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

[authority portal]

*This is actually a thing btw, if you google MMO Champion, you get:
Website description: MMO-Champion is a website that writes about topics such as Robert Mueller, Hillary Clinton, North Korea, and Republican Party.

This is seriously funny.

[Machismo]

So what? Do those people cease to exist because they are no longer on reddit? Holy shit people can't be this stupid. Banning this type of speech gives credence to whichever "easily digestible" conspiracy group happen to "predict" their ban.

They are feeding a machine and are constantly shocked every step of the way when reality unfolds in front of them.

Of course banning a place that's purpose is to be a "safe space" for that type of speech will result in the near eradication of that type of speech. Holy shit guys i put lawn grower on my lawn and my lawn grew. WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAT? I bet it was the fact that i beat my kid every night. Let me continue doing that.

Everybody so so absorbed in short term happiness that they are neglecting all long term problems.

This was directed at the article at nobody here.

Think of Reddit as a restaurant. They are simply telling the loud, angry, vile customers that they do not wish to serve them any longer. Reddit has no desire to turn those asshole into decent humans, they merely wish to make the experience better for their other customers.

[kasuke06]

For the first two, you're just obviously and objectively false; those were right-wing viewpoints, pretty much definitively.

So tell me, is it that you have absolutely no understanding of what the labels "right" and "left" mean, in political terms? Or is it that you don't understand history and that parties can and do change over time, and that the Democratic Party of the mid-late 19th Century could (and objectively was) a vastly different party, ideologically speaking, than the modern party of the same name?



This is nonsense, and amounts to you trying to rewrite history, and involves you willfully ignoring plenty of cases of left-wing thinkers condemning horrors perpetrated by left-wing proponents in history. You're projecting your biases, as demonstrated by your willful disregard of facts, not making a valid argument.

So the democrats weren't for slavery? Man the democrats really have managed to rewrite their own history.

do like the "no no, they changed! You're guys have always been totally evil forever!" part though.

Next you'll tell me Lincoln led the CSA.

[Rooflesstoofless]

They all migrated to the comments section of LiveLeaks and YouTube.

[Endus]

So the democrats weren't for slavery? Man the democrats really have managed to rewrite their own history.

You're confusing "the Democratic Party of the mid-19th Century" for a party that was left-wing.

They were not. They were heavily right-wing. As can be seen by their support for things like slavery and, later, Jim Crow laws.

You clearly understand that the Democratic Party of that era was supporting right-wing values. So the root issue here seems to be that you don't have any clue what "left-wing" and "right-wing" actually mean, other than as team names. They mean something that's objectively defined. And both major US parties have shifted significantly in their orientation on that spectrum in the last 150 years.

do like the "no no, they changed! You're guys have always been totally evil forever!" part though.

Literally not what I said. Are you deliberately misrepresenting me for some reason, or do you really fail to comprehend these fairly simple and basic points of political history?

Here's some information, since apparently you skipped this era in school;

https://josephkaminski.org/2016/03/1...tch-platforms/
https://www.livescience.com/34241-de...platforms.html
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/opin...fs-9226115.php
http://www.weekendcollective.com/rep...what-happened/
http://www.chronicle.com/blognetwork...switch-places/

Next you'll tell me Lincoln led the CSA.

Nope, what I'll remind you is that Lincoln was left-wing for his time. As was his Republican Party.

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So what? Do those people cease to exist because they are no longer on reddit? Holy shit people can't be this stupid. Banning this type of speech gives credence to whichever "easily digestible" conspiracy group happen to "predict" their ban.

Reddit isn't trying to fix all of global society.

Reddit is just trying to fix Reddit.

[Endus]

If a science lab has an infectious disease, should it contain it on premises until it can be eradicated, or should they release it out in the open for the EPA, FDA, FTC, USDA, the corn one i can't remember.....

This isn't an "infectious disease", it's just some people being shitheads. And Reddit doesn't have any responsibility for trying to "fix" them.

If you want to make that comparison, anyway, then it's like arguing that a telephone company should be offering full hospitalization, quarantine, and medical research programs to combat an actual disease, rather than groups like the CDC. When in practice, that's not how anything works; the CDC takes over if there's an actual disease, and the telephone company wouldn't be responsible for figuring anything out.

[Milchshake]

This isn't an "infectious disease", it's just some people being shitheads. And Reddit doesn't have any responsibility for trying to "fix" them.

