Reddit and the Struggle To Detoxify the Internet (newyorker.com)

In an article published on The New Yorker this week, Andrew Marantz discusses the state of free speech on the Web and takes a look at Reddit, the internet's fourth-most-popular site, after Google, YouTube, and Facebook. Some excerpts from the story: On November 23, 2016, shortly after President Trump's election, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman was at his desk, in San Francisco, perusing the site. It was the day before Thanksgiving. Reddit's administrators had just deleted a subreddit called r/Pizzagate, a forum for people who believed that high-ranking staffers of Hillary Clinton's Presidential campaign, and possibly Clinton herself, were trafficking child sex slaves. The reason for the ban, according to Reddit's administrators, was not the beliefs of people on the subreddit, but the way they'd behaved -- specifically, their insistence on publishing their enemies' private phone numbers and addresses, a clear violation of Reddit's rules. [...] Some of the conspiracy theorists left Reddit and reunited on Voat, a site made by and for the users that Reddit sloughs off. Other Pizzagaters stayed and regrouped on r/The_Donald, a popular pro-Trump subreddit. Throughout the Presidential campaign, The_Donald was a hive of Trump boosterism. By this time, it had become a hermetic subculture, full of inside jokes and ugly rhetoric. The community's most frequent commenters, like the man they'd helped propel to the Presidency, were experts at testing boundaries. Within minutes, they started to express their outrage that Pizzagate had been deleted.

Redditors are pseudonymous, and their pseudonyms are sometimes prefaced by "u," for "username." Huffman's is Spez. As he scanned The_Donald, he noticed that hundreds of the most popular comments were about him: "fuck u/spez", "u/spez is complicit in the coverup". One commenter simply wrote "u/SPEZ IS A CUCK," in bold type, a hundred and ten times in a row. Huffman, alone at his computer, wondered whether to respond. "I consider myself a troll at heart," he said later. "Making people bristle, being a little outrageous in order to add some spice to life -- I get that. I've done that." Privately, Huffman imagined The_Donald as a misguided teen-ager who wouldn't stop misbehaving. "If your little brother flicks your ear, maybe you ignore it," he said. "If he flicks your ear a hundred times, or punches you, then maybe you give him a little smack to show you're paying attention."

Although redditors didn't yet know it, Huffman could edit any part of the site. He wrote a script that would automatically replace his username with those of The_Donald's most prominent members, directing the insults back at the insulters in real time: in one comment, "Fuck u/Spez" became "Fuck u/Trumpshaker"; in another, "Fuck u/Spez" became "Fuck u/MAGAdocious." The_Donald's users saw what was happening, and they reacted by spinning a conspiracy theory that, in this case, turned out to be true. "Manipulating the words of your users is fucked," a commenter wrote.

Comments

It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

With unlimited up/down modding, which just reinforces the statement above.
Ars Technica has recently gone the same way and it's brought a once great site down because of it. Contrary ideas get downmodded into oblivion and it stifles the discussion of controversial topics.

A bad thing to do.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

Man, are we in Larry's garage again this month?

Contrary ideas get downmodded into oblivion and it stifles the discussion of controversial topics.

Have you paid attention to Slashdot in the last several years?

Buddy, I got some bad news for you.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Megol]

We could debate that of course but the problem isn't that some opinions are unpopular but that the ARS "community" effectively silences reasonable well stated opinions. Fuck that. Fuck them.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[epyT-R]

Except that on slashdot the comment moderators are at least somewhat randomized. They're not a fixed cadre of ideologues.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Solandri]

That's the problem with allowing downvotes.

Allowing only upvotes means once an idea passes a certain threshold number of supporters, then it can be highlighted. But if you allow downvotes, then ideas popular only with the minority get downvoted back into oblivion by the majority. Resulting in a system where only the majority's ideas survive to be highlighted.

It seems like such a minor thing, but it creates a vastly different environment. One toxic to the premise of democracy - that new, disruptive and unpopular ideas can gradually build up support until they supplant the old majority viewpoint. That can't happen if the majority essentially has veto power over any new ideas contrary to their long-held beliefs.

As bad as hate speech is, if your underlying premise is that on balance people are good and that if given all sides of an argument they will usually make the right choice, then the proper way to fight hate speech isn't to ban it. It's to counter it by informing people of the contrary arguments. Otherwise you throw the speck which will grow into a baby out with the bathwater.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Anonymous Coward]

On ARS, I skip through the sea of group think upvoted comments and look for those with down-votes. Some are trollish comments, many are insightful, factual, and/or present a solid point.

It is a great display of how group mentality works.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[MightyYar]

It would be interesting if we could have an option to rate "controversial" posts higher. Something like a fractional bonus awarded to the count of offsetting moderations: 3 up mods and 2 down mods would result in 2 x fractional_bonus points added to the score.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[MightyYar]

Downvotes could be used to identify controversial ideas - often the most interesting parts of the discussion. A troll will have mostly downvotes. A platitude will be overwhelmingly positive. The real gritty, interesting stuff will have both up and downvotes.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[BradMajors]

No, voting is not a problem.

The problem is Reddit does not allow anyone the option to use Reddit with voting turned off.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Anne Thwacks]

A better solution is logarithmic progression: after N votes, a moderation is 1/Nth of a vote, so that a massive number of votes shows, but only marginally. (1 over N squared may be needed to achieve the required result)

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, not a problem in the slightest.

You seem to think Reddit / Slashdot / Ars / any site have the monopoly of forums. No, this is not the case. Anyone with a few hundred bucks lying around can quite easily start their own forum and host said "disruptive voices".

Also, you'd have a stronger point if the article weren't about doxxing people and really obvious lies tied to a specific person (Pizzagate / Hillary). Constructive conversations about gun control? Debates about abortion? Those are topics worthy of "veto power", not the garbage there. I mean, Hillary's not even a contender anymore and they're still going on about it.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[OYAHHH]

Okay, I'm obviously a total idiot. Could you get a bit more specific example. I got the 3 ups and 2 downs part. What would be the math on the fractional component?

I'm building myself a social site, just interested in other ideas....

Thanks.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[MikeMo]

I always thought that being able to rate the reviewer in some way would be cool, such that highly-rated reviewers would "weigh" more and their upvotes (or downvotes) would count more. Kinda like the karma system does for posts. I think it might still degenerate.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[apoc.famine]

Reddit is especially insane with its modding. It's baffling, really, how they never attempted to fix the utterly broken system they started off with.

1) Unlimited up/down modding

2) No meta-modding

3) No sock-puppet control

4) No effective karma of any sort for good posts or good modding

If they had addressed any two of those four, I think it would be a totally different environment. As it is, it's designed to be abused by those with the most time and single-minded focus on their hands, and there's nothing anyone can do about it except fight fire with fire. And for most people, they don't have that sort of time and energy.

Having suffered under a number of modding systems in my life, I attempted to come up with one that deals with gaming the system, prevents echo chambers, rewards positive contributions, and doesn't overly disrupt the flow of communication. And you know what? I don't think it's possible. Sure, you can get most of those things in a modding system, but it's damn hard to get them all. And what I modeled which seemed to be close was so opaque that it would likely lead to tons of censorship and conspiracy complaints. /.'s modding system really isn't half bad, compared to all the others out there. And having tried to come up with a better system, I can sort-of see why so many sites just gave up and implemented a known broken and bad system.

Still, Reddit's is about the worst. I think even 4chan's is better.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[0100010001010011]

Slashdot's moderation style is still hands down the best I've seen. I wish more sites adopted it.

I would actually pay money for a good Slashdot moderation style site for discussion other than technology.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

If a large number of people do not vote they way you think they should vote, you should probably have a reality check.

Most people who think/say "They are all wrong, *I* am the one who is right" are wrong.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[0100010001010011]

The problem with a simple up/down is it allows no classification. At least Slashdot separates by Troll, Flamebait & Offtopic.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[0100010001010011]

That site is called 4Chan and you can still visit it if you wish.

Re: It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to rejuvenate the USENET. Why do we need these commercial Forums at all? They are Beholden to the rich and powerful anyway.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[epyT-R]

Yet your post is here. You are free to moderate their posts and they are free to moderate yours. Seems fair to me.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a nice theory if you're someone that just needs to comment for the sake of commenting. But the fact stands that your shitty comment and any other shitty comment remains on the site, sans being deleted. Can't say the same about Reddit or other platforms like Ars

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[chispito]

Contrary ideas get downmodded into oblivion and it stifles the discussion of controversial topics.

A bad thing to do.

The problem is the people who are the most motivated to "detoxify" the internet want this to happen. It's just a matter of what is considered "controversial." Not coincidentally, this is why I have yet to kick the Slashdot habit, no matter how annoying the crusading has become.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[chispito]

Except that on slashdot the comment moderators are at least somewhat randomized. They're not a fixed cadre of ideologues.

Yep, as was repeatedly brought up during the anniversary celebrations, Slashdot still has an elegant, well-conceived, and (in light of other sites' abject failures) surprisingly effective modding system. The reason Reddit doesn't fix theirs is because mob rule gives you a nice mob to advertise to.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[CaptainDork]

I sign in and I have a clue, but you won't like it.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[butzwonker]

Sorry, I don't buy this. I'm following online discussions of controversial topics for more than 20 years now, and I cannot recall many instances where these would really and genuinely be enlightening or beneficial to anyone. This is extremely rare. The best thing you can get from such discussions is unreliable, superficial knowledge by testimony that you have to check manually with other sources anyway before you can trust it. In other words, I don't think that online forums are good for discussing controversial topics. Even the local pub fares better in terms of civility, reasonableness, politeness and overall friendliness, listening to each other, rational exchange of standpoints and ideas, constructive dialogue, etc.

On Usenet we used killfiles, they were a somewhat of a solution to keep the crackpots and conspiracy theorists at a distance, though not ideal. Centralized forums like Slashdot don't want to empower users, so they don't give them the same functionality.

In my opinion, civil public online discourse with anonymity or pseudonymity is only possible with a combination of heavy moderation, temporary IP banning, and shadow-banning. It has nothing to do with left or right or freedom of speech or anything like that, it's just a matter of common sense and extensive experience that without moderation and bans the number of toxic shitposters will raise above a critical threshold. Trolls and crackpots, whether they do it for fun or because they have mental problems or political agendas, have way more time at hand than reasonable people. This is a fact of life.

Forums with less moderation work fine in smaller communities oriented towards common goals. But even these usually need quite drastic measures against hostile takeovers at hand - see IRC wars, etc.

Echo chambers: These exist, but people who are susceptible to becoming seriously influenced in their life by their online participation in a "circle jerk echo chamber" have much more of a problem than just these echo chambers. Most people do not have this problem. Nowadays there is 0 problem of getting good information on practically anything. On the contrary, we're swamped in insanely accurate and fast news, which leads to a distorted negative perception of reality. Echo chambers are only a problem for certain personalities who would find their echo chamber in real life if they don't find it online.

I've been on Slashdot under many different handles almost since its inception, and I would say that in the past 5 years or so it has failed. Why? Probably just because more people are online, and you only get along with most people personally, not by "discussing controversial topics" but by dealing with them in daily interactions. There are still forums that work, reddit is not bad in fact, and I spend more time on another forum that I do not want to mention in order not to get trolls any ideas.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[zifn4b]

With unlimited up/down modding, which just reinforces the statement above

If Slashdot comments were moderated like Reddit I suspect you'd be well over 100.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[sycodon]

There is a meta-moderation system where you look at the moderation and post and judge if it was reasonable or not. I've not done that in quite a while so who knows how often/if it is used anymore.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[quantaman]

Slashdot's moderation style is still hands down the best I've seen. I wish more sites adopted it.

