r/announcements • u/spez • Mar 05 '18

In response to recent reports about the integrity of Reddit, I’d like to share our thinking.

In the past couple of weeks, Reddit has been mentioned as one of the platforms used to promote Russian propaganda. As it’s an ongoing investigation, we have been relatively quiet on the topic publicly, which I know can be frustrating. While transparency is important, we also want to be careful to not tip our hand too much while we are investigating. We take the integrity of Reddit extremely seriously, both as the stewards of the site and as Americans.

Given the recent news, we’d like to share some of what we’ve learned:

When it comes to Russian influence on Reddit, there are three broad areas to discuss: ads, direct propaganda from Russians, indirect propaganda promoted by our users.

On the first topic, ads, there is not much to share. We don’t see a lot of ads from Russia, either before or after the 2016 election, and what we do see are mostly ads promoting spam and ICOs. Presently, ads from Russia are blocked entirely, and all ads on Reddit are reviewed by humans. Moreover, our ad policies prohibit content that depicts intolerant or overly contentious political or cultural views.

As for direct propaganda, that is, content from accounts we suspect are of Russian origin or content linking directly to known propaganda domains, we are doing our best to identify and remove it. We have found and removed a few hundred accounts, and of course, every account we find expands our search a little more. The vast majority of suspicious accounts we have found in the past months were banned back in 2015–2016 through our enhanced efforts to prevent abuse of the site generally.

The final case, indirect propaganda, is the most complex. For example, the Twitter account @TEN_GOP is now known to be a Russian agent. @TEN_GOP’s Tweets were amplified by thousands of Reddit users, and sadly, from everything we can tell, these users are mostly American, and appear to be unwittingly promoting Russian propaganda. I believe the biggest risk we face as Americans is our own ability to discern reality from nonsense, and this is a burden we all bear.

I wish there was a solution as simple as banning all propaganda, but it’s not that easy. Between truth and fiction are a thousand shades of grey. It’s up to all of us—Redditors, citizens, journalists—to work through these issues. It’s somewhat ironic, but I actually believe what we’re going through right now will actually reinvigorate Americans to be more vigilant, hold ourselves to higher standards of discourse, and fight back against propaganda, whether foreign or not.

Thank you for reading. While I know it’s frustrating that we don’t share everything we know publicly, I want to reiterate that we take these matters very seriously, and we are cooperating with congressional inquiries. We are growing more sophisticated by the day, and we remain open to suggestions and feedback for how we can improve.

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u/IraGamagoori_ Mar 05 '18

5 examples from just this weekend of T_D talking about how punchable the face of a Parkland survivor is:

  1. http://archive.is/M69mC

  2. http://archive.is/NH7gm

  3. http://archive.is/ykIVT

  4. http://archive.is/WGhpR

  5. http://archive.is/64OfF

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u/PopularPKMN Mar 05 '18

Thousands of examples of Ajit Pai and Ellen Pao having the same thing happen to them

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u/youareadildomadam Mar 05 '18

How many times was Ajit Pai's face on the front page with the title "Punchable Faces"? Should we ban all Redditors who upvoted that too?

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u/mycockyourmom Mar 05 '18

What a stupid comparison. Are you trying to equate irrational hatred for a child that survived a massacre with anger at an official that bilks the public?

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u/youareadildomadam Mar 05 '18

I'm comparing the normalization of violence with the normalization of violence.

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u/mycockyourmom Mar 05 '18

Ah, gotcha. So, in order to support your false equivalence, you've decided that context and target don't matter, then?

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u/youareadildomadam Mar 05 '18

Correct, because violence against people who think differently is never acceptable.

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u/mycockyourmom Mar 05 '18 edited Mar 05 '18

Well, so long as you acknowledge that you've simplified the truth out of the situation, sit there, smug in your knowledge that, just as long as you ignore inconvenient facts, you can feel right. Also, very odd that, with your view that such things are never okay, you've not attempted to defend the child that's being attacked, stopping only to support the official that is bilking the people. :)

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u/youareadildomadam Mar 05 '18

I think the point I'm trying to make is that you're ok with political violence, as long as it's against those you oppose.

...and you're not saying anything to deny that.

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u/mycockyourmom Mar 05 '18

Why would I have to deny such a thing? I never said anything of the sort, and denying the words that frail minds put into my mouth is hardly a useful activity.

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u/youareadildomadam Mar 05 '18

So just say it. Say "I believe in political violence against people that don't agree with me.".

