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Reddit Has Become a Battleground of Alleged Chinese Trolls

(www.buzzfeednews.com)
142 points mzs | 15 comments | 15 Mar 19 15:33 UTC | HN request time: 0.819s | source | bottom
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stcredzero ◴[15 Mar 19 16:32 UTC] No.19401248[source]▶
Reddit has been rife with brigading and manipulation for years. At this point, it's been this way for longer than it was an idyllic place to discover cool nerdy stuff. This is precisely why there are so many very active and hyper-strict moderators now. Not all, of course. It depends on how much "heat" the community contains and how much the subject matter attracts. They have to act like police in bad neighborhoods, because that's just the reality of the place.

Throughout the 20th century, the Eastern Bloc had to deal with western media eroding the narratives of their society. Now, it seems that the tables have turned through social media. But instead of creating images, stories, and music of the wealth and richness of life brought by self determination, it's far more effective to simply sow chaos and jam our society's means of information exchange.

EDIT: We are in years numbered such that they appear widely in science fiction. In objective terms, we are doing better than we ever have in all of history. In 2019, we need to embrace the normal. We should be suspicious of the lurid and the outrageous. We should be skeptical of the accusation and the conspiracy theory. In 2019, these are all the viral pathway to easy money and influence. We need to start looking at these things like we now look at the products of medicine shows. Not all of these things are necessarily bad. However, we always need to be mindful of the incentives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

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1. 52-6F-62 ◴[15 Mar 19 16:35 UTC] No.19401292[source]▶
There are still some good ones, but they tend to be smaller and rarely political. For instance, r/homelab is still pleasant. (Though it might inspire negative effects on your credit cards)
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2. JustSomeNobody ◴[15 Mar 19 16:56 UTC] No.19401577[source]▶
r/selfhosted is pretty good also.
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3. stcredzero ◴[15 Mar 19 17:02 UTC] No.19401661[source]▶
Conservative readers might be surprised at this, but I find /r/stevenuniverse to be quite tolerant and accepting. I've even called out sexual-orientation based identity politics there and had some substantive discussions. Other times, I've been downvoted to oblivion, though. There is some activist brigading there, but the general culture of the place seems to reflect the culture of the show. (Politically left, but if you are a good person who accepts others, we will accept you. You won't be judged by how you were made, rather by the quality of your relationships.)
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4. penagwin ◴[15 Mar 19 17:10 UTC] No.19401767[source]▶
And r/datahoarder . I mean they're cool subreddits if you remove the addiction therapy, loss of relationships, and eventual crippling depression.

Totally worth it though! :D

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5. chapium ◴[15 Mar 19 17:10 UTC] No.19401777[source]▶
Smaller subs are still awesome. I avoid large subs like the plague because they start to enforce group conformity through either downvotes or over moderation as the sub grows. I think this begins at around 2000 users, but thats a subjective figure.
6. superfrank ◴[15 Mar 19 17:14 UTC] No.19401820[source]▶
In my years on Reddit, I've found the magic number to be 10k. At around 10k subscribers the community is big enough to be found by people who actually care about the subject matter, but small enough that it's not worth it for people who are just looking for karma.

Obviously this is just a guideline and not a rule.

7. yyyymmddhhmmss ◴[15 Mar 19 17:23 UTC] No.19401932[source]▶
For those interested in discussing how to make the rest of the world a toletant place, join us at /r/stupidpol
8. Pharmakon ◴[15 Mar 19 17:28 UTC] No.19401995[source]▶
Isn’t Steven Universe some American cartoon? Why would the sub for it be relevant to discussions of any kind of politics? What am I missing?

Note that I haven’t seen the cartoon, but from adverts it seemed pretty banal rather than political.

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9. ozzyman700 ◴[15 Mar 19 17:29 UTC] No.19402001{3}[source]▶
/r/sysadmin might be the most depressing job related sub besides maybe /r/consulting
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10. stcredzero ◴[15 Mar 19 17:49 UTC] No.19402237{3}[source]▶
Why would the sub for it be relevant to discussions of any kind of politics? What am I missing?

The show has been pointed at by conservatives as an example of gender/identity politics. However, the ethos of the show is that we really should accept people no matter how they were born, and judge them on the quality of their relationships. What's more, this isn't transmitted by saying it, rather by showing it. IMO, more careful observation shows that it's actually the opposite of identitarian media, despite surface appearances.

Occasionally, some identitarian rah-rah comes up there, and I feel the need to point out that we're all in this together, and isn't that what the characters show us?

from adverts it seemed pretty banal rather than political.

It transcends the political, like all good, honest art should.

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11. Pharmakon ◴[15 Mar 19 17:51 UTC] No.19402271{4}[source]▶
Huh... well I live and learn, thanks for the detailed answer.
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12. 52-6F-62 ◴[15 Mar 19 17:54 UTC] No.19402301[source]▶
Oh thanks for this. It's like a treasure trove!
13. stcredzero ◴[15 Mar 19 18:04 UTC] No.19402425{5}[source]▶
There's one episode that on the surface, or to a child, would be a completely banal story of a kid helping his dad clean out the garage. There's of course, an emotional subtext of people thinking about the past, and past relationships, and people they've lost. Then, there's another subtext, invisible to a child, where there's the story of a widower who has an affair with the friend of his dead wife.

It's one of those cartoons that's one thing on the surface, but has other things for the adults.

14. bloopernova ◴[15 Mar 19 18:35 UTC] No.19402769{4}[source]▶
I recently started watching this with my wife, we're up to episode 30-something. I've been enjoying it very much so far, due to the deeper messages and "grown-up" subplots. The exploration of its themes of acceptance and personal growth very much resonate with me. Thank you for bringing it up in a thread like this where there's a lot of anger, fear and hate below the surface.
15. bloopernova ◴[15 Mar 19 18:53 UTC] No.19402952{4}[source]▶
There's a lot of burn out and bitterness that goes along with being a Sysadmin. The stereotypical "shouted at that you are incompetent when things go wrong, shouted at that you are lazy when nothing goes wrong" comic is very true.

/r/sysadmin reflects that thankless nature of the job. I'm lucky to have gotten through my ~20 years of being one without any major health issues from stress.