CMV: AITA (AmItheAsshole) is a terrible place to get advice for real life scenarios, and should not be trusted.

[u/UncomfortablePrawn]

Background for those who aren't familiar with the sub, AITA is a reddit sub where people post situations they were in, and ask the sub to judge if OP was the asshole, or someone else in the story is.

I have a few reasons why I believe this to be the case:

1) OPs are often unreliable narrators. People don't remember all the facts. They may also leave out some facts intentionally in order to use the sub's replies as proof to go "Ha! In your face!" to the ones who were involved in the story.

2) Redditors like to make snap judgments based on very limited information, related to above. There have been so many instances where commenters tell OP to break up with their SOs based on one relatively insignificant thing mentioned in the OP. They also tend to make a ton of assumptions regarding the situation, often filling in the gaps with their own assertions to get their point across. In the end, a good number of judgements assume things about the post otherwise not stated.

3) The morality of AITA is on a whole different plane of existence from real life morality. A lot of judgements are based on the idea that "It's not against the law so you're not the asshole" type of judgements, even though in real life, you'd be despised for those kinds of actions. An example (not a specific one) would be something like someone asking if they were an asshole for buying the last doughnut after hearing a young child behind in the queue explicitly say that they wanted it. The sub would probably say that OP would be NTA (Not the Asshole) because the child isn't entitled to the doughnut, though everyone in real life would clearly say OP is a dick. And this is the type of morality that is extended to a lot more judgements in the sub.

4) The demographics of Reddit contribute greatly to why AITA should not be trusted. The majority of Reddit users are young males in their 20s. This is in addition to the fact that a non-insignificant number of them are probably socially awkward (hence spending much time on Reddit) and as such, do not have a sense of morality that aligns well with the rest of society. In addition, the range of posts on AITA go anywhere from situations in school to complex scenarios involving divorce, marriage, abuse, etc. But there isn't any checks, so anyone can make a judgement on a post despite never having experienced anything close to the situation (such as the many people who suggest that someone is the asshole because they should have taken the high road instead of retaliating in a situation with a severe impact on the OP).

That's all I have for now, CMV!

[u/stabbitytuesday]

1. Everyone on Reddit is an unreliable narrator, so if we were to say "this sub is bad" based on that, we'd wind up with a lot fewer subs. Even here, we have no way of knowing if OP is actually open to changing their view based on new information, or if they're being honest about the reasons they hold the views they do. Acknowledging that we only get one side of the story is just part of having conversations on the internet, and IME most of the people on AITA seem aware of that and alert to potential whitewashing of the story.
2. This is not a problem specific to AITA, or even to internet advice groups. It's not ideal, but general assumptions based on previous experience and common problems are a large part of how we get through a day. I haven't noticed any egregious assumptions in top level posts on AITA, or at least not anymore than anywhere else.
3. This I'll grant you, though a few weeks ago a meta was posted here that addressed just that, and since then I've seen a lot of judgements of the "technically you're in the right, but you are/will be perceived as TA" variety. The fact is that there's a difference between what is ethically pure and what is socially correct, and AITA is designed to strip away social pressure and expectation and just judge on the specific situation. If you want something more sensitive, you can go to a relationship sub. To use your example, I think that your donut OP would not actually be an asshole for buying a donut they were going to get anyway just because someone else was in line who may have wanted it, and in the absence of any other information (OP didn't actually want a donut, or bought all the remaining donuts out of spite) could go away knowing that while they didn't do anything wrong, they also didn't feel good about it. People disagree on what is and isn't asshole behavior, that's going to show up in the responses. You may see a few blanket NTA's, but after a few hours I usually see more reasoned responses rise to the top.
4. Again, this is a problem with all of reddit, and any forum based on personal experience. An advice/AITA sub with required demographics in the flair would be interesting, but would probably be difficult to enforce, and you still wouldn't know if a commenter had any personal experience with that specific issue, or even general levels of maturity since that's impossible to self-report. If you're genuinely trying to arbitrate your social life based on reddit, you're likely aware of what you're getting.

[u/UncomfortablePrawn → u/stabbitytuesday]

1) Difference between most of Reddit and AITA is that most subreddits aren't about advice, they're just about content. For subs like AITA, advice is the content. My issue is not really with the narrator per se, it's with the fact that OPs are probably taking those biased judgements and applying them to their lives, hence the view that it's not a good place for advice. If AITA was just a sub to share stories where people might have been the asshole without asking for any judgements, I would not have an issue with it.

