Study Finds that Banning Right Wing Trolls Improves User Experience

[Milchshake]

Grats to Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook. Will their recent cleanup efforts improve their platforms?

REcent studies and test cases have shown that banning Trump supporters and other right wing trolls did indeed show gains.

• How a ban on pro-Trump patterns unraveled the online knitting world
• One of the Oldest Online RPG Communities Banned Pro-Trump Speech
• Study finds Reddit’s controversial ban of its most toxic subreddits actually 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.

[Endus]

"But it won't change anyone's minds! They'll continue being just as bigoted no matter what you do!"

You don't ban people to "change their minds". You ban people so you don't have their bullshit ruining the community environment you provide for users. The bigots can fuck off and go bigot somewhere else, like Stormfront.

Their minds aren't worth changing. Nobody gives a shit about their views. They can fuck off, because nobody wants to hear their shit, and they aren't interested in discussing anything anyway.

[DingDongKing]

It’s also the best way to troll right wing trolls. The tears from the right wing after Trump’s banning are so fucking lovely to witness.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Of course the right wing trolls will then create their own safe space where they can then post their own conspiracies. But the last few times that's happened, the right wing trolls went out of control, plotting kidnapping, murders, and shooting sprees, and the FBI either sent a notice to the business/person hosting the right wing space, or they stormed the building of the right wing troll hosting the new servers.

Kinda funny how right wing trolls are the unhinged violent ones who always get themselves deplatformed, but cry about the left being violent thugs.

[PACOX]

Removing problematic people improves an environment. Why are people being paid to 'study' the obvious? Seriously who issuing these grants? What kind of lifestyle does someone grow up to even ponder such a question?

Exercising bad actors aside, people love echo chambers. It doesn't matter if you are removing manic trolls from a site why everyone is trying to have civil discussion or all the ST fans from a SW, both will report an improvement down the line.

[Grimbold21]

As much as people here seemingly like to engage with clear trolls, I would think it'd be a pretty common response to just ban all trolls.

[Santti]

In before someone shouts the bans violate their right to free speech.

Immediately reminded of Randy Marsh's "I'm sorry, I thought this was America!"

Sigh...

[SirBeef]

As much as people here seemingly like to engage with clear trolls, I would think it'd be a pretty common response to just ban all trolls.

It had been discussed but they seem to be under the impression that banning the obvious paid Russian shills would cause more harm than good. But I do say give them the boot. I'd also put a 3 month hold before new accounts can post. That should stop a lot of what's his names antics. Unless the dude mass creates accounts at once.

[PC2]

Banning trolls improves the experience for the non-trolls. I could've told you that without needing to study any data.

I think a political troll is any person who doesn't want to focus on policy ideas and arguments and just wants to fling mud at political opponents in order to get rise out of them or derail the policy debate. Removing those trolls would improve the overall experience regardless of whether they are left or right.

[Milchshake]

Trump still has tumblr as an option.

Im mostly certain Trump's tumblr bio is going to say "welcome to my twisted mind."

[Krakan]

I don't really see how banning them would actively change anything. YouTube gives you your reccomend based on what you watch. You go onto Twitter to pick fights and act smug and while I don't use reddit myself unless a sub is massive isn't it more or less invisible to you unless you search it out?

I guess it's a win for people who enjoy censorship? I don't even know if it's that though how do bans work on reddit do they ban you from a topic or your whole account? How would they track this?

[Crispin]

Trump still has tumblr as an option.

Im mostly certain Trump's tumblr bio is going to say "welcome to my twisted mind."

Sure Grindr havent banned him yet either ;D

[jonnysensible]

de platforming works, ban all chuds

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Sure Grindr havent banned him yet either ;D

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[D Luniz]

de platforming works, ban all chuds

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We've already seen Melania nude, no one pays for what they got free

[Toppy]

Removing problematic people improves an environment. Why are people being paid to 'study' the obvious? Seriously who issuing these grants? What kind of lifestyle does someone grow up to even ponder such a question?

Exercising bad actors aside, people love echo chambers. It doesn't matter if you are removing manic trolls from a site why everyone is trying to have civil discussion or all the ST fans from a SW, both will report an improvement down the line.

You really have no idea how this stuff works do you?

You can't always assume something will work a certain way. Mankind is very good at making logical reasons for why anything would work. If people were told the opposite people would nod their heads and make reasons why this makes complete and total sense.

[gondrin]

We've already seen Melania nude, no one pays for what they got free

Well, we all know one person who has. He's big and orange. He also pays in the tune of $140,000

[Krakan]

You really have no idea how this stuff works do you?

You can't always assume something will work a certain way. Mankind is very good at making logical reasons for why anything would work. If people were told the opposite people would nod their heads and make reasons why this makes complete and total sense.

I think we moved so far into bias confirming they just simply want to be told they are right at this point...

[DKjaigen]

Democracy is not meant to pleasant. This will cause segregation and ultimately a complete breakdown of society and the democracy.

[Toppy]

I think we moved so far into bias confirming they just simply want to be told they are right at this point...

Not what's being said at all actually. The point is you cannot assume something is right just because it seems right because people are very good at making anything seem correct. What is common sense to one person isnt to another, and thus why there is a need to confirm things.

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Democracy is not meant to pleasant. This will cause segregation and ultimately a complete breakdown of society and the democracy.

Not doing anything has led to segregation and breakdown. So, nice try.

[Machismo]

Democracy is not meant to pleasant. This will cause segregation and ultimately a complete breakdown of society and the democracy.

Blame that on the fucking Nazis who murdered the cop the other day.

Personally, I love that private business owners are free to not associate with racist shitbags.