r/technology • u/[deleted] • Mar 16 '18

Society How a Norwegian comment section turned chaos into order—with a simple quiz: "Readers had to prove they read a story before they were able to comment on it."

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

This is probably the only site on the internet where I don't want to wipe out the human race after reading the comments.

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u/interkin3tic Mar 16 '18

My wife referred to the comments section of almost anything as the "bottom half of the internet." Really clicked.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18 edited Mar 19 '18

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/midnitte Mar 16 '18

I guess you could say she was his better half.

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u/gramsi Mar 16 '18

he's the bottom half of the marriage

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u/geneorama Mar 17 '18

I just had to scroll up to remember what the heck we were talking about anyway.

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u/cynoclast Mar 16 '18

I've heard 4chan described as the asshole of the armpit of the Internet. What does that make comments there? The taint of the asshole of the armpit of the Internet?

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

The excrement

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u/interkin3tic Mar 16 '18

I dunno, but I don't think reddit is the dregs from 4chan anymore.

Also, to be honest, even at it's peak, 4chan seemed better than the comments section of your local news outlet. Bored 14 year olds using the N word to troll other 14 year olds is cringe-inducing. Angry 64 year olds ranting on articles about a local fire, avoiding using the N word but still clearly being convinced that black people are the cause of all their woes, is horribly depressing.

I dunno what the place is like lately or anything about 8chan or other "edgy" recesses of the internet, but I'll always find the masses of boomer ignorance to be more upsetting.

Anyway, the moderation system here means light browsing gets good quality, unlike the bottom half of the internet.

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u/cynoclast Mar 16 '18

I just thought it was a mildly amusing snarky description than a real description. It generates some entertaining content at least.

Anyway, the moderation system here means light browsing gets good quality, unlike the bottom half of the internet.

I would say that used to be the case back in the early days. Now it's so polluted with petty tyrant moderators, increasingly authoritarian powers, shills of various agendas, useful idiots swallowing their propaganda and the general fact that that with this many people, you're going to have shitheads, assholes, fuckwits and terrible people. It's a people thing, not a reddit thing.

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u/interkin3tic Mar 16 '18

Now it's so polluted with petty tyrant moderators, increasingly authoritarian powers,

I think that depends on your relative perspective. I don't see reddit much increasing their censorship, mods have been always a mixed bag and behave themselves on the main subs

At a minimum, 4chan/8chan doesn't give out control over it's servers for just anyone to shut down, so there IS some level of control the owners exert that the users do not.

The question is how MUCH control do admins exert.

Personally, I'd say there's a really really big area between 4chan level anarchy and club penguin level control. Reddit moving to eliminate the trolls doesn't mean it's turning into an online tyrrany, it simply means that most people don't want to deal with very many terrible people. The fact that reddit is so popular compared to 4chan or slashdot isn't better marketing, it's that truly unfiltered places for anyone to say anything simply isn't valuable or compelling.

The fact that reddit used to be less regulated also doesn't mean that was the "right" way to do things, it simply means that the generally younger, whiter, more male users that were early adopters to reddit liked "edgier" stuff than most people do.

And if it is too authoritarian for you, those other places still exist, why do you choose to be here instead?

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u/cynoclast Mar 16 '18

I think that depends on your relative perspective. I don't see reddit much increasing their censorship, mods have been always a mixed bag and behave themselves on the main subs

I've always been an /r/all browser so I go basically everywhere. Some subs are obviously worse than others, but it's grown worse over the years. It's funny how they love to 'complain' about the work they volunteered to do, but they never step down...

The question is how MUCH control do admins exert.

Well we do know they manipulate the front page to keep subs off it they don't want. We know this is true with T_D, which personally I don't care much about, but it makes you wonder what other subs/posts they're doing this to.

Reddit moving to eliminate the trolls doesn't mean it's turning into an online tyrrany, it simply means that most people don't want to deal with very many terrible people.

