A brief critique of reddit.
Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2025 6:14 pm
(A short, rough critique of reddit. I had been writing a reply to another post about reddit but decided it may merit a thread of its own. I could have gone on and/or given it a bit more polish, it but the reader will get the gist.)
Reddit is practically organized for censorship and social engineering. This also seems true of most other popular media websites (and to such an extent, I suspect, that many members of the public are rarely exposed to critical discourse at all) yet Reddit is exceptional in both its popularity and its design. Every post or reply has a score - a single integer that other users can increment or decrement with upvotes or downvotes, ostensibly. Comment visibility and position are a function of this score, which thus potentially serves both as a means of censorship and of psychologically manipulating users. Consider how easily this infrastructure could be used to censor certain users or make them feel like outliers - those who have inconvenient comments, observations or opinions receive downvotes (i.e. negative reinforcement) and conversely, users making expedient contributions are favored with upvotes. This is called operant conditioning. Upvotes and downvotes are not displayed separately (though I'm quite confident they're counted separately for internal research) and so the author of a post having a zero or negative score does not know whether there might exist many people who agree with what they have to say. Many subreddits have minimum karma (the sum of negative and positive votes a user receives) requirements and thus anyone for any reason can be effectively and inconspicuously censored.
These manipulations all belong in the category of "man in the middle" attacks. Does Reddit actually abuse their system in such a manner? Of course it's not hard to imagine a motive - those who can influence public opinion seem to have no lack of well-paying sponsors. The pretense Reddit uses to promote this system appears on their 'about' page: "Reddit is home to thousands of communities, endless conversation, and authentic human connection" and "Comments & posts can be upvoted or downvoted. The most interesting content rises to the top." Much like Wikipedia, Reddit encourages (at least implicitly) the idea that their site comprises a reflection of public opinion or consensus. Anyone may sign up and contribute to Reddit but the public has no way to audit this system or detect tampering. Why don't they show upvotes and downvotes separately instead of (or in addition to) combining them into a single score? There can only be one answer: they want to obscure this information from the public. To show these values would provide users a more accurate reflection of public sentiment and opinion. Additionally, while Reddit could modulate a single number freely and without anyone the wiser, they could not do so in quite the same way if the site reported both the upvote and downvote counts. For example, if a user casts an upvote (or a downvote) and the upvote (downvote) counter reads zero, the user will know it has been tampered with. Likewise, an organized group of users or researchers who cast a thousand upvotes (or downvotes) using separate accounts can detect any tampering that reduces the upvote (or downvote) counter below one thousand. Incidentally, Youtube removed their downvote counter some time ago. Considering all of this it seems complacent and naive to give Reddit the benefit of the doubt. These features - all very convenient for the propagandist or social engineer - seem unnecessary at best for having a coherent discourse. 'Traditional' forums work just as well and could readily incorporate upvotes/downvotes (along with the obvious searching/sorting features) without having comments and posts arranged according to these value(s) by default.
Those who find it necessary to censor discussion always have deceitful and anti-social aims. Nobody with an interest in candid or fair discussion would implement a churlish feature like shadowbanning. Sites like Reddit are not designed for natural discourse.
Reddit is practically organized for censorship and social engineering. This also seems true of most other popular media websites (and to such an extent, I suspect, that many members of the public are rarely exposed to critical discourse at all) yet Reddit is exceptional in both its popularity and its design. Every post or reply has a score - a single integer that other users can increment or decrement with upvotes or downvotes, ostensibly. Comment visibility and position are a function of this score, which thus potentially serves both as a means of censorship and of psychologically manipulating users. Consider how easily this infrastructure could be used to censor certain users or make them feel like outliers - those who have inconvenient comments, observations or opinions receive downvotes (i.e. negative reinforcement) and conversely, users making expedient contributions are favored with upvotes. This is called operant conditioning. Upvotes and downvotes are not displayed separately (though I'm quite confident they're counted separately for internal research) and so the author of a post having a zero or negative score does not know whether there might exist many people who agree with what they have to say. Many subreddits have minimum karma (the sum of negative and positive votes a user receives) requirements and thus anyone for any reason can be effectively and inconspicuously censored.
These manipulations all belong in the category of "man in the middle" attacks. Does Reddit actually abuse their system in such a manner? Of course it's not hard to imagine a motive - those who can influence public opinion seem to have no lack of well-paying sponsors. The pretense Reddit uses to promote this system appears on their 'about' page: "Reddit is home to thousands of communities, endless conversation, and authentic human connection" and "Comments & posts can be upvoted or downvoted. The most interesting content rises to the top." Much like Wikipedia, Reddit encourages (at least implicitly) the idea that their site comprises a reflection of public opinion or consensus. Anyone may sign up and contribute to Reddit but the public has no way to audit this system or detect tampering. Why don't they show upvotes and downvotes separately instead of (or in addition to) combining them into a single score? There can only be one answer: they want to obscure this information from the public. To show these values would provide users a more accurate reflection of public sentiment and opinion. Additionally, while Reddit could modulate a single number freely and without anyone the wiser, they could not do so in quite the same way if the site reported both the upvote and downvote counts. For example, if a user casts an upvote (or a downvote) and the upvote (downvote) counter reads zero, the user will know it has been tampered with. Likewise, an organized group of users or researchers who cast a thousand upvotes (or downvotes) using separate accounts can detect any tampering that reduces the upvote (or downvote) counter below one thousand. Incidentally, Youtube removed their downvote counter some time ago. Considering all of this it seems complacent and naive to give Reddit the benefit of the doubt. These features - all very convenient for the propagandist or social engineer - seem unnecessary at best for having a coherent discourse. 'Traditional' forums work just as well and could readily incorporate upvotes/downvotes (along with the obvious searching/sorting features) without having comments and posts arranged according to these value(s) by default.
Those who find it necessary to censor discussion always have deceitful and anti-social aims. Nobody with an interest in candid or fair discussion would implement a churlish feature like shadowbanning. Sites like Reddit are not designed for natural discourse.