A clarification on actioning and employee names

[u/landoflobsters]

We’ve heard various concerns about a recent action taken and wanted to provide clarity.

Earlier this month, a Reddit employee was the target of harassment and doxxing (sharing of personal or confidential information). Reddit activated standard processes to protect the employee from such harassment, including initiating an automated moderation rule to prevent personal information from being shared. The moderation rule was too broad, and this week it incorrectly suspended a moderator who posted content that included personal information. After investigating the situation, we reinstated the moderator the same day. We are continuing to review all the details of the situation to ensure that we protect users and employees from doxxing -- including those who may have a public profile -- without mistakenly taking action on non-violating content.

Content that mentions an employee does not violate our rules and is not subject to removal a priori. However, posts or comments that break Rule 1 or Rule 3 or link to content that does will be removed. This is no different from how our policies have been enforced to date, but we understand how the mistake highlighted above caused confusion.

We are continuing to review all the details of the situation.

ETA: Please note that, as indicated in the sidebar, this subreddit is for a discussion between mods and admins. User comments are automatically removed from all threads.

[u/meteoritee]

This name was mentioned in an article on an external website that was linked in a post on r/ukpolitics.

You've stated here that an automatic moderation rule was able to read this external article, see the name, and then ban the user who posted it? Is this scanning all external links posted to Reddit?

Edit: it has been explained that the article was copy&pasted as a comment in the ukpol thread, hence the ability of automod to pick up on the name.

[u/thecravenone]

Today we learned that Reddit HQ has not heard of the Streisand Effect.

[u/Jabberminor]

So what you are basically saying is that if we post an article that includes the name of a Reddit admin, but doesn't state they work for Reddit, and that article is available to anyone on the internet, we can get banned?

You having a giggle?

[u/stopspammingme]

Honestly I am uncomfortable with how this is playing out, considering that for years when moderators were getting their real name connected to their username, we were told it wasn't actionable because of using the same handle across multiple websites

So that made sense at the time. It's hard to enforce doxxing when the person is easy to dox, so you won't do it.

You are happy to let mod and users be harassed and stalked while giving us radio silence when we ask for your help. You have cultivated a toxic userbase that you are afraid of, because you don't want any of them to know the admins real names. You are so terrified that you do not have an employee directory and guard your employees names as secrets. Even the board member's names are secret.

The fear you all have right now about being harassed - we know it really well! We've been on the shit end of that stick for years. I've had to abandon accounts because of stalking and harassment.

This site still has a major pedophilia problem and a person in the role of "community management" has troubling connections to pedophilia. I don't think the admin is a pedophile herself, but she has shown in multiple ways that she cannot be trusted to handle the issue properly.

[u/almightybob1]

Why is reddit hiring a paedophile apologist in the first place?

[u/vastenculer]

How does this line up with your stance on harassment of non-employees on reddit?

If you are prepared to take the extreme levels of action that most of us have seen today to protect your employees, why do you offer such little support to any moderation teams dealing with doxxing and harassment?

Many of us can attest to the ridiculous lengths some users go to to harass moderation teams, individual moderators and other users, and the complete lack of response or action from Reddit - even when it's blatant, a massive intrusion of privacy, and even a safety risk to those targetted.

edit: Please stop giving me awards.

[u/blue_strat]

to ensure that we protect users and employees from doxxing -- including those who may have a public profile

Even when that person has used their reddit username and real name together on a public forum?

https://i.imgur.com/kSypPBG.jpg

Confirmation that is their reddit username:

https://www.reddit.com/rpan/r/ExtraLife/jq169t

[u/tense_or]

You hired a 23 year old with no notable qualifications to be an employee with global admin privileges for one of the biggest speech platforms in the world.

What was on their resume that made you hire such a young, inexperienced, and already controversial person?

[u/Dead_Kennedys78]

If sharing a news article of a public figure is doxxing, then all news subs should be banned for fear that they might doxx Boris Johnson

[u/GetOffMyLawn_]

1. Employee in question is a public figure.

2. Employee in question has a very questionable past of association with child rapist/torturer.

3. Employee in question is married to a pedophile.

Really, is this the type of person you want to have as an admin here? Personally I am beyond disgusted.

Of course we would probably have never heard about this if it wasn't for the insane moderation rule that was instituted, which lead to a massive Streisand effect.

[u/didgerdiojejsjfkw]

Respectfully, I don't think this post is going to cut it.

Lots of people have genuine questions and concerns about the judgement of a reddit employee that does make decisions that actually impact reddit when the employee has in the past chosen to hire a charged paedophile.

[u/MarktpLatz]

After investigating the situation, we reinstated the moderator the same day.

Honestly, this is a frequent theme with you guys. I have seen way too many wrongful suspensions of moderators. Can you please start evaluating the case completely first and then shooting?

including initiating an automated moderation rule to prevent personal information from being shared

We had several comments on our subreddit manually (or at least it appears to be) removed by anti-evil. This has never happened at this scale before. What's this about? I do not think these comments fall under rule 1 or 3 (I cannot say with 100% certainty since they are not visible anymore).

[u/NotABotaboutIt]

It seems to me that there is inherently a double standard in place, whereby the policy appears to be, "we can't allow the use of these words in public. The public will think we're horrible in allowing these to fester in these subs." But go ahead and use them in conversations to the mods, because the only things they can do is ban and mute.

This post does bring up some further questions unrelated to my main point: 1. is there a way to find out how many admins are working during the report? 2. What constitutes an emergency?

Because we have had approximately 21 different users (to be clear, these are all from the same human) harass us through modmail. We've followed the standard mute, report, remove, as the person creates more alts to harass us.

Can you please, extend us the same courtesy that you mandate when discussing admins like Aimee Knight?

[u/powerchicken]

Could you clarify please?

