"Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck?"

February 12, 2013 6:53 PM

r/IAmA (previously) has been gaining in popularity since Barack Obama stopped by to answer questions last August. Yesterday Bill Gates showed up to talk about his charity work and his global concerns; earlier in the week, journalist Matt Taibbi explained why breaking up the banks should be the Holy Grail for activists, and The Pirate Bay's co-founder Peter Sunde talked about why he hopes TPB dies soon. Dan Rather fielded questions via video recordings, while Arnold Schwarzenegger preferred to write his answers down (warning: kind of illegible). In the last month alone, three members of the House of Representatives showed up – Jim McGovern (MA), Jared Polis (CO), and Zoe Lofgren (CA). Meanwhile, actor Dante Basco admitted he had a crush on Emmy Rossum while she was doing a simultaneous AMA; needless to say, Redditors mentioned it to her, resulting in an adorably awkward exchange between the two.
posted by Rory Marinich (66 comments total)

The best thing from Gates's AMA was that he still programs in Basic.
posted by escabeche at 6:57 PM on February 12

William Shatner calls Reddit out for racism, sexism
posted by Artw at 6:58 PM on February 12 [33 favorites]

I thought the Gates one was suprisingly good both in terms of questions and answers.
posted by Artw at 7:00 PM on February 12 [2 favorites]

Jim C. Hines, Why I Cancelled My Reddit Q&A

Have there been any others?
posted by lurkfirst at 7:05 PM on February 12 [3 favorites]

William Shatner calls Reddit out for racism, sexism

To be fair, Reddit's reply was devastating.
posted by R. Schlock at 7:10 PM on February 12

Woody Harrelson's AMA went horribly wrong.
posted by girlmightlive at 7:11 PM on February 12 [3 favorites]

William Shatner calls Reddit out for racism, sexism

Came here to mention that: good on the Shat.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:11 PM on February 12 [5 favorites]

The AMAs are the best part of reddit. I often have no idea who the people are or the projects they are working on.

The other day David Grohl held up a picture with his favorite Dr. Suess title on it in response to an 8 year old kid asking. These things get pretty surreal.

I have never figured reddit out.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:14 PM on February 12

Terry Crews' AMA was really good.
posted by girlmightlive at 7:15 PM on February 12 [1 favorite]

Explain like iama has quite a bit of potential, and the occasional gem.
posted by idiopath at 7:20 PM on February 12 [3 favorites]

But like the rest of reddit it is mostly tedious.

Also: 100 horse sized ducks, I would be a legend regardless of the outcome.
posted by idiopath at 7:25 PM on February 12 [2 favorites]

William Shatner calls Reddit out for racism, sexism

My respect for Bill Shatner just went way up. And I already loved the guy for his cover of "Common People."
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:26 PM on February 12 [8 favorites]

To be fair Reddit's AMAs are pretty much the best of the site, a big draw, usually pretty well run and you can totally be into them without awareness of Reddits other big role as as distributor of exploitive near-child porn and hotbed of MRA activism.

On the other hand, post Chen article it was impossible for me to live with having an account there.
posted by Artw at 7:26 PM on February 12 [1 favorite]

I have no idea why the Republicans didn't use one of the millions of articles about Reddit's sexism, racism, promotion of creepshots and jailbait or other horrible flaws to attack Obama. "Presidential Candidate posts on website that may be perving on YOUR underage daughter!" pretty much writes itself.

But I only read Shit REddit Says.

Good on Shatner for calling it out!

My least favorite AMA was when Frank Turner compared involuntary taxation with rape.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 7:27 PM on February 12 [2 favorites]

The answer to the racism and sexism is obvious...just out the people.

There's a reason I use my own name online. If I had the luxury of anonymity I would probably say even stupider shit than I do and I get into enough trouble as it is.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:31 PM on February 12 [4 favorites]

Huh, I found Ah-nald's answers to be completely legible. He actually has pretty nice handwriting.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:43 PM on February 12

Also, aw!
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:44 PM on February 12

If you don't have the energy to read these, topiama.com summarizes them a day later.
posted by k8t at 7:50 PM on February 12 [1 favorite]

RE: reddit being awful in every way.

Well, yes. Pretty much. But it's getting better. Most of the nonconsent fetishizing subreddits are gone and the only ones left are any that the mods haven't been made aware of yet and SRS is yanking reddit's overton window to a place where dominant culture is closer to that of more reasonable subreddits like /r/twoxchromosomes and /r/lgbt (though SRS itself is not exactly friendly). /r/bestof and /r/defaultgems regularly feature refutations of PUA culture and Mens Rights Activists.

