Technology

It is well timed that you share this, as readers can tell that I was angrier than usual when commenting on neofascists dogpiling somebody for a harmless opinion. Although I was a little unhappy doing research for the film Starship Troopers, the main reason that I was irritated was that it had been a long time since I had seen so much vileness and wilful ignorance typical of militant anticommunists. Their replies were depressing to read.

Concerning content moderation:

This may surprise people, but I used to moderate NSFW subcommunities on Reddit. At first I enjoyed it, inspecting submissions and tidying my subcommunities by deleting redundant or irrelevant content, but my work slowed down as the years went by. Uninspected submissions piled up and it was rare for other moderators to assist me. I was also really annoyed constantly answering requests saying ‘SAUCE?’ when the sources were usually pretty easy to find. On several occasions, people would bite me if I was too inactive or if I ‘unfairly’ removed their content. Other users would also repeatedly waste their money by giving me Reddit’s frivolous ‘awards’ instead of giving that dosh to me, which was frustrating since I was unpaid. I set up a Patreon in an attempt to redirect the money, but almost nobody subscribed to it.

One day several users reported a submission with a transgender person as ‘off-topic’. It was at that point that I finally decided that I had enough. After moderating for about five years, I unceremoniously deleted my account in 2022 out of sheer exhaustion, and because I was the only active moderator on various subcommunities (and oftentimes the only moderator at all), the Reddit staff banned almost all of them for being unmoderated. I have not told anybody about all of this until now.