Reddit Disinformation & How We Beat It Together - Smarter Every Day 232

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Link to whole Social Media Manipulation Playlist:
• The Future of War, and...
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GET SMARTER SECTION
2017 Reddit Security Report:
/ reddits_2017_transpare...
Link to Banned Accounts
/ suspiciousaccounts
Link to iDrama Lab
idrama.science/
Link to Jeremy’s Papers:
"The Web Centipede: Understanding How Web Communities
Influence Each Other Through the Lens of Mainstream and
Alternative News Sources"
arxiv.org/pdf/1705.06947
Who Let The Trolls Out? Towards Understanding State-Sponsored Trolls
arxiv.org/pdf/1811.03130
Link to Oxford Internet Institute
www.oii.ox.ac.uk/
Robotrolling article mentioned in this video:
www.stratcomcoe.org/robotroll...
Link to Stanford Observatory
cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io
Renée DiResta
www.reneediresta.com/
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Warm Regards,
Destin

[@smartereveryday]

First of all, I hope you and your friends and family are safe, and taking measures to minimize contact with other people at this time. Secondly, I find it interesting that the social media manipulation series are among my most down-voted videos of all time. I wonder what's going on there.... 😏 I see these videos as some of the most important content I've ever made. If the general internet population can understand the principals presented in these videos, we will progress in unity. This series is my attempt to shore up society's defenses against the massive disinformation war currently being waged against us. We're on the battlefield whether we like it or not. The other videos in the series can be viewed here. KZbin Algorithm Manipulation: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z4GqnmuCqNF4mJY Twitter Algorithm Manipulsion: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jF6Ug5uHZtqoh5Y Facebook Manipulation: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fIrCf6eFbLh8qLs The Future of War and how it affects you: kzbin.info/www/bejne/p4C3ipqZmbOljqc Thank you for watching these videos, and more importantly.... helping others understand them. If you'd like to support Smarter Every Day, the best possible way is to become a Patron. www.patreon.com/smartereveryday Thank you, I love you all, Now go wash your hands!! Destin

[@FronkG]

Why did u post this for the 2nd time

[@pendragnx]

here's an upvote

[@farenhite4329]

I’ve noticed that the Russian annexation of Crimea was defended a lot more than other international actions.

[@ThomasPlaysTheGames]

I think it may have to do with the fact that reddit moderators have been known in the past to suppress views they disagree with. For example, Spez (CEO of Reddit) has openly admitted to maliciously edit other people's comments.

[@TechyBen]

It's simple. People, in general the crowd and populus, don't like being educated. Thus the downvotes :( PS, also those with vested interests against you also would have reasons to try and bury your video. I've really really noticed people who are in a group, even if not doing a wrong, will defend the wrong their group does, in a false response of feeling indebted or misbelief that others could do it.

[@wmburke81]

It seems like the biggest problem is not the misinformation, but the average person's ability to use critical thinking skills and proper judgment when seeing that info.

[@jldude84]

Combined with certain people's obsessive need to control/manipulate information.

[@uncutgemsadamsandler6064]

As I always say… No source; don’t endorse

[@alt8791]

Or, in simpler terms, _[citation needed]_

[@Alziax]

got a source on that?

[@DevinDTV]

It is very redditorlike to demand a source when inappropriate, and accept any study even if the study itself is absurd

[@WaltRBuck]

@@Alziax Every viable and credible professor ever.

[@joesguiltyguitar]

Don't you think for yourself, well they'll think for you if you don't... i understand the need to fight against hateful behavior but they that ask for comments and they that asked won't reply back , well they are only taking for their own vain wants because they didn't agree with the commenter... focus people, if you don't help the sick people you'll only become part of the sickness. If you silence someone online because they maybe creepy or freaky, well how can they know any better if you don't talk with them and that's the point of why the war online with bots is a forming issue with real people trying to talk with each other online... don't call someone a bot nor a troll or anything else if they aren't really anything... people are real and bots are fake and trolling could be anyone that's up or down, as to say they could be unlawful or only a person that's trying to find friends with other people... you'll call it crazy if someone acts crazy but when you might act crazy you'll call sane or ok as because it was you that done it all.. blaming somebody for being out spoken isn't right but note it well two wrongs don't make a right.

[@tylerm9722]

[Your post was automatically removed for...]

[@HamSandvich]

That’s a subreddit’s rules and automod taking it down to save the mods time

[@williamwalters3796]

Automated removals are subreddit based. For example in r/LifeProTips if you don’t start your post with (LPT:) the.n it gets auto removed.

[@hershmergersh6733]

"A place to freely exchange ideas with other people anonymously" - as long as they agree with you.

[@Excedrine]

The level of censorship used exclusively against one side and literally never, ever the other would make even the KGB blush.

[@panonf.9106]

I KNEW IT HE WAS A LIB_TARD

[@notgray88]

Reddit is one big karma circlejerk. So glad I stopped frequenting that cesspool of degeneracy. You would be better off spending your time doing anything else.

[@Datdus92]

@@googlemegoogle You'd think that but it's more complex, because actual leftist thought (not liberalism) is supressed too. It seems to me as if they just want to maintain a center-liberal pro corporate agenda.

[@Warriorcat49]

There are plenty of right-wing, authoritatian, anarchist, and whatever-else-politically-leaning subreddits. If all you’re finding is leftist circlejerks then you’re not looking very hard, or too hard for one subtype.

[@Saadi_Lyfe]

"Its hard to win a war without a map" Golden Words....

[@nymalous3428]

Except that wars were being fought before there were maps. Even worse, wars have been fought when there were maps that were highly inaccurate. So it is possible. Besides, I'm not sure that the analogy is a good one (meaning, "war" and "dealing with misinformation").

[@TerkanTyr]

I feel like the best way to map this would be in a 3d render full of screens of internet platforms, and threads between them. Obviously best viewed in VR

[@mafiasquirrel15]

Literally the US philosophy against coronavirus in the beginning, "psh we don't need a map"

[@freedomofspeech2867]

Or you don't fight because it's not a war... Censorship is at least never the solution. If you want to change minds you are free to ARGUE! Censorship won't prove anything except you not knowing wtf you are on about.

[@TheLimeGreenMan]

What we are talking about here isn’t to stop people from arguing, though. It’s about stopping popular lies. It’s about being clear about what is true and shutting down the accounts that lie often and lie to convince others.

[@noelabey]

Most popular reddit communities, about 100, have the same moderators. That is also manipulating content.

[@noelabey]

@@tafdiz Worst than dictatorship. It's worldwide content manipulation. It sucks.

[@flyingchimp12]

blabla62871 this is why people continue to have flawed ideas

[@Minecraftpe5]

One specific user u/awkwardtheturtle moderates over 2000 subreddits. Reddit is dying.

[@mathewbouse1105]

@@tafdiz just curious, what exactly did you say to get banned?

[@Atlas-Shrugs]

@@tafdiz I've been a conservative for ever. I was banned from r/conservative because I told a mod that flared only posts are a circle jerk echo chamber and we shouldn't have them.

[@5MadMovieMakers]

Reddit is definitely a central point of content for social media sites. I've had videos get millions of views on KZbin without any piracy problems, and then suddenly a freeboot will reach the front page of Reddit and I'll see it pop up on Twitter and Instagram from accounts unknowingly reposting my stolen content.

[@topapo3661]

u have the check mark but srsly, it sucks that people repost original videos and say its their own

[@NemoK]

"Who controls Reddit?" "Somebody controls Reddit?" * laughs in chinese *

[@bill2489]

You mean “who contwols Weddit?” Sumbody contwols Weddit?”

[@LiveDieTrolling]

The CCP cant even control Taiwan or HK. They talk alot of game but it's all flash, no photo.

