Difference between revisions of "Content moderation in Reddit"
From SI410
m |
|||
| Line 10: | Line 10: | ||
Unlike other social media websites, Reddit uses a highly decentralized model of moderation which, according to their official Transparency report, "is the most scalable solution we’ve seen to the challenges of moderating content online."[link] Moderators for subreddits have the freedom to enforce their subreddit rules as they see fit, but they must enforce Reddit's content policy. This model of moderations can be understood in 5 parts: | Unlike other social media websites, Reddit uses a highly decentralized model of moderation which, according to their official Transparency report, "is the most scalable solution we’ve seen to the challenges of moderating content online."[link] Moderators for subreddits have the freedom to enforce their subreddit rules as they see fit, but they must enforce Reddit's content policy. This model of moderations can be understood in 5 parts: | ||
| − | * '''Auto-Moderator''' is a bot built into Reddit for moderators to use to enforce rules that are tedious or repetitive for moderators themselves to do as well as some recurring community discussion posts. It has the ability to flag, detect, and/or remove rule-breaking or inappropriate content on a subreddit. Auto-moderator or other similar bots are often the first line of moderation and help to keep subreddits free of spam and most obvious rule-breaking content. About 2,767,257,085 pieces of content are removed from Reddit by bots.<ref> | + | * '''Auto-Moderator''' is a bot built into Reddit for moderators to use to enforce rules that are tedious or repetitive for moderators themselves to do as well as some recurring community discussion posts. It has the ability to flag, detect, and/or remove rule-breaking or inappropriate content on a subreddit. Auto-moderator or other similar bots are often the first line of moderation and help to keep subreddits free of spam and most obvious rule-breaking content. About 2,767,257,085 pieces of content are removed from Reddit by bots. <ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/AutoModerator/</ref> |
| − | * '''User Reports''' are the action of a user of Reddit who uses the report feature of Reddit to bring possible rule-breaking comments or content to the attention of moderators to review and take action if necessary. These reports are anonymous. If inappropriate content does get past auto-moderator, a lack of user reports may see inappropriate content remain visible on a subreddit for an unknown amount of time until a report is filed or a moderator sees it and removes it. <ref> | + | * '''User Reports''' are the action of a user of Reddit who uses the report feature of Reddit to bring possible rule-breaking comments or content to the attention of moderators to review and take action if necessary. These reports are anonymous. If inappropriate content does get past auto-moderator, a lack of user reports may see inappropriate content remain visible on a subreddit for an unknown amount of time until a report is filed or a moderator sees it and removes it. <ref>https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/5rghuh/how_anonymous_are_reports_what_dodont_mods_see/</ref> |
* '''Moderator Action''' is a moderator or moderation team taking moderation action to remove content considered rule-breaking for their subreddit and issue suspensions or bans if necessary. This process can be slow as reports are in a queue to be reviewed and moderators are online at all times to check the queue. This type of moderation is the vast majority of moderation action done on Reddit with 84,140,588 instances of content removal. In terms of Content | * '''Moderator Action''' is a moderator or moderation team taking moderation action to remove content considered rule-breaking for their subreddit and issue suspensions or bans if necessary. This process can be slow as reports are in a queue to be reviewed and moderators are online at all times to check the queue. This type of moderation is the vast majority of moderation action done on Reddit with 84,140,588 instances of content removal. In terms of Content | ||
| Line 24: | Line 24: | ||
Since its founding 2005, Reddit has had several notable instances of Content moderation, often reactionary to the current climate, events, or incidents. | Since its founding 2005, Reddit has had several notable instances of Content moderation, often reactionary to the current climate, events, or incidents. | ||
| − | May 2011: Posting any personal information is prohibited | + | May 2011: Posting any personal information is prohibited. <ref>https://www.reddit.com/wiki/faq#wiki_is_posting_personal_information_ok.3F</ref> |
| − | October 2011: r/jailbait is banned after a CNN report about whether it is or is not child porn. | + | October 2011: r/jailbait is banned after a CNN report about whether it is or is not child porn. <ref> https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Controversial_Reddit_communities#/Jailbait</ref> |
