I've never thought highly of Reddit, but I disagree on Wikipedia. The bureaucracy there is why the information is reliable, it's a feature not a big. It makes it incredibly hard to post random misinformation and disinformation, as you see us rampant on Twitter these days.
Public forums are for discussion, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. They are not the same.
I personally would trust Encyclopedia Britannica or a centralized institution over Wikipedia here for a lot of things. Certainly there are useful Wikipedia entries. I link them all the time. You just have to read it very critically as there is a ton of activism and bias on pages - at least in certain hot topics, but kinda oddly in others you wouldn't expect. I've seen obscure academic papers quoted and cited as correct that the academic community later retracted. I only discovered this because someone used a Wikipedia entry with me to try to win an online argument and it forced me to look at what was cited. It's obviously imperfect, perhaps we've gotten too used to thinking it was.
Every study I've seen shows that Wikipedia is at least as accurate as Brittanica. Bias doesn't make things incorrect, and a few mistakes don't change the overall integrity. https://www.nature.com/articles/438900a
You have to be careful of your own bias as much as bias in any resources. Sometimes you start seeing bias where it really isn't a factor.
I am quite dispassionate, a lot of the issues are sequestered to certain topics like historic figures and events, which recent academic papers have gone back to confirmation bias the past with new (and strange) thesis to support activist agendas. And then Wikipedia updates the pages to include them. They're all glorified opinion pieces, honestly.
For things like physics definitions, mathematical equations and the migration pattern of the monarch butterfly the pages are fine. I guess I could agree "yeah most of it is probably okay" because there's millions of entries or whatnot and not everything can be tortured but another perspective we might have is a little poison damages the whole endeavor. The damage to the brand is high because when you see these things you start to wonder what else is changed. So I'm forced to read a bunch of stuff critically and carefully. I won't even get into the fact that a lot of citations are from media companies and bloggers, who are also humans and get things wrong.
That wasn't an expose, that was a long form complaint that a lot of conservative/libertarian sites are not reliable. Quillette is exceeding unreliable and biased, and he tries to make the point that the rejection of them is some kind of proof.
Wikipedia editors definitely behave badly, they are humans. That doesn't invalidate the site or the overall veracity of it.
For sure. I would very much be happy with Wikipedia etc to be as matter of fact as possible. Sometimes they even tier things oddly with the order of information, which is kind of a subtle / pernicious thing to do. Like they take liberties to decide what parts of someone's life are most important, and will bias to list stuff that was controversial in media above or ahead of real accomplishments (the drama is frequently the most notable - but is it?). This is very non partisan it's just something else that happens there I've noticed.
It isn't impossible. Merely not effortless. People should be able to distinguish between indisputable facts and disputable claims on a given question. Even if they're personally inclined to find some of the disputed claims to be credible and persuasive.
I've never been a Wikipedia editor. I think I'd be a good one. I'd have to be paid, though. I wouldn't mind the accountability that would presumably be attendant to professional status.
I was reading about some ancient minaret in central Asia (forgive me I forget which one, I think in northern Iran). I remember the article a few years back and it had lots of interesting links to silk road history, as well as a whole section dedicated to the unique culture and religious struggle of the region.
When I visited this page a month or so ago, not only were these sections no longer there, but it was painfully obvious that the editors had REPLACED the WHOLE ARTICLE with a chat GPT bland regurgitation of only the most basic facts about the site.
So not only did the editors crop lots of tight little tidbits of trivia, but they decided the human wrote article was not good enough, and they replaced every word of it. This is only one example of many showing how far Wikipedia has fallen.
You obviously haven’t heard of the drama that takes place in the Wikipedia article discussion boards. Frequently, one or two power user editors will big dick an opinion and simply assert their own very opinionated takes.
The bureaucracy of Wikipedia is exactly why it hasn't fallen victim to all of the rampant misinformation on the web. It's so hard to change things (partly for the reason you mentioned). Again, we have studies that show it's accuracy, we don't have to rely on vibes!
This is the reason I left Reddit, finally, also after about 10 years, last month. The fun was just gone. And this goes everywhere, not just the political side. If you asked on say, r/GOG about Mac compatibility, you'd get downvoted to oblivion.
