back to article Reddit: Gonna SCRUB these TROLLS right outa my hair

Vast forum site Reddit has added new policies that it hopes will help rein in harassment of its users by its other, not-so-nice, users. The meme-trading portal said it would crack down on online harassment of individuals with the goal of ending it, for the good of the site. "The number one reason Redditors do not recommend …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The entire membership of shitreadditsays would be first in line for the chopping block if this were applied in any fair and reasonable manner. Yet... somehow I suspect it will be overlooked.

    1. PleebSmash
      Alert

      meta

      Metahate is OK

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "targeting individuals will no longer be allowed on the site"

      Like it isn't trivial to wipe all Flash and browser cookies, refresh IP and sign up again...

      1. Chozo
        Big Brother

        <cough> You could use TOR with a proxy chain over your neighbours hacked WiFi and still be uniquely identified by a site. Persistent cookies & simple IP banning are kinda old school these days when it comes to the management of minor cyber miscreants. The techniques have moved on and become truly Machiavellian to the point some of the more unstable ones will believe admin is standing behind them and that all their friends are double agents.

      2. Tomato42
        Alien

        as Chozo said, this doesn't help for canvas fingerprinting

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "as Chozo said, this doesn't help for canvas fingerprinting"

          Canvas finger fingerprinting doesn't anything like uniquely identify users, and just upgrading graphics driver will change it.. There are other things like Ever Cookies, but a good cleaner deals with those too....All pretty trivially avoidable...

  2. PleebSmash
    Megaphone

    fuuuuuuuuu

    Just make a pseudonym, and grow some skin, backbones, finger muscles, etc.

  3. Crazy Operations Guy

    "users who want their nude photos scrubbed from the site"

    I presume that means that non-users are fair game, and so are all the "up-skirt", "creep-shot", and all the other non-nude pornography boards...

    Half that site is either strange porn or pure hate.

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: Crazy Operations Guy Re: "users who want their nude photos scrubbed from the site"

      "....Half that site is either strange porn or pure hate." Apparently that's "free speech" in action! Personally, I'm ROFLMAO at how they've suddenly realized how their highbrow, "kumbyah" attitude to free speech (even when defending paedos - http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/15/reddit-free-speech-gawker - and creeps - http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/8/6121363/reddit-is-a-failed-state) has been destroyed by the realities of the Web.

  4. MrDamage Silver badge

    FTFY

    "The number one reason Redditors do not recommend the site – even though they use it themselves – is because they want to avoid exposing friends to hate and offensive content, how sad and pathetic their lives actually are."

    1. Just Enough
      Facepalm

      Re: FTFY

      .. said commenter on online forum, apparently without irony.

      1. Tom Maddox Silver badge
        Trollface

        Re: FTFY

        You don't understand--their forum is pathetic and sad; my forum is cool and enlightened!

  5. tony2heads
    Trollface

    I am confused

    I thought that reddit is now almost completely full of trolls and that they would be trying to rid themselves of any remaining normal people.

    Then they could go off into a complete troll positive feedback loop

  6. Ryan Kendall
    Facepalm

    Ahaha, it's always been my impression that Reddit was FOR Trolls.

  7. Kubla Cant

    "We are unhappy with harassing behavior on Reddit; we have survey data that show our users are, too"

    They needed a survey to find that out?

  8. Alistair
    Coat

    Checking calendar...

    Nope, not April 1st.

    Reddit, the internet's version of Mos Eisley.

    These are not the trolls you are looking for.

  9. Tom 38

    ...no immediately noticeable impact on more than 99.99 per cent of our users

    So there are roughly 400 users they want to ban?

  10. John Sanders
    Devil

    All I can say to all the harrased people online

    Grow some skin.

    Grow up.

    Stop using something that you do not find enjoyable. IDIOT

    etc.

    I give the same advice to my children each time they come with some internet crap.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: All I can say to all the harrased people online

      What? You call you children idiots!

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Trolls are a minor issue

    Reddit has much, much bigger problems ranging from hate speech (racism) to animal abuse (bestiality) and goodness knows what else.

    I won't surprise me to find the Cameron's firewall plan blocks Reddit from UK shores.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Trolls are a minor issue

      "Reddit has much, much bigger problems ranging from hate speech "

      Free speech is a good thing. That we don't have it sucks. What we currently have is a mild version of North Korea, China, etc.

