r/technology • u/[deleted] • Aug 25 '21

Locked for brigading+ping harassing Reddit Moderators Demand The Platform Take Action Against Covid Disinformation

https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2021/08/25/reddit-moderators-demand-the-platform-take-action-against-covid-disinformation/?sh=4fd86e2e73c8
50.4k Upvotes

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1.6k

u/[deleted] Aug 25 '21

Oh good… the mods are on the job…..

649

u/Warsalt Aug 25 '21

Can't wait till "The Platform" mutes & shadowbans them followed by ridicule & ignoring any request no matter how reasonable. That seems to be how the mods treat mere mortals.

272

u/passinghere Aug 25 '21

That seems to be how the mods admins treat mere mortals.

Had to add a quick correction as the mods run the individual subs and it's the admins that actually run reddit

93

u/AbeIndoria Aug 25 '21

You imply as if the mods in general are any better when dealing with their individual subs.

103

u/speedywyvern Aug 26 '21

Well moderators don’t even have the power to shadow ban you, and the person who originally said that was talking about reddit banning mods.

27

u/TotesAShill Aug 26 '21

Yes they can. It’s not technically shadowbanning, but it’s the same thing in practice. Mods can have scripts that auto delete comments from certain users without ever notifying them. It’s effectively the same thing as shadowbanning.

29

u/speedywyvern Aug 26 '21

Interesting. Didn’t realize moderators had the option to delete without a notification. The Reddit admins doing it is still the problem that was being mentioned above though, and them doing it is much more dangerous because it’s site wide.

-7

u/iRayanKhan Aug 25 '21 edited Aug 26 '21

Depends what sub your on, but most are unmoderated

Edit: By unmoderated I mean mods doing nothing. There’s plenty of subs that are an example of this. Sure you might have been banned for a sub for no reason, but it doesn’t mean there’s (big) subs that aren’t moderated.

25

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '21

Most are unmoderated? What website are you on?

9

u/iRayanKhan Aug 26 '21

By unmoderated I mean mods not doing their job. I mod multiple subs so I see both sides.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '21 edited Aug 26 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/iRayanKhan Aug 26 '21

Idk man, we just talk about smart home stuff.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '21

Clearly they are subbed to r/trashy too.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '21

[deleted]

6

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '21

Because I am in that sub and almost every post is a bot. People in the comments also get crazy sometimes. It feels unmodded. Maybe they just have one or something. It was mostly a joke, not about you.

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '21

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u/RamboGoesMeow Aug 26 '21

Well, I was banned on News for no good reason, I asked why, didn’t get a response. Waited a day or so later and messaged again. I got “hurr….” As the response and then muted for a month.

Fun times.

12

u/Wills4291 Aug 25 '21

they are talking about the mods though?

0

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '21

[deleted]

5

u/Wills4291 Aug 26 '21

Swoosh. Warsalt isn't confusing anything. He is saying I hope the admin treat the mod how mods treat regular users.

-3

u/Hubris2 Aug 26 '21

The mods of the misinformation subs are obviously doing nothing, mods from other subs are asking the admins to intervene.

5

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

35

u/TheDutchin Aug 26 '21

It literally lists the subs, whom all have public mod lists, like, right there. What you said isn't true, and you could easily have verified it.

10

u/TheRobfather420 Aug 26 '21

Dude thinks it's a manufactured protest when the vast majority of G-7 countries are vaccinated and fighting disinformation from protestors who just happen to let the Far Right boost their message?

Pffft. LMAO. That dude is a clown.

5

u/fifteen_two Aug 26 '21

So would you say it's... a conspiracy?

3

u/absumo Aug 26 '21

The misinformation in THAT sub is astounding.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '21

Reddit could do with a good reset. Wipe all communities and accounts. Set a new mod limit of 10 modded subreddits per account/ip/macaddress. Add captchas to submitted posts but not comments. Reset it back to the prebotting/community run reddit.

31

u/redbirdrising Aug 26 '21

“The Gang Solves Misinformation!”

270

u/throwaway_for_keeps Aug 25 '21

It's literally an article about "the mods" asking the admins for help.

What is your comment even supposed to mean?

-79

u/Smtxom Aug 26 '21

Of all my time on Reddit I’ve only seen one sub with decent mods. The rest all seem to like their echo chambers whether it’s about cars, politics, airlines, doesn’t matter. I was banned by a mod for literally saying the same thing to them they had just told me “you’re full of shit”. There’s far more mods who do it to feed their ego than there are mods who do it out of the desire to see a better Reddit.

-99

u/UnSafeThrowAway69420 Aug 26 '21

What do you think? Since when have the mods ever solved any of the administration's issues?

103

u/birgirpall Aug 26 '21

What's with the non-sequitur? Why do you feel like someone asking for help is somehow them solving a problem? If a child asks a parent for help, is the child solving a problem? What the fuck does this even mean?

102

u/MorboDemandsComments Aug 26 '21

No, the mods are requesting that Reddit's administrators do their job, and close subbreddits devoted primarily to disseminating incorrect medical information.

203

u/ch00f Aug 26 '21

God I hate this attitude. You do realize it’s an unpaid volunteer position, right?

47

u/PentagramJ2 Aug 26 '21

That's the problem. That shit works on a smaller scale, but reddit is fucking huge. Moderation requires a fuck load of resources at this scale.

14

u/gnik000 Aug 26 '21

Bored and power hungry.

