Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed

I saw dozens of death threats. Even an explicit death threat thread with over 40,000 upvotes before reddit stepped in and shut the whole subreddit down.

It reminded me of Ghostbusters 2 with all the aggressively angry people and the ooze pouring out of the sewers, all building upon itself.

It's disheartening when the one-track politics infects every square inch. It's a good point about bots because 1) they can be sold or rented to advertisers, 2) they are more valuable with higher karma, and 3) the easiest way to get a bot to harvest karma is by agreeing with the hive. So they're amplifying "the message" without even intending to.

It's all just driveby anger and reposts. Maybe some smaller subs with good communities here and there, but that often requires a mod team putting in substantial hours and remaining under the radar from All/Popular in any shape.

Forgot to mention, Reddit also started paying these accounts for posting. So a literal financial incentive to ragebait. It' called the "Contributor Program".

I will say, the subreddit system does a decent job of quarantining the dysfunction to that sub. The mod quality is everything and the mod drama is an absolute dumpster fire. (Extremely curiously, Ghislaine Maxwell seems to have been one of the most prolific of the mods, and one of her suspected accounts may be one of the most successful (karma-wise) posters of all reddit.) But on the flipside, /r/askhistorians is still one of the best resources on the internet. Many of the specialty subreddits I frequent (Aviation, UkraineRussiaReport, video game subs, several miscellaneous african subs) are still functioning fine.

It used to be a good site, but that was many years ago.

Reddit has always had these elements, but they were previously isolated to certain subreddits.

I noticed the biggest change when the app and website became aggressive about getting people to join other subreddits and inserting posts from other subreddits into people's feeds. Suddenly the isolated subreddits I followed were full of low effort content and angry comments.

Reddit's front page is shockingly bad. The amount of misinformation and ragebait that gets upvoted to the front page is almost hard to believe.

It's also interesting that many subreddits have embraced the ragebait. Subreddits like /r/AITA have been clear about how they don't care if stories are real or not, but legions of Redditors engage with obvious ChatGPT spam as if it was a real situation they need to weigh in on.

What do people think others will do, when they see that the_donald behavior gets rewarded by electoral and political support?

If its not clear, everyone is going to radicalize, because its getting success.

Anyway, it's a war. Propaganda is essentially impossible to avoid without ignoring the topic entirely. Still, it's what we have to work with. And to be clear my sympathies lie with the ukrainian people.

They believe people hate Americans and everyone should be ashamed traveling overseas. As someone who travels all the time to multiple continents not just Europe i have never encountered anyone who asked or even cared. Most people don’t live in a political bubble where they need to stop being friends with people over politics.

Anyway a lot people are choosing to live in an angry little bubble. It is really sad to see.

> This community has been banned

> This subreddit has been temporarily banned due to a prevalence of violent content. Inciting and glorifying violence or doxing are against Reddit’s platform-wide Rules. It will reopen in 72 hours, during which Reddit will support moderators and provide resources to keep Reddit a healthy place for discussion and debate.

The same can be said for the supporters of many radical and terrible historical regimes. I'm not radical, I'm simply pushing this radical boulder along, and I can stop it whenever I wan tooo-oops."

Please be specific.

Most subreddits gets formed by someone who's tired of the existing subs, gets into one too many arguments with a mod, and thinks they can do better. I don't know anything about these specific subs but I wouldn't see "this guy formed this sub after getting called out by a mod in another sub" as any kind of red flag.

This is just blatant misinformation. Since r/pics is the only example you've chosen to give us, let's evaluate it: I've scrolled through the current first 50 posts in Hot, and 0 of them are death threats, thinly veiled or otherwise. "Packed full", indeed.

And here, so it isn't simply my word vs. his; these are the current posts:

  Protest, "Musk Stole Your Tax Data"
  Picture of Nazi being punched after making a Nazi salute
  Protest, "The Whole World is Watching"
  Painting over values at the FBI
  McConnell in a wheelchair
  Flag upside down outside State Dept.
  Kid covering ears with politician in foreground
  "Buy Canadian Instead" sign in CA store
  Protest, no visible message, flag with corp logos instead of stars
  German anti-fascism protest
  UFC fight match post KO [KO'd opponent is a neo-Nazi]
  US Marine holding flag in distress position
  Protestor, "No kings in America", dressed as Cap. America, mouth taped over
  Protest "Nobody voted for Elon"
  Protest "Stop Musk's Takeover"
  Picture of Trudeau
  Protest "Smells like Fascism"

- The nazi punching thread had several moderated comments ranked near the top which were presumably calls to violence.

