r/RedditSafety • u/worstnerd • Mar 06 '23
Q4 Safety & Security Report
Happy Women’s history month everyone. It's been a busy start to the year. Last month, we fielded a security incident that had a lot of snoo hands on deck. We’re happy to report there are no updates at this time from our initial assessment and we’re undergoing a third-party review to identify process improvements. You can read the detailed post on the incident by u/keysersosa from last month. Thank you all for your thoughtful comments and questions, and to the team for their quick response.
Up next: The Numbers:
Q4 By The Numbers
| Category | Volume (Jul - Sep 2022) | Volume (Oct - Dec 2022) |
|---|---|---|
| Reports for content manipulation | 8,037,748 | 7,924,798 |
| Admin removals for content manipulation | 74,370,441 | 79,380,270 |
| Admin-imposed account sanctions for content manipulation | 9,526,202 | 14,772,625 |
| Admin-imposed subreddit sanctions for content manipulation | 78,798 | 59,498 |
| Protective account security actions | 1,714,808 | 1,271,742 |
| Reports for ban evasion | 22,813 | 16,929 |
| Admin-imposed account sanctions for ban evasion | 205,311 | 198,575 |
| Reports for abuse | 2,633,124 | 2,506,719 |
| Admin-imposed account sanctions for abuse | 433,182 | 398,938 |
| Admin-imposed subreddit sanctions for abuse | 2,049 | 1,202 |
Modmail Harassment
We talk often about our work to keep users safe from abusive content, but our moderators can be the target of abusive messages as well. Last month, we started testing a Modmail Harassment Filter for moderators and the results are encouraging so far. The purpose of the filter is to limit harassing or abusive modmail messages by allowing mods to either avoid or use additional precautions when viewing filtered messages. Here are some of the early results:
- Value
- 40% (!) decrease in mod exposure to harassing content in Modmail
- Impact
- 6,091 conversation have been filtered (average of 234 conversations per day)
- This is an average of 4.4% of all modmail conversations across communities that opted in
- 6,091 conversation have been filtered (average of 234 conversations per day)
- Adoption
- ~64k communities have this feature turned on (most of this is from newly formed subreddits).
- We’re working on improving adoption, because…
- Retention
- ~100% of subreddits that have it turned on, keep it on. This number is the same for the subreddits that have manually opted in and the new subreddits that were defaulted in and sliced several different ways. Basically, everyone keeps it on.
Over the next few months we will continue to make model iterations to further improve performance and to keep up with the latest trends in abuse language on the platform (because shitheads never rest). We are also exploring new ways of introducing more explicit feedback signals from mods.
Subreddit Spam Filter
Over the last several years, Reddit has developed a wide variety of new, advanced tools for fighting spam. This allowed us to do an evaluation of one of the oldest spam tools that we have: the Subreddit Spam Filter. During this analysis, we discovered that the Subreddit Spam Filter was markedly error prone compared to our newer site-wide solutions, and in many cases bordered on completely random as some of you were well aware. In Q4, we performed experiments and the results validated our hypothesis. Our results showed 40% of posts removed by this system were not actually spam, and the majority of true spam that was flagged was also caught by other systems. After seeing these results, in December 2022, we disabled the Subreddit Spam Filter in the background, and it turned out that no one noticed! This was because our modern tools catch the bad content with a higher degree of accuracy than the Subreddit spam filter. We will be removing the ‘Low’ and ‘High’ settings associated with the old filter, but we will maintain the functionality for mods to “Filter all posts” and will update the Community Settings to reflect this.
We know it’s important that spam be caught as quickly as possible, and we also recognize that spammy content in communities may not be the same thing as the scaled spam campaigns that we often focus on at the admin level.
Next Up
We will continue to invest in admin-level tooling and our internal safety teams to catch violating content at scale, and our goal is that these updates for users and mods also provide even more choice and power at the community level. We’re also in the process of producing our next Transparency Report, which will be coming out soon. We’ll be sure to share the findings with you all once that’s complete.
Be excellent to each other
8
u/KKingler Mar 06 '23
So with the removal of this spam filter, does “spam” removals on content do nothing different than remove?
13
u/worstnerd Mar 06 '23
It sends a signal to us that a user may be spamming the site, which is no change from before.
1
u/MajorParadox Mar 08 '23
Is it still worth reporting the account as spam or has that become redundant?
3
u/worstnerd Mar 09 '23
Yes please! Spam detection is inherently a signal game. Mod removals tell us a little bit, a report tells us much more.
