https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditSafety/comments/11k7y7w/q4_safety_security_report/
created by worstnerd on 06/03/2023 at 18:07 UTC
123 upvotes, 17 top-level comments (showing 17)
Happy Women’s history month everyone. It's been a busy start to the year. Last month, we fielded a security incident that had a lot of snoo hands on deck. We’re happy to report there are no updates at this time from our initial assessment and we’re undergoing a third-party review to identify process improvements. You can read the detailed post[1] on the incident by u/keysersosa from last month. Thank you all for your thoughtful comments and questions, and to the team for their quick response.
Up next: The Numbers:
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┌──────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────┐ │ **Category** │ **Volume (Jul - Sep │ **Volume (Oct - Dec │ │ │ 2022)** │ 2022)** │ ╞══════════════════════════╪═════════════════════════╪═════════════════════════╡ │ Reports for content │ 8,037,748 │ 7,924,798 │ │ manipulation │ │ │ ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┤ │ Admin removals for │ 74,370,441 │ 79,380,270 │ │ content manipulation │ │ │ ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┤ │ Admin-imposed account │ │ │ │ sanctions for content │ 9,526,202 │ 14,772,625 │ │ manipulation │ │ │ ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┤ │ Admin-imposed subreddit │ │ │ │ sanctions for content │ 78,798 │ 59,498 │ │ manipulation │ │ │ ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┤ │ Protective account │ 1,714,808 │ 1,271,742 │ │ security actions │ │ │ ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┤ │ Reports for ban evasion │ 22,813 │ 16,929 │ ├────────���─────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┤ │ Admin-imposed account │ │ │ │ sanctions for ban │ 205,311 │ 198,575 │ │ evasion │ │ │ ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┤ │ Reports for abuse │ 2,633,124 │ 2,506,719 │ ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼────────────────���────────┤ │ Admin-imposed account │ 433,182 │ 398,938 │ │ sanctions for abuse │ │ │ ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┤ │ Admin-imposed subreddit │ 2,049 │ 1,202 │ │ sanctions for abuse │ │ │ └──────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────┘
​
We talk often about our work to keep users safe from abusive content, but our moderators can be the target of abusive messages as well. Last month, we started testing a Modmail Harassment Filter for moderators and the results are encouraging so far. The purpose of the filter is to limit harassing or abusive modmail messages by allowing mods to either avoid or use additional precautions when viewing filtered messages. Here are some of the early results:
Over the next few months we will continue to make model iterations to further improve performance and to keep up with the latest trends in abuse language on the platform (because shitheads never rest). We are also exploring new ways of introducing more explicit feedback signals from mods.
2: https://tenor.com/bVO8f.gif
Over the last several years, Reddit has developed a wide variety of new, advanced tools for fighting spam. This allowed us to do an evaluation of one of the oldest spam tools that we have: the Subreddit Spam Filter. During this analysis, we discovered that the Subreddit Spam Filter was markedly error prone compared to our newer site-wide solutions, and in many cases bordered on completely random as some of you were well aware. In Q4, we performed experiments and the results validated our hypothesis. Our results showed 40% of posts removed by this system were not actually spam, and the majority of true spam that was flagged was also caught by other systems. After seeing these results, in December 2022, we disabled the Subreddit Spam Filter in the background, and it turned out that no one noticed! This was because our modern tools catch the bad content with a higher degree of accuracy than the Subreddit spam filter. We will be removing the ‘Low’ and ‘High’ settings associated with the old filter, but we will maintain the functionality for mods to “Filter all posts” and will update the Community Settings to reflect this.
We know it’s important that spam be caught as quickly as possible, and we also recognize that spammy content in communities may not be the same thing as the scaled spam campaigns that we often focus on at the admin level.
We will continue to invest in admin-level tooling and our internal safety teams to catch violating content at scale, and our goal is that these updates for users and mods also provide even more choice and power at the community level. We’re also in the process of producing our next Transparency Report, which will be coming out soon. We’ll be sure to share the findings with you all once that’s complete.
Be excellent to each other
Comment by [deleted] at 06/03/2023 at 18:33 UTC
35 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by absentmindedjwc at 06/03/2023 at 21:40 UTC
16 upvotes, 1 direct replies
How about mental wellness reports (the anti-suicide things) that malicious actors use to harass people they don't agree with? Abuse of that tool is incredibly common...
Comment by ThoseThingsAreWeird at 06/03/2023 at 23:13 UTC
10 upvotes, 1 direct replies
We know it’s important that spam be caught as quickly as possible, and we also recognize that spammy content in communities may not be the same thing as the scaled spam campaigns that we often focus on at the admin level.
I've noticed quite an uptick in fresh accounts that copy a comment / part of a comment, and post it as a reply in a separate (often unrelated) comment chain under the same post.
and because that explanation feels like a brain fart this late at night, here's a practical explanation: https://old.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/11k99po/ladies_and_gentleman_the_award_for_developer_of/jb766dr/?context=3[1] (although the comment I replied to says `[unavailable]`, so it might have been removed already...)
Do these types of accounts count as spam? Are they something you're aware of / working on?