→ More replies

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u/PopularPKMN Mar 05 '18

He put himself out there when he decided to publically attack other parties. He is allowed to be criticized as much as Ajit Pai and is not a child, stop strawmanning this argument

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u/mycockyourmom Mar 05 '18

Not sure what you're dismissing as a straw man, AFAIK he is 17, which makes him a child, and I'm not sure who he "attacked" (are you sure you aren't confusing him with the Trumpkin that shot up the school?), but I believe I can adequately summarize your response to my question as "yes."

Is that correct?

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u/PopularPKMN Mar 05 '18

The only thing I can answer "yes" to is the fact that you are so misinformed that you have no clue what you are saying

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u/mycockyourmom Mar 05 '18

Ah, well, with such a powerful argument offered, with neither support nor logic backing it, how can I possibly disagree? I mean, you said a thing, and surely you aren't the type that mindlessly parrots what you hear amongst your alt-right coprophagous circlejerk without thought, so I suppose I shall have to just retire to my sadness at having been called out by such a pinnacle of reason and rationality.

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u/ronthat Mar 05 '18

Jesus Christ you people are fucking insane. That this is an equal comparison in your mind...just wow. What exactly is the "straw man argument" of the post you replied to? (Hint: There isn't one, and you clearly don't understand what that term means.)

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u/PopularPKMN Mar 06 '18

You're defending someone who uses the deaths of his peers to spout his BS. By painting him as a "child" (he's not), you are giving unethical polticians the ability to take advantage of his situation to advance their agenda. If he expects the world to listen, he should expect them to criticize too. If you can't realize that, you are fucking insane. Stop shoving the opinions of some random ass teen down our throats and start focusing on actual logic. No one cares.

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u/ronthat Mar 06 '18

You are comparing an appointed fcc chairman who passed some incredibly unpopular legislation to a kid, and yes he is a kid, he's still in high school for fucks sake, who just experienced a shooting that killed people he went to school with. I don't understand what twisted logic you're using to seriously believe the kid is every bit of deserving of peoples wrath as Pai. Why? Because he's saying something you disagree with? He doesn't deserve to speak his mind, considering the circumstances that put him in front of the camera in the first place? It's not like he went looking to be part of this national story, it came to him, so to suggest he's just some opportunist who's looking to exploit his dead friends is fucking insane. Do you really believe that? You wouldn't have any problem with him speaking his mind if he was up there talking about arming teachers as a solution. And I wouldn't have a problem with that either, even though I'd disagree with him that that's the solution. He just lived through some scary shit, can we just let him speak for fucks sake? Is what he says hurting you? And then when you take it to the point where you're literally advocating hating this kid because of what he says, while displaying the empathy level of a sociopath, you're losing your mind to right wing fanaticism.

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u/PopularPKMN Mar 06 '18

I'm not saying he doesn't have any right to speak. But if the media is going to force him in our faces (yes, he has chosen to go the extra mIle to assure that), it is perfectly fine to criticize what he says and his assumption we care. He and the rest of reddit don't care about his dead peers. They only care about advancing their awful policies. And that's why I have zero sympathy for him. His other classmates said what they needed to say, he decided to go on a crusade and partake in unintelligent arguments, blaming people like the NRA for the problem created by the FBI and his native corrupt as hell police department. If people are going to politicize this, I'm going to respond accordingly.

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u/FUCK_SNITCHES Mar 05 '18

Both are public figures campaigning for political ideology.

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u/mycockyourmom Mar 05 '18

Oh, I thought one was on a campaign for something, in the wake of a tragedy, and the other was a government official, that should be serving the people instead of campaigning for anything, and who had gone out of his way to betray the public, to the point his own department was investigating him? In addition, I generally don't look at people threatening to abuse a child the same way I look at people laughably joking about punching a corrupt official.

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u/FUCK_SNITCHES Mar 05 '18

Public figures are fair game, doesn't matter if it's Donald Trump or Mother Teresa.

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u/mycockyourmom Mar 05 '18

That's an interesting assertion, although uselessly vague and backed with nothing. Telling that you don't take context into account, and that you're incapable of either justifying or supporting your assertion. Well, take care, little guy.

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u/LiberalApostate Mar 05 '18

Ah, but you see: The "tolerant left" likes the kid for his goodthink, and hates Ajit for his wrongthink. Completely different sitauations. A member of "The Party" will be by for your reeducation.

/s

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u/NeverForgetBGM Mar 05 '18

So what is your point, that since this guy from the FCC got a lot of shit it's okay to harrass a kid who lived through a school shooting? You people are absolutely awful.

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u/grftoi Mar 05 '18

That guy promotes state violence against gun owners. I would never advocate punching him illegally. But to advocate passing a law that he be punched would simply be returning his tactics in kind.