[UPDATE] Major Reddit communities going private in mass protest

[Taf the Ghost]

More relevant to other things, but this always comes up with Venture Capital discussions, and applies here as well. Any of the companies that got big with the help of VC funds have a collection of people on staff that are mildly to partially competent but are unable to be removed because of social connections. Think son of the second cousin of a Senator. That type of thing. Commonly, they end up affecting hiring because they're the only ones that are free to be assigned to a lot of busy work, so there ends up this procession of people hired into a company that really shouldn't be there. (Along with making decisions that have nothing to do with improving the company. )

 

In other contexts, you'd call it an infiltration unit for an intelligence agency, but it's actually just a conspiracy of layabouts that hire in a chain of friends and/or kiss-asses. It's how these types of situations, generally, develop. It's also why they tend to get weirdly protected. Beyond just the current "I'm a Victim" Shield approach people take. It's almost like sociopaths will find a system to exploit to protect themselves, and the companies will first protect their image.

[ToboRobot]

1 hour ago, Moonzy said:

 

 

How else would they prove that they've changed if no one gave them a chance after that (this applies to their father as well)

 

 

There are many opportunities for rehabilitation, but positions of power are not suitable for such a task.

 

Reddit Admins (staff hired by Reddit) appear to have power to read and view private messages and information of the users of the site.  Given that there are many youth that use the site, and there is a lot of amateur  pornographic content, there is reasonable concern that the Admins are not complicit with any illegal or harmful actions using the power that their job provides.

Unfortunately for Reddit, the handling of this situation and the apparent lack of vetting, has resulted in Reddit itself and its hiring practices, are no longer trust worthy. 

[Orcblood]

Reddit is ran by mostly a bunch of intolerant power hungry wokeies. For instance in the r/Linux community I just mentioned Gab.com and how I thought what they where building there was great. That was enough for a permma ban and no reply when asked what I did wrong. Legit uncalled for. Funny thing is, this makes me appreciate Gab more for its free speech stance. 

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, Orcblood said:

Reddit is ran by mostly a bunch of intolerant power hungry wokeies. For instance in the r/Linux community I just mentioned Gab.com and how I thought what they where building there was great. That was enough for a permma ban and no reply when asked what I did wrong. Legit uncalled for. Funny thing is, this makes me appreciate Gab more for its free speech stance. 

Sounds like they thought it was a spam attempt.

[WkdPaul]

4 minutes ago, Orcblood said:

Reddit is ran by mostly a bunch of intolerant power hungry wokeies. For instance in the r/Linux community I just mentioned Gab.com and how I thought what they where building there was great. That was enough for a permma ban and no reply when asked what I did wrong. Legit uncalled for. Funny thing is, this makes me appreciate Gab more for its free speech stance. 

subreddits are run by regular people that have nothing to do with the company itself.

 

as @Bombastinator said, they could've think it was spam and didn't look further into it.

[PCGuy_5960]

2 hours ago, Moonzy said:

Can't say I disagree, but not fully agreeing either

 

How else would they prove that they've changed if no one gave them a chance after that (this applies to their father as well)

 

Albeit doing so with reddit's alleged past based on what I read here isn't the best way to go about it either...

I know this may sound harsh, but people like them don't just change on their own, especially those that aren't "just" attracted to minors, but have acted on their fantasies. After some serious help from professionals and a few years, they may change, but without psychiatric help there is almost no chance for that. And given reddit's history, I don't think it would be a good idea for them to hire someone with that kind of history, even if they've been to therapy tbh.

[Moonzy]

27 minutes ago, PCGuy_5960 said:

I know this may sound harsh, but people like them don't just change on their own, especially those that aren't "just" attracted to minors, but have acted on their fantasies. After some serious help from professionals and a few years, they may change, but without psychiatric help there is almost no chance for that. And given reddit's history, I don't think it would be a good idea for them to hire someone with that kind of history, even if they've been to therapy tbh.

Fair point by you and @Arika S

 

I haven't an ounce of knowledge in human psychology or criminology, so not too sure how these works, but I definitely would put her under surveillance instead of giving her position to monitor literal millions of underaged people

[ProjectBox153]

1 hour ago, Orcblood said:

Reddit is ran by mostly a bunch of intolerant power hungry wokeies. For instance in the r/Linux community I just mentioned Gab.com and how I thought what they where building there was great. That was enough for a permma ban and no reply when asked what I did wrong. Legit uncalled for. Funny thing is, this makes me appreciate Gab more for its free speech stance. 

Lol, way to generalize there. Reddit moderators are volunteers, not paid employees. I'm a Reddit mod myself (hence why this story interested me). I moderate 4 subreddits with over 1,000 members - that's a total of over 6 million members I moderate. This has put me into several mod teams with many different moderators who all have different ideas when it comes to how to effectively run a community. Are there bad apples? Sure. There are always going to be problematic moderators.