Comment by KKingler at 06/03/2023 at 19:11 UTC
9 upvotes, 1 direct replies
So with the removal of this spam filter, does “spam” removals on content do nothing different than remove?
Comment by Igennem at 06/03/2023 at 19:29 UTC
9 upvotes, 1 direct replies
What can we do about report abuse? I manage a small community serving racial minorities and a couple of bad actors are harassing us by reporting every single post that's made. It's clearly report abuse and yet automated systems seemingly haven't flagged or stopped it.
Comment by Kahzgul at 07/03/2023 at 00:09 UTC
7 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Why can't I report chat invites as spam? It's not a high amount, but there's definitely a few catfishing schemes going around via chat requests, where someone pretends to want to ask you a question and then tries to get you to send them money in a variety of scammy ways.
Comment by BB_GG at 07/03/2023 at 03:52 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
It seems like the Modmail Harassment Filter is an almost universally appreciated feature, so I'm curious the decision on making it Default Off instead of Default On for existing subs?
I feel like there are definitely a lot of mod teams who do not keep up with these features and announcements
Comment by GrumpyOldDan at 08/03/2023 at 20:51 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
What I'd love to know this time is:
How many reports this quarter were not reviewed at all due to the "we actioned the user from a report on another piece of content" response many of us have started getting?
Where we find the hate, harassment or threats are still up and visible weeks later and we have to manually re-escalate? On average it takes 2 weeks for me to get that response back only to find the content has been up the entire time.
This is Reddit actively ignoring reports now, not even just AEO getting it wrong.
Comment by rcmaehl at 06/03/2023 at 18:16 UTC*
16 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Women's history month yet reddit is running an ad to users trying to solicit or traffic women. I'm sure thousands of users have reported the '"date" our son' ad at this point judging by how many subreddits have a post trending[1] about it.
1: https://www.reddit.com/search/?q=date%20our%20son&sort=hot&t=day
Edit: link no longer works because it's been past 24 hours.
Comment by Mokumer at 07/03/2023 at 13:00 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
How many requests from governments regarding reddit users and their data? Which governments/countries?
Comment by Bardfinn at 10/03/2023 at 04:47 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Just as a head’s-up:
Some spammers have picked up on how spam is more effectively being interdicted, and many have transitioned to creating user accounts with spammy user profiles / bios / profile posts, and then follow users. When the followed user blocks the spammer user account, the operator makes new accounts and follows the user again.
So the whole “being able to report a user account directly without having to modmail modsupport” thing — to facilitate reporting adult-oriented follow spammers — is a thing whose time has come.
Comment by sinyanmei92 at 24/04/2023 at 01:53 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Hello there,
I was trying to find a solution to ban a long time scammer in our subreddit (r/mangaswap) that has been creating numerous alts (40+ or even more) to scam people.
He's been very wise, tried new tactic everytime and I believe he has scammed people in the thousands. I have tried to ban all his possible alts, but he creates one right after. He impersonated the mod team, me (who gets after him) and new all sellers in the subreddit (by creating very similar accounts to the sellers' & PM the buyer directly).
I want to get some guidance on the subject on how to prevent this guy to comeback. I know mod can't perform IP ban, I also put his alts on the USL scammer list and wiki list but what else can I do to protect my community? Thank you!
Comment by MajorParadox at 06/03/2023 at 18:30 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
40% (!) decrease in mod exposure to harassing content in Modmail
Do you find that those 40% aren't even reading the modmails?
After seeing these results, in December 2022, we disabled the Subreddit Spam Filter in the background, and it turned out that no one noticed!
Worth mentioning that the new tools look exactly like the spam filter anywhere besides the modqueue on new Reddit or the mobile apps 😆
Comment by tallbutshy at 06/03/2023 at 18:44 UTC
-3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
We will continue to invest in admin-level tooling
Given how poorly your automation does function, you don't need more of it
and our internal safety teams to catch violating content at scale
If only your safety teams and AEO were anywhere near big enough. Imagine if they also enforced the rules correctly and to an equal standard too, shocking concept I know.
Comment by Business__Socks at 06/03/2023 at 23:07 UTC
-6 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Are there plans to do anything about the constant posts showing people being violently murdered in the war? Frankly I am mortified that these posts are becoming normalized. Kids browse this site.
Comment by prodoc25 at 15/03/2023 at 04:01 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Hi there,
I'm new to Reddit and unfortunately not able to post yet, but I was hoping you could provide some guidance on obtaining permission from Reddit. Specifically, I'm conducting research on identifying the root causes of mental health using a machine learning model and would like to collect data using either PRAW or Pushshift API.
To comply with my university's ethics requirements, I need to obtain permission from Reddit. I'm unsure whether I need to obtain permission from Pushshift API as well if I were to use their data.
Could you please advise me on the steps I need to take to obtain permission? Thank you in advance for your help.
Comment by Clbull at 10/04/2023 at 19:08 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
A bit unrelated to mod abuse and spam. Do you have any plans to give users more control over their comment history?
It's not very easy to remove old content as an active user. The only way to mass delete or anonymize old comments or posts is to literally run Greasemonkey scripts.
