Hello,

I've noticed that one currently active user has a habit of sharing news articles from Yle while making their own changes to the titles. Here are three examples:

  1. User's title: Those who blew up ATMs in Finland recieve REDUCED prison terms | YLE News | Original title: Prison terms for Poles who blew up ATMs in Finland; nearly €150k still missing
  2. User's title: electricity prices to raise by OVER 10% by 2030 due to data centers | Yle News | Original title: Study: Big growth in data centres could raise electricity prices by 10% by 2030
  3. User's title: Average student loan debt more than DOUBLES to over €12k | Yle News | Original title: Average student loan debt more than doubles to over €12k

On two of these posts, I asked the user to refrain from editorializing titles, but they haven't replied to me, and they've continue to do it. Of course, I'm just one user, not officially a moderator of this subreddit except in the sense that r/Finland is a democracy and I have access to some moderating tools as a "Baby Väinämöinen." Since we are a democracy, I thought I should ask your opinions on this subject before I unilaterally go around locking posts that someone else (including the user in question, who is a fully fledged "Väinämöinen") could just unlock, which would be counterproductive.

Many other subreddits and websites disallow editorializing (i.e. changing) titles when sharing links. I'll lay out some reasons here:

  • We don't need to be clickbaited with random capitalized words. The fact an article has been published on Yle and shared here already implies its importance.
  • It's an author's, editor's or subeditor's job to come up with a title and unless there's a very good reason to edit the title when sharing it, their decision should be respected. They are also much less likely to make spelling or grammatical errors, unlike the user in examples 1 and 2 above (recieve → receive and raise → rise).
  • Changing a title might make someone question whether they've already read the article or lead to it being shared multiple times by different people.
  • This is the big one: editorializing titles can lead to the impression, whether real or not, of bias. In the first example I listed above, notice how Yle reported the news factually, but the user sharing it here chose to sensationalize it with a focus on the REDUCED prison terms. Factual titles let readers form their own opinions, while sensationalized titles try to encourage a specific opinion. The former should always be preferred.
  • Similarly, sticking to the original title signals to other users that you don't have an agenda. I know nothing about the user who shared the examples above; it's possible, if unlikely, that they're a Russian agent trying to stir discontent in the Finnish population. I don't have that same suspicion about Yle.

Please let me know if you agree or disagree with me. If the consensus seems to be that articles should be posted with their original titles, I'll be more willing to lock posts that go against the consensus, and I would encourage others to do so as well, while continuing to assume good faith on behalf of all users, especially any new ones. If there is no consensus or if the consensus is that editorializing titles should explicitly be allowed, I'll back down and let Reddit's upvote/downvote system handle it, though I think that will lead to articles that are worthy of discussion being downvoted more than they otherwise would be.

I'm assuming that adding an official rule to the sidebar is out of the question but perhaps the actual moderators can let me know if that is the case or not. (Tagging one of them that has been actively recently: u/Harriv)

Thanks in advance.

by Flintloq

11 comments

  1. I think editing the headline should be against the rules. It’s a low-effort way of skewing the discussion on a platform where discussions form around the title instead of the linked article way too often.

  2. Yle articles should be banned,period. 100% bs all the time.

  3. Could not agree more with you. Bending truth is annoying as such, but here it also does lead to the same articles being posted several times.

  4. r/europe has the rule that editing headlines is forbidden. Every new post there goes also via moderation. While it might feel unfair, reasons for that are valid.

    So I fully agree with your suggestion.

    Additional hot take: For very understandable reasons especially people who are new to Finland/ don’t speak Finnish have difficulties to understand what sites are reliable news sources and what are not. Helsinki Times is one of those highly biased non neutral sites and it is not a reliable source.

    Sources like [HS.fi](http://HS.fi), [YLE.fi](http://YLE.fi) and such [need to follow guidelines for journalists](https://journalistiliitto.fi/en/journalists-ethics/guidelines-for-journalists/). These merely personal blogs can publish almost what ever they like. Thus making them non-reliable sources.

  5. The other question in my head is, is this a bot account? The account in question is 3 months old, they have 118 contribution and 4230 karma at the time of checking.

    Bot account farms are growing and these kind of bots have become very common place in the last year, more so in the last six months. Young account, low effort posts, usually doesn’t comment or reply, and if they do, feels very AI generated. These accounts also sometimes post weird out of context images, or generic but rage-baitey takes, or plagiarized content (images, news) to farm activity on that account.

    These ‘farmed’ bot accounts can be used later in multiple devious ways in political and social discourse, specially during election season and I don’t mean only in Finnish context. And a 3 year old account with a lot of karma raises less eyebrows than an account created 3 months ago with little to no karma.

    I have accepted the fact that the internet is mostly bots, hell sometimes I question myself if I am a bot. But I dunno if there is a proper solution to these suspicious bot farming activities. Or any low-effort content in general. I would prefer if these activities didn’t exist but I don’t know what is the democratic way to go on about this and what or if there is a way to detect if these activities are devious bot farming.

  7. I think just posting the day’s YLE roundup should banned if there is no attempt at creating discussion and the OP never bothers to engage. Low effort shite.

  8. I agree that articles should not be shared with changed headlines. Which is different from someone wanting to debate a topic, writing their text and including links in it.

  9. Just ban the guy. All of your example point to the same account

  10. Hei, Mod here. I can add it to the rules as agree there is no real reason to adjust the headline when posting a news story.

    I’ll message the user in question and see if they have a response.

  11. In times like these, I always refer back to the original headline. We are living in a post-truth era, where even on Reddit, the person you argue with could be a bot designed to push an agenda. YLE is fairly trustworthy and transparent, so I just read their articles instead, an honest media is a sign of a healthy democracy.

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