 

Looking at the rules of r/linux myself I don't think that you've broken the rules, but I don't know what sort of internal moderation discussion happens with that group so I couldn't say for sure. If you were banned and then ignored then that's the kind of moderation I don't like, and I don't put up with it if I can do anything about it. If I get a modmail from a user asking why they were banned I will definitely look into the situation. 

 

However, the mod team of r/linux is not the mod team for r/mac, and it's not the mod team for r/apple either. There are different mods on different teams, and everyone does things a little differently. 

[asquirrel]

I had written out a long reply and I realize...why bother? I think spamming this person's photo and saying "They're a pedophile!" is bad. It's bad because, at least as far as anyone can tell, it's untrue. They socialized with pedophiles, they tried to protect pedophiles, they enabled pedophiles, but they themselves were not a pedophile, at least as far as anyone can figure out. That's like convicting someone of murder who just has a lot of friends who are murders. It's not the same thing.

 

I do agree that the world is better off with this individual NOT having reddit admin powers though. Having this person work at a CNC machine making parts for coffee machines is a safer place for someone with their past than administrating a site where every single photo uploaded can be viewed and saved.

 

Is it cancel culture? Absolutely. Without question. The pill people struggle to swallow is that sometimes cancel culture is good. If this person tried to work at a manufacturing facility, where the only thing they'd see all day were machines and metal blocks, they'd still try to cancel them. That's where it becomes wrong. A human is entitled to earning an income and providing for themselves. To strip that away is to remove any human dignity. If you're going to do that, then just execute them. But these people want to 'cancel' you, not have the blood on their hands directly. It's a disgusting lack of basic empathy or understanding for human life. Murder by proxy is still murder. But in their warped minds, they don't see it that way. It's only an assassination if you call it that. Otherwise it's just 'taking away all means for them to survive until they die on their own!'

 

I really need a new website to visit that isn't reddit. Digg became aids back in 2004. Parler was never my jam. Twitter is a cluster I still don't understand how to read. City-data is great but doesn't have enough users. This forum is nice, but I really don't find that much interesting to say about tech. Give me the old reddit theme but without any advertiser dollars being chased, and a rule that one human can moderate, at most, one subreddit. Work with sociologists to figure out effective ways to combat extremism. Left/right/etc all extremism is not great. Have a place where people write paragraphs explaining their thoughts instead of quick-quips. Make and algorithm that promotes discussion instead of strife. that's the place I want to use.

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, asquirrel said:

I had written out a long reply and I realize...why bother? I think spamming this person's photo and saying "They're a pedophile!" is bad. It's bad because, at least as far as anyone can tell, it's untrue. They socialized with pedophiles, they tried to protect pedophiles, they enabled pedophiles, but they themselves were not a pedophile, at least as far as anyone can figure out. That's like convicting someone of murder who just has a lot of friends who are murders. It's not the same thing.

 

I do agree that the world is better off with this individual NOT having reddit admin powers though. Having this person work at a CNC machine making parts for coffee machines is a safer place for someone with their past than administrating a site where every single photo uploaded can be viewed and saved.

 

Is it cancel culture? Absolutely. Without question. The pill people struggle to swallow is that sometimes cancel culture is good. If this person tried to work at a manufacturing facility, where the only thing they'd see all day were machines and metal blocks, they'd still try to cancel them. That's where it becomes wrong. A human is entitled to earning an income and providing for themselves. To strip that away is to remove any human dignity. If you're going to do that, then just execute them. But these people want to 'cancel' you, not have the blood on their hands directly. It's a disgusting lack of basic empathy or understanding for human life. Murder by proxy is still murder. But in their warped minds, they don't see it that way. It's only an assassination if you call it that. Otherwise it's just 'taking away all means for them to survive until they die on their own!'

 

I really need a new website to visit that isn't reddit. Digg became aids back in 2004. Parler was never my jam. Twitter is a cluster I still don't understand how to read. City-data is great but doesn't have enough users. This forum is nice, but I really don't find that much interesting to say about tech. Give me the old reddit theme but without any advertiser dollars being chased, and a rule that one human can moderate, at most, one subreddit. Work with sociologists to figure out effective ways to combat extremism. Left/right/etc all extremism is not great. Have a place where people write paragraphs explaining their thoughts instead of quick-quips. Make and algorithm that promotes discussion instead of strife. that's the place I want to use.

It can be the same thing under the law.   It’s called “aiding and abetting”.  There are legal exceptions for close family members but that’s as far as it goes.  Being a pedo and aiding and abetting a pedo are different even though they carry similar legal penalties. 

