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Trump’s brigade took over Reddit. Now Reddit is changing its rules to stop them

37 points by credo 10y ago

thescribe 10y ago
I feel like this article may be a bit unfair. It sounds like organically a community wields a large number of votes, and they aren't getting the same treatment as other communities on Reddit?
- msbarnett 10y ago
  Well, the purpose of Reddit's r/all algorithm isn't to implement some nebulous sense of "fairness" or "content-blind consistent treatment", it's to provide a "good" mix of content from all of Reddit for the enjoyment of users. If one subreddit is swamping the r/all algorithm, it makes sense to tweak it to lower their impact. Especially if it's polarizing content that might drive a significant volume of traffic that didn't sign up for that content away.
- SixSigma 10y ago
  Of course it's unfair, it's the anti-Trump WaPo U/spez has declared the_Donald as a problem and is trying to penalise it under the table, and failing. Unlike F.P.H. they can't just declare the_Donald as against the secret rules and pull the plug, or will they...
- legulere 10y ago
  /r/the_donald is harassing moderators from other subreddits, the moderators take part in vote manipulation (for which their most active mod was recently banned). I actually wonder why the subreddit isn't shut down yet.
  - bsamuels 10y ago
    i'm pretty sure reddit couldnt shut down a subreddit dedicated to a presidential nominee without causing the shitstorm of the century, especially trump
  - FunctionalMan 10y ago
    They said this before when overweight people didn't like to see posts from healthy-weight people. Why don't they just state who the site is for in the TOS and people can decide up-front if its for them, instead of pretending to be organic and democratic? It's ok to lean right or left or fat, but state your mission.
- vinhboy 10y ago
  Did you even read the article? They are being targeted because they are engaging in vote manipulation. Members of other subreddit don't collude to upvote everything and try to get into /r/all. They also don't go and attack other subs. Also, the racist and sexist nature of the posts makes it inappropriate. Reddit has already taken a stance against this sort of content when it banned a bunch of subreddits a few months ago.
  - back_beyond 10y ago
    What are some examples of racist and sexist posts from /r/the_donald that have gained traction? Is censorship of "inappropriate" speech the right precedent?
    - basch 10y ago
      censorship would be taking away their sub or removing it entirely from /r/all turning the volume down on one tv because they are purposely boosting it to drown out other tvs is not censorship.
      - back_beyond 10y ago
        If restricting the message of a movement isn't censorship, that's news to me.
        basch 10y ago
        /r/all is an algorithmically balanced sample of everything going on on reddit. it is in everyones best interest to keep one subcommunity from shouting over everyone else. letting them speak, but peppering in more of the other posts is not censorship.
        back_beyond 10y ago
        We should limit a community's exposure, even if it's organic and consistently one of the most active[1] on all of Reddit? What if we gave extra votes to lesser-represented political parties because, you know, they have good ideas too - right? Let's not pretend that this algorithmic change won't have the same impact. [1] http://redditlist.com/ http://redditlist.com/
vinhboy 10y ago
On a related note, now there is an anti-trump subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrumpSpam/ https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrumpSpam/ It's really interesting to watch the power struggle. It's one group of troll taking on another. Must be a headache for the admins.
- minimaxir 10y ago
  For those curious, here are the top subreddits similar to /r/enoughtrumpspam: http://i.imgur.com/IUuc48Z.png http://i.imgur.com/IUuc48Z.png
SixSigma 10y ago
When s4p took over reddit, no-one batted an eye
- hisyam 10y ago
  r/s4p might be little annoying but they didn't: - post dozens of pictures of Hillary kissing the KKK in a single day - post a bunch of cropped centipede pictures that can be combined when browsing r/all - etc If they want to promote their favorite politician, I understand but populating 40% of r/all with meme shitposts will make the admins take actions.
FunctionalMan 10y ago
Trump's brigade didn't "take over" reddit any more than "Bernie's Brigade" did several months ago, or Obama's brigade did 4 years ago, etc. It's just that the Management of reddit doesn't like who's popular this month. That's fine, of course. Now we know why it's called "red"-dit.
jml7c5 10y ago