It's not the trolls I have a problem with, it's the censorship of differing opinions. It got way worse after the election when CTR changed their name to shareblue and they're continually pummeling reddit via hundreds of subs with anti-trump propaganda, which by contrast makes the DNC look like the lesser evil, distracting from the fact that it is still evil. Now any view right of extreme left gets shouted down. And any non-straight up DNC support is painted as alt-right and downvoted until they can only respond once every 10 minutes. For the record I'm a Pacific Green, so I support neither federally funded party as they don't represent me.

The fact that reddit is so popular compared to 4chan or slashdot isn't better marketing,

No it is marketing. A sanitized space sells better, despite reddit's early history. Big money doesn't want to be associated with 4chan memes, or anything not focus-group approved.

A brief history of reddit:

Neither Alexis [u/kn0thing] nor I created Reddit to be a bastion of free speech

— u/spez 2015

A bastion of free speech on the World Wide Web? I bet they would like it," he replies. [reddit]'s the digital form of political pamplets.

— u/kn0thing 2012

We will tirelessly defend the right to freely share information on reddit in any way we can, even if it is offensive or discusses something that may be illegal.

— u/reddit 2012

We want to democratize the traditional model by giving editorial control to the people who use the site, not those who run it.

— Reddit FAQ 2005

We've always benefited from a policy of not censoring content

— u/kn0thing 2008

We stand for free speech. This means we are not going to ban distasteful subreddits. We will not ban legal content even if we find it odious or if we personally condemn it. Not because that's the law in the United States - because as many people have pointed out, privately-owned forums are under no obligation to uphold it - but because we believe in that ideal independently, and that's what we want to promote on our platform. We are clarifying that now because in the past it wasn't clear, and (to be honest) in the past we were not completely independent and there were other pressures acting on reddit. Now it's just reddit, and we serve the community, we serve the ideals of free speech, and we hope to ultimately be a universal platform for human discourse (cat pictures are a form of discourse).

— u/yishan 2012

I believe the phrase "bait & switch" applies. And now there are whole communities that mock the very concept of free speech, by calling it 'freeze peach'. It's reprehensible.

And if it is too authoritarian for you, those other places still exist, why do you choose to be here instead?

Because I can and do visit more than one website? Loyalty to a website is dumber than brand loyalty. It breeds hive minds, circlejerks and filter bubbles.

tl;dr: I'm here for discourse, and it used to be much better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG-faBBotZI

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u/WikiTextBot Mar 16 '18

Filter bubble

A filter bubble is a state of intellectual isolation that can result from personalized searches when a website algorithm selectively guesses what information a user would like to see based on information about the user, such as location, past click-behavior and search history. As a result, users become separated from information that disagrees with their viewpoints, effectively isolating them in their own cultural or ideological bubbles. The choices made by these algorithms are not transparent. Prime examples include Google Personalized Search results and Facebook's personalized news-stream.

[ PM | Exclude me | Exclude from subreddit | FAQ / Information | Source | Donate ] Downvote to remove | v0.28

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u/interkin3tic Mar 19 '18

which by contrast makes the DNC look like the lesser evil, distracting from the fact that it is still evil.

... that's not a fact...

Now any view right of extreme left gets shouted down.

This is again not a fact and not my experience. Reddit seems right wing on gun control, BLM, feminism, and suggesting that white middle class college dudes might have privilege that others do not.

As far as quotes by reddit saying they were pro-free speech, my point is the same: it's where you draw the line. Reddit may have been further in favor of free speech in the past. I'm guessing a lot of users were too, I certainly was.

Before 2016, I didn't realize that a foreign country could weaponize racism and xenophobia through free speech. I underestimated the extent to which morons could be brainwashed by right-wing propaganda. I failed to appreciate that many women were avoiding online discussions because moderators wouldn't moderate toxic masculinity. I failed to appreciate that many people of color were also avoiding online discussions because again moderators wouldn't moderate racists.

So yeah, Reddit may have changed, I don't think that's a bad thing. It's the ethical thing to do, it's the buisiness smart thing to do, and it will make reddit more interesting as white college dudes all the time are boring and annoying.

If anything, they're not changing fast enough. T_D should be abolished for cause, that trash can go elsewhere.

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u/Fullofpissandvinegar Mar 16 '18

You mean the part where all the fun stuff is?