So it's getting better. Slowly. Just try to stay off of the default subs and you'll be fine.
posted by sandswipe at 7:54 PM on February 12 [1 favorite]

though SRS itself is not exactly friendly

Good is not nice, after all. (Warning: TV Tropes.)
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 7:58 PM on February 12 [2 favorites]

I have a reddit account and I'll stand up for the joint.

AskHistorians is a consistently great area of discussion with civil back and forth. OldSchoolCool is a great source of otherwise unpublished photographs. The local subreddits get me better traffic, weather and news than my local tv stations. I had someone send me an obscure bit of hardware I needed and expecting nothing more in return than an electronic thank you and a hope I'd pay it forward. the SFW Porn subs will keep me in desktop wallpapers for the rest of my natural life. I got an original Wayne White drawing after his AMA. DepthHub has found more arguments that have presented me with an even debate on substantive issues than I've found anywhere else in the increasingly divisive online world.

There's a lot of crap there, hell, there's a lot of scary damn crap, but there's a lot more gold than some people seem to believe. It's a big damn place... just like any other community of several million folks, and I will bristle just as much at anyone who'd paint all of them with the same broad brush as if they'd paint me and the other 9 million residents of my home state as one homogenous whole.

And I will say that the best AMA was far and away the anonymous film director a few years back. (No link because reddit doesn't do archiving well. I will admit the place does have some downsides.)
posted by 1f2frfbf at 8:07 PM on February 12 [14 favorites]

r/fullmoviesonyoutube might come in handy someday.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 8:09 PM on February 12

My least favorite AMA was when Frank Turner compared involuntary taxation with rape.

Could you link to this please? Cause I just flipped through his AMA and couldn't find it.
posted by inigo2 at 8:30 PM on February 12

Here you go.

Hi there. Answers. 1. Interesting question. Firstly, I don't think that individualism / libertarianism necessarily excludes communal activity; it just excludes non-voluntary communitarianism. To me it's kind of like the difference between sex and rape - consent makes a world of difference.

Please don't take this as me criticizing Frank Turner.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 8:33 PM on February 12 [1 favorite]

I just did an AMA a few days ago, seemed to go well. A few silly questions, but most were pretty thoughtful.
posted by gottabefunky at 8:46 PM on February 12 [1 favorite]

I am not reading Frank's answer as an equivocation. An unwieldy analogy, sure, but he sure as hell isn't saying one is just like the other, only that the comparisons align somewhat.
posted by grabbingsand at 9:07 PM on February 12 [2 favorites]

I was just reading "I was a writer's assistant on Arrested Development" recently (I think I ended up there through Metafilter, actually), posted by the user Crindy. He says that the name Crindy was his big contribution to the show, and there are other interesting tidbits - like what they planned to do in season 4. It was an enjoyable read.
posted by k8lin at 9:09 PM on February 12 [2 favorites]

sandswipe: “though SRS itself is not exactly friendly”

SRSDiscussion is sort of the branch you'll want if you're looking for 'nice' in sort of the Metafilter way, if that makes sense.
posted by koeselitz at 9:46 PM on February 12 [1 favorite]

I'd thought about enlisting people like our own Charles Stross to boycott Reddit AMA's until their reputation improved, but between Obama and Bill Gates that ship has obviously sailed.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 10:38 PM on February 12

Yeah, maybe I'm doing Reddit wrong, but I check in everyday, and I never see the controversial stuff that gets mentioned here every time Reddit comes up. I really value the service Reddit provides - I see it as a hyperactive MetaFilter with a short attention span and minimal moderation. It seems to work out alright, from my perspective. I don't feel like I've wasted my time there.

As for the AMAs, my favourite to date as been Snoop Lion from a couple of months back. He was so cool, and hilarious. I'm not even a fan - never heard any of his stuff. But I enjoyed his AMA.

Q: Hey Snoop, why do you carry an umbrella?
A: fo drizzle
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 12:40 AM on February 13 [8 favorites]

I used to have a job at a prominent record label that occasionally involved, well, pretending to be an artist.

So like, if you were a music magazine and submitted a series of hard-hitting lifestyle questions like, "What's your favorite food?" or "What are your five favorites songs?" - it was being answered by me and a couple of spit-balling interns, and it would end up in the magazine. I'm.. pretty sure I was high the entire time I worked there.

