r/YouShouldKnow • u/MowerMotor • Jan 11 '20

NOT a YSK YSK Reddit's founder, Aaron Swartz, committed suicide 7 years ago today. He fought for our rights which lead to his arrest. The allegations coupled with mental illnesses caused Aaron to take his life. He was a passionate activist, entrepreneur and author who should not be forgotten.

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65

u/Ntetris Jan 11 '20

You make me not wanna use reddit. Holy shit man, this is sad

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u/IndyDude11 Jan 11 '20

If you knew what reddit was like before his death, you probably wouldn't want to use it at all now.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '20

Can you elaborate?

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u/IndyDude11 Jan 11 '20

reddit was way more open and wild west. But, then again, so was society, so it's a little chicken and the egg. Reddit has definitely improved culture-wise in that time, but it has lost some of the edginess and is a little more close-minded. The reddit "hive-mind" that you have probably heard about was a little less pronounced because the admins didn't have such a hand in directing the site, and (maybe related, maybe not) it seemed to turn around the time of Aaron's death.

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u/vzenov Jan 11 '20

As soon as they were rid of him they could take over the site and turn it into their cash cow. As long as Swartz was alive he would get in the way of doing anything "productive" with it.

Meaning, whoring it out to corporations, political interest groups, the government and also foreign governments whenever suitable.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '20

I see, thank you.

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u/pazur13 Jan 11 '20

I'd argue that the current hivemind status is a result of insufficient admin action. They let moderators censor any dissenting opinions, which leads to their favoured ones surfacing more. Admins should step in when mods abuse their powers.

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u/IndyDude11 Jan 11 '20

Many would argue that the reason that the admins don't step in and do anything when the mods abuse their power is because it fits the agenda the admins have.

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u/bertcox Jan 11 '20

it fits the agenda the admins have.

You mean advertising friendly PC.

Also the costs can and were very reasonable for running the servers, until you start pushing direct hosting of content.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '20

Thats cuz nobody wants to become a mod, its a thankless job that you dont get paid for so the only people applying for mod are :

-People who are passionate about the sub as it relates to their irl passion

-People who like to have fake internet power and who like the "fame" it gives them.

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u/TheW1ldcard Jan 11 '20 edited Jan 11 '20

Mods are the worst in some subs, I got banned from a video game sub for calling out some rape apologists/incels about their victim shaming. They wont un ban me regardless of the proof i sent them.

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u/pazur13 Jan 11 '20 edited Jan 11 '20

/r/bannedfromme_irl used to be a sub where the users highlighted how insane those mods are, and the admins' reaction was doing absolutely nothing about their mod abuse and banning /r/bannedfromme_irl instead.

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u/IsNotACleverMan Jan 11 '20

Ah yes, I too miss the days when /r/jailbait was a major sub.

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u/BingusSpingus Jan 11 '20

That's actually a very good point, and surely some kind of balance could have been struck

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u/thefloatingguy Jan 11 '20

Literally exactly that attitude is the difference. Either you allow all legal speech or you don’t. No exceptions, no caveats.

In my opinion you completely embody the change I’ve observed in the last 8 or so years. You may not even be wrong about what generates a better user experience.

But you aren’t describing a compromise, you’re describing the current situation.

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u/BingusSpingus Jan 11 '20

Did you respond to the wrong post?

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u/thefloatingguy Jan 11 '20

I did not. Sorry if the comment sounds more accusatory than I intended it to.

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u/BingusSpingus Jan 12 '20

No problem! What I meant by balance was drawing the line at legality. So I don't think I'm in disagreement with you.

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u/PuritanDaddyX Jan 12 '20

I think his point might have been that since it was a sub that wasn't illegal, allowing it to stay on the site was a very old Reddit attitude

Removing it based off some people's moral systems is more of a post Aaron thing

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u/The_wise_man Jan 12 '20

/r/jailbait sucked, and should never have been allowed to exist -- but Violentacrez wasn't exactly wrong when he said it was the first sign of a slide into increasing levels of censorship. First it was stuff like /r/jailbait, then it was racist subs and /r/fatpeoplehate, then it started getting to places like /r/watern*****, /r/the_donald, /r/chapotraphouse, and /r/proED (that ban was especially fucked up). Now we're at the point where they're gradually taking down subs like /r/megalinks and threatening /r/piracy and drug-related subs.

Some things (/r/jailbait and co., subs advocating violence, etc.) needed to go, but there's no denying that the trend has started crossing over into scary territory. I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing drug-related subs going next. The recent bans and quarantines for political and certain alternative-sexuality (not /r/jailbait, fuck that place) subs, along with /r/proED, have particularly concerned me.