[Bombastinator]

Cancel culture isn’t new.  It’s hundreds and hundreds of years old and practiced by both liberals and conservatives. Most often by conservatives of the period actually.   The puritans were all about cancel culture.  It was kind of their main thing.  Only the name is new.

Edited March 25, 2021 by LogicalDrm

[Master Disaster]

14 minutes ago, asquirrel said:

I had written out a long reply and I realize...why bother? I think spamming this person's photo and saying "They're a pedophile!" is bad. It's bad because, at least as far as anyone can tell, it's untrue. They socialized with pedophiles, they tried to protect pedophiles, they enabled pedophiles, but they themselves were not a pedophile, at least as far as anyone can figure out. That's like convicting someone of murder who just has a lot of friends who are murders. It's not the same thing.

 

I do agree that the world is better off with this individual NOT having reddit admin powers though. Having this person work at a CNC machine making parts for coffee machines is a safer place for someone with their past than administrating a site where every single photo uploaded can be viewed and saved.

 

Is it cancel culture? Absolutely. Without question. The pill people struggle to swallow is that sometimes cancel culture is good. If this person tried to work at a manufacturing facility, where the only thing they'd see all day were machines and metal blocks, they'd still try to cancel them. That's where it becomes wrong. A human is entitled to earning an income and providing for themselves. To strip that away is to remove any human dignity. If you're going to do that, then just execute them. But these people want to 'cancel' you, not have the blood on their hands directly. It's a disgusting lack of basic empathy or understanding for human life. Murder by proxy is still murder. But in their warped minds, they don't see it that way. It's only an assassination if you call it that. Otherwise it's just 'taking away all means for them to survive until they die on their own!'

 

I really need a new website to visit that isn't reddit. Digg became aids back in 2004. Parler was never my jam. Twitter is a cluster I still don't understand how to read. City-data is great but doesn't have enough users. This forum is nice, but I really don't find that much interesting to say about tech. Give me the old reddit theme but without any advertiser dollars being chased, and a rule that one human can moderate, at most, one subreddit. Work with sociologists to figure out effective ways to combat extremism. Left/right/etc all extremism is not great. Have a place where people write paragraphs explaining their thoughts instead of quick-quips. Make and algorithm that promotes discussion instead of strife. that's the place I want to use.

People tend to socialise with other like minded people. If someone has a friend who gets charged with murder then no, its not fair to label them with anything. However if, one year later, the same person has a second associate who also gets arrested for murder then any reasonable minded outsider would begin to suspect that, just maybe, said person might somehow be involved in that world.

 

ALSO FTR, protecting and enabling a criminal is a criminal offence all on its own. see Ghislaine Maxwell.

[ToboRobot]

1 hour ago, wkdpaul said:

subreddits are run by regular people that have nothing to do with the company itself.

 

Didn't this situation prove this comment that there is no link between Reddit Staff (admins) and Mods is inaccurate?  Amiee was a moderator on many subreddits I believe... 

[asquirrel]

3 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

People tend to socialise with other like minded people. If someone has a friend who gets charged with murder then no, its not fair to label them with anything. However if, one year later, the same person has a second associate who also gets arrested for murder then any reasonable minded outsider would begin to suspect that, just maybe, said person might somehow be involved in that world.

Read my entire reply. I very clearly state that a career in which this person never interacts with children is ideal. I went to CNC manufacturing, but that's because it's something I care about. There's plenty of other fields someone can work where they can be away from anyone under 18 with no access to the internet while working.

[WkdPaul]

4 minutes ago, ToboRobot said:

Didn't this situation prove this comment that there is no link between Reddit Staff (admins) and Mods is inaccurate?  Amiee was a moderator on many subreddits I believe... 

She was, yes, and then she was hired by Reddit, then they started banning people for posting links to articles and documentaries related to her.

 

Everything is about appearance, and in this case, it looked like Reddit was protecting a pedophile supporter (the articles and documentary was about the situation regarding her, her father and her husband).

Edited March 25, 2021 by wkdpaul

[FakeATF]

4 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

Oh 100%. TBC I'm definitely NOT associating transgenderism with mental health issues, the two things are not mutually inclusive. You can be trans and be very stable, you can be hetro and be very unstable.

 

It just seems like these big companies always seem to employ the trans people who obviously do have mental health issues.

My 2 cents?

 

I think they are more concerned about hiring a trans person than a competent person. Gotta be inclusive.

 

I don't care whether a person is trans or not. That's whatever. I DO care if you are competent at your job.

[ToboRobot]

1 minute ago, EjectedCasings said:

 

 

I think they are more concerned about hiring a trans person than a competent person. Gotta be inclusive.

 

 

I think it is simply about hiring in-group friends.  Which is pointed out as problematic when it's an "old boys network".

