5 years ago, Reddit worked just fine as a website & forum.
Today, it is a buggy mess that spits out errors every time you try to do something.
Maybe that isn’t the case on Mobile – but I use the Browser Mode on PC.
Something as simple as trying to upvote a comment takes multiple page refreshes just to get that upvote to “stick” – otherwise it just gives you some annoying error code. Trying to make a post or a comment is a gamble of “will it or won’t it EAT my post or comment.” So I have made a habit of making sure to copy paste whatever I am writing into an open TXT file just on the off chance that Reddit simply eats whatever I was trying to write.
Even aside from the incredibly buggy broken nature of this website – this place loves Censorship almost as much as Twitter and Facebook do. Blue Sky falls shortly behind, but I am sure they will catch up eventually…
Simply writing a post or a comment on this website is an exercise in Self Censorship and walking between egg shells and trying to dodge rain drops.
Individual Mods of subreddits aren’t too bad, usually. But the Auto Mod bot A.I. thing gets offended at the most trivial things. This is what happens when you let an Artificial Intelligence do all the Mod Work on a big website. Everything is completely topsy-turvy around here….. (I am talking about Reddit).
People who SHOULD get banned for things such as targeted harassment – Get Away Scott Free.
People who DID NOTHING WRONG get punished for the most arbitrary and nonsensical reasons.
If you don’t go over your own posts and comments with a fine tooth comb, you run the risk of being a target – either for incredibly angry Users – or the Auto Mod Bot.
You better make DAMN SURE that you craft your words in the most Censored way possible. Bleep your Bloops, change your phrasing, and never write anything on here that COULD be misinterpreted.
And someone absolutely WILL misunderstand you. That is a guarantee.
.
Also let’s talk about a little phenomenon called “Targeted Flagging / Mass Reporting.”
EXAMPLE: A person writes something that technically isn’t even offensive or mean or rude, but someone doesn’t like the message, someone disagrees with what that person is saying – so what do they do? They Mass Flag that person until there are so many “Report Tickets” that the Auto Mod Bot just zaps them into oblivion, regardless of whether or not they actually did anything that broke ToS.
Personally, I happen to think that is a very FLAWED system.
Individual Users should be measured and treated by whether or not what they did or said or wrote was actually breaking ToS – not because you disagree with them and their positions on a particular subject.
I can say “Cartoon Drawings Are Not Real” and SOMEONE on this here website (Reddit) will disagree with that concept and the next thing you know, I got a million angry messages in my inbox or my DM’s and I’ve got tons of downvotes and the Auto Mod wants to zap me with a Cattle Prod.
Not because what I said is wrong or because it broke Reddit ToS – but because someone DISAGREED with it.
Reddit also really doesn’t like it when you CRITICIZE Reddit.
Just like how Twitter really doesn’t like it when you criticize Twitter.
That is not what I would call “Free Speech” – I call that intense limitation of discussion.
LiveJournal and Myspace were more free than that. And those are ancient.
…
Now… after all this you’re likely going to say – “Okay, well why even use Reddit then?”
Because despite its total bugginess and all the drama and in-fighting among the groups, I do like some of the COMMUNITIES on here. Reddit kinda sorta lets you find “your people” – and it let’s you discuss the things you like AS A COHESIVE COMMUNITY, sorta like what Livejournal and Myspace would let you do. The only problem with that is – you get a lot of cross over (cross contamination?) between different factions.
You get Normies fighting the Furries.
You get so and so group targeting such and such group.
You get “Hate Subs” sprouting up and they decide they’re going to go “Raid” x-y-z group because they wanna cause trouble and make a loud ruckus.
That is not a community, that’s CHAOS.
If you want CHAOS, I would suggest maybe going back to 4chan.
Reddit used to be ORDERLY and it USED TO work as a website.
I miss individual forums with a specific purpose and a specific audience.
But that time is long gone. The internet will never be like that again.
“Social Media” is now the dominant way people interact online.
