Ireland Reddit closing at night as mods try to 'stem the flow' of extreme racism

My name is URL

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/ireland-reddit-page-shutting-overnight-as-moderators-try-to-stem-the-flow-of-extreme-racist-content-39271777.html

The Ireland Reddit page is shutting down between midnight and 8am every day to try to “stem the flow” of extreme racist content, which may be coming from American sock puppet accounts.

Moderators of the page, which has over 280,000 members, said they have reached a “breaking point” for abusive and racist material in recent days.

It comes as far-right groups have started an orchestrated attempt to hijack online discussions about an attack in Carrigaline with racist commentary.

Reddit is one of the most popular discussion websites in the world, and describes itself as the front page of the internet.

Reddit is made up of subreddits on different topics, including a dedicated site for Ireland. The Ireland subreddit is monitored by voluntary moderators who either set up or help run the online community.

In a post on Monday night, the moderators announced that they had taken the “difficult decision” to shut down the Ireland page between midnight and 8am “in order to stem the flow of racist/extremist content which is being posted at these times.”

Moderators blamed a “multitude of sock puppet accounts” which are typically posting in American hours between midnight and 8am Irish time.

“This has resulted in the current [moderator] team having to spend several nights constantly watching every thread and comment submitted, along with banning dozens of accounts within the space of a short few hours. This has reached breaking point over the last few days,” the post said.

It said that it was often confirmed by Reddit administrators that racist abuse had often come from individuals running multiple accounts.

The moderators said they were at a “lost cause” trying to clean up “hate-filled messes” that were caused by inaction on the part of Reddit’s administrators. Many of the worst posts were also put up while moderators were asleep.

The Reddit page is now going to try to hire moderators based in different time zones, and set up an automated system which will flag racist and discriminatory language.

“While the vast majority of hateful comments submitted over the past while have been solely directed towards someone's skin colour, we are noting now that this automod filter list will include common phrases used against Traveller communities, and any other minority groups which we have found to have been of target by these accounts in the past,” the post said.

There has been anecdotal evidence of an increase in racist abuse and commentary online since a number of Black Lives Matter protests were held in Ireland.

This is mad. Apparently a load of US (possibly paid) accounts sock-puppeting in the sub during nighttime hours and attempting to stoke up a 'race war'

Risingshadoo

My name is URL wrote: »

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/ireland-reddit-page-shutting-overnight-as-moderators-try-to-stem-the-flow-of-extreme-racist-content-39271777.html



This is mad. Apparently a load of US (possibly paid) accounts sock-puppeting in the sub during nighttime hours and attempting to stoke up a 'race war'

I thought it was boards for a minute, you near give me a heart attack!

purifol0

Great job by the mods there, it's a thankless task. I genuinely mean that. I like reddit Ireland and I'd hate to be subject to a load of gaslighting, propaganda and astroturfing every time I'm on it. If they have to close it at night then so be it.

Thelonious Monk

Idiots are sending screenshots of fake whatsapp conversations of black kids in Dublin saying they're going to go around battering white people etc. A couple of my moron friends fell for them, one rang his nephew in Coolock to tell him to stay inside, as there was a marauding gang on the Oscar Traynor road, lol. There really are some weird people out there.

My name is URL

Risingshadoo wrote: »

I thought it was boards for a minute, you near give me a heart attack!

Judging by some of the ****e posted here, I wouldn't say boards is too far behind

fly_agaric

My name is URL wrote: »

This is mad. Apparently a load of US (possibly paid) accounts sock-puppeting in the sub during nighttime hours and attempting to stoke up a 'race war'

Not a "member" but some stomach churning stuff on Reddit IMO.
Think it could bite them in the backside someday.
You could imagine a right wing-nut going postal in the US someday after being radicalised by some of the cesspits on there.
Suppose like twitter etc. they are "just a platform" as they call it, so can wash their hands.

My name is URL

fly_agaric wrote: »

You could imagine a right wing-nut going postal in the US someday after being radicalised by some of the cesspits on there.
:

Pretty sure that has already happened a few times

fly_agaric

My name is URL wrote: »

Pretty sure that has already happened a few times

Ah okay - didn't know that. Thought some other websites/fora (that are even worse) had been connected to past instances of violence in the US but not Reddit itself. Consider me uninformed.

irishgeo

fly_agaric wrote: »

Ah okay - didn't know that. Thought some other websites/fora (that are even worse) had been connected to past instances of violence in the US but not Reddit itself. Consider me uninformed.

