Reddit's Altruism Compared To 4chan's Trollism

from the but-are-they-the-same-people? dept

Thu, Nov 18th 2010 9:21am — Mike Masnick

There's a wonderful saying that I keep seeing get passed around lately, that:

Reddit makes me like people I've never met, while Facebook makes me hate people I know in real life.

While I believe the quote actually started with Twitter in place of Reddit, there's certainly an element of truth there (no matter which service you're talking about). Mathew Ingram points us to an excellent listing of some amazing stories of altruism performed by the Reddit community. The post lists out 25 separate -- and often quite amazing -- stories of true altruism from the Reddit community. It's really quite an uplifting piece, and if you've spent time in the Reddit community, you're sure to recognize many of these stories.

It's also a nice antidote to all the claims we hear from people who think that the "online mobs" out there only perform acts of malice and attacks. Of course, stories of such things are often dominated by stories of sites like 4chan. But what really strikes me about all of this is that in my experience, it often feels like there are many of the same people who hang out on both sites. While I'm sure there are many who spend time on one or the other, in the Venn Diagram of both communities, I would imagine there's a fair bit of overlap. And yet, people always talk about how the 4chan (mainly /b/) community is the worst of the worst when it comes to doing despicable things, and here's a situation in which perhaps the very same people are seen doing amazing things. There's even one "crossover" story, involving a situation that originated on 4chan, where someone had posted an image of an upcoming 90th birthday party of a guy who... looked a bit lonely in the picture (his family later denied this...). However, both the 4chan and the Reddit communities jumped onto this and decided to "cheer the guy up," sending him tons of presents, and even having a bunch of folks (from both communities) show up at his party.

I'm not sure exactly what this all means, but it does seem like the rather simplistic story you often hear in the media about the "hurtful" nature of online communities is often ignoring that the very same people can be amazingly helpful at times as well.

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Filed Under: 4chan, altruism, communities, reddit, trolling
Companies: 4chan, reddit

48 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2010 @ 9:35am

4Chan is a vastly confusing entity for most people. They think it's some kind of cesspool of evil where all the dirtiest of the internet society reside.

It's more like pub on a Saturday night, where everyone goes to get drunk before having to back to their day jobs.
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Joe, 18 Nov 2010 @ 9:41am

I saw a similar comparison on Reddit (naturally), roughly paraphrased it was, 'Reddit rewards the victims, 4chan punishes the aggressors'. They do in fact often act as the flip sides to the same moral coin.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2010 @ 9:52am

The internet is stuffed to the gills with communities, forums, sites that are helpful, informative, kind, fun, supportive, or beneficial in some overall way. The brats (or perceived brats) are therefore always going to be, in the least, interesting or talked about since they aren't the norm. I'd wager that's why it's so easy to build moral panics around them.

As for the overlap between them - no surprise at all, especially when the situation appears to be one of "justice". It's more the drama of ideals, being involved on a ground level with it, that appeal to the vigilante fantasy streak that exists in all of us to some extent.

The power to help, in whatever way, is terribly alluring. Throw in anonymity and it can get bold, even dark, but alleviating the despair of helplessness? Major mojo.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2010 @ 9:52am

The internet is stuffed to the gills with communities, forums, sites that are helpful, informative, kind, fun, supportive, or beneficial in some overall way. The brats (or perceived brats) are therefore always going to be, in the least, interesting or talked about since they aren't the norm. I'd wager that's why it's so easy to build moral panics around them.

As for the overlap between them - no surprise at all, especially when the situation appears to be one of "justice". It's more the drama of ideals, being involved on a ground level with it, that appeal to the vigilante fantasy streak that exists in all of us to some extent.

The power to help, in whatever way, is terribly alluring. Throw in anonymity and it can get bold, even dark, but alleviating the despair of helplessness? Major mojo.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2010 @ 9:53am

Misclicked!
Apologies for the double post.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2010 @ 10:01am

voltier.com is a dead link, their DNS is grossly misconfigured.
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Pitabred (profile), 18 Nov 2010 @ 10:02am

Humanity showing through
I think that it's really more indicative of the natural feelings of people, how these communities behave.

The average non-sociopath has strong feelings of right and wrong, and it's cross-cultural. These online community actions are simply the expression of those feelings. If they feel that someone is taking advantage of others (Scientology) they fight against it. But it's not for kicks, it's not just "because". It's got a social reason behind it.