- The Mitch McConnal thread has many people looking forward to his death, hoping he goes to hell, and a few deleted comments.

- A musk thread has "eat the rich" and storm the capitol. Not super highly ranked.

I didn't go through all of them but it certainly is a bit odious.

Also note though how there's only 1 non political thread and the remainder are anti trump. This is on a general interest sub and what is likely to be an unremarkable day in the administration!

Reddit has been basically unusable for anything concerning politics since, and nowadays with politics leaking out into every damn sub possible it definitely has a problem.

If you stop your thought at just “people are losing their shit”, thats seeing half the world.

I’d say thats disingenuous, because it misses or dismisses the incredibly alarming actions that have precipitated them.

If you genuinely care about it, then you might be interested in knowing why people are responding like this. For example, people generally hate Nazis, and punching Nazis is a popular idea.

DO people expect themselves to be polite when the see a takeover and destruction of their government? “it looks like pre WW2 Germany out there, do pass the salt dear.”

Hacker News is radicalizing, and is very likely going to have to decide if it’s going to be pro MAGA or not.

What did people think the response was going to be once Trump did everything he said he would? People would lie back and let things happen?

In America? The land of the second amendment? I mean people should be happy, after this liberals are going to be proud members of the NRA.

As someone who tries to be non partisan, and isn't even american, I am fatigued by all of the claims that the world within the USA is ending. Whenever I take the time to examine any of the claims they tend to be fairly hollow or making slippery slope arguments.

As an international user of reddit, there are many of us I presume, I want the outrage to be saved for Trumps undeniable and worst offenses. In my eyes the memecoin was worse than anything which has happened since he became president and yet it has completely left the collective focus. Everything since then has just been a mix of people allowing trump to dictate the media cycle and the deep state deploying its immune system.

The online charicatures are just that. In both directions.

Real talk though: the US, via the current administration, is trashing its international reputation. With tariffs and lashing out at (former?) allies. Or with Musk demanding regime change in the UK, for instance. On a personal level people will still be chill no doubt, but you should be prepared for some negative attitudes towards the US if things continue unabated.

No need for histrionics, it's simple: Someone doesn't need to actively desire a terrible outcome to be morally culpable of making bad choices, ones they should-have-known would enable or encourage it to happen. Multiple such people can and do form groups.

It's not limited to politics either, which is how we get idioms like "playing with fire."

If we review democracies through history that have at some point become less democratic, I think describing the process of how that actually happens as being a slippery slope is quite apt. I’d say it’s more of a fallacy to assume that democracy is a secure default state of being rather than an ideal that we must collectively support or lose entirely—that we can safely “slip” a little without risking a slide further down the slope.

You are misattributing American madness to the people it is being inflicted on rather than the instigators. We have oil wells behind our homes and schools and the white picket fence chemists I knew and looked up to as a kid are the reason we all have PFAs in our blood. Our president vacillates between saber-rattling at our closest allies, starting a new war in the Middle East, and causing constitutional crises every other day. We don’t have a single-payer healthcare option like every other developed country and our “social safety nets” are so impacted and difficult to get, they might as well not exist for most people. We do, however, have some very, very profitable oligopolies (some which make very tasty fish sandwiches) and higher income inequality than India or Russia.

As well as thousands who are normal hard-working people.

> taken back Panama Canal from Chinese dictatorship

By using threats of force like a dictatorship.

> attempted to shrink the size of the government and American tax burden

In illegal, non-democratic ways.

> put more tariffs on Chinese dictatorship

As well as more democratic allies.

> focused US on AI

Without understanding the huge risks involved for all of humanity.

> taken over Gaza to prevent another war between Israel and Hamas

By doing ethnic cleansing.

> gotten Mexico and Canada to finally own up to protecting the border

And in the process lost the trust and respect of allies.

They did not do this. Everyone can read the post that you’re responding to.

Near as I can tell, the biggest failure of the left (and one that keeps getting repeated) is thinking words/knowledge matter in situations like this.

Do you have sources for that? Honestly trying to find out. Thanks!

So what Reddit has morphed into, is an illegal content factory - there has already been a comment or two about it from the government and the Trump admin is not one that is likely to sit on my sidelines over this.

Whatever your politics may be, I'm just saying this is going to burn Reddit bad.