For long Reddit still was the old, whimsical internet I grew up on in the 90's and early aughts. Then, it just changed.
There is something funny though: when you live in an echo chamber like that, people really are surprised by real world events. The only thing that can save Reddit is if its young users go and touch grass, and read up on Dunning-Kruger.
I want to know who those people are in real life. They’re like 16 year olds just discovering communism. Like 80-90% of the users. It can’t possibly be organic. Or else they all live in Portland. I can’t wrap my head around how skewed the site is. It’s like 80% of the accounts are one person.
That’s such a reddit thing to do though, Ieft reddit over 5 years ago with occasional returns for information/reviews, and gotten flat out banned for asking some totally non political question after not finding it in any side bar, and noting this lol. Just so salty about a new user
Reddit has the same story as a lot of internet message boards. They start out a bit counter culture and subversive, or even just non-political and devoted to a very particular hobby (like video games or something), but over time they get infiltrated and corrupted by highly motivated, angry and resentful shut ins that spend all day on the internet. Just imagine the kind of person that is willing to take an unpaid part time job (some of these dorks actually do full time+) moderating a message board. These people are LOSERS. Of course they are going to be into retarded ideologies devoted to “getting revenge against the Chads and Stacy’s that bullied me in high school.”
I stopped using reddit on regular basis about 5 years ago. I will use it for crowdsourced information or reviews of products but that's about it. It once was a place of spontaneity, curiosity, and positivity that often collided with serendipitous moments. It's now an empty echo chamber on their featured subreddits.
It's no different with most communities across the Internet. Algorithms have driven the change. It seems like most platforms crumble once you are no longer able to effectively curate your feeds. Engagement drives everything rather than positive outcomes.
The complete control over the information feed by algorithm arbitration is at totalitarian a feature as any I've ever heard of in history. For one thing, I flat-out reject the premise that the only information I want is the sort that supports my preconceived biases. I mean, come on, this is basic information theory. The theoretical goal is the equivalent of inserting bandwidth filtering into a musical composition until it ends up removing everything but a 400Hz tone.
("But the Tone is so Pure!")
There are two things that I want from an Algorithm Feed: 1) the personal agency to mix the pre-selected information in with a random input that I can set as a varying quotient, like with a sliding fader. 2) the ability to turn off the algorithm feed completely.
I left Reddit as an active participant a few years ago when COVID turned the discourse sour. After that I experimented with only using throwaway accounts to avoid people using my past comment history as a way to try to clock me for some caricature they were trying to build. Then I just stopped using an account altogether and went read-only. Life's been better since.
It's a fair assessment, but this feels somewhat true of all large platforms and is more a critique of the default state that new users encounter. As with any other platform, you get out what you put in and nearly all the large subreddits have (sometimes large, sometimes small) spinoffs with different tolerance levels for weirdness or dissent, but you have to find them and then engage to some degree. Like you, I also find the biggest communities to be ideologically narrow or, even worse, boring AF. But I also got banned from some conservative subreddits for asking questions that challenged orthodoxy, so it feels more representative of the breakdown of internet-first culture (which we both experienced in the late 2000s/early 2010s) than anything Reddit specific.
Thinking about it a bit further, the one counter-example I go to is that when I pick up a new hobby (a common occurrence) AND I find the right niche subreddit of other beginners/experts sharing advice, there's still no place like it. But yes, it does require unsubbing from r/adviceanimals and every other default sub first, unfortunately.
The design of Reddit (and Wikipedia) carries a similar flaw to the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts. Bad actors are strongly attracted to institutions where they can get access, infiltrate, gain power and ultimately control due to the fundamental principles on which the institution operates. The decency and goodness of the 97% is poisoned and subverted by the malice and evil of the 3%.
The problem with Reddit is 90% the moderators. A very specific sort of person is attracted to this unpaid labor that features as reward the ability to wield pure malicious power over others — something missing from their day jobs managing a Dunkin’ Donuts.
I'm glad people are writing about this. I think the downvoting is what powers the reddit conformity engine. On other platforms, you will merely get less likes, which enables genuine dialogue between people who disagree.
The historical influence of /r/shitredditsays also seems very important. Mindless, dogmatic, determined, persistent... reddit's reliance on volunteer moderators created an opening for ideologues.