One thing to note from /u/spez's announcement of the changes[1], which suggests the impact might not actually be that large: >Interestingly enough, r/the_donald was already getting downvoted out of r/all yesterday morning before we made any changes. It seems the rest of the Reddit community had had enough. Ironically, r/EnoughTrumpSpam was hit harder than any other community when we rolled out the changes. That’s Reddit for you. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4oedco/lets_all_have_a_town_hall_about_rall/ https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4oedco/lets_...
- vehementi 10y ago
  Yeah, this is a pretty desperate nothing article
danso 10y ago
I don't understand how r/sandersforpresident didn't also have the same effect on r/all during Bernie's rise...if there ever was a subreddit that had enthusiastically upvoting users, it was that one.
- nighthawk454 10y ago
  /u/spez addressed it a bit in his AMA. [1] > It was a problem. A smaller problem, but still a problem. As I mentioned in my post, r/all has gone through waves of being overwhelmed by a specific community many, many times over the years. Sometimes it's healthy, sometimes it's funny, most of the time it's annoying, particularly during election years. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4oedco/lets_all_have_a_town_hall_about_rall/d4buwen?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4oedco/lets_...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- pmcginn 10y ago
  None of this is about the rules, it's about the people who run Reddit minimizing the impact of speech they disagree with.
- newacct23 10y ago
  As an idiot that fell for the Trump secret political savant narrative I upvoted every single article without even reading the title on the first 3 pages of the rising section (very quickly because of keyboard shortcuts) because I believed I was helping the cause. Many others did this. Don't tell me how much of an idiot I am, I've already judged myself. Luckily I can say I voted against Trump when I had the chance. Now I'm praying Romney runs third party.
  - mintplant 10y ago
    > As an idiot that fell for the Trump secret political savant narrative At the risk of veering off topic, would you mind explaining what this meant for you? I've heard people say sort of similar things before ("he's just pretending, he'll be different in office"), but never fully grasped the thought process behind them.
davb 10y ago
As someone who visits Reddit purely for entertainment, I welcome the changes. I can't stand Trump. But even if I was a supporter (or the subreddit in question was for a more amiable candidate), /r/all has been useless for the last couple of months. It's been swamped with hate speech and spam. I've stayed away from it altogether, which is a shame because it's a great way to find trending posts in subreddits I don't subscribe to. An alternative would have been to allow users to block certain subreddits from their /r/all (making it /r/almost all, I guess). But this would have been difficult and confusing for new users and wouldn't help anonymous users at all. I wonder if they lost a lot of traffic because of that subreddit.
- radmuzom 10y ago
  Yes. I find it funny how Americans support free speech (at least here; given general comments and in this thread) when it means the ability to harass certain groups. If the so called "social justice warriors" were doing this, there would be outrage by now as to how we were destroying their favourite online community.
- im3w1l 10y ago
  https://www.reddit.com/r/all-foo-bar-stuff https://www.reddit.com/r/all-foo-bar-stuff It gives a messsage on how its a gold only feature, but it seems to work anyway.
IndianAstronaut 10y ago
The front page of reddit now is actually quite pleasant and interesting. Definitely a huge improvement.
- minimaxir 10y ago
  This did not affect the front page at all, only /r/all.
IndianAstronaut 10y ago
The front page of reddit now is actually quite pleasant and interesting. Definitely a huge improvement.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ddacunha 10y ago
As a regular visitor of /r/all The_Donald is spoiling the experience. Racism and bigotry aside, if all posts are coming from the same sub there is a point to change the rules of /r/all. EDIT: for typos
- back_beyond 10y ago
  What do you mean by "racism and bigotry aside"?
  - trowawee 10y ago
    I think it means that r/the_donald is a fountain of racism and bigotry.
    - back_beyond 10y ago
      I understood that. Let me clarify: what are examples of racism and bigotry that have gained traction? Let's define "gained traction" as 1000 upvotes. Although, I'm open to a better definition.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
researcher7 10y ago
So censorship is OK as long as it is done to the side you disagree with. (Not a Trump supporter, but I won't support any censorship.)