I would actually pay money for a good Slashdot moderation style site for discussion other than technology.

I do enjoy the meta-humour where all the posts praising the /. moderation system are generally score 4/5 while the ones opposing are being modded down into oblivion.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[MightyYar]

Back when it was in regular use, I had the opportunity to meta-mod someone who had down-modded one of my comments. Hehehe, karma, bitches.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[quantaman]

./ seems to do well allowing downvotes. There's certainly bias on certain subjects, but in general you find high quality comments on both sides.

I think technology (the moderation system) plays a role, but as tech people I think we tend to overemphasize technology and understate the role of editors in establishing a site's culture. The /. editors simply don't post the sorts of stories and summaries that attract trolls and extremists, as a result the people who mod tend to be more reasoned and open to opposing ideas.

Sites who post controversial stories to drive page views are going to have lower quality comments because that's the people they attract and the tone they set.

Sites who allow users to post stories are going to end up with sections that are cesspools.

I don't think you can fix reddit with the right moderation system, whenever users control the content there's always going to be problematic content.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[MightyYar]

There are a number of ways to use that metric, but I was thinking in the context of the Slashdot system. If I had my "fractional_bonus" set to 0.5, then in my example the Slashdot moderation system would mod the comment 3 ups - 2 downs + (2 * 0.5) = 2. The normal Slashdot system would simply moderate it 3 ups - 2 downs = 1.

Reddit would be very similar, but it has no limit to up or downvotes, so maybe the fraction would need to be lower - or possible a log scale or something. But the point is you would award a comment for being controversial. I'm sure someone here smarter than me can come up with the downside to this.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[MightyYar]

I like that, too - but that attacks a slightly different problem than I was trying to address - where you say something polarizing and it gets modded down as much as up. I imagine almost anything said on Reddit involving guns or abortion probably fits into this category.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[0100010001010011]

Has anyone compiled a list of moderation styles as well as their pros and cons?

Reddit's 'everyone gets a vote' doesn't work because "everyone" easily means bots.

Forums are usually moderated by a select team of moderators.

Facebook is just likes.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[0100010001010011]

It's not perfect, but it's better than a Reddit bandwagon. Add to that that it's capped means that there is hope something can recover.

I've had more than a few +5 Funnies that started off as -2 because the original moderators didn't get the joke. On reddit that type of comment would just be gone.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[omnichad]

There's a huge difference between insightful comments and namecalling/inciteful comments. The latter is rampant. Nobody wants an actual conversation anymore - I see rhetoric phrases all over the place. We see complaints that openly hostile users are being downmodded - as if that's undeserved.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[omnichad]

People willing to moderate browse lower. I typically browse at 0 or -1, but I rarely moderate because I want to fully participate in discussion. And respond to ACs. Those responses tend to get AC posts upmodded as a result, so it's not all for nothing.

Re: It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[omnichad]

A republic is a democratic form of government. It's not a direct democracy. The general term "democracy" typically refers to both.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[aevan]

4chan isn't nearly as censor/echoy-free as you think. There is a reason for the 'he does it for free' meme.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[hsthompson69]

I used to believe that, but I haven't gotten mod points for years now. I'm guessing I was blacklisted somehow, but was never informed if I had misbehaved in some manner at all.

My guess is that I shared the wrong opinions, but never cared enough to try and appeal to the gods of slashdot to rectify the situation.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[epyT-R]

where do they go then? to other sites where they can revel in their clueless echo chambers?

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[MikeMo]

I am positive that I can go to other sites and get all upvotes for Apple and all downvotes for Android.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[toonces33]

There are too many stories that are clickbait.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[SunTzuWarmaster]

I think Slashdot really stumbled across the formula - modding is limited, metamodding is a thing no one does, downmods are capped, upmods are capped. "2" represents debate, "5" represents the majority, "-1" represents the silenced, "1" represents that no one cares enough to mod it. This post will be a "1", and I'm okay with that. Part of the problem on /r/politics is that an opinion which is in the 40% minority gets easily modded to "negative and silenced from discussion" quickly.

As an example, consider my lowest rated reddit comments (https://www.reddit.com/user/suntzuwarmaster/comments/?sort=top&after=t1_cmredwq&count=400). A good case in point is a post to /r/bodyweightfitness (where I have a good amount of karma) where I said "I think bodyweightfitness is more challenging than the gym" (downvoted into oblivion). Another case in point is to a response to President Trumps comment that invading Iraq was the worst decision ever made by anyone, and I said "what about both land wars started in Russia? What about the celts' decision to reject roman rule, which more-or-less annihilated their race?" (Downvoted to oblivion).

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Luckyo]

You can set the site to show you all posts regardless of score. I know I do. And then you just ignore the score. That said, it is an effective tool to attack the majority who don't mess with settings and just use it with default settings.

My biggest problem with reddit however is that it's a platform that is essentially in hands of clear cut ideologues, who are segregating the site into system where they constrain certain viewpoints to certain subreddits only via admin assistance (i.e. shadow bans). That results in people with certain opinions that reddits administration finds to be disagreeable to be essentially locked into places with nothing but others that agree with them for company. Which in turn creates an echo chamber which radicalises people as overton window shifts towards the extreme. The_Donald is a good example of this. It started as a genuine pro-Trump grass roots political movement and became an extreme echo chamber as people who got punished through reddit's administrations suppression of pro-Trump views started increasingly flock in there to vent and as a result radicalise one another.

And this is in reddit's interests to do. People in echo chambers spend longer on the site. Same thing as we have seen with facebook.

That said, reddit is also interesting in how the overton window has shifted. I remember the time when just implying that islam and terrorism are connected was ground for automatic permaban from r/Europe. Same mods still largely in place, but they no longer have the mindset to ban entire threads and scores of users discussing the topic. It took Bataclan, several trucks of peace, pedophiliac muslim grooming gangs branding little girls with hot irons "because they're white and so trash" according to their own words in court, and Cologne mass harassment to get there. But it was dragged there, mods kicking, screaming and mass banning all the way. It's a good microcosm of society.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[0100010001010011]

I think that this community and academics at large could probably come up with a decent working moderation system if we all sat down and discussed how to do it.

Other users have mentioned a 'log e' function. I think being able to 'earn' moderation weights would be one thing. As well as being able to weight certain users (more than just friend/foe) or their moderation weights going through a transform before being applied.

I would also like to be able to sort by more than just +-. The same comments on the same article viewed at +5 Funny or +5 Informative would be completely separate 'threads'.

Re: It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Pfhorrest]

Technically republicanism (small R like you're talking about) and democracy are orthogonal concepts. One is about in whose name state power is exercised, the other is about who directs the exercise of it. A republic is a state whose people are its "shareholders", in whose name its actions are conducted. A democracy is a state whose people are its "management", who direct its actions. A state can be both (like the US), one but not the other (the UK is a democracy but not a republic; North Korea is a republic but not a democracy), or neither (like Saudi Arabia).

"Republic" does not mean "representative democracy".

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[0100010001010011]

civil public online discourse with anonymity or pseudonymity is only possible with a combination of heavy moderation, temporary IP banning, and shadow-banning.

I think we can get there with encryption, white listing and "AI". Just a simple text classification tool to determine the reading level of the comment as an initial moderation value would be a good start.

Don't sign your message, -2. Below a 10th grade writing level, -2. Anonymous account, -2. I just set my client to show me everything +2 and I only reply to stuff 2+ and you've automated the bulk of moderation.

Let the crackpots and tolls post. I won't even bother making Slashdot render their messages.

Heck, charge me per post. $0.02 ~ 5 Dogecoin. I'll gladly pay $0.02 to post to what I hope is an interesting discussion. If I get modded past +4 put my 'deposit' back in my account to post again. If I don't, it goes to run the site.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Anonymous Coward]

What I remember most about attempting to meta-moderate is that it was incredibly frustrating. The comments were always presented singly, and because most slashdolts can't be bothered to quote what they're responding to the comments were usually completely without context. The point of meta-moderation is to judge whether or not a moderation was made appropriately, but this is often an impossible judgement to make without context. I quickly gave up.

Nowadays I just try to moderate fairly and pretty much never post with my real account because I've usually already moderated some comments (yes, just like right now) on a story already and I hate to nullify moderations that I think are fair.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[0100010001010011]

PGP sign.

Not signature sign.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[drinkypoo]

I would actually pay money for a good Slashdot moderation style site for discussion other than technology.

I wanted to start a slashdot for cars but the squatters on cardot told me they wanted ten grand for the domain and then spammed me about it for months

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[AmiMoJo]

People will always try to game the moderation system. The key is to make sure no one ever wins.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[AmiMoJo]

You can kinda block people on Slashdot. Just set foes to a -5 modifier and mark the people you don't want to see.

The problem with Slashdot recently is the trolls abusing the moderation system have gotten better at it. It's a constant battle on every platform, because people are always looking for new ways to troll.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[GonzoPhysicist]

T_D started as satire and mockery and then Poe's law (and trolls) took over and it became what it ended up as

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Capsaicin]

I think that this community and academics at large could probably come up with a decent working moderation system.

As a start you'd prepare moderators via a graduate entry university course (MMod) covering procedural fairness, free speech issues, logical fallacies as well as filling in some factual basics in the humanities and/or sciences (to pad out the blind spot left by the original degree). The practising MMod would be required to undertake continuing education and be subject to periodic work review. Of course moderators would refrain from voting or in any other way becoming involved in party politics. After we have capable and bias-free moderators we could start getting serious designing systems ... ;)

Until then we may just have to survive the fact that publishing unpopular opinions invites social censure.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Luckyo]

Interesting correction. It is possible that I found out about it later, because when I first visited it, it seemed like a fairly upbeat pro-Trump grass roots gathering.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[eaglesrule]

The main issue I have with Slashdot's moderation is the lack of transparency when the editors exercise their use of unlimited mod points. I'm assuming Dice didn't change that policy when it took over, and given the editorial bias that gets called out on a fairly frequent basis, there exists the possibility that many comments on an article can have biased moderation.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[EETech1]

Ta-Da!
https://slashdot.org/firehose....

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Pluvius]

The big problem with this is that if you metamod regularly, the algorithm no longer gives you moderation points. I know this from personal experience.

Rob

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[MightyYar]

Until then we may just have to survive the fact that publishing unpopular opinions invites social censure.

...and we're back to one of the downsides of anonymous speech :)

Re: It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[just another AC]

Are you trying to tell me that the US political system exercises its power for the good of all citizens rather than for the corporations and the rich that can buy the politicians?

The only way the US is a republic is in name only.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[humankind]

It could be fixed very quickly if Slashdot did away with ACs.

Re: It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Pfhorrest]

I literally said "in whose name". That's 100% what a republic is about. For illustration: criminal cases in the United States (a republic) are titled "The People of [wherever] vs [whoever]", while in the United Kingdom (not a republic but a monarchy) they are titled "Rex [or Regina] vs [whoever]" because the action is not in the name of the people but in the name of the king or queen.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[ArmoredDragon]

./ seems to do well allowing downvotes. There's certainly bias on certain subjects, but in general you find high quality comments on both sides.

I get a lot of -1 Disagree moderation here, though it usually comes from communists.

Re: It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Reverend Green]

Definitely check out Slashcode, the Free Software release of Slashdot's source from years ago. The workings of the /. moderation system is way more complicated and interesting than I expected.

Re: It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Reverend Green]

I can go down to the cellphone store in my neighborhood and buy both Androids and iPhones. Apparently both are quite popular...