It's also why a bunch of people randomly decided to help some guy celebrate his 90th birthday. Being altruistic is a good feeling (again, for non-sociopaths). Helping others because you can is natural.

We seem to forget that underneath all this, we're all still very human. There's nothing "odd" about any of this behavior if you actually understand people and their motivations beyond purely fiscal pressures.
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interval (profile), 18 Nov 2010 @ 10:05am

Re:
Having a beer with Pedobear is like... hmmm... being groped by the TSA perhaps.
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scarr (profile), 18 Nov 2010 @ 10:10am

Id
I've always thought of 4chan as the "id" of the internet. It's the uncontrolled, raw sense of what people are. That's what makes it great and terrifying.

I don't understand why the place responsible for a huge number of popular, funny memes can be seen as such an evil place. Is rickrolling really that horrific?

I'm having trouble finding the evidence, but I also know of a case where someone posted a picture of his underage daughter and one of her friends, saying he was thinking about arranging to have sex with her. Within a few hours, 4chan had sorted out who this guy was, and contacted both the school and police to warn them of a potential pedophile.

I'd never call it specifically "good" or "altruistic". It's just human.
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Tails, 18 Nov 2010 @ 10:11am

This post made me want to join the reddit community, I'll probably look into the site when I have some free time this weekend. Thanks Mije!
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drewmerc (profile), 18 Nov 2010 @ 10:19am

both sites as protests
reddit is a sit in
4chan is a riot

(digg is the clean up crew after a protest) thought i'd add that one as well
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2010 @ 10:21am

Re: Id
Rickrolling is harmless, but posting flashing gifs to an epilepsy support board is not.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2010 @ 10:31am

Re: Re:
http://linnnk.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/tsa-pedobear.png
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2010 @ 10:34am

To me it comes down to site design, signal/noise. Reddit I can vastly outcustomize compared to 4chan.

4chan my eyes bleed after a scroll. Not necessarily because of the content, but because of the repetition, and how 99% is rehashed shit for the 1% gems.

Reddit is slowly entering mainstream, which is sad in a way, the site isn't like it was 3 years back, and the top 50 rated comments are predictable recognizable memes from the past few months.
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interval (profile), 18 Nov 2010 @ 10:37am

Re: Re: Re:
I... LOVE... THAT!
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Free Capitalist (profile), 18 Nov 2010 @ 10:59am

Flip side of @
Nice "props", Mike.

There are some very good anarchists, and then there are the others-- you know, the ones in Washington, er... I mean DDOS'ers.
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Dave, 18 Nov 2010 @ 11:06am

Sadly, for someone who's old enough to know better, I've spent a lot of time on /b/. I'm college educated, spent time in the 1980s with BBS, so I have no excuse. Like Homer Simpson eating tulips, it's my secret shame.

4chan goes both ways. I've seen them do some nice things. They helped find the guy that killed the porn actress in the midwest. They find people who threaten to bring guns to schools.

I've also seen them totally screw over people for small things. Heaven forbid someone under 18 posts naked shots of themselves with a traceable iPhone. The pictures will be sent to their schools, family and neighbors. And there's a small handful who post CP but hopefully a few arrests will stop that.

Pick on /b/ because it's often out of control, but they do some good.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2010 @ 11:17am

Re: Humanity showing through
Eh, some of it is also the search for amusement, and the hatred of boredom. A good number of people (yes, weasel words, I know, I know) are just looking for something to do, and hey this seems fun. Or they're looking to be dicks to other people so why not sign on for a cause where they get to?
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nasch (profile), 18 Nov 2010 @ 11:30am

Evidence?
Did you just completely make up the idea that there's a great deal of overlap between Reddit and 4chan, and then treat it as though it's a fact? Because it looks like that's what you did.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2010 @ 11:45am

Re:
I think this is a much more apt comparison, or at least a better description of the differences between the two sites.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2010 @ 11:50am

Re:
I think a lot of /b/ is more educated than people give it credit for.

They just really really like to punish idiocy.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2010 @ 1:21pm

Pedobear the movie(a.k.a. Yogi Bear) soon in theaters everywhere.

Seriously 4Chan seems like the little girl in the story bellow that stabs the fish gets all bloody and keeps saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry" LoL

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/03/how-fish-almost-destroyed-my-childhood.html
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Marcel de Jong (profile), 18 Nov 2010 @ 3:18pm

Re: Evidence?
Are you suggesting that there isn't an overlap?

