On March 4, one of Trump’s appointment to the Ministry of Old Warriors Affairs distributed a memorandum to the leadership of senior. She said that the agency “will come out strongly” to improve efficiency, with the “initial goal” to reduce work force to 2019 levels.
The next morning, someone published copy From this “reduction in strength” to the Redit group called Old warriorsOnline community of 19,000 members. It was difficult to follow the version, a series of photos taken from the memo on the screen, but the message was clear enough: about 80,000 jobs will be reduced.
Questions and comments were poured, some are confusing, some are feverish. The agency had half a million employees in hospitals, clinics, communication lines and regional benefits offices that serve the veterans throughout the country. Who will be launched? Was this the end of VA medical research? How will this affect waiting times for medical deadlines?
No one had solid answers, just enlightened speculation. The ways of living and the well -being of the old warriors were at stake, so the atmosphere was sad. But there was still room for a dark humor.
“We must pay the price of Greenland in one way or another,” said someone jokingly.
Reddit, a naked social media site that has been organized around more than 100,000 specialized societys called Subreddits, has long satisfied their needs for people who have twisted common interests, both Bitcoinand Flying or Wonderful Keanu Reeves pictures.
It is different from other social media platforms. Instagram and Tiktok offers videos and influential videos. Reddit is a heavy text and is not appropriate to build the strength of the stars. Facebook and LinkedIn requires real names; Failure to disclose his identity prevails over Radit, which reduces vanity and consequences.
The Atlantic Ocean recently considered Redit “Perhaps”The best unwanted internet platform“Since other social media sites have fallen prey to Ai Slow and the continuous appeals of” admiration and subscription “, Reddit has become one of the last places on the Internet with human information, society and original advice.
For government workers, the lifeline has been in recent months. While reducing the size of the rapid management of the federal bureaucracy, government workers have previously become a cross story about enlarging the MISHAP feature or the question of the health plan has become crowded forums for concerns, anxiety and monitoring within the agencies. On one subreddit, FedNewsGovernment employees transfer updates on workers’ demobilization, one new dollar, one dollar on government credit cards and “what you have accomplished last week.” It has drawn a flow Millions of visitors Since January, according to the internal statistics of the Subreddit creator.
“This sub -subsidiary allows people to find outlets that work well for them,” said Sarah Gilbert, a researcher at Cornell University who focuses on online communities. “This happens on FedNews, where people use this space to meet and speak with other people with a similar shock.”
One of the participants in FedNews has written recently Saying The employee supervisor was asked to stop “leakage” information about Redait. “Don’t stop, people deserve to know,” added the author, who used, like almost all Reddit users, a pseudonym online.
(The Ministry of Old Warriors Affairs did not respond to the request for comment.)
Not to use your real name makes it easy to share information or vent frustration without further free prospects. But the lack of disclosure of his identity can also generate misleading information, misconduct and Vitriol.
This is where people like David Carson come. Mr. Carson, 53, is an old army warrior and a former employee of the Ministry of Old Warriors Affairs who live in Mount Plezant, Tin. These volunteers do a huge amount of baptism of the content that other social media giants contract. The work of unpaid supervisors, such as Mr. Carson, could shine in this moment of political turmoil.
“Redit is a society that is run by gay people who focus on people like meandMr. Carson said.
The first page of the Internet
Redit is 20 years old, making it ancient years in the Internet. It has begun as a place to exchange interesting information and has remained mainly since. Anyone can create Subreddit, to become her first supervisor. Anyone can visit or join, unless it is special.
“Every society in Reddit has its own subject, its own rules, supervisors, and in many cases, in its jokes and culture,” said Galen Wilde, a PhD at the University of Washington, who conducted a search for Redait, as well as a consulting work for the company.
What people want to share sometimes can be similar. Reddit earned a bad reputation in the past to societies devoted to revenge for porn and videos of the death of people and other toxic content. However, the site has tamed its worst motives (and the most twisted supervisors) by solving the subreddits that are constantly violating rules The company was established in 2015 against inconvenient harassment and behavior.
Reddit, which was announced last year, is one of the most visited sites on the Internet, with more than 100 million active users per day and $ 1.3 billion of revenues, according to the company’s financial report. It may seem messy for a visitor for the first time, it is sent there with a search engine. Its main page is a random collection of news, funny and uncommon shortnesses like AIO (“Am I ample?)) But the individual sub -can can feel intimate and welcome.
Each of this branch, both House repairand Romantic or Has fortress and dragon mapsUnique, and each of them has distinctive rules, decides by supervisors. Do you want to chat with people who decided to live better without children? Join Childfree. Parents are welcome, but only if they regret their choices. Enjoy Schadenfrede? Trying Leopardsatemyage. This society shares stories about Trump’s voters who immediately suffered from his political decisions, but prevents stories about actual animal attacks.
New base: no policy
On the ancient sub -warrior, there are two bases that exceeded: staying in the matter, and be respectful. This means that there are no personal attacks or politics.