In other words, there's literally no way that was Woody Harrelson.
posted by phaedon at 12:46 AM on February 13 [3 favorites]

My one observation about Reddit is that people post (or perhaps upvote) pictures of cute dogs far more than they do pictures of cute cats.

For that, I have written Redditors off as people with poor taste, dubious morals and out of touch with our modern digital times.
posted by MuffinMan at 4:07 AM on February 13 [2 favorites]

My one observation about Reddit is that people post (or perhaps upvote) pictures of cute dogs far more than they do pictures of cute cats.

This is a dirty, dirty lie.
posted by PissOnYourParade at 5:03 AM on February 13

I have no idea why the Republicans didn't use one of the millions of articles about Reddit's sexism, racism, promotion of creepshots and jailbait or other horrible flaws to attack Obama.

Reason 1: Republications often show a stunning failure of imagination, although if one of their number gets hold of a bad idea the whole lot of them will quickly parrot it (they use email talking point newsletters for this).

Reason 2: If they did, it would probably bite them. Reddit is huge.
posted by JHarris at 5:08 AM on February 13

Yeah, maybe I'm doing Reddit wrong, but I check in everyday, and I never see the controversial stuff that gets mentioned here every time Reddit comes up.

Yeah, from my perspective, reddit is just the reddits you follow. Someone who goes there without an account and who sees the front page is seeing an entirely different site than I am.
posted by smackfu at 6:10 AM on February 13 [1 favorite]

Even in the middle of cuteness, Reddit manages to be awful.
posted by kmz at 6:27 AM on February 13

William Shatner, Reddit, And The Complications Of "Free Speech" On The Internet
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:36 AM on February 13

There's a lot of crap there, hell, there's a lot of scary damn crap, but there's a lot more gold than some people seem to believe. It's a big damn place... just like any other community of several million folks, and I will bristle just as much at anyone who'd paint all of them with the same broad brush as if they'd paint me and the other 9 million residents of my home state as one homogenous whole.

Not a Redditer, but I've checked out a couple things - and I got the sense that the reason Reddit was "like that" was because the world itself is "like that".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:40 AM on February 13 [3 favorites]

Reddit is, invariably, what you make of it.

I recently used jpfed's guide to starting Reddit to set my septugenarian mom up on Reddit (browsing mostly with the Reddit Is Fun app on her Nexus 7 tablet, naturally). She sees Reddit as a fascinating, brilliant conversation on history, politics, sociology, the arts, philosophy and current events.

I've advised her that Reddit is also the source of about 45% of the WTF on the web, but she's not worried about it. She told me that Reddit is the conversation the world should have been having all along.

I think she's right.
posted by MrVisible at 6:53 AM on February 13 [5 favorites]

I'm basically reading this now cause I'm burnt out on reddit, so I might as well chime in. It's true what others have said, if you're a regular user of the site and have found the good subreddits, your perspective is much different from a new user. Even so, the most populous subreddits I frequent are generally civil, if a little bit asinine. I think the average experience of the site has probably improved recently with increasing adult awareness.

Personally I'm becoming more and more frustrated with my experience of the site. I'm a moderator of a small subreddit focusing on high-quality electronic music. Even though this subreddit has increased in nominal size maybe 5X in the past year, there has barely been a noticeable increase in activity, and what increase there has been hasn't necessarily been an improvement.

It's odd, and I think mostly it reflects the overall trends in reddit as an aggregate over the past year of reaching a saturation point in terms of total quality users and activity on the site. I feel like almost everyone, in the US at least, who would be likely to become an active user of reddit is at least aware of the site now. It's getting close to Facebook status. Sadly Youtube might be a better comparison.

The answer to the racism and sexism is obvious...just out the people.

I'm not so sure I'm comfortable with that. I have been stalked on reddit before, mostly due to an unfortunate penchant for conspiracy theory, but also for being perceived as defending SRS. It's not a nice feeling and I'm glad I have some semblance of anonymity to protect me.


paleyellowwithorange: As for the AMAs, my favourite to date as been Snoop Lion from a couple of months back. He was so cool, and hilarious. I'm not even a fan - never heard any of his stuff. But I enjoyed his AMA.

Q: Hey Snoop, why do you carry an umbrella?
A: fo drizzle


phaedon: I used to have a job at a prominent record label that occasionally involved, well, pretending to be an artist.

...

In other words, there's literally no way that was Woody Harrelson.