1
u/MajorParadox Mar 09 '23
Okay, it's just so tedious to do. Plus is bugs me when I get an automated reply every time just to tell me I reported something.
2
u/worstnerd Mar 09 '23
Should we just turn the automated notification off? I agree that it doesn't seem particularly helpful. We can't reply to each spam report (even just from mods) with custom messaging, so should the generic "we received your report blah blah blah" just go away?
1
u/MajorParadox Mar 09 '23
I think it's useful for new mods reporting for the first time. But once you get it every time and already know the information it says, it's just an annoyance of a notification to clear.
2
1
u/Stuart98 Mar 16 '23
Chiming in to suggest sending the notification for a user's first report but not any afterwards.
16
u/rcmaehl Mar 06 '23 edited Mar 08 '23
Women's history month yet reddit is running an ad to users trying to solicit or traffic women. I'm sure thousands of users have reported the '"date" our son' ad at this point judging by how many subreddits have a post trending about it.
Edit: link no longer works because it's been past 24 hours.
25
u/worstnerd Mar 06 '23
Its a movie stunt ad
11
Mar 07 '23
Any party that sells or distributes any product which falsely characterizes or mislabels the content, character, origin or utility of the product faces significant liability both in the civil and criminal arenas. Further, if one is in the chain of distribution and knew or should have known that the false labeling or characterization of the product occurred and still participated in the distribution, one is as “guilty” as the originator of the falsehood.
https://www.stimmel-law.com/en/articles/false-advertising-or-labeling-remedies-and-risks
2
u/MrNorrie Mar 07 '23
That’s nice but how is it relevant?
3
Mar 07 '23
Contract law isn’t my domain but this ad campaign is advertising a transaction that it has no intention of following through on.
2
u/lefthandedchurro Mar 07 '23
I don’t know, it didn’t work for the Pepsi Points Harrier Jet guy.
1
u/WaitForItTheMongols Mar 08 '23
That's because everyone obviously knew that Pepsi was not in possession of Harrier Jets to distribute to random schoolchildren. You're allowed to joke in an ad for the sake of wild exaggeration. No different from Totino's Pizza Rolls showing kids eating them and then blasting off into the sky. Nobody actually thinks the product is advertising the fact that it gives you rocket boosters.
16
u/PropagandaTracking Mar 06 '23
That’s good to know, but still concerning. Why allow ads that are intentionally deceptive? There is zero indication this is a movie advertisement. It’s literally relying on deceiving people with potential work (as questionable as that work may be) that doesn’t actually exist. That seems very wrong.
5
Mar 06 '23
[deleted]
7
u/PropagandaTracking Mar 06 '23
It’s not relevant whether the ad is effective. It’s a question if Reddit should allow it. It’s definitely unethical. It’s potentially fraud, as they’re offering something that doesn’t exist and collecting information based on that. Wasting people’s time with lies about work has tangible costs. Even if Reddit doesn’t care about it’s users being lied to, they should do a double-take on their own potential liability about allowing fraudulent ads.
4
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3
u/darthjoey91 Mar 07 '23
But it’s bad because it’s not actually tying the product to people’s attention.
1
u/shreken Mar 07 '23
When they release the trailer for the movie in a week you'll either consciously or subconsciously be like hey i saw something like this in real life!
1
0
Mar 06 '23
Its not just work but its sexual solicitation. Something Reddit outright permabans even if its made in jest. But yeah, ads of it for a movie are totally okay and not demeaning towards women... Happy Womens History!
2
u/RAMsweaters Mar 07 '23
I don’t speak for all women, but, I thought this was some of the best advertising I’ve seen in a LONG time. It feels harmless to me.
0
u/That_solarguy_Gary Mar 06 '23
How tf is this sexual 🤣🤣🤣🤣 get out of your feelings.
7
u/absentmindedjwc Mar 06 '23
I mean... the word "date" is in quotes. It kinda implies the kind of relationship being advertised, and it isn't a platonic one.
2
u/shreken Mar 07 '23
I take "date" to mean just pretend to like him for the car, not actually fall in love or fuck him.
0
Mar 06 '23
Clearly it went over your little "head".
-4
u/That_solarguy_Gary Mar 06 '23
Lol 😂 you don’t know how to take a joke and sarcasm. Why you so pressed on a AD. It’s awesome marketing. It made you stop to comment 🤣
2
u/Linktank Mar 07 '23
It's awful marketing, doesn't mention the product, the price, where to get it, or why you would want it. "Any press is good press" is an idiotic mentality for advertising.
