/r/politics users accuse their moderators of a "Conservative/Libertarian" takeover in response to the widening scope of domain bans (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
56 ups - 21 downs = 35 votes
63 comments submitted at 22:34:44 on Nov 2, 2013 by go1dfish
It's a little surprising to see how few members of that community come out in defence of the mods and their new measures, especially when it's claimed that these bans are in response to the so-many complaints made. I suspect that even that (claimed) silent majority doesn't approve of what's happening now.
eta: I only saw and read the Slate article about r/politics right now. I can only agree with their opinion really:
> I’d argue it’s the opposite: It’s the /r/politics moderators who don’t understand Reddit or comprehend their role. Here’s hoping they reconsider.
I'm glad they tried something. The content on /r/politics is pretty horrible. It is often completely false and entire discussions are had in the comment section where it is clear that zero people read the article since they are all arguing over a completely false premise.
Unfortunately, this doesn't do anything to combat blogspam because for every popular blogspam site there are a dozen more that are trying to grow and so if I can't get my sensational headline from Salon I can get it from somewhere else.
Kind of an ongoing thing in the big subreddits. Mod changes happen, mods make changes the userbase dislikes, ignore concerns, win because there is no system in Reddit to deal with mods taking over a sub.
What's there to defend? This is just another step in the right wing shill takeover of /r/politics. They simply want to destroy precisely what make the subreddit a default in the first place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
[deleted]
Oh, the fucking gun threads... crap. Every time I see one it makes me want to pick up one of my guns to blow my brains out. If you so much as suggest that a something as minor as improved background checks you get a downvote squad following you around.
I've always wanted to use this gif
You probably shouldn't have bothered.
Just so you know, /r/politics was taken off the default list long before these new mods showed up.
Troll? /r/politics leaking? Poe?
Someone want to help me out here. I'd vote troll, but 3 year posting history...
Humorously, a significant portion of /r/libertarian are claiming that this is some liberal plot.
Edit - forgot NP, sorry
OP's partisan bias is showing
When does Socrates die for this shit, too?
Seriously, Huffington Post is the biggest joke news site on the internet. And that says something because Fox News and CNN have websites. I don't understand why my girlfriend loves it so much.
sideboob
I don't think the politics mods have a political bias, just a pro-stupid bias.
Obviously as a pol mod I'm a bit biased, but speaking as a liberal who votes Democrat, this attempt to improve the overall quality of /r/politics has not been driven by partisanship.
How is banning award-winning outlets like Mother Jones improving /r/politics? Obviously they have left-leaning editorial stance, but their journalism is widely respected. If this rule had been in place during the presidential election reddit would have only heard about one of that campaign's biggest stories (Romney's 47% comments) from 3rd parties, not the original source.
Why are sources like the Washington Times still acceptable?
Why is Slate's article about /r/politics new rules not relevant to American politics?
Edit: banning sites like Gawker, Jezebel, Huffpo and thinkprogress that mostly just repackage others stories is much more defensible.
Are there any plans to ban the Guardian due to their well-known leftwing editorial stance?
Wow that Slate article is awesome. Good lord the pol mods are clueless. But in a way, I do understand the bullheadedness. Pride is a hell of a thing. It's undone so many people.
I'm suprised rt.com isnt banned.
>How is banning award-winning outlets like Mother Jones improving /r/politics[1] ? Obviously they have left-leaning editorial stance, but their journalism is widely respected. If this rule had been in place during the presidential election reddit would have only heard about one of that campaign's biggest stories (Romney's 47% comments) from 3rd parties, not the original source.
The Mother Jones ban is being reviewed at this very moment. It was banned before I became a mod, so I don't really feel comfortable commenting on the process that led to it being added.
>Why are sources like the Washington Times still acceptable?
If you would like us to review any particular domains because you think they fall under one of the three qualifications: blogspam, sensationalism, or bad journalism, please modmail us with your reasoning and we'll take a look at it.
>Why is Slate's article about /r/politics[2] new rules not relevant to American politics?
If you check our wiki, our topic statement is: The place for current U.S. politics. This is interpreted as any article covering the actions of persons that are paid with taxpayer money. That would include any elected officials, judicial employees, military members, LEO, teachers, municipal employees, and other government employees. Our on-topic statement also applies to posts about overtly political subjects and topics likes political candidates, major political movements (think: Tea Party, OWS), and major political donors or groups that influence politics, however that does not include foreign influence when the story is written for a global audience and not to a specifically American audience. Furthermore, our on-topic statement also does not apply to most hard news stories about police officers, fire fighters, and emergency personnel. Also, satire and humor pieces are not allowed. Additionally, links posted here must be about generally recent events. If you have any questions address them in mod mail before posting. Post that do not relate to the topic of /r/Politics may be removed.