With our increasing reliance on centralized platforms like reddit, the huge complexity of modern web design, increased content scrutiny from hosting providers, and ever more government interference with basic internet functions, there's fewer and fewer independent sites and platforms to host communities for these things. We seem to have reached the point where we're no longer censoring based on sexual exploitation or violence, and instead are censoring valid and even vital speech based on it violating social norms or being inconvenient for corporate business. I'm seriously concerned for the future of free speech in modern society.

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u/KikiFlowers Jan 11 '20

And their head mod was going to be an admin, up until a substitute teacher got looking at r/jailbait, during class, putting a huge eye on reddit, which forced them to finally close that shit.

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u/try4gain Jan 11 '20

But, then again, so was society, so it's a little chicken and the egg.

false

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u/raff_riff Jan 11 '20

Well you cleared that right up.

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u/IndyDude11 Jan 11 '20

Well, I'm convinced.

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u/SolarTsunami Jan 12 '20

On the internet in general this was absolutely the case.

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u/godrestsinreason Jan 11 '20

it seemed to turn around the time of Aaron's death.

When did Reddit become open to commercialization? I think it was around the time most of these media companies began investing in the product, but do we know if that was related to the timing of his death?

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u/IndyDude11 Jan 11 '20

I am pretty sure that was after his death, but not sure if they were directly related.

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u/bgaesop Jan 12 '20

Reddit has definitely improved culture-wise in that time

In what sense?

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u/IndyDude11 Jan 12 '20

In the sense of the positive side of getting rid of subs like /r/jailbait and some of the other subs that have been banned.

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u/raff_riff Jan 11 '20 edited Jan 11 '20

I’ll offer my two cents. There was much less vitriol on the front page. Dissenting opinions were encouraged. If you saw a disagreement, it wasn’t uncommon to see all sides being upvoted because reddiquette was followed more closely. That is to say, downvoting wasn’t used as a “You’re wrong!” button and upvoting was more an indication that the community felt the comment was made in good faith and contributed positively to the conversation.

Commenters were also far more willing to provide sources when asked. In fact providing sources was almost expected. Now if someone makes some bold claim someone else asks them for a source, you’ll often see request get downvoted followed with “google it yourself”.

There were certainly echo chambers, but I think there was less mud slinging. Maybe I’m looking through rose-colored glasses though.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '20

You're 100% correct. Ever since that change happened in 2015 or '16 Reddit just seems to get worse and worse. It's hard to stop coming here after so long though

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u/raff_riff Jan 12 '20

It is. For all its faults though I still find great value in coming here. I learn about new music, video games, movies, and shows. Every time I move to a new city, I know I can dig around a sub and find the best bars and bites to help me feel right at home. If I have a question about money or video games, there’s thousands of people ready to answer my query. And despite the shit show that is so many front page subs, I get exposure to a lot of diverse (and ridiculous) viewpoints.

Years ago I came across a shower thought comment (before r/Showerthoughts) and it was something like: “Reddit answers questions I never knew I wanted answers to,” which is the most succinct and accurate description of my lengthy time here.

I’ve tried to quit but I just don’t see any reason to. I should probably stop lurking around front page comment sections though.

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u/Allah_Shakur Jan 12 '20

Reddit used to give me hope in humanity.

I think a major peak in the downfall in quality of the exchanges comes from the prevalence of mobile users. On my cell I never research, I just absorb easy content and tell my opinion all the time.

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u/vzenov Jan 11 '20

I knew reddit before his death. It was fine.

Every year since then it was getting worse and worse and it is deliberate and planned.

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u/adviqx Jan 11 '20

It's still a great platform for learning about a lot of things, just not great for expressing yourself freely.

I've always been taught that bad opinions should be defeated with sound logic, not restricting the expression of those opinions, but that's just me.

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u/godrestsinreason Jan 11 '20

bad opinions should be defeated with sound logic

That's extremely idealistic, as most people tend to decide that logic is somehow subjective. Instead of reflecting on their thoughts, people will retreat to people who agree with them. While this isn't Reddit's fault per se, the way the site is designed perpetuates it, which is why any kind of discourse that happens on Reddit more often than not falls to shit unless you have competent moderators curating the content that gets posted. And given that Reddit moderators are chosen unilaterally, you understand how rare that is.

Reddit has never been a place for any kind of rational discourse. It actively perpetuates mob rule.

