Why not make the subreddit private, delete all the spam and tell users to come here to get invited to the private community?

submitted by ubervoid from self.Ivermectin

Its absolute shit that reddit mods are power tripping and being allowed to continue breaking site rules like brigrading without any consequence. I don't even follow the sub but I'm tired of all the censorship. You guys are better "closing the sub" and waiting till the mods think they have won.

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[–]Haitchpeasauce 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Hi there. I'll level with you.

The reality is the sub was the sights for banning all along. This is a wider systemic issue with reddit and the powermods, the way public conscience is shaped, how health authorities selectively act on data, and then how this feeds back into the moderation of social media.

Long way of saying we're screwed either way. Taking a heavy moderation approach (I work full time) or making the sub private would make life more pleasant for all in the short term (this has easily been one of my worst weeks in recent memory). But because the reaction went too far and made the topic mainstream, a minority of people out of the loop but with curious minds stepped forward and asked questions. We had an opportunity to speak reasonably to those who would hear us out, to make people aware that early medical treatment is being denied and public discussion is under attack.

NNN moderated heavily and got quarantined and banned anyway.

The way events unfolded has very publicly exposed that the powermods are untouchable in the ecosystem of reddit. Reddit is effectively recruiting volunteer thugs to target areas it is afraid of addressing, turning a blind eye to enforcing its own rules where convenient, allows mobs to rule social media. The way many people have reacted to this - with laughter and derision - is illustrative of the world we live in.

For everyone here from the sub, I am deeply sorry this happened and that you had to endure such dreadful behaviour. Please find it in your heart to forgive us. We chose to stand by free speech that let the ugliness through, perhaps it was not the right choice, but I saw good come of it. I struggle to find hope at this moment that dissenting voices will be allowed to speak in public places, and whether there will be any vindication for the sake of those who would benefit from good medicine, but tomorrow is another day.

[–]dogrescuersometimes 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Was that really you I was conversing with on reddit?

[–]stereomatch 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes it was him.

[–]Leafonthewind 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm sorry to hear it's been so difficult. I don't think there's much hope for broader discourse as Reddit takes the path of least resistance and the science and landscape surrounding vaccines continues to be weaponized for profit and nefarious ends.

Out of curiosity, why not take some simple steps to try and mitigate the ongoing brigade which don't involve shutting it off from the general public or making it private?

 

  1. DuplicateDestroyer can automatically eliminate reposts. Takes fifteen minutes to configure.

  2. ModeratelyHelpfulBot can rate limit posts. Set it very low so users can only post once per day. Takes fifteen minutes to configure.

  3. Set Crowd Control to lenient to limit the visibility of comments by new accounts (setting it higher wouldn’t really work since people are brigading positive comments). Only requires checking a box in the settings.

  4. Set automod to remove image posts. This would remove all the horse porn and image spam. This is the code:

    standard: image hosting sites
action: remove

  5. Set automod to put a hard limit on new accounts. This is the kind of code:

    type: any    
author:
account_age: '< X days'
comment_karma: "< X"
~name: ['username_to_whitelist', 'username_to_whitelist', 'username_to_whitelist']
action: filter
action_reason: 'New Account'
message: |
Hey /u/{{author}}, thank you for your participation. Your {{kind}} in /r/{{subreddit}} has been automatically filtered because your account is less than X days old. A moderator will manually review your {{kind}}.

You will be able to post and comment freely after being a reddit user for X days.

 

None of this is a magic bullet, but I do think these would help and not require more than an hour of implementation. I get if it feels like a sinking ship or pushing against the tide, but I could easily offer five other suggestions which are just as effective and easy to implement. One of the advantages to Reddit is there are actually a variety of mechanisms, tools, and bots moderators can leverage to try and manage discourse. I also don’t think there’s much to lose at this point, but correct me if I’m wrong.

[–]spelllingchamp 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah we should just drive everybody towards a non-Reddit platform like this one. Reddit is no good if we can't talk about ivermectin... e.g. what the latest science is saying, how to get it, questions about its safety/efficacy, etc.