If you want to make that comparison, anyway, then it's like arguing that a telephone company should be offering full hospitalization, quarantine, and medical research programs to combat an actual disease, rather than groups like the CDC. When in practice, that's not how anything works; the CDC takes over if there's an actual disease, and the telephone company wouldn't be responsible for figuring anything out.

Being shitheads that seem to whither away when their toys are taken away. If other platforms like maybe mmoC follow suit they'll just have 4chan or whatever.

[Ganksinatra]

The disconnect from reality with the "ban all the things I don't like!!!" crowd is truly awe inspiring. And not in a good way.

Someday, you'll be required to join us here in the real world. That would be that scary place outside your front door where you cannot demand someone be silenced for disagreeing with you by false flagging their opinion, or insisting you "know what they really mean", or screeching "racist" and "bigot" at people like an autistic parrot. That sort of stupidity might actually get you hurt. The real world, where people are allowed that crazy "freedom of expression" stuff you clearly disdain. The place where no one gives a shit that your fee fees are hurt.

I have told my friends and family for years to stop coddling their damned children. I was one of those "safe space/you should only be allowed to have MY opinions or you should shut up" kids. And then I was tossed into the deep end. It was a rough first year. I lost 3 jobs because no one gave a shit that I took a joke the wrong way and then attempted to get someone fired for it. No one cared that my delicate sensibilities were damaged when someone would DARE "micro-agression" in my presence. Everyone wanted me gone, and for good reason. And you will experience it too, that is assuming you can find a job with your degree in pan-Asian gender studies or interpretive LGBTQ dance.

The world is going to chew you up and spit you out if you think silencing those you disagree with is a "good thing". Unless you move to china or North Korea. Then you'll love it.....as long as you hold the popular opinions. You'll either end up like me (the guy who hates what I used to be and sees it as about as fascistic as anything I once claimed was fascist), or you'll eat the business end of a Glock. I truly hope it's the former. For your sake and ours.

[mickybrighteyes]

Being shitheads that seem to whither away when their toys are taken away. If other platforms like maybe mmoC follow suit they'll just have 4chan or whatever.

They'd just make a new site to cater to their views while the degree of handling would likely turn out to be detrimental to the sites trying it unless they kept themselves in check as they did it. Otherwise they'd just turn out like Tumblr.

edit:

also it seems you are unaware of what transpired in the 2014-2015 shift that lead to Moot giving up on 4chan if you reference it like this.

[The Penguin]

Being shitheads that seem to whither away when their toys are taken away. If other platforms like maybe mmoC follow suit they'll just have 4chan or whatever.

Or more likely they'll create their own websites. Then Google can try to remove them from the App store, get sued for their business practices, lose their claim that despite ruling a majority of the market they can 'refuse business', and then get broken into smaller businesses as per the laws constituting a monopoly.

I supposed people missed the lawsuit that happened this week. Apple got sued after admitting it slowed IPhones. The bad-faith business dealings implied are huge, but it's also just the tip of the push-back on liberal businesses based out of Silicon Valley who time and again have engaged in strong-arming tactics because they believe they "know better". It'll broaden to expand into other mediums and when reality finally smashes these companies like a Antifa monogrammed bat, their collective heads will explode with shock and they will ask "How did we miss this?".

A good example can be found in the new Star Wars film. I enjoyed it, but accept others did not. Nonetheless I am baffled and staggered by the audacity and sheer arrogance of some news outlets. To broach the idea that anyone who dislikes Last Jedi is somehow a misogynist or racist is frankly, laughable and speaks to how pathetic and shallow the left has become. This is why people are sick of them also. People are tired of asinine and completely false charges being made on them, with a express intent to engage in character assassination, and to try and squelch dialogue. Because of that the push-back has already begun, and it will continue.

But the Left will figure out how badly they misread the public soon enough. Happy New Year folks.

[Ragedaug]

Top fucking kek.

Also, in Milo's case, deplatforming did make him hugely more popular.

Now people are just trying to ignore him.

Same here. I hadn't heard of Milo until he got deplatformed. While I would concede he has a couple good ideas, you'll never get past his trolling to discuss any of them. All banning seemed to do to him was make it so I hear about him wherever I go now.

[Deleted]

If other platforms like maybe MMOC follow suit they'll just have 4chan or whatever.

MMOC already bans people for almost nothing and has a huge banned topics list. What are you talking about?

[SherriMayim]

What's the best solution for reducing toxic behavior for online communities: Infractions? Time-Outs? Bans?