Your thinking of 4chan which is even more nuts than reddit.

StupidLikeAFox

My name is URL wrote: »

Judging by some of the ****e posted here, I wouldn't say boards is too far behind

I wonder how well boards would be equipped for this sort of thing. Its a lower risk compared to the likes of Reddit but it should be on the radar for sure

JoeFritzl

Someone is getting logging on at 4am on Ireland's Reddit page giving out about travellers and the guy who stabbed a white lad in Carrigaline? Sounds like a drunk guy who might actually have a point.

Harry Palmr

Boards would be as bad if it was allowed to be. Since Trump came to squat in the West wing this place hasn't lacked race warriors and general alt-right opinions.

JoeFritzl

AnnieOaks wrote: »

boards.4chan.org/pol/thread/261419705

These absolute weirdos might have something to do with it..

Just a heads up some of the stuff written on that thread is just vile. Racist scum. Some strange people out there..

4chan is mostly a joke. I honestly doubt any of those people mean what they say; there seems to be a trend on 4chan that most of the users get a kick out of saying things which are edgy/controversial.

coinop

I will never understand the mentality of someone who gladly works for free to make someone else rich. The amount of abuse and threats you put up with. Surely that time would be better spent paying attention to your kids or significant other. Even if you have no friends or family, invest that time in bettering yourself by focusing on your career or learning a new language. I would love an AMA with a mod to pick their brain because either they're not being honest about their compensation or there are psychological issues going on.

MontgomeryClift

We're going to see this kind of "OMG racist Neo-Nazis everywhere!" stuff for a while.

They know we've all seen hordes of black people in the US rioting, looting, and stomping on white people's heads for the last week or so, and now the social media and traditional media outfits will try to reprogram us with stuff about white racism.

I log onto Twitter and the first thing I see in the corner is "Four British neo-Nazis have been jailed on terrorism charges."

Then a little further down, "Protesters gather at Oxford University to demand the removal of Cecil Rhodes statue," accompanied by a video of an African man telling the British what kind of statues they can't have any more.

It's impressive to watch this shift in narrative when you know what they're doing.

My name is URL

I knew this thread would bring 'em out lol

My name is URL

MontgomeryClift wrote: »

accompanied by a video of an African man telling the British what kind of statues they can't have any more.

How do you know he was African? =/

fly_agaric

ACitizenErased wrote: »

That's not true, but whatever.

I have a feeling that was an attempt at irony by the poster, or just sarcasm perhaps but it was not very funny! Ah well.

statesaver

Echo chamber achieved.

Beasty

Re reg troll dispatched

Do not discuss the Cork incident. That could prejudice any legal proceedings.

Any questions PM me. Do not respond to this warning in-thread

DelaneyIn

SusieBlue wrote: »

Deported to where? He was born here?

Don’t care. Being born here to foreigners doesn’t make you a citizen. If he was naturalised we can rescind his citizenship and send him to Lithuania or whichever African nation his father is from.

Send a very strong message to those who may think about following in his footsteps. Nip the nonsense in the bud. Attack and racially abuse the natives and you will be dealt with accordingly.

The more pertinent question is as to why you’d oppose the deportation of a racist anti Irish thug who likes slicing up people?

TheValeyard

280K on Reddit Ireland?

Surely a lot of that must be multiple accounts or international users?

Beasty

coinop wrote: »

I would love an AMA with a mod to pick their brain because either they're not being honest about their compensation or there are psychological issues going on.

In my case it's definitely not the former....

DelaneyIn

TheValeyard wrote: »

280K on Reddit Ireland?

Surely a lot of that must be multiple accounts or international users?

If you sign up with an Irish IP address you automatically subscribe.

ACitizenErased

TheValeyard wrote: »

280K on Reddit Ireland?

Surely a lot of that must be multiple accounts or international users?

It is a massive subreddit and really active. 280K isn't really surprising.

