this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2024
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For products? I dunno. It all depends entirely on what it is. Because while I wouldn't go to reddit for advice on what washer and dryer to buy, I have certainly seen a lot of people go to reddit to discuss in world use of tech and whether it would fit their lifestyle or user requirements. I appreciate that using reddit to be the next Amazon reviews is not the way. I don't think it should be the next Google AdSense. But I wouldn't say it doesn't belong in search results.
These days it's much easier and the information you can find on places like reddit is often better informed than most other Google search results because they've doubled down on making ad revenue. I don't use reddit anymore but I can certainly see why some people do.
Misinformation is certainly a problem pretty much everywhere on the Internet that isn't tiny and niche. The reason smaller less populated forums are often more welcoming and have less misinformation is due to the small percentage of people who use them and the fact that maintaining them is usually work that only someone who cares about the content will take on. Lemmy has pretty much all the same problems as reddit does but at a much smaller scale because it's just not as big. Would you suggest Google use Lemmy?
Lemmy also has an additional problem. Even when there is a one to one community for something mirrored here from reddit, the content often is not. So say I need information on a game, or a coffee maker, or a specific type of tea that needs to be translated so I can find a similar one. I won't necessarily be able to find that info here.
And reddit basically ate a lot of smaller forums as it rose in popularity over the last 15 or so years. I've had 3 different reddit accounts in the time I've used the site. One of them I used a school email to sign up for and don't have access to, and two others for various reasons including giving away stuff on animal crossing from both my island and my sister's island.
I can appreciate how much it's changed. I can definitely say that I do miss the smaller forums and the people who took care of them and kept them going. I can also remember having to build karma on a lot of them before I could make a post, ask a question, leave a comment. The bar to entry as a new person on smaller forums was often high.
I think the solution is to force people to use critical thinking skills and vet sources and generally use reddit only as one of many different resources to find info on products which is what most people should be doing anyway. It's time consuming but the problems you and the article both highlight are part of people being lazy and relying heavily on convenience over factual useful information.
I agree, and I covered that in my blog. Lemmy is astroturfed and may even be easier to astroturf than reddit. I would like to see a more diversified "discussions and forums", that's not just reddit links.
In general, privately-owned forums (running Xenforo, etc.) seem much better run than most reddit subs. I have never experienced the plethora of problems with reddit, on forums. I think it's harder to spam and astroturf forums, and the owners & moderators have different incentives than reddit mods.
I don't remember experiencing that, but it makes me think of the bar to entry for running a reddit sub. Anyone can instantly create one for free and do whatever they want with it and get on the top of search results pretty quickly. Setting up your own forum is a lot more difficult and more of a commitment. I think there are benefits to that.
I agree with your last paragraph. I think the type of warnings Twitter implemented are a decent idea. I think in general people need more warnings that what they see on reddit and other social media is not policed for legal content -- people can and do say whatever they like, and much of what people say is misinformation and disinformation.
I don't think most people realize that reddit and other social media platforms have no obligation to take down illegal content. People seem WAY too trusting of things they read on reddit. If Google is going to be highlighting reddit results and putting them at the top, then they bear some responsibility for this.
To be clear, since I don't think my meaning was clearly explained, I meant the the bar for entry on smaller forums outside of reddit. Reddit has generally had problems with high karma accounts bullying new accounts by taking advantage of the fact that new accounts are viewed (and have always been viewed) as less credible. But on private forums I was a part of in the early oughts and even the late 90's, there were problems with treating newcomers of any stripe with distrust. Every time I joined a new tech forum back then that was the case. It was used as an anti spam, anti-troll checks and balances sort of system. To build karma was to be allowed the benefit of interaction outside the use of upvotes or downvotes. While it might have been effective (in the same way the invite tokens or similar measures are) it was also very exclusive and sort of made me feel unwelcome in the space. Part of the reason reddit grew in popularity was because it doesn't have that unwelcoming feeling to the same extent because a lot of those measures just aren't in place.
Yes, I understood that. I never experienced it.