37 points by credo 10y ago

I feel like this article may be a bit unfair. It sounds like organically a community wields a large number of votes, and they aren't getting the same treatment as other communities on Reddit?

msbarnett 10y ago
Well, the purpose of Reddit's r/all algorithm isn't to implement some nebulous sense of "fairness" or "content-blind consistent treatment", it's to provide a "good" mix of content from all of Reddit for the enjoyment of users. If one subreddit is swamping the r/all algorithm, it makes sense to tweak it to lower their impact. Especially if it's polarizing content that might drive a significant volume of traffic that didn't sign up for that content away.
SixSigma 10y ago
Of course it's unfair, it's the anti-Trump WaPo U/spez has declared the_Donald as a problem and is trying to penalise it under the table, and failing. Unlike F.P.H. they can't just declare the_Donald as against the secret rules and pull the plug, or will they...
legulere 10y ago
/r/the_donald is harassing moderators from other subreddits, the moderators take part in vote manipulation (for which their most active mod was recently banned). I actually wonder why the subreddit isn't shut down yet.
- bsamuels 10y ago
  i'm pretty sure reddit couldnt shut down a subreddit dedicated to a presidential nominee without causing the shitstorm of the century, especially trump
- FunctionalMan 10y ago
  They said this before when overweight people didn't like to see posts from healthy-weight people. Why don't they just state who the site is for in the TOS and people can decide up-front if its for them, instead of pretending to be organic and democratic? It's ok to lean right or left or fat, but state your mission.
vinhboy 10y ago
Did you even read the article? They are being targeted because they are engaging in vote manipulation. Members of other subreddit don't collude to upvote everything and try to get into /r/all. They also don't go and attack other subs. Also, the racist and sexist nature of the posts makes it inappropriate. Reddit has already taken a stance against this sort of content when it banned a bunch of subreddits a few months ago.
- back_beyond 10y ago
  What are some examples of racist and sexist posts from /r/the_donald that have gained traction? Is censorship of "inappropriate" speech the right precedent?
  - basch 10y ago
    censorship would be taking away their sub or removing it entirely from /r/all turning the volume down on one tv because they are purposely boosting it to drown out other tvs is not censorship.
    - back_beyond 10y ago
      If restricting the message of a movement isn't censorship, that's news to me.
      - basch 10y ago
        /r/all is an algorithmically balanced sample of everything going on on reddit. it is in everyones best interest to keep one subcommunity from shouting over everyone else. letting them speak, but peppering in more of the other posts is not censorship.
        back_beyond 10y ago
        We should limit a community's exposure, even if it's organic and consistently one of the most active[1] on all of Reddit? What if we gave extra votes to lesser-represented political parties because, you know, they have good ideas too - right? Let's not pretend that this algorithmic change won't have the same impact. [1] http://redditlist.com/ http://redditlist.com/

vinhboy 10y ago

On a related note, now there is an anti-trump subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrumpSpam/ https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughTrumpSpam/ It's really interesting to watch the power struggle. It's one group of troll taking on another. Must be a headache for the admins.

minimaxir 10y ago
For those curious, here are the top subreddits similar to /r/enoughtrumpspam: http://i.imgur.com/IUuc48Z.png http://i.imgur.com/IUuc48Z.png

SixSigma 10y ago

When s4p took over reddit, no-one batted an eye

hisyam 10y ago
r/s4p might be little annoying but they didn't: - post dozens of pictures of Hillary kissing the KKK in a single day - post a bunch of cropped centipede pictures that can be combined when browsing r/all - etc If they want to promote their favorite politician, I understand but populating 40% of r/all with meme shitposts will make the admins take actions.