[@corvidconsumer]

They don't have a controlling share

[@TuetchenR]

@@bill2489 Now that's just racist

[@Jaythre]

Q: Who controls Reddit? A: 五毛党

[@HumansOfVR]

*_people think that the number of upvotes you get_* relates to the validity of that statement without even fact checking for themselves

[@pkz420]

I believe you, because people are upvoting your comment. :)

[@movement2contact]

Human brain: that's how I be 🤷‍♂️

[@thany3]

The problem is that you can't know *why* someone has upvoted a comment. Do you upvote because you like something? Because you agree? Because you want others to see it? Likewise you can't infer a meaning from any upvote count. It's just generic popularity, without specifying *why* it's popular. So people seeing a large upvote number and believing the given comment for solely that reason, is (or could be) wrong. What to do about it? No idea. But most non-chronological comment systems work like that, including the one right here.

[@japowlo]

@@thany3 exactly the problem with these systems, if a user had to leave a comment explaining why they up/downed content before submitting then the content would have honest vote counts alongside it, but ultimately the site would lose engagement, which in this fast paced ad profit driven world is a beeg no no.

[@ZenCorvus]

Politics subreddit in its entirety right there

[@ben_1]

"A place to freely exchange ideas..." Oh boy, reddit hasn't been that for a while now.

[@vinamraparashar7590]

They lost Aarons Swartz's vision and ideas about free speech and ideas.

[@sirmcgurrgles3515]

“You have been banned from participating in....” “Why?” “You have been muted for 3 days”

[@notgray88]

Reddit moderation is somehow worse than 4chan. At least when you get banned on there they tell you why.

[@kilobyte8321]

@@notgray88 Much less censorship on 4Chan. Guess which one leans left?

[@abbacus8614]

@@kilobyte8321 Both of them since the smartphone was invented and ruined the entire internet with thin skinned people.

[@pjninja9546]

"Community Moderation" is a bad thing because it leads to echo chambers where viewpoints are entrenched and criticism silenced.

[@BlackCeII]

Funny. That's the same argument against democracy.

[@zieteniere7500]

@@BlackCeII How?

[@BlackCeII]

@@zieteniere7500 Community moderation is also known as democracy. Democracy is also known as the tyranny of the majority. Where the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. As it should be.

[@danteasdfgh]

@@BlackCeII so you need to be told what to do?

[@BlackCeII]

@@danteasdfgh nope. I'm not religious, nor conservative. So I don't need a fascist dictator to spin me lies and feed me koolaid.

[@TheJazzy7]

It’s hard to take Reddit seriously about misinformation when they themselves are eager to promote it.

[@francescovultaggio2540]

What are you referring to?

[@TheJazzy7]

@@francescovultaggio2540 Reddit staff have already admitted to editing other people's posts to make them look bad. If you trust Reddit as a company on disinformation, you're a lost cause. Furthermore, they're still upholding rules on outdated science regarding Covid-19 and vaccinations.

[@DrakeDaraitis]

@@francescovultaggio2540 there’s been shady stuff with admins and stuff, along with allowing some pretty controversial communities allowed.

[@serkman9558]

@@francescovultaggio2540 i think it has come so far to ask what is not affected. investors, gov-pressure, politics etc all have their salt in the soup. the algorithm changed a lot over the years and depending on the day its no different to facebook, we could even say it replaced facebook or is the facebook for PC-Users and even lots of mobile users.

[@relly793]

exactly

[@cgunugc]

Destin, I love the topic so far, but I have some questions. The graph of conversational impacts you showed didn't have labeled axes, and there wasn't an explanation of how the numbers were determined. By checking the stratcomcoe source, I found that they used "causal impact modeling", but they didn't define how they measured what they had been modeling, how many samples they took, or almost literally any part of the process. Put simply, how do we know if their data is reliable, or what it actually means - is a 0.6 change "5 viewpoints to 2" or "10 viewpoints to 1" or something in between? What does a 0.3 increase in toxicity mean - is that based on word choice or tone or another factor? The paper gives an example that the "impacts last for more than 100 comments", but if that's in a hot /worldnews post that's about 5 minutes of impact, while if that's in a smaller sub that could take hours and dominate the course of the conversation and community culture - the context is lacking, and I'd like to know more about the impact. As a moderator for some small subreddits, I try to take care and minimize harm, balancing the impacts of possible bad actors against the conversation in the community and the impact of unjustly banning someone, but this doesn't give me enough information to make informed decisions. Thanks for the time if you happen to read this.

[@HorkSupreme]

"but they didn't define how they measured what they had been modeling, how many samples they took, or almost literally any part of the process." HOW AM I NOT SURPRISED!?

[@cgunugc]

@@HorkSupreme Well, in fairness, they described "over 16,000 comments measured", but didn't indicate if that was from four posts or four hundred. I'm sure they wanted to only publish the conclusions so as to not get bogged down explaining, as it was presented as a summary of findings, but I couldn't find in the piece or in a (non-exhaustive) search where they had published the rest of the process, and Destin's questions didn't satisfy me. At least, unlike Destin, they did label the vertical axis. I wouldn't recommend jumping to the conclusion that they're evil, or manipulating data, though. A lot of the processes of data analysis are very hard to convey, even when they comes to the exact right conclusions; following Hanlon's Razor is probably the best call here. I'd believe they're incompetent before I'd believe they're malicious. However, I can't base my future actions on data incompetently delivered.

[@andresv.8880]

@@cgunugc don't bother with them. They already decided that the entire video hurt their worldview, so it was fake news. They don't actually understand studying sources or experiments/studies.

[@cgunugc]

@@andresv.8880 I knew that from the moment I saw the allcaps, but... I'm giving a criticism of a core component on a video about disinformation campaigns on the internet, in a nearly anonymous internet comment. I need to make it clear that I'm not disinformation trolling, and also make it clear that the whole video isn't invalid because one source had issues. Some won't listen, but if I leave the only response to a really long comment being "AND THIS MEANS THIS VIDEO IS FAKE NEWS", that's a TL:DR that writes the narrative.

[@andresv.8880]

@@cgunugc good point, I didn't read that far into that comment. I trust destine, as far as religion, since he obviously has a bias (I'm not judging him, it's a hard thing to distance yourself from). I didn't look at his sources, because he is credible. We would go crazy trying to look at every source for all reports/news that we absorb all the time. I applaud your due diligence, you made good points.

[@chrism287]

Would have liked to see some sort of scale on the “cognitive complexity” “identity attack” and “toxicity” graphs. It’s hard to draw a meaningful conclusion without a reference.

[@lazaraza]

the scale can be extrapolated from the 'control' thread and the variance of it relative to the amplitude of the change.

[@r0cketplumber]

I'm skeptical that the graphs started so very flat, then changed so dramatically. If those functions are measuring real phenomena, they should be noisy even in normal times.

[@Megaranator]

@@r0cketplumber I think the point was that the control thread was the baseline, therefore around zero by definition

[@VocalMabiMaple]

@@Megaranator as a person who had lurked reddit for over 6 years, it's a fairly simple observation to realize that there is no way baseline would be 0. Honest but controversial comments come up on all sorts of subreddits all the time. Just go to any sub and sort by controversial and put on your see the other viewpoint glasses on.

[@jonathanharmeyer2255]

Yeah I found it very sketchy that they left that out and as well as the fact that they never defined what is considered toxic, or how they graphed it

[@FubarMike]

Reddit is hands down the worst place to get news of any kind. Too many people are just karma farming and opinions that go against salty mods get removed and you get banned

[@chamikk90]

Reddit is doing an awesome job of [removed]

[@Niko-pd5yh]

[removed]

[@DexterTheDuck]

[removed]

[@aradhyasharma6483]

[deleted]

[@Synergy7Studios]

@@DexterTheDuck No, we don't abuse admin privileges! Edited 2:55 3/25/20 by Spez

[@DexterTheDuck]

@@Synergy7Studios [removed]

[@thedestroyer3262]

You mean like when a bunch of people on 4chan decided to prove how easy it is too manuipulate people by makeingthe "OK" hand symbol a white power symbol.

