https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditSafety/comments/pwo54j/q2_safety_security_report/
created by worstnerd on 27/09/2021 at 19:10 UTC
183 upvotes, 17 top-level comments (showing 17)
Welcome to another installation of the quarterly safety and security report!
In this report, we have included a prevalence analysis of Holocaust denial content as well as an update on the LeakGirls spammer that we discussed in the last report[1]. We’re aiming to do more prevalence reports across a variety of topics in the future, and we hope that the results will not only help inform our efforts, but will also shed some light on how we approach different challenges that we face as a platform.
1: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditsecurity/comments/nmhmj0/q1_safety_security_report_may_27_2021/
Let's jump into the numbers…
┌───��──────────────────────┬─────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────┐ │ **Category** │ **Volume (Jun - Apr │ **Volume (Jan - Mar │ │ │ 2021)** │ 2021)** │ ╞══════════════════════════╪═════════════════════════╪═════════════════════════╡ │ Reports for content │ 7,911,666 │ 7,429,914 │ │ manipulation │ │ │ ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼───────────��─────────────┤ │ Admin removals for │ 45,485,229 │ 36,830,585 │ │ content manipulation │ │ │ ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┤ │ Admin account sanctions │ 8,200,057 │ 4,804,895 │ │ for content manipulation │ │ │ ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┤ │ Admin subreddit │ │ │ │ sanctions for content │ 24,840 │ 28,863 │ │ manipulation │ │ │ ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┤ │ 3rd party breach │ 635,969,438 │ 492,585,150 │ │ accounts processed │ │ │ ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┤ │ Protective account │ 988,533 │ 956,834 │ │ security actions │ │ │ ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┤ │ Reports for ban evasion │ 21,033 │ 22,213 │ ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┤ │ Account sanctions for │ 104,307 │ 57,506 │ │ ban evasion │ │ │ ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┤ │ Reports for abuse │ 2,069,732 │ 1,678,565 │ ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┤ │ Admin account sanctions │ 167,255 │ 118,938 │ │ for abuse │ │ │ ├──────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────┤ │ Admin subreddit │ 3,884 │ 4,863 │ │ sanctions for abuse │ │ │ └──────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────┴────���────────────────────┘
​
At Reddit, we treat Holocaust denial as hateful and in some cases violent content or behavior. This kind of content was historically removed under our violence policy[2], however, since rolling out our updated content policy last year, we now classify it as being in violation of “Rule 1” (hateful content[3]).
2: https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043513151
3: https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360045715951
With this in the backdrop, we wanted to undertake a study to understand the prevalence of Holocaust denial on Reddit (similar to our previous prevalance of hateful content study[4]). We had a few goals:
First we started with the detection phase. When we approach detection of abusive and hateful content on Reddit, we largely focus on three categories:
Individually these indicators can be fairly weak, but combined they lead to much stronger signals. We’ll leave out the exact nature of how we detect this so that we don’t encourage evasion. The end result was a set of signals that lead to fairly high fidelity, but likely represent a bit of an underestimate.
Once we had the detection in place, we could analyze the frequency of submission. The following is the monthly average content submitted:
These rates were fairly consistent between 2017 through mid-2020. We see a steady decline starting mid-2020 corresponding to rollout of our hateful content policy and the subsequent ban of over 7k violating subreddits. Since the decline started, we have seen more than a 50% reduction in Holocaust denial comments (there has been a smaller impact on other content types).
Visualization of the reduction of Holocaust denial across different content types
When we take a look across all of Reddit at the community response to Holocaust denial content, we see that communities largely respond negatively. Positively-received content is defined as content not reported or removed by mods, content that has at least two votes, and has <50% upvote ratio. Negatively-received content is defined as content that was reported or removed by mods, received at least two votes, and has <50% downvote ratio.
Additionally, we looked at the median engagement with this content, which we define as the number of times that the particular content was viewed or voted on.
Taken together, these numbers demonstrate that, on average, the majority of this content receives little traction on Reddit and is generally received poorly by our users.