Rodney Bathgate

Beasty wrote: »

In my case it's definitely not the former....

Would you know if it was?

Beasty

TheValeyard wrote: »

280K on Reddit Ireland?

We're up to account no 933k+, and only 33k or so banned.

The About Us section provides some headline stats, but only a fraction of the "members" number are particularly active in terms of posting. I presume we do have quite a lot of readers who never sign up, or post, resulting in all those page impressions

Beasty

Rodney Bathgate wrote: »

Would you know if it was?

I'm a Yorkshireman - I can account for every cent (and all the pennies)

CrankyHaus

TheValeyard wrote: »

280K on Reddit Ireland?

Surely a lot of that must be multiple accounts or international users?

There are a lot of Americans, and other international users. There does seem to be a fair amount of astroturfing, and the most blatant multiple accounts get outed from time to time.
It's also an active Sub - doesn't feel 280K active though. The same two dozen people pop up at the top of most threads.

The Mods there must have been doing a great job keeping out the Far Right stuff posted on it recently, cos I saw none.
It does get rammed with stuff about "De Brits", that's in numbers either representing a much younger agegroup of users or astroturfing.

Figel Narage

Irish Reddit is incredibly left wing with people who love the 'RA and dislike the U.K amongst other things and can be quite cringe as it has a lot of American esque things posted, so I presume these race comments aren't from the Irish people/regular users on it. They have no time for Gemma O'Doherty discussion or anything so I'm surprised they're having this problem

Zaph

MontgomeryClift wrote: »

I log onto Twitter and the first thing I see in the corner is "Four British neo-Nazis have been jailed on terrorism charges."

So are you suggesting that members of a far-right group that was made illegal and declared a terrorist organisation by the British Home Secretary 4 years ago should not have been jailed? If so, on what grounds?

Gatling

Beasty wrote: »

We're up to account no 933k+, and only 33k or so banned.

33,000 banned would never have guessed it's that many , after nearly 14 years (for me ,) close to 1 million users would have expected that,the banned figure is mad to me

My name is URL

Figel Narage wrote: »

Irish Reddit is incredibly left wing

lol, no it's not. They had a sub header of Leo Varadker up for 3 months

Figel Narage

My name is URL wrote: »

lol, no it's not. They had a sub header of Leo Varadker up for 3 months

It is, go on it now and see what they are posting.

CrankyHaus

Figel Narage wrote: »

Irish Reddit is incredibly left wing with people who love the 'RA and dislike the U.K amongst other things and can be quite cringe as it has a lot of American esque things posted, so I presume these race comments aren't from the Irish people/regular users on it. They have no time for Gemma O'Doherty discussion or anything so I'm surprised they're having this problem

They're apparently getting inundated late at night by people who put up links to race-baiting Twitter posts, that are almost certainly fraudulent, and then link to Right Wing Subs to have them all come onto R\Ireland and flood it with their views. They call this Brigading.
This all apparently happens at peak US internet times.
By the time I look at the Sub in the morning the stuff's all gone, so it must have been knackering to address.

The Subs not as left wing as it looks on the surface. Much of the comments that aren't just slogans are reasonably balanced. They even had stuff of Leo as a superhero a couple of months back. The Me\IRA stuff gets some pushback too.

Tom Mann Centuria

Beasty wrote: »

We're up to account no 933k+, and only 33k or so banned.

The About Us section provides some headline stats, but only a fraction of the "members" number are particularly active in terms of posting. I presume we do have quite a lot of readers who never sign up, or post, resulting in all those page impressions

I'd imagine the serial reregs must account for a few thousand of the bans too?

Zaph

Tom Mann Centuria wrote: »

I'd imagine the serial reregs must account for a few thousand of the bans too?

Gordon and I banned thousands of accounts back when we used to get bombarded by spammers on a daily basis. They account for a significant portion of the 33k.

Beasty

Gatling wrote: »

33,000 banned would never have guessed it's that many , after nearly 14 years (for me ,) close to 1 million users would have expected that,the banned figure is mad to me

Used to get a lot of spammers that Gordon and Zaph dealt with

Having said that I'm at over 5k sitebans in 3 years as an Admin

Beasty

Tom Mann Centuria wrote: »

I'd imagine the serial reregs must account for a few thousand of the bans too?