[@FerryTeunisse]

the problem with that is that people ACTUALLY started using it as a white power symbol, thus making the experiment even weirder by having it work to good. It turns out the people easiest to manipulate were the racists which is really not that surprising :P

[@bas2627]

@@FerryTeunisse I use your face as a racist symbol. Does that make you a racist?

[@wilson4180]

Didn’t they also start “free bleeding” too?

[@sektamet]

@@FerryTeunisse it turned out racists also got their info on other racists from mainstream news

[@farenhite4329]

The reason why it was so effective wasn’t because the symbol was originally wrong, but because it wasn’t. This causes people who have no idea how it is being used is informed that the symbol is racist, they get confused as why would such an innocent symbol be racist? This is what the alt-right banks on: getting people who don’t understand what the symbol is being used for(bigotry) getting confused on why it is so. Contrapoints did an amazing video on this.

[@cypherpunk93]

Just a reminder that even reddit mods could be a content manipulator, that have higher effects but without the consequences faced by normal user. u/GallowBoob for example he even moderates several huge subreddits. Not to mention the CEO of reddit himself (u/spez) once admitted that he literally edited the post that he didn't agree with. Which is irony on the reddit's CTO interview. If the account is high profile and got in bed enough with the reddit's admins I guess they'll get away scot-free.

[@Submersed24]

Reddit is cancer if they do that. That's why I became a conservative. Liberals have been forcing their opinions on people since the 70s

[@bitcoinweasel9274]

@@Submersed24 I consider myself on the mildly liberal side. I also try to challenge blanket statements. How do think liberals have been forcing their opinions on people, in a way that conservatives haven't also?

[@Submersed24]

@@bitcoinweasel9274 Both do it. However, liberals do it to a much greater effect. It's more so anyone who controls the MSM. The best way I can explain is to tell you to watch The Hoaxed movie. It gives a history of how propaganda is spread. For example, media will take something out of context, create anger until it incites someone crazy to kill someone and then pit both sides against eachother. That's how they make their money. Not to mention, the CIA puts themselves in media companies and selects which stories are able to pass and which aren't.

[@bitcoinweasel9274]

@@Submersed24 I think I'll pass on the movie, I wouldn't trust anything produced by a regular host on infowars, not that a conspiracy theorist can't be occasionally right. I will agree with you, that most media companies are trying to appeal to their viewers emotions first and foremost, and maybe the facts as an afterthought. If it bleeds it leads, is part of why media is so harmful right now. I'm not sure about the CIA, I do know that they have definitely meddled in media before, but I'm not sure they have that much power over what gets outs, especially given how many sources of media there are today. Still, sounds kind of like a bad reason reason to go conservative, the fact that they're just as bad, but they control less media (which I'm not sure I entirely agree with)? I guess I could try to understand balancing out the two sides, but that's a better argument for pushing for more centrism, in my opinion, and away from both extremes.

[@Submersed24]

@@bitcoinweasel9274 My point exactly. Media labels things as "not worthy of being read" and people listen like zombies. Somehow people from one news organization are completely evil and crazy, yet CNN is "reliable". Even though Donna Brazile shared questions with Hillary, or Harvey Weinstein raped multiple women, Jeffrey Epstein hung out with the Clintons. CNN, Washington Post, and NYT were all sued (and lost) for manipulating facts for sensationalism, which destroyed lives. But yeah, ok, you won't even consider listening to another point of view from a different perspective since that means listening to someone people label as "crazy". I dislike Alex Jones because he says ridiculous things, however, from time to time he makes good points. It's called a frame. If anything, listen to Jordan Peterson. The point is, listen to people as far left as TYT, to people far right, like Ben Shapiro. Both make good points from time to time. Look up Tim Pool as well, and follow him on twitter. He goes directly to protests and big events and gives a live perspective of the situation. Sorry for the lack of structure, in this comment because my phone is glitching like crazy, but the important point that the hoaxed movie goes over is that media should in fact state its bias instead of pretending to be non biased.

[@DeusHex]

"A place to freely exchange ideas and opinions" Yeah right

[@joecool9986]

Facts, some popular subs automatically ban you if you've posted in "no-no" subs.

[@BrooklynBalla]

Reddit is a joke.The fact that the subreddit “female dating strategy” is ok but countless other men’s related ones are quarantined shows how bias they are.

[@Michael-it6gb]

@@BrooklynBalla whats female dating strategy?

[@BrooklynBalla]

Mikhail Safonov Its a subreddit teaching women to manipulate men.Look it up yourself and see how toxic it is.

[@starrix4712]

Mikhail Safonov No it’s really about making sure future men aren’t abusers or neglectful etc. As a woman who actually reads it I’d know, not sure what idea everyone else has. Some posts can be focused on finance sure, but some aren’t, etc.

[@Pest789]

It's hilarious that the internet drama scientist is literally in a basement.

[@nesa1126]

Yea, lol. My thoughts.

[@shadowprince4482]

Lol the irony of a guy who studies trolls does an interview while underground.

[@farenhite4329]

Shadow Prince to understand the troll you must become the troll.

[@PnlBtr]

We've come full circle.

[@robertlarson6024]

It's sort of cool too. It shows that anyone can get involved. I wonder if with all the people working online now if this will become more normal.

[@konphlicted8933]

"if you don't watch the news you're uninformed, if you do watch the news you're misinformed" - Denzel Washington. Same can be said about a lot of the information on the internet sadly.

[@djkasperg]

Yeah, except this came from Mark Twain. “If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.”

[@gmarefan]

@@djkasperg the sentiment comes from Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson would add though that the newspaper isn't totally false, the ads are at least honest.

[@benjaminatwood]

Regardless of source, this is an interesting and awful paradox.

[@andresv.8880]

@Peter Rabitt you might have schizophrenia.

[@JonathanEBoyd]

Very True

[@Harry351ify]

So how do you measure things like "cognitive complexity" and "toxicity"? Those are quite subjective.

[@panoshanos1]

just like pain you make up ascale and define it then base it off of that.when someone checks your experiments one should also check your definitions

[@KitChanStory]

Imperfectly. It's usually keyword/phrase pattern search. In recent times, maybe some machine learning with human-proofing. It's usually quite easy to get to 90% with machine learning, which is good enough when the data size is huge.

[@qwertyqart]

grammar and semantic analysis to start with.

[@lanceward4665]

Toxicity is measured by aggressive wordings in exchanges

[@alexaatkinson]

@@lanceward4665 Toxicity is measured as eating seeds as a pastime activity

[@jabhutt1013]

"I love Reddit, one of my favorite vessel for freedom of speech" - V. Putin

[@aestheticallypleasingaesth8941]

Oof

[@thisisntsergio1352]

Wait really?

[@pappi3]

Let's make couple of thousand fake bots account and vote massively to push our fake news to the front page of reddit. lol - V. Put it in.

[@jabhutt1013]

@@pappi3 Actually our internetz could troll the trolls so hard that they would quit their jobs. Just let them stumble on someone like 4chan, the beings that will crawl out will scare Putin himself:D

[@CoyMcDoc]

There was a golden rule back in the days: don't feed the trolls

[@leo-hao]

Don't believe this guy he's a troll. You should always feed the trolls.

[@CoyMcDoc]

@@kirkhamandy Or trolls grew smarter ;)

[@z-beeblebrox]

That was back in the day. Now, trolls feed themselves

[@CoyMcDoc]

@@z-beeblebrox it's funny because it's true

[@andrasbiro3007]

And it usually worked. We should teach this in schools.

