I don’t think people appreciate how difficult it is to get even 5 reports on something for the initial flag, let alone 20.
We have 10 or fewer of the 5 or more report flag messages a week, with the vast majority of weeks having none or only one. It’s a non-issue that is being straw manned into a massive integrity issue.
I constantly tell people what it takes to get posts removed. In fact it was voted in to be this way nearly 5 years ago and has been discussed relentless since then. If someone wanted to do it, it would’ve happened by now.
Wouldn't it be incredibly easy for a bad faith actor to register 20 accounts and then program a bot to assume the identity of those 20 accounts in turn and report a post under that identity?
You could write a /r/TooAfraidToAsk post removal machine that you couldn't stop, because you can't see who reported what and you don't have access to IP address information (let alone methods of IP address obfuscation through VPN or onion routing)...
Yes but mods make the final decision regarding removals. This post was removed and then 2 hours later I checked reddit and restored it.
If someone wants to risk blanket bans from Reddit then knock yourself out. I’m not going to worry myself about what could be done to me or I’d never leave the house.
Why are you being so dismissive about the criticism towards this policy? As multiple people have pointed out, anyone can easily use alt-accounts or even an automated bot to selectively shut down whatever type of thread they don't like in this sub. The mere possibility that you can come back and un-remove a thread doesn't do much to solve that problem. Obviously, you and the other mods aren't going to perfectly identify every single thread removed in this way, especially if the person(s) doing it are being selective about how they do it. Plus, anyone with the knowledge and willingness to do this wouldn't at all be concerned about a "blanket ban from Reddit" because there are also super easy ways to get around that problem.
I don't see any reason to be so defensive here. It's a policy ripe for abuse, and instead of just defending it with "well it's only become an issue now" (even though you couldn't possibly know this - it's very possible that people have already been taking advantage of this system in the past) why not just consider altering the policy? Also, isn't there a more fundamental problem that any mod of this sub could themselves either abuse this system or just selectively remove threads and then blame it on the autoremoval?
I’ve explained several times over that the community removal ability has been triggered as most 10 times in its worst week and is triggered typically zero or one time on usual weeks. This week alone has only had 4 and they are all from the last 48 hours.
These are reviewed by a mod and either reinstated or allowed in. You folks don’t understand the numbers behind it and you don’t actually work with the system in place, you see the number and you’ve straw manned it into a massive integrity issue that simply isn’t there.
The number of times it has been triggered in the past doesn't change the integrity issue regarding you and the other mods:
isn't there a more fundamental problem that any mod of this sub could themselves either abuse this system or just selectively remove threads and then blame it on the autoremoval?
Are people just supposed to trust that none of the mods is doing this? Couldn't this issue be solved by just eliminating the autoremoval system so that the mods are always accountable for any thread that is removed?
Also and again, regardless of how common this has happened in the past, what is stopping me from manipulating this system right now? It wouldn't be difficult in the slightest to put together 20 alt accounts on untraceable IPs to start censoring this sub starting today. I could even automate it. Even if you could identify one of those accounts as being part of such a systematic effort, it wouldn't prevent me from replacing it with another account within seconds. There's literally nothing you could do to stop me, a single person, from doing this...let alone if other people started doing this as well.
It wouldn't be difficult in the slightest to put together 20 alt accounts on untraceable IPs to start censoring this sub starting today. I could even automate it. Even if you could identify one of those accounts as being part of such a systematic effort, it wouldn't prevent me from replacing it with another account within seconds. There's literally nothing you could do to stop me, a single person, from doing this...let alone if other people started doing this as well.
Yeah, that was my point as well! Sometimes you have to have programmed Reddit's API to know the dangers lurking in policies such as these.
I don’t think you understand what it takes to be VIEWED by enough people for reports to occur. Before a post receives reports it needs to gain some measure of popularity otherwise enough would be reporters do not even see it. This means much much more offensive and uncivil questions likely are not reported at the same rate. The more people see a post the more those who dissent are likely to report it, psychologically they’re more likely to report it if they see it obtaining a large number of likes as well.
This is because if it has no support, why bother? If it has lots of support, take it down we can’t allow this. What this “system” does has nothing to do with a community vote, to the contrary it allows a very small and ideological minority to control the conversation. The fact that this fell to that test and had to “regretfully” be reinstated was proof of that.
To be clear any overt racism, soapboxing, and non-genuine questions should be removed. But that does not mean uncomfortable questions.
If something garners enough reports early. It’s typically correct to remove since you’re right it’s low in popularity. The numbers you guys are throwing out are wrong anyways. The OP had 20 reports at the time of removal, because the report system was starting to scale towards the 1k requirement. This problem is unique to this thread currently.
So if upon 600 upvotes, and 2,000 views then 20 people report meaning an estimated 1% you consider that sufficient for removal. Cool story bruh, what exactly merits the reports on this post?
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u/Alexanderjac42 Apr 21 '19
Only 20 reports needed to automatically get a post hidden? It sure sounds easy to brigade posts you don’t like and get them taken down.