During the last quarterly safety report[5], we talked about a particularly pernicious spammer that we have been battling on the platform. We wanted to provide a short update on our progress on that front. We have been working hard to develop additional capabilities for detecting and mitigating this particular campaign and we are seeing the fruits of our labor. That said, as mentioned in the previous report, this actor is particularly adept at finding new and creative ways to evade our detection...so this is by no means “Mission Complete.”
5: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditsecurity/comments/nmhmj0/q1_safety_security_report_may_27_2021/
Reports on LeakGirl related spam
Since deploying our new capabilities, we have seen a sharp decline in the number of reports against content by this spammer. While the volume of content from this spammer has declined, we are seeing that a smaller fraction of the content is being reported, indicating that we are catching most of it before it can be seen. During the peak of the campaign we found that 10-12% of posts were being reported. Today, around 1% of the posts are being reported.
This has been a difficult campaign for mods and admins and we appreciate everyone’s support and patience. As mentioned, this actor is particularly adept at evasion, so it is entirely likely that we will see more. I’m excluding any discussion about our methods of detection, but I’m sure that everyone understands why.
I am a fairly active mountain biker (though never as active as I would like to be). Several weeks ago, I crashed for the first time in a while. My injuries were little more than some scrapes and bruises, but it was a good reminder about the dangers of becoming complacent. I bring this up because there are plenty of other places where it can become easy to be complacent. The Holocaust was 80 years ago and was responsible for the death of around six million Jews. These things can feel like yesterday’s problems, something that we have outgrown...and while I hope that is largely true, that does not mean that we can become complacent and assume that these are solved problems. Reddit’s mission is to bring community and belonging to all people in the world. Hatred undermines this mission and it will not be tolerated.
Be excellent to each other...I’ll stick around to answer questions.
Comment by [deleted] at 27/09/2021 at 19:15 UTC
60 upvotes, 3 direct replies
what progress has been made on the thousands of accounts being repost-farmed and sold to spammers?
Comment by blastcage at 27/09/2021 at 19:15 UTC
48 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Any word on dealing with the boosted scammy/shitcoin posts that hit r/all pretty frequently?
Comment by Watchful1 at 27/09/2021 at 19:15 UTC
39 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Is covid misinformation something your team handles?
Comment by abrownn at 27/09/2021 at 19:41 UTC*
22 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Good stuff, thanks for the update.
I hate to beat a dead horse, but I asked you some months back about several Investigations reports that seemingly fell through the cracks. You said I had no reports open/they had all been addressed. I never received replies or ticket numbers on several of those and all of the accounts are still spamming/abusing with abandon. This past week I got a reply to one I sent in May and bumped again in June due to no reply. The reply I received was extremely generic/seemed automated.
If you wish to appeal your suspension, please visit the link here. We're unable to process appeals from this channel, unfortunately.
If you are reporting content...thank you!
And zero action has come of it, nor to the immediate reply I sent with followup info between June/now. That particular report detailed an individual who's purchased ~60 accounts and dropped more than 2000 guerilla ads, sent self harm reports, harasses users regularly, and regularly threatens legal action against users calling out their spam. How can I ensure my reports aren't overlooked for almost 5 months when things like this are happening dozens of times a day from a single user? (Request #5308248)
Additionally, I sent in a note last month about a massive Middle Eastern astroturf network using GAN profile pics/fake names/fake bios that was continually being generated - zero reply. I even checked the other day and saw that they were still making new accounts more than a month later with zero issues. (No reply, so no Req# I can point to yet)
I believe I've spotted the latest incarnation of a particular individual's astroturf op that seems to be squashed every 2 years or so, how can I guarantee it won't lost in the system too?
Edit: Gee, more crickets, I'm so surprised. Guess I'll go to the media again instead?
Comment by desdendelle at 27/09/2021 at 20:19 UTC
13 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Hey you guys, it's good that you banned a bunch of Holocaust deniers, but why aren't you actioning blatant antisemites? I basically stopped reporting them (whether they showed up to troll in /r/Israel, in chat before I turned that off, or in our modmail) because you *never* take action and the automated responses were clogging my inbox.