[@Metroyeti17]

My first thought was, "Wow, that John guy looks a lot like Destin....oh wait"

[@Darx97]

lmao yeah then i was like *oh*

[@Jannerius]

Same 🤣

[@aadityaphadnis8399]

I wasn't the only one 😅

[@MitchelBoot]

Hey Destin! I cannot thank you enough for making these video's. I know how much work goes into each one of them, how much research, writing, planning, filming, editing it takes to inform us, for free. To remind us of the bigger picture without getting lost in the details. On top of that, you're using the platform you have to spread awareness, kindness and evenly important: life lessons. Not just solutions, but a way to look at problems and letting us decide for ourselves how to deal with them. So thank you for all the hard work. You're the best.

[@Jallandhara]

"Somebody controls reddit?" Yeah, you know the guy that literally changed comments to fit a post's narrative?

[@cgiunta6542]

Wasn’t rewriting the past to make the current seem better a tactic done by Ingsoc?

[@moeburn]

What are you talking about?

[@Jallandhara]

@@moeburn research before asking something.

[@moeburn]

@@Jallandhara I did, the only time anyone on Reddit has ever changed comments was that time Spez got drunk and changed a bunch of comments to "spez is awesome". There certainly weren't any times it was done to "fit a post's narrative".

[@Jallandhara]

@@moeburn "Reddit CEO apologises for editing critical posts about himself" - Wired Magazine "TIFU by editing some comments and creating an unnecessary controversy." - Reddit "Reddit CEO Admits To Editing User Comments That Criticized Him" - Huffpost "Reddit’s CEO regrets trolling Trump supporters by secretly editing their posts" - The Washington Post "Reddit CEO Caught Secretly Editing User Comments, Chatlogs Leaked" - Gizmodo

[@johnwebber91]

I guess we all forgot about the time reddits creator admitted to manipulating and editing users posts without their knowledge.

[@handroids1981]

Spez!!

[@simonmacomber7466]

"Reddit doesn't want disinformation on the platform..." I'm not so sure about that.

[@davis4555]

Correct. They want theirs.

[@ryanpmcguire]

Only WE are allowed to manufacture consent

[@culwin]

@@davis4555 What is theirs?

[@ClumsyCars]

@@culwin have you not noticed half of the default subs are orange man bad breeding grounds?

[@culwin]

@@ClumsyCars Republicans are bad. What's your point?

[@johndoe4073]

17:17 - "It's hard to win a war without a map." - Jeremy Blackburn, iDrama Lab

[@Cuddletauren]

only hard for half the combatants

[@donfoster3543]

It would be great to see you do a story like this on today's major media companies and the disinformation they put out there. It seems like they aren't trying at all to keep their facts straight, but instead are just trying to plant discord.

[@jldude84]

KZbin wouldn't allow it. That's why Joe Rogan left KZbin because they were trying to control (by way of demonetization and other fuckery) what he said.

[@mattropolis7857]

The problem with major media companies is that there is NO incentive for fact checking - so it doesn't happen. Go look at the job openings for what they call reporters these days at your favorite new source. I'll wait. From CNN to Oregon Public Broadcasting - you'll see the top requirements are not investigative skill, fact checking, or reporting skills - it social media manipulation skills. Almost always Twitter. In the book "Trust Me I'm Lying" the author did this work for over a decade and said that today reporters NEVER fact check. He said in 10 years he was never once contacted to verify a source or statement he made. Not once. Reporters get hired/fired by the number of clicks they get - so guess what kind of news they report?

[@scarredFalconer]

The end of this video actually mirrors something that happened to me once. I answered a post about religion (I know) and I genuinely answered this persons questions. I didn't recognize them as a troll at the time, but they admitted they were being a troll and were surprised at my honesty and genuineness. So this part is true, the best way to handle a troll is to be genuine and kind to them. It is counter-intuitive but it works. I loved this series and it was very informative. Thank you

[@SignificantNumberOfBeavers]

This is awesome, thanks!

[@Odima16]

Yes! You detrolled a troll! That's such a wonderful thing to be able to do. High five :D

[@farenhite4329]

Those are probably the much less harmful breed of trolls. The type we are talking about troll as their _job._

[@freedomsglory1]

Or better yet, don’t feed the trolls.

[@MKgumba]

I think you just got lucky with the troll, normally when i see people are answering trolls normal then like all i see is other comments saying this "r/woooosh" bs...

[@DanielKarbach]

The Problem with "Internet Attacks from Country X" is that it's hard to find out whether the Actor is a government agency, or first or third party hiring Country X hackers or even simply relaying their traffic, maybe even to purposely make the attacks look like they're originating there.

[@mandarin1257]

As a Russian, it pisses me off when people believe these things. News is too political in my opinion.

[@thenathanielfrankford]

Ideologies have no borders.

[@dgris7944]

Hmmm, perhaps the hackers are using ExpressVPN to cover their tracks? How deliciously ironic.

[@zyxzevn]

It is very easy to use VPN and claim that a certain country is trolling. Probably VPNs are very cheap in Russia.

[@churblefurbles]

Its even worse when they try to ascribe certain behavioral patterns as "troll farming" when its normal for most people to not post on social media frequently until there is something of interest going on. The motivation for the entire concern stems from 2016, and so it was always suspect. If misinformation were something to clamp down on, feminism would be banned, and that would be just the start.

[@simonstucki]

"with kindness and love" yess man! thanks for speaking up for that. sure if you are kind to everyone maybe you are more in danger to be exploited, but we'd all have a lot more friends as well. it's such a simple advice but it would go such a long way...

[@ZacCongo]

This video has been sitting in my WatchLater list for 11 months. Wow. I am so glad I kept it. Very informative and useful, and also hopeful as well. Equally relevant today. Probably more so. Shared to my Facebook and hoping some of my friends will too. Thank you for the work that you do. You make the world a little better, and a little smarter, every day. :-)

[@Amantducafe]

The two last experiences in reddit that made me quit were: 1. I made a post (Following the group rules) the mods didnt like it and they proceed to delete it and ban me from the sub-reddit, when i asked "why", they just laught at me like the power filled sociopaths they were by having such control over that subreddit. 2. I made a post (Following the group rules) and the members of that subreddit mass flagged it and the mod was forced to put it down, the members of the subreddit proceed to laught at me like the power filled sociopaths they were and then forced the modders to ban me from the subreddit. Such a lovely platform.

[@laundmo]

could you share what subreddits this happend on?

[@TheMetalButcher]

But why? Clearly you were posting something quite controversial to the status-quo of the subreddit. Care to share some details?

[@emelgiefro]

@@laundmo just post anything that goes against aperticupar subreddit ideology or agenda and see

[@Amantducafe]

Without giving out too much (Since you can easily doxx me here because i'm using my real name/youtube account) but you can go in an test it yourself. One subreddit is tittled as a sexual orientation (Where the members asked to kick me out) and the other is tittled as a group of firearm enthusiast (Where the mods kicked me out).

[@laundmo]

@@emelgiefro i have done that on multiple occasions, and i was fine. which is why im asking which subreddits do that

[@jack-mil9150]

"Think about where the content comes from, and what makes you want to share it." that's a really good quote, and I thought I will share with my social media trapped family

[@nosferatu5]

@@HELLO7657 I think we know media fried your brain already.

[@lazergurka-smerlin6561]

Angry comments are not really something I want to share, it feels quite awkward and weird to bring it up to friends. Makes you look like a paranoid weirdo

[@jenniferlawrence1372]

This was an interesting contrast to the other three. Seems like spreading the responsibility results in a better user experience.

[@KeiranBro]

Thank you so much for making this video and getting this information out there, Destin! Much appreciated. Very well done.