Even despite that many redditors would actually agree with that there is?
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nasch (profile), 18 Nov 2010 @ 3:48pm

Re: Re: Evidence?
No, I'm saying that this: "the rather simplistic story you often hear in the media about the "hurtful" nature of online communities is often ignoring that the very same people can be amazingly helpful at times as well" implies that it's a known fact, but Mike presented absolutely no evidence of it.
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DRock, 18 Nov 2010 @ 4:56pm

Reddit People
That quote at the beginning of the story is B.S. I checked it out and was reading this article:
http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/e8b53/my_18_year_old_sister_has_been_missing_f or_a_week/

The comments from some people make me want to puke. But I digress, there are douchebags everywhere nowadays.
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Winston Pennypacker, 18 Nov 2010 @ 6:36pm

Survival of the fittest
What you see on the Internet is an extension of the real world where it's essentially survival of the fittest.

In the schoolyard, the bigger stronger kid pushes the smaller weaker kids around.

In the workplace, in order to climb the ladder you need to be a bigger yes man than your competition.

On the Internet, the technology savvy people have an advantage over the technology challenged.

Many members of reddit and 4chan are tech savvy. And just like you can't say all bullies are the same or all corporate scumbags are the same, you can't say all tech savvy people are the same.

This, my friends, is my rambling, meaningless insight of the day. Do you see what the stresses of real life do to the human mind? I need to nuke RIAA's Website in order to clear my mind and then maybe I'll help someone out on Reddit.

Also, never trust anyone who says, "my friends"... but I'm not really a dishonest person, I just felt like using that phrase for some reason... maybe I'm losing it. I don't know. I'll stop now.
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Ben, 18 Nov 2010 @ 6:49pm

Re: Re: Evidence?
That sentence doesn't necessarily imply an overlap between the users, just that people on 4chan can also be very helpful.

Which they can. See all the cases of them hunting down and reporting people who post videos of them harming animals etc.

Personally I see 4chan kind of like a developing foreign country.
Everyone tells you all these horror stories about it and how terrible it is, then you go there and talk to the people and find out they're just like everyone else.
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LouF, 18 Nov 2010 @ 7:19pm

Reddit is worse than 4chan
Reddit is 4chan with herpes.

I've never seen such a group of immature, pot-smoking, haters and perverts than on Reddit. The stories of Reddit altruism are propaganda and almost all factually incorrect.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Nov 2010 @ 7:39pm

Re: Reddit is worse than 4chan
You think reddit is worse than 4chan? You just lost all credibility, you must be smoking crack.
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Marcel de Jong (profile), 19 Nov 2010 @ 1:23am

Re: Re: Re: Evidence?
Even the biggest asshole can be nice to someone. That IS a known fact.

The media focuses rather a lot on the negative side of social networks. (ZOMG SEXUAL PREDATORS!!!!111)
But they ignore the beneficial sides, as shown in these tales of altruism right in this story.
Those are known facts too.

What kind of evidence were you expecting?

btw, that was not what you said in your initial post.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Nov 2010 @ 2:51am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Evidence?
A-holes of the universe?

Sorry I was watching He-man on youtube LoL
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nasch (profile), 19 Nov 2010 @ 7:17am

Re: Re: Re: Evidence?
True, maybe that is what he meant. It's open to misinterpretation though - could have been written more clearly, after the speculation about overlap that proceeded it.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Nov 2010 @ 7:31am

(Long time reader and insider, but going anon for this post)

To me, /b/ (and the rest of 4chan) is my escape after a stressful work day. Granted, I'm more into /d/ and /r9000/ for whatever reasons. But on a first hand account, there's quite a bit of overlap from 4chan and the rest of the interwebs. It's anonymous setting makes it easier to share information, but is also ripe for exploit from just a few people to derail a board or thread. But as it was mentioned, the nature of the situation is much like the id of the internet. Just a raw stream of data, all uncensored and unfiltered that tickles up to many of the other sites that oldfags and newfags go to.

