u/worstnerd

63.3k post karma · 15.0k comment karma · joined Sep 2015 · moderator

  1. 0points

    Warning users that upvote violent content (self.RedditSafety)

    3,685 comments

  2. 301points

    Findings of our investigation into claims of manipulation on Reddit (self.RedditSafety)

    663 comments

  3. 186points

    Addressing claims of manipulation on Reddit (self.RedditSafety)

    220 comments

  4. 120points

    Q4 Safety & Security Report (self.RedditSafety)

    70 comments

worstnerd

It will only be for content that is banned for violating our policy. Im intentionally not defining the threshold or timeline. 1. I don't want people attempting to game this somehow. 2. They may change.

worstnerd

Yeah, thats correct, it will be triggered by that exact set of removals

worstnerd

Yes, we know which version of content was reported and voted on and have all of that information (for those of you that think you're being sly by editing your comments...its not sly)

worstnerd

No, because this is targeting users that do this repeatedly in a window of time. Once is a fluke many times is a behavior. Its the behavior we want to address. Otherwise we risk unintentionally impacting voting, which is an important dynamic on the site.

worstnerd

Great callout, we will make sure to check for this before warnings are sent.

worstnerd

Yeah, this would be an unacceptable side effect, which is why we want to monitor this closely and ramp it up thoughtfully

worstnerd

- We focused our investigation first on the subreddits mentioned in recent public claims, however, we continue to investigate more broadly
- We also looked into content removal and found that the mods investigated were not disproportionately removing content from ideological opposites
- We do not have visibility into activity occurring on other platforms.
- We took a look at content related to Israel/Palestine issues in non-Palestine-related subreddits where these mods are present and did not find a significant influx of this content in the subreddits investigated
- We have not ignored this and stated that we are expanding our detection efforts and instituted new bans related submissions of this content 
- At this time we do  not see this behavior related to the moderators of the subreddits investigated as part of these claims. 
- We cannot address the exploitation of other platforms

worstnerd

As noted in the bit you quoted, we're evaluating the role of those bots while also looking into more sophisticated tooling we could offer. Part of that evaluation includes discussions we started last month with our Reddit Mod Council and Reddit Partner Communities. We're learning from mods across the site all the reasons they use them and how effective they seem to be for managing all types of traffic. We’ll share more as we evaluate ways to manage influxes and keep conversations civil.

worstnerd

Keep at it, you can be the worst one day!

worstnerd

We don't have those numbers at hand, though it's worth noting that certain types of violations are always reviewed regardless of whether the user has already been actioned or not. We also will review any reports from within a community when reported by a moderator of that community. We are working on building ways to ease reports from mods within your communities (such as our recent free form text box for mods). Our thinking around this topic is that actioning a user should ideally be corrective, with the goal of them engaging in a healthy way in the future. We are trying to better understand recidivism on the platform and how enforcement actions can affect those rates.

worstnerd

OK, Ill take that back to the team. Thanks

worstnerd

This is the way

We're thinking a lot about report abuse right now. I'll admit that we don't have great solutions yet, but talking to mods has really helped inform my thinking around the problem.

worstnerd

Should we just turn the automated notification off? I agree that it doesn't seem particularly helpful. We can't reply to each spam report (even just from mods) with custom messaging, so should the generic "we received your report blah blah blah" just go away?

worstnerd

Yes please! Spam detection is inherently a signal game. Mod removals tell us a little bit, a report tells us much more.

worstnerd

It sends a signal to us that a user may be spamming the site, which is no change from before.

worstnerd

Not everyone using chat GPT is a spammer, and we’re open to how creators might use these tools to positively express themselves. That said, spammers and manipulators are constantly looking for new approaches, including AI, and we will continue to evolve our techniques for catching them.

worstnerd

Its a movie stunt ad

worstnerd

you should consider upgrading to Hunt3r2

worstnerd

The problem is less about being able to detect them and more about not casting such a wide net that you ban lots of legit accounts. This is where reporting is really helpful, it helps to start to separate the wheat from the chaff as it were, at which point we can refine our detection to be able to recognize the difference.

worstnerd

Yeah, we're working on these bots. They are more and more annoying and in some cases the volume is quite high. In many cases we're catching this, but with the high volume, even the fraction that slip through can be noticeable. Also, if you haven't done so yet, I'd suggest taking a look at the new feature in automod for subreddit karma...that may be helpful.

worstnerd

Thank you! Looking forward to a great 2023!