Re: It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Reverend Green]

I always browse at -1, ALWAYS for years & years. Pretty sure I'm not alone on that.

Re: It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Reverend Green]

Domain squatters are social parasites, shit stains on the floor of a public restroom.

Re: It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Reverend Green]

If Slashdot's owners really wanted to improve their credibility, they'd make Slashdot open source again.

Not that we have any reason to trust that the code running on the servers is the same as the publicly released code. But it's still a good start.

Re: It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Reverend Green]

Slashdot without anonymous comments wouldn't be worth reading. I, for one, value freedom of speech.

Re: It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Reverend Green]

There's a "Resistance" I could get into. Restore CmdrTaco to his right and proper role as owner of Slashdot! These goddamned advertising peddlers cannot be trusted with custody of his beautiful creation.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[AutodidactLabrat]

Have they eliminated fake news distributed by bad actors?
Then you brought this on yourselves.

Re: It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Reverend Green]

SJW != communist

Re: It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Reverend Green]

The designers of Slashdot are long, long gone. This site's current owners claim to be in the advertising business. Not exactly a noble profession.

Respect is earned. If the new owners make strong public commitments to freedom of speech, and open source the current code, people will probably respect them. Until then, probably not.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Megane]

The thing that /. does that is different from everyone else is how it gives mod points. Every time you read something on the site, it gives you a sort of micro-point called a "token". Once it reaches a threshold, you get mod points, either five or fifteen of them, for three days. As you use them, your points are depleted, and it could be weeks before you get more. Or if you don't use them, it could be days. A big thing this does is prevent new users (whether shills or simply outsiders) from immediately being able to moderate posts, and it prevents continuous abuse. Also, meta-moderation (when people actually do it in spite of the ambiguity of "does + mean agree or that the original post should be modded up?") can increase the time to months before you get mod points again.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Cederic]

Help me out here, what the fuck is a 'neckbeard'?

I see this term thrown out but I have no idea what it means. Is it meant to be bad? Good? Represent a particular political view?

Incidentally I like to hear multiple perspectives on things. Groupthink is inherently dangerous, whether you're inside the group or not.

Re: It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[MightyYar]

The solution to "not all opinions are valid" is to vette the speakers. Since we are talking about anonymous speech, that is not possible - you'll never know if a person is even remotely qualified to speak about the topic at hand. So you are left with technical solutions.

Why do you think a "controversial" bonus would elevate racist posts? A quick check at reddit shows that searching for racist topics and posts has the vast majority modded down into oblivion. And what is wrong with elevating racist posts if the number of people giving a thumbs-up to a racist post is approximately equal to the number of people giving it a thumbs-down? Clearly that is something that community needs to talk about.

Re: It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[MightyYar]

Thank you for perfectly illustrating my point.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Cederic]

I do like Slashdot's approach, and it really should have been mimicked by so many other sites.

Oddly the highest signal-noise ratio for tech conversations tends to be The Register's article comments. That does allow up and down voting, but doesn't order or hide comments based on the score. The community just happens to be intelligent, educated and there because of a shared interest in technology.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Cederic]

I'm following online discussions of controversial topics for more than 20 years now, and I cannot recall many instances where these would really and genuinely be enlightening or beneficial to anyone

I find that quite astonishing. I've participated in online discussions of controversial topics for more than 25 years and I've learned a hell of a lot.

I just rapidly assess and interpret what's being said and use external references to validate or repudiate things.

The online discussion is where I learn what to research and look deeper into. That's valuable, and I feel sorry for you that you can't get that value.

The best thing you can get from such discussions is unreliable, superficial knowledge by testimony that you have to check manually with other sources anyway before you can trust it.

Which is nonsense. One person on Slashdot has marked me as a 'foe' because I call out their inane views on certain topics. I know that if they're posting on those topics then I'm likely to disagree with them. However because Slashdot tells you who your 'freaks' are, I see their posts on other topics too. They happen to be bloody informative about their technical speciality, and I can actually trust their posts in that space.

So they hate me (enough to mark me as a foe) and I strongly disagree with them on controversial topics but on other (potentially controversial topics) I can still gain value from their posts without needing to fact check.

This kind of disproves your point, but even if it didn't: So fucking what. As I posted, having to go and research something is significantly easier if you have pointers on what to research.

Shit, sometimes I dispute something, go and research it and find out I was wrong. That's rather delightful, in an annoying way. Enlightening and beneficial.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[SunTzuWarmaster]

I forgot two critical features:
1 - you can either a) vote/mod, or b) participate in the discussion.
2 - Having good karma automatically gets you a bonus - creating sock puppet accounts is a waste of time (unless they make good points which are positively modded independent of the general discussion).

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[TimothyHollins]

Or, and hear me out here, could it be that you tend to agree with the groupthink over at ARS?

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[tbannist]

Help me out here, what the fuck is a 'neckbeard'?

A neckbeard is a beard that hasn't been groomed properly and has been allowed to grow out of the neck, as opposed to a well groomed beard which grows from the face and chin. In this case, it is used a pejorative term to represent people with a failure to understand basic social niceties such as grooming, etiquette, or the art of conversation.

I see this term thrown out but I have no idea what it means. Is it meant to be bad? Good? Represent a particular political view?

It's meant to be bad, and might represent a technically acute but generally unsophisticated viewpoint, especially when presented in a rude manner.

Incidentally I like to hear multiple perspectives on things. Groupthink is inherently dangerous, whether you're inside the group or not.

The problem is that most often I hear people complain about group think when the group simply doesn't agree with their claims. Usually it's followed by a rant about how it's group think because other people won't entertain their ideas about Obama being a secret Plutonian sent to prepare the United States for an invasion by the frog people of Europa... But I digress, group think can be a problem, but the claims are often specious, in my experience.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Cederic]

a pejorative term to represent people with a failure to understand basic social niceties such as grooming, etiquette, or the art of conversation

So basically people with Aspergers? Shrug, it's hardly a fucking insult then.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I don't see it as any more so than any given Usenet group. What people don't understand is that online communications are autistic in nature- the anger you feel at anything is coming from YOUR side of the piece of glass you're reading the words on.

Emoticons have helped change this in the days since 7-bit ASCII teletypes, but not very much.

Those environments have ALWAYS been toxic.

Re: It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Marxist Hacker 42]

And if you think reality has a strong conservative bias and you get angry, the problem isn't with reality.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Or that a man who was once a casino owner and whose policies were quite racist, would go on to help Israel and sign a bill with a massive amount of government borrowing to provide educational grants to women and other minorities.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Exactly. And in certain geek circles- the neckbeard is the guy you go to when Big Bertha's CPU is on the fritz again....

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Mod parent up! Excellent advice

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Methadras]

It's worse than a circle-jerk echo chamber, it's the leftist attempt to further sanitize speech and thought. To send a chilling message to those that say something in contravention of normal everyday common sense thinking and substitute it with the politically correct lexicon that is approved by the SJW groupthink minders.

Re:It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[Veretax]

Or if people have forgotten. DIgg before Kevin Rose got out.

Re: It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

[swamp_ig]

I'm still not in on the gay conspiracy. I always thought I was pretty much as gay as a dyke on a bike, but clearly not gay enough.

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[account_deleted]

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See: the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory

[PeterGM]

https://www.penny-arcade.com/c... Good luck changing human nature and all. A noble goal overshadowed only by its ludicrousness.

Re:Spez shouldn't have did that but...

[Anonymous Coward]

How is it an eye for an eye, did The_Donald posters edit somebody else's posts?

Re:the newyorker?

[PPH]

Actually, one can trust them. We know who they are and what their agenda is. So their biases are quite predictable.

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[account_deleted]

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instant_karma.pl

[Camel Pilot]

I wonder if he named the script instance_karma.pl

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[account_deleted]

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Let the internet segregate

[Karmashock]

Do bikers mix with the cocktail crowd when they go out for dinner on the town? They do not.

Do teenage girls go to the same concerts as 80 year old women? They do not.

We are defined not merely by what we are but what we are not. Various ideologies are defined in part by their opposition to other ideologies. Given world views conflict.

The mistake of the social networking people is putting everyone in the same room. That was the error.

Nazis are going to exist.
Jihadis are going to exist.
Communists are going to exist.
Evangelical Christians are going to exist.

Etc etc etc... You don't put them all in the same social network. You segregate.

You can have common areas for mainstream groups but keep places open for fringe groups to go or they'll intrude into the mainstream space given no alternative.

Also do not presume to control who believes what by controlling the flow of information.

As the man said: "The internet views censorship as damage and routes around it."

Savvy?

Provide space for NON-ILLEGAL fringe groups to congregate and leave them unmolested in those spaces. Do not censor people.

These are the mistakes. Fix them and the issue goes away.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[liquid_schwartz]

Nazis are going to exist. Jihadis are going to exist. Communists are going to exist. Evangelical Christians are going to exist.

Odd grouping since only Christians are responsible for building things and improving the world. Unless you subscribe to unsupported yet trendy views like religion has killed more people than anything else.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[darkain]

Correct. Communist Soviet Russia's Tetris was all about blocks falling from the sky and destroying all the other blocks below.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[Anonymous Coward]

Nazis are going to exist.
Jihadis are going to exist.
Communists are going to exist.
Evangelical Christians are going to exist.

Odd grouping since only Christians are responsible for building things and improving the world. Unless you subscribe to unsupported yet trendy views like religion has killed more people than anything else.

Weird, because he didn't group them, he in fact explicitly separated them and talks about separating them. It is the purpose of his post.

What about the Chinese? They most definitely are building things and improving the world. The muslims? They invented our numbering system.

Sure, you could say that slaughtering native populations, entire nations, was in fact "Improving the world", but some disagree.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[omnichad]

Do teenage girls go to the same concerts as 80 year old women? They do not.

Bad example

Re: Let the internet segregate

[omnichad]

somewhat specific offshoot of the main Christian branch.

Despite the common usage of the term, it's actually a very general, broad classification.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[Optic7]

What you say makes some sense, as long as people are only talking smack. The only problem is that TFS says that the pizzagate reddit was banned for repeated doxxing of people. Should that be allowed anywhere, even segregated fringe groups? I would imagine that any US-based business would never allow this, as the potential liability is insane. Refer to the recent mistaken identity SWATting death.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[shayd2]

All that sounds good. We all live in our own (Google supported) bubbles anyway.

BUT

1 All of the groups lists (and probably ALL legal groups) want to proselytize so they need to push into our nice friendly vanilla spaces

2 Who defines "legal"???

Re:Let the internet segregate

[Karmashock]

I can do it three ways.

1. I can take the most permissive system and use that. So, the US freedom of speech laws are generally the most permissive. If the speech doesn't violate US speech law, then that would be the code.

2. I can take the LEAST permissive system and use that. So, North Korea or something. If anything violates the terms of North Korean law or the general principles of that system, then it would be banned everywhere.

3. I can create sovereign bubbles with German facebook and Italian facebook etc... The codes would be specific to those regions and the conduct in them would be under those rules.

As it stands, we generally have option 1 because it is generally US companies setting up the social networks that anyone else wants to join.

Option 2 if implemented would push everyone to the darkweb or something so it would invalidate any kind of control.

Option 3 is my favorite mostly because it would let people vote with their feet on the internet. So, if you are german but you join US facebook... you're under US law and the germans can't apply their speech laws to the US social network. What you'd find is that anyone that wanted to violate the laws would gravitate out of the systems where they were not allowed to speak. This would leave the often politically motivated censors impotent.