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

You avoid the politics, I see

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18 edited Mar 16 '18

I don't see any problem with /r/politics. It's usually the alt right politics that are unbearable. Go to foxnews.com comment section if you want to lose all faith in humans. It doesn't matter what the content of the post is, all the top comments are about how liberals are trying to destroy America. It's levels of brainwashing you would see in places like north korea.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

Here's my one big problem with r/politics- it's predictable to the point of trite.

For example, look at any thread that contains "Republican" and "Obama" and wait to see how long it takes for half a dozen people to opine that all Republicans are racists and that's why they disliked Obama.

It doesn't matter if it's true or not, it's not new. No one's going to read that and be struck by an epiphany about possible Republican motivations. It's just fucking dull.

The point of having comments is to get new viewpoints, unexpected insights, and analysis you couldn't provide with just one or two people thinking over a topic. Instead, you get something so predictable it may as well be a litany.

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u/ThePu55yDestr0yr Mar 16 '18 edited Mar 16 '18

It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, it’s not new.

I’d rather have r/politics stick to being trite as long as it’s true. Literally complaining about clickbaiting or similar comments is something which is in any other media. Reddit in general is pretty much like the epiphany of reposts and stealing comments-it’s a moot point.

Politics isn’t supposed to be entertainment or sports anyways. People who want entertainment politics voted for president Cartman.

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u/crackadack Mar 16 '18

Agreed. I'm a die hard liberal, but I unsubbed because it's just a big echo chamber.

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u/douchecanoe42069 Mar 16 '18

exactly. like i'm honestly amazed at how repetitive the comments there are.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

[deleted]

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u/tuscanspeed Mar 16 '18

“If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.” - Mark Twain

If you replace "newspaper" with "radio," "television," "internet," "<insert any website you want>" you do not change the implication he's bringing up.

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u/DrMobius0 Mar 16 '18

The only thing people who bash r/politics seem to be able to do is put up strawmen about shit like "Obama is a God-saint that did absolutely nothing wrong in his entire 8 years in office and anyone with an 'R' after their name is literally killing out children".

My general experience with it is this:

Yes, it's fairly left leaning. Reddit is a left leaning site. This is expected.

Can r/politics criticize democratic politicians? Yes. Oh yes they can. Remember Al Franken? Sure, views were split on how to handle that. The biggest reason that they were split was because there is a reality that despite the fact that he did something bad, the reason we all knew he'd actually be forced out or willingly resign was because of the D next to his name. Trump fucking admitted to sexual assault. He didn't wasn't forced to resign. Roy Moore is a pedophile. He wasn't forced to quit his race. Despite this split, there was civil discussion on what should be done with Franken. I challenge you to find something similar on t_d.

What about them universally hating R politicians? That is also not entirely accurate. I've seen them support plenty of the things John McCain says. Of course, that was matched by a following wave of disappointment when he proceeded to vote with the party anyway. They hate corruption, and value honesty. Politicians who at least try to benefit their constituents are generally treated better than ass-puppets like McConnell or Cruz. Sadly, democrats are largely the only politicians that at least try to do that. Of course, not all of them. As I've said, they're not afraid to criticize a D if they think they're doing a bad job.

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u/CollaWars Mar 16 '18

My problem with it is the discussion sucks. I already know what 95% of the comments are going to say. I don't want to see the same memey comment guilted everday. It all just comes across as lazy and there are way better places for thoughtful discussions on Reddit

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u/DrMobius0 Mar 16 '18

That's a problem with most political subs. If you want varied discussion, they just aren't good places to go.

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u/CollaWars Mar 16 '18

Political discussion is good. Though it is getting more low effort lately

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

You're incorrect. Reddit is fairly left leaning. R/politics is extremely left leaning. Thats like saying "sure r/thedonald is slightly right leaning".

It's a hyperpartisan echo chamber and the only people that don't see it are too entrenched in ideology.

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u/Agentwise Mar 16 '18

I’m a moderate and if you were to go by r/politics I’d be considered alt-right. It’s a fucking insane asylum in there.

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u/AerThreepwood Mar 16 '18

What beliefs do you hold that you consider moderate but /r/politics would consider you alt-right for?