I wish I could give this article 100 "upvotes"... A spot on dissection of how reddit has become completely co opted to the point of sterility. The biggest problem, despite all this nonsense, is how little reddit experience translates into the real world. It completely scrubs itself of reality.
From purely an influence standpoint, you have to admit it's a smart tactic, some of these subreddits are huge (8 figure users) and there's really not much to stop someone from infiltrating them.
But it isn't a smart tactic. The weakness is in imagining that a large audience equates to one that's more persuadable with an avalanche of obviously partisan input. It's entirely possible that the end result is a net negative.
As the late Tom Robbins once said, "the more advertising I see, the less I want to buy." I suspect that more people share that opinion than the ad industry would care to find out; I certainly don't expect them to do any polling about that situation. And it's especially true in the realm of Politics. The notion that "more money =more ads" = more exposure = more votes" doesn't apply the way it used to. It's predicated on the assumption of stasis: that people never learn, they're always at the same level of suggestibility and gullibility, that they never burn out on being manipulated, that they never develop an immune response to conditioning, especially conditioning perceived as intrusive. I think similarly mistaken assumptions govern a lot of Conventional Wisdom about social media and Internet discourse: that the Internet is an intractably Evil medium unless preemptively controlled and channeled, because the masses will always remain in the same condition of naive suggestibility and malleability that was the case in 2008, or what have you.
You're right it's actually not smart, because, well, they lost. Perhaps I've used the wrong word. But they successfully psyop'd a lot of people to madness, too
I agree with the influence framing. In the end, it was a big fun-house mirror.
Journalists were reporting “Dem Good, Orange Man Bad”. Reddit was lapping it up, boosting engagement. So certain outlets kicked it into high gear. Donors saw the buzz, kept feeding the influence engine. With flush accounts, the influence/Discord community grew and grew.
And around and around we go. Then and now, it was one big circle-jerk of hopium.
Right - the marketer in me is kinda impressed - although I don't market this way personally it's like using leverage while trading or exploiting some kind of financial loophole - ends poorly, you learn why eventually. But as a Reddit user I'm just upset our communities were allowed to be so ruined. I don't think it's too late to fix them btw
An analogy I was considering was the meal delivery hypetrain about 8 years ago. The constant podcast advertisements fueled the millennial influence ecosystem, which lead to a temporary demand surge. The demand pop fueled the funding rounds, which led to a near constant podcast advertisement barrage. Around and around the $50 off your first order we went.
But the biz model was never sustainable once the cheap liquidity evaporated and people stopped pretending they preferred cooking vs delivery.
This is how my (less-accomplished) marketing brain tried to map it onto the digital Reddit world.
It’s a principle I think of as Trollism. On any semi-anonymous forum, the more interesting and valuable the content, the more strongly attractive it becomes to Trolls who ruin it.
I don’t use Reddit, but your description I’ve heard literally dozens of times on major platforms. Basic “entropic” decay. Usenet is the grandfather of all social networks and it descended into chaotic garbage around 1986.
Reddit doesn’t want interesting or valuable content for trolls to “ruin” in the first place. They want a left wing echo chamber and they ban those who disagree with their far left opinions. They use their karma voting system and mods to suppress and ban any dissenting opinion. If there was any chance the “real” vote wouldn’t be one sided, it doesn’t matter; they use bots to artificially boost the votes for one side. It’s now a home for wing radicals, disguised as a news, entertainment and information website.
It comes up fairly often when I do internet searches for specific ideas, inevitably there’s a Reddit where someone asked something like “what are the best murder mystery movies with a character with a beautiful porn stache” and got interesting answers.
That reminds me of when internet was fun and weird 30 years ago, or Usenet 45 years ago. Reddit and old Usenet are virtually identical.
[Donald Sutherland, “Don’t Look Now”, Nick Roeg, 1973]
r/pics mods ban reddit users for “participating” in other subreddits. A sub that’s supposed to be about pictures bans you for posting a comment in a completely different, unrelated community. They don’t just moderate their own sub, they use bots to patrol other subs, ensuring there is no challenge to their beliefs.
a big problem with reddit is that it's not a site anymore, it's an app. Also, the initial userbase was young guys, generally in tech, who were bright and curious about a wide array of topics. It's now a sea of dipshits led around by the upvote system. Reddit also has a pretty obvious botting problem. As an example, there was a post in the aftermath of the Trump election on the "boomersbeingfools" subreddit with tens of thousands of upvotes along the lines of "a tradesman came to work on my house and I turned him away because of his Trump flag." You can probably still find the post if you cared to look. This was posted by an account that was one day old at the time of posting that had ONLY that post in their history, ie prima facie evidence of botting.
