditor, maybe that's easy for you, but I'd wager if you're already convinced Reddit is a hellhole of leftist tyranny, you're not going to seek out the subs most useful to you. But if you're a new user or don't have an account, and you're trying to find resources vital to helping you? Well, then it can basically be a toss of a coin whether you're directed towards people trying to help you or people who want to hate you, and Reddit, Inc will never do anything to the latter until it affects their reputation and/or bottom line.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 5:32 AM on October 15 [12 favorites]
Citation needed, especially on the whole "leftists have taken over Reddit" meme, which seems to be just absolute nonsense. Remember, at one point Reddit was by far the largest source of hate speech on the internet, and it took years of advocacy and media attention just to get the worst of them banned. Same goes for all the subs that were dedicated to doxxing/stalking, lolicon/CSAM/"teen fashion", violence towards women, and the gore-and-war shock videos. After all of that, all it took was people siding with George Floyd and subs like /r/antiwork taking off for so-called "moderates" to all of the sudden assume a huge jump to the left. If anything, it's these "moderates" who have taken over, many of whom are really just temporarily embarrassed conservatives (just like in real life!) who were upset at so many of their fellow travelers saying the quiet part out loud. That's why idiots like Asmongold (who just went on a super-racist rant against Muslims and Arabs, with a focus on Palestinians) are so popular that they often show up even if you visit the website with a fresh browser or incognito mode but don't log in.
And then, of course, we have the awfulness of other front-page subs, like the straight-up hasbaranik /r/worldnews, which might as well be renamed /r/welovegenocide; the AI-written slop that is most large general-interest and advice subs; and lots of single-topic and niche subs that have been taken over either by bots, bigots, or both. Almost every gaming sub, whether PC, console, tabletop, or board, has had drama in recent years over hate speech and brigading that ends with a chunk of users spinning off a new sub either to escape the hate or promote it, depending on the moderators' own personal views.
As for communities, I've seen mostly 'echo chambers' ... which I don't mind too much. In fact, the contrast of r/Seattle and r/SeattleWA are hilarious.
In relation to the FPP, this is actually really fucking bad, because the "echo chambers" in localized and city-specific subreddits that split like this are often because of lots of users being massively bigoted assholes or disinformation peddlers. This has always been a problem, but once 2020 hit, it exploded, and lots of these subs became devoted to sensationalizing criminal behavior and then applying it to entire communities, which were almost invariably POC or other marginalized groups. As with the gaming subs, it required coordinated moderator efforts and topic bans for many of them just to return to halfway-decent. However, since halfway-decent is just too leftist for a large segment of users, now most of these localities and cities have multiple subreddits, often with at least one overwhelmingly devoted to "discussing" crime, i.e. being bigoted as fuck and reposting from hate sites like the Daily Wire.
All of this is to say, using Reddit for disseminating crucial information, especially the kind that saves lives, depends on knowing who exactly is telling the truth and who cares about you no matter who you are, in an environment that is pretty much just as politicized as real life. If you're already a seasoned Redditor, maybe that's easy for you, but I'd wager if you're already convinced Reddit is a hellhole of leftist tyranny, you're not going to seek out the subs most useful to you. But if you're a new user or don't have an account, and you're trying to find resources vital to helping you? Well, then it can basically be a toss of a coin whether you're directed towards people trying to help you or people who want to hate you, and Reddit, Inc will never do anything to the latter until it affects their reputation and/or bottom line.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 5:32 AM on October 15 [12 favorites]
After scanning about half the thread and seeing lots of posts of the form "Reddit is..." I have to say, there are a lot of people making judgements about reddit from some subreddits.
I mean, the only "Reddit is..." that I saw that I can go along with is "reddit is the only remaining thing that is sort of like Usenet.(1)" Which also, for those of you who were not around at the time, was a very mixed bag.
(1) Well, also any of the form "Reddit is a site that has really shitty support for moderation and search."
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 6:57 AM on October 15 [3 favorites]
I mean, the only "Reddit is..." that I saw that I can go along with is "reddit is the only remaining thing that is sort of like Usenet.(1)" Which also, for those of you who were not around at the time, was a very mixed bag.
(1) Well, also any of the form "Reddit is a site that has really shitty support for moderation and search."