[@avgFloridian]

Destin: When Reddit employees get involved... that's a RARE thing? Chris: Yes, it's a VERY RARE thing. Steve Huffman: *nods, signals to henchmen to release Chris's and Destin's families*

[@Gillsing]

I heard "relatively rare", not "very rare". You riling-up troll, you.

[@loxi9]

Considering how many subreddits just have disgusting mods who abuse their power and how little intervention ever happens, I'd believe what he says.

[@avgFloridian]

@@Gillsing Paraphrasing, really. Who's the troll now?

[@avgFloridian]

@@loxi9 Are you familiar with the Steve Huffman saga? Look into it. Pretty comical.

[@Ir0nFrog]

Its ironic when people deploy conspiracy theories in the comments of a video who's objective is to combat misinformation .

[@EricKammerzelt]

Is Reddit a platform or a publisher? It is common knowledge that reddit is not an unbiased source of information. IMO they cannot be both.

[@Fr00stee]

platform why would it be a publisher

[@mikewestman78]

@@Fr00stee Because they curate what is allowed.

[@staalman1226]

@@mikewestman78 Don't all platforms do that in some form or another though?

[@Fr00stee]

@@mikewestman78 youtube also does that, Its also a platform.

[@thany3]

As long as humans are the "input" for a platform, it will not be unbiased. Humans are always biased in some form or another. We can't turn off our emotions and experiences.

[@aarondios8474]

Hey Dustin. I love your page. I am a high school teacher In Dallas Texas. I teach Algebra, Geometry, Physics, and Biology. I have shown my class numerous videos in regard to the subjects that we are learning about and the kids absolutely love them. In this video, I noticed you went to the Wheeler Observatory, which I have been to many times. I lived in Decatur, AL for 12 years in Point Mallard. I then went to Auburn where I met my wife who is from Dallas and ended up moving here 11 years ago. I really enjoy seeing the familiar places and the Good Ol' Boys that help you on the side of the road........ The pulley video. Keep up the great work Dustin.

[@jwc7215]

The problem with most of these social media sites is that as much as they fight misinformation, they engage in it just as often.

[@DanksterPaws]

Video: Russian spies manipulating you from a different country Sponsor: VPN can help you pretend to be from another country. Brilliant!

[@alexzubkov9551]

Правда есть бесплатные приложение для впн

[@killedbyLife]

Destin pretending to be our friend. -> Pretending to be your friend is exactly what someone with malicious intentions would do!

[@oxanamorozova8840]

@@vichar4923 I am Russian, so I must be troll. Cannot dissapoint Amerikan komards

[@john_hunter_]

hmmm, what if it's the US itself using a VPN to be Russian trolls so they can get western companies to censor all Russian media. You know, since the US and Russia are in a proxy war over oil in the middle east.

[@alexzubkov9551]

Shell Posix exactly

[@odismal]

0:44 "a place to freely exchange idea's with other people anonymously" LOL no

[@trey1531]

*freely exchange liberal ideas lol

[@BronzeOrwin]

go to r/watchredditdie to see the real extent

[@Vid_Master]

The company Tencent "invested" $150m to Reddit. the main /r/coronavirus subreddit is basically /r/politics 2.0. All conservative / moderate opinions are removed from the platform via downvoting and biased agenda driven mods. I have used Reddit for 6 years, it was a lot of fun in the first few years, but ever since the 2015 - 2016 election, it has become a propaganda / corporate sold out husk of it's former self.

[@joeyknight8272]

@@Vid_Master nah

[@photonicpizza1466]

@@Vid_Master "Removed from the platform by downvoting and mods" is the point of Reddit. Self-moderating communities. That's not censorship, it's what the site has always been based on. If you don't like how a subreddit acts and what the general beliefs of the mods and members are, find a different subreddit. That's how it's been for the last 7 years that I've been on the site, it's nothing new.

[@loriefernandez5097]

Thank you so much discussing, clarifying, and informing me on this topic. You're doing a great job! And, I thoroughly enjoyed all the videos in this mini series. Thank you!

[@memeluke]

This was a super important and eye opening series of videos for me. Thank you for making them. Gave me plenty to think about and look more into.

[@xileets]

So, basically, be a real genuine person, and deal with everybody, even trolls in that way.

[@garyha2650]

Yeah well, eah, so close, and a good thought. Although Destin is mainly saying to be kind I think. Some folks' genuine mode isn't kind so they would have to put forth extra effort. For many people, the instinct is to be angry and cruel unfortunately.

[@JakeRidesBikez]

also good to recognize that sometimes trolls are just there to waste your time, so the best option is just to not engage at all

[@shreksthongg]

Before watching the video, my solution to the problem of disinformation on reddit is: Don't get your information from reddit.

[@alt8791]

that is the perfect solution

[@thehikeoligist8887]

Thank you for covering this subject matter. I would like more media outlets pick up on your lead and educate people. Knowledge is power. 🤙🏼

[@OverlordMaggie]

Hey Destin, thanks for the good work on this series. I've been active postong in a video that has drawn many a person unwilling to have a healthy discussion, and the take I am making is "Let's talk about this disagreement. Why? What works better? Let's work together on this." Too early to say if it's actually made a difference yet, but with at least one person we are actually discussing. Everyone online, be careful to think about what you see - not just whether to trust it, but how best to address it.

[@dogol284]

Lol clickbait is an “extreme example” bruh I’ve seen straight up dead bodies on the front page.

[@Rexwizord]

That's illegal and therefore extremely unlikely buddy

[@danielgysi5729]

It's not illegal, just unethical. It happens sometimes. There's whole sites devoted to that sort of thing I recognize that I might have just gotten r/wooooosh ed. Whoops.

[@p-raven]

RayBarK r/meatcrayon go look at the top posts

[@Koooo4]

@@danielgysi5729 It definitely could be illegal, depending on the picture.

[@Koooo4]

@@snarkylive If the picture is taken in another country it would still be illegal.

[@JimMutter]

"a place to freely exchange (only reddit approved) ideas" . . .

[@Handsy_McGee]

And these places happen to be run by people with political bias, and so frequented by people with said political bias.

[@pupdrummer]

"they do a lot to combat disinformation" like accept half their funding from China. I'm super 100% positively sure China would never manipulate the site they gave $150 million to. Noooooope.

[@fatherbootyhands]

@@torchatlas8128 Percentage owned has nothing to do with funding. Nice try genius.

[@pupdrummer]

@@torchatlas8128 they raised 300m, half of it was from China... Baseless.... Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

[@robotacular9601]

@@pupdrummer NEVER. Its them ALWAYS Russian trolls. I should know, this video featuring Reddit employees on on the Chinese payroll told me so, and the friendly host believes it too. Why would they lie? /s

[@BarrelCountryMn]

Great information. Most people don't realize that the photos that they share that were taken with phones/etc. often have the GPS coordinates embedded in the file at the time the photo was taken.

[@tibfulv]

Ah yes, I've seen this "everyone is a troll or bot" attitude. Good on you for working through it.

[@jeremyron8793]

The most interesting part about this is, you'll never know if this video is also part of some campaign.

[@danielgysi5729]

Any campaign that teaches love and compassion is a campaign that I'm okay with aiding.

[@Shefetoful]

@Daniel Gysi, love and compassion, expect when making accusations against other governments

[@BloodAsp]

This video is clearly soviet state sponsored reverse psychology, just look at the cosmonaut rocket in the background! -Your neighborly meta troll.

[@ActiveEC-dn5wr]

It is very important in this pandemic for YOU to follow professional advice and not depend on social media subreddits and chats

[@ArashiKageTaro]

mod EC5484 And definitely *not* from the president

[@funkyflames7430]

Arashi Kage ok russian troll.

