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There is little need for government takedown requests when the moderators of many subreddits are paid shills of various stripes. There are a few subs like r/und

by baseten 12y ago

There is little need for government takedown requests when the moderators of many subreddits are paid shills of various stripes. There are a few subs like r/undelete and r/undeleteshadow and r/longtail dedicated to snapshotting this sort of thing. Among the duplicate submissions that are legitimately deleted you can find some real gems.

motbob 12y ago
When one views reddit moderation decisions through an anti-corporate/governmental lens, circumstantial evidence of mods being paid off seems to be everywhere. But there is not a single piece of direct evidence to suggest that mods are being paid by large organizations (corporate or otherwise) to manipulate reddit content.
- RyJones 12y ago
  I got stickers and a certificate of moderate appreciation from reddit itself for moderating /r/answers. You should know I'm totally beholden to corporate interests now - those stickers were very nice.
- colordrops 12y ago
  Reddit has both explicit ads, such as paid placement at the top, and side bar ads, as well as Reddit Gold, but these are not extensive enough to support costs and make a decent profit. Reddit has nearly 200 million users and has taken almost 50 million in investment, and there is a lot of pressure to utilize the user base for marketing purposes. Along with traditional explicit advertising models, internet marketing usually involves more subtle techniques such as seamless paid content interleaved with user content, as you see on Facebook and elsewhere. Subtle and invisible marketing is especially important on Reddit, as forum users are not tolerant of paid content, as evidenced by the collapse of Digg, so the operators of Reddit have to keep up the impression of Reddit being pristine and untouched by marketers. But Reddit has to make revenue, as they are a business and not a charity. Reddit employees are mods of many of the default subreddits, and often post content to those boards that bubbles to the top of the front page. The evidence trail is direct, as you can directly view an employee's posts on their profile page. It would be absurd for Reddit to not use modern internet marketing techniques to generate revenue. Not only does Reddit support marketing through posts, but they also control the narrative of Reddit. Just live television before it, advertisers are very sensitive to the content carried on the medium that their advertisements are part of, and use their dollars to influence what can and can't be said in that channel. The same goes for Reddit.
  - benihana 12y ago
    This is interesting to think about but your post does not contain a shred of evidence
    - mahranch 12y ago
      They never do. They're baseless. I'm a default mod on reddit, have been for quite a while. I've never been approached by anyone looking to do shady things ever. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, SEO people would love an "in", but I've personally never experienced it. And certainly not from the reddit admins themselves. There are over a thousand default mods now. If reddit's admins were trying to control those mods, surely a few would decline their offer then "spill the beans". There would be whistle blowers. And those whistle blowers have never come forwards because it hasn't happened. The accusation is steeped in an ignorance of how reddit actually works.
      - nitrogen 12y ago
        The top level comment, by baseten, made a claim that is completely different from what has been ostensibly refuted in this thread. The OP never said anything about Reddit controlling moderation. Can you address the specific claim made by baseten, namely that there are subreddits (whether default or non-default) that are managed for pay by other organizations? I'll note that I don't visit Reddit unless linked to a specific conversation, so I don't have a proverbial horse in the race. I just have my curiosity piqued when a chain of rebuttals gets so far off base from the original claim.