Option 1 is what we have right now and those that want censorship will fail. Anyone that understands the internet understands the censorship is doomed.

But, because they're stupid, I'm happy to give them a scenario where their idiocy is highlighted for everyone to appreciate. I want them to control internet ghost towns. I want them to be abandoned. I want everyone to have the freedom to choose where they want to go... and when the censors set up their programs they'll just be abandoned if they do anything more than keep the child porn out etc. And even then the pedophiles will continue to go somewhere else to share kiddy diddling picts.

As to groups wanting to push their shit where they're ACTUALLY not wanted... by all means evict people from your space. But if your space is collective space then it isn't your space.

What I want to do is give everyone THEIR space. And in that space they can control who is in or out. But the collective space is just that. And naturally you'll also want sub-factional collective space which will operate under various rules.

As regards advertisers they'll decide which sub factions and cultures they want to market to and which they don't.

Just break it down and let all the little groups do their thing.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[Karmashock]

You find that all over the internet, dude. Most of it is because people are fucking stupid as regards protecting their information.

Its a little like the poor people that keep getting sick because they poop in their drinking water and then get diseases.

I feel badly for them but we've known how to avoid contaminating our drinking water for THOUSANDS of years. If some group of people haven't gotten the memo on that one then its mostly death by stupidity. I know... I'm a heartless SOB... I'm also not wrong. Stop putting your real ID on facebook and then crying DOX when someone goes to your facebook and pages through to get your personal information. IF you do that, you're an idiot. It needs to go away.

As to reddit and pizzagate... ban them there and they'll go elsewhere. And then there will be other groups you'll have to monitor there of all sorts of different political persuasions.

Frankly, I think its a free country. If people want to share conspiracies about pedophiles or whatever that doesn't break the law. Doxing also generally doesn't break the law.

If you don't like them, great... But not liking someone doesn't mean what they're doing should be stopped by force. Break the groups up.

They are going to do that SOMEWHERE. knocking them off reddit stopped nothing. All that happened is that you don't see it. Which is what I'm offering you anyway. Letting the groups isolate from each other so they don't bother each other.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[Karmashock]

... No... I'm merely saying that various groups don't get along with each other. Some people like Christians and some don't. Some people like ideology X and some don't.

Let the groups break down and ignore each other.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[Optic7]

Ok, so if it's not illegal to doxx that's fine. However, like I said, no business that wants to stay in business will want to seem complicit in doxxing, because otherwise they may end up liable for someone's injury or death.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[AmiMoJo]

The problem is that the far right wants to become mainstream again, so won't settle for segregation. In fact participating in more mainstream forums is seen as a gateway into their ideology.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[Karmashock]

glad someone saw that... :D

Re:Let the internet segregate

[Karmashock]

You're missing the point. Your desired political ideology ALSO has no claim to the mainstream. Or at least no more claim to it.

Leave the political scree to the places people want to hear that. So just as the Nazis would go somewhere else so would the Communists.

Let people define their associations.

Consider the new aggregation system that Facebook was setting up.

The problem with it is that it wasn't customized news but rather arbitrarily filtered news that the user had no control over.

What I am suggesting is that you let the various groups define how the filters and algorithms that control how they see the site work.

So for example, if you don't like certain news sources then you would instruct the system to suppress links from that publication. Or if you really liked certain publications you would instruct the system to prioritize links from that source.

Likewise, you would have networks of associations and tags which held tribal factional information that is important to you.

You don't like the "right wing"... okay... why not simply suppress "right wing" users and sources so you never see them?

It is true that OTHER people will see them if they CHOOSE to see them. But that is THEIR choice and you have no right to dictate that. That applies to people that want to pull down anything that is legal.

You have no right to control what people believe. This notion that you do is part of the problem and it will fail. We can all read and associate with whomever we want. Even in China people are able to bypass pervasive government censorship if they want to.

So you have no chance or hope of controlling politics through censorship given these technologies.

What you can do is aliviate anxitety by allowing people their own spaces where they can say what they want unmolested by contrary elements. You can also create neutral spaces where factional issues will be taboo and only issues that everyone agrees upon will be accepted. You can also create free for all zones where people can fight about whatever but people also cannot complain that people are saying things they don't like to hear.

Part of the problem from what I've seen on these issues is that some people think they have the right to speak and to silence at the same time... arbitrarily. That's just tyranny. And it will be taken for nothing less.

Rules must be applied evenly and in good faith.

What I am suggesting here is that you simply let people break into their little groups and do what they want. If you presume to stop people from speaking as a means of marginalizing political views you don't like... that's just tyranny unless you can make a legal argument in a court of law that they're violating the law. Obviously you won't pull that off with nearly any of your complaints. Just being realistic.

Its a free country, friendo. And if you say "but the internet encompasses the world"... okay... pass a law in whatever country wants to control speech and see what happens. Its failed in China. That is an example so clear that I am really surprised that any substantial number of people didn't figure it out. I have no problem with you trying. You might as well try to destroy the sun by gripping stones in your hand and throwing them at the sun in the sky. It will be about as effective.

Ideally people should be more tolerant and have good faith with the "marketplace of ideas" concept. But if people don't want to do that, then the next best option is to let people segregate. That is also functional and realistic.

The idea of shutting down contrary viewpoints through censorship though... At best you'll make whomever buys into the idea waste money and look inept as they fail. Worst case you'll also fail but the collateral damage will be more substantial that making some foolish people look appropriately foolish.

Regardless, do as you will. The Sun fears not your thrown stones.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[Karmashock]

As to Ad-Revenue... sure... Naturally advertisers should be given the tools to associate their products with whatever they want.

Keep in mind, the advertiser is not actually interested in the content generally but the USER. The USER is the CONSUMER... so generally what the advertiser wants is someone in their market, who has the money to buy their product, and who might be interested in their product.

Sure, given company might not want to be seen next to video X on youtube. However, you only see video X if you clicked on the link for video X. Its not like its forced on anyone. And what the company wants is to tell a consumer about their new product or service.

Companies are being shamed into caring under threat of being boycotted by political groups that are harassing companies that don't kowtow. However, the companies didn't care before and if/when the political shitshow subsides they'll go back to not caring. What they care about is the consumer.

Might a product that is advertised beside pornography reflect poorly on the company? Let us say that Tide detergent advertised on a porn site. Well, you're only going to see that Tide commercial on that site if you go to that site in the first place. If the content is objectionable then why are YOU there? Tide is just trying to sell you soap.

Let us be frank here, the idea is this "giants" project to harass companies into only advertising with politically correct content. The idea is to suppress certain political movements through marginalizing their laughable ad revenue sharing they get from where ever.

No one cared until that happened. This isn't a grass roots movement or issue. And it will go away just like so many of these fake protest movements whenever it gets its strings cut.

This is ephemeral. Do you see the Giants campaign being alive and well 10 years from now? No. It could fade into nothing any day just like Code Pink... or Occupy etc. It will be and then be gone.

I'm trying to offer a good faith and evenly applied system that would allow all groups the ability to express themselves as they see fit within social networks that are made up of like minded people.

If people are breaking the law, then charge them as such. If they're not then you're just participating in a shit show that will spin its wheels until it ultimately runs out of gas and is forgotten.

As you will. My two cents is that we do something productive. Not everyone sees eye to eye with that notion.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[Karmashock]

No, I do understand actually... but if they invade your room then you have moral and ethical right on your side to evict them.

If the space is common space and people are not given private space... then you don't have that authority as the space is no more yours than theirs. If you want restraints put on ideologies from pushing their shit in given areas then it must restrict YOU from doing the same thing. If you presume to restrict others but not yourself whilst as the same time offering no space for these other groups to push their ideas... then its just tyranny.

Many of the threads that were shut down on reddit such as the ones that made fun of fat people... were not invading other people's threads most of the time. Sure, trolls are a thing. But most groups have trolls. If for example, the "fat shaming" thread in reddit stayed to itself... why would you shut it down? It isn't as if that stopped or accomplished anything.

And sites like facebook and reddit etc marginalize such groups at their existential peril. Because why would we participate on a board where we'd be arbitarily shut down because someone elsewhere on the board had the bad feels about us?

The sites that ultimately steal market share away from and kill these sites will do so in part by arguing that they believe in leaving their users alone.

Facebook is on record that they are fearful for their future. The demographics look bad. Reddit already has a very bad censorship reputation which extends well beyond censoring politically incorrect content. The shadowbanning tactic that they employ for criticizing a product for example on a corporate reddit board is well known and has changed the way people perceive that site. People that say critical things in tweets... no profanity or obscenity are frequently banned from Twitter. A friend of mine was banned from Twitter for questioning the citations in a newspaper article.

You don't delete people from the planet when you ban them from a given social network. All you do is cause them to go somewhere else.

Best case, if you employ this concept you'll segregate the internet just as I proposed unintentionally. You'll turn X site into an echo chamber and those groups excised from the site will be elsewhere where you don't hear them. It will not have accomplished anything beyond that.

You are not deleting people when you ban people. You personally will just not hear them. You honestly might as well just block them on whatever site you are on. It accomplishes little beyond that.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[AmiMoJo]

Your desired political ideology ALSO has no claim to the mainstream.

The current Labour Party under Corbyn is extremely mainstream. The biggest opposition party, with a realistic chance of being the next government. They are absolutely mainstream.

arbitrarily filtered

I don't think that word means what you think it means. In fact the main issue with it was that it wasn't arbitrary, it was algorithmic and creating a news bubble.

What I am suggesting is that you let the various groups define how the filters and algorithms that control how they see the site work.

Which is fine, but most people will just stick with the default.

You don't like the "right wing"... okay... why not simply suppress "right wing" users and sources so you never see them?

Because bubbles are bad and not all of their ideas are entirely without merit. Also, it's important to hear what they are saying in order to effectively argue against it.

Ideally people should be more tolerant and have good faith with the "marketplace of ideas" concept.

I would be all for such a marketplace, but unregulated capitalism doesn't work. In this marketplace of ideas you need a spam filter and some way of dealing with malicious actors. People will always try to abuse the system to amplify their messages, regardless of their merit.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[Karmashock]

as to Corbyn, the Conservative party which you would likely label "right wing" is currently in power thus right wing is apparently okay as well...

If you want to come up with a definition of "right wing" that doesn't include the Conservative party... possibly use a more limited term.

What is more, there are factions of the left in the UK that are not mainstream. Should we marginalize them as well? Communists for example? A popular labor party does not mean an advocacy for communism anymore than an advocacy for the conservative party means an advocacy for nazis.

Are you prepared to allow your exclusion regime exclude fringe left wing extremists? Just curious if there is any integrity in your position. This is a pass/fail test.

As to sticking with the default, don't pull a Microsoft to set it to your version of Internet Explorer, bub. Or if you do, then it would be just as acceptable to bias it against you if you're going to bias it against others.

Again, no problem with you safe spacing yourself. But when you silence people according to your bias... just no.

As to you not liking bubbles, banning people from the site does that though. Just because they're off the site doesn't mean they don't exist. Its like telling people to leave a room and then pretending that those people don't exist. They're just in another room. If you want to interact with them then you have to allow them to interact. If you prevent them from communicating as they desire then you won't hear their communications.

As to regulation, who watches the watchmen? As to malicious actors... you also have cry bullies... people that cry to get their opposition censored etc. What happens if/when malicious actors get into the control scheme? The thing here is that we don't trust each other.

You can't over come that lack of trust absent a trust building process that would take a generation at this point. And before you judge my lack of trust, consider how much trust you would have in "me" running this system?