| − | April-May 2013: In the aftermath of the Boston Bombing, several Reddit users attempt to identify the bomber, which results in the death of Sunil Tripathi by suicide as a result of the witchhunt. Reddit later apologized and promised to use this instance to prevent this from occurring again and more sensitive to the rule on personal information. | + | April-May 2013: In the aftermath of the Boston Bombing, several Reddit users attempt to identify the bomber, which results in the death of Sunil Tripathi by suicide as a result of the witchhunt. Reddit later apologized and promised to use this instance to prevent this from occurring again and more sensitive to the rule on personal information. <ref>https://redditblog.com/2013/04/22/reflections-on-the-recent-boston-crisis/</ref> |
| − | October 2013: r/politics bans several websites to raise the quality of content on the subreddit. | + | October 2013: r/politics bans several websites to raise the quality of content on the subreddit. <ref> https://slate.com/technology/2013/11/reddit-politics-r-politics-mods-ban-mother-jones-others-for-bad-journalism.html </ref> |
| − | September 2014: Reddit affirms freedom of speech after their banning of r/thefappening, a subreddit featuring iCloud leaks of celebrity nudes. | + | September 2014: Reddit affirms freedom of speech after their banning of r/thefappening, a subreddit featuring iCloud leaks of celebrity nudes. <ref> https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Controversial_Reddit_communities#/TheFappening </ref> |
| − | June 2015: Reddit bans five subreddits under their harassment policy, including r/fatpeoplehate, r/hamplanethatred, r/neofag, r/transfags, and r/shitniggerssay. | + | June 2015: Reddit bans five subreddits under their harassment policy, including r/fatpeoplehate, r/hamplanethatred, r/neofag, r/transfags, and r/shitniggerssay. <ref> https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Controversial_Reddit_communities#/FatPeopleHate</ref> |
| − | November 2016: r/pizzaGate, a spin-off of r/The_Donald to discuss the Pizza Gate conspiracy is banned for doxxing. | + | November 2016: r/pizzaGate, a spin-off of r/The_Donald to discuss the Pizza Gate conspiracy is banned for doxxing. <ref>https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Controversial_Reddit_communities#/Pizzagate</ref> |
| − | June 2019: r/The_Donald is quarantined for promoting violence against police and other public officials. | + | June 2019: r/The_Donald is quarantined for promoting violence against police and other public officials. <ref>https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Controversial_Reddit_communities#/The_Donald</ref> |
| − | February 2020: Reddit administrators remove several mods from r/The_Donald for failures to uphold its Content policy. | + | February 2020: Reddit administrators remove several mods from r/The_Donald for failures to uphold its Content policy. <ref> https://www.reddit.com/r/AgainstHateSubreddits/comments/d5qd25/three_top_moderators_of_rthe_donald_have_been/<ref> |
==Ethical Issues== | ==Ethical Issues== | ||
| Line 74: | Line 74: | ||
With the decentralized model of subreddits, abusive moderators continue to remain in their positions despite complaints from users to the administrators or posted about the said moderator. Reddit rarely acts to remove troublesome moderators. | With the decentralized model of subreddits, abusive moderators continue to remain in their positions despite complaints from users to the administrators or posted about the said moderator. Reddit rarely acts to remove troublesome moderators. | ||
| − | + | ||
==See Also== | ==See Also== | ||
| Line 81: | Line 81: | ||
<references /> | <references /> | ||
| − | |||
[[Category:2020New]] | [[Category:2020New]] | ||
[[Category:2020Concept]] | [[Category:2020Concept]] | ||
Revision as of 19:37, 27 March 2020
Content moderation in Reddit is unique in the social media industry for its approach to content moderation. Reddit is governed using a model similar to democracy where users have responsibility for the content posted and deciding what is and isn't acceptable. The first layer of rules is the specific rules for an individual community known as a subreddit. They are run by volunteer moderators who write and enforce rules customized for each subreddit. Rules on subreddits are wholly enforced by the moderators without direction or commands from Reddit. The second layer of rules is Reddit's Content Policy rules[link] which are enforced both by subreddit moderators as well as Reddit administrators. These site-wide rules include bans on harassment, involuntary porn, promoting violence, sharing personal information or doxxing [link] and other behaviors deemed unacceptable for Reddit. Ethical issues include freedom of speech, bots, bias from algorithms, moderators, and administrators, effects on volunteer moderators, decentralized model of moderation, lack of moderation by moderators and administrators, and abuse by moderators and administrators.