I would say 95%+ of the sitebans I've done

jill_valentine

Figel Narage wrote: »

Irish Reddit is incredibly left wing with people who love the 'RA and dislike the U.K amongst other things and can be quite cringe as it has a lot of American esque things posted, so I presume these race comments aren't from the Irish people/regular users on it. They have no time for Gemma O'Doherty discussion or anything so I'm surprised they're having this problem

They were definitely imports, I was around for some of it and the posts were almost invariably posting in r/Ireland for the first time. Dip into the aul post history and if there were any other posts at all they were all US or UK subs otherwise.

Very definitely a concerted and co ordinated effort too, a full on firehose of very nasty and explicitly racist stuff all at once rather than a drip feed of Yer Da's Whatsapp kind of content.

There's been a visible change of tactics in the last day to something a bit more subtle but the stuff that prompted this wasn't any kind of grey area, epithets a go-go.

Moghead

Stephen Yamslaw Cork Knifeman wrote: »

Already banned me twice tonight. You're an animal Beasty!

Quarehawk

Guy:Incognito

irishgeo wrote: »

Your thinking of 4chan which is even more nuts than reddit.

The guy in the christchurch mosque attack was posting on it on his way to do it and being encouraged by the users wasnt he? Might have been 8chan.

Figel Narage

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

The guy in the christchurch mosque attack was posting on it on his way to do it and being encouraged by the users wasnt he? Might have been 8chan.

That was 8chan. Another level beyond 4chan. Dunno if it still operates though

My name is URL

My name is URL wrote: »

Judging by some of the ****e posted here, I wouldn't say boards is too far behind

Be it reddit or here they seem like really sad people, who if they weren't such arseholes you'd almost feel sorry for them.
Imagine being that bitter and twisted, or believing nearly every conspiracy theory going, or being so obsessed with money that you spend hours complaining and posting bile online.

My name is URL

StupidLikeAFox wrote: »

I wonder how well boards would be equipped for this sort of thing. Its a lower risk compared to the likes of Reddit but it should be on the radar for sure

Well boards have the advantage of mods (maybe just admins?) being able to see IP addresses etc, and spot dupe accounts easily enough.

Reddit mods have nothing like that afaik.

Even with that advantage though, there has been a massive increase in racial (some might say extreme) views been posted here.

I've not been active on Boards for about 3 years now, just the odd post in some smaller or specialised forums, but even I can see it.

BonnieSituation

fly_agaric wrote: »

Not a "member" but some stomach churning stuff on Reddit IMO.
Think it could bite them in the backside someday.
You could imagine a right wing-nut going postal in the US someday after being radicalised by some of the cesspits on there.
Suppose like twitter etc. they are "just a platform" as they call it, so can wash their hands.

My name is URL wrote: »

Pretty sure that has already happened a few times

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_postal

I love when an idiom goes full circle.

Madeleine Birchfield

My name is URL wrote: »

Well boards have the advantage of mods (maybe just admins?) being able to see IP addresses etc, and spot dupe accounts easily enough.

Reddit mods have nothing like that afaik.

Even with that advantage though, there has been a massive increase in racial (some might say extreme) views been posted here.

I've not been active on Boards for about 3 years now, just the odd post in some smaller or specialised forums, but even I can see it.

The extreme racial views are all throughout the American threads in Current Affairs and Politics.

pjohnson

Madeleine Birchfield wrote: »

The extreme racial views are all throughout the American threads in Current Affairs and Politics.

Current Affairs was set up to quarantine and contain those people away from AH.

ChelseaRentBoy

As long as they stamp down on extreme left wing views as well i don't see the problem.

SnowyMay

coinop wrote: »

I will never understand the mentality of someone who gladly works for free to make someone else rich. The amount of abuse and threats you put up with. Surely that time would be better spent paying attention to your kids or significant other. Even if you have no friends or family, invest that time in bettering yourself by focusing on your career or learning a new language. I would love an AMA with a mod to pick their brain because either they're not being honest about their compensation or there are psychological issues going on.

In fairness, without the volunteer mods here, boards wouldn’t exist. That’s a good enough reason to invest some time in modding.

sasta le

They ar