I remember people worried that deplatforming Milo Y would only make him stronger and all ideas deserved to be debated. Nope! Deplatforming works. The biggest thing giving me hope right now is people facing social consequences for being mean and wrong. We don't need a trial by jury to know someone is a jerk and life is too short to suffer jerks.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/11/st...tually-worked/

It seems like just the other day that Reddit finally banned a handful of its most hateful and deplorable subreddits, including r/coontown and r/fatpeoplehate. The move was, at the time, derided by some as pointless, akin to shooing criminals away from one neighborhood only to trouble another. But a new study shows that, for Reddit at least, it has had lasting positive effects.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology took this question seriously, as until someone actually investigates whether such bans are helpful, harmful or some mix thereof, it’s all speculation. So they took a major corpus of Reddit data (compiled by PushShift.io) and examined exactly what happened to the hate speech and purveyors thereof, with the two aforementioned subreddits as case studies.

Essentially they looked at the thousands of users that made up CT and FPH (as they call them) and quantified their hate speech usage. They then compared this pre-ban data to the same users post-ban: how much hate speech they produced, where they “migrated” to (i.e. duplicate subreddits, related ones, etc.) and whether “invaded” subreddits experienced spikes in hate speech as a result. Control groups were created by observing the activity of similar subreddits that weren’t banned.

• Post-ban, hate speech by the same users was reduced by as much as 80-90 percent.
• Members of banned communities left Reddit at significantly higher rates than control groups.
• Migration was common, both to similar subreddits (i.e. overtly racist ones) and tangentially related ones (r/The_Donald).
• However, within those communities, hate speech did not reliably increase, although there were slight bumps as the invaders encountered and tested new rules and moderators.

...Right because after Hitler got an IRL ban he came back and became a hippy dippy German Bob Ross.

[Machismo]

You don't understand what i am saying. Think Meta. What society NEEDS (as seen by the people who wrote this article) is to reduce the amount of "bigoted users" across all platforms and irl. What this ban did was force vulnerable targets to organizations that will radicalize at very least 20% of them. 80% of the remaining 80% will be believe that they are justly wronged and won't change their views, and at most %5 of that remaining 20% will truly "change their ways".

That is absolutely poor payout. I don't know about you but i rather have racists on my social platform than have racists on my streets with the legitimate concern that they are being silenced, with actual, provable evidence to show that they are literally being silenced even in private life. This will mobilize even more people.

Its like nobody actually understands why Trump won and really and truly are buying into the Russia meme.

Also how much of your thoughts are your own? I've seen this exact same argument worded the exact same way without any massaging. I thought it was deja vu but i checked.

Do you know another group of people who were banned from private places because they were defined as, "loud, angry, vile"? You know the answer to that. But you think it's okay when you do it because, "muh tolerance". Do you know which other group had the, "muh tolerance" argument? Since we've established that apparently sometimes we need to tolerate intolerance, does not that make you objectively evil because you are increasing the suffering of the majority to fit the needs of the few? What about people who believe that maximizing suffering for the many to increase comfort of the few is evil? Have you considered that you are probably the vile one by your own morals? How about the morals of the latter group of people???

This is about Reddit getting rid of them on their site, not about stopping radicals and asshole trolls entirely. As for your claims of percentages... I'd like some evidence cited to back up such claims. If you want society to get rid of the racist trolls, then stop listening to them, stop giving them a free platform to spread their vile bullshit. If they want to spew their hatred, let them do it on their own dime. Memelords want an audience, and Reddit is not going to be an audience for it.

Racist people are not being silenced, not by a long shot. If you want to know why Trump won, it's the fake victimization of millions of people, including all the asshat trolls who just got banned from Reddit for being racist douchebags. Trump won, because of a large number of willfully ignorant people joined together (No, I'm not a Democrat).

Seriously, the victim card shit is way overplayed.

Your last paragraph is an adorable attempt to paint me into a box, and it failed. I don't care who a business refuses to serve, they should be allowed to do it. Yet here you are, whining that a private entity wanted to kick obnoxious people off of its property.

If you want racists on your platform, then find a platform that is filled with racists. There's plenty viable alternatives, Reddit just happens to not want to be one of them.

[Milchshake]

...Right because after Hitler got an IRL ban he came back and became a hippy dippy German Bob Ross.

You're using Hitler to move your goalposts... did you offer him free beer and sandwiches? Sounds like the worst picnic ever.

[Machismo]

So the democrats weren't for slavery? Man the democrats really have managed to rewrite their own history.

do like the "no no, they changed! You're guys have always been totally evil forever!" part though.

Next you'll tell me Lincoln led the CSA.

