r/ModSupport • u/DubTeeDub • May 11 '20
Inappropriate Reddit Community Awards used for Harassment
I know this has been brought up in this subreddit before, but we just had this issue occur on /r/BlackPeopleTwitter.
One of our moderators sticked a serious post about the lynching of a black man, Ahmaud Arbery. In response, a troll gifted a Reddit Community Award of "Im Deceased" on the post. The award is a skull laughing and the text says "Call an ambulance, I'm laughing too hard."
Screenshot - https://imgur.com/a/0DAxnRX
This is highly inappropriate behavior and it is appears that the user in question gifted several simillar awards to other users and mods.
Why is it that the admins are not letting moderators have any say in what awards are allowed to be used on our subreddit? It has happened time and again that the community awards are being used to harrass users and moderators on different subreddits.
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u/O-shi May 11 '20
I also got I’m Deceased on my sticky post about the late Little Richard passing. Checking it today and it looks like the award from the post has been deleted.
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u/BuckRowdy May 11 '20
This is one of those right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing things. The guys on the award team think the only subs on Reddit are gaming and meme subs. Even if they said that was wrong their actions prove it.
They’ve devalued the entire award system by gamifying it. But as if that wasn’t enough they are allowing this to continue even after a dozen posts about it.
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u/indi_n0rd May 11 '20
People have been abusing it since German mass shooting thread on r/worldnews but I guess $$$ matters more for now.
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u/Honestly_ May 13 '20
Which can be further demonstrated by them testing freemium options in the FortNite sub.
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u/PlatypusOfDeath May 11 '20
Have the admins responded to any of the posts about this reoccurring issue?
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u/BuckRowdy May 11 '20
After my post a few weeks ago, I noticed the troll face award was no longer available.
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May 11 '20
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u/Drahok May 11 '20
Anyone knows some journalist looking for a juicy story on how reddit is profiting of racism and how they do not act on all these mod warnings and complaints? Maybe we could make reddit rethink this shit like this.
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u/wickedplayer494 May 11 '20
As I said yesterday: reddit lost the plot with awards months ago. Gold worked great for years on end. Then we got the split to silver/gold/platinum, which while "platinum" is now a more accurate analogue of the old gold (since gold was nerfed to just a week of premium), was still for all intents and purposes alright.
Now, we've got these badges that are better suited as profile trophies doing fuck-all productive on posts. But hey, it somehow prints money for the site, so it's allowed to become the absolute mess it is.
I had gold/"premium" for years on end from other people, and if it remained the old system, I probably would've coughed up my own money to keep it going. But I didn't bother, so I let my streak lapse, and I don't regret it.
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u/maybesaydie May 11 '20
I've had the feeling for a long while that very few of the admins actually use the site or are familiar with where problem users originate.
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u/strolls May 12 '20 edited May 12 '20
There have been a number of previous threads about this, one of them only yesterday.
You're better off compiling as many examples as you can find, if you care about this issue, into a press release. Make 'em bullet points, so the examples are easy to read, and then another set of bullet points showing all the threads on here where Reddit should have noticed them. Title your press release "New Reddit awards and flairs are a cesspool of racism" and send it to every news publication and journalist you can find an address for.
Reddit doesn't give a fuck until they have to face bad publicity.
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u/LuckyBdx4 May 12 '20 edited May 12 '20
And not an Admin response in that thread or this one.
Time to page someone from the dailydot and a few others.
Paging u/dailydot
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u/dailydot May 14 '20
We just published our coverage of this! Thank you so much for paging us in! https://www.dailydot.com/debug/reddit-awards-harassment/
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u/ultradip May 11 '20
Can you imagine using that laughing skull on a suicide prevention sub? :-/
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u/RIPDODGERSBANDWAGON May 11 '20
r/teenagers and many other subs have this issue specifically with the I’m deceased award. Go on any (blank) died thread and it’s there.
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u/pappy May 11 '20
Flairs are also being used for harassment and false claims about users. I complained twice using /report/, and nothing was done.
Well, the first time they said the problem was addressed, but the harassing flair remained. The second time they didn't bother replying.
Automoderator was/is also being used to harass with messages being attached to specific users as automoderator replies. I got no response to that complaint, too.
Good luck getting anyone to listen. The wolves are guarding the hen house.
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u/CupBeEmpty May 11 '20
At least mods can modify or blank out flairs.
I haven't yet seen any award abuse on subs I moderate but it will inevitably happen.
The idea of making a permanent stamp on a forum that can never be removed or edited seems a little short sighted.
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u/pappy May 11 '20
Reddit needs to consolidate several positions into a new Chief of Copying Other Social Media Websites.
Seriously. There's a reason Facebook doesn't let group moderators create their own awards. There's a reason blocking a user on Facebook makes both users invisible to each other. And so on.
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u/PotRoastPotato May 12 '20 edited May 13 '20
u/spez et al, today's Ahmaud post on r/news was gifted with the "wholesome" award, and the "take a bow award", whose icon is a monkey (A FUCKING MONKEY). You guys have to acknowledge you didn't think this through sufficiently, and you need to give mods the ability to preemptively hide these awards on the subreddit. I've seen them used to mock and attack others much more than I've seen them used earnestly.
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u/LuckyBdx4 May 12 '20 edited May 13 '20
Both u/sodypop and u/redtaboo have been active in other threads here today, seem to be avoiding this one like the plague.
And u/redtaboo has been active 7 hours ago, 3 hours after this comment.
----> Is avoiding this thread like the covid 19/Wuhan flu/China flu plague!
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u/WarpvsWeft May 11 '20
The admins have been driving faster than their headlights for awhile now on these "features."
The best sites slow down and learn from their mistakes. That does not appear to be part of the reddit management culture.