It should be noted that while 4chan is considered the source, it's not the only chan out there. You have many other "chans" out there built by previous members of 4chan who wanted to take their content to a more dedicated location. There's sites like bbwchan which are more dedicated to p0rn, 7chan is a more of a forum in comparison to 4chan. 420chan and gurochan started originally about the subjects as mentioned, but have spread out to additional topics unrelated to the original mission, but still having their own autonomous communities. Even though you have many of these sites around, they'll all usually get lumped together back with /b/ on 4chan, no matter how remote they are.
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nasch (profile), 19 Nov 2010 @ 7:37am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Evidence?
See my response to Ben below.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101113/22385711859/reddit-s-altruism-compared-to-4chan- s-trollism.shtml#c474
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reflibman (profile), 19 Nov 2010 @ 3:14pm

Re: Reddit is worse than 4chan
LouF is just pissed that he was kicked off of Reddit for excessive inappropriate and offensive comments, or �trolling�. And as such characters go, instead of blaming himself, he blames the forum, seemingly searching for opportunities to badmouth it. (Seriously, look up a recent pro-Reddit article and you will see LouF making disparaging comments.) Bottom-line - Reddit does good much more than it does evil.
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Bonnie Stewart, 19 Nov 2010 @ 4:04pm

Reddit is still sexist
While the sense of community is great, reddit is still a cespool of sexism, sizism, and general misogeny.
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Xander C (profile), 19 Nov 2010 @ 4:37pm

Re: Reddit is still sexist
/TwoXChromosomes/ exists for your pleasure mad'am.

Aside from that, I fail to see the rest of the boards being anything like what you mentioned... (aside from seduction of course, but they're he anti-twoXchromosomes...)
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psulli, 19 Nov 2010 @ 5:15pm

Filling Gaps.
'Reddit rewards the victims, 4chan punishes the aggressors'

Just like journalism used to do: Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.
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thefool808, 19 Nov 2010 @ 5:15pm

Re: Evidence?
There is. I'm an expert in these sorts of things.
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alquanna (profile), 19 Nov 2010 @ 5:21pm

Re: Reddit is still sexist
Just like real life. (To be honest, most of the time it's tongue-in-cheek, but then again, sarcasm doesn't get through the Internet sometimes.)
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Abdul Basit Ahmad, 19 Nov 2010 @ 11:57pm

my 2 cents
perhaps its a very simple matter. 4chan is an anonymous board and people hang out there for the lulz, basically. not that lulz are not had on reddit, but of a different kind.

while on reddit you get karma and so. its not exactly 2 plus 2 straight forward, but this distinction seems to me to be important.

also all the cancer on reddit is confined to a few circlejerking subs and it is pretty easy to avoid it.
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shenoyjoseph, 20 Nov 2010 @ 2:14am

reddit is good
reddit is always good for traffic
http://techdraginfo.blogspot.com/
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Nov 2010 @ 3:39am

I think people in this day and age are desperately trying to make a difference. In whatever way.
When you can make a difference by making some lonely old man's day, you do it, be it Reddit or 4chan.
When you can make a difference by harassing the shit out of some dumb bitch who posted her contact information, you do it, be it 4chan. Not reddit though, because you're limited in identification: pseudonymity is not as safe as anonymity.
The only real differentiating factor in all of this is that 4chan is more anonymous than other websites, while also being populous. Besides all that, it's just people trying to leave their mark on the world. 'Good' or 'bad'.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Nov 2010 @ 12:39pm

Thanks, and...
Thanks, I joined Reddit because of this thread.

I like both of the sites, 4chan is not full of dumb idiots, they are very smart at times, and very helpful as many of you have said, but all of 4chan shouldn't be at blame. I spend the majority of my 4chan time on /wg/, /r9k/, and /tv/ where there is virtually no harm or harassment, if you think you know all of 4chan and you think you can sum all of it up with /b/'s actions then maybe you should take the time to go on there more often, because you don't know the other half of 4chan.
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Chris, 21 Nov 2010 @ 9:43am

fanboi
Until you realize a group of Redditors' didn't like some guy getting alternative treatment for his wife cancer, so they decided to take it into their own hands. This includes death threats, calling child services, ordering things. Reddit's not necessarily some huge funtime adventure.
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LouF's biggest fan, 22 Nov 2010 @ 4:09am

LouF recognised for what he is on a completely different site. Awesome. Game over, LouF - everyone knows except you.
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Jan 2012 @ 3:37pm

Re: Re: Id
LMFAO
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Anonymous Coward, 18 Jan 2012 @ 3:41pm

Re: Re: Id
LMFAO
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