The /r/politics moderators are not public servants paid with taxpayer money, nor are we a a political movement. Meta discussions are generally confined to moderator-submitted threads to keep them all in one place for ease of consumption and to prevent them from taking over the front page.
>Edit: banning sites like Gawker, Jezebel, Huffpo and thinkprogress that mostly just repackage others stories is much more defensible. Are there any plans to ban the Guardian due to their well-known leftwing editorial stance?
We are not selecting domains based on political leaning alone.
>If you would like us to review any particular domains because you think they fall under one of the three qualifications: blogspam, sensationalism, or bad journalism, please modmail us with your reasoning and we'll take a look at it.
I agree with you, we should most definitely review TheWashingtonTimes. I can't believe it's still allowed.
Thewashingtontimes being allowed is a disgrace.
Well, in lieu of the other bans, we've been under a lot of pressure to reconsider TheWashingtonTimes.
I think, like many of the banned publications, it can have some really interesting things in it, as long as one understands its context.
please make a proposal so it can be voted on this weekend?
Okay Alpha, will do.
Do you see any contradiction between this
> It was banned before I became a mod, so I don't really feel comfortable commenting on the process that led to it being added.
and this?
>We are not selecting domains based on political leaning alone.
If you weren't privy to the discussions that led to Mother Jones being banned how do you know this?
I'm privy to them, in that I can read everything in the mod backroom, but I didn't participate in them.
Why not open the process up to public input. Why not list EXACTLY what it takes, why a decision was made with citations, what would allow a site to be reviewed, how the review will be conducted, and the ultimate decision of the review. The only reason you guys are getting shit on is because of the closed nature of the process. Why not do a weekly update when needed, listing the domains under consideration for a ban and requesting input from the community. This is what the SEC, et al orgs do and it works out great for them.
>speaking as a liberal who votes Democrat
Huh?
Some of us are forced to accept the democratic process
>Obviously as a pol mod I'm a bit biased, but speaking as a liberal who votes Democrat, this attempt to improve the overall quality of /r/politics has not been driven by partisanship.
I think you are completely wrong, and so do many other redditors. But why take my word for it? Ask /r/politics mod /u/anutensil, who seems to have a bit more familiarity with the mod history there and the personal political leanings and motivations of the mods, both new and old.
He said:
>A mod's political leanings aren't suppose to affect how one mods, but in this case, I think it'd be just plain silly to pretend it hasn't played a part.
http://i.imgur.com/5aSRedR.png
In light of his view, how would you now explain your assessment of what has transpired to those who perhaps have been watching this more closely than you?
Frankly, anutensil is wrong.
How so?
Care to elaborate?
Keep on doing what you guys are doing, it's nice to see people taking an initiative to actually improve the quality of politics. Maybe all low quality posters will leave as well.
Of course not, it's been driven by metajerkers and powerusers developing a conventional wisdom which is highly flattering to metajerkers and powerusers, which very thoroughly declares illegitimate any fact or opinion which doesn't adhere to the narrative which flatters metajerkers and powerusers.
What matters is 'quality' as determined according to a self-selected circle of people's sense of conversational aesthetics. The people who read, vote, post, or comment on the subreddit don't matter because if they disagree, that just proves they're the wrong quality of people.
"Sensationalism" is the shibboleth that divides Them from Us, anyone who doesn't accept the self-evident need to Fight Sensationlism is obviously irrational and should be ignored. People who don't like the changes should just leave; unlike people who didn't like what was previously in place and spent years lobbying for these changes, because the latter people are obviously correct and obviously deserve to have their preferences serviced.
Oh look, those people happen to be us! Well, that just goes to prove that the system works.
I'd love another "no moderation" week in some large sub, just turn of auto-mod and remove nothing, lean back and enjoy. leave it a week or two. Was /r/adviceanimals the last sub that did that? there was a ton of juicy drama from it wherever it was.
If you think that stupid articles and stupid comments are better, you're welcome to. I'm using a prejorative term, but I think it's appropriate, because the type of discussions and articles you're defending are, I think, inferior: sensationalist, lacking factual backing, and based more on angry tribalism than any attempt to understand anything.
