Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/10/03/will-this-leftist-alternative.html
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Paging Mr Betterige! Mr Betterige to the BBS!
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Wait, I thought Reddit was the leftist alternative?
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I’m sure a group of fringe ideologues who can’t stand to share a neutral platform will have a fine time creating a reasonable, stable, and non-toxic alternative space.
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And I thought my response was sarcastic.
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This is going to be good…
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Because building more social media echo chambers is exactly what we should be doing to make the world a better place.
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People generally seem to entertain contradictory notions about social media. I encounter lots of online criticism of facebook and twitter, for instance. Their policies and the social experience. Yet, whenever anybody devises a new service, the response is typically to mock it precisely for not being one of those giant corporate wank-fests.
If I had to wager a guess about why so many groups were cut loose from Reddit, I would guess as a result of shitposting by tankies. To what extent are those who run an area on Reddit held responsible for what the users say?
I can’t speak for fringe ideologues, but if their discussions got them kicked off Reddit, then it may not be as neutral a platform as it claims. This illustrates why internet communication based upon open protocols instead of proprietary rent-seeking/data-mining can be more stable. I think that’s true generally, but especially apparent if one trying to avoid the containment of ideas into a “marketplace”.
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Most of my internet time is split between BoingBoing and 4Chan…I figure they balance each other out pretty well.
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Jesus Christ, that has to be like the most schizophrenic surfing habits. I mean difference between the two is a full 180.
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Sounds balanced…
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The Reddit code was open source for ages. Might still be, I’m too lazy to check. Magic code pixie dust doesn’t change human nature.
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Splitters!
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The troll assault will be intense; I don’t envy their moderators.
Could be useful if they manage to stop it from being overrun, though.
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Shirky strikes again …
Agh I’m getting whiplash from all this eye rolling.
If Reddit / Twitter / Facebook are toxic with no editorial bias, then the problem is with how they work – if you copy the mechanics, you’re copying the toxicity. Nothing is fixed by making a reddit clone and calling it “Reddit, only everyone’s cool”.
As creepy as I find the Stack Exchange / Disqus approach (sorry), at least it’s based on thinking about why communities turn bad, and treating it as a design problem rather than an “us vs them” problem.
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Eh, schizophrenic in that BB is mostly fairly well civil and fairly reasoned discussion with moderation. And 4chan is full of shit lords and dumb fuckery.
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Well yeah, but in some ways it’s like BB now that we can post images:
And 4Chan has mods…I mean what they are cleaning up should be dumped into a Superfund site, but they exist.
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What part is creepy about Stack Exchange and Disqus? I’m just curious if I’ve missed something about these platforms because I turn to Stack Exchange quite regularly for answers but nothing has ever struck me as creepy about it. But maybe that’s because I’m just using it to find out how .NET timers work and not lifting rocks to see what lies underneath.
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Certain subreddits are echo chambers, and others are moderated to the point of forced monoculture, but the cross-pollinating nature of Reddit does have the effect of exposing alternate opinions.
To start one more site dedicated to an Xyzist point of view sounds about as compelling as giving a subreddit its own domain name and then moderating to the point of monoculture.
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