        mahranch 12y ago
        > is completely different from what has been ostensibly refuted in this thread. The OP never said anything about Reddit controlling moderation. As I explained in other comments below, I have extensive experience moderating large subreddits and in my time, have not seen a single shred of evidence which shows anyone is "paying to play". If something like that was occurring, it would inevitably be discovered and become viral news everywhere, just like how it was on Digg. I'm sure the administrators of the site keep an eye on the actions, messages and PMs of the top mods so there are more checks and balances on that kind of behavior. More than most people realize.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
rodgerd 12y ago
The paid shills probably do less damage to reddit than the way e.g. one neo-Nazi has managed to take over mod duties in about 80 subreddits by gaming the moderation rules - including /r/holocaust!
- oafitupa 12y ago
  Sonds like the biggest reddit drama ever. Do you have a link?
mahranch 12y ago
> here is little need for government takedown requests when the moderators of many subreddits are paid shills of various stripes. As someone who is a mod of one or more default subreddits, I promise you, this is certainly not the case. I can't "prove" it, but I work with these people every single day and have for years. I'm intimately familiar with the "power mods". We even have our own semi-private subreddit, /r/DefaultMods, where we actually talk about things like this. We discuss how the conspiracy wackos will accuse us of being reptilian shills for Pepsi today, then tomorrow turn around and accuse us of being shills for Coke. Next week we're shills for the U.S government, the week after we're shills for the KGB or the PRC. This is not an exaggeration. I personally have been accused of being all of those things on numerous occasions over the years. Truth is, I'm just a welder here in Chicago. Let me tell you how fun it is coming home from a long day at work only to be called a government shill by some teenage neckbeard who thinks aliens did 9/11. At some point, you just get tired of it, ignore it, and you have to laugh at the situation. It's why some mods make fun/light about the whole thing. If you start taking it seriously, you're going to go crazy. Modding a large subreddit is a lot like babysitting, except you're not babysitting infants, you're babysitting high school kids. The only real evidence that "mods are shills" is a minimal and extremely exaggerated. Years ago there was a mod who was busted for spamming links to their own stuff. SEO type spam. I think his name was SolInvictus. The admins caught him and shadowbanned his account immediately. There's also examples of other mods catching and busting mods for spamming (like the quickmeme guy). These things don't go left unchecked. If you think the admins aren't paying attention and catching/busting mods, then you'd be naive. They are, and have been. If there was someone working to systematically undermine their subreddit, the evidence to the admins and even to the other mods would be overwhelming and obvious. By the way, /r/Undelete is populated and run by people from /r/Conspiracy. Overwhelmingly so. Mods will show up to explain why a submission was removed (which rule it broke and why) and the conspiracy crowd will blatantly ignore it and downvote the helpful mod. That place was nice in the very beginning, now it's as toxic as any stormfront forum. No exaggeration. You'll actually probably find more level headed people in a stormfront forum.
- driverdan 12y ago
  He didn't say all mods are shills, just that there are mods who are shills. You gave two examples yourself. Admins take action when there's irrefutable evidence.

