Mr Huffman has the First Amendment right to support whatever content he chooses to, as does any private business. And other users have the right to choose whether or not they want to associate with a site that hosts that kind of content.
From what I am told, The_Donald is home to messages that cross the line toward inciting the hatred that is eroding our democracy and it would be good to see Mr. Huffman and Reddit to do more work to moderate such behavior.
on #2 - While they're not legally obligated to do anything, any American site should remove any foreign state-sponsored content, whether it is Russian bots, or Chinese deniers of the Tiananmen massacre.
Thank you, Senator.
As it relates to r/the_donald specifically, we watch them closely, and we do our best to hold them to the same standards and policies as we do all communities. Before we action any community, we also speak to moderators regarding rule breaking behaviors. To that end, we have removed a number of their moderators over the years for not moderating to our standards, and we wouldn’t hesitate to do this again, or take additional steps, should their behavior warrant it. While they can be offensive and antagonistic to the rest of Reddit, we have not found them to be in consistent violation of our content policies.
Yes, we do see individual posts and comments that cross the line, but the offending content also gets removed as we ask and expect, and we also take action against those individual users and accounts with suspensions or full bans from the site as appropriate.
I wish there was a solution that was as simple as banning the community—certainly it would make some things easier—but the reality is that banning a large political community that isn’t in violation of our policies would be hugely problematic, not just for Reddit, but for our democracy generally. Political speech is the most protected form of speech in the United States, and we are sensitive to that and take cues from the government when we think about our policies.
I know this isn’t the answer many of you are looking for, but as we continue to deliberate and evolve our thinking, my hope is that you appreciate the complexity of this situation and understand our approach.
OK so lots of questions but not much, if anything in the way of answers. Let me try...I know it is a tricky road but what can be done to curb manipulation by foreign entities on social media during election cycles? Is there a way to recognize and eliminate bots?
what can be done to curb manipulation by foreign entities on social media during election cycles?
Pasting from my previous answer:
Our primary focus is to detect and stop coordinated or otherwise inauthentic behaviors. Towards that end, we’ve increased accounts banned for content manipulation by 250% since 2017, and we’ve increased the rate at which we proactively action accounts from 29% in 2017 to 99% today. Additionally, we have built tools to help moderators proactively combat community interference (née brigading) that are in alpha testing, and we’ve built a new “reliable reporter” system to surface information to our threat team even quicker.
Is there a way to recognize and eliminate bots?
Yes, though detecting and mitigating the impact of bots is a bit of an arms race. As our capabilities get better, the adversary also gets better.
Detection today is reliant on technical indicators (such as IP) and leveraging our data scientists to detect abnormal behavior.
One common vector of attack is to hack otherwise legitimate dormant or insecure accounts and then use them to manipulate Reddit. Working against that, we have focused on improving account security to prevent malicious bots from taking over these accounts. Please see this post for how you can help improve the security of your account
Of course, not all bots are bad bots: r/subredditsimulator, automod, auto crossposting news bots, etc. One option is to ask helpful community bots to self-identify, leaving the potentially malicious bots for us to deal with.
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Thank god now we can talk about last year.
what happens if I ban you, does reddit just dissolve into anarchy or what
Flair me first.
Here's a couple to get started: 🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎
If this keeps them quiet, we can invest more.
3
2
28Hi all,
Today we’ve posted our latest Transparency Report.
The purpose of the report is to share information about the requests Reddit receives to disclose user data or remove content from the site. We value your privacy and believe you have a right to know how data is being managed by Reddit and how it is shared (and not shared) with governmental and non-governmental parties.
We’ve included a breakdown of requests from governmental entities worldwide and from private parties from within the United States. The most common types of requests are subpoenas, court orders, search warrants, and emergency requests. In 2018, Reddit received a total of 581 requests to produce user account information from both United States and foreign governmental entities, which represents a 151% increase from the year before. We scrutinize all requests and object when appropriate, and we didn’t disclose any information for 23% of the requests. We received 28 requests from foreign government authorities for the production of user account information and did not comply with any of those requests.
This year, we expanded the report to included details on two additional types of content removals: those taken by us at Reddit, Inc., and those taken by subreddit moderators (including Automod actions). We remove content that is in violation of our site-wide policies, but subreddits often have additional rules specific to the purpose, tone, and norms of their community. You can now see the breakdown of these two types of takedowns for a more holistic view of company and community actions.
In other news, you may have heard that we closed an additional round of funding this week, which gives us more runway and will help us continue to improve our platform. What else does this mean for you? Not much. Our strategy and governance model remain the same. And—of course—we do not share specific user data with any investor, new or old.
I’ll hang around for a while to answer your questions.
–Steve
edit: Thanks for the silver you cheap bastards.
Well... ummm... you see... it's been busy around here. Honestly, I'd still love to do it (with limitations), but we just haven't gotten around to it.
Question, a bit offtopic. What is Reddit's stance on subreddits using bots to auto-ban users for participating in certain other subs? Will any actions be taken against that, or is it allowed.
We don't like it, but we haven't provided an alternative solution. They live in a grey area.
One thing we're going to make better use of is the idea of "community karma." It'll be useful for helping communities grow safely while keep trolls and abusers at bay.
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A couple years ago, I was wondering this exact question.
Ups and downs are something we've had since nearly the first version of Reddit (but not the very first version: early iterations had words instead of arrows, but words were too subjective and restrictive).
Anyway... a couple years ago I considered the idea that downvotes were purely destructive, and that we'd be better off without them. My reasoning was that it feels bad to receive downvotes, and getting downvoted is an especially poor experience if you're a new user. If our goal is to make Reddit more welcoming and accessible, we were working against ourselves. Also, downvotes are weaponized by users and communities to harass and brigade, further compounding the problem.
However, despite their flaws, downvotes are a critical tool for communities to develop and maintain their voice, and without them we couldn't scale moderation. There are only so many moderators and far fewer admins, and by allowing community members to moderate content in a lightweight way, they can develop their own identities and voice and keep out the junk (most of it at least).
I know downvotes have their flaws, but they've been critical to growth of every large subreddit, making addressing their flaws supremely important. Improving downvotes is one of our current initiatives, and hopefully you'll feel the changes in the coming weeks if you haven't felt them already.
Most of my accounts are 13 years old at this point, so that kinda gives me away.
I’ve had a great weekend, indeed. Hope your show was good!
Well this is a nice surprise. Works for me.
u/keysersosa can you please take a look?
spez
u/spezKarma
Cake day
+12Moderator of these communities
Trophy Case (24)
14-Year Club
Not Forgotten