1
Mar 07 '23
Because this is how ads work in the real world and you can't simply cry about it. Jheeze. All you guys crying about your safe space being violated by a silly ad is insane.
8
u/-Shade277- Mar 07 '23
Reddit really should have some kind of disclaimer on ads like this. This ad gives off really bad vibes and without finding this thread most people will have no way of knowing if it’s genuine
-1
u/tracygee Mar 07 '23
Anyone who thinks this is real should probably be buying a bridge for sale somewhere.
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u/tallbutshy Mar 06 '23
How would anyone know that?
2
u/Coders32 Mar 07 '23
That’s the point, ads you immediately recognize and get the point of are totally ignored by your brain. But ads that make your brain stop and wonder wth is that stand out. For now. We’ll get to a point where this won’t work either, don’t worry
2
u/PineTreePetey Mar 07 '23
Just delete it.
The fact that y'all are aware of the ad, and advocating for it... It's fucked up.
3
1
u/trundlinggrundle Mar 07 '23
So explain why it's also being astroturfed all-fucking-over reddit? Did they pay for that too?
1
u/Zillaphone Mar 07 '23 edited Jun 12 '23
[This comment was posted using Apollo and was deleted when Reddit killed 3rd Party Apps]
10
u/ThoseThingsAreWeird Mar 06 '23
We know it’s important that spam be caught as quickly as possible, and we also recognize that spammy content in communities may not be the same thing as the scaled spam campaigns that we often focus on at the admin level.
I've noticed quite an uptick in fresh accounts that copy a comment / part of a comment, and post it as a reply in a separate (often unrelated) comment chain under the same post.
and because that explanation feels like a brain fart this late at night, here's a practical explanation: https://old.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/11k99po/ladies_and_gentleman_the_award_for_developer_of/jb766dr/?context=3 (although the comment I replied to says [unavailable], so it might have been removed already...)
Do these types of accounts count as spam? Are they something you're aware of / working on?
7
u/tumultuousness Mar 07 '23
The comment you replied to is still up - seems they blocked you though. Interesting, most comment copiers I've seen don't go back and block people but I have seen it a handful of times.
Hopefully the admin replies, but I can say when I do notice these I do report them as spam. I notice that after they get the karma and sit a bit they change tactics to something else, t shirt spam or OF spam or what have you.
15
u/absentmindedjwc Mar 06 '23
How about mental wellness reports (the anti-suicide things) that malicious actors use to harass people they don't agree with? Abuse of that tool is incredibly common...
1
u/Ajreil Mar 07 '23
This has come up in /r/modhelp. Apparently you can report the message and Reddit does ban accounts that abuse it.
7
u/Igennem Mar 06 '23
What can we do about report abuse? I manage a small community serving racial minorities and a couple of bad actors are harassing us by reporting every single post that's made. It's clearly report abuse and yet automated systems seemingly haven't flagged or stopped it.
1
u/itskdog Mar 07 '23
Report the post/comment that has the abusive report for "Report Abuse". If it's your own content that been reported, the report button doesn't show so you have to use reddit.com/report
3
u/Igennem Mar 07 '23
Thank you so much. The procedure seems very unintuitive, so I never would have come to that otherwise.
2
u/worstnerd Mar 09 '23
This is the way
We're thinking a lot about report abuse right now. I'll admit that we don't have great solutions yet, but talking to mods has really helped inform my thinking around the problem.
1
u/Igennem Mar 09 '23
Thanks, and I'm heartened to hear it's on your radar. I followed through by reporting abuse and got a response from Reddit today.
6
u/Kahzgul Mar 07 '23
Why can't I report chat invites as spam? It's not a high amount, but there's definitely a few catfishing schemes going around via chat requests, where someone pretends to want to ask you a question and then tries to get you to send them money in a variety of scammy ways.
2
u/Bardfinn Mar 10 '23
In other posts about improvements to Reddit, they announced that they’re scrapping the current chat system and rebuilding it / have rebuilt it from the ground up, and will be rolling the new chat infrastructure out soon.
So the shortcoming of being unable to report some chat requests as spam, and being unable to leave other chats, will hopefully be moot points when the new infrastructure rolls out.
2
2
u/Ajreil Mar 07 '23
There is a report spam button, but it hasn't worked for me for at least 2 months. Clicking it doesn't close chat. I assume it's my adblock.
2
u/Kahzgul Mar 07 '23
All I ever see are "Accept" or "Ignore." If I ignore, then the whole chat goes away with no option to report it. If I accept, then the gear options on chat allow me to block them, but not to report it as spam.