Again, I suppose you have a right to think that those types of things are better, but if you think that, go post YouTube comments or hang out on those political Facebook pages or whatever. Reddit is supposed to be better than that, in the specific sense that I'm using. Why else is voting supposed to be based on contributing to discussion?
> sensationalist, lacking factual backing, and based more on angry tribalism than any attempt to understand anything.
You mean like the comment you just wrote?
Tribalism: it's okay when we do it
>Why else is voting supposed to be based on contributing to discussion?
Because people have a hilariously massive blind spot when it comes to the subjectivity of their own opinions such that they imagine that this is actually possible for any group of people to do.
So, are you saying that sensationalism is bad, or that the types of articles the /r/politics mods are trying to eliminate aren't sensationalist?
It's definitely true that voting is almost never based on contributing to the discussion, which is why we need other methods to regulate the content on reddit, such as moderation. My point was that reddit is a site that's at least supposed to be about quality discussion, not preaching bullshit to the choir.
There are plenty of people that are capable of distinguishing between the quality of an argument and whether they agree, at least to some extent. It's a gray area, but I think it's ridiculous to say that everyone is only capable of appreciating discussions when they agree with them.
EDIT: I'm not saying that there's an objective standard for "quality of discussion", but that doesn't mean that we can't agree on it to some degree, and I think that any reasonable definition of "quality of discussion" includes /r/AskHistorians and doesn't include /r/atheism. If you disagree, you can pick a different website.
It may be surprising to many, but I actually support the new direction you're taking.
At least domain bans are consistent, up-front and transparent; way better than the previous situation.
At least I'd assume so, I'm still banned from posting for running /r/ModerationLog
Actually, go1dfish, it doesn't surprise me at all. You've never hidden where you stand.
With all of the recent changes afoot, any chance at unbanning me?
The response you'll probably get or should get to that is that the left (actual left, not American left) is poor (for obvious reasons), and tends to be at a constant disadvantage when it comes to reaching a large audience. And, being poor, it likes cheap things like talking... talk is cheap and so are free blog sites, which is how you get piles upon piles of opinions, editorials and blogspam.
Good luck, either way.
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This post isn't an accurate assessment of the criticism in there. Sure, there are quite a few mods in there who gladly horse traded a few conservative sites that no one goes to for moderate and left of center sources - including political watch dogs and investigative journalism sources.
Those votes came easy - of course axe grinders like /r/snooves and other conservative mods support censorship of those sources and therefore allegations of political motivations are somewhat fair. In fact, conservative political motivation in part has played a role according to at least one /r/politics mod:
http://i.imgur.com/5aSRedR.png
But surprisingly, the mod staff's demonstrable shift to the hard right isn't the main issue. The censorship itself and the reasoning behind it is the issue.
The best criticism can be summarized here in a few points:
Sensationalized titles
Domain bans do not address the issue of sensationalized titles - redditors are still going to vote on sensationalized titles. You can't censor your way out of that problem, especially at the cost of original journalism.
"You are banning sites that have good articles with sensational titles, but you're refusing to allow users to post that same article with a different title that is actually taken from text within the article. If we create a less sensational title on a fantastic article I don't believe it should be deleted." Link Another reason domain censorship is a horrible fix.
Sensationalism is intrinsic to politics - the Benghazi story is a sensationalist right wing story and is not very newsworthy - but it is still a political story and headlines based on it are proper for a sub called /r/politics. They should not be censored.
It is not justified to ban entire domains based upon a few sensationalized titles that hit /r/all. Most submissions do not in fact hit /r/all. Moderation should be tailored to enabling readers to consider /r/politics from across the political spectrum.
/r/politics is a political sub, it is not /r/onlypoliticalnews. If the mods would like to mod a sub like that they should create it. Otherwise sensationalist titles from the New York Times to the Economist are par for the course in the political game. Editorialized headlines in opeds are extremely important in political discussion.
Uneven application. Horse trading censorship of websites by a handful of mods is wrong, and the horse trading is already completely unmanageable and uneven as the list grows
Trying to mod a political sub under the guise of being "fair and balanced" will result in it being neither.
They censored the # 2 online news source in the U.S., the HuffPo (ranked 20th in the U.S. out of every website), while leaving center right sensationalist blog spam site like Fox News intact. Why should either site be banned? They both have White House Press correspondents?
