-23 upvotes, 31 direct replies (showing 25)
View submission: Promote ideas, protect people
You know what inspired reddit? Speakers Corner's in London[1].
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speakers%27_Corner
I studied abroad in London for a semester and it really inspired me (I came back States-side and started a phpbb forum and then a year later Steve and I made reddit).
It's a place where literally anyone can get on a soapbox and talk about what matters to them. I listened to Iraqis (2003) argue for AND against the Iraq war, heard a really hateful speech by the Nation of Islam, was moved by a woman talking about the need for better mental health treatment in the UK, watched a man argue for Gay Rights standing across from a VERY conservative christian telling him he'd burn in hell.
Comment by McFluffTheCrimeCat at 14/05/2015 at 19:41 UTC
31 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Hi /u/kn0thing, where is the line going to be drawn before you take away someone's soapbox? You say you want everyone to have their soapbox and I'll use you last example because it represent two rather polar opposite sides. LBGT rights and a conservative Christian, when does the point come where group A gets the right to say something but group B doesn't, because one is politically correct and one is not. If group B is not directly harassing other users but simply stating their opinion, does their opinion alone constitute as harassment for not agreeing?
Comment by remzem at 14/05/2015 at 18:19 UTC
75 upvotes, 1 direct replies
If Speakers Corner had a system where people could get others banned for reporting their views as harassment how many of those you heard there do you think would of abused this system? If the gay had filed a complaint on the conservative religious guy for harassing him would you ban him? Burning in hell does seem rather more like harassment than a rational argument.
Your interpretation of the poll data seems rather off too. A small minority of redditors feel that way. Pretty much everyone was satisfied with the site based on your data.
Comment by [deleted] at 14/05/2015 at 22:51 UTC
11 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Then just give these people a simple toolset to block out the crap.
1. User ignore feature
2. Site-wide language crapfilter, enable or disable in your user profile
3. Controversial subreddit filter, admins manage the list, it can be public or not, also enabled or disabled in the user profile
That's all you need to do. Then anywhere they go on reddit they won't be able to see any comments that trigger them or see the content of the evil nasty free speech zones. These filters default to on, and they are active for users without accounts as well. You'll have to create an account, turn the filters off, and intentionally opt-in to see the badness - and at that point, any complains about it can be laughed away.
Meanwhile, the rest of us go about business as usual.
I know, I know - you might have to actually *touch the code* to implement these common sense solutions that have been part of most media platforms since about 1995. :/
Comment by MrPejorative at 14/05/2015 at 18:25 UTC*
12 upvotes, 1 direct replies
There are various subs (and blogs on the internet) devoted to combing through subreddits in order to mock\attack people. People love hate-reading other peoples views. It's gossip taken to a perverse level. There are blogs that make money just doing this. It tends to follow the same pattern: "*These people are saying these terrible, hateful things. Let's talk about how awful they are*".
These are nearly always full of unbalanced extremely negative mis-characterizations of a person. Inevitably this leads to out-group aggression and somebody gets harassed. The harassment is seen as deserved, because of the massive hyperbolic build up to it that happened before hand. They nearly always get a pass.
You may easily recognize the hatred coming from a Conservative Christian towards a gay man, but would you recognize the hatred coming from a Gay man for that Conservative Christian? Would you recognize hatred, aggression or stereotyping when it agreed with your world view. In short: **do you approve of hatred and harassment directed at (real or perceived) hatred\harassers**?
This is why I don't think you're going to solve harassment on reddit, because I don't think people trust you to make the right value judgements and apply the rules fairly and equally.
I think a far simpler rule would be to ask yourself simple questions: "*Is this subreddit encouraging out-group aggression?*. *If so, do what degree, and what attempts do they make to give a fair hearing to the group they are attacking."
Comment by [deleted] at 14/05/2015 at 17:45 UTC
297 upvotes, 4 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by [deleted] at 14/05/2015 at 17:51 UTC*
97 upvotes, 3 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by aurisor at 14/05/2015 at 18:04 UTC
179 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Right Alex -- but to stretch your metaphor, what you're proposing is allowing someone to go to the policeman nearby, point at the person on the soapbox, and suddenly they're never heard from again.