      If you have it and you don't like what it is used for, then you can speak your own views...

      If you don't have it, and you have a banned view, then you can't legally express it!

  12. viscount
    Windows

    I know I am going to lose this argument, but what is being described is _not_ "trolling". Being mean, offensive or beastly to people is not trolling. Trolling is winding other people up so that they explode with rage for little obvious reason.

    1. d3vy

      Yes

      I thought it was just me!

      The meaning of the word is being twisted it used to be someone who took the piss in the most annoying (note ANNOYING not offensive) way possible, it was a bit of an art form...

      A great example of the meaning of "trolling" being twisted in the news is this BBC report from last year : https://goo.gl/NAMtKe

      1. asdf

        Re: Yes

        Trolling obviously existed long before the internet as well. In fact the lord king of trolls (Andy Kaufman) died some years before the web was even created.

    2. Adrian 4

      I agree with you. Trolling is not simple abuse or harrassment. it's a specific type of practical joke.

      But you're confusing trolling with trolls. Although the people who perform trolling (as described above) are referred to as trolls, so may many other, more abusive people. So it's perfectly reasonable to describe the sad losers who harass via social media as trolls, even though they're incapable of anything more inventive than name-calling.

    3. Disko
      Trollface

      no no

      The word you are looking for is “truthing”. Ask Linus! The Reddits just don’t want anyone to know they are the IT crowd of Facebook running their own basement version of usenet.

  13. Trigonoceps occipitalis

    Trolls

    We need a big billy goat gruff.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So they want to turn it into a hugbox because of a few dickheads.

    This never works. I don't know why they think they're an exception.

    1. Adrian 4

      But, it doesn't matter. Once the dickheads have wrecked it, it's no longer of value. I'd love to have Usenet back : it beat all this bulletin-board-style forum crap into the ground.

      But it's not going to happen, is it ? Move on.

  15. deconstructionist

    this parrot is a dead parrot

    For me I have left reddit as have a lot of friends , add shadow bans because you happen to downvote something you dislike because of how linked to that thread is mental, it is like a trip to a some backward mid west puritanical backwater where anything consider negative ..like an opinion is frowned apon ...goodbye reddit.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: this parrot is a dead parrot

      >backward mid west puritanical backwater

      I think you mean west Texas whose baptists hate of the devil's drink (and thoughts like natural selection) for example make even the Mormons look rational. East Texas is just more into burning crosses.

  16. Cynic_999

    Well, they are certainly following Cameron's principles - "Free speech is a principle that I firmly uphold (unless I don't like what is being said, in which case I will have the person responsible thrown in jail)"

    1. ElReg!comments!Pierre
      Unhappy

      Re: Cameron

      You're a bit unfair there. He was considerably less slimy than that. He flat out declared "free speech is not someting we can tolerate anymore" which is quite ballsy. Even with the accompanying "because terrorists, duh" thrown in to placate the sheep. I think he attended the same training workshop as Kim Jong-un.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Free Speech?

    Let me know when we get it in the uk...

  18. Jim 59

    Systematic and/or continued actions to torment or demean someone in a way that would make a reasonable person (1) conclude that Reddit is not a safe platform to express their ideas or participate in the conversation, or (2) fear for their safety or the safety of those around them

    Sounds like a reasonable policy. But beware the repeated use of "safe" and "safety" - here used as in the loony lexicon of US campus madness - where "safe" means "safe from being exposed to new ideas, facts or anything outside my comfort zone". Urgh.

  19. Tim Worstal

    "Sounds like a reasonable policy. But beware the repeated use of "safe" and "safety" - here used as in the loony lexicon of US campus madness - where "safe" means "safe from being exposed to new ideas, facts or anything outside my comfort zone". Urgh."

    Yeah, don't forget this is being brought in by Ellen Pao. You know, the lady who sued the VC firm because they were sexist and didn't promote her. And then lost the case on all and every count? Pao that is, not the VCs?

    It's going to veer a lot closer to that university definition than it does to actual incitement to violence, that's fer sure.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Irony, anyone?

    See title.

  21. stringyfloppy

    Who the hell cares? It's a privately owned site that the owners let people use for free. They can control it however they want. This (and the more recent shuttering of certain sub-Reddits) is only "news" because Reddit wants to try to rein this in without losing users. Since they don't charge users, the only reason they don't want to lose users is that they exist to sell advertising, or are somehow hoping to sell Reddit.

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