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 6:57 AM on October 15 [3 favorites]
I'm guessing it'll be (briefly) useful until the wrong people (be they edgelord trolls or foreign chaos-making troll farms or whatever) make it suck too much, whether that's from just overwhelming spamming or another round of gamergate-style brigading and doxxing and swatting or whatever else. Real moderation that keeps a community resistant to that kind of bullshit is probably not going to be sufficiently profitable for a private company.
posted by rmd1023 at 7:45 AM on October 15 [2 favorites]
posted by rmd1023 at 7:45 AM on October 15 [2 favorites]
I first joined Reddit maybe 2 years ago, strictly to follow some narrow special technical interests. Low traffic but for the most part has good info from knowledgeable posters. I accidentally discovered karma wh0ring when I saw some random post that annoyed me in a sidebar, to a popular subreddit, I posted a fast witty response, and got 100+ points. A couple of such hits, and then boom I had more cred on the niche subreddits. Anyway, I quit last year over the API/moderator/IPO stuff... and rejoined with a new identity a few months ago, just for those special interests, which continue to be mostly relevant and useful. Though I am a bit more aware now of people who are shilling for specific brands. Last year, one manufacturer even pm'ed me to offer a free product, which I turned down.
Anyway, for me, Reddit is like usenet. It's a series of silos. Seems like a lousy format for general current events or public engagement. But still pretty good for user-generated content, outside of the political, hot-button or opinion categories.
When eyeballs matter more than truth and ethics, will any of the commercial social media platforms, who can be gamed or bribed to algorithmically push content, ever be broadly trustworthy? This is one reason why I currently do something that my long dead grandfather would recognize - I now subscribe to and support one (online) newspaper that I believe still has integrity.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:24 AM on October 15 [6 favorites]
Anyway, for me, Reddit is like usenet. It's a series of silos. Seems like a lousy format for general current events or public engagement. But still pretty good for user-generated content, outside of the political, hot-button or opinion categories.
When eyeballs matter more than truth and ethics, will any of the commercial social media platforms, who can be gamed or bribed to algorithmically push content, ever be broadly trustworthy? This is one reason why I currently do something that my long dead grandfather would recognize - I now subscribe to and support one (online) newspaper that I believe still has integrity.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:24 AM on October 15 [6 favorites]
Now Reddit seems to be the remaining left arguing amongst itself, or the left accusing itself of being bots...
this assertion says a lot more about you than it does about reddit, or anything really
posted by ginger.beef at 9:30 AM on October 15 [4 favorites]
this assertion says a lot more about you than it does about reddit, or anything really
posted by ginger.beef at 9:30 AM on October 15 [4 favorites]
Real moderation that keeps a community resistant to that kind of bullshit is probably not going to be sufficiently profitable for a private company.
Yes! And, since users are less tolerant of dysfunctional communities, serial migration/rerouting to new platforms is increasing faster. Change is the change that drives the market (i'e', planned obsolescence). Moderation need only be 'decorative', nothing worth developing seriously since users are going to move on anyway. Reddit seems to be the microcosm of this. They've internalized the trend via perpetual splintering of groups/subgroups
I'm tempted to go all 'conspiracy theory' and say Reddit is the tool that can disrupt all reliable informative activism, organizing, fact-checking attributes of online communities just by 'feeding the frenzy' (whether this is an intentional goal or not)
... and, yes, this is actually really fucking bad
posted by Surfurrus at 10:33 AM on October 15 [1 favorite]
Yes! And, since users are less tolerant of dysfunctional communities, serial migration/rerouting to new platforms is increasing faster. Change is the change that drives the market (i'e', planned obsolescence). Moderation need only be 'decorative', nothing worth developing seriously since users are going to move on anyway. Reddit seems to be the microcosm of this. They've internalized the trend via perpetual splintering of groups/subgroups
I'm tempted to go all 'conspiracy theory' and say Reddit is the tool that can disrupt all reliable informative activism, organizing, fact-checking attributes of online communities just by 'feeding the frenzy' (whether this is an intentional goal or not)
... and, yes, this is actually really fucking bad
posted by Surfurrus at 10:33 AM on October 15 [1 favorite]
If anything, it's these "moderates" who have taken over, many of whom are really just temporarily embarrassed conservatives (just like in real life!) who were upset at so many of their fellow travelers saying the quiet part out loud.
Again, I say "hoo boy".
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 11:43 AM on October 15 [1 favorite]
Again, I say "hoo boy".
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 11:43 AM on October 15 [1 favorite]
as impactful a contribution as "hoo boy" is, doubly so for the fact you've repeated it, how about you extend yourself to a substantive post with reasoning and a defensible position?
