McMaster University: Study examines what Reddit reveals about measles’ return . “Rachel Zhou, a professor in the Department of Health, Aging and Society, studied thousands of Reddit conversations to understand how people made sense of the measles’ resurgence in 2025. The posts reveal more than opinions about vaccines, she says. They show how people remember – and forget – disease, how […]

Ars Technica: Inside the DHS forum where ICE agents trash talk one another. “Every day, people log into an online forum for current and former Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) officers to share their thoughts on the news of the day and complain about their colleagues in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).”

The internet is quietly becoming a walled garden.

I recently created a QQ account and made this single post in the Off-topic -> General board. To my surprise, I got banned a couple hours later for "Spam." My post wasn’t commercial or anything; it was just a genuine discussion.

You have been banned for the following reason: Spam. Please contact the administrator if this was done in error.

I’ve always thought spamming involved sending unsolicited messages to multiple users, not a single thread. Has anyone else experienced something similar? Is this a common issue on QQ, or did I just have bad luck?

On top of that, after posting this on r/Fanfiction, it was removed by the moderators because r/Fanfiction is not the place to discuss real-life drama. Now I'm starting to think it’s less about that particular site and more about the internet as a whole. The internet is quietly becoming a walled garden. It’s not just about one platform anymore—it’s the pattern. You get banned for a single, harmless post. A subreddit removes your thread because it’s “real-life drama.” Cumulatively, it creates an environment where you hesitate before posting anything that isn’t perfectly sanitized.

International Business Times: ICE Employees Vent on Reddit, Saying They’re Not Getting Paid and Still No Insurance Despite Promises. “In raw, unfiltered Reddit posts now spreading beyond law-enforcement circles, ICE officers describe going a month or more without a paycheque, struggling to secure medical cover for sick children, and watching promised bonuses quietly stall.”

Washington Post: Outrage over ICE has spilled into typically apolitical online spaces. This link goes to the syndicated MSN version which has no paywall. “The moderator didn’t know how this post would go over; the forum’s most heated dispute had been about whether other animals being played like bongos should be allowed. But the anti-ICE post exploded, receiving more than 40,000 Reddit […]

Geeks Are Sexy: Stack Overflow Is Dead, Long Live Its Training Data. “The numbers are brutal. Monthly questions have collapsed from more than 200,000 in 2014 to just 3,862 in December 2025. The reason is obvious: 84% of developers now use AI coding assistants. Turns out people prefer instant answers over being publicly shamed for forgetting a semicolon.” I tried Stack Overflow once. ONCE. It […]

NiemanLab: Newsrooms are taking comments seriously again. “Reader comments are having a mini renaissance. After years of chasing social media engagement and being burned in the process, publishers have realized that commenting has a tangible value — to the broader public, yes, but also in terms of advertising and subscription revenue.”

The Conversation: Reddit and TikTok – with the help of AI – are reshaping how researchers understand substance use . “Today, millions of people openly discuss their experiences with drugs online, creating a vast collection of raw narratives about drug use. As a doctoral student in information science with a background in public health, I use this material to better understand how people who use […]

I'm tired of Hacker News slop

https://blog.absurdpirate.com/im-tired-of-hacker-news-slop/

#HackerNews #HackerNews #Slop #Tired #TechCommunity #Commentary #OnlineDiscussion

University of Washington: Social media research tool can reduce polarization — it could also lead to more user control over algorithms. “The researchers created a seamless, web-based tool that reorders content to move posts lower in a user’s feed when they contain antidemocratic attitudes and partisan animosity, such as advocating for violence or jailing supporters of the opposing party.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/12/08/university-of-washington-social-media-research-tool-can-reduce-polarization-it-could-also-lead-to-more-user-control-over-algorithms/