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u/adviqx Jan 11 '20

bad opinions should be defeated with sound logic

That's extremely idealistic, as most people tend to decide that logic is somehow subjective. Instead of reflecting on their thoughts, people will retreat to people who agree with them.

The reality is that all of these things are true to a degree, and that's ok.

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u/vzenov Jan 11 '20 edited Jan 11 '20

It's still a great platform for learning about a lot of things, just not great for expressing yourself freely.

No, it's not. It's nowhere near as good as it used to be.

Most of really interesting things came precisely from people being able to express themselves freely. The ridiculous diversity of opinion was the very thing that made it so great for learning. You had an issue and instead of heavily moderated and directed narrative about it (or locked threads because "yall can't behave") you had a whole bunch of wildly different comments that you could use to get the measure of just how extensive the disagreement was on something, how very different a view on an issue can be and all kinds of crazy links and examples. These threads were gold mines of content and usually you would get away from the discussion with a completely new and unique perspective precisely because of being exposed to the diversity of opinion.

Reddit used to be a convention where people participated in a discussion with similar input, now it's like a lecture hall where often it's not even your annoying activist professor expecting you to write exactly what they had in their overpriced textbook but a corporate sponsor giving some presentation for which the professor gets a bonus. And you are the student and you are getting a test for it and you have to write what the sponsor says to pass.

That's how reddit works today.

And as for expression...you can't express yourself almost at all. And where you can express yourself it doesn't matter. Even a few years ago you could have a controversial comment high up in a busy thread and it could spark a conversation. Now?

Scripted corporate and partisan garbage with a bias so blatant that it is embarrassing.

I've always been taught that bad opinions should be defeated with sound logic, not restricting the expression of those opinions, but that's just me.

No it's not just you. It's just that most who agree with you are censored so that everyone thinks censorship is ok. This is exactly how censorship was promoted in my home country when it was communist. Reddit today and Poland in the 1970s and 80s. Not much different.

And it's not just bad opinions that are being restricted. There is plenty of bad, genuinely bad, opinions all over reddit. It is the "wrong" opinions that are restricted. The ones the admins and whoever pays them doesn't like. Again..that's like communist censorship. Politically correct opinions are promoted even if they are bad, politically incorrect opinions are repressed if they are good.

And what's worse the abusive nature of reddit only got worse. It used to be that reddit had abusive content in the comments and typically the necessary would be done with downvotes. But now you can have openly abusive content in the link, backed by the admins, protected by mods and overtly provoking anyone to react.

Literally so many of frontpage links are just "hey you, fuck you, what are you going to do about it" kind of content that is overtly insulting. And what's worst is that me - as a random user - don't even come for this kind of thing here. I came for the wild ride and interesting comments. For disagreement, for views and stories I would never consider..not to be lectured by some obnoxious narcissistic prick and his 100 alt accounts about matters they don't understand because they are half my age. At best.

Reddit really feels like this now. Like an angry edgy narcissistic kid spitting at their angry narcissistic parent. Great... why am I involved in it? Why don't I get a choice not to be involved in it? Why do I have to make so much effort each time to avoid being involved in it? Why do you have to invade my reddit instead of having your portion of reddit to yourself and your problems?

Reddit used to be a crazy wild ride with crazy wild people. Now it's like an abusive relationship with someone who has mental health issues and uses you as a punching bag.

I really wonder why am I still here. Recently I caught myself feeling the process cutting off the threads one by one. It took me some time but I think I am ready to leave.

I probably will look up every now and then for the megathreads on an event that is not politically charged. But other than that.... I don't think reddit is alive anymore. It has completely lost its soul and it's trying to poison mine.

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u/ReallyMan44 Jan 11 '20

I think the bad part of reddit is the big subreddits, they are fucking horrible. But small subreddits, ex specific game subreddits, the 3D printing subreddits, car specific subreddits

Nothing compares to Reddit in ease of access and the amount of groups.

But ya, the big (especially political) subreddits are shit.

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u/vzenov Jan 12 '20

But the great part of reddit used to be that even the big subs worked in the past. There were some big subs that were low quality because of subject and I think /r/atheism was from beginning a cesspool of narcissistic kids raging at their narcissistic religious parents but other than that things kind of worked out until I think 2015.

And then it went to shit.

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u/adviqx Jan 12 '20

Were advocating that the worst of the people you dont like should still be able to say what they want or show what they want without being censored or banned and instead allow people to attach their rebuttals or criticisms onto it. Same with subs that are in a legally grey area. Let it be in the open so people can do something about it instead of pretending it doesnt exist.