At this point the site is nothing more than a lolcow factory.
Are you Canadian? I recently performed an experiment on Reddit. I posted on a forum for depressed men. Most were single, recently dumped or Incels. I suggested that normalizing life-long modern internet porn use was not helping their situation, and was a cause of their low self-worth. 2000 views and zero likes. Yeah so I’m taking that as 💯 confirmation that the delusional liberal men on Reddit are in big trouble.
I've never thought highly of Reddit, but I disagree on Wikipedia. The bureaucracy there is why the information is reliable, it's a feature not a big. It makes it incredibly hard to post random misinformation and disinformation, as you see us rampant on Twitter these days.
Public forums are for discussion, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. They are not the same.
I personally would trust Encyclopedia Britannica or a centralized institution over Wikipedia here for a lot of things. Certainly there are useful Wikipedia entries. I link them all the time. You just have to read it very critically as there is a ton of activism and bias on pages - at least in certain hot topics, but kinda oddly in others you wouldn't expect. I've seen obscure academic papers quoted and cited as correct that the academic community later retracted. I only discovered this because someone used a Wikipedia entry with me to try to win an online argument and it forced me to look at what was cited. It's obviously imperfect, perhaps we've gotten too used to thinking it was.
Every study I've seen shows that Wikipedia is at least as accurate as Brittanica. Bias doesn't make things incorrect, and a few mistakes don't change the overall integrity. https://www.nature.com/articles/438900a
You have to be careful of your own bias as much as bias in any resources. Sometimes you start seeing bias where it really isn't a factor.
I am quite dispassionate, a lot of the issues are sequestered to certain topics like historic figures and events, which recent academic papers have gone back to confirmation bias the past with new (and strange) thesis to support activist agendas. And then Wikipedia updates the pages to include them. They're all glorified opinion pieces, honestly.
For things like physics definitions, mathematical equations and the migration pattern of the monarch butterfly the pages are fine. I guess I could agree "yeah most of it is probably okay" because there's millions of entries or whatnot and not everything can be tortured but another perspective we might have is a little poison damages the whole endeavor. The damage to the brand is high because when you see these things you start to wonder what else is changed. So I'm forced to read a bunch of stuff critically and carefully. I won't even get into the fact that a lot of citations are from media companies and bloggers, who are also humans and get things wrong.
Have you read Tracing Woodgrains' exposé about one of the Wikipedia admins? It's shocking how bad the behavior can be by the admins and how long such bad behavior can go on. https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wikipedia-admin
That wasn't an expose, that was a long form complaint that a lot of conservative/libertarian sites are not reliable. Quillette is exceeding unreliable and biased, and he tries to make the point that the rejection of them is some kind of proof.
Wikipedia editors definitely behave badly, they are humans. That doesn't invalidate the site or the overall veracity of it.
This response strikes me as severely missing the point of the piece, perhaps so much so that you didn’t actually read it. You should actually read it.
I did read it! I just used one example why you can't trust it, there are plenty more. In the future don't be so insulting, life is too short.
A bias can totally lead to a false narrative. And people run with that narrative. That’s a problem.
In other news, the Turaco is a wondrous bird.
Hypothetically, absolutely! In practice, if it doesn't move the needle then it doesn't matter.
There are plenty of hypothetical things that might happen, we can't make decisions on them - especially when we have the data.
Data is a tricky thing. Especially when those collecting it have a bias.
And we’re talking about bias here that moves the needle. Not insignificant bias.
If we knew the needle was moved, sure. But we have studies on the accuracy of Wikipedia that show it doesn't really.
Admittedly, balancing bias with information — especially one's own biases — is *really* hard to do.