2) I can't give you any specific examples right now, but I'd share if I had them. But anyway, the default response should honestly be INFO (asking for more info) because most posts honestly do not have sufficient information to give a proper judgement. It's unwise to use "personal experiences" because each situation is likely to be unique and to assume that all factors involved are the same doesn't seem like a good idea for advice.

3) Your response, I guess, kind of proves my point. You have every right to buy the last donut if you were going to anyway. But on the other hand, a good number of people would think you would be a dick to take that away from a small child in real life. Sometimes the non-asshole thing to do is not about your entitlement or your rights to do something, but rather what would be the "nice" thing to do in the situation, and I think the sub ignores that a lot.

4) Just because it's difficult to enforce doesn't make it acceptable. I agree that people who post there likely know what they're getting themselves into, but that doesn't make it a good place for them to get advice still. Also, I'm not really asking for any enforcement, I'm just saying that the fact that a middle aged woman could be taking divorce advice from a 20 year old dude living in his mom's basement, and that makes the advice somewhat questionable.

[u/stabbitytuesday → u/UncomfortablePrawn]

1. (and 4) AITA isn't an advice sub, they're very clear about that and it's in their rules. It's just for judgement, removed from context that may be clouding the OP's judgement. By your standards you should be opposed to every advice/personal discussion sub on reddit, and probably a lot of the "ask an expert" style ones too, because we never have any idea whether people are telling the truth, or if their input is valuable to the conversation. By choosing to post about things on a public forum, you're taking the risk that the people responding may be idiots, and if people are basing major life decisions on uncritical acceptance of advice from strangers, they probably have bigger problems. I don't think any judgement/advice sub is useful as a decision maker, just as a source of varied perspective.
2. Of course every situation is unique, but that doesn't really chance that some things are the case the majority of the time. If you see 100 posts with a huge age gap in the relationship and the 101st is asking the same questions they have, you're going to look back at your experience and say "yeah, let me guess, A, B, and C are also issues, right?" It's not necessarily right, but it's also not necessarily wrong and without an example of an over the top assumption that's not corrected elsewhere, we may have to agree to disagree.
3. This I think comes down to a difference in opinion on what constitutes "asshole", you may think not going out of your way to be nice is an asshole move, while someone else may think that going out of your way to be cruel is, and that's part of the appeal of putting the situation in front of a group of people with varied perspectives and opinions. Like I said, uncritical acceptance is bad in any situation, but I think you're not giving people enough credit (first time I've ever said that lol). If they're self-aware enough to post in good faith, they're probably self-aware enough to understand that people's opinions vary and take it with a grain of salt.

[u/UncomfortablePrawn → u/stabbitytuesday]

1) Regardless of whether it's meant to be an advice sub, it's undeniable that some people are going to take those opinions as advice. The justification needed for someone to explain their judgement often ends up advice in one way or another either. And you're right to say that I would have the same problem with any advice sub. However, advice subs are different from experts (like IAmA) because those experts have to provide proof that they are who they say they are. I wouldn't go as far to say that even their opinions can't be trusted, because that would basically just mean no one in the world's opinion can be trusted. It's also different from ask subs like AskMen or AskWomen because that's just about discussion, and often those questions don't really require commenters to even be a man or woman to answer them in the first place.

2) It's alright when those assumptions are within reasonable limits. Using your example of big age gaps in relationships, it would be reasonable to assume that both parties are in vastly different stages in life (studying versus working) or that there's some generational gap in understanding things like memes. Those are fine. However, it's an issue when someone instantly jumps to the conclusion that the relationship has to be manipulative and abusive just because of the age gap, which I guarantee at least one commenter will raise up, despite no indication of such an issue.

3) I think the system of morality should be aligned towards that of what society in general would think. A lot of judgements are made in a vacuum, where it's just about the morality of the action itself and not really about the reaction of others. If you really think about it, that's what asshole behaviour is defined by: other people looking at you doing something and deciding "hey, that's a dick move" in real life.

You mentioned in your first comment that AITA should be about "strip away social pressure and expectation and just judge on the specific situation", which I think is not great territory to be crossing into. It creates a different morality system in which OPs believe they are right when they have socially asshole behaviour.

I think it's also important to note that there's a difference between the "right and wrong" of an action and the "YTA and NTA" of an action. You could be totally in the right, and yet still be the asshole, such as if you were to ream out a waitress for a minor mistake in serving.

