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Published 7 years ago by ChrisTyler with 8 Comments

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  • sashinator (edited 7 years ago)
    +6

    "As the CEO, I shouldn’t play such games, and it’s all fixed now. Our community team is pretty pissed at me, so I most assuredly won’t do this again," Huffman wrote.

    Now, users of "The_Donald" are accusing Huffman of having destroyed Reddit's credibility — given that the site has previously shut down controversial subreddit communities over illegal content posted there, they're now accusing Huffman of laying the groundwork for a crackdown

    As an ex-redittor - you reap what you saw. The quality of "news" aggregated on reddit has been in a decline for 8 years. For an organization that once boasted Aaron Swartz as a member, things sure got low. Lower and lower the higher and higher Conde Nast's share value got.

    It attracted fewer contributors and more trolololodramarama, image macros, image macros, image macros everywhere.

    But everything was fine and dandy as long as those traffic stats were going up. It kept worsening while the downward spiral kept speeding up. It finally culminated last year with reddit orchestrating former CEO's ousting as scapegoat in order to have credibility to administer their own site and edit some seriously dubious content.

    But that still wasn't enough of a warning. Keep those traffic stats up, allow fake news stories, hype US elections. As long as the clicks are coming in - why worry?

    Now chickens have finally come home to roost, you are getting your just deserts. Have a taste of your own medicine. See how you like it. Let this be a lesson to all publishers - if you turn your publications into for-profit-tabloid, in this century you run the same risk of being featured in your own tabloid as anybody else.

    Just 'cause you made the pigpen, doesn't mean you won't have to roll in the mud with the pigs.

    • ChrisTyler
      +4

      Yeah, this a much bigger issue that just pissing off the users. There are ongoing criminal cases where someone's Reddit activity is being used as evidence. The CEO of the company just admitted that not only do they have the ability to alter someone's post history without their knowledge or permission (which most people assumed they had in the first place), but that they actually do it.

      • sashinator
        +3

        There are ongoing criminal cases where someone's Reddit activity is being used as evidence

        That in itself is ludicrous.

        First of all, of course someone has access to the reddit db. It's a db. The reddit web application has access which means it's accessible which means someone must know how to access it.

        Secondly, I am not aware of any reddit terms of use which guarantees preservation or accuracy of user-captured content. Unless the criminal lawyer of the defendant is a moron, nothing posted on reddit by anyone should ever be admissible in court.

        Finally, if criminal courts do set precedents for accepting into evidence what is effectively digital tabloid journalism, then god help us all.

        • ChrisTyler
          +4

          You're kidding right?

          There are at least two separate investigations going on right now into Paul Combetta's wiping of Hillary Clinton's private server. His Reddit post history, where he essentially asked "how to delete a server" is a key factor in those investigations. I don't know a jurisdiction anywhere in the country where Internet history is inadmissible.

          • sashinator
            +3

            "Internet history" is a little broad. I can see how something linked to an identity of a defendant might be admissible in court but IMO it is a complete nonsense that reddit history is admissible in court.

            • ChrisTyler
              +4

              Well, the entire judicial system disagrees with you. A person's browsing history is absolutely admissible in court under the same standards as any other piece of evidence.

            • sashinator (edited 7 years ago)
              +2
              @ChrisTyler -

              A person's browsing history is on their personal computer hence linked to their personal identity.

  • Spoooooon
    +3

    I have no sympathy. They created a toxic community and are now annoyed at how miserable their community has become. I left and haven't looked back. My only hope is that they keep their crappy users and the better users leave to sites like this one. I certainly don't see the reddit the organization taking a stand anytime soon to better that cesspit.

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