[@andresv.8880]

@@funkyflames7430 the only people trying to be Russians were Republicans when Trump said he trusted them over US intelligence.

[@chickenfishhybrid44]

@@andresv.8880 and everyone else is just trying to be Chinese. They all simp for somebody

[@darthvader6533]

@@andresv.8880 at this point i would trust russia over the us, because at least Russia is honest about being tyrannical

[@nicolecr500]

Censorship.Censorship.Censorship.On every social site. Every admin is a censor! Period.

[@proberts34]

Thanks for making this series, Destin. Very entertaining and informative.

[@jong2359]

The best way to combat manipulation: unplug from social media.... or just media in general.

[@somnorila9913]

Like with terrorist attacks wanting to spread terror in order to achieve other goals that you don't really think about like falling domino pieces, media manipulators may have the goal to make you doubt and stay uninformed. Information is power nonetheless and ignorant people are easier to influence and control. So the best approach is not to give in and surrender but to find ways to filter information, to research stuff before making your mind or before you forward it to someone else and help spread it. Like communication face to face with someone you love or someone you find annoying, you need two filters, one for receiving information and one for emitting it.

[@ricomotions5416]

anton notna wat

[@jong2359]

@@ricomotions5416 agreed.... anton notna.... wat?

[@alt8791]

also a great way to combat coronavirus! wait.

[@jessetheunending9357]

The worst way to combat manipulation is to stick your head in the sand, and since you started this thread, I know you have no intention to do so. So instead of claiming "it's not my problem", why don't you show people your integrity and stand up for what you believe is right... even if I disagree with your position.

[@lionskull1]

I think that the term troll is a bit of a wide term since someone trying to rile people up, insulting people, rick rolling people, or anything in between is counted as a troll.

[@Amantducafe]

Or someone just speaking an undesired truth would be considered a troll.

[@senya6095]

Nimbuck I think there's an important distinction to be made here. Destin is really only speaking about the trolls that have the ability to legitimately harm people. Rick rolling people with disguised KZbin links technically is trolling, but it's not really relevant to the discussion at hand, because it's still regular Reddit users who do it, not an organized attack by a third party, and it doesn't cause the same kind of harm as spreading real misinformation does.

[@compactc9]

Yes, the general casting of aspersions and getting people upset in whatever way makes one a troll.

[@Hootkins.]

Actual trolling is the act of making a post for the sole purpose of watching people get unnecessarily angry, including posting things that the troll doesn't believe or agree with. Trolling serves no other purpose except to watch people get angry over something stupid. The problem is people have applied the name to pranking, political manipulation, someone who likes to argue, someone that pushes misinformation or a specific narrative, etc. Half the time I can't tell if people just genuinely don't understand the correct usage for the term or if they're intentionally misusing it to muddy the waters.

[@lionskull1]

@@senya6095 this is what I mean. I know that he is talking about the serious harmful type but the problem with referring to it trolling is that trolling ranges from the harmful type to the Rick rolling type. It's a bad name.

[@ineffable0ne]

"The real battle is with myself." [paraphrased] - Destin, 2020. - Sun Tsu, 5th century BC. Eternally wise words.

[@abhinavgirish1609]

-Michael Scott

[@dlberker]

"...kindness begins with me" :)

[@fouziasalahuddinahmed344]

Destin my man, I've been a long time subscriber of this channel and I trust all the information in this video. But I would highly suggest you watch Tom Scott's video on VPNs. it's very informative and really "exposes" what VPNs are from a programmers standpoint. I really hope this comment finds you.

[@seaofredkc]

Took me a min of scrolling down to finally find this comment to like/reply. You are correct, Tom Scott's video does a good job explaining this. For me this is shocking and I wonder why any big channel with so many options to choose from the endless pit of sponsor's would choose a VPN company? Logic says one thing in my head....$$$$$$$! And isn't it just ironic that SmarterEveryDay still does? Especially on a video of this nature? idk anymore.... it's a f'ed up world we live in /sigh

[@ferio8019]

@@seaofredkc NO. He not doing this just because of money. He already explain in another video, basically expressvpn completely operate on volatile memory(ram), so nobody can get any data from them

[@jasondashney]

You've got it backwards. Tom wasn't anti VPN. He was only stating that not all VPN's are equal, and many advertise that they do things they either don't, or claim to do things the internet already does, like his example of how most sites now have the lock on them. If he was anti VPN he wouldn't have initially taken their money. Plus, ExpressVPN is the highest rated VPN service. I'm not a tech nerd so I trust the experts and they all say Express is as good as it gets so I signed up. There's a lot of advantages, including getting American Netflix when I'm in Canada, or using Toronto as my location so my Oilers's games aren't blacked out since I'm geographically close to them for local blackout purposes. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater because for goddamn sure the security experts use VPN's themselves.

[@hempwick8203]

@@jasondashney lmfao "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" that is gold! I hope I remember this fantastic quote :)

[@Belioyt]

Link to Tom Scott's video please

[@LucidFL]

>Thinking Reddit is a place for free exchange of ideas Have you ever even visited the website?

[@GamerTheTurtle]

Why are you pompously green texting him as if he was some poor lost soul who's feeble wisdom led him to even believe such an outrageous idea. This is literally an engineering channel I'd be surprised if you know half the things he does.

[@lucasd1887]

@@GamerTheTurtle lol get triggered dude

[@GamerTheTurtle]

@@lucasd1887 you're literally a bernie bro I'm surprised you're taking his side lmao. r/politics and r/news is literally tankie propoganda at this point

[@LucidFL]

@@GamerTheTurtle So you defend Destin's idea of reddit's "free exchange of ideas" and then say r/politics and r/news is literally tankie propaganda. Whatever troll. And only seething redditors stalk someones online profile to find irrelevant information to attack the user with. Go screenshot this and share how you trolled me le epic style.

[@GamerTheTurtle]

@@LucidFL I don't care what you say about reddit, I could care less, it's just curious how his videos on more empirical subjects like fluid flow or Fourier analysis are less controversial. They have less snooty jackasses like you condescendingly trying to give their little opinion on the subject matter. Less people assuming their line of reasoning is not only comparable to his, but superior. If you're going to question his logic, atleast back it up, don't just resort to ">imagine being this ignorant about X". the fact that you think I'm "seething" says a lot about the emotions you're going through right now. Breath in breath out buddy it's gonna be okay lmao.

[@breakhart]

what I learn is that when information (or anything actually) and bussiness is cross path on each other, one will always begin to over weight the other, especially the business path. it come as many form, from click baiting to free booting and finally misinformation

[@alexandrem4679]

Thanks for the videos. Haven’t had time to see them all. Length is perfect for mid day meal.

[@olfmombach260]

7:35 Can we just appreciate how good the quality of this voice chat is

[@SmokingPuss]

TROLL

[@FoldAPieceOfWater]

Perhaps he recorded it on his side and saved it locally to senf it to Destin afterwards for the video? Or they just had good software and a really good connection

[@FoldAPieceOfWater]

Also "Senf" means "mustard" in German ;) However, I of course meant "send".

[@olfmombach260]

@@FoldAPieceOfWater Ne, du meintest definitiv Senf.

[@arfyness]

@@FoldAPieceOfWater I can hear the compression artifacts pretty clearly, it sounds to me like Destin recorded it on his end. It's about what I get on Webex or Teams when both parties have a low ping reliable connection (audio over internet, not phone). I also get noticeably higher quality in Google Hangouts calls, similar to his call with John later on (12:14). At that point the mic matters more.

[@johnnymoe54321]

It's interesting listening to reddit tiptoe the line of talking about how they censor content without outright saying it

[@Amantducafe]

Yes, that means they are very aware of what they are doing.

[@NinerFourWhiskey]

Goes to intent. (as they say in court).