by baseten 12y ago

motbob 12y ago

When one views reddit moderation decisions through an anti-corporate/governmental lens, circumstantial evidence of mods being paid off seems to be everywhere. But there is not a single piece of direct evidence to suggest that mods are being paid by large organizations (corporate or otherwise) to manipulate reddit content.

RyJones 12y ago
I got stickers and a certificate of moderate appreciation from reddit itself for moderating /r/answers. You should know I'm totally beholden to corporate interests now - those stickers were very nice.
colordrops 12y ago
Reddit has both explicit ads, such as paid placement at the top, and side bar ads, as well as Reddit Gold, but these are not extensive enough to support costs and make a decent profit. Reddit has nearly 200 million users and has taken almost 50 million in investment, and there is a lot of pressure to utilize the user base for marketing purposes. Along with traditional explicit advertising models, internet marketing usually involves more subtle techniques such as seamless paid content interleaved with user content, as you see on Facebook and elsewhere. Subtle and invisible marketing is especially important on Reddit, as forum users are not tolerant of paid content, as evidenced by the collapse of Digg, so the operators of Reddit have to keep up the impression of Reddit being pristine and untouched by marketers. But Reddit has to make revenue, as they are a business and not a charity. Reddit employees are mods of many of the default subreddits, and often post content to those boards that bubbles to the top of the front page. The evidence trail is direct, as you can directly view an employee's posts on their profile page. It would be absurd for Reddit to not use modern internet marketing techniques to generate revenue. Not only does Reddit support marketing through posts, but they also control the narrative of Reddit. Just live television before it, advertisers are very sensitive to the content carried on the medium that their advertisements are part of, and use their dollars to influence what can and can't be said in that channel. The same goes for Reddit.
- benihana 12y ago
  This is interesting to think about but your post does not contain a shred of evidence
  - mahranch 12y ago
    They never do. They're baseless. I'm a default mod on reddit, have been for quite a while. I've never been approached by anyone looking to do shady things ever. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, SEO people would love an "in", but I've personally never experienced it. And certainly not from the reddit admins themselves. There are over a thousand default mods now. If reddit's admins were trying to control those mods, surely a few would decline their offer then "spill the beans". There would be whistle blowers. And those whistle blowers have never come forwards because it hasn't happened. The accusation is steeped in an ignorance of how reddit actually works.
    - nitrogen 12y ago
      The top level comment, by baseten, made a claim that is completely different from what has been ostensibly refuted in this thread. The OP never said anything about Reddit controlling moderation. Can you address the specific claim made by baseten, namely that there are subreddits (whether default or non-default) that are managed for pay by other organizations? I'll note that I don't visit Reddit unless linked to a specific conversation, so I don't have a proverbial horse in the race. I just have my curiosity piqued when a chain of rebuttals gets so far off base from the original claim.
      - mahranch 12y ago
        > is completely different from what has been ostensibly refuted in this thread. The OP never said anything about Reddit controlling moderation. As I explained in other comments below, I have extensive experience moderating large subreddits and in my time, have not seen a single shred of evidence which shows anyone is "paying to play". If something like that was occurring, it would inevitably be discovered and become viral news everywhere, just like how it was on Digg. I'm sure the administrators of the site keep an eye on the actions, messages and PMs of the top mods so there are more checks and balances on that kind of behavior. More than most people realize.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

rodgerd 12y ago

The paid shills probably do less damage to reddit than the way e.g. one neo-Nazi has managed to take over mod duties in about 80 subreddits by gaming the moderation rules - including /r/holocaust!

oafitupa 12y ago
Sonds like the biggest reddit drama ever. Do you have a link?

mahranch 12y ago

> here is little need for government takedown requests when the moderators of many subreddits are paid shills of various stripes. As someone who is a mod of one or more default subreddits, I promise you, this is certainly not the case. I can't "prove" it, but I work with these people every single day and have for years. I'm intimately familiar with the "power mods". We even have our own semi-private subreddit, /r/DefaultMods, where we actually talk about things like this. We discuss how the conspiracy wackos will accuse us of being reptilian shills for Pepsi today, then tomorrow turn around and accuse us of being shills for Coke. Next week we're shills for the U.S government, the week after we're shills for the KGB or the PRC. This is not an exaggeration. I personally have been accused of being all of those things on numerous occasions over the years. Truth is, I'm just a welder here in Chicago. Let me tell you how fun it is coming home from a long day at work only to be called a government shill by some teenage neckbeard who thinks aliens did 9/11. At some point, you just get tired of it, ignore it, and you have to laugh at the situation. It's why some mods make fun/light about the whole thing. If you start taking it seriously, you're going to go crazy. Modding a large subreddit is a lot like babysitting, except you're not babysitting infants, you're babysitting high school kids. The only real evidence that "mods are shills" is a minimal and extremely exaggerated. Years ago there was a mod who was busted for spamming links to their own stuff. SEO type spam. I think his name was SolInvictus. The admins caught him and shadowbanned his account immediately. There's also examples of other mods catching and busting mods for spamming (like the quickmeme guy). These things don't go left unchecked. If you think the admins aren't paying attention and catching/busting mods, then you'd be naive. They are, and have been. If there was someone working to systematically undermine their subreddit, the evidence to the admins and even to the other mods would be overwhelming and obvious. By the way, /r/Undelete is populated and run by people from /r/Conspiracy. Overwhelmingly so. Mods will show up to explain why a submission was removed (which rule it broke and why) and the conspiracy crowd will blatantly ignore it and downvote the helpful mod. That place was nice in the very beginning, now it's as toxic as any stormfront forum. No exaggeration. You'll actually probably find more level headed people in a stormfront forum.

driverdan 12y ago
He didn't say all mods are shills, just that there are mods who are shills. You gave two examples yourself. Admins take action when there's irrefutable evidence.