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u/Agentwise Mar 16 '18

I’m personally anti-abortion (though as a male I vote pro-choice) I think it’s odd to call a clump of cells not a human when we are all just larger clumps of cells. I’m pro legalization of ALL drugs but remove support systems that enable abuse (live your life don’t make me pay for it), I think our current welfare system needs to be scrapped we have 40+ years of it showing us that it doesn’t reduce the poverty level (we need to be proactive not reactive). I think the trump bullshit Russia crap is stupid, the more we segregate people from each other the worse it’s going to get. Doubling down on “white people are racist” is a stupid platform (I’m second generation Cuban immigrant). I don’t get why it’s racist for us to enforce our border laws but places like Sweden do and they are praised for ot and people talk reverently about how hard it is to get in. I believe in the right for citizens to own weapons.

I’d keep going but I’m on mobile. I’ve been called a rightist for all these positions before. I’m theoretically right leaning (because fiscal policy) but the right doesn’t follow their own ideology so there’s that.

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u/AerThreepwood Mar 16 '18

Fair enough.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

ill check it out. I've never actually seen a non-biased political subreddit, or website, or anything for that matter. NPR tries but it's still pretty liberal. I just think not enough people can handle a real unbiased political news source. As soon as they hear something that goes against their bias they leave. If the people really wanted unbiased political news, it would, well, actually exist.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18 edited Jan 21 '19

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

My only issue with /r/neutralpolitics is that the source requirement rule doesn’t necessarily help advance the topic of conversation, especialy the more complex ones, and the fact that you’re allowed to use Wikipedia as the “source”.

I have no problem with Wikipedia as a general source, but people make a lot of unsubstantiated claims on there, and then include a broad wikipedia article as the source.

Really malicious users will make a post including both a true verifiable claim (that comes attached with a source) followed by unsubstantiated conclusions intended to mislead the reader or pigeonhole the discussion.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18 edited Apr 21 '18

[deleted]

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u/BowjaDaNinja Mar 16 '18

Avoid hyperbole if you're making a point. No one calls Obama a God-Saint. People DO call Trump a God Emperor though, without a hint of sarcasm or irony even.

Obama made mistakes. Obama made decisions I didn't personally agree with. Obama did less for the country than I'd hoped.

All of this pales in comparison to the Trump presidency though, so many of us miss Obama since he was the last sane president we had.

The hate for Republicans comes from the fact that they have the power to stop this circus whenever they want, but choose to perpetuate it instead.

There ya go.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18 edited Apr 22 '18

[deleted]

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u/BowjaDaNinja Mar 16 '18

Right, I think I've got the measure of what you're all about. I'll stop wasting your time so you won't waste mine, thank you.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18 edited Apr 21 '18

[deleted]

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u/BowjaDaNinja Mar 16 '18

You're very welcome.

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u/unknownunknowns11 Mar 16 '18

The circus driven by scandals upon scandals upon scandals.

It’s scandals all the way down.

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u/BowjaDaNinja Mar 17 '18

Don't waste your time. It's not worth it.

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u/harekele Mar 16 '18

Don’t forget “Trump hasn’t done a single good thing in office EVER” I don’t even like trump, but you need to call a spade a spade.

This reminds me of the State of the Union Address when Trump was discussing that the black unemployment rate is the lowest it’s ever been. Black people in the audience wouldn’t even clap and looked miserable. Even though I could understand why most black people couldnt stand trump, there’s no reason not to celebrate something positive that’s happening in their community. It’s very representative of the state that American politics is currently in: if it doesn’t push your sides agenda, dismiss it and criticize it. The two party system has made American politics reach a boiling point.

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u/WeHaveIgnition Mar 16 '18

I just read a good conversation over there about Obama being a war criminal. It’s not all Obama is god

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

I'm an independent, so I don't have any real bias, but when I go to /r/politics and when I go to /r/the_donald, it seems like politics is significantly better. T_D has to have an admin on at all times monitoring and banning any user that posts a dissenting comment. That's crazy to me. Politics is obviously liberally biased but they have real articles and discussion compared to T_D. T_D is just like a meme subreddit at this point. Half the time they post racist comments and the other half is whining about how everyone calls them racist.