Thoughtlessly banning hardcore original investigative journalism from Mother Jones and equating that ban to hard right fringe sites is horse trading in its worst form.
Blogspam: Their definition of blogspam is about 10 yrs old, and the results of banning are incongruous with the intended result.
banning original journalism from the most popular websites in the world is just wrong. Maybe the criticism of the HuffPo was accurate 8 years ago, but it now does live reporting and is the 69th most popular site in the world. They break original stories all the time now.
now that mainstream sources are banned, /r/politics has gotten substantially more blog spammy this week as microblogs are reporting original journalism from the HuffPo and Mother Jones. So this week we saw multiple stories broken by the HuffPo and Mother Jones censored from /r/politics and submitted through weird spammy sites. Look at the new queue. It's much, much worse.
Censorship is against the spirit of reddit and is just plain wrong.
On a site that is supposed to be community driven they have decided to dictate what people can talk about and what sites are allowed to be used. That's stupid. But especially in a sub labelled /r/politics.
the mods are moderating based upon the "complaints from people who don't care about, like, or use this subforum, and won't do so no matter how much you change things in response to their complaints, because the particulars of their complaints have nothing to do with why they complain about this subforum."
Importantly, what some readers here may not understand is that on a day to day basis /r/politics is filled with political junkies who actually read from across the spectrum and who are used to accessing and reading political opinion. Mod censorship is unpopular there for reasons that it may be popular here. Users in /r/politics want as much info as they can get and don't feel like they need their hands to be held as they assess political content.
They think this is a solution in search of a problem, while non-political junkies here may prefer a completed curated sub like /r/politicalnews. So for /r/politics, there is no reason to pre-censor what those readers see. They can make their own assessments of political opinion. Again, the sub is called /r/politics and the subscriber base understands that.
Finally, as redditors here point out you can't censor your way into "Fair and Balanced." For those conservatives here who are cheering the change, you aren't going to turn /r/politics into Fox News with these changes, so it's stupid to try. And make sure you understand that when conservative voices are censored, everyone loses as well, including me.
>/r/politics is filled with political junkies who actually read from across the spectrum and who are used to accessing and reading political opinion - there is no reason to pre-censor what those readers see.
I think the problem is that what you posted here is what /r/politics is SUPPOSED to be, but, in actual practice, is far from reality. /r/politics is a left-wing, more specifically DNC, circlejerk.
As a non-participant in that sub, I kind of agree with both viewpoints. On one hand, I think the mods are trying to introduce some changes to make the ideal more the reality. A place for political debate and news that crosses party lines (not make it a conservative hive-mind as some have charged).
However, I agree with the detractors that these changes aren't going to make a difference and are only removing content their subscribers want. Sensationalist titles will still be made. Opposing viewpoints will still be downvoted into oblivion making sure no dissenting opinions are offered.
If /r/politics subscribers want it that way, that's fine. The price they pay is needing to come to terms that they'll never be a default sub again. If the mods really want to have a more even and balanced sub, they'd probably be better served starting a new one with strict rules from the beginning and attracting the type of subscribers they want.
Relevant imgur links from the discussion:
http://i.imgur.com/5aSRedR.png
http://i.imgur.com/X93ddPk.png
Excellent post - thanks for the work you have done for such a long time at /r/politic to highlight censorship. This post yesterday about the removal of the Slate piece from /r/politics was shocking.
http://www.reddit.com/r/POLITIC/comments/1ppgy8/redditspoliticssectionbanssalonmotherjones/
I created a condition for automod that you may want to use to highlight when a censored political post is made so that your readers can see the impact censorship has on the stories they are missing in /r/politics. Feel free to use it.