Overview
Unlike other social media websites, Reddit uses a highly decentralized model of moderation which, according to their official Transparency report, "is the most scalable solution we’ve seen to the challenges of moderating content online."[link] Moderators for subreddits have the freedom to enforce their subreddit rules as they see fit, but they must enforce Reddit's content policy. This model of moderations can be understood in 5 parts:
- Auto-Moderator is a bot built into Reddit for moderators to use to enforce rules that are tedious or repetitive for moderators themselves to do as well as some recurring community discussion posts. It has the ability to flag, detect, and/or remove rule-breaking or inappropriate content on a subreddit. Auto-moderator or other similar bots are often the first line of moderation and help to keep subreddits free of spam and most obvious rule-breaking content. About 2,767,257,085 pieces of content are removed from Reddit by bots. [1]
- User Reports are the action of a user of Reddit who uses the report feature of Reddit to bring possible rule-breaking comments or content to the attention of moderators to review and take action if necessary. These reports are anonymous. If inappropriate content does get past auto-moderator, a lack of user reports may see inappropriate content remain visible on a subreddit for an unknown amount of time until a report is filed or a moderator sees it and removes it. [2]
- Moderator Action is a moderator or moderation team taking moderation action to remove content considered rule-breaking for their subreddit and issue suspensions or bans if necessary. This process can be slow as reports are in a queue to be reviewed and moderators are online at all times to check the queue. This type of moderation is the vast majority of moderation action done on Reddit with 84,140,588 instances of content removal. In terms of Content
- Administrator Action is the Reddit administrators taking moderation action over content considered to be in violation of the site-web content moderation policy or against subreddit moderators who have not been enforcing it. This type of moderation is the smaller portion of moderation actions with 222,309 instances of content removal. Reddit administrators also have the ability to quarantine a community to prevent its content from appearing anywhere but on the subreddit itself.
- No Moderation is lack of any moderation whatsoever. This occurs most often on abandoned subreddits where moderators are inactive or moderators fail to moderate their subreddit according to the site-wide Content Policy.
Notable Instances of Moderation in Reddit
Since its founding 2005, Reddit has had several notable instances of Content moderation, often reactionary to the current climate, events, or incidents.
May 2011: Posting any personal information is prohibited. [3]
October 2011: r/jailbait is banned after a CNN report about whether it is or is not child porn. [4]
April-May 2013: In the aftermath of the Boston Bombing, several Reddit users attempt to identify the bomber, which results in the death of Sunil Tripathi by suicide as a result of the witchhunt. Reddit later apologized and promised to use this instance to prevent this from occurring again and more sensitive to the rule on personal information. [5]
October 2013: r/politics bans several websites to raise the quality of content on the subreddit. [6]
September 2014: Reddit affirms freedom of speech after their banning of r/thefappening, a subreddit featuring iCloud leaks of celebrity nudes. [7]
June 2015: Reddit bans five subreddits under their harassment policy, including r/fatpeoplehate, r/hamplanethatred, r/neofag, r/transfags, and r/shitniggerssay. [8]
November 2016: r/pizzaGate, a spin-off of r/The_Donald to discuss the Pizza Gate conspiracy is banned for doxxing. [9]
June 2019: r/The_Donald is quarantined for promoting violence against police and other public officials. [10]
February 2020: Reddit administrators remove several mods from r/The_Donald for failures to uphold its Content policy. Cite error: Closing</ref> missing for <ref> tag- ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/AutoModerator/
- ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/5rghuh/how_anonymous_are_reports_what_dodont_mods_see/
- ↑ https://www.reddit.com/wiki/faq#wiki_is_posting_personal_information_ok.3F
- ↑ https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Controversial_Reddit_communities#/Jailbait
- ↑ https://redditblog.com/2013/04/22/reflections-on-the-recent-boston-crisis/
- ↑ https://slate.com/technology/2013/11/reddit-politics-r-politics-mods-ban-mother-jones-others-for-bad-journalism.html
- ↑ https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Controversial_Reddit_communities#/TheFappening
- ↑ https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Controversial_Reddit_communities#/FatPeopleHate
- ↑ https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Controversial_Reddit_communities#/Pizzagate
- ↑ https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Controversial_Reddit_communities#/The_Donald
