Is blatant racism acceptable on mainstream subreddits on reddit?

[Taki]

Like, look at this comment on /r/gifs. The mods don't do anything. The image is old; the comment now has 1846 points/upvotes fifteen hours later and it's just sitting there.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/82xdcn/clean_sweep/dvdgwf9/

 

[super-famicom]

Racism, blatant or not, should not be accepted anywhere.

 

[EvoTech]

That's a rather tame example.

Downvote and move on, block the user if you fear seeing their posts again.

 

[rude]

Yes. And that example doesn't come close to the worst stuff I've seen on the site. There are even subreddits with videos of people being murdered

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Depends on the sub, but yeah there's a pretty uncomfortable acceptance of casual racism sometimes.

 

[Heath V]

Yes. And that example doesn't come close to the worst stuff I've seen on the site. There are even subreddits with videos of people being murdered

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That's horrible, unfortunately certain things cannot be unseen.

 

[LegendarySkitch]

Reddit is a mix of good and the worst people ever. It's a shame that people get away with it but I doubt it'll ever happen. I mean this is a site that has its own in jokes about having sex with your mom because of a broken arm or having "sex" with a coconut. The site is basically a group of insane people...

Yet I still go there every day so take that as you will...

 

[The Real Abed]

That's a rather tame example.

Downvote and move on, block the user if you fear seeing their posts again.

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Can you block users on Reddit? Because you can't on the mobile app and I hate it.

 

[SABO.]

I don't think its acceptable and I doubt the majority think its acceptable but its the internet, there's so much of it going on that its hard to moderate.

I feel like Reddit falls under the YouTube category in that its almost impossible to fix the problem unless you introduce censorship.

 

[Heath V]

That's a rather tame example.

Downvote and move on, block the user if you fear seeing their posts again.

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What does downvoting do? I still do not understand Reddit and how the site works.

 

[Plywood]

I don't know, but that dude's clearly a water bender.

 

[Surface of Me]

Reddit always did love to copy whatever 4chan was doing.

 

[EvoTech]

Can you block users on Reddit? Because you can't on the mobile app and I hate it.

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Actually I'm not even sure, I believe there is an ignore list though.

I've only ever made certain threads hidden so I don't have to see them.

 

[Username1198]

What does downvoting do? I still do not understand Reddit and how the site works.

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I believe it knocks the comment to the bottom of the thread, and puts upvoted comments to the top.

So if you sort by best, the highest comment will have the most upvotes, controversial will sort the downvotes comments to the top, and new is just the newest comments

 

[nsilvias]

usually no, most of reddit isn't like this.
some subreddits just have shitty mods, that and the mainstream subreddits move too fast to pick everything up unfortunately.

 

[Heath V]

I believe it knocks the comment to the bottom of the thread, and puts upvoted comments to the top.

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Cool, thanks. Their layout is very puzzling, I much prefer traditional forums like this.

 

[Username1198]

Cool, thanks. Their layout is very puzzling, I much prefer traditional forums like this.

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The way I look at it, the funniest comment is right at the top lol but I do prefer traditional forums as well.

On topic, yea, I see some pretty racist shit on reddit and the donald, it's crazy what they get away with.

 

[Just_a_Mouse]

Blatant racism is everywhere on reddit. Just sort the comments on anything that hits r/all by controversial.

 

[FantaSoda]

Yes. And that example doesn't come close to the worst stuff I've seen on the site. There are even subreddits with videos of people being murdered

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Reddit is for better or worse, the whole Internet in a concentrated form. The internet has lots of good things, and tons of bad shit. Reddit would be better off if it was more tightly moderated. I hate how little moderation there is and how inconsistent it is when it is there. With all of that said, I do love certain communities with all of my heart, like Squaredcircle and NintendoSwitch.

ERA's users are sometimes way too high-strung in Off-Topic but it does have great moderation and fucking peerless discussion of video games. Reddit is more relaxed, but people take the laissez faire attitude of Reddit and try to make it 4chan-lite. The internet was a lot better before the people with blatant racist and shitty attitudes felt comfortable and emboldened spouting out their shit as loud as they can.