Look, do what you want. If I'm right, then this will be a shit show that won't accomplish anything besides making the promoters look foolish and powerless. If you're right then whatever you think is going to happen.

I'm happy to let time judge.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[AmiMoJo]

as to Corbyn, the Conservative party which you would likely label "right wing" is currently in power thus right wing is apparently okay as well...

Yes. But what does that have to do with the alt-right, those at the very far end of the spectrum? White supremacists, literal Nazis, nationalists etc.

Should we marginalize them as well? Communists for example?

Wait, you are the one suggesting segregation... Which would imply that these less mainstream groups are segregated from the mainstream public view. Did you mean something else?

As to regulation, who watches the watchmen?

Most democracies have multiple branches keeping each other in check. An independent judiciary, two theoretically independent branches of legislature, devolved government, that sort of thing.

Or look at it the other way around, if you have no watchmen then you can have no laws as they are all unenforceable. Did not work very well for Somalia.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[liquid_schwartz]

I'm guessing you're the kind of person that thinks the crusades were "building things and improving the world". Go christians!

I'm guessing that you're the kind of person who didn't know that the Crusades were a response to the Muslims pillaging and raping. You do know that Christianity is older than Islam and that what we think of Muslim lands were taken over, enslaved really, by the Muslims. In terms of building things and improving the world, the western world has given the most progress of any and certainly more than the Muslim world.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[Karmashock]

As to "alt right"... ban the communists as well and I'm on board.

But if you just go after the internet nazis and leave the internet communists... then no deal.

Frankly, a serious worry here is that this sort of behavior can be used to ban any contrary opinions through goal post moving. We see this happening all the time. Overtone window type stuff. Things that were acceptable 50 years ago are not now and things that weren't then are now. So, where do we draw the line here. If the idea is "no unpopular positions" or "no non-mainstream positions"... what were your ideas in many places 50 years ago? I'm sure an argument could be made using your logic to ban your ideas from ever being pushed in the first place.

Its ultimately an argument for stasis... and I don't trust the integrity of the argument because I'm very sure it will not be evenly applied.

As to my segregation suggestion, we have child and porn filters and other stuff. That is what I'm suggesting. Helping people block out all the wrong think so they don't have to deal with it.

IF you don't want to be bothered by contrary opinions, then I think you should have the right to filter who interacts with you. However, that does not extend to silencing other people. All you have a right to do is selectively deaden your own ears. if this is done properly then you should be able to avoid ever interacting with any opinion or subculture you dislike.

There is nothing wrong with that in principle. I personally dislike a great many subcultures and do my best to not interact with them... Furries for example... Zero interest in interacting with that group.

But I wouldn't suggest furries shouldn't be able to talk to each other or anyone that wants to talk to them.

"I" believe in freedom of speech. Not merely morally, ethically, and legally... I think you literally won't stop it. The tech is against you here. You can't control speech on the internet. All you'll do is piss people off and look like a dick. If the Chinese can't do it, then neither will Zuckerberg.

As to multiple branches, if you want to claim separation of powers then how are you going to separate the powers?

Classically we have Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary.

So... to have separation of powers you need to have those three branches cooperate to do something.

So, the Legislative would set the policy, the Executive would enact it, and then WHEN they enact, anyone they enacted it against would get due process in a court of law.

Sound reasonable for your internet censorship concept? It won't work.

Look, do what you want... this entire idea is at best pissing into the wind.

I respect your right to speak and I don't need to be protected from you speech. I legitimately and authentically value freedom of speech. Those calling for censorship either were never advocates or are frauds.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[AmiMoJo]

As to "alt right"... ban the communists as well and I'm on board.

But they are not equivalent. Communists don't want to create an ethnically pure state, don't want to murder people, don't think that some people are inherently superior to others. You could argue that Stalinists or Maoists do see murder as a legitimate tool perhaps, but it's not something communist ideology is generally associated with.

But yeah, if they say "Hitler/Stalin/Mao did nothing wrong" then okay.

Things that were acceptable 50 years ago are not now and things that weren't then are now.

Is that a bad thing though? I mean, do we really want Cartoon Network showing those old quite unbelievably racist cartoons from the 1930s? Or those films where a guy in blackface tries to rape a white woman and gets lynched by the "heroes"?

That material still exists, in fact some of it is on YouTube as part of videos discussing it (can't post the whole thing due to copyright I guess). It's not censored, but equally when kids search for Disney clips it's not promoted either.

Have a look about 16 minutes into this, for example: https://youtu.be/_-P9_oUV9Gw

Sound reasonable for your internet censorship concept?

I have no such concept.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[Karmashock]

As to communists, they met your standard of being divergent from the political norm. I can also show many examples of violence from communist organizations that can rival anything you would cite from the Nazis.

If you don't accept the communist ban then I have to conclude there is no integrity in the argument.

Look, you want to ban fringe and sometimes violent political organizations? Okay. Communists would have to be on that list though if you're being honest. If you're not putting them there... then there is a lack of consistency.

It does again seem like you're just trying to ban rival political factions. This is what elections are for... argue against positions and win elections. If you feel your argument is so weak that you have to use violence to silence words... then maybe "you" are the problem. After all, you are literally calling for people's freedom of speech and legal political agency to be taken from them without due process.

You are offering people no day in court. This seems impossible to define in any other sense than tyranny. And to make it worse, you said your reasoning was that they were divergent from the norm. I gave you another divergent political group... one that is objectively as violent as the nazis... and you rejected that idea.

This is unacceptable. You need to have consistency to maintain integrity.

As to it not being so bad that things change... cartoon network etc... well then you again are abandoning this argument of "they're bad because they're different from the norm". If countering the norm isn't a problem then I don't want to hear "they're different from the norm" being an argument to silence them. That's literally illogical.

As to having no concept of censorship... then stop advocating censorship.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[AmiMoJo]

As to communists, they met your standard of being divergent from the political norm. I can also show many examples of violence from communist organizations that can rival anything you would cite from the Nazis.

If you don't accept the communist ban then I have to conclude there is no integrity in the argument.

Ah, I see what you are saying. Well, I wasn't advocating a ban, merely saying that because they are less mainstream they can't expect as much promotion.

Re:Let the internet segregate

[Karmashock]

You were advocating censorship and justifying silencing people on that logic.

Can I presume you are not advocating silencing people and that you advocate a free marketplace of ideas where the success of failure of a voice will be down to whether anyone is convinced by it rather than because someone used force to silence words?

Re:Let the internet segregate

[AmiMoJo]

You can assume that. I don't want to censor this stuff. Aside from anything else it's a comedy goldmine.

Hypocritical

[Anonymous Coward]

The Donald is about the worst trash sub there and breaks as many site rules as any of the other banned subreddits, and further it dosent get a significant amount of guilding (money donated for that post) compared to other subreddits yet it is allowed to stay up. Consistency in enforcing the rules would wipe out alt right Reddit subs including T_D leading to mass hysteria, direct threats of violence, racial and sexist slurs, and basically everything else on the checklist to get you banned.

Re:Hypocritical

[Bryansix]

Painting with a broad brush are we? R/The_Donald also has high quality posts such as the one detailing the over 500 companies DT ran prior to his run for the presidency. Mass amounts of research went into that thread and I quoted it quite often. Even google put it as a top link in a search for "Donald Trump companies". The truth is, most trolling and violations are done by a small percentage of the population that has an undue amount of influence on the rest of the community's reputation.

Re:Hypocritical

[PopeRatzo]

Even google put it as a top link in a search for "Donald Trump companies".

No, they didn't and no it's not. Heck, it doesn't even appear in the FIRST TEN PAGES of Google results for your suggested search.

Re:Hypocritical

[Bryansix]

"Put" is used in the past tense. I didn't say it was still there. Google censors search results, you know.

Re:Hypocritical

[PopeRatzo]

I didn't say it was still there. Google censors search results, you know.

I guess Duck Duck Go, ixquick, and Bing are also censoring any pro-Trump search results. HOW DEEP DOES THIS RABBIT-HOLE GO?

Or, you could just be bullshitting. Yeah, I'm gonna go with that.

Re:Hypocritical

[Bryansix]

Why would I even make up something like that? What would I profit? You on the other hand dismiss all opinions you disagree with out of hand without considering them.This is called bigotry.

Re:Hypocritical

[dj245]

Painting with a broad brush are we? R/The_Donald also has high quality posts such as the one detailing the over 500 companies DT ran prior to his run for the presidency. Mass amounts of research went into that thread and I quoted it quite often. Even google put it as a top link in a search for "Donald Trump companies".

Searching for "Donald Trump companies" doesn't turn up the reddit thread the 1st 3 pages. Which means it may as well not exist. (not to say that it isn't a good post)

Google is likely customizing your search results, I see this quite often for pages I sometimes or frequently visit.

Re:Hypocritical

[Dread_ed]

Wasn't Donald Trump supposed to put all of his money into an indexed fund when he received it decades ago, thereby guaranteeing he would be wealthier than he is now? It would also mean that he would never learn anything about business.

Apparently being rich and ignorant are core values of people who criticize Trump for his lack of foresight in not being a lazy ass bum who never had any ambition.

Re:Hypocritical

[PopeRatzo]

Why would I even make up something like that? What would I profit?

Why are you asking me? Maybe you can't help yourself. Maybe like most Trump loyalists, you believe that if you make some outrageous claim nobody will check.

It's a question you have to answer for yourself, friend. Do some soul searching. But I guarantee you will not find the answer at /The_Donald. Hanging out there is h ow you got to the point you're at now.

Re:Hypocritical

[Bryansix]

Maybe you should look in a mirror some time and stop projecting. This is the link I was referring to. https://www.reddit.com/r/The_D...
Note that it was in June and in October, the media pounded away on Trump's business record by claiming that some businesses were not successful because they didn't make huge profits. Well they employed people and they didn't file for bankruptcy so I don't think they can be called "failed".
Also, when did I say I hung out on Reddit? I don't. That place has too much censorship which is really the point of this Slashdot story. You seem to have missed that.

Re:Hypocritical

[PopeRatzo]

This is the link I was referring to. https://www.reddit.com/r/The_D... [reddit.com]

One obvious problem is that your link makes a claim but doesn't back it up in any way. There's no list of the ">500" companies that Trump ran, just a claim that he did.

It's a complete sham. It was never a "top result" on Google or any other search engine. Don't try to spread that stuff here and expect that no one will point out that it's complete bullshit.

Re:Hypocritical

[drinkypoo]

Painting with a broad brush are we? R/The_Donald also has high quality posts such as the one detailing the over 500 companies DT ran prior to his run for the presidency. Mass amounts of research went into that thread and I quoted it quite often. Even google put it as a top link in a search for "Donald Trump companies".

You have to log out of Google and use a clean browser to get a list of search results which is meaningful to people other than yourself. Even that will be personalized based on IP geolocation. Someone on the other side of the country doing the same search at the same time will probably get different results. That came up in the top ten for you because it was relevant to you based on your search history.

The truth is, most trolling and violations are done by a small percentage of the population that has an undue amount of influence on the rest of the community's reputation.

And if those people are permitted to behave as if they run the place, then that place's reputation will be affected by their behavior.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Reddit isn't a democracy

[aglider]

Once you have your own Reddit, within that you can ban, unban and mute people for whatever reason you want. You can delete any post. You can be a tyrant.

Re:Spez shouldn't have did that but...

[Bryansix]

Being offended doesn't really play into this. In fact its a Red Herring. The issue at heart here is how the CEO of the fourth most popular website was acting like a petulant child. Deleting the comments or banning those who abused the system would have been an appropriate response but writing that script was just childish and pointless. It just made his own website worse. In fact, it was probably in violation of his fiduciary responsibility as CEO.

the best detoxifier

[Revek]

I find it better to ignore those dark souls or even better laugh at them. Yeah defiantly laugh at them.