My theory is that, aside from a couple video responses, the rest of the Snoop Lion IAmA had Tupac's hologram fielding questions for him.
posted by viborg at 7:11 AM on February 13

My one observation about Reddit is that people post (or perhaps upvote) pictures of cute dogs far more than they do pictures of cute cats.

For that, I have written Redditors off as people with poor taste, dubious morals and out of touch with our modern digital times.

I dare you to find a picture of two cats as adorable as this pug photobombing a corgi photo.
posted by Rory Marinich at 7:21 AM on February 13 [4 favorites]

paleyellowwithorange: “Yeah, maybe I'm doing Reddit wrong, but I check in everyday, and I never see the controversial stuff that gets mentioned here every time Reddit comes up. I really value the service Reddit provides - I see it as a hyperactive MetaFilter with a short attention span and minimal moderation. It seems to work out alright, from my perspective. I don't feel like I've wasted my time there.”

smackfu: “Yeah, from my perspective, reddit is just the reddits you follow. Someone who goes there without an account and who sees the front page is seeing an entirely different site than I am.”

I hear people say this, but it baffles me slightly. As far as I can tell, the few people who feel totally above the fray and don't feel exposed to the weird shit are the people who signed up and instantly unsubscribed from the top reddits and subscribed to some more obscure stuff that doesn't have the same problems. Which is a good idea – it's just clearly not what 95% of redditors do.

I say this as someone who's on reddit daily, for a number of reasons. My approach is slightly different. I disagree with the fundamental reddit dogma purveyed by the admins and developers of reddit themselves: that dogma being "every reddit is utterly and free and utterly separate; there are no limits, because we are not a common community." I feel like that's the attitude behind the relatively benign observation that reddit is no more than whatever part of reddit you'd rather pay attention to – which is an innocuous form of the larger meaning: that it doesn't really matter that there are white-pride reddits and misogynist reddits and all that. The conceit is that reddit is like a real-life political community, allowing all forms of speech. But reddit isn't a real-life political community. The idea that all speech must be allowed is contrary to the reality of the reddit community; communities demand common values, at the very least surrounding how community members are supposed to be protected from hateful speech and harassment. This is not something that individual subreddits can handle completely on their own; it's already clear that the subreddit mods are a conflicted and often bitter bunch who feel a bit put-upon as it is. It must be community-wide.

Mostly, though, I'd like to know what subreddits you follow. I'm obviously exposed to the nonsense, since I check SRS and SRSDiscussion (and r/funny, since I am lazy and willing to waste time) every day. (I also check r/MensRights sometimes, mostly as a "know your enemy" kind of thing, but sometimes just to do some sparring and see if I can be convincing to people I disagree with.) Might be nice to glance at some reddits that are beyond the fray.
posted by koeselitz at 7:39 AM on February 13 [3 favorites]

Here's my list of good ones:

/r/Cooking
/r/DepthHub
/r/Criticism
/r/environment
/r/futurefunkairlines
/r/InsightfulQuestions
/r/history
/r/humor
/r/LetsTalkMusic
/r/literature
/r/Meditation
/r/philosophy
/r/progressive
/r/psychology
/r/sex
/r/TheoryOfReddit
/r/TrueFilm
/r/TrueReddit
/r/TrueTrueReddit

Here's one more I made a year ago in hopes of combining the best of MeFi and reddit but it never went anywhere -- if anyone wants to take it over, it's all yours:

/r/RedditFilter
posted by viborg at 8:04 AM on February 13 [3 favorites]

Am I the only person who's pretty sure Gates was giving Reddit Gold to all his commenters?
posted by rhiannonstone at 9:42 AM on February 13

Yeah, from my perspective, reddit is just the reddits you follow.

I used to think that way too, but then it became too difficult to handwave away the degree to which the people who run it favor and encourage creepers and MRA types and I couldn't stomach being there anymore.
posted by Artw at 9:57 AM on February 13 [2 favorites]

And, yeah, I'll step up as another reddit user who's found more good than bad on the site. Not that I don't see the bad--and the days when I make it a point to aggressively downvote all the misogynistic and fatphobic posts and comments I see can be really depressing--but the good stuff is really, really good.

