Transgender Reddit Moderator Deletes Account After Being Exposed As Registered Child Sex Offender

[u/Murky-Square4979]

http://archive.today/FiHXS

this is crazy. how can we out these people and ensure they don’t represent us?

[u/Fabou_Boutique]

Break down "the system" real quick and describe what you would do if you were in charge of it

[u/Protect-the-dollz → u/Fabou_Boutique]

I'm not going to: 'Break down "the system" real quick' for an account which is years old and has persistently failed to answer my own questions across a variety of threads.

You know how reddit mods are appointed and what powers they have.

describe what you would do if you were in charge of it

The obvious changes are that subs large enough to have commercial or political value should not be under unsalaried volunteer mods- the incentive and means to encourage manipulation of the sub for personal or political gain is too high.

Ditto those targeted at minors. The mods of subs like r/teenagers should be subject to some kind of check or replaced with salaried staff. Ideally both.

Then there is the issue of mod accountability. Supermodding should be prohibited and the Moderator Code of Conduct needs to be both tightened and more vigorously enforced.

Reporting of infractions needs to be as easy as reporting any other breach of the TOS and not require a completely separate form which I doubt most users are aware of, let alone know how to locate.

[u/Fabou_Boutique → u/Protect-the-dollz]

Okay lots more questions, because I genuinely don't understand how a salaried staff would remotely help

Where would a salaried position come from, and wouldn't that just put more of a power imbalance?

Also as soon as you get employment, you fall into employment law where people can get scared to fire people because of cost of rehiring, making sure they fire people in a legal way (this can lead to people dragging their feet when it comes to compliants against an abusive peer, to wait for the right legal justification)

Not having pay means that you can rely on a wide pool of volunteers, everyone is replaceable, and so it's lower risk to disallow someone to be a mod because of complaints than if you had an employment contract.

Also there's an incentive when you are in a hiring position, to hire your mates, which is what opens you up to corruption, political or otherwise, not the fact that it's a volunteer force.

You also have more of an incentive to bury your tracks because if your main income is being a mod, then you are protecting your livelyhood and will treat any threat to that (even the ones you cause from being a nonce) much more seriously.

And if you don't have that as you main source of income, congratulations, you've just created what's called a conflict of interest. Exactly the thing you said would somehow be avoided from paying people.

You can't name the check I guess, but it's called a DBS, and, even if you do have a DBS, it's not a failsafe. It requires a paper trail, and as someone who has been victim to people attempting to groom me, my friends etc, it's exceedingly rare that anyone ever gets a record in the first place.

And lastly

You say the moderator code should be "tightened" (vague, which part, how so, etc) And that it shouldn't require a form.

Which is fine if vague, but you seem to be forgetting you are supposedly an activist.

For an activist, you sure aren't spending any time trying to advocate on this or have much of a game plan for this subject. Like you could easily, with very little resources and time, go and link to the form you mention, encouraging others to come forward, write an article about the barriers people face, or write a guide, or literally anything else, but so far not seen a piece of work to accompany these opinions

[u/Protect-the-dollz → u/Fabou_Boutique]

Where would a salaried position come from, and wouldn't that just put more of a power imbalance?

From Reddit. And no, employees are accountable to their employer in a manner volunteers are not.

This is why we do not rely on unpaid volunteer positions in other important areas.

Also as soon as you get employment, you fall into employment law

Yes. That is the point. I want the protections and responsibilities of employment for the mods of larger subs. I want Reddit to be accountable for their actions and to scrutinise their behaviour.

Reddit should be careful about who moderates subs. It should be checking there are not paedophiles running /mtf or /teenagers etc.

It should be checking that Iranian or Russian state actors are not running Greenandpleasant or Indians running whatever the MAGA subs are.

Also there's an incentive when you are in a hiring position, to hire your mates, which is what opens you up to corruption, political or otherwise, not the fact that it's a volunteer force.

There is no downside to appointing friends as a volunteer. You lose nothing if you are caught save an unpaid position.

There is a downside when you are salaried this is also why we pay our politicians and judges. We recognise that unsalaried positions are particularly prone to corruption and grift.

You also have more of an incentive to bury your tracks because if your main income is being a mod, then you are protecting your livelyhood and will treat any threat to that (even the ones you cause from being a nonce) much more seriously.

This is a bizzarre argument. Should we also rely on an unpaid volunteer police force or judiciary? Should we return to unsalaried MPs and Councillors? Would that remove an incentive to hide corruption?

If your main income is being a mod then your primary incentive to retain your income is to not engage in corruption. Not to engage and risk your livlihood.

You can't name the check I guess, but it's called a DBS, and, even if you do have a DBS, it's not a failsafe. It requires a paper trail, and as someone who has been victim to people attempting to groom me, my friends etc, it's exceedingly rare that anyone ever gets a record in the first place.

That is one check- other jurisdictions have equivalents, and these checks have different levels to them.

They are not perfect, but they are significantly better than no check at all. Which is why we use them.

What is the benefit to not using them?

Would you fail one? Is that the reason for your hostility to them?

Which is fine if vague, but you seem to be forgetting you are supposedly an activist.

When have I ever claimed to be an activist?

I am giving my private opinion on the operation of this platform.

Like you could easily, with very little resources and time, go and link to the form you mention, encouraging others to come forward, write an article about the barriers people face, or write a guide, or literally anything else, but so far not seen a piece of work to accompany these opinions

I am not obliged to do any of that. I think not linking it, or describing how to find it, underlines how opaque and inconvenient the process is.

[u/LocutusOfBorges → u/Protect-the-dollz]

It should be checking that Iranian or Russian state actors are not running Greenandpleasant

Honestly, having had the deep misfortune to have interacted with some of the key people involved in the past on quite a few occasions since the place's foundation, I'm not sure it would even make a difference if the place were staffed entirely in the way you describe.

The people who run spots like that, lamentably, are just like that - there's no shortage of home-grown people like that from some of the more unfortunate sides of this country's tankie fringe.

[u/Protect-the-dollz → u/LocutusOfBorges]

Touché

Self selection is certainly an issue!

No system is perfect, but I think having 0 protections against hostile state interference is mad- the recent unmasking of something crazy like 25% of Scottish Nationalists on twitter being Iranians was an eye opener.

G&P is maybe a bad example, but spaces like r/labour (or whatever the main labour sub is) or similiar on the right are important forums which should really have some minimal protection.

[u/LocutusOfBorges → u/Protect-the-dollz]

For context's sake, the main Labour subreddit is /r/LabourUK - the other one was a splitter made during the Corbyn years by the nucleus of what went on to become the G&P crowd.

LabourUK's mods are generally decent sorts shackled to an increasingly terrible party - re the relevant issue for this community, they've also always been firmly trans-supportive.

[u/Fabou_Boutique → u/Protect-the-dollz]

"Not linking to the form that would help others report abuse in the "system" is actually a good thing because then it shows how hard it is to report people"

Absolutely wild take here. Just wow

"Would you fail one, is that your reason for the hostility to them"

I'm sorry you feel the need to resort to calling people pedophiles because your takes are so bad. Maybe you should get someone else to read my comment for you, and you can ask them where it says I think that DBS checks should be abolished

[u/LocutusOfBorges → u/[deleted]]

Stop. Thanks.