For sure. I would very much be happy with Wikipedia etc to be as matter of fact as possible. Sometimes they even tier things oddly with the order of information, which is kind of a subtle / pernicious thing to do. Like they take liberties to decide what parts of someone's life are most important, and will bias to list stuff that was controversial in media above or ahead of real accomplishments (the drama is frequently the most notable - but is it?). This is very non partisan it's just something else that happens there I've noticed.
It isn't impossible. Merely not effortless. People should be able to distinguish between indisputable facts and disputable claims on a given question. Even if they're personally inclined to find some of the disputed claims to be credible and persuasive.
I've never been a Wikipedia editor. I think I'd be a good one. I'd have to be paid, though. I wouldn't mind the accountability that would presumably be attendant to professional status.
I was reading about some ancient minaret in central Asia (forgive me I forget which one, I think in northern Iran). I remember the article a few years back and it had lots of interesting links to silk road history, as well as a whole section dedicated to the unique culture and religious struggle of the region.
When I visited this page a month or so ago, not only were these sections no longer there, but it was painfully obvious that the editors had REPLACED the WHOLE ARTICLE with a chat GPT bland regurgitation of only the most basic facts about the site.
So not only did the editors crop lots of tight little tidbits of trivia, but they decided the human wrote article was not good enough, and they replaced every word of it. This is only one example of many showing how far Wikipedia has fallen.
You obviously haven’t heard of the drama that takes place in the Wikipedia article discussion boards. Frequently, one or two power user editors will big dick an opinion and simply assert their own very opinionated takes.
The bureaucracy of Wikipedia is exactly why it hasn't fallen victim to all of the rampant misinformation on the web. It's so hard to change things (partly for the reason you mentioned). Again, we have studies that show it's accuracy, we don't have to rely on vibes!
Quillette exceedingly unreliable and biased but Wikipedia behave badly because ‘they are humans’.
I’m guessing that’ll work for what’s on the right is exceedingly unreliable and what’s on the left are only humans.
That's a textbook false equivalence. You can look it up on Wikipedia, they have a great article on it!
Quillette is unreliable because of the express bias of the editors, founders and writers. Same reason you can't trust Fox News or MSNBC
You can look up on Quillette why wiki is biased. They have a great article on it. It’s the humans, Sean.
No, despite what you've heard there are still facts in the world. Not everything is relative and you don't get to pick your own truth.
And yet….
There is no such thing as knowledge anymore, huh? That's a sad form of nihilism.
Being a redditor since 2017, so many subs which were previously balanced are now totally cooked.
Cooked is the right word. It used to be such a reasonable and interesting community, that's what makes this so disheartening
This is the reason I left Reddit, finally, also after about 10 years, last month. The fun was just gone. And this goes everywhere, not just the political side. If you asked on say, r/GOG about Mac compatibility, you'd get downvoted to oblivion.
For long Reddit still was the old, whimsical internet I grew up on in the 90's and early aughts. Then, it just changed.
There is something funny though: when you live in an echo chamber like that, people really are surprised by real world events. The only thing that can save Reddit is if its young users go and touch grass, and read up on Dunning-Kruger.
I want to know who those people are in real life. They’re like 16 year olds just discovering communism. Like 80-90% of the users. It can’t possibly be organic. Or else they all live in Portland. I can’t wrap my head around how skewed the site is. It’s like 80% of the accounts are one person.
Lmfao why was r/GOG mad about Mac comparability ?
That’s such a reddit thing to do though, Ieft reddit over 5 years ago with occasional returns for information/reviews, and gotten flat out banned for asking some totally non political question after not finding it in any side bar, and noting this lol. Just so salty about a new user
Reddit has the same story as a lot of internet message boards. They start out a bit counter culture and subversive, or even just non-political and devoted to a very particular hobby (like video games or something), but over time they get infiltrated and corrupted by highly motivated, angry and resentful shut ins that spend all day on the internet. Just imagine the kind of person that is willing to take an unpaid part time job (some of these dorks actually do full time+) moderating a message board. These people are LOSERS. Of course they are going to be into retarded ideologies devoted to “getting revenge against the Chads and Stacy’s that bullied me in high school.”
I stopped using reddit on regular basis about 5 years ago. I will use it for crowdsourced information or reviews of products but that's about it. It once was a place of spontaneity, curiosity, and positivity that often collided with serendipitous moments. It's now an empty echo chamber on their featured subreddits.