/r/bicycling and other bicycling subbreddits have educated and supported me and many other new cyclists through a lot of fear, frustration, and celebration (and, incidentally, is one of the few places on the entire Internet where I can post a picture of my fat ass in spandex and get nothing but encouraging comments). /r/ABraThatFits is, I am convinced, the birthplace of the proper-bra-size revolution. The various secret santa exchanges that happen throughout the year showcase really touching generosity and creativity. /r/TwoXChromosomes has helped women learn to love their bodies and walk out of abusive and unhealthy situations, and is a great place for women to discuss and support each other through the daily frustrations of being a woman in a way that's accessible to most women, not just those who've had the luxury of college courses in gender studies. And there's no more reliable source of consistently cute animal pictures than the frontpage.

It's just another way for people to connect with each other, and is a little microcosm of the Internet.
posted by rhiannonstone at 10:05 AM on February 13 [1 favorite]

My reddits are pretty boring.

Various highlighted comments, although the first two can get you dragged into the bad parts of reddit:
/r/bestof
/r/defaultgems
/r/DepthHub

AskMe equivalents
/r/AskHistorians
/r/AskScience
/r/explainlikeimfive
(not AskReddit, which is more like polling the users):

My interests:
/r/apple
/r/space
/r/programming
/r/MapPorn
/r/EngineeringPorn
/r/lego
posted by smackfu at 10:13 AM on February 13

If someone had told me as recently as a year ago that William Fucking Shatner would be one of the people I looked forward to hearing about on the Internet, I would have laughed in their faces. But, damn is he a cool dude.
posted by zombieflanders at 10:14 AM on February 13 [1 favorite]

I get that not all of Reddit is awful, I just tend to hear that defense as "there are diamonds in this cesspool." The diamonds sure do sound shiny, but the fecal matter I'd have to wade through to get to them still keeps me away.
posted by Karmakaze at 10:34 AM on February 13

It's more like living in the good part of a bad town, and people keep telling you shitty your town is.
posted by smackfu at 10:39 AM on February 13 [2 favorites]

> AskHistorians is a consistently great area of discussion with civil back and forth.

I've been a flaired poster on AskHistorians almost since it's inception, and I wouldn't be exaggerating to say it's the primary reason I keep going to reddit (aside from drunkenly laughing at gifs). But it's a good sub primarily because it operates differently from the rest of reddit in terms of moderation, and even that shift involved much gnashing of teeth and cries of MY FREE SPEECH!

Reddit's large enough to find good niches, no doubt, but the site as a whole operates like the worst of usenet mashed up with a youtube comment section and a high school cafeteria. And that's their business model.
posted by Panjandrum at 10:44 AM on February 13 [3 favorites]

I get that not all of Reddit is awful, I just tend to hear that defense as "there are diamonds in this cesspool." The diamonds sure do sound shiny, but the fecal matter I'd have to wade through to get to them still keeps me away.

. . . said someone using the Internet.

How'd you find Metafilter?
posted by pjaust at 11:35 AM on February 13 [3 favorites]

Reddit is not the Internet. Reddit is a community bound together by common values, and it'd be awesome if it started acting like it.

smackfu: "It's more like living in the good part of a bad town, and people keep telling you shitty your town is."

Yep. And you sigh and try to explain that it's not that bad, but you don't even sound convincing to yourself, because everybody knows that the town council is run by extreme libertarians who refuse even to enforce anti-littering laws, and crime is getting worse every day, and even in your nice little area you can see an uptick in crappy things happening.
posted by koeselitz at 12:23 PM on February 13 [3 favorites]

When asked how he didn't get killed for his work during his time at The Exile, Taibbi writes:

Purely by accident. Honestly, there were some close calls. A lot of bad decisions while I was there, many of them under the influence. One very funny story I've never told: I once worked with a Russian paper called "Stringer" to wiretap Alexander Voloshin, Putin's chief of staff. We published a week of his phone calls. I was so afraid of the consequences, I stayed out of the country when we published. Upon my return I was detained at the airport for 10 hours. I thought I was going to jail for life. In fact, the Russians were simply concerned that the lamination on my passport was coming up in one corner. They thought my passport was fake. Once they reached the embassy, they let me go. But that was one scary 10 hours.

Yikes.
posted by JHarris at 12:27 PM on February 13 [5 favorites]

On the Pirate Bay co-founder Sunde saying he hopes it dies soon:

User: Do you regret any of your actions pertaining TPB (etc) ?
Sunde: No. YOLO!