[@williamthomasmi10]

I think censor might be the wrong word for it. Greifers are not voicing opinion, they're just there to degrade your platform.

[@Ludix147]

You can only censor people. Deplatforming trolls isn't censorship

[@HorkSupreme]

@@williamthomasmi10 And that's how the inevitable slide towards censorship starts. "This isn't free speech because it's bad!"

[@alexandroutsos5990]

Please have a continuation of this series it is very nice to see a new viewpoint

[@sgartner]

I suspect that a big part of the problem is that the people at Facebook, Twitter, etc. who think they are doing the right thing blocking/banning/cancelling "bad" content and actors don't realize that they are also part of the community that is being manipulated. They have been polarized, but like the others they don't realize it. But since they have such power in these communities they magnify that polarization massively. They aren't doing this out of spite or meanness, their Overton Window has simply been shifted so far their definition of "bad" is out of whack. We also see this in the real world with people trying to manipulate nature as if they aren't actually a part of nature. They can't foresee the unintended consequences because they don't understand that their model is missing a massive attractor.

[@Gillsing]

When you're on the internet, don't take the red pill, don't take the blue pill, take the chill pill.

[@juanok2775]

Gillsing take the pee pee pill

[@Mike-my7uf]

It doubles as a suppository!

[@garima6873]

Always Take. The. Red. Pill

[@greyarea6688]

@ye ye Simp

[@RKroese]

Just don't take the REE pill.

[@wintersummers3085]

The guy at reddit hq looks like such a redditor lol

[@gymkhanadog]

Yeah. That's the face of a Reddit troll right there trying to put on a good face so Dustin's video gets more views, they get more traffic funneled to them.

[@helicocktor]

@@gymkhanadog I don't... How do you even get to that conclusion about someone you've never even met? That's as damaging as being a troll.

[@gymkhanadog]

@@helicocktor You think anyone who works for Reddit cares about being called out anymore? Like he said, they've been doing this for a decade. I find it more surprising that Dustin would actually lower himself to such a ridiculous subject and waste all that time and money, and risk getting COVID-19, to boost Reddit's internet profile. It'd be like watching Trump give a starving child a dollar; people would wonder what world they woke up to that morning.

[@economicinfo823]

Jeremy Mettler stop spamming, Holy dude

[@Original-Phantom]

@@helicocktor the fact that they quarantine at all

[@SeanMissingham]

I feel like there are really strong parallels here to real life and community. All of these thoughts should be considered IRL. Choose your communities wisely, treat people with love and kindness, deescalate rhetoric and encourage exploration into nuance. Good general life advice IMO

[@TheR971]

6:16 Whilst a bit over the top, this is some of the most amazing ear decorations I've ever seen.

[@siyacer]

Yep

[@chadisbad6]

"a place to freely exchange ideas" not for a long time, unfortunately.

[@MichaelOfTroyWasHere]

The Council of Eight System no Reddit basically said, change your political views or bantz

[@MichaelOfTroyWasHere]

This lady calls the Donald “far right”. CREDIBILITY LOST

[@mayman4255]

@michael wittmann 4Chan is filled with irony,you can't even know if who you're talking to is serious or not

[@RCmaniac667]

Gotta ban and quarantine all communities i disagree with

[@MichaelOfTroyWasHere]

Mayman How does that differ from today’s mainstream media?

[@freedomsglory1]

Hard “X” to doubt on Reddit’s credibility.

[@harbingerofwarx995]

This video didn't cover false positives at all. That's the only reason I watched it, to see how they determine a legitimate bad actor from a real person that just acts similarly. You can't just say that someone with a Russian IP that both posts cute animals and likes to play devil's advocate on political subs with an inflammatory tone is automatically a Russian troll. So how do you actually determine someone paid to cause chaos vs someone that just has that tendency to begin with on political subs? I wish they actually went into detail with this.

[@Ryanowning]

Reddit quite literally deletes content unfavorable to a certain group that are the direct cause of very recent disaster we now find ourselves dealing with. I would name them, but YouTine is also in the gig. They are masters of propaganda. The fact that the UN now suddenly backs them should be all the info you need to know when you consider what they do to their own citizens. You are being manipulated.

[@freedomofspeech2867]

@@harbingerofwarx995 "Bad actor" is such a stupid buzzword that doesn't mean anything. You see it DOESN'T MATTER if someone is being genuine or not. The only thing that matter is if it's true or not. There should be no censorship AT ALL. Everyone is responsible for how they deal with information themselves. End of story.

[@harbingerofwarx995]

@@freedomofspeech2867 I also don't believe in censorship at all and don't agree with it, but if you're going to censor what you claim is "bad actors", I want to at least know how you determine true "bad actors" from false positives. Reddit didn't even say anything about how they determine the difference, just said that these "bad actors" exist with these behaviors. Which to me makes it even more obvious they are hiding something and are just censoring people that have certain controversial views that trigger reactions in others.

[@lazergurka-smerlin6561]

@@Ryanowning Are you talking about jews?

[@jacobharris5772]

Thanks for the cue to self-reflect at the end. While the cue isn't taking the place of the responsibility to self-reflect I think we can get bogged down and forget to look at how we're behaving and reacting. This was my favorite of the four part series!

[@singalongwithtom]

I like the bit at 21:30 where Renée DiResta is talking about seeing things that get you riled up and a car horn goes off somewhere outside.

[@alexlandherr]

One BIG positive note: The Folding@Home project has more participants/donors than they can provide assignments. They are like a lot of other distributed computing projects but for protein folding simulations. Go and search for Linus Tech Tips’ video on how to get your computer to help in researching the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19. Its easy, but don’t expect that there will always be assignments ready for you, it’s high demand for participation thus straining the servers. The cool thing is that unlike GIMPS (Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search) you can run Folding@Home on a graphics card like Nvidia or AMD.

[@rudresh10000]

Team GN, RIPLTT.

[@garlic-os]

ok cool but what does that have to do with the video

[@wytfish4855]

might want to add the PSA about getting the client from the official website. there's reports of fake folding at home clients that will snoop around your device for your data.

[@PiousSlayer]

@@wytfish4855 Yes, this is very important.

[@woutervanr]

@@wytfish4855 Seems kinda obvious

[@Dappdude]

12:02 The hand sanitizer moved. Good job and stay safe Destin.

[@danielquelapio5860]

How the heck did you notice that

[@space_bacon1953]

@@danielquelapio5860 ikr

[@Silent.Program]

I am honestly curious why people (primarily Americans) think the use of hand sanitizer would be advantageous inside your own home. In every EMS training I attended, we were taught to disinfect our hands before and after every contact with a patient to avoid contamination in both directions. At your own home, a hand sanitizer would do more harm than good, as far as I know, and if it is a similar product as in Europe. To be effective against viruses the disinfectant has to be very potent (most are not). Especially the potent sanitizers are very destructive not only against viruses and bacteria but also against the natural immune system. They dry up the skin and allow bacteria and viruses to get into the body or provide a better breeding ground. The extensive use of disinfectants (especially when done insufficiently or incorrectly) also fosters immunity to the product and makes it ineffective. I do not see the benefit in your own home or at your desk. Any bacteria or virus that got into your house and on your hands while at your desk is either form yourself or already spread all around you. If you are really keen on lowering the risk of infections, why not simply wash your hands after entering the home? This would provide a security barrier between the outside and all occupants of the house while preserving the skin health of your hands.

[@NiceEyeballs]

@@Silent.Program yeah, i totally agree to you, i dunno much about that skin science but why would I use a pistol (sanitizer) when I can use an assault rifle (Washing hands).