When Mr. Carson’s creator was used to take over the channel a decade ago, politics was allowed. However, in the period before the presidential elections in 2024, Mr. Carson and his participating average ban on party political conversation after commentators began to heat.
Mr. Carson said: “People were referring to their fingers and inviting the names while they were scattered and insulted.” “He was Trying to create a society that embraces people. “
He was diagnosed with post -trauma disorder after serving in the fighting, and Mr. Carson receives the advantages of disability from the Ministry of Old Warriors Affairs, as English literature teaches part -time in the community college outside Nashville. He enjoys seeing his students’ reaction when he appears on the first day wearing motorcycle leather and “Goatee that returns to my stomach”.
Its schedule is flexible, allowing it time to reduce the sub -fighters. For many years, this reached an hour or two per day. But in recent months, the daily commitment has been swollen to six hours or more.
“Every backup minute, I pulled Reddah on my phone,” said Mr. Carson. “If I am in the car with my wife, I am sitting in the passenger seat and I justify Subreddit. After my wife went to bed, I will sit and watch TV, and while I watch TV, I supervise Subreddit.”
“The continuous time he spends on his phone” annoying “, so I realized exactly what he was doing.”
To help increase the activity, Mr. Carson and his participant, who was not known by Mr. Carson, employed two new supervisors: one of them is an old warriors and the other is a clinical pharmacist who works in VA
On the morning of the last week, Mr. Carson has logged into Reddit and examined his supervisor’s waiting list, which contains a list of more than 1000 jobs and comments. He began reading each one, and removing any directly related to the management of ancient warriors.
It takes a long time. Mr. Carson said that some people write “theses”, and if the post includes a link, it clicks to make sure that the information is related. “Then you have to search on the web site to say, well, is this site reliable?” He said. If the site contains extremist partisan tendencies or an unclear source, it will remove the post.
“The supervisor’s function is not related to preventing abuse or removing bad behavior,” said Ishwar Chandrieracekran, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois Urbana Champin, who studied Radet. “They are easy to find good things.”
Mr. Carson always begins with the content that has been marked for review, either by community users or by an automatic filtering tool. The tool, Automedator, is looking for an inappropriate language, problematic users who have been marked by supervisors and other words that violate the sub -base of “NO Politics”, including “Musk”, “Trump”, “Doge” and “Orange”.
Mr. Carson himself has strong political feelings. Expressing them made in trouble in the past. He lost his job as examinations in the Ministry of Old Warriors Affairs in 2017 partially due to a Facebook post he wrote with the #assassinatetrump retail brand, according to the administrative judge’s ruling.
He was angry at the government at the time. The Ministry of Old Warriors Affairs transferred him from Tennessee to Colorado, and lived, regardless of his wife and children for two years, which exacerbated PTSD. He said that writing about his frustration with the agency on social media was monthly. But his colleagues found the jobs that threaten. It contained fateful tests and assumptions, they were the post of the post that he would quickly take out from Subreddit now.
After his expulsion, Mr. Carson returned to Tennessee and continued to adjust Subreddit, grateful to be able to share his experience. He came to think about helping the old warriors in their advantages more than just a job. His goal was.
“We are trying to create a safe, useful and respectful society,” said Mr. Carson. He is always looking for suicidal ideas – which he has also seen – and gives priority to reaching these people to help.
This morning, Automarator has suspended a comment: He claimed that spyware was installed on all computers that were exploited by the Ministry of Government efficiency, and the group led by Elon Musk to reduce the federal bureaucracy. Mr. Carson removed the comment.
“We allow the conversations that focus on facts and provide evidence,” he said. “But until then, it should still be related to VA”, the suspension of spyware was “assuming”.
“You are not alone.”
When Federal workers received an email last month, they told them to include five things they accomplished in the previous week, someone published a survey of the old sub -warriors of VA colleagues: “Did you answer the email?“
The majority of the respondents said they did not do so.
“This type of information is” useful and useful. “
Bruce, who asked not to use his full name to protect his work, said that there was only a few official communication from his regional office, and that Radit helped fill the information space.
“It gives you an idea of what other people in the Ministry of Old Warriors Affairs are going through, and that you are not alone,” said Bruce, who so far thought about Reddit as a place to go to sports news.
“And obtain these rapid individual comments from an actual person,” said Dr. Gilbert, a Cornell researcher. On the Internet is steeped with robots and content created from artificial intelligence, this distinguishes the site.
But this can change. Last year, Reddit signed licensing deals with Google and Openai, allowing the site content to be used to train artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT. Dr. Gilbert said that the original human writings of Reddit will help Amnesty International more humane, making it more difficult for Reddit and their supervisors to get rid of robots in the future.
“You may not end up with the same kind of high -quality human information that people will find to find,” said Dr. Gilbert.
Facilitating human communication and networks is the reason that Mr. Carson spends a lot of time trimming conversation in the field of Reda.
“People find us when they need us,” said Mr. Carson. “Now, people need us more than ever.“
The sound you produce Adrian Hurst.