FunctionalMan 10y ago

Trump's brigade didn't "take over" reddit any more than "Bernie's Brigade" did several months ago, or Obama's brigade did 4 years ago, etc. It's just that the Management of reddit doesn't like who's popular this month. That's fine, of course. Now we know why it's called "red"-dit.

jml7c5 10y ago

One thing to note from /u/spez's announcement of the changes[1], which suggests the impact might not actually be that large: >Interestingly enough, r/the_donald was already getting downvoted out of r/all yesterday morning before we made any changes. It seems the rest of the Reddit community had had enough. Ironically, r/EnoughTrumpSpam was hit harder than any other community when we rolled out the changes. That’s Reddit for you. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4oedco/lets_all_have_a_town_hall_about_rall/ https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4oedco/lets_...

vehementi 10y ago
Yeah, this is a pretty desperate nothing article

danso 10y ago

I don't understand how r/sandersforpresident didn't also have the same effect on r/all during Bernie's rise...if there ever was a subreddit that had enthusiastically upvoting users, it was that one.

nighthawk454 10y ago
/u/spez addressed it a bit in his AMA. [1] > It was a problem. A smaller problem, but still a problem. As I mentioned in my post, r/all has gone through waves of being overwhelmed by a specific community many, many times over the years. Sometimes it's healthy, sometimes it's funny, most of the time it's annoying, particularly during election years. [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4oedco/lets_all_have_a_town_hall_about_rall/d4buwen?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/4oedco/lets_...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
pmcginn 10y ago
None of this is about the rules, it's about the people who run Reddit minimizing the impact of speech they disagree with.
newacct23 10y ago
As an idiot that fell for the Trump secret political savant narrative I upvoted every single article without even reading the title on the first 3 pages of the rising section (very quickly because of keyboard shortcuts) because I believed I was helping the cause. Many others did this. Don't tell me how much of an idiot I am, I've already judged myself. Luckily I can say I voted against Trump when I had the chance. Now I'm praying Romney runs third party.
- mintplant 10y ago
  > As an idiot that fell for the Trump secret political savant narrative At the risk of veering off topic, would you mind explaining what this meant for you? I've heard people say sort of similar things before ("he's just pretending, he'll be different in office"), but never fully grasped the thought process behind them.

davb 10y ago

As someone who visits Reddit purely for entertainment, I welcome the changes. I can't stand Trump. But even if I was a supporter (or the subreddit in question was for a more amiable candidate), /r/all has been useless for the last couple of months. It's been swamped with hate speech and spam. I've stayed away from it altogether, which is a shame because it's a great way to find trending posts in subreddits I don't subscribe to. An alternative would have been to allow users to block certain subreddits from their /r/all (making it /r/almost all, I guess). But this would have been difficult and confusing for new users and wouldn't help anonymous users at all. I wonder if they lost a lot of traffic because of that subreddit.

radmuzom 10y ago
Yes. I find it funny how Americans support free speech (at least here; given general comments and in this thread) when it means the ability to harass certain groups. If the so called "social justice warriors" were doing this, there would be outrage by now as to how we were destroying their favourite online community.
im3w1l 10y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/all-foo-bar-stuff https://www.reddit.com/r/all-foo-bar-stuff It gives a messsage on how its a gold only feature, but it seems to work anyway.

IndianAstronaut 10y ago

The front page of reddit now is actually quite pleasant and interesting. Definitely a huge improvement.

minimaxir 10y ago
This did not affect the front page at all, only /r/all.

IndianAstronaut 10y ago

The front page of reddit now is actually quite pleasant and interesting. Definitely a huge improvement.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

ddacunha 10y ago

As a regular visitor of /r/all The_Donald is spoiling the experience. Racism and bigotry aside, if all posts are coming from the same sub there is a point to change the rules of /r/all. EDIT: for typos

back_beyond 10y ago
What do you mean by "racism and bigotry aside"?
- trowawee 10y ago
  I think it means that r/the_donald is a fountain of racism and bigotry.
  - back_beyond 10y ago
    I understood that. Let me clarify: what are examples of racism and bigotry that have gained traction? Let's define "gained traction" as 1000 upvotes. Although, I'm open to a better definition.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

researcher7 10y ago

So censorship is OK as long as it is done to the side you disagree with. (Not a Trump supporter, but I won't support any censorship.)