It's no different with most communities across the Internet. Algorithms have driven the change. It seems like most platforms crumble once you are no longer able to effectively curate your feeds. Engagement drives everything rather than positive outcomes.
The complete control over the information feed by algorithm arbitration is at totalitarian a feature as any I've ever heard of in history. For one thing, I flat-out reject the premise that the only information I want is the sort that supports my preconceived biases. I mean, come on, this is basic information theory. The theoretical goal is the equivalent of inserting bandwidth filtering into a musical composition until it ends up removing everything but a 400Hz tone.
("But the Tone is so Pure!")
There are two things that I want from an Algorithm Feed: 1) the personal agency to mix the pre-selected information in with a random input that I can set as a varying quotient, like with a sliding fader. 2) the ability to turn off the algorithm feed completely.
I left Reddit as an active participant a few years ago when COVID turned the discourse sour. After that I experimented with only using throwaway accounts to avoid people using my past comment history as a way to try to clock me for some caricature they were trying to build. Then I just stopped using an account altogether and went read-only. Life's been better since.
It’s pretty much impossible to not get banned for wrongthink
It's a fair assessment, but this feels somewhat true of all large platforms and is more a critique of the default state that new users encounter. As with any other platform, you get out what you put in and nearly all the large subreddits have (sometimes large, sometimes small) spinoffs with different tolerance levels for weirdness or dissent, but you have to find them and then engage to some degree. Like you, I also find the biggest communities to be ideologically narrow or, even worse, boring AF. But I also got banned from some conservative subreddits for asking questions that challenged orthodoxy, so it feels more representative of the breakdown of internet-first culture (which we both experienced in the late 2000s/early 2010s) than anything Reddit specific.
Thinking about it a bit further, the one counter-example I go to is that when I pick up a new hobby (a common occurrence) AND I find the right niche subreddit of other beginners/experts sharing advice, there's still no place like it. But yes, it does require unsubbing from r/adviceanimals and every other default sub first, unfortunately.
Yes, which is why it's so odd from a user perspective the things they actively promote to everyone are so terrible.
The design of Reddit (and Wikipedia) carries a similar flaw to the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts. Bad actors are strongly attracted to institutions where they can get access, infiltrate, gain power and ultimately control due to the fundamental principles on which the institution operates. The decency and goodness of the 97% is poisoned and subverted by the malice and evil of the 3%.
The problem with Reddit is 90% the moderators. A very specific sort of person is attracted to this unpaid labor that features as reward the ability to wield pure malicious power over others — something missing from their day jobs managing a Dunkin’ Donuts.
This is an interesting insight
I'm glad people are writing about this. I think the downvoting is what powers the reddit conformity engine. On other platforms, you will merely get less likes, which enables genuine dialogue between people who disagree.
The historical influence of /r/shitredditsays also seems very important. Mindless, dogmatic, determined, persistent... reddit's reliance on volunteer moderators created an opening for ideologues.
I wish I could give this article 100 "upvotes"... A spot on dissection of how reddit has become completely co opted to the point of sterility. The biggest problem, despite all this nonsense, is how little reddit experience translates into the real world. It completely scrubs itself of reality.
Kamala’s team were using discord to astroturf Reddit with positive Dem news. Starting in August, the site became unusable. It hasn’t recovered.
Whatever was left of the healthy ecosystem was poisoned.
From purely an influence standpoint, you have to admit it's a smart tactic, some of these subreddits are huge (8 figure users) and there's really not much to stop someone from infiltrating them.
But it isn't a smart tactic. The weakness is in imagining that a large audience equates to one that's more persuadable with an avalanche of obviously partisan input. It's entirely possible that the end result is a net negative.
As the late Tom Robbins once said, "the more advertising I see, the less I want to buy." I suspect that more people share that opinion than the ad industry would care to find out; I certainly don't expect them to do any polling about that situation. And it's especially true in the realm of Politics. The notion that "more money =more ads" = more exposure = more votes" doesn't apply the way it used to. It's predicated on the assumption of stasis: that people never learn, they're always at the same level of suggestibility and gullibility, that they never burn out on being manipulated, that they never develop an immune response to conditioning, especially conditioning perceived as intrusive. I think similarly mistaken assumptions govern a lot of Conventional Wisdom about social media and Internet discourse: that the Internet is an intractably Evil medium unless preemptively controlled and channeled, because the masses will always remain in the same condition of naive suggestibility and malleability that was the case in 2008, or what have you.