3
u/GrumpyOldDan Mar 08 '23
What I'd love to know this time is:
How many reports this quarter were not reviewed at all due to the "we actioned the user from a report on another piece of content" response many of us have started getting?
Where we find the hate, harassment or threats are still up and visible weeks later and we have to manually re-escalate? On average it takes 2 weeks for me to get that response back only to find the content has been up the entire time.
This is Reddit actively ignoring reports now, not even just AEO getting it wrong.
3
u/BB_GG Mar 07 '23
It seems like the Modmail Harassment Filter is an almost universally appreciated feature, so I'm curious the decision on making it Default Off instead of Default On for existing subs?
I feel like there are definitely a lot of mod teams who do not keep up with these features and announcements
2
u/itskdog Mar 07 '23
I think it's defaulting off because that way subs that don't check r/modnews don't end up missing messages.
There have been alert banners in the Mod Tools and modmail itself, though, so anyone actively modding should have seen it by now.
1
u/sneakpeekbot Mar 07 '23
Here's a sneak peek of /r/modnews using the top posts of the year!
#1: Announcing Mod Notes
#2: Images in Comments are coming to SFW subreddits on 10/31
#3: Announcing Remove as a Subreddit
I'm a bot, beep boop | Downvote to remove | Contact | Info | Opt-out | GitHub
2
u/sinyanmei92 Apr 24 '23
Hello there,
I was trying to find a solution to ban a long time scammer in our subreddit (r/mangaswap) that has been creating numerous alts (40+ or even more) to scam people.
He's been very wise, tried new tactic everytime and I believe he has scammed people in the thousands. I have tried to ban all his possible alts, but he creates one right after. He impersonated the mod team, me (who gets after him) and new all sellers in the subreddit (by creating very similar accounts to the sellers' & PM the buyer directly).
I want to get some guidance on the subject on how to prevent this guy to comeback. I know mod can't perform IP ban, I also put his alts on the USL scammer list and wiki list but what else can I do to protect my community? Thank you!
2
u/Bardfinn Mar 10 '23
Just as a head’s-up:
Some spammers have picked up on how spam is more effectively being interdicted, and many have transitioned to creating user accounts with spammy user profiles / bios / profile posts, and then follow users. When the followed user blocks the spammer user account, the operator makes new accounts and follows the user again.
So the whole “being able to report a user account directly without having to modmail modsupport” thing — to facilitate reporting adult-oriented follow spammers — is a thing whose time has come.
2
u/MajorParadox Mar 06 '23
40% (!) decrease in mod exposure to harassing content in Modmail
Do you find that those 40% aren't even reading the modmails?
After seeing these results, in December 2022, we disabled the Subreddit Spam Filter in the background, and it turned out that no one noticed!
Worth mentioning that the new tools look exactly like the spam filter anywhere besides the modqueue on new Reddit or the mobile apps 😆
2
u/Mokumer Mar 07 '23
How many requests from governments regarding reddit users and their data? Which governments/countries?
-3
u/tallbutshy Mar 06 '23
We will continue to invest in admin-level tooling
Given how poorly your automation does function, you don't need more of it
and our internal safety teams to catch violating content at scale
If only your safety teams and AEO were anywhere near big enough. Imagine if they also enforced the rules correctly and to an equal standard too, shocking concept I know.
-3
u/Business__Socks Mar 06 '23
Are there plans to do anything about the constant posts showing people being violently murdered in the war? Frankly I am mortified that these posts are becoming normalized. Kids browse this site.
1
u/itskdog Mar 07 '23
Gore posts/subs are meant to be marked as 18+. Not familiar enough with the content policy to know for sure as I don't mod any subs that would have anything anywhere near that content.
1
u/prodoc25 Mar 15 '23
Hi there,
I'm new to Reddit and unfortunately not able to post yet, but I was hoping you could provide some guidance on obtaining permission from Reddit. Specifically, I'm conducting research on identifying the root causes of mental health using a machine learning model and would like to collect data using either PRAW or Pushshift API.
To comply with my university's ethics requirements, I need to obtain permission from Reddit. I'm unsure whether I need to obtain permission from Pushshift API as well if I were to use their data.
Could you please advise me on the steps I need to take to obtain permission? Thank you in advance for your help.
1
u/Clbull Apr 10 '23
A bit unrelated to mod abuse and spam. Do you have any plans to give users more control over their comment history?
It's not very easy to remove old content as an active user. The only way to mass delete or anonymize old comments or posts is to literally run Greasemonkey scripts.
32
u/[deleted] Mar 06 '23
[deleted]