Study Finds Reddit’s Controversial Ban of its Most Toxic Subreddits Actually Worked

[Deleted]

This is the kind of response I would expect from someone who either: hasn't read the subforums in question, or thinks other people haven't and believes they can get away with pretending it wasn't like that.

People saying stupid stuff is truly worth of an investigation. They can't keep getting away with it!

[Speaknoevil]

People saying stupid stuff is truly worth of an investigation. They can't keep getting away with it!

You are missing the point entirely.

This is about not letting them organize on the website. This potentially accomplishes several things,
-Not letting an echo chamber further radicalize its members
-Not letting them make extremist contacts as easily
-Sending a message about the limits of what the site will tolerate
-Not letting people incite violence on their website

[Dhrizzle]

Actually worked to do what? Create a safe space? Yes.
But not to rid the world of anything you dislike. Why not just have a conversation? I guess you really do like walls.

The thing we disliked were people using large websites like Reddit to spread their misery and hate. Ultimately people are entitled to have their hateful, petty opinions but it's better that those individuals don't get a handy megaphone and cloak of anonymity to infect others with their hate and bully people.

[OrcsRLame]

You are basically saying the alt-right doesn't hate minorities, they simply think of them as vile, lesser beings, worthy of oppression. Honestly, I'm fine with that. Yes, it is worse than plain hatred, much worse. I linked it to hatred, but if you want to go by that metric, I'm fine with using that. On that note, all the more reason to not have those people in your place of business.

Agreed.

Here's the thing, you can say that some political elites are racist, without going to radicalism to point it out. That's like complaining about a police officer taking bribes, by murdering hundreds of random officers.

Yes! Exactly this. That is why I want the alt-right to fail, but I want to them to rustle jimmies on the way down. The radicalism is a totally insane reaction.

Here's the thing, it's almost always good business to kick out the people who are the most disruptive, and pissing off the other customers. Do you know what happens when a restaurant owner throws out a customer who is drunkenly yelling at other customers? Everyone cheers? Do you know what happens if they do not? The normal customers stop going there, and the only customers you get, are the assholes. That's how business works. If that's not the case, then those customers who got kicked out will find a viable alternative, and that one will take over. So, by their vary actions that you even showed, Reddit is operating in a moderate manner, and only kicking out the worst of the worst.

Perhaps, but I don't really see it that way. I assume you don't use Reddit, but in most subs, srs is considered to pretty much be the scum of Reddit, and it's been that way for a very long time now. The average user would definitely cheer if srs was banned. It's kind of understandable that debatethealtright is still around; it's a subreddit framed around debate, so Reddit would be feeding the victim narrative if they banned them. Subs like fatpeoplehate and coontown though, while those were terrible and obviously full of evil people, I think srs is worse. Even back when those subs were around if you saw a post on askreddit that was something like, "what is the most toxic subreddit?" srs would pretty consistently be number 1. Srs is still around though, because the mods of srs are friends with the admins. In one of the more recent AMAs that Spez did, one of the most upvoted questions was asking him why srs was still around, and he just didn't respond to it. On a personal level, shit like that bugs the crap out of me.

For those that don't know what srs is, it's a subreddit dedicated to harassing people, literally. They look for posts on other subreddits that they disagree with, repost them to srs, and then they all laugh at the person and talk about how evil and stupid they are. On paper, it stops there, but in reality they use other accounts with VPNs and a Discord server to coordinate doing things like sending threatening/mocking messages to their victims, and they often stalk them for weeks and downvote/report their posts. Their mods also try and take over other subreddits. They worm their way into smaller communities, suck up to the mods, try and get mod status, and then they start enforcing their own rules and views on the people of those subs. And they don't just go after political subs, they go after anything that looks weak to them. Anywhere they can dig their claws into. Nasty fucking people. At least with fatpeoplehate and coontown they actually stuck to their own subs.

[Deleted]

-Not letting an echo chamber further radicalize its members
-Not letting them make extremist contacts as easily
-Sending a message about the limits of what the site will tolerate
-Not letting people incite violence on their website

Yeah, call me when the said standards are applied to the communists here preaching their hateful ideology.

[Machismo]

Agreed.



Yes! Exactly this. That is why I want the alt-right to fail, but I want to them to rustle jimmies on the way down. The radicalism is a totally insane reaction.



Perhaps, but I don't really see it that way. I assume you don't use Reddit, but in most subs, srs is considered to pretty much be the scum of Reddit, and it's been that way for a very long time now. The average user would definitely cheer if srs was banned. It's kind of understandable that debatethealtright is still around; it's a subreddit framed around debate, so Reddit would be feeding the victim narrative if they banned them. Subs like fatpeoplehate and coontown though, while those were terrible and obviously full of evil people, I think srs is worse. Even back when those subs were around if you saw a post on askreddit that was something like, "what is the most toxic subreddit?" srs would pretty consistently be number 1. Srs is still around though, because the mods of srs are friends with the admins. In one of the more recent AMAs that Spez did, one of the most upvoted questions was asking him why srs was still around, and he just didn't respond to it. On a personal level, shit that bugs the crap out of me.

For those that don't know what srs is, it's a subreddit dedicated to harassing people, literally. They look for posts on other subreddits that they disagree with, repost them to srs, and then they all laugh at the person and talk about how evil and stupid they are. On paper, it stops there, but in reality they use other accounts with VPNs and a Discord server to coordinate doing things like sending threatening/mocking messages to their victims, and they often stalk them for weeks and downvote/report their posts. Their mods also try and take over other subreddits. They worm their way into smaller communities, suck up to the mods, try and get mod status, and then they start enforcing their own rules and views on the people of those subs. And they don't just go after political subs, they go after anything that looks weak to them. Anywhere they can dig their claws into. Nasty fucking people. At least with fatpeoplehate and coontown they actually stuck to their own subs.