 

[ryseing]

Casual racism like the example in the OP is fairly prevalent in the larger subs. If you want hardcore racism you have to go to The_Dumbass/KiA/Conspiracy.

What does downvoting do? I still do not understand Reddit and how the site works.

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Reddit revolves around karma. Enough downvotes will hide a comment.

 

[Igniz12]

This alt right/neo nazi resurgence has made ppl forget just how casually racist the Internet used to be. This shit was everywhere before economic anxiety and it will still be there after it.

 

[Kitsunelaine]

The answer is yes.

 

[Cybersai]

Avoid reddit like the plague. It's not worth it.

 

[Deleted member 5545]

reddit has an intense bro-libertarian culture of being super hands-off until it infringes on your ability to talk about video games or whatever

mods of subreddits (who are not employed by reddit itself, unlike the site-wide admins) in my experience are way more concerned with what they consider spam-ish or irrelevant content than enforcing any sort of don't-be-a-bigot policy. i see racism on the league of legends subreddit on a daily basis and nothing ever gets done about it, but recently there was some bullshit about the mods not wanting net neutrality being discussed because most of them deemed it not sufficiently relevant to the subject of a fucking esport

*ahem*

perhaps it just comes with the territory, being a website overwhelmingly consisting of north american white males ages 15-30 with nerdy interests. granted ERA kinda fits that description too, but the difference is the management here gives a shit about rooting out casual racism and whatnot.

 

[Wulfric]

That's a fairly tame example for Reddit, but the default subs are not exactly...good conversation. That's not even close to the worst thing you'll see. The early funniest/clever comments will almost always rise to the top instead of insightful, long form posts.

Stick to smaller <5000 population subreddits (hobbies/crafts) and you should be able to avoid most of the drama.

 

[saenima]

We need an internet swear jar but for racism.

 

[ryseing]

Avoid reddit like the plague. It's not worth it.

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Most of the sports subs are the best places to discuss that sport given how naturally biased most other sports boards are. Note that I say most- I love /r/nba but it's all memes now.

But game threads for a big college football game? No better place to be on the Net.

 

[Admiral Woofington]

We need an internet swear jar but for racism.

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Breaking News: National Debt paid in a matter of days due to the new racism jar

 

[Deleted member 15326]

It's reddit, blatant racism is acceptable throughout.

Not to say there aren't plenty of useful, pleasant subs as well

 

[Cipherr]

Reddits "reputation" is well earned.

 

[Deleted member 2809]

Reddit don't care. The admin is a spineless fuck.
Don't think you can block users without them replying to you in the first place.

 

[Ortix]

It depends entirely on the moderators of the subreddit in question.

 

[lmcfigs]

I mean, yes reddit is obviously pretty lax about racism and that stuff. But also: bad, tasteless jokes are like half the comments on reddit threads in the shitty subs anyway.

 

[Rembrandt]

it really really depends on what sub.

politics is a mainstream sub and it can get incredibly racist.

while your comment is racist, things worse than that usually get downvoted pretty hard. i've actually been surprised by some subreddits and mods for actively fighting against that, even in dumb kinda mean subreddits like insanepeoplefacebook

 

[shintoki]

It shows removed in the forum...

/shrug

 

[lmcfigs]

It shows removed in the forum...

/shrug

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Maybe someone with brain cells reported it.

 

[Zoc]

Every time I try to use Reddit I feel like I'm drunk or something. Nothing makes sense, nothing seems to have any logical order. I clicked the link in the OP, whereupon I watched a fun little video of a guy scooping up some water, then I read about 200 incomprehensible in-jokes about incest porn? WTF?

 

[Deleted member 2809]

Every time I try to use Reddit I feel like I'm drunk or something. Nothing makes sense, nothing seems to have any logical order. I clicked the link in the OP, whereupon I watched a fun little video of a guy scooping up some water, then I read about 200 incomprehensible in-jokes about incest porn? WTF?