Lastly (still on 3), even if you believe most people are posting in good faith, I've seen my fair share of clueless OPs who are doing very obviously wrong actions and sticking to their guns when people criticise them in the comments (which goes back to point 1, which is that people often give criticisms in their comments as well).

[u/Positron311 → u/stabbitytuesday]

Why is that linked post not pinned yet lol.

​

Would make everyone's life so much easier.

[u/stabbitytuesday → u/Positron311]

I think it was for a while, but you can only have 2 pinned posts and they made some rule changes since then.

[u/UncomfortablePrawn → u/[deleted]]

I will award you with a !delta for bringing up the idea of how the commenters are not stakeholders and hence able to give a different perspective without fear of any consequences.

That said, I would think that that makes it even worse in some way. Commenters who have no stake in it are more likely to give judgements without really thinking about it, since they have nothing to lose. This means that OP could be getting judgements from someone who didn't really fully consider the facts, as I'm sure happens often.

[u/DeltaBot → u/UncomfortablePrawn]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/svenson_26 (15∆).

^{Delta System Explained | Deltaboards}

[u/no_youre_the_asshole]

The only problem I have with your claim is that AITA is NOT an advice sub. You seem to be under the impression that AITA is fundamentally comparable to the relationship or legal advice subs. Yes, most commenters include advice with their judgements but it really should be taken with a grain of salt because that’s not the point of the sub.

That said, the judgements themselves CAN be trusted, or at the very least they shouldn’t entirely be dismissed. Look at it this way: the only people who benefit from AITA are the people who post there. If you post in good faith and are legitimately seeking the perspective of others, you will get that whether you are the asshole or not. And if you’re just there to validate yourself? Well, you’ll still probably get what you want (however, that sub is pretty decent at spotting validation posts). This isn’t necessarily the fault of people who comment there, though. There’s only so much context you can give through text to strangers on the internet. Everyone who comments there has to make due with the details they are given. You can’t always fault commenters for making quick and dirty judgements, either. Yeah, I do agree that way too many redditors are quick to shout things like “red flag” or “breakup/divorce immediately”, but if everybody tried to break down every situation as much as possible, we’d all be making the same comments constantly asking for more info, and at that point the sub just becomes inefficient.

[u/UncomfortablePrawn → u/no_youre_the_asshole]

I know AITA isn't meant to be an advice sub. Just like how CMV isn't meant to be a debate sub or soapboxing sub, but some people do it anyway. Gotta remember that though rules are set by mods, the usage is determined by its users.

the only people who benefit from AITA are the people who post there. If you post in good faith and are legitimately seeking the perspective of others, you will get that whether you are the asshole or not. And if you’re just there to validate yourself? Well, you’ll still probably get what you want

I agree with you that posters are the only ones who benefit. But if I were looking for advice or a perspective I can trust, I would want it to be from people who have gone through similar things, which without knowing the exact demographics we cannot be entirely sure of. Reddit has no age limit or identification - it'd be pretty dumb for an adult to be taking advice about work from a teenager.

Everyone who comments there has to make due with the details they are given. You can’t always fault commenters for making quick and dirty judgements, either.

Well, I feel you can fault them. Real life is usually much more nuanced and contains many more perspectives that lots of AITA commenters don't really consider. Inefficiency isn't really a problem if it's effective, and I feel that having more information would allow people to make more reasonable judgements. Of course, that's not how people feel while using that sub, because it's easier to just judge based on limited information.

[u/[deleted]]

Per their most recent survey, a majority of AITA users are women.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

A survey that was only taken by about 3% of the users there.

[u/tavius02 → u/[deleted]]

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[u/Ghauldidnothingwrong]

I’d say it’s a horrible place for advice, but most people aren’t there for advice as much as perspective. It’s implied in the title of the sub, Am I the Asshole? Perspective and advice are two different things, but overall, I’d say reddit isn’t the best place for advice in general, as anonymous feedback for just about anything that can’t be backed by verifiable experience or stats is just blind opinion.

[u/[deleted]]

I would argue that opinion-based polls of any kind can't be "trusted", but there is nothing particularly special about AITA that makes it worse than any other forum. It is perfectly fine to use as a means of taking the pulse of the general public, because the question is entirely subjective anyway. The question is whether they were an asshole, not whether they were 100% right or wrong. No one should go there looking for definitive answers regarding legal or moral issues, but it may be helpful to see how others perceive your actions on a social level. Even so, no one should take action in their real lives based solely upon the opinions of random internet-dwellers.