Next question, he says:
TPB should die (I've said this for a few years) so that something good will replace it. Come on, it's 8 years old website with essentially no updates. There must be something better...
posted by JHarris at 12:48 PM on February 13

I'm really at a loss to understand the Dorner conspiracy stuff that is all over Reddit at the moment. It's like people are really buying into the "this guy is Rambo" mentality or something.
posted by anazgnos at 1:34 PM on February 13

As far as I can tell, the few people who feel totally above the fray and don't feel exposed to the weird shit are the people who signed up and instantly unsubscribed from the top reddits and subscribed to some more obscure stuff that doesn't have the same problems. Which is a good idea – it's just clearly not what 95% of redditors do.

I still don't know what all the detractors are referring to. I sign in, but only to upvote and save threads to read later. I've hardly toyed with which Reddits I see - I'm mostly interested in what the general populace finds interesting.

So what I see is pretty much what you see if you're not signed in. And I don't see the sexism etc. that seems to wind others up.

Then again, maybe it's there and I'm just not so easily offended and so glide over it - instead of 'flag it and move on', it's just 'ignore it and move on'. But if I do that, it's not conscious.

But I'm looking at www.reddit.com right now, not signed in, and running my eyes over what's visible on the first screen's worth of posts, I don't see anything that makes me roll my eyes. Mostly just funny pics, along with some news and politics.
posted by paleyellowwithorange at 3:44 PM on February 13 [2 favorites]

paleyellowwithorange: “I still don't know what all the detractors are referring to. I sign in, but only to upvote and save threads to read later. I've hardly toyed with which Reddits I see - I'm mostly interested in what the general populace finds interesting. So what I see is pretty much what you see if you're not signed in. And I don't see the sexism etc. that seems to wind others up.”

I find it kind of confusing that you could read discussion threads regularly and not see this stuff. But I guess maybe you're looking at different discussion threads from me. And anyway it sounds like you're not really too involved in discussing stuff; I don't know. I mean, at least one in twenty of the actual images posted in r/funny is sexist or offensive in some way; but most people do the "it's just a joke" thing and dismiss it.
posted by koeselitz at 6:41 PM on February 13 [2 favorites]

So a while back I posted an article about depression a friend had written in r/health. First response was "well she just sounds like a bitch". It got a massive number of upvotes. I've since discovered that r/health is one of the battleground subreddits, but that doesn't really excuse it.

(the same article posted to (IIRC) r/Depression actually got quite a nice reaction, so there's good and bad)
posted by Artw at 7:44 PM on February 13 [1 favorite]

paleyellowwithorange: “But I'm looking at www.reddit.com right now, not signed in, and running my eyes over what's visible on the first screen's worth of posts, I don't see anything that makes me roll my eyes. Mostly just funny pics, along with some news and politics.”

I think my experience of Reddit is probably very different from yours; and I probably should acknowledge that that sure as hell doesn't invalidate yours or mean that you're wrong. In fact, it probably means I should think a little about it before I make sweeping generalizations. Sorry for any implications to the contrary. Reddit is a lot of things to a lot of people, and I'm not really in a position to tell millions of people exactly what their web site is and isn't.
posted by koeselitz at 8:03 PM on February 13

Speaking of Taibbi, he has a new piece about HSBC at Rolling Stone:

Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail. How HSBC hooked up with drug traffickers and terrorists. And got away with it
posted by homunculus at 12:39 PM on February 14

R. Schlock: William Shatner calls Reddit out for racism, sexism

To be fair, Reddit's reply was devastating.

Let's see... I followed your link - and found a comment left by someone who is antisemitic (Gasp! They let such people on the internet?) downvoted to negative 109... which is 105 more than necessary to make the comment unseeable to almost every single Reddit reader.

There are actual things wrong with Reddit, but a hate-screed being overwhelmingly condemned by its members doesn't strike me as a problem.
posted by IAmBroom at 3:42 PM on February 14

R. Schlock is free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm 99.44% sure that "devastating" was sarcastic.
posted by zombieflanders at 4:07 PM on February 14 [1 favorite]

Yeesh -- so much handwringing. Meanwhile, over at Reddit, an orbiting astronaut is taking questions.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 2:09 PM on February 17 [1 favorite]

zombieflanders: R. Schlock is free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm 99.44% sure that "devastating" was sarcastic.

Hard to tell. Apparently a lot of Mefites think Reddit is some sort of pro-pedophile website masquerading as a barely-moderated multi-interest forum.
posted by IAmBroom at 10:07 AM on February 18

That is the bed the people running Reddit have made forthemselved to lie in, yes.
posted by Artw at 10:23 AM on February 18 [1 favorite]