---
# Leave a distinguished comment on banned /r/politics sources
type: submission
domain: [aattp.org, alternet.org, amazon.com, americanthinker.com, avaaz.org, b4in.info, beforeitsnews.com, blacklistednews.com, borderlessnewsandviews.com, breitbart.com, breitbartunmasked.com, change.org, citypaper.com, constitutioncampaign.org, courthousenews.com, crooksandliars.com, dailybail.com, dailycaller.com, dailycurrant.com, dailykos.com, dailypaul.com, democraticunderground.com, deviantart.com, dirtyuglypolitics.wordpress.com, drudgereport.com, eclectablog.com, ecominoes.com, facebook.com, funnyordie.com, generalstrikeusa.wordpress.com, heavy.com, heritage.org, hotair.com, huffingtonpost.com, inagist.com, indiegogo.com, informationliberation.com, infowars.com, isidewith.com, lifenews.com, linkedin.com, littlegreenfootballs.com, mediamatters.org, minx.cc, motherjones.com, myspace.com, nation.foxnews.com, nationalmemo.com, nationalreport.net, nationalreview.com, nationsmith.com, Newsbusters.org, newsmakeup.wordpress.com, newsvine.com, newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/, njspin.com, omegle.com, pensitoreview.com, petitions.whitehouse.gov, photographyisnotacrime.com, policymic.com, politicalwire.com, politicususa.com, politilady.com, pollcode.com, powerlineblog.com, prisonplanet.com, rawstory.com, reason.com, redd.it, reddit.com, redgage.com, rightwingwatch.org, salon.com, signon.org, smirkingchimp.com, techdirt.com, thebackbencher.co.uk, theblaze.com, thedailybanter.com, thegatewaypundit.com, theonion.com, thepetitionsite.com, therightscoop.com, thinkprogress.org, townhall.com, truth-out.org, twitchy.com, twitter.com, upworthy.com, vice.com, voiceblaze.com, wallstreetonparade.com, weaselzippers.us, wikimedia.org, wikipedia.org, wnd.com]
comment: This is another story that has been censored by the mods of /r/politics. Thank you for this submission, and for fighting improper censorship of journalism like this on reddit.
Thanks, I added a modified version:
http://www.reddit.com/r/POLITIC/wiki/automoderator
yooza. these people are paranoid.
Not really.
http://i.imgur.com/5aSRedR.png
yeah i saw that, doesn't mean their suspicions are true.
Who is "they"? That's a quote from a mod of /r/politics, he's 4th on the list. Are you saying he is paranoid? Because he is making a factual statement from first hand evidence that is not driven by paranoia at all.
Are you saying it is paranoia to agree with an /r/politics mod's assessment of what has transpired? Also, since we have first hand affirmative evidence from him and you do not, do you have any firsthand evidence that disproves his statements?
Because it seems like you are in fact the one running on ungrounded assumptions and suspicions whereas it is reasonable for /r/politics subscribers to rely on the grounded opinion of a mod there.
I mean the subscribers are paranoid. In the example from this post. It's not very good moderation, since there are lots of shitty sources you could remove. And /r/politics is a huge enough shithole as it is, why not just leave it be? The trash has got to go somewhere. Partisan politics has nothing to do with the mods decisions, that's where /u/jesuz and co. are paranoid and wrong. It's a poor attempt by mods to clean up a shit subreddit rampantly run by outside interests.
I suppose they could be considered paranoid, but it also appears they are right. This is something of a conservative/libertarian shift to the right, and therefore can properly be described as a takeover during a political vacuum as described by anutensil.
Political motivations aside, even if you think /r/politics is shitty, there is no real reason to censor journalism and make it even shittier.
Why are you all over this thread vehemently defending the idea that this move by the mods is an attempt to shift it to the right?
Seems like you have a horse in this race.
I do. I'm an /r/politics junkie and I have been arguing about this for two weeks.
http://np.reddit.com/r/Journalism/comments/1oxay8/unclearontheconceptrpoliticsmodsban_serious/
Some of us want to protect the greatest way we have to make change.
"BerateBirthers"
Something tells me the users are more partisan than the mods. Not that birthers are right, but it is obvious who you stand against and why want to protect your echo chamber. Even though there is no need, because this move by the mods is NOT political. It's a manufactured "scandal".
/r/politics is bought and sold by the Democrat party, and left leaning interests. That is a fact. I'm not being partisan pointing that out. /r/politics is not at all about making change or having a fair discussion. /r/politics IS politics.
I normally don't buy into crazy conspiracies because, much like stereotypes, they contain a nugget of truth surrounded by a mountain of bullshit. Here's my thoughts, the mods changed the policy and started reviewing the sites that had already been linked to. Seeing as how /r/politics could substitute for /r/liberal, a majority of sites under review were the "liberal" sites. Therefore the bans appear more one sided. I generally disagree with the policy though. Politics is not /r/news, and in the real world, politics is most certainly a full cum bucket of sensational, and party line bullshit. So if we wanna talk serious politics we better be able to fluently speak bullshitese
Awww, is everybody crying about /r/politics? This was a good one, get the popcorn and watch the butt hurt. Fucking drama.