Reddit Users Have a New Weapon to Fight Online Trolls

[steve2470]

http://time.com/4285268/reddit-new-block-tool/

Reddit will let users completely block other accounts

Reddit has long been a forum where members could freely express their thoughts and ideas, no matter how controversial. But that openness also made it a place where harassment can run rampant.

The social media firm is now taking a new step to address that problem. Reddit announced Wednesday a new tool that lets users more completely block other accounts. In the past, Reddit’s blocking feature focused on the site’s direct messaging tool.

Once a Reddit user blocks another account, that person’s profile, messages and comments will no longer be visible to the user who deployed the block. The ban is silent, meaning the person who has been blocked will not be aware of it. Still, users blocked on social media have been known to circumvent the block by simply creating a new account.

[Eleanors38]

1. Social commentary Steve Marche said if inntertube sites want to be credible...

...sooner or later editing will be done. After all, who wants to sound just like another loud, latest, heppest site?

[Xithras]

4. Reddit is a unique site in that regard.

More than 800,000 subreddits (discussion forums) hosting two million unique posters each day, with each subreddit operating under the controls and rules set by the people who created the subreddit (and ANYONE can create a subreddit...I have two). Things that will get you booted from one will get you cheered in another. Reddit does have a small number of universal rules that they expect all forum owners to enforce, but it takes a sustained pattern of abuse for them to actually shut a subreddit down.

With more than 5,000 posts a minute on AVERAGE (and 20,000 posts a minute when something interesting is happening), there's simply no way that a traditional moderated system could ever hope to scan them all for posts that are offensive. It's very size makes it resistant to censorship. Ghosting is as far as they're ever going to get.

[Eleanors38]

5. Yeah, I see that. This goes to the more basic consideration of legitimacy...

...whereby institutions, values, and mythologies are maintained and promoted as a necessary function of a nation/state. IMO, our nation was founded on a rather new and burgeoning mass media model which could speedily replicate messages, beliefs and myths (for better or worse) which constituted a reason to be in a country like ours (or any other country). The fundamental question facing us now is how or even if we can justify ourselves in these United States when in the last 25 yrs the old model has largely collapsed. What becomes of a mythology or a "market place of ideas" when the market atomizes and anyone can become a celebrity or myth with the promo of a pop song, flashing a boob on T.V., or shooting kids in a classroom?

How do we draw the difference between an FDR and a tRump? Is there even a desire to return to a mass model of legitimization or do "we" continue toward a capitalist-atomization wet dream? Will there be another revolution? Would we even recognize it?

[RAFisher]

2. I believe Reddit Enhancemnt Suite already does that

It even works for subreddits. I was on reddit.com/r/all and got sick of seeing all the shit posts from /r/The_Donald. So I just completely blocked all posts from that cultist subreddit.

[Xithras]

3. And, like all previous attempts, it can be dodged with a throwaway

It literally takes less than five seconds to create a throwaway account on Reddit, and I've created dozens over the years. It's one of the features that makes the site work so well, but it also makes it mind-numbingly difficult to exclude users from the site.

The fact that it's silent is probably the biggest positive about the change. If the person doesn't know they've been ghosted by a user, they're less likely to try and dodge it. And Reddit ghosts really are invisible...they've had TIFU's posted by people who have been under sitewide ghosts for years before they realized it. In theory, and individual user ghost would be virtually undetectable.

[Javaman]

6. in less than 12 hours, reddit will be nothing but a "discussion" board...

of people talking to themselves.