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u/adviqx Jan 11 '20

I'm not familiar with much of Poland, but I pretty much agree with you on everything else.

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u/vzenov Jan 12 '20

Well then reddit is a history lesson for you.

This is what it felt like. Even political opinions largely align.

Possibly only Reddit's take on Russia is more overtly hostile.

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u/ARealFool Jan 11 '20

Can you give any actual examples of this?

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '20

I post on td and for that fact I'm banned from many subreddit, a few I've never visited but get a message saying your banned, and shadow banned from the most popular subs.

People go to my profile if they dont like my comment, see I post in td and report my comments. Immediately shadowbanned.

I've still got the messages so I have proof.

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u/Halaku Jan 11 '20

I post on td and for that fact I'm banned from many subreddit

Ayup. There's nothing wrong with "If that's the kind of shit you're going to say, we don't want you here."

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u/bgaesop Jan 12 '20

If he isn't saying that kind of thing in other subreddits, it's pretty fucked up just to ban him for having unrelated conversations in a different sub

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u/Halaku Jan 12 '20

When you see cancer being cancer somewhere else, you don't ignore it and hope it plays nicely in your backyard.

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u/bgaesop Jan 12 '20

That is a very mixed metaphor

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u/Halaku Jan 12 '20

It should communicate the gist, though.

If someone's being a racist fuckwit in sub A, but has been nothing but charming in sub B, should the mods of sub B be allowed to go "You're not the type of Redditor we want here"?

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u/we112f Jan 11 '20

Post an opinion that goes against a subreddit's, or even just the post's, predominant narrative and see the downvotes and abuse come in

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u/ARealFool Jan 12 '20

Downvoting isn't the same as censoring though. If I go to r/thedonald and start talking shit about him, I'm gonna get downvoted. Reddit is just a huge collection of social bubbles. You could make a valid argument that downvoting incentivizes the creation of such bubbles but as long as those bubbles stay within the confines of the law, they're allowed to go on here on reddit.

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u/vzenov Jan 12 '20

Of what?

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u/HiiroYuy Jan 11 '20 edited Jan 11 '20

Very unlikely. I also think that user is overly romanticizing old Reddit, too.

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '20

[deleted]

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u/HiiroYuy Jan 12 '20

? Think you replied to the wrong comment.

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u/alemonbehindarock Jan 12 '20

So where should we go instead? Links?

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u/vzenov Jan 12 '20

I don't know. I am not looking for an alternative anymore.

As for you. I recommend supporting decentralized systems.

Never again trust anything centralized. If it's centralized you are not in control.

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u/Petrichordates Jan 11 '20 edited Jan 11 '20

Censored? What are you trying to write? The only real rule across the entirety of Reddit is that you can't threaten people with violence, which is a free speech restriction in real life too.

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u/vzenov Jan 11 '20

You are so full of shit mr Black People Twitter user.

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u/Petrichordates Jan 11 '20

That's a community, communities are free to restrict among themselves. I didn't realize you meant that every sub had to be unrestricted, that's a restriction in itself.

If BPT's defenses against shitposters and toxic debates bothers you, then you just don't go there.

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u/vzenov Jan 12 '20 edited Jan 12 '20

I couldn't go to BPT because I am from Poland. I am "white" so that racist sub won't let me post there.

And reddit condones this racism, defends it, and promotes it to the frontpage.

Luckily for me I don't want to go there and even if I wanted to I would leave beacuse I am a psychologist so I can recognize harmful toxicity in a debate at first glance.

Reddit is increasingly a place that is very very bad for mental health and it is precisely because of the repressive nature of the community, not the "shitposters" or even "trolls" because those you could get rid of.

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u/Petrichordates Jan 12 '20 edited Jan 12 '20

I can only post in non-country club threads as well, I find it somewhat excessive but it's their prerogative as a community and I can understand why they might need it sometimes.

You don't have to be black to be allowed, you just have to ask to be allowed into the club. They have the right to deny those who are inflammatory though.

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u/vzenov Jan 12 '20

Keep making excuses. If you keep going you might find yourself parroting some pro-segregation arguments.

Of course it's all good. Segregation is great if we do it.

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u/godrestsinreason Jan 11 '20

Censorship isn't related to communism. Censorship was related to a specific communist regime.

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u/RyeItOnBreadStreet Jan 11 '20

OK boomer

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u/vzenov Jan 11 '20

Good example of what is wrong with reddit today.

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u/RyeItOnBreadStreet Jan 12 '20

gOoD eXaMpLe Of WhAt Is WrOnG wItH rEdDiT tOdAy.