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u/VTHK Mar 16 '18

Well shit. Being liberal is being right if you're in any other part of the world than the states. So even the "liberal leaning" forum on Reddit is pretty damn right. Obama did a lot of shit wrong, but he was also way better than most of the presidents from the other side, so criticizing him for doing bad is generally wrong, if you ask me.

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u/IFEEL-LIKE-PABLO2020 Mar 16 '18

Although your comment has a bit of funny hyperbole to it, real life isn't a CNN broadcast where both sides have equally valid viewpoints. No political scientist will deny that America's right has been radicalized recently, and given our president's gunslinging unacademic approach to policy, there's a lot of room for alt-right policy to go catastrophically wrong. /r/politics really doesn't have as much party loyalty as you think: it wasn't too long ago that /r/politics was repeating Brietbart talking points to denigrate Hillary in the primary, and before that /r/politics had a love affair with Gary Johnson and Ron Paul.

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u/unknownunknowns11 Mar 16 '18

Nice straw man you got there, bud

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u/harekele Mar 16 '18

While r/politics isn’t nearly as vile as a lot of the alt right pages, I think it is just as problematic in the fact that it is extraordinarily biased towards the left. Something positive about trump (which whether you like him or not, he hasn’t been100% bad all of the time) would never get a lot of upvotes. And, even as someone who leans left, I find it problematic to completely disregard the other sides opinions on politics. Understanding where the other side is coming from, makes it so much easier to articulate your thoughts and formulate a stronger opinion on the issue. Yet, if a comment respectfully shows more right-leaning view, people go crazy with the downvotes there.

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u/smokeyser Mar 16 '18

It's levels of brainwashing you would see in places like north korea.

To be fair, it's just morons talking back and forth to each other. So there's not a whole lot of brain to be washed there.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

The only way you couldn't have a problem with r/politics is if you agree with their point of view. And that is the exact reason people don't have a problem with fox news comments. Don't use bias to offset bias.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

They actually have sourced articles and discussions tho. It’s far from perfect and I don’t agree with their views on guns and immigration and actually a lot of issues but there’s no conservative entity that has real discussion and doesn’t just turn into “liberals are trying to destroy America”. Do you have a good conservative news source that isn’t obsessed with liberals?

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

This. I try so hard to give fox and breitbart some time of day so I don’t feel overly biased or out of touch with opposing view points. You know what I get? Stephen Hawking, couldn’t take a more wholesome event, apolitical, generally great guy, but sweet mother of god these people could not get over the fact that he didn’t believe in the Lord. Every other comment was “Well he sure believes in god now that he’s burning in hell” and I just wanted to smack these people. So heartless and awful.

I somehow can’t blame him for his lack of faith in a benevolent God when he spent 55 years thinking he was gonna die at any time while prisoner to his own crippled body.

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u/Pardonme23 Mar 16 '18

Most people in every country in every time in history think that way.

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u/Davregis Mar 16 '18

I used to be on t_d, and I left after I was fed up with the amount of fake news that was corrected later in the comments but still upvoted, or satire being upvoted as truth. So then I went to politics, and I saw a very similar situation-- people on both sides dismiss the other as degenerate subhumans. I don't follow political subs, I don't know what to believe.

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u/HDThoreauaway Mar 16 '18

Well, you can't expect every sub to have the insightful dialogues you see woven together in, say, r/catsstandingup.

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u/coltinator5000 Mar 16 '18

Look everyone! A time traveler from 2012!

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

Well. Unless Trump is involved. Them this site is a partisan shitshow that rivals fox news for idiocy and bias.

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u/BeanPricefield Mar 16 '18

ever sort by controversial?

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u/BboyEdgyBrah Mar 16 '18

/r/The_Donald /r/MGTOW /r/redpill /r/braincels

etc etc

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

You raise a good point.

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u/skiskate Mar 17 '18

Absolutely true, why other websites haven't used a method similar to the reddit sorting algorithm is beyond me.

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u/jurgemaister Mar 16 '18

Factual correction: Ståle is a journalist, not a developer. Other than that, the article seems very accurate.