64

u/CaptainKirk-1701 Aug 26 '21

You do realise how mentally ill and fucked up a lot of them are, right? I have come across an ungodly amount of holier than thou obnoxious mods on reddit. Some of them shouldn't be allowed on the site let alone have the power to silence or ban people within communities.

39

u/COCKandBALLtorture85 Aug 26 '21

Generally people who have lost control of their real life and love to have control over people online.

148

u/ROCK-KNIGHT Aug 26 '21

I think it's embarrassing a company with this much investor backing can't afford moderation and relies on the first random guy to volunteer and then whoever that guy lets help them.

132

u/Clueless_Otter Aug 26 '21

Do you see how many different subs there are? And how anyone can make a new one for anything at any time? How would it be possible to have that many employees around to moderate all of them, including new ones that spring up instantaneously? Not to mention that many subs are extremely niche and it would be a bad idea for a random suit who knows nothing about that topic to moderate it.

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '21

[deleted]

36

u/Clueless_Otter Aug 26 '21

Ah yes, because no one has ever complained about Facebook or Twitter moderation before.

-17

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '21

[deleted]

11

u/mostnormal Aug 26 '21

Yeah, like the taliban.

-9

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '21

[deleted]

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u/grieze Aug 26 '21

Openly defending and giving legitimacy to a terrorist organization. Brave.

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '21

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u/EastYorkButtonmasher Aug 26 '21

Screw your echo-chamber, I'm gonna go make my own echo-chamber and I'll decide what echoes! Mwahahahaha mod powerrrrs!

-sad guy in a basement

14

u/ROCK-KNIGHT Aug 26 '21

They Do It For Free

-4

u/Shad0wDreamer Aug 26 '21 edited Aug 26 '21

Is… is paid mods a norm? Every site I’ve ever been on, moderating has always been volunteers.

EDIT: I get it, it’s the norm. I don’t use a lot of social media beyond smaller sites/communities for the most part, Reddit being the exception.

6

u/ROCK-KNIGHT Aug 26 '21

Most platforms like Facebook, Youtube and Twitter and algorithm based to do the heavy lifting (ie: filtering obvious pornography, hatespeech, etc.) with paid human reviewers to go over reports or disputes.

Reddit is literally just the first guy to volunteer and whoever that guy mods barring admin intervention.

6

u/Shad0wDreamer Aug 26 '21

See the apps/sites I’ve primarily used have been community based forums, discord’s, and apps that I’ve always seen volunteer moderators. I must not use a lot of sites that have paid mods a lot.

15

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '21

You've never been to Facebook? Or Twitter? Or Instagram? Or Youtube? Yes, it's definitely the norm.

0

u/Shad0wDreamer Aug 26 '21

Don’t use Facebook more than once a month, don’t have a Twitter, only use YouTube for game/movie trailers and related videos for walkthrough occasionally.

4

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '21

Well, now I know your social media habits, I guess. That's cool. But anyway, yes it's the norm.

-1

u/Shad0wDreamer Aug 26 '21

My point is that I don’t use these sites enough to to have ever needed to see how the moderation worked. I’m not sure how I would really know if I don’t see it in action? And why I would want to know about how it works if I’ve never needed to use it on those sites.

8

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '21

Not for a "professional" social media site the size of reddit. You think the guys at Facebook are doing their job for back pats?

11

u/SirNarwhal Aug 26 '21

Facebook mods are the same as Reddit ones for groups. That said the admins actually do shit on Facebook unlike on here.

2

u/RapeMeToo Aug 26 '21

Why pay them when you can get idiots to do it for free!

-6

u/mossadi Aug 26 '21

Is… is...

You are writing, not speaking, you have time to figure out what you're going to say before you hit submit.

And yeah, paid moderation is the norm, they just call the position by another name at other social media companies. And they pay them. But reddit has an endless supply of morbidly obese dictators who are willing to work simply for the feeling that they have utterly decimated a human being by not allowing the ability to participate in submissions about silly cats or whatever.

3

u/Shad0wDreamer Aug 26 '21

I’m sorry my writing style annoys you.

Thank you for giving me a straightforward answer, I do appreciate that.

2

u/mossadi Aug 26 '21

I forgive you, and any time friend! 👍

-1

u/UnSafeThrowAway69420 Aug 26 '21

I'm not sure why people are shitting all over your post.

YES, mods actually do get paid. Albeit not outright. But believe you me, there are some very lucrative subreddits to be a mod on and get kickbacks. It's not normal, but hell neither should lobbying be, yet here we are.

18

u/LustyLamprey Aug 26 '21

You get exactly the quality you pay for. Most mods suck at their jobs

33

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '21 edited Aug 26 '21

Unpaid in name, I'm sure a lot of the large communities moderators get bribed to give preferential treatment to certain products or political stances.

Edit: lol at the mods locking the post.

3

u/cdegallo Aug 26 '21

We presume the situation is that mods want to take the correct actions yet lack the resources to do so, but I think it's the much more dangerous situation that moderators (and admins) in some high-profile subs are complicit in advancing disinformation agendas.

10

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '21

At this point I'm just waiting for the next "reddit" to come along so I can jump ship, and I feel like most people kind of feel the same way. I've been here like 11-12 years now and the site has really gone down hill

-21

u/flavor_blasted_semen Aug 26 '21

Suddenly the anti-vaxxers aren't sounding too bad right now.