Any chance you'll actually take action on antisemitic users and subs?
Comment by [deleted] at 27/09/2021 at 19:16 UTC*
19 upvotes, 1 direct replies
This account is no longer active.
The comments and submissions have been purged as one final 'thank you' to reddit for being such a hostile platform towards developers, mods, and users.
Reddit as a company has slowly lost touch with what made it a great platform for so long. Some great features of reddit in 2023:
Comment by ImNotJesus at 28/09/2021 at 00:36 UTC*
12 upvotes, 0 direct replies
As someone who lost family in the Holocaust I'm so glad your bike riding scrape was able to give you some perspective on the issue. I actually stubbed my toe recently and it reminded me of the Rwandan genocide.
Edit: Sorry, I shouldn't be sarcastic about this because I know it's important. Many users might not have been around for long enough to know this but r/jailbait and r/creepshots weren't actually banned because of the CNN story, Alexis got a papercut and it really changed his perspective of predatory pictures of kids and women.
Comment by UnacceptableUse at 27/09/2021 at 22:21 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I've noticed a new spam campaign in a similar vain to leakgirls (in that it's text superimposed on images), what would be the best avenue to report this? Through regular user reports?
Comment by Flimsy-Can4811 at 29/09/2021 at 07:26 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It’s such a pandemic illegals dont have to get tested or get a shot. It’s such a pandemic nurses and hospital staff that used to be “heros” don’t want the shot.
Comment by Spocks_Goatee at 27/09/2021 at 23:59 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Why am I getting "logged out" randomly, yet when I reload the page I'm still on?
Comment by Grand_Cup_2419 at 27/09/2021 at 23:51 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Doing God's work! There's definitely been a noticeable reduction in the spam across many subs.
Thanks for your hard work.
Also, happy cake day OP.
Comment by hamsterbilly at 27/09/2021 at 21:31 UTC
-4 upvotes, 1 direct replies
That’s a terrible way to close out this post… comparing mountain biking injuries to the Holocaust.
Comment by Sym0n at 27/09/2021 at 19:20 UTC
-9 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I want to Google LeakGirls, but I'm frankly scared at what the results will be.
Comment by BamboozleDoggo4 at 27/09/2021 at 19:58 UTC
-11 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Ok
Comment by djspacebunny at 28/09/2021 at 19:58 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Thanks for all you do, dude. I hope your injuries heal well. We're here for you in /r/chronicpain if you need help. I'll keep fighting the good fight if you do ;)
Comment by xumun at 29/09/2021 at 10:24 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
When you talk about ban evasion, you're talking about ban evasion *accounts* and not ban evasion *subs*, aren't you? I'm asking because I can think of at least 10 ban evasion subs that I've reported weeks ago and that are still up.
Not to mention those pesky messages:
Hello,
We're experiencing higher than usual support volume, but want to let you know that we have received your message. If we need to follow up with you, we'll message you here.
Comment by [deleted] at 14/10/2021 at 02:07 UTC*
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Edit: Mods responded to one of two reports of violence. Saying trans people should remember Chapelle has a gun is okay with Reddit?
If Reddit allows people to just use their platform to spew hate - you are the next Facebook. Talking about freedom of speech, talking about the logistics of “cancelling” people is fine - saying “remember who has guns” to groups of vulnerable people is wrong.
Reddit is becoming a cesspool at it’s core. Making it more difficult to report subs themselves bc you think the Mods will moderate themselves is an excuse and will eat Reddit from the inside out.
I’m seeing a lot of trans hate. Not seeing much policing but I started reporting it tonight.
Here’s a good example of it:
I’ll wait and see if the posts with reminders Chappelle has a gun and the wrong Americans are trapped in Afghanistan get removed. I have no idea how the mods “feel” but will wait and see.
I’m straight and the responses to this post make me ashamed to be on Reddit.