Comment by [deleted] at 14/05/2015 at 19:28 UTC
28 upvotes, 0 direct replies
then why are people being shadowbanned for talking negatively about ellen pao and her lawsuit?
Comment by Chavril at 14/05/2015 at 21:04 UTC
11 upvotes, 0 direct replies
You realize a lot of this harassment is SRS being unable to understand that others might not share their limited world view.
Comment by go1dfish at 14/05/2015 at 18:12 UTC
39 upvotes, 2 direct replies
It's a place where literally anyone can get on a soapbox and talk about what matters to them.
When is /r/reddit.com or something like it coming back?
Why is /r/TwoXChromosomes the only default to allow political advocacy?
Comment by GG_Meow at 14/05/2015 at 20:17 UTC
6 upvotes, 0 direct replies
If you pander to the small vocal minority — that define harassment as anything they don't like — people will leave this site. Did you see what happened to Gawker Media when they printed slanderous comments (if they used names) about people using the GamerGate hashtag? Do you see what kind of things people say about Vox Media, Polygon, Rock Paper Shotgun?
People are already sick of this shit from people constantly making false harassment allegations to shut people up. 99% of people do not agree with, or engage in harassment; the problem is *who defines* what harassment is *and who* is the arbiter of the punishment.
People don't have any faith in the arbiters because it has been shown what type of people they are. How can we expect a fair shake when the CEO of Reddit make false allegations defeated in a court of law? Cries of harassment and sexism defeated in a court of law. The difference is, a court has a jury, evidence and a fair and transparent legal process. not a lot of people (if you ask them) will feel the process you deploy will be similar.
Comment by [deleted] at 15/05/2015 at 00:13 UTC
8 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Was this change your idea or something Chairman Pao came up with to protect her reputation (her failed lawsuit and her husband's Ponsi scheme) from reddit's financiers?
Comment by OnAPartyRock at 15/05/2015 at 02:06 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
reddit should be a place where anyone can pull up their soapbox and speak their mind, or have a discussion and maybe learn something new and even challenging or uncomfortable
How can Reddit be that place when it is literally ruled by a mob? Unpopular opinions (on Reddit) get downvoted into obscurity while content pandering to the masses get upvoted. A better example of a "Speaker's Corner" would be a UBB system where posts are organized based on order of posting.
Reddit is literally the exact opposite of the "Speaker's Corner".
Comment by RTE2FM at 14/05/2015 at 21:06 UTC
7 upvotes, 1 direct replies
You're sanitizing this website and soon everyone will be gone.
Comment by Azradesh at 14/05/2015 at 22:08 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This,
reddit should be a place where anyone can pull up their soapbox and speak their mind, or have a discussion and maybe learn something new and even challenging or uncomfortable
and this,
but right now redditors are telling us they sometimes encounter users who use the system to harass them and that's a problem.
Can not coexist. You either need to protect *all* speech that you aren't obligated by the law to suppress or you need to set aside the notion that reddit has anything to do with open ideas and discussion any more.
Comment by NoMoreNicksLeft at 14/05/2015 at 17:51 UTC
6 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The larger any group gets, the more it yearns for conformity.
A gay rights advocate (seriously, auto-correcting to avocado? I gotta turn that shit off) can stand across from the christian fundy telling him he'll burn in hell because there's just two of them.
Some of the defaults have millions of subscribers, and only you guys have any clue how many lurkers there might be. Those places don't want there to be any serious conversation anymore. Serious conversation is uncomfortable.
I know reddit is a business too (and that part of it hasn't failed), but don't you guys see it?
Comment by electricfistula at 15/05/2015 at 04:44 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This feels like corporate bullshit to me. The company I work at is also obsessed with the "Would you recommend this to your friends/family/coworker?" metric. Strange that you weren't tracking these numbers during reddit's foundation and ascent. Also, strange that you would choose to chase the apophenia of survey responses.
Comment by tempguyhere2 at 14/05/2015 at 18:08 UTC
11 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Real life has consequences. You are essentially saying that "feel free to come here and face no consequences for your actions!"
