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

[MaximilianKohler]

I found this fantastic article covering this https://detailed.com/forum-serps.

"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"

I recently moved from Reddit to Xenforo and wrote this related blog: Reddit is dangerous. The admins are out of control. Humanity needs a viable alternative, which lists even more reasons that Reddit should not be at the top of Google search results. Some are:

• It's heavily manipulated by moderators with agendas. The people willing to moderate on reddit for free are usually either incompetent or want to manipulate it for their personal agenda.
• It's a free-for-all for misinformation, disinformation, libel, etc. Reddit does nothing to police this kind of content except occasionally when it's a single major bad actor -- IE: during the start of the Russia-Ukraine war they took some steps to limit Russia's influence. But otherwise, reddit is generally very easy to astroturf and a free-for-all for mods to manipulate as they like, and for users to spread misinformation, disinformation, libel, etc. Most of what I see said about topics I'm well-informed on is misinformation. People seem really eager to give advice on things they know nothing about or are misinformed on.

There is virtually nothing trustworthy on Reddit, but due to an outdated and erroneous reputation, people seem to seek out and trust anything on Reddit.

Thankfully, that detailed.com article linked to some Google employees' Twitter pages and I directly sent them the article and my blog.

A related thread about Google's "Discussions and Forums" Feature https://xenforo.com/community/threads/googles-discussions-and-forums-feature.209687/

Bring Xenforo to the Fediverse https://xenforo.com/community/threads/bring-xenforo-to-the-fediverse.215471/ is also related. If there were a fediverse of Xenforo, and other forums (including reddit-alternatives like Lemmy), it could compete with Reddit's dominance.

 

[MaximilianKohler]

Just saw this on Lemmy:

Reddit's licensing deal means Google's AI can soon be trained on the best humanity has to offer — completely unhinged posts https://www.businessinsider.com/goo...-subreddit-posts-reddit-licensing-deal-2024-2

LOL!

 

[CedricV]

lol and Reddit now has yearly 60m USD contracts so that Google can use the content on Reddit for their AI.

Reddit and Google are about to dominate the internet.

Source

 

[DigNap15]

Reddit does seem to dominate the forum space.
But it has lost money every year of existence.
My forum has broken even for the last 4 years (but with no salary for the CEO me) or any other staff (me)

 

[Suzanne O]

Reddit = urgh

Have had too many bad experiences on that platform that i have to avoid it.
Even @Paul B was locked out of reddit after asking about one of his special interests (woodwork).
It's over moderated heap of garbage.

 

[EllieCat]

Some people think Reddit is under-moderated apparently.
Might be by the auto moderation making mistakes.

 

[Suzanne O]

Some people think Reddit is under-moderated apparently.
Might be by the auto moderation making mistakes.

They're over moderated. It's like everything you say can get you banned on there.

 

[Dragapult]

I'm not really sure how all the issues of Reddit can't apply to almost anywhere else. A message board that is under-modded or over-modded will have the same issues.

 

[Dragapult]

people seem to seek out and trust anything on Reddit.

I'm curious what evidence you have for this, because I've never heard this, and even way back in the early days of Reddit, it was always "don't use Reddit for life advice." This has been the case for all social media: don't trust your Facebook feed, the stuff you read on Twitter, etc. If people don't heed advice and refuse to seek out more qualified information, that's their problem.

 

[Dragapult]

They're over moderated. It's like everything you say can get you banned on there.

Yes, I've experienced this. Heavily dependent on the sub, though. Some are more lenient than others. But just the other day I got banned for a subreddit for saying "There is nothing stopping you from doing this." The moderator claimed I was encouraging someone to commit suicide... ? Not a big loss, it was a pretty dumb place anyway, but that was some weird mental gymnastics on their part.

But then others have people posting outright death threats and nothing gets deleted. So it's basically two extremes. Certainly an issue, but again, I can't say it's really unique to Reddit. I've been on plenty of message boards that are selectively moderated, dependent highly on the biases of the moderation team.