[FakeATF]

16 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

Literally cancel culture right here

 

He does have a point though, it does resemble cancel culture that I question it myself, but what passed my mind was that cancel culture could be applied in a positive way

Cancel culture is different than... regulation? Sorry, it's hard to find the proper word.

IMO cancel culture is "calling someone out" for someone's opinion that you don't agree with/like, and trying to have them removed from their position. Basically a big overreaction.

 

Regulating people in positions of power has been around since the dawn of time. If they do something with/in their position of power that is not right, people can and should remove them.

 

Cancel culture is stupid, regulation is necessary. To be 100% honest I don't know the full story, so i'm not going to comment on it atm.

[StDragon]

If there's evidence of supporting people involved in a crime, that person becomes an accessory to said crime.

 

So when do the prosecutions begin? That's what I want to know.

[asquirrel]

Just now, EjectedCasings said:

Cancel culture is different than... regulation? Sorry, it's hard to find the proper word.

IMO cancel culture is "calling someone out" for someone's opinion that you don't agree with/like, and trying to have them removed from their position. Basically a big overreaction.

 

Regulating people in positions of power has been around since the dawn of time. If they do something with/in their position of power that is not right, people can and should remove them.

 

Cancel culture is stupid, regulation is necessary. To be 100% honest I don't know the full story, so i'm not going to comment on it atm.

From what I've seen, cancel culture is more about ensuring the person cannot make a living doing **anything** ever for something they did at any point in their life that is deemed 'unacceptable' by a particular group. Even if their views have changed since then, or they now understand why what they did was wrong. Cancel culture's ideal seems to be driving a person until they have no money, no place to live, nothing to eat, and they starve to death or die of exposure. That is, unless they have some friends willing to risk being cancelled as well who will provide for their basic needs.

 

The difference between cancel culture and what you're trying to get at with the regulation point is that with regulation, you only lose **that one** job, and maybe even a career path in a field (disbarred lawyers can't practice law, for example) but nobody says "Oh, you're disbarred. You can't sell dog treats and toys!" Cancel culture says "YOU WERE DISBARRED! YOU CANNOT MAKE ANY MONEY EVER AGAIN YOU SLIME!" and does everything it can to ensure you never have another job again.

 

The reason I think/feel/know that this whole reddit thing falls on the side of cancel culture instead of regulation is down to who reddit's userbase is. There will be a good chunk of people who follow this person around and try to see what their next move is, and get them fired from that job too. It's also the fact that the meme became "this person is a pedophile" instead of "this person enables pedophiles". If your cause is just, you don't have to lie about it. You don't have to dumb it down. Just say it.

[FRD]

Gladly I don't use Reddit and also never will, often I see drama going on over there. Honestly I don't really get what this is about completely.

[asquirrel]

Just now, StDragon said:

If there's evidence of supporting people involved in a crime, that person becomes an accessory to said crime.

 

So when do the prosecutions begin? That's what I want to know.

Many problems exist because bad behavior isn't punished. I'm no lawyer and I don't have the actual evidence, so I can't say whether prosecution *should* happen here or not. I can say, in general, the US as a society is very much lacking in effective prosecution for bad actors who also happen to have clout/money/power. The power grid in Texas is a great example. I'm not sure how to really explain my point without deviating into politics though, so I'll leave that point there.

 

And to be VERY clear "I don't know" means "I don't know". I'm not going to base a decision on the hearsay of millions of redditors. I lived near Boston during the bombings. I remember how well that worked out the last time.

[asquirrel]

3 minutes ago, FRD said:

Gladly I don't use Reddit and also never will, often I see drama going on over there. Honestly I don't really get what this is about completely.

Off topic question but I hope nobody minds: What sites do you use? I'm in the market for other places to frequent.

[StDragon]

2 minutes ago, asquirrel said:

Many problems exist because bad behavior isn't punished. I'm no lawyer and I don't have the actual evidence, so I can't say whether prosecution *should* happen here or not. I can say, in general, the US as a society is very much lacking in effective prosecution for bad actors who also happen to have clout/money/power.

Pretty much.

 

If this individual/s have close ties to any political party at a serious level, then the DoJ won't touch this with a 10 light-year long pole. To do so otherwise would cause a political blackhole with too many people of "importance" getting sucked into event horizon. 

[Master Disaster]

8 minutes ago, FRD said:

Gladly I don't use Reddit and also never will, often I see drama going on over there. Honestly I don't really get what this is about completely.

TL:DR

 

Reddit employed a person (who happened to be trans but that's not the relevant issue here) who quit from a UK political party for using her dad as a campaign manager despite him having convictions for sexual assaults against minors. A year or so later her partner then made public tweets about the same topic.

 

Reddit put her in a position of power, the sub reddits are pissed about this and were locking down entire /r's and directing people to a open letter about what's happening. Shortly after Reddit removed her from staff.