I had a look at reddit last night just to see if it's largely the same space as the one I vacated a few years ago. It looks centrist/moderate to the extent FP posts are featuring much the same stuff as what I used to read. Are you suggesting reddit is some sort of woke-gone-wild space? Forgive me if I'm misinterpreting your "hoo boy"
posted by ginger.beef at 11:57 AM on October 15 [4 favorites]
I had a look at reddit last night just to see if it's largely the same space as the one I vacated a few years ago. It looks centrist/moderate to the extent FP posts are featuring much the same stuff as what I used to read. Are you suggesting reddit is some sort of woke-gone-wild space? Forgive me if I'm misinterpreting your "hoo boy"
posted by ginger.beef at 11:57 AM on October 15 [4 favorites]
I wonder if there's some analog to Gresham's Law with news/information - as more bad information is publicly circulated by bad actors, the more people will seek out settings that are not polluted, and leading them to abandon the commons. You can definitely see this on a small scale on Reddit, where many default subs are basically useless, with WorldNews as mentioned above as a notable example.
Even if Reddit is subdivided, we can still make statements about it as a platform. It wants active users and engagement, so it tries to make joining the platform and subreddits frictionless. But a little friction is good - it keeps concern trolls and uninformed bypassers from just slipping in on a whim and disturbing the peace, then doing it again under another new account when they get banned. There's a noticeable degradation in the quality of a subreddit as it grows in size. I have online communities I've been involved in for over 20 years, with people with shared interests I know and like and interact with. There's not a single subreddit I'll miss when the place blows and only a handful of users I might even recognize. It takes more than just people gathered in one place to make a community.
The whole problem of how to setup and maintain societal online commons is not that hard to solve. Use something like Mastodon, which is more of a protocol than network. Set aside government money to fund the necessary hardware and people, disbursed based on usage. Even just handing out Internet Commons Credits or something for individuals to allocate could work. This stuff is too important to leave in the hands of private corporations like Reddit or Twitter. Alas, like most things, the real obstacle isn't technical but political.
posted by ndr at 12:51 PM on October 15 [2 favorites]
Even if Reddit is subdivided, we can still make statements about it as a platform. It wants active users and engagement, so it tries to make joining the platform and subreddits frictionless. But a little friction is good - it keeps concern trolls and uninformed bypassers from just slipping in on a whim and disturbing the peace, then doing it again under another new account when they get banned. There's a noticeable degradation in the quality of a subreddit as it grows in size. I have online communities I've been involved in for over 20 years, with people with shared interests I know and like and interact with. There's not a single subreddit I'll miss when the place blows and only a handful of users I might even recognize. It takes more than just people gathered in one place to make a community.
The whole problem of how to setup and maintain societal online commons is not that hard to solve. Use something like Mastodon, which is more of a protocol than network. Set aside government money to fund the necessary hardware and people, disbursed based on usage. Even just handing out Internet Commons Credits or something for individuals to allocate could work. This stuff is too important to leave in the hands of private corporations like Reddit or Twitter. Alas, like most things, the real obstacle isn't technical but political.
posted by ndr at 12:51 PM on October 15 [2 favorites]
this assertion says a lot more about you than it does about reddit, or anything really
I'm not clear what you're saying either ginger.beef - but I'm equally curious about the facts. Look at /r/politics and it's virtually 100% pro Kamala and anti Trump. In fact, given that Trump vs Kamala is polling within a few percent of each other, you'd expect a more even split of opinions if the site were unbiased. I literally don't see any pro-Trump opinion anywhere compared to 2016, if any is being posted it must all get instantly downvoted oblivion. I've tried to look up pro-Trump subreddits because I love myself a healthy dose of schadenfreude every-time his team suffers a loss, I want to see their gnashing of teeth and wailing, but honestly there aren't really any major subreddits except /r/Conservative and even they seem faintly embarrassed by his antics. In addition, polls generally show Reddit being Left leaning, eg Statistica or Pew Research.
As for the assertion that /r/worldnews is botted, I thought I'd just do a quick check on the top 3 Israel topics right now -
1. In clash with Netanyahu, Macron says Israel PM 'mustn't forget his country created by UN decision'
Top comment with 6114 points is from a user with 9 years history, who seems to be Czech and enjoys video games like Morrowind, Transport Tycoon Deluxe, and Civilization.
2. US threatens Israel: Resolve humanitarian crisis in Gaza or face arms embargo - report
Top comment with 2743 points is from a user with 9 years history who seems to be from Delaware, and... doesn't seem to have any hobbies except posting obsessively in his local Delaware subreddits and maybe baseball.
