To counter the wave of disinformation on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the platform will allocate more “resources” to its moderators.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is one of the most discussed topics on social media in recent hours. The Reddit platform and its 50 million daily users are no exception. But in the hundreds of thousands of messages shared, some denote. These are publications of Russian propaganda or disinformation about the ongoing conflict. “We just deleted a fake account that repeatedly shared pro-Putin messages, it insisted that Putin is cornered by NATO and invaded Ukraine in self-defense“, explains to Figaro a moderator ofr/France“, the page of the social network dedicated to the French.
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“We try to find the right balance between freedom of expression and respect for the rules, but we do not hesitate to delete comments that veer towards xenophobia, racism and discrimination.“, he adds. On this platform, users moderate each other within communities. These volunteers are in charge of the control of certain pages, the direct intervention of the administrators of Reddit is not common.
The 800,000 members of the pager/Franceare therefore monitored by about fifteen moderators. A laborious task: they must control each publication, the most popular resulting in hundreds or even thousands of comments.
Several deletions
For now, the platform is only “not submergedbut a quick look at forums liker/worldnews» shows that a few dozen messages are removed and others seem to be posted in a loop by robots. A problem that the American company has in mind. “We are constantly monitoring outside events and extending resources and support to communities and moderators in affected areas. We also work closely with government stakeholders and other platforms to stay on top of any trends that may emerge.“, assures by email a spokesperson for Reddit. “More broadly, we use a combination of automated tools and human review to detect and act on content that violates our policies, which would include coordinated campaigns and other forms of content manipulation.“.
The platform is no stranger to Russian troll invasions. In 2018, 944 propaganda accounts were disconnected by Reddit leaders after an investigation by the New York TimesMagazine. The periodical revealed that an entire building housed “trolllaunching unfounded rumors on several social networks.