If you don't want to be harassed online don't put your personal information online. Don't put your picture up for validation and then be surprised when someone uses it to attack you. You are trying to solve a problem that the user created for himself/herself or w/e the fuck these clowns identity as these days.
Online harassment is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Honestly how hard is it to turn off the computer and walk away.
Comment by atred at 16/05/2015 at 00:45 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Can you please define *harassment*? Is it doxing, posting real threats or it's "you suck" kind of message posted by an anonymous user to another anonymous user?
Also, people complaining about *something*, doesn't necessarily make it real. I've seen enough serial/professional complainers on reddit like anywhere else in life.
Comment by aelfric at 14/05/2015 at 17:48 UTC
23 upvotes, 0 direct replies
And of course, you're acting on their "feelings" and anecdotal evidence, rather than actually doing the work to see if they're correct.
Comment by poorleno111 at 14/05/2015 at 23:22 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Get a new CEO.
Comment by ELDRITCH_HORROR at 18/05/2015 at 23:43 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Then why is the upvote/downvote system there? This isn't a place for free speech. People running their communities can dictate what is allowed and what isn't. Downvotes and upvotes create an echo chamber of groupthink, and punish people with new ideas and thought patterns that run against the current.
There is no open record of who is banned, and for what reason.
If you arrive to a conversation late, you will be buried beneath thousands of comments.
This isn't a soapbox for everyone. It's turning away from that, more and more, every day.
Comment by [deleted] at 14/05/2015 at 18:50 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I really like this reply, and I wish this viewpoint was more prominent (like in the actual blog post) to re-assure some of the more controversial subreddits that you're not going after controversial viewpoints, you're going after specific individual harassment. I paid attention to the wording so I know this is so, but others might not.
Comment by xu85 at 15/05/2015 at 04:13 UTC*
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I just wanted to leave this post to thank you for creating reddit, a second home to millions of people around the world. I've visited Speakers Corner on occasion and always find it highly entertaining and a real boon to free speech and freedom of expression. In fact I was there last summer listening to a guy rally against Islam, being loudly heckled by a group of Arab gentlemen.
Regarding harassment - I feel that's something that stems from growth. Most people use reddit to dip in and out of particular interests, maybe laugh at a picture or two and leave a comment in a default. When people start treating it like an internet forum, and begin to only frequent and comment heavily in 3-4 subs, then they start to recognise others by name and begin to see their personality or views come through more evidently in their posts. When you have medium-sized subs that are dedicated to divisive issues like religion or politics, then people will form friends and yes enemies too. Harassment is uncalled for, but then I would urge you to look at it in the wider context. People, young people nowadays are so used to viewing things through the filter bubble of social media - so used to curating their social group, hobbies and activities online, that when they cross someone with markedly different views, it can come as quite a shock so have their bubble punctured. You get similar things here in the UK with some notable celebrities calling the police on "trolls", when you or I would just ignore/block, or roll with it. Of course direct threats of violence and whatnot are unacceptable, but I think my hypothesis still goes some way to explaining why people may be feeling under fire. I think your "remember the human" blog was great and certainly worked, prodding people into being nicer and more respectful to each other.
Regarding your data, I noticed some redditors were requesting "chatrooms". I think this would be dangerous and threaten the integrity of the site itself. The most notable IRC rooms that exist on reddit are found in meta subs, you probably know the ones I mean. IRC rooms give redditors the ability to converse and organise outside the eyes of the rest of the reddit community. The reason why I think this is dangerous is because subreddits will change rapidly and the vast majority of subscribers will not know why. The hard-core group of regular posters in a sub will be the ones dominating the chatrooms and thus forcing the sub to go the direction *they* want it to. I don't think it's wise to encourage people to have a platform like this, it undermines the sub and is often to the detriment of those casual subscribers who don't have the time, energy or inclination to also post in IRC.
Comment by VelvetElvis at 14/05/2015 at 18:06 UTC*
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Surely you see the difference between individual speech and group action though. Reddit is different from SC because in one case you have one person speaking at a time, in the other you can have organized groups acting.