Are we really “chock-full of rude and unpleasant people” and “cooked and full of Snowden larpers.” I don’t get it. I haven’t felt that way at all here. In fact, I’m here, because I can’t stand r/privacy and all of Reddit, not because of the users in the community, but because of the bot responses, overzealous moderators like u/carrotcypher (who appears to have been removed as mod after a negative interaction with me and probably others), shadow banning for no reason, posts that don’t appear and massive censoring, which is incredible for a privacy sub. Shadowbans or perma bans simply because they don’t like the ip you log in with, inability to log in via VPN or Tor, even if you use their onion link, and even if your account is in good standing for 8 years, no way to contact them to address it, their contract with Google to use our responses to train Google’s AI. The list goes on and on. Here’s the link:
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Better question: if we ARE “chock-full of rude and unpleasant people” and “cooked and full of Snowden larpers”, would you expect us to say so?
I don’t agree with the evaluation being given, in general. I would agree that there have been users in the past I personally considered rude, but such users do not last long. If someone is not acting in an appropriate manner, they should be flagged, and eventually they will likely be dealt with.
As for “Snowden larpers”, it’s entirely possible that some of our users see themselves in such a light, but I do not think such behavior is generally expressed. I do feel proud of myself for being part of this community and doing my best to help others protect their privacy. I would love to be able to create the kind of positive impact Edward Snowden did (though, at the same time, I would hate that there was enough implied “badness” for me to have such an impact). I am not under the delusion that I am anywhere near as knowledgeable or impactful as him, though. I don’t really think I will be, ever. That’s OK. I do my best.
That said, I’m a member of this forum. If we were like that, I don’t think I’d be conscious of it. So I certainly wouldn’t tell you we were.
I do think sometimes the responses we give to certain posts could be a little better, but at a certain point, there is a line that has to be drawn (and that line should still not be flat-out rude; it should be a firm, fact-driven response and/or disengagement). All we can do is encourage each other to be respectful and discuss in good faith. Provide sources for claims, make it clear when expressing opinions, don’t immediately assume bad faith, etc. I think we generally do well on this front, but no individual is perfect, even less so any community (which is built of such imperfect individuals).
If a handful of people on Reddit think such of us, that’s fine. They can think what they want to. If they’re right, they and others will avoid this forum, and we will fade into obscurity. If they’re wrong, they’re wrong. Maybe fewer people will show up here because they saw such claims on Reddit. A shame, but I don’t think it’d kill the forum.
If a million people on Reddit think such of us, so what? All we can do is try to make sure we’re better than they think we are. That doesn’t mean compromising on our values. Just being the best people we can be.
In my opinion, this community is active and well-managed, even though sometimes some people think they have the absolute truth without actually having it. I don’t think we should worry about those kinds of comments.
I’m probably the reason that thread started, and I want to apologize for my behavior. However, the outcome would surely have been different if my unpleasant answer hadn’t been flagged immediately. I just said No.
Some discussions sometimes get too heated, and then all you end up seeing later are a few posts being flagged and not visible. Other than that, I wouldn’t say the other users here are rude or unpleasant.
I mean, this is an open forum. Things like that are pretty much to be expected. I have no idea what you said that got flagged, but apologizing afterward is much better than how the vast majority of Reddit users are.
Thanks.
edit. And I said just ‘No.’
Most of the issues on this forum are basically the same with any popular forum. There is just not enough resources to moderate discussions that devolve into heated personal attacks quickly.
The information provided on the site via the recommendations, or their articles is really solid. The longer you are a member of the forum it becomes becomes pretty easy to figure out what members are serious and take measured approaches to their activity. Those community members provide a ton of extra value to the site as well.
There really aren’t any issues with moderation here. Or at least I’m not aware of this myself. It was the first time my message was flagged, as far as I know, and it was probably deleted maybe within 15 minutes. 