Let's not also forget that the parties basically switched stances during the Southern Strategy in the late 1970's and 1980's. It was conservatives all along who fought to maintain slavery, maintain Jim Crow laws, and maintain government-mandated segregation. That's the right, not the left, by any measure.

[GreenGoldSharpie]

Same here. I hadn't heard of Milo until he got deplatformed. While I would concede he has a couple good ideas, you'll never get past his trolling to discuss any of them. All banning seemed to do to him was make it so I hear about him wherever I go now.

Please. The very basis regarding people like Milo is that they're a poor man's version of Heath Ledger's Joker. They don't actually have a policy plan, and every time they attempt to take their shtick public they inevitably figure out that no one will tolerate their edgy bullshit for long. Be it Milo or that memelord who got choked out by an Oathkeeper, this shit doesn't pass in the real world for very long. Doubly so when your movement ends up supporting someone like Roy Moore and your news organ of choice admits that they supported him despite believing the claims of his victims.

[Machismo]

Or more likely they'll create their own websites. Then Google can try to remove them from the App store, get sued for their business practices, lose their claim that despite ruling a majority of the market they can 'refuse business', and then get broken into smaller businesses as per the laws constituting a monopoly.

I supposed people missed the lawsuit that happened this week. Apple got sued after admitting it slowed IPhones. The bad-faith business dealings implied are huge, but it's also just the tip of the push-back on liberal businesses based out of Silicon Valley who time and again have engaged in strong-arming tactics because they believe they "know better". It'll broaden to expand into other mediums and when reality finally smashes these companies like a Antifa monogrammed bat, their collective heads will explode with shock and they will ask "How did we miss this?".

A good example can be found in the new Star Wars film. I enjoyed it, but accept others did not. Nonetheless I am baffled and staggered by the audacity and sheer arrogance of some news outlets. To broach the idea that anyone who dislikes Last Jedi is somehow a misogynist or racist is frankly, laughable and speaks to how pathetic and shallow the left has become. This is why people are sick of them also. People are tired of asinine and completely false charges being made on them, with a express intent to engage in character assassination, and to try and squelch dialogue. Because of that the push-back has already begun, and it will continue.

But the Left will figure out how badly they misread the public soon enough. Happy New Year folks.

Man, not only do you hate freedom of the press, you also hate private property rights and freedom of speech. Your desire to push government onto private companies is bordering on pure authoritarianism. I heard the same shit coming from Elba and Kurata. You are the same as those guys... and I find that fucking hilarious.

[GreenGoldSharpie]

Man, not only do you hate freedom of the press, you also hate private property rights and freedom of speech. Your desire to push government onto private companies is bordering on pure authoritarianism. I heard the same shit coming from Elba and Kurata. You are the same as those guys... and I find that fucking hilarious.

The very basis of all of this is there's a bunch of people who feel we should have to listen to their bullshit. It's that simple. Be it nationalizing private platforms or whining about social consequences for spouting said bullshit, the whole point is them thinking we're obligated to hear them.

[Machismo]

If a science lab has an infectious disease, should it contain it on premises until it can be eradicated, or should they release it out in the open for the EPA, FDA, FTC, USDA, the corn one i can't remember.....

My point is that i think reddits actions are stupid, because it hurts society more for those people to be out in the wild, than it hurts reddit to have them on a quarantined sub reddit. People who speak about diversity often speak about wanting to save the most people and wanting to create an environment where people are safe...but when it comes to actually taking the proper steps to do that, they fail miserably.

A perfect solution would of to make the offending speech illegal on all other boards except the specific board. A concentration camp is better than a public execution when dealing with tens of thousands of people. But i doubt you even understand my words.

It's a fucking private company trying to clean up its fucking business. It kicked out the bad seeds, just like a bar would kick out the dumb assholes who are picking fights with every customer they can finds.

You seem to think these asshats were contained on Reddit, but it's a free internet, they can troll in many spots at the same time. Reddit simply said they no longer want such trash in their establishment.

Do you think a Christian website should be obligated to advertise porn? How about a restaurant, should we get pissed if a restaurant kicks out a customer who screams at all the other customers, and starts spouting off racist shit? If not, then you are a fucking hypocrite.

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The very basis of all of this is there's a bunch of people who feel we should have to listen to their bullshit. It's that simple. Be it nationalizing private platforms or whining about social consequences for spouting said bullshit, the whole point is them thinking we're obligated to hear them.

I love how all these guys are trying to white knight for racists and trolls. "You must listen to racists or they will get worse." Seriously, that is the argument they want to make.