I have no idea what SRS is.

Reddit is a private company, and it makes sense to focus your business on what will generate the most money. Racist assholes tend to cause advertisers to run away. It's why white supremacy sites don't tend to advertise for national brands.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, call me when the said standards are applied to the communists here preaching their hateful ideology.

Do you mean the communists on these pages who get banned constantly, just like the asshat neo-Nazis and white nationalists?

[Moralgy]

I have no idea what SRS is.

Reddit is a private company, and it makes sense to focus your business on what will generate the most money. Racist assholes tend to cause advertisers to run away. It's why white supremacy sites don't tend to advertise for national brands.

- - - Updated - - -



Do you mean the communists on these pages who get banned constantly, just like the asshat neo-Nazis and white nationalists?

Shit reddit says maybe? I googled it and I found a mostly dead sub and that.

Edit- I think that is it, i ventured over there and wow is it a cesspool of shit.

[Dhrizzle]

took me 10 seconds to load the antifa reddit which has calls for a man to be run down by a truck in it's top three currently.

Here's a bit of context - the guy who made that post is very much against Antifa, posted a video of a guy claiming to be Antifa (but acting more like a troll) being hit by a truck and said he wants that guy to be hit again.

[Fencers]

Those who are happy with banning all those mean opinions that are different, how would you like if your opinions were banned?

Would suck, yeah?

How about you just let everybody have freedoms. Nobody is forcing you to go to toxic subreddits. Just like nobody forces me to go to Social Justice Warriors: The Subreddit.

It is worth noting that Reddit banned 'mean opinions' from their private property.

If I sat inside your house shouting mean opinions at you I bet you'd ask me to leave as well.

[OrcsRLame]

Shit reddit says maybe? I googled it and I found a mostly dead sub and that.

Edit- I think that is it, i ventured over there and wow is it a cesspool of shit.

That would be the one. It's not as dead as it might initially seem though. Small amount of users, lot of activity when they get going.

[Moralgy]

That would be the one. It's not as dead as it might initially seem though. Small amount of users, lot of activity when they get going.

oh I was talking about this actual dead dead one that is actually "SRS" that came up when i googled "SRS reddit". Shit reddit says is fairly active!

[OrcsRLame]

oh I was talking about this actual dead dead one that is actually "SRS" that came up when i googled "SRS reddit". Shit reddit says is fairly active!

I swear typing r/srs used to link directly to shit reddit says. I wasn't aware there was a difference!

[Milchshake]

The good news is that ole Milo is trending again, but probably not in a positive way. How embarrassing.

Milo's response. :-D

That twitter joke never gets old

Wow I thought I was snarky, but that editors comments are a whole new level.

Comment [A166]: I will not accept a manuscript that labels an entire class of people as "mentally ill".

Comment [A406]: This is not the time or place for another black-dick joke.

Comment [A191]: DELETE UGH

[Antiganon]

That twitter joke never gets old

Wow I thought I was snarky, but that editors comments are a whole new level.

This was objectively hilarious.

I assume the joke of Milo's response is that he is banned?

[GreenGoldSharpie]

This was objectively hilarious.

I assume the joke of Milo's response is that he is banned?

It is. Been pretty popular since Milo got banned.

[Zoneseek]

This thread reminds me of voat and that fat people hate subreddit. Man those guys were sure voat would take over as the new reddit. Guess not.

[xChurch]

Still trying to wrap my head around how banning r/coontown and r/fatpeoplehate became a political issue. Did they actually ban anything overtly political, or is the victim complex so bad that some people will accociate with anything that can be perceived as a victim of left-wing attacks?

[Antiganon]

Still trying to wrap my head around how banning r/coontown and r/fatpeoplehate became a political issue. Did they actually ban anything overtly political, or is the victim complex so bad that some people will accociate with anything that can be perceived as a victim of left-wing attacks?

something something, leftists, something, muh free speech, something something SJWs.

[zealo]

Still trying to wrap my head around how banning r/coontown and r/fatpeoplehate became a political issue. Did they actually ban anything overtly political, or is the victim complex so bad that some people will accociate with anything that can be perceived as a victim of left-wing attacks?

So far, not really. Subreddits like r/coontown were in essence a Reddit version of Stormfront. Subreddits dealing with actual politics in all directions of the spectrum are still on Reddit.

[Endus]

Still trying to wrap my head around how banning r/coontown and r/fatpeoplehate became a political issue. Did they actually ban anything overtly political, or is the victim complex so bad that some people will accociate with anything that can be perceived as a victim of left-wing attacks?

That's what I was getting at earlier.

This wasn't political. By trying to make it political, right-wingers are tacitly siding with the abusive shitheads that frequented these subreddits and got them shut down. That implicitly makes that kind of abuse a right-wing platform position that must be supported. And that's asinine. Nobody should be supporting it. We should all agree that they're abusive shitheads. They shouldn't be seen as being on anyone's side, and nobody should be rushing to defend them. This wasn't an attack on "conservative thinking", it was an attack on abusive behaviour. If you're conflating the two, and defending their "right" to stay active, you are the one saying that conservativism necessarily includes that kind of abuse, not those trying to get rid of it.

And I just don't understand that. This isn't about politics, or left-right thinking, or any of that. These people were engaging in organized harassment and abuse. Why can't we agree that that's a shitty-ass thing to do and the bans were deserved?