Difference between revisions of "/r/AmITheAsshole"

Revision as of 13:41, 17 March 2020

/r/AmITheAsshole or AITA is a sub on Reddit where users post about an interpersonal conflict that they have experienced and other users give a ruling on the situation in the form of an acronym: YTA (you're the asshole); NTA (not the asshole); ESH (everyone sucks here); and NAH (no a-holes here). /r/AmITheAsshole is not an advice subreddit. Its primary purpose is for arbitration.

Background

/r/AmITheAsshole was first created in June 2013, and as of March 2020, has grown to have more than 1.8 million subscribers. A post’s ruling is determined by the most upvoted comment on the post 18 hours after the posting. Posters are expected to stay active on their posts and answer questions up until the 18 hour time deadline, which take the form of a commenter posting INFO (not enough info).

People post on AITA for a variety of reasons. Some posters submit their conflict after it has occurred and others post about ongoing conflicts (usually starting posts with WIBTA, which is short for “Would I be the asshole if…”). Sometimes, posters return multiple times to update readers with more details as they arise, either in the form of comments on an old post or making a separate post and linking to the old one. Conflicts discussed on the subreddit range from deeply emotional personal disputes to relatively lower stakes disagreements (think “AITA for telling my dad I hate my step siblings after they knocked over my dead mom’s urn?”^[1] versus “AITA for suggesting my 7yo name his new stuffed tiger "Tig Bitties"?”^[2]). An underlying commonality between posts is that most have some sort of arguable moral ambiguity.

The AITA subreddit has very specific rules about poster and commenter interaction. Posts should be upvoted if users believe that they belong or if “you think they make for interesting discussion,” but should not be downvoted if a user believes that the poster is an asshole. Commenters are required to give explanations alongside their rulings — simply giving a ruling without the reasoning is not allowed.

Trolls

AITA has had issues with trolls submitting posts. Troll posts can take the form of intentionally inflammatory remarks, posts with conflicts that sound overly manufactured, or simply posts that are intentionally broad and don’t contain interpersonal conflict.

In The Media

In May 2018, model Chrissy Teigen tweeted about AITA^[3]. There have been numerous articles chronicling the subreddit’s rise to popularity, including one from Wired about AITA as a guilty pleasure^[4] and one from Vice that surveyed AITA subscribers on their perceived morality^[5].

Ethical Issues

Anonymity

One of AITA’s key components is that both posters and commenters have a certain degree of anonymity. When passing judgment on a conflict, it’s assumed that commenters (outside of the original poster or OP) have no relation to or personal stake in the situation at hand. This structure is in line with what Kathleen Wallace describes in Online Anonymity, where “computer-mediated communications” may foster a false sense of anonymity^[6]. This can have real-life consequences if a person described in an interpersonal conflict finds the post or if someone from OP’s real life recognizes the situation described. There have been several occasions in the past where update posts from the OP reveal that the conflicting party found the post on Reddit, realized it was about them, and is no longer on speaking terms with the OP^[7].

Reddit and Moral Neutrality

AITA’s functionality centers around providing a judgment that is determined based on the highest voted comment on a post. However, if the interface is evaluated in accordance with philosopher Luciano Floridi’s embedded values approach, which suggests that software systems may promote certain moral values and norms^[8], the Reddit platform itself is not morally neutral. Across Reddit’s platform, upvoting and downvoting is used to convey agreement/disagreement, enjoyment, and draw attention away from troll posters and posts that do not contribute to communities. Individual subreddits often have specific rules for what upvoting and downvoting symbolizes, but not everyone actually reads the rules before participating. This can mean that top comments (where judgments are derived from) are in part upvoted because a small group voted based on personal preference or arbitrary reasons rather than agreement with the ruling and explanation.

AITA’s official subreddit rules (Top upvoted post as official ruling) foster the idea that there is only one right perspective to any given interpersonal conflict, which promotes a very one-dimensional set of morals. Often, conflicts discussed on the subreddit are incredibly nuanced, with layers of effects, stakes, and reasoning, which is obvious in the many conflicting comments and explanations on most posts.

See Also

A separate subreddit that may be of interest is r/ChangeMyView (CMV), which is a space for posters to “post an opinion you accept may be flawed, in an effort to understand other perspectives on the issue.“ Like AITA, CMV also has very specific sets of rules intended to foster discussion and learning, but unlike AITA, CMV’s main goal is for users to actively engage with one another.

References

1. ↑ u/Step_famAITA. “r/AmItheAsshole - AITA for Telling My Dad I Hate My Step Siblings after They Knocked over My Dead Mom's Urn?” Reddit, 2020, www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/f6xtoi/aita_for_telling_my_dad_i_hate_my_step_siblings/.
2. ↑ u/RememberU2U. “r/AmItheAsshole - AITA for Suggesting My 7yo Name His New Stuffed Tiger ‘Tig Bitties’?” Reddit, 2019, www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/cnml52/aita_for_suggesting_my_7yo_name_his_new_stuffed/.
3. ↑ Teigen, Christine. “I Have Been Reading the ‘I Am the Asshole?" (AITA) Section of Reddit for Truly...6 Hours Now.” Twitter, Twitter, 25 May 2019, twitter.com/chrissyteigen/status/1132430277534347264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1132430277534347264&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fchrissyteigen%2Fstatus%2F1132430277534347264.
4. ↑ Turk, Victoria. “Reddit's 'Am I the Asshole' Is Your New Favourite Guilty Pleasure.” WIRED, WIRED UK, 23 June 2019, www.wired.co.uk/article/reddit-aita-obsessions.
5. ↑ Tait, Amelia. “On Reddit's 'Am I the Asshole?' This Is Who Decides If You're the Asshole.” Vice, Vice Media, 11 Sept. 2019, www.vice.com/en_uk/article/3kxkd3/am-i-the-asshole-reddit.
6. ↑ Wallace, Kathleen A. “Online Anonymity.” The Handbook of Information and Computer Ethics, by Kenneth Einar. Himma and Herman T. Tavani, John Wiley & Sons, 2008.
7. ↑ u/GirlFriendRestaurant. “r/AmItheAsshole - AITA for Very Rarely/Almost Never Wanting to Go to Restaurants Because My Girlfriend Makes Food That's Just as Good, If Not Better, than Restaurant Food?” Reddit, 2019, www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/achoyx/aita_for_very_rarelyalmost_never_wanting_to_go_to/.
8. ↑ “Values in Technology and Disclosive Computer Ethics.” The Cambridge Handbook of Information and Computer Ethics, by Luciano Floridi, Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 42–43.