3. U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon will not give in to Israeli demand to 'get out of harm's way'
Top comment with 3969 points is a user with 11 years history who seems to live in Tel Aviv, and likes history, plays soulslike games, follows the English Premier League.
Are they bots? It's possible. But if that's the case, my account - 11 years age, 45,000 points, posts in Malaysian and Australian local subreddits, enjoys video games like Genshin Impact and League of Legends, might well be suspected of being a bot account too.
I'm not denying the existence of bot accounts or vote manipulation or mod misconduct (remember when the Reddit CEO was maliciously editing right wing users comments lol). But - and of course this is just my opinion - from what I'm seeing, the predominant tone is being set by real people.
Of course, the bots "main" function could be to boost the opinions of real people whose agenda aligns with their own, in that case... I got nothing. That could very well be true.
Anyway, I hope this was a more substantive treatment of the "Reddit is the Left wing arguing with itself and accusing itself of being bots".
posted by xdvesper at 10:05 PM on October 15 [1 favorite]
I'm not clear what you're saying either ginger.beef - but I'm equally curious about the facts. Look at /r/politics and it's virtually 100% pro Kamala and anti Trump. In fact, given that Trump vs Kamala is polling within a few percent of each other, you'd expect a more even split of opinions if the site were unbiased. I literally don't see any pro-Trump opinion anywhere compared to 2016, if any is being posted it must all get instantly downvoted oblivion. I've tried to look up pro-Trump subreddits because I love myself a healthy dose of schadenfreude every-time his team suffers a loss, I want to see their gnashing of teeth and wailing, but honestly there aren't really any major subreddits except /r/Conservative and even they seem faintly embarrassed by his antics. In addition, polls generally show Reddit being Left leaning, eg Statistica or Pew Research.
As for the assertion that /r/worldnews is botted, I thought I'd just do a quick check on the top 3 Israel topics right now -
1. In clash with Netanyahu, Macron says Israel PM 'mustn't forget his country created by UN decision'
Top comment with 6114 points is from a user with 9 years history, who seems to be Czech and enjoys video games like Morrowind, Transport Tycoon Deluxe, and Civilization.
2. US threatens Israel: Resolve humanitarian crisis in Gaza or face arms embargo - report
Top comment with 2743 points is from a user with 9 years history who seems to be from Delaware, and... doesn't seem to have any hobbies except posting obsessively in his local Delaware subreddits and maybe baseball.
3. U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon will not give in to Israeli demand to 'get out of harm's way'
Top comment with 3969 points is a user with 11 years history who seems to live in Tel Aviv, and likes history, plays soulslike games, follows the English Premier League.
Are they bots? It's possible. But if that's the case, my account - 11 years age, 45,000 points, posts in Malaysian and Australian local subreddits, enjoys video games like Genshin Impact and League of Legends, might well be suspected of being a bot account too.
I'm not denying the existence of bot accounts or vote manipulation or mod misconduct (remember when the Reddit CEO was maliciously editing right wing users comments lol). But - and of course this is just my opinion - from what I'm seeing, the predominant tone is being set by real people.
Of course, the bots "main" function could be to boost the opinions of real people whose agenda aligns with their own, in that case... I got nothing. That could very well be true.
Anyway, I hope this was a more substantive treatment of the "Reddit is the Left wing arguing with itself and accusing itself of being bots".
posted by xdvesper at 10:05 PM on October 15 [1 favorite]
Is Reddit the Future of Crisis Comms?
seems like this can be safely answered through Betteridge's law of headlines
posted by knoxg at 1:56 AM on October 16 [2 favorites]
seems like this can be safely answered through Betteridge's law of headlines
posted by knoxg at 1:56 AM on October 16 [2 favorites]
It's not botting that makes /worldnews an Israeli shill subreddit, it's that the moderators ban anyone who expresses even the mildest opinion that maybe Palestinians shouldn't be murdered wholesale. Made me unsub from it months ago.
posted by tavella at 8:23 AM on October 16 [3 favorites]
posted by tavella at 8:23 AM on October 16 [3 favorites]
Arguing that those accounts aren't bots, they're just real people who are bloodthirsty genocidal maniacs makes it all so much worse, actually.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 8:37 AM on October 16 [3 favorites]
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 8:37 AM on October 16 [3 favorites]
« Older Stream More Than 30,000 Movies for Free With This... | 森林浴 Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Rhaomi at 12:22 PM on October 14 [39 favorites]