Redditors didn't know the site could be edited?

[magzteel]

"Although redditors didn't yet know it, Huffman could edit any part of the site."

This is pretty silly. It's their site, of course they can edit and delete anything they want to.
Why would anyone believe otherwise?

Re: Spez shouldn't have did that but...

[Anonymous Coward]

The "alt-right" would seem a lot less hypocritical about purges if we didn't know that was what they wanted to binge on themselves.

Funny, turns out they're a plague on humanity.

Credibility and Integrity?

[Petersko]

Those things only take a hit if your goal with your site is to be a beacon of free expression. These numbnuts damage the credibility and integrity of the site simply by being present on it.

Frankly, given the unending game of whack-a-mole that is banning individuals, I think this is a perfectly elegant alternative.

The internet doesn't owe you a place to be a jackass. Don't like it? Start your own site.

Re:Credibility and Integrity?

[Tailhook]

jackass

jackass: anyone expressing things I don't like.

Re: Credibility and Integrity?

[Jarwulf]

*goes on another thread 3 seconds later to whine about the importance of net neutrality*

Re: Credibility and Integrity?

[PopeRatzo]

*goes on another thread 3 seconds later to whine about the importance of net neutrality*

Net Neutrality doesn't have anything to do with the content of websites. It's entirely about how ISPs handle data and not about requiring all sites to publish all opinions.

I guess it's time to post the best definition of Net Neutrality again, because certain people I don't care to name (Jarwolf) don't seem to understand what the fuck it means.

https://www.eff.org/issues/net...

Re: Spez shouldn't have did that but...

[Anonymous Coward]

What a load of crap, he just got a load of free publicity for the site didn't he. Bonus points he annoyed a bunch of dicks without censoring them.

Re:Spez shouldn't have did that but...

[Anonymous Coward]

lol, if your freedom of speech is copy-pasting "fuck someone" a hundred times, I don't need to see that and it adds nothing to constructive criticism. You notice your comment wasn't downmodded? You were mostly respectful and at the very least had SOME valid point behind it.

Also, traditional values got us (in the past 100 years) 2 world wars (never happened before) and slavery. You also shouldn't be so quick to discard new ideas as there are certain things you already shouldn't like the result of.

The unfortunate facts...

[brennz]

Reddit has been waging a war against free speech, and against certain demographics, for the sake of political correctness, for many years now.

Merely recounting some of the facts of journalistic ethical missteps with regards to Gamergate was sufficient cause for massive Orwellian Bannings, Shadowbannings, and Mass censorship. They will also do the same across Reddit for terrorist bombings that dare to mention a privileged group that bombed or killed, such as with the London terrorist knifings, or the Orlando Massacre

If you bring up inconvenient facts that are not politically correct, you can expect to receive the same treatment. You can also expect to have the Inquisitors of SRS downvote brigading your small subreddit. SRS is quite open about being against free speech, and actively opposing non-SJW outlooks. SRS receive active admin support, so they are rarely, if ever, punished. If you resist Admin control over a subreddit, your subreddit is removed.

Furthermore, there is a massive conspiracy of leftist moderators that, in cahoots with the Administrators of Reddit, actively attempt to squelch and censor the views of the Right, and Libertarians. This is not unlike the situation with Wikipedia, and the moderation wars that have occurred there, or the regular invasion of SJW material here, into Slashdot.

Why is this?

Politically Correct speech stands in direct opposition to Free Speech.
The privatization of the Commons
Corporate attempts to push Feel Good communication codes everywhere, to sell More Advertising.
Demonization of Men (White & Asian mainly), like Google
Active attempts to silence political opposition outside the Silicon Valley Worldview

Re:The unfortunate facts...

[burtosis]

Just wanted to let you know this is strong with the neoliberal left and almost nonexistent with the progressive left. I definately lean progressive left to the point I can't stomach mainstream democratic candidates and I, like most progressives, aren't on board with SJW facist bullshit in general. People who trample on 1st amendment rights in the name of corporate protections to hate and discriminate disgust me as I hope they would disgust any American.

Re:The unfortunate facts...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh dear, oh dear, everyone is out to get you.

The truth is much simpler: people just don't want to allow others to waste their time listening to your drivel.

FTFY.

Re:The unfortunate facts...

[AmiMoJo]

PROTIP: if Reddit tells you there is a massive conspiracy, there isn't.

Re:The unfortunate facts...

[AbRASiON]

Your post is totally correct and I'm utterly shocked that you've made it to a +3, I've said the same things here a few times and it's resulted in 'flame wars' over the moderation of my posts. Ending up with +1 informative for example at best.

The SJW types here have infested, hence the endless submission of anti-trump news (I don't even like Trump! but stop fabricating things about him and more so, stop bringing irrelevant politics to slashdot!)

The worst part is the unwillingness to discuss, these people defer straight to this. (Sorry this is a memesque / harsh video from a shit-stirrer but I can't say I disagree with it at all.)

"How To Win An Argument In 2018"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:The unfortunate facts...

[AbRASiON]

Love it, AC calling people whiny and specifically targetting race, it's fun to white bash now, yay.

Go away.

Re:The unfortunate facts...

[HeckRuler]

the idea that there can be a few lefts.

Of course any political group is going to have variance and people who don't entirely agree. We're not all lock-step brainwashed souless automatons. And I assume at least of few on the right aren't either. And moreso than just those TEA-party folks who nearly split off. Or the rural hicks voting. Or the wealthy fat-cats. Or the "libertarians". Or nationalists.

Liberals area likewise a collection of peace-mongers, social progressive who don't think gays are demons, social progressive who are fucked in the head when it comes to the definition of sex, economic progressives that want handouts, economic progressives that are concerned about the current and coming wave of automation, the sort of people that pushed the "occupy" movement, or libertarians that can't afford to pay for their own police force.

The fact that ALL political groups of people have to congeal together under two camps is a product of how our voting system was set up. "First past the post". Other systems have their merits and flaws, but if we had something like Austrailia's system where we got to pick our top 5 candidates, we'd see a lot more than 2 parties show up and actually have a chance at getting into congress.

also, pft, "lefts". What a shibboleth. Please make an effort to step out of your bubble. It'll do wonders.

Re:The unfortunate facts...

[HeckRuler]

Free speech prevents you from going to prison for complaining about your government and it's leaders.

You're thinking of the first amendment. That limits the government. It's a good thing. And it protects you from WAY more than being thrown in jail. If any portion of the government can be viewed in any way as infringing free speech, that shit gets shut down. Hard.

Free speech is a broader topic that came out of the age of Enlightenment along with democracy, open markets, equality, and chopping up kings and such. It's older than our government and isn't just something for other people to worry about.

It does not entitle you to say whatever you want in someone else's house without being kicked out.

Eh, sort of. We're not really entitled to much, but there's been a lot said about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Free speech falls under the liberty portion. If someone kicks you out of their house for speaking your mind, they're asshats that don't believe in free speech. And yeah, there are reasonable limits. Duh.

It does not entitle you to say whatever you want without being called an asshole for your views.

Correct. But ideally it protects you from uncivilized retaliation, least we start encouraging some sort of thought-crime.

Re:The unfortunate facts...

[HeckRuler]

I think you're a bit hyperbolic, but you've got a point. The hyperbole really isn't helpful. It makes you look like an asshole, it gives people the knee-jerk retaliatory attack response. Worse it makes you look like a delusional conspiracy theorist and that really subtracts from your argument.

But there IS an argument here. Too many people I would typically consider on my side of the debate have been fighting against free speech simply because someone they don't like has been saying stuff they don't like. That's not cool. I remember when this party was all about putting power to the people and letting them protest. And people have come out and attacked me just for saying such things. They assume I'm a support NAZIs literally just because I had nice things to say about free speech. And the media (and reality) really does have a well known liberal bias. The point you're trying to make about downplaying people's ethnicity when it comes to negative news is overblown. They're countering the definitely real racists and bigots, but they're going too far. Brigading is real, and it sucks, from both sides. Calling it a massive conspiracy is a bit much. Plenty of people are openly against giving free speech to NAZIs. So all that is... yeah, a kernel of truth, but wrapped in enough exaggeration to make it come off as crazy asshole. The one thing I think you're just plain wrong about is that it's NOT "invasions" into slashdot. It goes deeper. It's cultural. Slashdot users that have been here forever have espoused some of these sort of ideas.

As for why?

Enforcing PC speech to the point of censoring all others really is in opposition to free speech. Personally, I'd be fine with enforcement of PC speech at work and such. But some crazy nutters are trying to get people fired and kicked off of projects for what they say on their own time. I don't think I like that sort of stickiness. If your job is on the line for what you say in the public square... you're not free.

And yeah, I'd whole-heartedly agree that the majority of communication is done over the privately owned Internet these days.

"Demonizing" is going too far. But yeah, it's socially acceptable to laugh at abused husbands these days. How many jokes out there would get you prosecuted if you reversed the genders?

And.... I don't see any reason to exclusively blame Silicon Valley. It's bigger than that. Just like the liberals have to accept that about half the nation, EVERYWHERE, leans conservative, you have to accept that about half the nation leans liberal.

The bigger question is what do we do about it?

I'm all for clear calm rational debate about the merits of free speech. How the act of defending asshat's right to sends a message also defends your OWN rights. How simply laughing at them and pointing out their flaws is more effective than martyring them. If the soap-box fails, the nation is going to fail. We don't want to become the bad guys.

Avoiding those private entities that don't believe in free speech, democracy, and are generally biased fucks. I'm looking at you foxnews and facebook. While I like free speech, trying to force big sites into hosting shitty material through legislation, and making it compelled speech... man, that's just bound to go side-ways.

Active efforts to encourage people to step outside of their bubble and to see the world as it really is. And typically, it's more diverse than they realize. No, not everyone cares about your pet topic of choice.

Finding and prosecuting astro-turfers, foreign agent-provocateurs, and shills. Turning Internet trolling into a business and national foreign policy is bullshit. This is the sort of shit that NSA should be working on. As a matter of national security.

And generally ease up with the knee-jerk reactions and hyperbole flamebait. Chill dudes.

Oh dear, oh dear, everyone is out to get you. The truth is much simpler: people just don't want to waste their time listening to your drivel.

Re:The unfortunate facts...

[dskzero]

Reddit is just a hivemind that ocassionally has pockets of interesting discussion, but by a large margin is a huge echo box where any dissenting opinion is downvoted into oblivion. At this point I am not sure if they continue following some ideal or they are just used to it and carry on.

Reddit is a mirror, a mere symptom

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Reddit reflects what the people are thinking at deep levels, reveals their innermost thoughts, unrestrained by the need to wear masks, protected by anonymity. Yes, anonymity provides some cover for the malicious trolls. But not all of them are trolls.

What we need to detoxify is our minds, not Reddit. We can pretend everything is hunky dory. These people exist. Most of them would be could be persuaded. We ignore them at our peril. They vote. In large numbers. In off year elections.

Typical American aka psychopath.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Let's torture people! It's 'funny as hell'! Like those 'funny' home videos. Especially the 'OW MY BALLS' ones! And the neck breaking ones!"

"But if I consider somebody evil, then it's aww-right!! What's WRONG with you?? It's not wrong if he's a criminal/murderer/evildoer/scapegoat!"

Your whole legal system is based exclusively on vile maximum-brutal revenge against the first convenient scapegoat you can grab in the entire tree of causality.

