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The Discussion Forums Dominating 10,000 Product Review Search Results - Reddit's dominance and the downsides of that (detailed.com)

submitted 8 months ago by MaximilianKohler to c/technology

7 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/12715607

"I didn’t notice a single new or low-post-count forum"

"There Appears to Be No Benefit if a Forum is Hosted on a Subdomain or Which Software It Uses"

The author lists many reasons why reddit should not be at the top of search results. I listed even more reasons here: Reddit is dangerous. The admins are out of control. Humanity needs a viable alternative.

all 9 comments

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[–] atrielienz 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] MaximilianKohler 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

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?

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.

The bar to entry as a new person on smaller forums was often high.

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.

Since the CDA’s passage in 1996, § 230(c) has been consistently interpreted by U.S. courts to provide broad immunity to platforms for hosting and facilitating a wide range of illegal content—from defamatory speech to hate speech to terrorist and extremist content.12 Notice of illegal content is irrelevant to such immunity.13 Thus, even if a platform like YouTube is repeatedly and clearly notified that it is hosting harmful content (such as ISIS propaganda videos), the platform remains immune from liability for hosting such harmful content.

[–] atrielienz 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] MaximilianKohler 2 points 8 months ago

Yes, I understood that. I never experienced it.

[–] atrielienz 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Something else to note. Reddits posting as it stands now will archive a post if it's six months or older meaning you can't upvote or downvote, or even respond with a comment to a post. So if what the author of your post is saying is true, that means the entities engaging in commenting affiliate links and then artificially inflating their comments karma with intent should be down to the moderators themselves.

One thing that I don't see taken into account is the number of moderators who's subreddits were forcibly taken over, or who lost significant and powerful moderation tools when the Reddit API Fiasco went down last June. This article paints all moderators with the same brush and given how reddit has cannibalized their ability to moderate appropriately, it remains unclear how much of this problem is down to the character of the moderators (love or hate them, because I am largely indifferent). Given the nature of moderation on most online communities, and the fact that it is usually volunteer based, is the question whether or not we should exclude reddit, or is it that we should change the way message boards and their media are regulated to better align with consumer protections? Shouldn't we be pushing for legislation that would punish the spread of misinformation? Or is that an overstep of government authority?

Also, reddit didn't become this behemoth of user generated reviews overnight, and neither will any other community. Becoming successful in the space is somewhat on Google but they are a profit driven company so basically if we (consumers) rely on them with no government oversight, only communities that can pay to play will show up in the results. That's a problem with Google and search engines just like it, not necessarily with reddit, though their misinformation train does bear some brunt of the blame for how this problem presents.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Of the resulting 122 URLs, 63 have a top comment with a self-promotional affiliate link. Often written months after the original thread was created.

Injecting (posting and manipulating) affiliate links is lucrative for affiliates - Reddit could resolve it by disallowing or automatically clearing affiliate links of links (URL shorteners would be a secondary concern that could be automatically handled too)

Without affiliate spam, it would or could still be lucrative for sellers and product sellers. Which is harder to resolve.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

I find their repeated "I'm not outing anyone", "I'm not here to out anyone" irritating, especially for evading sourcing examples. I guess it's a very evasive, non-confrontational approach. But to me, that's not necessarily a good thing. Either way sourcing isn't likely to resolve the overall systematic (Reddit- and Google-sided) issue anyway.