The level of discourse on r/privacy makes me so glad that this forum exists. I’m prone to conspiratorial thought patterns, so maybe this is just that, but r/privacy seems astroturfed to hell and intentionally unhelpful at best and spreading misinfo at its worst. I mean, FFS, you can’t even talk about GrapheneOS there because mods had to, shocker, moderate discussions about it and they decided it was too much work.
Its reddit. Most people there are not critical thinkers in my experience. I wouldn’t take anything seriously that’s said on the forum unless it makes logical sense that is based on verifiable facts and info from elsewhere (that also takes into account of context, nuance, and outliers). And you don’t find this a lot.
These platforms like traditional social media are designed for engagement, not rational discourse.
I don’t think this is a productive or even healthy discussion topic. Sniping between privacy communities helps no one and harms everyone.
If other people don’t like this forum that is fine, there are other spaces for them to talk about privacy issues.
But don’t you think there should be an evaluation on which platform and community may be better for those who come on to learn and understand all things privacy and cybersecurity?
You learn after a while that most complaints are either projection or astroturfing. This community is a threat to the network of shill blogs and YouTubers that are paid for and owned by shit VPN companies and other scummy people trying to sell something.
There’s a strange phenomenon on Reddit on the internet lately, where people appear to think discussing a topic is equivalent to praising it. It’s hard to imagine anyone here believing Privacy Guides is a “super toxic apple circle jerk” if they actually read the discussions, but the mere mention of new Apple security features or the existence of iOS configuration guides surely must mean we want everyone to buy an iPhone, right? Daniel Micay & the GrapheneOS moderators in particular have been trying to push this narrative for years now, that Privacy Guides is going to randomly change all of our recommendations to iPhone only any second now, because he has some grudge. Why on Earth would we do that? Proprietary operating systems are not the future of mobile privacy.
The reality is that in my view, everything gets praise and criticism here exactly as they deserve, simple as that.
The fact that we are having a normal discussion here while the Redditors there complain about “people on the internet” in general and very unspecific complaints about this forum is proof enough to me that this forum is perfectly fine. If they actually bothered to participate here they would find that out pretty quickly. I think this is hands down the best place for newcomers to learn about privacy rights 
Super respectful compared to what I would have written down in response to them. I’m glad you’re part of the team.
Its reddit. No matter where your political leanings are, you are:
- of the wrong opinion and will always be interpreted in the least charitable way imaginable.
- inferior, as recent poster is always better than you.
- getting banned. Because the mod doesn’t like you.
Let it go. Reddit will never go back to sanity, in this post-Covid, post-LLM, hyperpoliticized world.
One should not try to impress people that who do not like you or be around them for that matter.
That’s one of the big reasons I showed up here in the first place. I’ve seen a lot of genuinely knowledgeable, helpful people here, and the overall vibe has been great. There’s a little trolling, but I feel like it’s very few and ultra far in between, and not really the main culture.
Another reason I ended up here is because, after reading some of the stuff people were saying over on /privacy, a lot of it didn’t fully add up once I sat down and actually thought it through. I mean some of it, some of it makes no sense with even a second of critical thinking.
That’s what pushed me to start digging, and what I kept running into was a ridiculous amount of astroturfing. Not only in that space, but across a lot of tech topics in general. And I don’t get why a lot of those communities don’t clamp down on it, because in a lot of cases it’s not even subtle. You can see the patterns fairly easily if you know what to look for.
Either way, I’m glad to be here now instead of arguing in circles over there.
I think nobody cares because nobody has ownership of anything on the internet anymore. “Nobody” being a bit of an exaggeration, but the people who still do are few and far between now.
That is why Privacy Guides is so good, because it is ours.
r/Privacy and other subreddits are Reddit’s, groups on X or Facebook belong to Elon and Zuck, etc. So why should anyone — much less unpaid moderators—give a shit about keeping them nice? People gave up their responsibility to live in a space governed by unaccountable corporations. Real community on Web 2.0 social media is impossible, but truly community-run spaces are different.
I really think the tech world is going to feudal hell, but at least we’re resisting it, and we can encourage others to do the same.