How about this PROTIP?: How about NOT being like the person you despise the most??
How about THAT mind-blowing idea??
You know, it's only as old as the Jesus story! (So >5000 years.)

America; the most un-Christian (and anti-social, so anti-human) country on the planet.

I'm rubber, you're glue...

[karlandtanya]

"Manipulating the words of your users is fucked,"

Assuming "fucked" means it's harmful in some meaningful way beyond the complainant not liking it...
My first reaction is it's childish, not "fucked".

Was Huffman's intention to "put words in the mouth" of the poster?
Could this sort of thing expose Huffman's victim to some kind of liability for speech (slander, libel, incitement, etc.)?
Does this sort of thing detract from the credibility of the fourms?

Yeah...after thinking about it for *just* a few minutes, it seems both childish and "fucked".

Huffman says he considers himself a "troll", but in this situation, he's a bully and guilty of abuse of authority.
Certainly not a troll of any pre-September finesse or art.

Legitimate authority--even over a forum that you have created and own--can only be exercised for the benefit of *everyone* (collectively everyone the group--not that it has to be something each and every individual approves of).

Huffman pulled rank to win an argument. He bullied his users and called into question anything anybody posts on his site.

Yah, I'd have to say it's both childish and fucked.

Re:I'm rubber, you're glue...

[thegarbz]

Assuming "fucked" means it's harmful in some meaningful way beyond the complainant not liking it...
My first reaction is it's childish, not "fucked".

What specifically happened and the way words were changed is indeed childish.
But the fact that it happened, and the fact that the person did it in the first place is truly fucked even by your definition.

I like touching young boys

You're a horrible person for saying that and you deserve the hell that is coming your way. And I hope you see what I did there.

Re:I'm rubber, you're glue...

[karlandtanya]

Right.
Did you read past the first 4 lines?

Re:Usenet

[0100010001010011]

I wish someone would either extend the protocol or add a secondary 'moderation' protocol.

Let everyone post what ever they want but let the end clients talk to the moderation server and how to display the content.

Downmodding is for a reason.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a circle-jerk echo chamber

With unlimited up/down modding, which just reinforces the statement above.

Slashdot is just as bad.

I read /. with zero posts hidden, and you know what? 95% of posts modded down really desperately deserve to be modded down. They're not modded down because they're controversial; they're modded down because they are trolls and assholes trying to be offensive and shocking.

There may be 5% of the downmodded posts that are controversial, but I'd guess probably not even 5%-- and even there, it's likely that the opinion is expressed while offhandedly calling other people posting a "cuck" or a "snowflake" or a "libtard" (or, a "rethuglican", take your pick, left or right) or a "smelly chimp lover".

comment threads without moderation are toxic.

Re:Downmodding is for a reason.

[q4Fry]

And yet I have seen all of these opinions on Slashdot (except for the last one; that's clearly daft).

Funny, but it's really not helping.

[HeckRuler]

Reddit and the Struggle To Detoxify the Internet

The CEO wrote a script that redirected insults to him towards prominent members of a group.

Does anyone not see how these two statements don't jive with each other?

Let's say you're a real city slicker, and you're travelling between cities and you stop in at a rural diner for a bite to eat. Or you're some other sort of outsider. Any sort of scenario where a bunch of people are going to see how "people like you" are going to behave. This is going to form stereotypes. To an extent, you are representing the group. Now.... do you spit on the trucker, throw your drink at the waitress, scream wildly, and run away from the bill? Do you purposely antagonize them?

Now, these guys are douchbags, sure. They're certainly not initiating a calm and rational debate. And you know what? I can excuse a bit of tomfoolery and funny shenanigans. But as far as "detoxifying the Internet".... I have to agree, manipulating the words of your users because they said mean things to you is pretty fucked, and it's really not helping.

Re:Funny, but it's really not helping.

[Anonymous Coward]

Reddit and the Struggle To Detoxify the Internet

The CEO wrote a script that redirected insults to him towards prominent members of a group.

Does anyone not see how these two statements don't jive with each other?

Does anyone think that that snippet of the article was written to illustrate how to detoxify the internet?

Yes, you do, because you didn't RTFA.

Huffman can no longer edit the site indiscriminately, but his actions laid bare a fact that most social-media companies go to great lengths to concealâ"that, no matter how neutral a platform may seem, thereâ(TM)s always a person behind the curtain. âoeI fucked up,â Huffman wrote in an apology the following week. âoeMore than anything, I want Reddit to heal, and I want our country to heal.â Implicit in his apology was a set of questions, perhaps the central questions facing anyone who worries about the current state of civic discourse. Is it possible to facilitate a space for open dialogue without also facilitating hoaxes, harassment, and threats of violence? Where is the line between authenticity and toxicity? What if, after technology allows us to reveal our inner voices, what we learn is that many of us are authentically toxic?

That appears after that anecdote, at the end of the introduction of the piece. The introduction is where one traditionally introduces the problem, rather than presenting a conclusion.

Re: Spez shouldn't have did that but...

[darkain]

Modifying content is a form of censorship. He was directly censoring user's opinions of him.

The problem of ostracism

[Millennium]

The Internet was built by people who didn't understand the difference between ostracism and bullying. Neither did anybody else at the time, and if anything, people struggle even harder to tell them apart nowadays. This lack of understanding causes terrible damage in all sorts of ways, most of which are beyond the scope of this thread, buy I'll point to Geek Social Fallacy #1 ("Ostracizers are evil") as one of the major factors behind what happened next.

Essentially, the Internet has no effective way to ostracize people because it was created by people who mistook it for bullying. But as a result, it is being taken over by people who really, really need to be ostracized, and who often are in offline contexts. They come online because it's easier to escape off to The Great Enabler rather than confront the reasons nobody wants them around, but the latter is what they really need to be doing. And we have no way to force them into it now.

Re:the newyorker?

[PPH]

They cherry-picked some details to reinforce their point. Yeah, Reddit is a toxic place. And kudos for Huffman getting sick of it and doing something about the outlying groups. But what about Antifa's hang-outs? I doubt you'd get a major news outlet to do much serious investigation about the left fringe. And given the cohesiveness of their group-think, finding an insider who had stepped back from the nutjobs thinking "Whoa! This is too much." is much less likely.

Nope. Disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem I have with the Troll attitude is this.

They say stuff like, "Oh I was just having a little fun. Being a little provocative. Lighten up, I was being sarcastic/quirky/eccentric/LOLing."

Except I don't buy it. Trolls only like the "fun" as long as they are in control. You see these people and they talk about how they were having so much fun, but then they left the forum/blog/feed/whatever once they lost control. When the chaos they stimulate actually becomes chaos and a feeding frenzy, and then it turns on the Troll.

Suddenly not fun. Gee, who could have predicted that? Trolls are narcissists pretending to be culture critics, or comedians, or discussion stimulators. Nope, they are none of those things.

User Moderation vs Admin Moderation

[Prien715]

There's a difference between admin and user moderation.

If I were to post on this site about how the Holocaust was faked, I'd be downmodded into oblivion (I hope). On certain subreddits, you could be upmodded for such things. And sure, you can believe that Hillary Clinton is running a child sex trafficking ring out of a pizza parlor, and that's all fun and games until someone starts shooting a gun inside.

Like many on this site, I'm a proponent of free speech -- but with user moderation to prevent stupidity. One of the problems with Reddit is that subreddit nature creates echo chambers. As many have pointed out before, websites are private businesses and have a right to kick people out whom they don't like. If someone walks into your pizza parlor and accusing you of running a child sex trafficking ring, you can ask them to leave -- and that's not censorship -- any more than it is a bar kicking out a rowdy patron.

Re:User Moderation vs Admin Moderation

[omnichad]

If someone walks into your pizza parlor and accusing you of running a child sex trafficking ring, you can ask them to leave -- and that's not censorship

Of course it's censorship. It's just that it's a perfectly fine form of censorship.

Re:User Moderation vs Admin Moderation

[HeckRuler]

If someone walks into your pizza parlor [or Reddit, Slashdot, Facebook, online forum, game chat, or comment section] and accusing you of running a child sex trafficking ring, you can ask them to leave -- and that's not censorship -- any more than it is a bar kicking out a rowdy patron.

Right. And that's true. But these days, where is the so-called "public square" where people DO have the right to say things? If it doesn't include the most common medium for communication, the Internet, then do we really have a right to free speech?

I'm a fan of free speech and I'm REALLY not a fan of compelling people to support a message one way or another. But I'd like to see the big players online at least give some lip service to the ideals that came out of the enlightenment. Free speech, democracy, the right to assemble... that sort of stuff.

And.... while it might not be censorship ANY MORE THAN kicking people out of your bar, it's still certainly censorship.

Re:User Moderation vs Admin Moderation

[The123king]

Now i may be wrong, but i'm sure the most common medium for communication is still speech.

Re:User Moderation vs Admin Moderation

[HeckRuler]

oh yeah? Last time you said something political, out loud, that didn't go over the Internet.... how many people heard you? How many people do you think read your last comment?

And flip it around. How much political news and commentary do you receive in person, via speech? And how much do you get over the Internet in some fashion?

I dunno, maybe you're really chatty and attend rally's or something. Personally though, I might as well live online.

Re:Spez shouldn't have did that but...

[Bryansix]

The company will see a problem when more people leave for alternative platforms that don't censor or worse, edit posts.

Why moderate

[Geoffrey.landis]

The problem is that we have ratings at all, and it's weird to me that the conversation is under the assumption that ratings are necessary. What do they do?

You can browse at +1 and avoid reading the trolls.

They're certainly not keeping slashdot (or reddit, etc) free of trolls, never mind faulty or bad-faith arguments.

Yeah, but if you want to, it gives you the ability to skip over the troll comments and just read the interesting comments.

Jackass Nitpicking

[Petersko]

"jackass: anyone expressing things I don't like."

Well, no. Pretty much any idea can be presented with jackassery or without.

Re:The detoxification of the internet

[meta-monkey]

I think their official kill list includes males in general (unless gay)

This is incorrect. Male homosexuality is extreme misogyny and emblematic of toxic masculinity.

Re: Spez shouldn't have did that but...

[Anonymous Coward]

His site his rules. This isn't the fucking government. He can censor whatever the fuck he wants to.

You people don't know what the fuck censorship is. Stop labeling everything you don't like censorship. Jesus Christ.

Reddit is just crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit site with admins that will edit user data. Anything you read there is suspect.
Daily censorship for wrongthink. Approved harassment for those wrongthinkers too.

They are useless for any actual information or news.
Untrustworthy and unreliable to an extreme.

And so much smug clueless narcissism it should be a crime.

If reddit didn't have cat pictures. You could shut it down and lose nothing of value.

Re:There is no antifa [Re:the newyorker?]

[PPH]

"Antifa" really doesn't exist in America.

MODS! They're posting fake news again!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifa_(United_States)

"The Antifa movement is a conglomeration of autonomous, self-styled anti-fascist groups in the United States."

Re: Spez shouldn't have did that but...

[Bryansix]

I haven't been on reddit for a while. In fact, where I go "Back to reddit" is the meme of choice.

I think it's a great idea to edit

[SuperKendall]

I have long thought that a really good moderation system would allow a handful of reasonable people to outright edit what was being posted, to change tone and make more reasonable what someone was saying.

It would however be hard to find people neutral enough about some subjects to be able to edit properly though, and not punish one side over the other as so often happens when a small group of people have editorial control.