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The layout is complete shit and encourages circlejerking, it's insane how many people use it given how horrible it is to read and interact with

 

[Murkas]

Remember when racist Asian jokes were reaching the front page regarding that CEO controversy some years back? General Mao with her face shopped over and shit.

Cringeanarchy reaches the front page fairly often and when you go into the comments, 99% of the time it's /pol/ lite.

 

[Jordan117]

If you're talking about major subreddits, it's no worse than in mainstream society I'd say -- more than you'd hoped, less than you'd feared.

(Any time you think Reddit is getting a bit shit, just pop on over to Voat for a reminder of what actual blatant racism looks like.)

 

[Ac30]

The layout is complete shit and encourages circlejerking, it's insane how many people use it given how horrible it is to read and interact with

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The downvote/upvote system does that as well. If people don't like your opinion they'll just downvote you without comment, and depending on the article's content the thread often gets brigaded.

 

[Silvergun-Blue]

It depends on the subreddit and how active the mods are. For example, go to r/twoxchromosomes and you'll see tons of deleted comments because being a female centric sub discussing women's issues you get tons of "what about men" style comments and just blatant misogyny. The mods for that place work overtime.

 

[Richiek]

The main subreddits are infested with racist crap and are brigaded by the altrighters from r/thedonald.

For example, a mod from r/canada was outed for being a white supremacist.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/7z1i0d/rcanada_mods_defend_themselves_after_leaked/

 

[thewienke]

Users can be even more anonymous on Reddit since it's so massive and the vast majority of accounts aren't participating in any sense of community.

I think when people have an issue with stuff like this on Reddit, it's more that moderation of particular subreddits can either be slow or indifferent to casual racism. Some subreddits are modded completely differently than others as well.

If you go into /politics or something, you'll find that the comments match ERA pretty much 1:1 in view.

 

[Deleted member 8860]

The larger subreddits have lax moderation in general.

I just stick to narrowly-defined subreddits devoted to particular products or services. Those stay pretty clean, except for a few tangential political comments (e.g., net neutrality in a cell provider thread).

 

[entremet]

It depends how good the moderators are. r/Askhistorians takes no prisoners. Remember, subreddits are moderated independently. And anyone can start a subreddit. Think geocities but for forums. Don't think of Reddit as old school forums like this one, that are centrally moderated.

 

[Bengraven]

Some people, maybe most of the big offenders, think that racism just means using a derogatory term. That's it. Judging someone based on their race or culture, doesn't count as racism apparently. It's just a "general observation".

 

[ExtremelyBitter]

The weirdest thing I learned about Reddit recently is that /r/holocaust is a Holocaust denial community. I guess it's pretty notorious/well known for it, and I'm not surprised there are Holocaust denial hubs on Reddit, but having the actual word itself be the name for a delusional conspiracy subreddit bugs me.

 

[DevilMayGuy]

The weirdest thing I learned about Reddit recently is that /r/holocaust is a Holocaust denial community. I guess it's pretty notorious/well known for it, and I'm not surprised there are Holocaust denial hubs on Reddit, but having the actual word itself be the name for a delusional conspiracy subreddit bugs me.

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Yeah, they have a problem with some of the communities they have allowed to form there.

On a lighter but somewhat related note, r/trees was a subreddit formed by people who like marijuana, and then people who wanted to talk about actual trees made a subreddit called r/marijuanaenthusiasts

I always get a laugh out of that.

 

[TheGhost]

The internet was a lot better before the people with blatant racist and shitty attitudes felt comfortable and emboldened spouting out their shit as loud as they can.

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Huh? I've been on the internet since the begining, there was never a time where blatant racism was not everywhere.

Reddit imo is awesome, there is a sub Reddit and great communities for some pretty niche shit from illnesses to phobias where you can communicate with people that struggle with the same ailments as you.

(Any time you think Reddit is getting a bit shit, just pop on over to Voat for a reminder of what actual blatant racism looks like.)

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Pretty much this, my eyes are still recovering from a link I followed down the block last year