r/conspiracy: What Reddit isn't.

What Reddit isn't.

60 2014-05-23 by TILearnedNothing

A place that celebrates freedom of speech.

A forum to cultivate new ideas and innovations.

A medium to exercise in civil debate based on respect of one another's opinions.

A place where someone can express their beliefs without fear of judgement.

A website that we can share without the prejudices and discrimination that have plagued society.

A place freed from the shackles of corporotism and propaganda.

What it is though, is a place disguised like a website that deals with creativity and freedom of expression. Yet is marred by the almighty upvote. It is a place where the mob mentality breeds the same hatred a subreddit like this seeks to fight.

How can we have freedom of expression on Reddit when someone with a not as widely accepted viewpoint gets buried at the bottom of the page invisible to most?

Doesn't this do the exact opposite? Filtering out controversy for the sake of the status quo?

It's hard for me to not see posters and automatically assume they're some sort of agent with an agenda. We may not even know to what degree this might exist. I mean that on both sides of the spectrum.

All the potential in the world.. but like Facebook.. people just come here to sit comfortably in the bubble of convenience they already live in during their outside lives.

35 comments

17 streetyouth 2014-05-23

Reddit isn't activism. Can't forget that

5 TILearnedNothing 2014-05-23

Great comment. Absolutely not.

5 Falconalpaca 2014-05-23

People keep calling it free speech, as if in some way your actions and words must never be criticized.

I call it uncensored speech. You can say whatever you want on reddit, when in the right place, but don't expect that people aren't going to disagree with you.

0 turdovski 2014-05-23

The problem is when it's not people disagreeing with you but shills, astro turfers and trolls.

0 --mt__ 2014-05-23

http://xkcd.com/1357/

4 xkcd_transcriber 2014-05-23

Image

Title: Free Speech

Title-text: I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express.

Comic Explanation

Stats: This comic has been referenced 382 time(s), representing 1.8190% of referenced xkcds.

^xkcd.com ^| ^{xkcd sub/kerfuffle} ^| ^{Problems/Bugs?} ^| ^Statistics ^| ^{Stop Replying}

4 Ifco 2014-05-23

Judged for your belief! /s

Good post.

2 TILearnedNothing 2014-05-23

Haha. Thanks.

4 [deleted] 2014-05-23

[deleted]

5 LordPubes 2014-05-23

Have you been to /pol/ lately? It's stormfront 2.0 over there.

2 RacoonH8 2014-05-23

Gas the kikes, race war now!

2 renob151 2014-05-23

I don't even go there anymore...

3 Azul788 2014-05-23

Until you say something against the hivemind... Then it's ">back to reddit" for you faggot. No, but seriously, going to 4chan for stimulating conversation is like sticking your dick in a blender for sexual pleasure. It just doesn't happen, no matter how strong the fetish.

2 [deleted] 2014-05-23

4chan is the only website that stays true to its principles, erm.. strange as they may be.

3 AssuredlyAThrowAway 2014-05-23

All the potential in the world.. but like Facebook.. people just come here to sit comfortably in the bubble of convenience they already live in during their outside lives.

It's true, but it's no fault of the users of the site. There are subtle and veiled mechanisms of control within the administrative ranks of this website and that is what has neutered this medium.

3 un1ty 2014-05-23

Although I agree, and would love a replacement that holds up to what you posted, REddit never has claimed to be anything other than 'the front page of the internet.'

1 TILearnedNothing 2014-05-23

It's true.

It's the users that perpetuate that kind of idea.

3 charlesviper 2014-05-23

Doesn't this do the exact opposite? Filtering out controversy for the sake of the status quo?

Sort by "controversy" or "new"?

Well argued controversial opinions usually get upvoted. They certainly don't get downvoted, as long as you're not being incendiary, attacking people for being "stupid", etc.

The biggest problem with reddit IMO is the post/comment deletion. I think it would be a better place with anti-spam measures that either tag posts or replace links with "<link removed for spam>". Censorship on reddit is real. I don't know if there's much evidence of political/governmental censorship, or corporate censorship, but there is definitely censorship from individual moderators who have their own standards on what is and isn't allowed on "their" subreddits.