You're right it's actually not smart, because, well, they lost. Perhaps I've used the wrong word. But they successfully psyop'd a lot of people to madness, too
I agree with the influence framing. In the end, it was a big fun-house mirror.
Journalists were reporting “Dem Good, Orange Man Bad”. Reddit was lapping it up, boosting engagement. So certain outlets kicked it into high gear. Donors saw the buzz, kept feeding the influence engine. With flush accounts, the influence/Discord community grew and grew.
And around and around we go. Then and now, it was one big circle-jerk of hopium.
Right - the marketer in me is kinda impressed - although I don't market this way personally it's like using leverage while trading or exploiting some kind of financial loophole - ends poorly, you learn why eventually. But as a Reddit user I'm just upset our communities were allowed to be so ruined. I don't think it's too late to fix them btw
An analogy I was considering was the meal delivery hypetrain about 8 years ago. The constant podcast advertisements fueled the millennial influence ecosystem, which lead to a temporary demand surge. The demand pop fueled the funding rounds, which led to a near constant podcast advertisement barrage. Around and around the $50 off your first order we went.
But the biz model was never sustainable once the cheap liquidity evaporated and people stopped pretending they preferred cooking vs delivery.
This is how my (less-accomplished) marketing brain tried to map it onto the digital Reddit world.
It’s a principle I think of as Trollism. On any semi-anonymous forum, the more interesting and valuable the content, the more strongly attractive it becomes to Trolls who ruin it.
I don’t use Reddit, but your description I’ve heard literally dozens of times on major platforms. Basic “entropic” decay. Usenet is the grandfather of all social networks and it descended into chaotic garbage around 1986.
Reddit doesn’t want interesting or valuable content for trolls to “ruin” in the first place. They want a left wing echo chamber and they ban those who disagree with their far left opinions. They use their karma voting system and mods to suppress and ban any dissenting opinion. If there was any chance the “real” vote wouldn’t be one sided, it doesn’t matter; they use bots to artificially boost the votes for one side. It’s now a home for wing radicals, disguised as a news, entertainment and information website.
It comes up fairly often when I do internet searches for specific ideas, inevitably there’s a Reddit where someone asked something like “what are the best murder mystery movies with a character with a beautiful porn stache” and got interesting answers.
That reminds me of when internet was fun and weird 30 years ago, or Usenet 45 years ago. Reddit and old Usenet are virtually identical.
[Donald Sutherland, “Don’t Look Now”, Nick Roeg, 1973]
r/pics mods ban reddit users for “participating” in other subreddits. A sub that’s supposed to be about pictures bans you for posting a comment in a completely different, unrelated community. They don’t just moderate their own sub, they use bots to patrol other subs, ensuring there is no challenge to their beliefs.
With how hard Google and OpenAI are pushing Reddit, this flaw has become even more dangerous.
Yeah great point here
a big problem with reddit is that it's not a site anymore, it's an app. Also, the initial userbase was young guys, generally in tech, who were bright and curious about a wide array of topics. It's now a sea of dipshits led around by the upvote system. Reddit also has a pretty obvious botting problem. As an example, there was a post in the aftermath of the Trump election on the "boomersbeingfools" subreddit with tens of thousands of upvotes along the lines of "a tradesman came to work on my house and I turned him away because of his Trump flag." You can probably still find the post if you cared to look. This was posted by an account that was one day old at the time of posting that had ONLY that post in their history, ie prima facie evidence of botting.
At this point the site is nothing more than a lolcow factory.
Reddit is what CBC news aspires to become. Insane.
Are you Canadian? I recently performed an experiment on Reddit. I posted on a forum for depressed men. Most were single, recently dumped or Incels. I suggested that normalizing life-long modern internet porn use was not helping their situation, and was a cause of their low self-worth. 2000 views and zero likes. Yeah so I’m taking that as 💯 confirmation that the delusional liberal men on Reddit are in big trouble.