I think at this point reddit is almost a good representation of the internet, and getting out of reddit because of shitty subs feels like taking distance from internet because of 4chan and YouTube comments.

Brigading in reddit has always been an issue and it's likely not going away for a very long time. That's also a cause of inter-subreddit mixing that can lead to abuse.

You're mostly correct that if you stick to the smaller and more moderated communities, you'll avoid a lot of the crud.

Edit: and to be further on topic, the r/opiates subreddit also gets a lot of outsiders going in and flinging abuse at the users there.

that said there are plenty of small communities that are pleasant, sure. But some people would rather go elsewhere than take the time and effort to curate their subs, and that's perfectly reasonable.

I think your basic premise is wrong - that "racism and xenophobia" are on the rise. You can't measure the number of people who aren't racist because you don't hear them. And before you argue that "not saying anything is being complicit" it's just not true. As a "minority" I just don't care what someone on the internet posts. It doesn't have power over me.

Yeah but you have a President and his son, aides, etc. who use the subreddit and similar places on the internet to get their information from. The President himself has retweeted stuff a few hours after it became popular on 4chan, T_D, etc. and has posted completely fake stormfront/4chan/coontown infographics about black crime that he still essentially stands by.

The information sources of many of the most powerful people in the world comes from these sites, so they certainly have an impact.

Having been on reddit for a decade it's sad to see it go from a tech/intellectual community to what it is now. I want real discussion, not arguing with racists. Seems reddit offers less and less of the former each day.

Is this really an issue? Are they going to /r/programming and dominating the conversation? Because I'm just not seeing it.

I think that the quality of a community is inversely related to the size, which explains why reddit "used to be cool". But the reason I still use reddit is because you can subscribe to communities you want - and there are still many good ones.

That said, there is room for improvement on the moderation side. I think a "peer-moderated" community would be awesome. Say for example, when a comment is flagged - a random but deterministic set of peers will make a judgement call. A "deterministic peer-jury" could be a useful mechanism for communities to grant voting/commenting/moderation rights.

The bigger issue in my opinion is controlling the discussion via sock puppets and underhanded moderation.

It simply didn't used to be this way. The discussion used to be what I'd go to reddit for, now it's the part I avoid.

I am Micmac, Irish, and African American. I don't care if someone is racist. I don't care if they say racially charged things. I care only when it manifests physically.

I don't believe I've the right to control the thoughts or speech of others. I don't let them control my emotions. I do not cede that power over me.

Unfortunately, yes. Look at the comments for any news story about a protest. Half the commenters are shouting that the protest should be non-violent, while the other half are shouting that the police should beat and cripple the protestors. There is also intersection between these two groups.

Or the people posting copy-pasta about how violent the Religion of Peace is, all the while advocating for glassing the countries it is prevalent in.

Generally, calls to violence are taken quite seriously, but calls to the worst form of violence - war - are considered political.

That's kinda the problem. As a species, our entire communications spectrum can't be forced into either bucket. It has to exist in both.

The kind of things I wouldn't tolerate at all around my family I'm fine tolerating around my friends. And the kind of things I wouldn't tolerate from a friend I'm fine tolerating as part of the public discourse. In fact, the last thing we want to do is use either minority or majority power to silence what folks consider "intolerable" speech. That way lies dragons.

It's a difficult if not impossible spot for social networks to be in.

Reddit is among the most widely-used websites in the world -- 7th, by Alexa's rankings. Reddit lives up to its motto of being the front page of the internet.

Imagine one of the top-10 newspapers in the United States were occasionally publishing stuff from /r/The_Donald on its front page, and had content from various hateful sub-reddits a few pages back. You could argue that this imaginary publication harms society.

Of course, Reddit is not the New York Times. So different standards apply. But the argument that Reddit -- and thus its administrators policies -- may be harming society, seems to hold some weight.

Its "real" freedom of information, without many of the mechanisms that larger society uses to fight back against it. Instead it is just ignored and left to fester and grow until it pops into the public forum at the point where huge efforts are required to fight it. I feel like the internet is a great way to get differing views out, but not a great way to build any cultural agreement.

CNN and Infowars have the same number of subscribers on Youtube. Now, I'm no fan of CNN, but Infowars is a unique kind of gross in my opinion. To the extent that subscribing to a youtube channel connotes social value, apparently the world has decided that Infowars is approximately equal in value to CNN.

Most people view CNN through TV or CNN.com; I suspect a much greater proportion of InfoWars's content is viewed through YouTube.

Reddit is not like an ISP, who can (until recently) claim that they're not responsible for traffic passing through their network, as reddit has no reasonable claim to be a "dumb pipe".

After denying it, you just explained why it's a difficult spot.

By the way, website are in fact not legally responsible for that traffic, under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act[1], which the courts have upheld against sites like eBay, Google, Craigslist, Backpage and MySpace.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...

I only know as much about Section 230 as I just read at that link, but it seems that this doesn't provide protection for things like calling for violence against a religious/sexual/race group. I concede that the exact boundary of what is a call for violence is hard to pin down, but I don't think that makes it OK to throw up your hands and say "Anything goes on my site!"

That's the job of the Constitution, as the SCOTUS made clear in Brandenburg v. Ohio, in which an actual KKK leader was being charged after participating in an armed rally and talked about getting revenge on various races and on those who supported them, like the President and Congress:

"(..) the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."

I have health problems. Every single health "support group" (email list or forum) I have ever participated in has been a shit show. A recent attempt to post to a health Reddit reminded me of that. So, I started my own health related Reddit.

I participate very little. I am trying to figure out how to create things that I want to have for myself, basically.

I realize this is hard. I have been thrown out of a few different forums over the years and have simply walked away from others because of bullshit. But I am trying to find a path forward and not just throw in the towel and let the assholes have the internet because it is the path of least resistance. It may be the path of least resistance, but it impoverishes my life and I suspect it impoverishes the lives of a lot of other people as well.

If I weren't so politically burnt out right now I'd call for a Reddit boycott.

Either way this thread has reminded me to block it and delete my account because I'm done with that site after 10+ years.

To be clear I'm not trying to rail on the founders of these orgs, I can't say for sure that I'd do much better in their position, it's a business first after all.