It just seems like if it's done well, it could be a really great way to let people speak while somewhat neutering trolls, and a way to let people know if they were getting out of line without harsher mechanisms that would get them more defensive. It would also bring some people back from the edge of anger. Or at least get them angry at the mods instead, which is fine.

It's the editors

[tomhath]

I've been on Slashdot under many different handles almost since its inception, and I would say that in the past 5 years or so it has failed. Why? Probably just because more people are online, and you only get along with most people personally, not by "discussing controversial topics" but by dealing with them in daily interactions.

I agree that slashdot has failed, but i think the reason is different. Back in its heyday, stories in the firehose which were voted up made the front page. Today, voting doesn't really matter; the editors find and post stories according to their own agenda (e.g. Trump bashing and SWJ stories). That filter/selection process by the editors far outweighs any moderation.

Re:It's the editors

[greenwow]

> Trump bashing and SWJ stories

But those are an important public service. We need to fight Trump.

Re:It's the editors

[Luckyo]

That moment when you genuinely don't know if this is sarcasm or serious. Insanity of current political discourse is taking its toll.

Re:It's the editors

[markdavis]

>"I agree that slashdot has failed, but i think the reason is different. Back in its heyday, stories in the firehose which were voted up made the front page. Today, voting doesn't really matter; the editors find and post stories according to their own agenda (e.g. Trump bashing and SWJ stories). That filter/selection process by the editors far outweighs any moderation."

^^^^
This, 1,000 times over. The editors persist in posting "stories" that are not only NOT about technology and "news for nerds" but worded intentionally to be one-sided or hostile and usually in some political slant. Even technology-related stories still often have a "lean" to them in one way or another. This just polarizes everyone and sets the stage for a s***fest. I guess the editors feel that since the major news outlets do this all the time now, it is the new "norm" rather than impartial reporting of events and facts? It pushes many otherwise good users away.

Other factors matter too, of course, things like: Too much PC, too many users (compared to the by-gone era), too many inflammatory "anonymous cowards", too many shadow accounts, too much down or up voting based on bias and emotion instead of quality of post and information.

Re:It's the editors

[Megane]

I think it didn't help that they let the firehose go to weeds. There were a shitload of accounts in the 3.8-4.1 million range that constantly dumped spam into the firehose (while logged in!), and they failed to do anything useful about it. And that only encouraged them to spam more. I just checked, and yes, it's still a sewer, with accounts now in the 5.3 million range.

If any part of /. needs shadow bans, it is the firehose, with a separate karma system (submit more than a few nowhere-near-on-topic articles and your submissions are hidden from the rest of the world) and a bunch of keyword-based auto-moderation (there are a lot of spammy keywords in there) to find them.

Re:It's the editors

[Gryle]

Google "The Toxoplasma of Rage"* It's an interesting article on the outrage cycle that fuels clickbait and other type articles.

*Posting the title, but no link, as the writer recently asked people to stop linking directly to his page from major news media. I'm honestly not sure if Slashdot counts or not.

Re:It's the editors

[Cederic]

Back in its heyday, stories in the firehose which were voted up made the front page.

Back in its heyday, there wasn't a firehose.

Shit, I feel old :(

That script was the worst idea spez ever had

[Anonymous Coward]

HIs analogy is stupid. Because The_Donald isn't "your little brother" it's your bully. He can only do so much because teachers are watching but he's going to tease you day in and day out because it amuses him or he's broken inside or he's jealous of you or whatever. The point is that you don't treat your bully like your little brother. You don't "feed him a snack" especially when he's already demonstrated he won't respond to attempts to persuade. He should have been able to predict exactly what happened. The Donald created a conspiracy theory that was right. We're still living the ramifications of that. Because now you can't tell The_Donald they're wrong because they'll call back to the Spez incident. They're STILL spamming him last I checked (which to be fair was a few months ago).

He VALIDATED them. The way Jimmy Fallon validated Trump by fluffing his hair. Dunno what's up with these "Bros" who think they can just bro out with anyone and it'll just be good and fun. Hoffman should have banned The_Donald a long long time ago. You can't save that subreddit and there is no obligation to keep it. The irony is that compared to all the other work around solutions they've tried. Banning subs legitimately works. No banning coontown doesn't stop anti-black racism but it did drastically reduce the ability of the coontown collective to focus and collect together. The same with incel and fatpeoplehate and all the many subs that have been banned. It's not a perfect solution (and it was never supposed to be) but it is readily performable and demonstrably effective.

Re: Spez shouldn't have did that but...

[omnichad]

He can censor whatever the fuck he wants to.

Sure, but you can't just say it wasn't censorship.

Re:Spez shouldn't have did that but...

[omnichad]

The tradition hasn't been as consistent over time as you think.

Re:There is no antifa [Re:the newyorker?]

[omnichad]

The sudden injection of "antifa" into the discussion, with stories of "antifa" demonstrations and counter-rallies was clearly initiated by somebody who isn't familiar with American slang or even English pronunciation.

No, it came about more because people don't want to just come out and say they are pro-fascist. So they are against the people against it instead.

spez *is* a cuck

[devloop]

"One commenter simply wrote "u/SPEZ IS A CUCK," in bold type, a hundred and ten times in a row."

Just because the delivery is off, it does not mean the message is wrong.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Usenet

[taxman_10m]

Provides free read and write access to all text newsgroups.
https://www.eternal-september....

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re: Spez shouldn't have did that but...

[aevan]

Sure he can. Internal consistency so far hasn't been a strength of his, why would honesty?

Re: Spez shouldn't have did that but...

[omnichad]

OK, fine. You can't correctly say it.

Re:Right Detoxify

[Scroatzilla]

Okay, I'll bite.

>>Cool, thanks for lumping us all into one pile.

Of course lumping any group into one pile is grossly oversimplifying the complexity of humanity. Unfortunately, the mass-hysteria anti-Trump crowd comprises two piles that are mashed together: Those with malice and an overt agenda of censorship and brainwashing; and, the useful idiots who mindlessly virtue signal with nothing substantial to back up what they are saying.

It's disheartening to see the useful idiots spouting the empty rhetoric of "Nazi, xenophobic, homophobic, misogynist," from an imaginary morally superior pedestal. Those uttering such things at this point are revealing themselves as resentful, ugly, thoughtless, infantile lost souls.

Re:Spez shouldn't have did that but...

[Bryansix]

Trump may act out at times. However not everybody who voted for him supports him as a person. What they do support are his policy positions.

Re: Spez shouldn't have did that but...

[cyber-vandal]

If only the people that claim to be liberal actually were like that.

Re:The detoxification of the internet

[liquid_schwartz]

I think their official kill list includes males in general (unless gay)

This is incorrect. Male homosexuality is extreme misogyny and emblematic of toxic masculinity.

You may be correct, and certainly it carries health implications as well like higher rates of AIDs and suicide, but nevertheless they are a protected class from from everything I've seen.

Re:the newyorker?

[0100010001010011]

Yeah, Reddit is a toxic place.

Any subreddit above a certain size goes to hell. There is a sweet spot of 'enough users for content' but 'not so many users it goes to hell'. Some smaller niche subreddits are actually really good, have good comments and posts.

Re:Usenet

[AHuxley]

The good thing about the internet of the past was the educated user had that ability.
The user could select what groups to find, join, help, support.
The internet worked just fine connecting people with the same ideas, politics, interests and ability.

Re:Trash

[drinkypoo]

Pizzagate is real, and we'll learn a lot more in a couple of days.

That's what they said the first time, before that nutbag went into the pizza parlor with a gun.

Re:There is no antifa [Re:the newyorker?]

[drinkypoo]

"Antifa" really doesn't exist in America.

MODS! They're posting fake news again!
[...]
"The Antifa movement is a conglomeration of autonomous, self-styled anti-fascist groups in the United States."

Antifa is as much one thing as Anonymous. As a single entity, it doesn't exist. People think it's one thing, but it's not an organization, it's a movement — precisely as your citation states.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Spez shouldn't have did that but...

[Stolovaya]

You're confusing the First Amendment with the general idea of freedom of expression. You're correct in regards to the First Amendment; it just says that the government can't jail/kill you for your opinions. Freedom of expression is not bounded by it specifically being government.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... for more information on the concept of freedom of expression/speech.

Re:There is no antifa [Re:the newyorker?]

[PPH]

Nazis don't exist in America as an organization. Trump supporters don't exist in America as an organization (half of the GOP merely put up with him). Etc, etc.

Antifa may very well consist of a bunch of independent cells, each unknown to the others. And their command and control might lie outside of America. So yeah, your assertion is accurate on the face of it.

Re:There is no antifa [Re:the newyorker?]

[drinkypoo]

Antifa may very well consist of a bunch of independent cells, each unknown to the others. And their command and control might lie outside of America.

Nobody has yet demonstrated a single C&C, which is what makes various Antifa groups independent. At the point at which one has been shown to exist, then it will be reasonable to describe Antifa as a single thing.

Re:Right Detoxify

[HeckRuler]

Do you want me to go find a single example of a conservative abusing their power to punish people he doesn't like? Can I use that to bash all "conservatives" as power-mad authoritarian douchbags? Come on man, in a story about how the Internet is toxic is this really the angle you want to push?

Re:There it is "toxic",...

[AbRASiON]

Case in point, this post of mine above, while making no horrible claims about people or being nastily written is already being moderated down.

With us or against us mentality, groupthink or nothing.
Wouldn't be so bad if it was just extreme left but they're starting to impact the 'normal' left as well.

Re:Trash

[sexconker]

No, that's not what anyone credible said.

We now have credible informants detailing big reveals coming soon (possibly this week).
#releasethevideo #hrcvideo etc.

Re:Trash

[drinkypoo]

We now have credible informants detailing big reveals coming soon (possibly this week).

Yes, that is what they said last time. And lo, it never came to pass. And it won't come to pass this time, either.

Re:There is no antifa [Re:the newyorker?]

[eaglesrule]

Actions speak louder than words, or whatever label you assign your group.

Actual antifascists don't attack peaceful demonstrators or make having a speaking event at a college require a large security contingent. Antifa at Kings College is just a recent example.

They are no more anti fascist than North Korea is an actual democratic republic.

Online sites never have been democracies

[humankind]

The owner/operator/admins of a web site can do what they want. It is crazy how so many people on Reddit feel so entitled that they can say whatever they want, and nobody should be able to do anything about it.

Personally, I wish Reddit would do away with the up/down voting completely. Or give moderators the ability to determine whose votes count, so we can actually have some defense against the brigades of trolls. We need more control, not less.

Re:Whine MOAR

[MightyYar]

So you think that controversial subjects have simple, uncontroversial solutions that will float to the top of online discussions? Yeah, I'd post AC too.

What does 'toxic' mean, anyhow?

[Xenographic]

It's weird what Reddit considers 'toxic', too. I mean, for some odd reason, they don't appear to have any issue with these subs...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Shoplifting/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stealing/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pickpocket/

War and Peace.

[The123king]

Jesus, i was hoping TFA was a quick read, but that's more like war and peace.

TL;FA (Too long; Fell asleep)

Re:Spez shouldn't have did that but...

[mjwx]

The tradition hasn't been as consistent over time as you think.

Tradition: how I think things used to be.

Of course traditions change over time... because people change overtime. So any ideas of "tradition" from anti-liberals are more nostalgia than fact, imaginations of a "white picket fence" fantasy that never really existed.

Reddit is better than facebook/twitter/google

[walterbyrd]

Not saying reddit is perfect, or even very good.

But reddit is *much* better than the out-of-control leftist ideologues on facebook, twitter, google/youtube.

 

TL;DR

[NewYork]

Reddit is unable to find a solution to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority