As an advertiser, I have concerns about their ad platform, and as a user, I'm terrified to think about what is in store for the future as they gear up for pleasing investors. History tells us that the soul of Reddit will not remain intact (if it is in fact even there still).
Also still to be uncovered is what role Reddit (and potentially mods/employees) played in the election. It is no secret that Reddit was HEAVILY targeted by Russia (and still is). If I were a potential investor, I'd want to be much more confident in the accuracy of their user counts and growth. There's a LOT of fake accounts there.
Also heavily targeted by several other interest parties including Media Matters. I imagine the value in Reddit at this point is in conversation "trend setting" for zeitgeist influence.
I didn't really participate in the politic threads there during the 2016 election, but everyone was accused of being a Correct the Record shill as well.
Man, Putin must be riding in on his bear and assassinating every single state employee if 'heavy targeting' gets them this result.
Let's look at the top posts today on r/politics:
- Cards Against Humanity buys plot of land on U.S./Mexico border to block border wall
- Sessions: I Can Remember Only the Parts of 2016 That Exonerate Me
- RNC cuts off Moore
- Secret Finding: 60 Russian Payments "To Finance Election Campaign Of 2016”
- Fox News' Shepard Smith hits Trump for 'inaccurate' claims on Uranium One deal
- Site Altered HeadlineJeff Sessions: 'Not enough evidence' for special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton
- Troll Smearing Roy Moore Accuser Stole Dead SEAL's Identity
- Senate GOP to add repeal of Obamacare insurance mandate into tax bill
- Roy Moore challenged Alabama law that protects rape victims, documents reveal
- If Republicans believe Roy Moore’s accusers, why not Trump’s?
- The FBI is examining why Russia transferred nearly $400,000 to its embassies 'to finance' the 'election campaign of 2016'
- Pence NFL Stunt Cost Indianapolis Police Department $14K
Maybe Putin secretly works for David Brock.
Let's look at r/worldnews:
- Australia's same-sex marriage postal survey: 61.6% yes, 38.4% no
- 'Tobacco at a cancer summit': Trump coal push savaged at climate conference: The US administration’s attempt to portray fossil fuels as vital to reducing poverty and saving US jobs is ridiculed in Bonn
- Russia tried to use computer game footage to prove that the U.S. is helping ISIS
- Trudeau says he raised human rights issues with Duterte after Trump didn’t
- Sessions changes statement about Trump campaign and Russia. “I do now recall”
- Russia used 419 fake accounts to tweet about Brexit, data shows
- Israeli police 'have sufficient evidence to charge Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with fraud and accepting gifts worth hundreds of thousands of shekels including demanded free cigars and champagne from associates.
- Trump Served Shark Fin Soup in Vietnam—A Delicacy Driving Sharks to Extinction: Shark finning is illegal in the U.S and regulated in 21 countries. It involves cutting the fins from live sharks for shark fin soup, and throwing the shark back into the ocean.
- Secret Finding: 60 Russian Payments "To Finance Election Campaign Of 2016”
Man, that Putin is one effective anti-Putin machine.
If it were me, I'd be for more worried as an investor about the virtues of their founders (e.g. Ohanian sacking Victoria then backstabbing Yishan and Ellen, Huffman abusing site admin to edit user comments) etc and how it generally very much misaligns with their original grassroots pre-superPAC pro-Ralph Nader/Ron Paul/Bernie Sanders (before he turned into a Tom Perez mouthpiece) crowd that's its userbase.
r/politics isn't a great example: it's always been left-leaning, and from what I saw at the time, efforts appeared to be focused on motivating the Republican base to vote for Trump, and to drive Clinton voters to apathy or complacency. Neither of these would be achieved by trying to convince Clinton's fervent supporters on r/politics.
Plus, it's a bit of an equivocation to suggest that today's top posts can be evidence that an influence campaign a year ago didn't work - the campaign was a year ago, not today.
I used to read r/politics multiple times a day before it went south right around the time of the Democrat's California primary when the DNC nomination was sealed (on a day when no voters voted and the nomination was determined by poll calls to anonymous super delegates mind you) and the money started flowing https://www.fec.gov/data/disbursements/?two_year_transaction... (the FEC site is kinda crap so you'll have to fidget a lot with it). It's anecdotal but I don't think there are any general tone changes from today to since ~June last year.
There's a distinct shift in the tone of r/politics. There's a pre-DNC nomination / pre-CTR, pro-Jill Stein, pro-Gary Johnson, pro-Bernie Sanders, anti-Hillary, no-body-cares-about-any-Republicans-because-they're-irrelevant, Democrats-still-nominally-should-represent-working-labor, generally pro grassroots anti hegemonic aristocracy sentiment. A single dimensional left-right axis does huge disservice to clear political discourse but I guess you can say Reddit used to still be representative of the general coastal progressive crowd and it's left-leaning. That is, economically more left-socialistic than a center-right Obama, socially more progressive than a left-leaning Obama, very right-conservative than a very left-interventionist Obama foreign policy, very left-high-social-mobility vs a right-establishment Obama's balance of power.
Then there's a hard shift to a pro-Hillary/establishment or you're a sexist/racist/bigot/redneck/Russian spy/religious zealot/white/rural/non college educated strawman dichotomy. I definitely wouldn't say r/politics is left-leaning. See how far you'll get if you want to talk about leftist topics like DAPL opposition, Yemen bombing opposition, Keith Ellison support, Tulsi Gabbard support, single payer support, military budget increase opposition etc.
> efforts appeared to be focused on motivating the Republican base to vote for Trump, and to drive Clinton voters to apathy or complacency. Neither of these would be achieved by trying to convince Clinton's fervent supporters on r/politics.
Sounds like you're referring to something other than r/politics. What are you referring to?
Please keep in mind that a large part of the election interference from Russia focused on dividing the left. While there was obviously some of that already happening, a big part of the efforts did in fact focus on trying to split the vote of the Left and push people to Bernie/Stein/etc. The efforts don't have to have been purely pro-Trump to have been effective.
> Please keep in mind that a large part of the election interference from Russia focused on dividing the left.
No, 100% of it focussed on dividing and weakening America, guaranteeing that whoever won would be in a weaker position from which to counter Russian geopolitical efforts.
I don't disagree, but when we delve into specific tactics, it has been confirmed by the intelligence community that one approach they took was trying to sow dissent among the left by splitting the voter base and trying to suppress voter turnout for Hillary.
Assume I temporarily freeze all other thoughts and fully accept that there was such a thing as 'election interference from Russia focused on dividing the left', that would be them tossing out their one in a lifetime chance to get a massive foot-gun against their interest instead.
More than any high level official, Clinton has a sparkling track record of financial pliability towards Russian interest. A 0.5 million speech for Bill Clinton to a Russian bank was pretty much all it took for 20% of US uranium assets. With insiders like Tony Podesta, a Clinton presidency is like a Russian wet dream. Even Clinton campaign's internal self assessment of their own candidate's relative strengths and weaknesses highlighted her being pretty much a Russian agent as being one of her top vulnerabilities as a candidate.
Clinton has her share of hawkish tendencies but only to countries that are principled and didn't bribe her. Unlike the Republicans that are the original neocons and empire builders, Clinton wasn't ideological. Weapons, chemicals, anything was for everyone, Algeria, Egypt, Al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda, anything was for grabs for cheap.
Another Republican would have been far more damaging for the Russians whereas a Clinton presidency would have been an extremely rare opportunity.
You only partially quoted me. I said a "large part of their interference," not all of it as your quote implies.
It has been confirmed by the intelligence community that a general theme of the interference was that they wanted to ruin Hillary specifically. I suggest you get up to speed on the official findings that have been declassified and released.[1]
I also suggest you read up on the Uranium One situation[2] as what you are portraying is very different from what the facts say, and follow a debunked narrative. In fact, in his Wednesday testimony this week, AG Sessions indicated it did not currently merit a special prosecutor due to lack of evidence.[3]
If you'd like to continue this debate and making claims, I request that you back them up with credible sources.
Also still to be uncovered is what role Reddit (and potentially mods/employees) played in the election. It is no secret that Reddit was HEAVILY targeted by Russia (and still is). If I were a potential investor, I'd want to be much more confident in the accuracy of their user counts and growth. There's a LOT of fake accounts there.