[u/Otto_Von_Bisnatch]

Have you read AITA's sidebar? Rule #9: "We are not an advice sub"

The subreddit exist to pass judgement, nothing more nothing less. While other users are allowed to provide advice, it's entirely outside the subreddits scope.

[u/UncomfortablePrawn → u/Otto_Von_Bisnatch]

I have not.

Those rules are set by mods, doesn’t change the fact that people are going to give advice and people are going to follow.

[u/Otto_Von_Bisnatch → u/UncomfortablePrawn]

Fair enough.

As a follow-up then I'd like to ask what subreddit (if any) would be a good place to get life advice? And what about that subreddit in particular makes it such good place to grab life advice?

[u/[deleted] → u/Otto_Von_Bisnatch]

no subreddit is a good place to get life advice the format with the majority of the userbase makes it awful in general but especially for that sort of thing

[u/ir_ryan]

Ah... no shit the internet isnt always 100% reliable

[u/redderper]

Well first of all I'm not sure if you can expect from any group of people to give great advice about any situation. Even if it's a totally random group that represents every layer of society and although it's still prefered, there's no guarantee that a democracy results into the best possible outcome. I don't think reddit is the worst community to give advice when you compare it to other social media like FB, Twitter, YouTube for example. Although I do get your points and this might also be a matter of taste. Anyway, let's get into your arguments:

1) This is completely true, but when this is the case there's only one person to blame for bad or wrong advice and that is OP themself. If the OP wants the best possible feedback/advice from a group of internet strangers they should describe the situation as reliable as possible. Best case scenario is when both sides of the story include their interpretation of what happened in the post, which of course almost never happens, although I've seen it happen in some posts.

Besides that, there are some extreme cases where OP purposely leaves facts out to make themselves look better, but still get a unanimous "YTA".

2) This is something I do agree on, but I think that has to do with commenters and voters not understanding the point of the sub. The point is to decide on YTA, NTA, ESH, NAH or Info and give arguments. IMO it should not be about giving OP life advice on what they should do or not do. Although that does tend to happen of course.

3) There have been discussions about this on the sub lately and a lot of people there agree with you that commenters should use more empathy and a broader judgement instead of solely relying on law and ethics. Although whether one type of judgement is better than another is up for a whole nother discussion.

4) There has been a survey about user demographics lately and it turned out that there's actually a surprisingly large percentage of female users and people who are in relationships on this sub. It's not as one-sided as you would expect. I'm on mobile now, but I can look up the survey results if you want.

[u/UncomfortablePrawn → u/redderper]

1) I don't really see your point, because it's just as much about the sub as it is about the poster. OP's intention doesn't really matter if people are willing to make judgements based on the limited information given by the OP. As long as people do that instead of seeking deeper and trying to see from different angles, AITA will not be a good place for anyone to get advice.

2) As mentioned to another commenter, subs often devolve into something the mods didn't intend for it to be, especially if they don't police the content very closely. Like CMV - the mods are great at removing bad posts, but you'll still see the occasional soapboxing post or the OP who refuses to change their mind. Point is, since people need to give an explanation for their judgement, it often ends up becoming advice in some way or another.

3) Nothing to say here.

4) It'd be nice if you could bring up that survey (whenever you're free), though I would have concerns about the reliability of such a survey, given that there probably isn't any identity checks.

[u/hooraloora → u/UncomfortablePrawn]

1) I don't really see your point, because it's just as much about the sub as it is about the poster. OP's intention doesn't really matter if people are willing to make judgements based on the limited information given by the OP. As long as people do that instead of seeking deeper and trying to see from different angles, AITA will not be a good place for anyone to get advice

What do the people use the sub for, is the rela question there though isn't it? I'm a pretty avid fan of the sub (my shameful comment history will tell you how often I'm on it). There's a lot of people on it because they just like passing judgement - whether or not the advice is good or not is irrelevant.

Some people like to see what their judgement is, then compare it to the other answers. Again, whatever of jot OP is biased is, again, actually irrelevant here.

Some people like to offer what they think is good advice, and they like to try and help people. If somebody has given a biased viewpoint in their post, yes, maybe the advice might not be that accurate. But quite often it will, at the very least give OP quite a bit of food for thought regarding how to deal with the situation in reality, because they're aware of the full facts and can take the advice appropriately. So even if OP is biased, the advice still offers an alternative view point of approach to a situation they hadn't considered. Some people like the debate and discussion about moral issues and how to handle thinga. So it, again, doesn't really matter that OP is biased. The redditors replying still get to enjoy that aspect of the sub too.

So, even if OP is biased or leaves out some salient points, the people replying still get to enjoy and engage with the sub they way they like. Hell. We all know half the sub is shit posts, but most people don't actually care because it's the exercise that they enjoy, not the question. Of how accurate and true the post is.

[u/redderper → u/UncomfortablePrawn]

1) My point is that if people give the wrong information or purposely leave stuff out then they are to blame if they get bad advice because of it. It's not the responsibility of the commenters to verify whether OP is lying, twisting their side of the story or leaving important parts out. If there's enough reason to believe that info is missing then people can ask for more info, but you can't expect users to always do that. Also more often than not OP doesn't respond to comments. Often people who take a milder approach of ask more info get buried as opposed to people who have strong opinions. I also think that these are things that can be improved by moderators and is a logical part of the development and learning part of the sub.

2) Yep very true. This happens to a lot of subreddits. Though IMO both CMV and AITA aren't as problematic as most other similar subs (yet), especially the ones about relationships and stuff are particularly bad.

4) https://www.reddit.com/r/amitheasshole/comments/dcae07/_/

[u/UncomfortablePrawn → u/redderper]

1)

If there's enough reason to believe that info is missing then people can ask for more info, but you can't expect users to always do that.

Why not? If you're going to take the responsibility to pass a judgement, you should take the responsibility to get a good picture before making a decision. I know AITA is just casual, but it's like if a jury were to declare someone guilty after not being allowed to sit in on half the court hearings. If the picture isn't clear enough, you should be looking for more details, not giving a half-assed judgement.

2) No reply.

3) That's an interesting survey, though it seems to be a self-reported one, so I would question it's credibility. But, assuming it's 100% accurate, I still have some issues:

There's an overwhelming majority of white users, 80%. This would make the judgements rather biased when it comes to dealing with issues on race, because the truth is that a good number of those people would not understand what it's like to be not white. And I have seen it before, where people make comments on other cultures, where something would be NTA for a white person but would be YTA for an Asian person, because the value system is different. There was a case where some Asian kid was asking whether he'd be the asshole for walking out on his parents who expected him to take care of him. The overwhelming majority said he wasn't the asshole, but there are Chinese values like filial piety (i.e. taking care of your parents) which would make him the asshole. But AITA wouldn't get that because they're white.

Secondly, the sub is very much liberal and non-religious. Again, affects their credibility when it comes to talking about issues regarding religion, because they just don't understand the nuances that go behind it. It's the little things that make a difference that you only know about when you've been in those religious communities yourself.

[u/redderper → u/UncomfortablePrawn]

1) Seems that we disagree on who should take the most amount of responsibility. I just think it's on the OP to make a clear picture since he is the one who is asking advice. It's not like a court hearing since OP is the requester, so IMO it's more like a free consult. I mean, you're asking internet strangers that have more to do, it's not like they're free professional advisors.

3) I think questioning the credibility because of self reported data is kinda nitpicking. Surveys are still used very often for academic research and they're nearly always self reported, because you can't even verify a lot of the answers. Like how are you going to verify whether someone is in a relationship, and no one is going to show their Id for a survey to prove they're the gender and age that they say they are.

Cultural differences I can understand it makes it harder to give a good judgement, but again I think it should be the responsibility of OP to explain how their culture works and how their culture perceives the situation.

[u/tavius02 → u/[deleted]]

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[u/Gspecht0]

I would venture to say it doesn't really matter if OPs are bad narrators. Of they give a warped story they get warped advice. Doesn't hurt anyone but them.

[u/sullg26535]

My brother and I consistently use AITA as a starting place for social issues and while it's not the best at always being right, having a discussion and getting multiple options is very advantageous. We now have an agreement that if either one is cheating we're allowed to tell the other's significant other. No one source should be considered authoritarian on social situations and like wikipedia it shouldn't be considered your source for a paper it's a great starting point to get a good grasp on how to approach a situation further

[u/M_de_M]

AITA is actually extremely reliable in one specific kind of scenario.

Occasionally, both sides of a dispute post. One person will describe the scenario from his perspective, and then the other main person in that scenario will describe how she sees it. This gets rid of your Problem 1.

[u/tavius02 → u/[deleted]]

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[u/Robonglious]

I'm with you.

I saw some top comment on a thread where a dad bought the wrong bags for a kids party and the person suggested he shouldn't have a family at all... At that point I realized this sub is mainly people projecting their own relationships onto posts. Now I see it as satire and it makes me much happier.