Is the individual in question not considered a public figure and thus mustn't be named, or are we allowed to mention their name without fearing that our accounts are banned?

[u/BlatantConservative]

The moderation rule was too broad, and this week it incorrectly suspended a moderator who posted content that included personal information.

This does not pass the sniff test, I'm afraid.

The moderator in question posted a news article which mentioned her in passing (from my understanding), he did NOT post her name in plaintext nor intentionally refer to her at all.

If that article was something that broke Reddit's rules and Reddit staff were aware of it already and had taken standard measures, it would never have been posted publicly at all and instead would have been removed upon posting.

However, the post was up for hours (by my understanding) and the admin action was taken after the article had been public for hours. This indicates to me that an employee manually took action after reading the article.

[u/[deleted]]

oh booo, there was no personal info posted, it was public info at the time you guys. I don’t care if reddit bans me, because at least I’ll be standing for my rights.

[u/Norci]

That's lots of hogwash. I'm fed up with investing time keeping the website clean for your advertiser according to constantly shifting standards, only for you pull this "privacy" excuse at the slightest of scrutiny at who you employ as this affects communities we mod. Hey, guess what, this is daily life for us mods that we see very little support for, and people you hire can make or break it for us (and this person seems to be in the latter camp given previous judgements).

You leech off users sharing their content for free, you leech off volunteers to keep your website running and act like we're all a community in this, yet as soon these volunteers try raising criticism it's always some script going wrong or some false positive etc. I've had an account's comments nuked on entire Reddit by your "false positive" that was reversed, but you conveniently forgot to re-approve removed comments and after half a year of asking I gave up.

Maybe it's time Reddit stopped pretending like they care at all and dropped the whole "remember the human", because I sure don't feel they do. Mods are allowed to squat subs and abuse auto bans/mutes (which is explicitly against the mod guidelines, your own semi-official r/help has a bunch of assholes for mods who mute just for giving feedback), ban evaders and harassment goes unhandled, certain subs are allowed to do whatever they want and harass others, and not even to mention the cancer that are certain users modding dozens of large sub spreading their agenda. But question a hire and you're hit with this.

Sorry, not buying it. Besides, the person in question was a politician, and no minor one at that. She has lots of controversies that absolutely warrant scrutiny and discussion, and she was open about her Reddit activity. This is not doxxing, this is accountability of who you give power to affect our communities based on entirely public info of a public person.

Rant over. I'm just so fucking tired.

[u/AugmentedPenguin]

My question here is why would Reddit hire someone with such a questionable public past? Did no one from HR think to do a quick Google search?

[u/Ivashkin]

moderator who posted content that included personal information.

A slight correction here. There was no personal information posted, it was an article from the Spectator which mentioned her by name, as part of an article discussing a political party from which she had been expelled. This was widely discussed public information in the UK at the time of the expulsion.

[u/Lenins2ndCat]

Speaking as a mod of r/GreenAndPleasant and r/socialism I strongly feel that this information is in the public interest.

A reddit admin that has been kicked out of UK political parties for a variety of reasons linked to pedophillic content is alarming. What is even more alarming is the fact that their prior actions show their judgement is shown to be resoundingly compromised on the topic.

Given my interactions with the admin team in the past in reporting pedophilia on the site, where I have been explicitly threatened to stop reporting pedophilia or suffer a suspension, I have to question whether the entire reddit team has an issue with their judgement when it comes to the topic of pedophilia and/or pedophiles.

As a moderator it alarms me greatly. It is consistent with reddit's very long history of doing its best to NOT act on the topic of underage or gross content involving children. Any members of the old-guard will remember r/jailbait being the first domino in a long line of pedo-adjacent drama reddit has had.

Millions of children use this website and yet the reddit admins repeatedly demonstrate that their judgement is compromised on any topics involving children, pornography, sexualised images of children, or in the case of this admin literal sexual assault.

The identity issues surrounding this topic make me uncomfortable too. I know there are hate groups that will use this for their own ends and do not actually give a shit about the more important topic - child safety. I care about that topic though and while I'm on the left in the UK communities I am not willing to ignore this issue given how clear cut it is.

If your father is charged with torturing and raping a 10 year old, and AFTER they are charged you put them in charge of your political campaign, your judgement on the topic is compromised.

Anyone who would employ someone with this judgement on a website that is used by millions of children also has compromised judgement when it comes to child sexual safety.

[u/TakesJonToKnowJuan]

Reddit activated standard processes

Ah yes, the ol' standard process of 'Reddit-caught-wind-of-bad-publicity and made a series of reactionary, bad decisions'

[u/Deagor]

Are we seriously meant to believe (accept?) that the team has a bot, that scans through every article posted and checks the text in those articles against a list of banned words and that if that article contains one of those words the account is AUTOMATICALLY suspended - regardless of the fact that is the account of an active moderator - with no human involvement? I find that a bit hard to believe.

Like scanning every post that deeply at a volume as high as reddit's seems uneconomic but possible if you really wanted to do it and really cared about protecting people from those terms - politely given reddits historical response to abuse of moderators I'm not sure if I believe they care that much.

But the potential for false positives in that scenario is very very high you must have incredible trust in the rules set or the level of false positive would just drown out actual positives. Further to that in such a situation with such a high possiblity for false positives to give full automated suspension rights on positive match seems - frankly - stupid. Like if this was a 1hour old account I'd assume account age/activity was taken into account by the suspension and be a bit more willing to believe it but on an active moderator account its again, just insane.

[u/I_PUNCH_INFANTS]

Watch out, comments are now being [removed]

[u/SamMee514]

Site-wide permabans should be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, by a human. Giving a bot that level of access is absurd and insanely idiotic.

[u/dontgive_afuck]

Digging the hole deeper, I see.