I’ve seen this sequence of events play out before.

In many was ‘go outside’ is dismissive of what many people feel is happening, that to within 15 days of this new presidency. This is a low key way of saying you don’t like people protesting.

While at the same time others are saying people aren’t protesting enough.

If you aren’t ok with all of this, I strongly suggest deleting all social media, including hacker news. Take your advice and go outside. Be good to your neighbors and your mental health.

There is zero space for passive consumption when one of the biggest cultural and economic forces in English speaking Internet land is dismantling itself.

There is going to be very little space for any tolerance of nuance - because Trump is going to continue to escalate. He is going to follow a plan which was known, and it aims at gutting the US, and justifying it with DEI or whatever the cassus belli of the month is.

This is eventually going to result in ‘riots.’

Which will feed the righteousness of the conservatives, which will result in a new round of “well you were so happy when the year started, where are you now.”

It will escalate into attacks on democrats as the devil. And HN will swing from left outrage to right outrage.

At that time the roles will be reversed, and the positions will switch.

Again - If you or anyone reading these comments is tired on Feb 6th - leave the internet right now. This is your tornado / natural disaster warning.

This isn’t meant to be hurtful to you, or to be any defense of anything.

I always assume I am wrong, and I hope I can look back at these comments with embarrassment over what looks like histrionics.

The problem I have is that i deal with social media and online safety as work and as research. Papers on this topic are my fun reading when my brain isn’t fogged up.

This is going to be worse than brexit. And that’s if we are all lucky.

I was asking bankers if there’s any slack in the financial system in November - and I asked this in multiple countries.

The answer was no. So when the trade shocks start hitting the system, expect a downturn.

This is aside from the walking dead syndrome which america will face after gutting multiple systems in-flight.

I wish you luck and the very best. Sorry.

You're the one who's been making all the personal condemnations of evil intent, stop with the psychological projection.

The temperature is so high right now, and it's only continuing to rise because there seems to be zero accountability for what's happening whether it's pardons or Musk running unfettered through government accounts. Unfortunately, it's natural for people to keep escalating when they see no other avenue.

Also, Biden has already addressed the numbers coming across the border [1]. So again, the people who are left are mostly hard working people trying to make a life.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c36e41dx425o

There is a reason people are angry and the truth is Musk/trump have gone too far. It's bizarre to say but we are watching the downfall of the USA in real time. The country has been captured by criminals who are working to destroy it–folks are going to be angry about that.

I grew up an active NRA member, shooting since I was 6. I have long since disassociated myself with the group but want to make it clear - a lot of liberals have guns and regularly practice using them.

We don't need the NRA (a Putin funded organization) to do that!

They also map to historical counter-examples.

You don't have to go far. Take hysterical false positives like #RussiaGate, which turned out to be a manufactured hoax.

Then I realized that my kindergarten teacher was onto something when she told us we should be nice and share our toys, and I grew up.

Reddit has in general got way worse since 2016. The amount of bloodthirst and hate is very unsettling.

It’s surely ten times worse now. Trump makes W look like a statesman, and we could at least plead that W didn’t win a majority and only became president because the system is stupid.

Are you for real? Is this seriously a good faith argument? My man, you may be a true believer, and that is no compliment. Course correct. Try to steelman a bit.

Under US first amendment rights, it's actually sometimes legal.

For example, "Watts v. United States" established that if an anti-draft speaker tells a crowd "If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is LBJ" that's political hyperbole.

So if a crowd were to set up a guillotine outside congress and chant "hang mike pence" it's not necessarily illegal.

Saying “I think this person should be killed” is legally free speech.

Whose morals? What morals?

It seems to be mainly European neoliberals that are more upset about Trump.

No, I'm not. I'm making a statement about a particular claim: that Reddit is overwhelmed with leftist death threats.

I said nothing about r/pics being apolitical, and I'm not taking a stance in this comment chain about whether I think r/pics should or should not be apolitical. That's a different claim, and you're moving the goalposts.

No, as evidenced by the "Politics" flair. (But also no, the rules of the sub do not forbid political images.)

> Does it tend to feature current events and is that lineup just proportional to the magnitude of what's happening right now?

Yep.

I also had trouble with all the far right wingers who kept talking about civil war.

I might have a different threshold for hateful on the internets or I didn't look closely enough.

Or you didn't experience, or don't know what they are, what they think and what they want ; neither the aftermath.

If you feel the need to defend the salute I would suggest digging into that.