[@mlynn998]

SilentProgram totally agree with you about having no need for hand sanitizer in the home, especially when running water is readily available. The only thing is that most hand sanitizers are alcohol based. As long as its 60% or higher (most are about 70%), it’s very effective against most viruses and bacteria. Also, alcohol-based sanitizers don’t foster resistance! It completely destroys the cell membrane/wall of the pathogen rather than being an antibiotic, so there’s no chance of resistance forming

[@katshuma]

I'm glad that these things are starting to come into light.

[@JohnnyLeven]

If you were introduced to the "social" internet via 4chan like I was, you may have quickly realized that many threads were trolls, trolling trolls, trolling trolls (like Destin has mentioned is happening on Reddit sometimes). It's always been trolls all the way down; and the rule hasn't changed: Don't feed the trolls. Engage in genuine discussion or sit back and lurk and learn before you post. But to add to that... you can still respond to bad faith trolls. It's not feeding them if you respond indirectly and with valuable and useful information that expands the discussion. If you have the time, resources and knowledge, engage with them (still indirectly if the discussion devolves). Your genuine response can help others that might have similar thoughts as the troll, but with good intentions.

[@TiagoTiagoT]

There's a difference between trolls that just wanna get a rise out of you; and state sponsored attacks.

[@ICCDZ]

For example, the difference between people who are quick to take offense, bad at arguing and being paranoid about the intentions of those who don't think like them... and the trolls abusing the poe's law. The clue would be that trolls encourages the fight, being more or less tactical, and a real person with common sense has a certain bias with a time span in which he can learn, adapt and understand the point of view that he does not agree with.

[@maxk4324]

Hearing the CTO of Reddit say "Someone controls reddit?" was way funnier than expected.

[@jared7574]

It was so transparently fake, too.

[@FranklySean]

That was when I knew this would be a useless puff piece.

[@maxk4324]

@@FranklySean You must be new here

[@tomtravis858]

I remember when a reddit staff member was editing comments to troll.

[@JimPowellS]

"we count every vote but every vote doesn't count" -Reddit CTO the truth finds a way out, must have been a freudian slip

[@Lardum]

If they don't have a source. They don't have anything someone make it rhyme

[@s.lajoie9961]

If they dont give a link, it is fake news and stinks

[@jassskmaster7575]

No sauce? That ain't it, boss

[@isoSw1fty]

If the sauce dont exist, you must persist

[@arubanne4849]

If they don't have a source, all they say is horse (****)

[@ben_burnes]

If there's no source, there's no discourse.

[@MattMajcan]

ghislaine maxwell was one of the most influential content creators and moderators on reddit. I wish more people realized this. That should give some indication as to the shady kinds of things going on behind the scenes. social media isnt just fun and games, its literally a competition for global domination

[@lucasulich4149]

i really like the point at the end about not assuming that an account is fake

[@TomGreene]

How could the "police watch" go wrong in an echo chamber?

[@freedomsglory1]

Tom Greene exactly

[@jasondashney]

So what's the alternative? Besides, all the "police" means is that they'll take a peek. So long as they are only targeting purposeful trolls it's basically the best they can do.

[@freedomsglory1]

Jason Dashney what is a “purposeful troll”? The term troll has become synonymous with “person disagreeing with me”. A troll is merely someone batting you into a argument. And keeping that argument going by being overly hyperbolic or offensive. This means that people just disagreeing with you online can be easily mistaken for “trolls” if you don’t understand internet edict and internet culture. If you’re not overly sensitive and can recognize when someone’s batting you into a pointless argument you can realize that you need to disengage or simply put “dont feed the trolls”. What Dustin said is actually pretty stupid, trolls are focused on wasting your time and winding you up. “Being nice” is a easy way to still get sucked in and wasting time interacting with them. Stick to the mantra “don’t feed the trolls” because your more likely to get wound up and get drawn into a pointless argument that ends with you spending hours replying to someone that is getting off from you dumping hundreds of lines of texts into “well thought out responses” to their troll. Essentially it’s a personal responsibility thing and less a policing thing.

[@MarekKnapek]

Long story short: Back in the day when people learned how to speak, a second later, they learned how to lie to each other. You know... to have some kind of benefit for themselves.

[@NordboDK]

Adam ate the apple and learned to blame it on Eve

[@Orange-ug5kv]

@@NordboDK shots fired

[@Venoseth]

I really appreciated this video. Your vise from around the 21-minute mark was really helpful. I can definitely be the real person, assume the best, decreased tucks is to be, not accept identity attacks, and increase complexity

[@vinamraparashar7590]

RIP Aaron Swartz, his message and ideologies have been forgotten by the company now.

[@JPBennett]

"everyone controls Reddit" Except for the times that things end up on the front page that the Reddit admins don't like. The easiest way to squash an opinion is to call everyone that holds that opinion a "bot". Part of the problem is the misuse of terms, too. A "bot" is by definition not a human -- That is, an account that is controlled by a computer rather than an individual user: one person with 60k accounts. A "troll" has historically meant anyone that gets a kick out of working up other users. Is it accurate to refer to a troll as not a real user account? Nope. You can ban them for being annoying/toxic/whatever, but let's be precise about it. It seems like we need a term to describe exactly what you're discussing here. A paid spokesperson? A professional manipulator? A Shill?

[@dankwarmouse6248]

When you watch the end of the video you'll see he addresses this.

[@JPBennett]

@@dankwarmouse6248 Yeah, I'm getting there, and editing the comment as I go. It's a super complex issue.

[@boycefenn]

I would say that and individual with 60k accounts and is sponsored by an organization to push an agenda should certainly be considered a bit. Those accounts are not representative of the individual controlling them. Computer generated text (which is what I understand your definition of a Reddit bot to be) is very rudimentary and would not be all that helpful for a manipulation campaign. All I'm saying is that I think that calling these accounts bots is not inaccurate.

[@dertythegrower]

You actually said facts, i am a tech grad 1st gen aol 56k user... this comment needs to be pinned. slow brain people misusing the words bot and troll is a huge issue, huge! It is misused by people who dont agree and cant argue back, so they autocall people a troll or bot from trump russia.. even though i am center voter anti both sides...

[@panonf.9106]

LIB ERAL RET ARDS

[@tyleringram9126]

This is such an incredibly important topic in modern society. I really appreciate you taking the time to make a video series dedicated to seriously exploring these topics in an accessible way. You've definitely earned a like and subscription!

[@Ryan-mq2mi]

yep, so important, he never revisited it. Doesnt want to talk about disinformation via omission. Doesnt want to learn from the censorship and now cognitive dissonance about covid being a man made virus that was released from a lab in wuhan china, even though the Marxists and leftist's and their representatives, finally admit that. Falsely labeling things "disinformation" has been/is being used as a tool to silence dissent and win the political rhetoric narrative, because the discourse, assertions, and ideologies can't hold up to scrutiny. BIG TECH was used hand in hand with leftist governments, to censor discourse and factual information that ran awry of the fabricated narrative. There is no better time to re-visit this series, but it's not about reviewing or getting to the truth.

[@siriusblack9999]

re:graphs at ~14:00 i find it very hard to believe that any conversation is capable of remaining that constant in any of those factors, let alone all three at the same time, unless people are just spamming the same message over and over

[@salamona03]

You forgot to mention that the top 100 subreddits are all moderated by two guys

[@VikingTeddy]

He "forgot" so much. Or he's a very casual redditor.

[@BartonChittenden]

Destin, I love the 'toxic to trolls' message. In fact, as much as I love the act of getting smarter every day, it's your notes, here and there, about being kind and respectful to people that really speaks the most to me.

[@barnmaddo]

I think another thing that stops trolls is time. They are probably more effective when they can react to social media news and have opinions which can't be confirmed or denied.

[@aidanwansbrough7495]

Really enjoyed watching this series, thank you :-)

[@loganswepston8978]

Its funny how you said you can express your opinion on reddit