![reddit politicats reddit politicats](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/8z6Py6DhxeMwPFITBEzuKzKDxz8=/0x182:3064x1906/1600x900/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/38367304/454759978.0.0.jpg)
This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. GARCIA-NAVARRO: That's the Reddit moderator who goes by the username Qu1nlan.
#Reddit politicats movie#
QU1NLAN: Oh, I should tell you sometime about "The Last Jedi" movie release. GARCIA-NAVARRO: (Laughter) Hear, hear - although I have to tell you "Star Wars" can also get pretty contentious. So whenever politics becomes a little bit too much for me - I've had too many slurs for one day or I've had too many sources that I have to read in one day - I'll go ahead, and I'll read about baby Yoda. I'm also a big geek personally, and I moderate the "Star Wars" subreddit. QU1NLAN: So I am very thankful that politics is not my only subreddit. GARCIA-NAVARRO: I guess my last question is, do moderators ever change beats? I have seen a lot of people a little bit more afraid to accept sources and, in general, a lot more divisiveness.
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I have seen things like hate speech shoot up. But as we've progressed through the 2016 election and the actual Trump presidency, I personally have seen incivility shoot up. We had people just generally discussing the issues. And that was really nice, to be honest, as a moderator. Back in the Obama administration, we had a lot of quiet times. GARCIA-NAVARRO: You've been doing this for four or five years now. So I'm very thankful that the Reddit admins also take it seriously.
#Reddit politicats full#
So I got my name in the Reddit-wide filter, which means that my full real name cannot actually be set on Reddit, that it will get automatically removed by the robots. Personally, I have been doxxed in the past. But when that does happen, it's very serious, and we will try to get protection from ourselves. QU1NLAN: Thankfully, it's rare that people will come in and threaten us with things like doxxing, things like personal harm.
![reddit politicats reddit politicats](https://i.redd.it/l1n664r2eao41.jpg)
But the reason we're not referring to you by name is because of concerns about doxxing and users actually threatening you. GARCIA-NAVARRO: But I must ask you - you're unpaid, right? You don't get paid to do this.
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And people are using civility and discussing things in a fashion that would not necessarily be used on other forums in the Internet with more anonymity, such as places like 4chan or even any other places, any other online forums with the requirement to create a username rather than use your real name. QU1NLAN: I think self-regulated is a great word for this. GARCIA-NAVARRO: Self-regulated, I think, would be a better word. QU1NLAN: Well, I think that unregulated is not the word that I would necessarily use for it. GARCIA-NAVARRO: It sounds like a pretty unregulated community. And here's why you shouldn't believe everything that you see on the Internet. So generally, when we see fake news that we know is not factually correct, we'll go ahead and encourage our user base to go ahead and fact-check it themselves and also comment - say, well, here's why this news is fake, and here is the sources to back it up. We don't have resources that a team like Facebook or Twitter might have with tons and tons of paid fact-checkers. We are a team of about 50 moderators on a subreddit of 5.6 million people. How do you and your team of moderators deal with that? GARCIA-NAVARRO: We here at NPR have been covering, quote, unquote, "fake news" in its original sense - you know, disinformation, misleading information masked as journalism or facts - for years now. But we do see people changing their minds about lower-level, less divisive things, such like, do you support gender-inclusive restrooms, or do you support the Keystone XL pipeline? - things like that. But we also see some people who are just saying Trump 2020 or impeach him lock him up. QU1NLAN: We see a lot of really high-level, good faith discussion with people citing links, citing sources, talking about why they think the way they do. And though it has a slight leftward lean politically, there are users on Reddit from all over the political spectrum. He goes by the username Qu1nlan, and he told us that he sees mostly talk about impeachment these days. We're not calling him by his name because threats of physical harm and doxxing are so common on Reddit. Our next guest moderates the main political subreddit, r/politics.
#Reddit politicats tv#
In Reddit's forums, called subreddits, users find cooking advice, book recommendations, thriving TV discussions, all sorts of topics - including politics. The discussion and news aggregation site Reddit sees some of the most web traffic in the United States, ranking higher than both Netflix and Instagram.