Done with reddit.

submitted by Spaceshipman from self.Introductions

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[–]Alienhunter 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

I really liked that fox news interview of the /r/antiwork mod really captured the stereotype.

It's the age old story of the internet and forums though. Nobody wants to moderate a large forum because it's a shit job and it doesn't pay. Leaving it to volunteers gets you with the people who have noting better to do other than moderate a website. So you get losers with power complexes, which then get subjected to internet shit constantly that make them get more of a power complex, and there you go.

Before reddit still was a problem on any forum that got big. At first people would try to justify their reasons for banning people, but eventually they get tired of doing that and just ban stuff, realize they don't actually have to answer to anyone and don't care about maintaining consistent rules and just ban more people. And it just kills any reason to use the site and everyone just moves onto the next thing.

[–]Dragonerne 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Not really. You make it seem as if this is inevitable when its not.

How many times did reddit nuke popular right wing subs? Or kick their moderators and replace them with lefties?

The fact is that it is a top down approach and if it happend organically, reddit would still be a right wing heaven.

[–]Alienhunter 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Inevitable? No. A process repeated over and over again? Yes.

The top down approach isn't organic, but it's a process that develops from the online group dynamics. It's not a right wing or left wing issue so much, as it's an issue with authoritarians. In any group that leans particularly in a certain direction, as reddit certainly did lean towards the left heavily. The number of extreme voices will echo heavily towards one side, react against the extreme voices on the other side, and slowly push the dynamic towards more censorship, more extreme positions, and more authoritarian approaches.

Extremists by necessity must adopt authoritarian approaches to enforcement because by nature of being extremist, they're agendas do not line up with the majority of people, even on their side of the fence. Eventually the extremist side that has the largest support base will be able to seize power, ostensibly against some threat or crisis, as you saw happen swiftly on reddit with the Trump election result reaction and the COVID discussion, which is used as an excuse to purge all dissent.

Such policies are not particularly effective in the long run, as extremism must always have a crisis to justify authoritarianism to the larger society, and once the crisis is abated, they will lose their authority base, but the extremist will not abandon their authoritarian approaches as that represents compromise, which is not something an extremist is willing to do. So they will hold power with an iron fist becoming increasingly more and more cruel in their wielding of power until such a time as something gives and they are removed.

In context of Reddit. It is at the end of the day. Not very important. And the power of a moderator doesn't extend far beyond their own website, so people will simply take the path of least resistance and leave, giving the moderator power over what is essentially an empty website. Much like how if a teetotaler is in charge of planning the Christmas party, some other person will just start their own party with beer.

[–]LarrySwinger2 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

In what sense was it a right wing heaven before? There were right wing subs that could get big too, but it was never the status quo.

[–]Dragonerne 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Literally the entire front page would be Donald Trump, Breitbart etc.

the donald even used to upvote several posts to the front page so that it combined would be a picture of donald trump. That's why they made r/popular, literally to censor the donald.

whenever mainstream media news were posted, the highest voted comment would debunk it