I cannot think of a single subreddit with more than 5,000 subs that doesn't have problems with censorship. You see deleted comments everywhere. You see posts disappear. Users get banned. I've been banned for two years from a video game subreddit because a mod personally didn't like me. It's not important in the grand scheme of things, but it does speak to the problem reddit faces with moderator powers (and that includes /r/conspiracy, of course -- it includes all subs).

1) All subreddits should have a public, filterable moderator log that detail every action performed by a moderator. That should be site wide policy.

2) Reddit should rethink the "[deleted]" method of removing problem content. Vote freezing, link removal, giving mods the power to weight bad content -- there's a valid usage for powerful and aggressive moderation (look at subs like /r/AskScience) but it is too easily abused.

3) More subreddits should employ post tagging as opposed to post removal.

4) 100% of removed posts with 100 upvotes or more should be moved to an official (non-default) subreddit. If a popular but controversial post on /r/technology or /r/politics gets removed for violating subreddit guidelines, it should not be censored. It should be placed in a "catch all" subreddit with all votes and comments intact.

2 freedomreign3 2014-05-23

easier way to collect data. nice and organized

0 dejenerate 2014-05-23

Yep. Relevant news story of the day: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/23/us/officials-cast-wide-net-in-monitoring-occupy-protests.html

2 RedditGreenit 2014-05-23

Reddit isn't your private blog. So you can't complain when everyone else doesn't agree with you. No public website entitles you to have the "mob" on your side

2 sirshartsalot 2014-05-23

Have you ever been to 4chan?

The nature of Reddit, points / voting system, precludes any kind of intelligent thought. The way ideas are honed is when they're constantly under attack. Without that, you have a massive group of people who agree with each other about literally everything. This is what happens when you have a group of people afraid to challenge ideas (or apathetic since there's no point), you have the cesspool of rational discussion that is Reddit.

If you remove rewards (thanks for the gold!) and make everyone anonymous, you wind up with a far broader range of expression. Add to that, you must contribute to the thread in order to disagree or agree with it, and you have a much more varied, active discussion.

2 TILearnedNothing 2014-05-23

It's true.

And yeah I have been to 4chan and I like the fact that you're forced to face up to ideas you might not be comfortable with. (Child porn aside.)

1 Karmavorism 2014-05-23

Actually Reddit is exactly what you make of it. If you want bad you'll find bad blah blah..

1 Zenof 2014-05-23

A medium to exercise in civil debate based on respect of one another's opinions.

A forum to cultivate new ideas and innovations.

I have had problems with these in this very subreddit, it's so sad

1 [deleted] 2014-05-23

This sub used to be way different a couple hundred thousand subs ago =/

0 dejenerate 2014-05-23

I would look at the bright side in that we do have tools like the New and Controversial sorts, which we just need to continue educating people on and people bring up deletions pretty often (plus, we have the undelete and longtail subs, which are both awesome tools). The deletions are really funny, because they tend to give stories that would normally be "disappeared" more legs due to the controversy of the deletion.

"Redacted" might as well be "highlighted" for we nosy humans, hah.

0 zordi 2014-05-23

i can't up vote this more and have the same expression as B. Brown here. If you can find me a place where these things and ideas ARE. Please message me.

-1 --mt__ 2014-05-23

Friendly reminder: reddit is a company. They're free to do whatever they like with their website. You're free to leave.

1 TILearnedNothing 2014-05-23

I guess that was my intention with this post. to serve as a reminder for those that have way too much hope for it.

-3 Karl_Cross 2014-05-23

You know that little cross at the top right of the browser window?

Click it and this all goes away.

Trust me when I say that your 'insight' won't be missed.

2 TILearnedNothing 2014-05-23

You mean you're not gonna get me an I miss you Halmark card?

That's exactly why I made this post though.. ;(

-1 Karl_Cross 2014-05-23