We should demand the same thing here...
Reddit Moderators Demand The Platform Take Action Against Covid Disinformation
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlie...orm-take-action-against-covid-disinformation/
Moderators of some of Reddit’s most popular subreddits published an
open letter calling on the company to do more to prevent the dissemination of medical disinformation that they say runs rampant on the platform, demanding Reddit ban message boards they assert “exist solely” to spread coronavirus disinformation and undermine efforts to fight the pandemic.
A group of volunteer moderators who oversee message boards, or “subreddits,” with tens of millions of users
pointed in the letter to examples of Reddit users misrepresenting as
ineffective or even dangerous scientifically proven methods of stopping the spread of coronavirus, like wearing face masks, social distancing and vaccines.
The disinformation can be deadly in some cases, the open letter states, mentioning the bizarre practice of taking
cattle dewormers to treat coronavirus symptoms, which the Food and Drug Administration
issued a warning against last week after reporting “growing interest” in the drug by humans.
The open letter states that the disinformation on Reddit “attains an air of legitimacy through
sheer volume of repetition,” and that “people begin to believe [it] wholeheartedly.”
Popular subreddits with moderators that signed on to the open letter include r/aww, r/lifeprotips, r/pics, r/showerthoughts, r/tifu and r/UpliftingNews, which each have at least 10 million subscribers, along with hundreds of smaller communities.
Reddit did not immediately respond to a
Forbes request for comment.
Crucial Quote
“There is a good chance that the disinformation that Reddit is currently inundated with will necessitate people a stay at the toxicology department in the hospital or even cost them their lives. There can be
no room for leniency when people are dying as a result of misinformation on this platform,” the open letter states.
Big Number
52 million. That’s how many
daily users Reddit had on average in late 2020, the platform told
The Wall Street Journal in December, a figure it said was a 44% jump from the same time the previous year. It was the first time Reddit publicly disclosed the metric.
Key Background
Other social media platforms that have struggled with moderating coronavirus misinformation include
Instagram,
Twitter and
Facebook. Last year, Reddit administrators pledged to do more to remove misinformation from the platform and prevent it from spreading, a promise the open letter claims has led to “nothing of substance” besides
“quarantining” r/NoNewNormal, a subreddit dedicated to anti-mask and anti-vaccination. When a subreddit is quarantined, the message board will “display a warning that requires users to
explicitly opt-in,” Reddit says. According to the moderators’ open letter, it isn’t a strong enough response, writing that quarantining “barely reduces traffic and
does little to stop misinformation.”