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Unpaid and Abused: Moderators Speak Out Against Reddit (engadget.com)

Posted by msmash on from the topsy-turvy-world dept.

In a joint investigation, Engadget and Point spoke to 10 Reddit moderators, and all of them complained that Reddit is systematically failing to tackle the abuse they suffer. Keeping the front page of the internet clean has become a thankless and abusive task, and yet Reddit's administration has repeatedly neglected to respond to moderators who report offenses. From the report: "I've had a few death threats," said Emily, who asked to be referred to by her first name and her Reddit username, lolihull, to prevent the online harassment from spilling over into her real life. [...] "I had three death threats this past month," said abrownn, who moderates r/Futurology, with more than 13 million subscribers, and r/technology, with more than 6 million subscribers. abrownn asked only to be known by their username. All the moderators interviewed confirmed they had received death threats, which they said can take a toll.

[...] It's hard to pin down how many moderators there are: Even the moderators themselves don't know, but most estimate their numbers are into the tens of thousands. Some spend hours each day working for free on the site. Whatever the actual figure, they far outnumber the higher-ranking and paid administrators, whose job it is to respond to the evidence that the moderators collect.

8 of 363 comments (clear)

  1. Why so many death threats? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you wouldn't say it to their face then don't say it online. What's wrong with people?

    1. Re:Why so many death threats? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm guessing that it's easy to type out a death threat and the people doing it know that it is likely to have maximal impact. The majority of people doing it would probably crap themselves if they were confronted about it in person. It's weak and underhanded.

  2. Reddit moderation is bullshit... by blahplusplus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    .. like 90% of the channels you can tell people of low education and people who are young tend to be moderators. AKA people with lots of free time.

    The reason reddit is so popular because it is a confirmation bias wonderland for people who are not very bright and that is most of our species. So reddit is a wonderland of egoboost for the none too bright and uninformed. It's just 100% drama generating machine between the informed, uninformed, young and old and it has to do with the karma and moderation system. Reddit is just one monkey ego war where opinions no matter how dumb are fought and defended by drive by upvoting and downvoting of whatever subgroup is most dominant on the sub unfortunately for our species .

    The whole thing thrives off putting people of various ages and education backgrounds together and watching them go at it. It's just a battle royal, to a large extent.

    1. Re:Reddit moderation is bullshit... by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I guess it depends where you go. I occasionally visit some of the smaller, more technically-oriented subreddits, like for programming languages and game development, and I've found most people there to be pretty nice and helpful.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    2. Re:Reddit moderation is bullshit... by Kiuas · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Reddit is just one monkey ego war where opinions no matter how dumb are fought and defended by drive by upvoting and downvoting of whatever subgroup is most dominant on the sub unfortunately for our species .

      The whole thing thrives off putting people of various ages and education backgrounds together and watching them go at it. It's just a battle royal, to a large extent.

      The whole thing thrives off putting people of various ages and education backgrounds together and watching them go at it. It's just a battle royal, to a large extent.

      This is perhaps true, but at the same time this describes most of the conversations on the internet between strangers. At least to Reddit's credit the possibility of downvoting eliminates the most obvious cases of trolling and flaming. Look at some other platforms like Facebook that do not allow downvoting at all and the discussion culture is many times more toxic because no matter how stupid a statement is there will always be a bunch of fools that like it and this feeds the trolls and the morons.

      Reddit isn't perfect by any means, but it's a small step in the right direction. Keep in mind that the vast majority of online users have been discussing online for 10-20 years, and during that time both the number of platforms and the number of people have grown immensely. The internet and the culture that comes wth it is still very much a work in progress, even though we don't tend to think of it like that.

      I like the moderation system of Slashdot over simple votes (in fact it was the main thing that got me to register here almost a decade ago precisely because I was fed up with the level and moderation of discussion elsewhere), although I admit I'm not sure if something like this would work on the scale of Reddit and the amount of content being posted there. If anyone is aware of other platforms doing interesting things with discussion moderation that's not just a simple free-for-all, I'd be interested to hear about them.

      --
      "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
    3. Re:Reddit moderation is bullshit... by swb · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Many larger subs are a shitpost idiocracy of noise, but the smaller ones can be pretty reasonable.

      r/futurology is a terrible example of a subreddit. I think it might be a default subreddit, which means it gets a lot of random visits, and 99% of the posts there are pretty much fantasy clickbait. "Scientists discover way to use Earth's rotation to create free energy and world peace."

      I will say that it is a harsh web site. When your're wrong on most subs, man, are you wrong.

      My city's local subreddit is also dominated by a very narrow political/age spectrum where deviating from the party line will result in bans. I got banned for 30 days (only sub, ever) even though I had a positive karma of something like +5 for my history in the sub over hundreds of posts and comments.

      Overall I mostly like reddit, but there are times where it's just too mean or too stupid. You have to put some effort into finding worthwhile subs and avoid most of the big ones.

  3. Re:Never understood why people want to be moderato by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The difference is that on Slashdot, all you really do is mod them down. You can still read all the app apps and all the GNAA, not to mention the cosmonaut Golden Girls.

    No idea why anyone would, but you can.

    The information is still there. That's the difference.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  4. Quit = Problem Solved? by CoolDiscoRex · · Score: 5, Interesting
    If i understand correctly, they aren't getting paid, and thus have nothing to lose besides being moderators. Yet, being moderators is valuable enough for them to endure no pay and death threats.

    People desiring the power of a moderator that much, have historically rubbed people the wrong way ie. the kid who helps the teacher enforce rules.

    I am 100% for worker's rights. However, being that they can leave at any time, with zero penalty (other than, you know, not getting to moderate), I struggle to sympathize here. People who crave the ability to exert power over others to the extent that they will endure death threats, for nothing, have issues of their own. It's kind of unsurprising that they evoke strong emotions from those with an equally strong hatred of being controlled. I mean, wars have been fought for less.