An interesting meltdown happened this weekend on social news site Reddit. The popular site is divided into different categories, and the subreddit dedicated to Technology let slip they had banned stories related to the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla.
Reddit’s reputation is based on an almost obnoxiously user-generated democratic etiquette. On the ground level, users submit stories, and other users vote up or down for those stories to become more or less visible. With each subreddit, users also comprise the “governing bodies” responsible for maintaining order. This allows the people who actually own Reddit and keep the servers running to have a somewhat hands-off approach to Reddit’s daily operations. It also paints Reddit as being “pure”, a meritocracy, not owned by a corporate interest pushing some kind of commercial or political narrative.
Of course people are fallible and corruptible.
Reddit user canausernamebetolon posted that he had discovered an odd quirk in r/Technology, that stories with the word Tesla in the title were not showing up on the subreddit. Asking a moderator why that was, he was told “Battery cars aren’t ‘technolgy’ any more than normal cars are” [sic]. After pushing for more clarification, the user was banned from r/Technology with the following reply:
Car stories should be submitted to car-related subreddits. Please inform your supervisors in the Tesla Motors Marketing department.
Continue reading “Corrupting User Moderated Web Sites: Reddit – r/Technology bans Tesla stories?”
