Who cares? Reddit is a private company, they can set their own standards for moderation. For several years now I've seen this non-stop obsession with lambasting reddit as a shit-hole and a left-wing echo-chamber and a shit company run by amateurs and SJWs.
Who cares? The overwhelming majority of redditors subsist on photos of animals and drawings of video game characters. Just leave if reddit isn't friendly to your particular proclivities. If you hate fat people, liberals, feminists and BLM activists there are many places on the internet where you can find common cause.
Reddit has traditionally been a place where free speech is prized above all else. That they might 'censor' the alt right is symbolic. What it is symbolic of is in question though, pick one of:
1) The alt right has become so hateful that regardless of your approach to free speech that allowing it to propagate is unacceptable
2) Societies view of free speech has changed in the face of things like the alt right.
3) The expected role of sites like Reddit has changed as those platforms are used to spread hate speech, false news etc.
I could be wrong, but IMO, it most likely comes down to the fact that the admins happen to be human beings and these particular communities are just starting to grate on their nerves. Pages and pages of highly upvoted direct attacks rattled the CEO to the point where he thought it wasn't a completely insane idea to abuse his developer privileges to silently alter user content in an attempt to troll his critics. That is a pretty telling sign of frustration.
Whenever the admins make any changes, a certain sub-section of the site goes completely insane and spams the site with tons of threads about how the site is fucking terrible and how the admins are fucking idiots with the common thread among these rabblerousers being that they always happen to hate a particular group that is ruining the site and destroying the indomitable reddit free speech ethos.
Personally, I've always viewed reddit's approach to moderation as non-interventionist and not as something that necessarily enshrined the ideals of free-speech. That is to say, it all seemed more of a growth-hack than anything else; outsource moderation to individual communities and set a policy of non-intervention so that when people complain to the admins they can say something like "subreddits are owned and operated by users, don't complain to us", this formula scaled very nicely and reddit exploded into the behemoth it is today.
But now that reddit has become something of a cultural focal point on the internet, it's started to draw attention from the media at large and suddenly the operators felt a little embarrassed that they had to defend subreddits such as /r/fatpeoplehate, /r/jailbat, /r/niggers etc. So I imagine they just said "fuck it, it's more trouble than it's worth", and despite a month or two of banhammer-whack-a-mole with fuck-stupid-dictator-sjw-cunt-ellen-mao subreddits, the site continued to flourish, and all the free-speech purists finally woke up to the startling truth that reddit.com was really just an internet startup and not a platform to empower the oppressed masses...
>Who cares? Reddit is a private company, they can set their own standards for moderation.
Except it's not that simple. There's a substantial amount of judicial precedent that you can't refuse service to customers just because you disagree with their ideology or background, otherwise it would be okay to refuse service to supporters of gay marriage for example.
Banning hate speech is, broadly, not equivalent to refusing to make a cake or give someone a room in a hotel. It's appalling that you'd even suggest that.
Reddit isn't refusing to service people because of their ideology or background, they are limiting certain kinds of speech. A private organization is entirely allowed to limit certain kinds of speech.
...judicial precedent that you can't refuse service to customers just because you disagree with their ideology or background, otherwise it would be okay to refuse service to supporters of gay marriage for example
Way overbroad interpretation. The Civil Rights Act prohibits refusal of some kinds of service based on race, color, religion or national origin, and it's pretty much the only national law (in the US) that's relevant here (I'm not counting the 14th amendment or more specific laws e.g. for disabilities).
Notably, there's no federal law protecting supporters of gay marriage. They're state-specific laws, and not at all universal.
> There's a substantial amount of judicial precedent that you can't refuse service to customers just because you disagree with their ideology or background, otherwise it would be okay to refuse service to supporters of gay marriage for example.
Ideology isn't a protected class. Sexual orientation is, at least in some states.
Regardless, you are not refusing anyone service - you are not banning people from your platform, you are designating your platform as something not be used for certain purposes.
Would you cite the judicial precedent that you're relying on? Heart of Atlanta was based on the commerce cause and the civil rights act. I can't think of anything else that would apply.
It's not discrimination to enforce site wide rules against harassment, racism, and brigading (coordinated upvoting). Just because only a few communities are breaking the rules doesn't make it discrimination. Racists and bigots aren't a protected class.
alt-right assholes can learn how to run their own httpd and forum software... Nothing but technical knowledge of how to do so properly is stopping people from renting a $150/mo dedicated server and setting it up.
Ironic that you've made this comment on HackerNews, a site, it can be argued, whose appeal comes from its pretty substantial moderation. I can't tell you how many links I've seen flagged and banished from HN that I thought were important, but... once I cooled down my outrage, I realized the conversations occurring on them were pretty toxic. I come to HN because of the focus and constructive dialogue. I stay away from Reddit (and long ago abandoned /.) because of the toxicity.
Yes. The alt-right and the_donald reddit community members can move to a less-popular platform, but that doesn't necessarily mean that platform has just become more popular. It means the loudest, most-obnoxious people have just lost their Reddit audience. When 1% of commenters are making 90% of the posts, that's no longer a dialogue and that drives away readers. Encouraging polite dialogue and policing abusive behaviors are smart business moves for Reddit and Twitter.
I frequent hackernews and /r/askhistorians because of strong moderation. I support free speech. Communities being moderated are different than platforms being exclusive to certain communities. (I consider hackernews to be a community not a platform due to its strict focus.)
I can choose which communities to ignore, lurk in and participate with. I dont support extinguishing communities I choose to ignore.
You get what you get when you choose to congregate at the firehose nozzles of twitter and /r/all
I think for me the issue is that HN brands itself as being a particular kind of site, for a particular community. Reddit is basically a tool for communities to form and organize themselves. There's a pretty big difference between what the two platforms bill themselves as.
Twitter's become absolutely toxic as well. It's gone insane. They really need to get rid of the Trumpian right-wingers from that platform or it'll end up being harmful to their business.
No advertiser is interested in putting out their message right where a random guy can immediately reply with "LIAR!" for everyone to see.
Without the draw of getting the big audience of r/all I would not be surprised if communities like the_donald will start to stagnate if they had to move to voat.
Just because you disagree with their opinion does not mean you should want to kick them out. They are not acting upon their views in any way that affects you. Totally free expression is crucial and in no way will it affect you physically. I disagree with almost everything they stand for, but their presence is crucial for an open discussion of issues in our global societies.
It's not really a free speech issue to be honest. As far as I can tell some of these sub-reddits, like the_donald in particular, are well organised and know how to push their posts to the front page (the rare time I open /r/all, their posts are almost always among the top ones, despite being very low quality content).
So it's no about censoring free speech, it's about making the idiot shouting his opinions with a megaphone on the street to do it somewhere else, or at the very least to drop the megaphone.
Voat won't get taken over by the enemies of free expression. That's not how it'll fail. Voat will fail because there's a lack of people to harass on voat, and you're not allowed to use voat to brigade other services.
Yes, everyone leaves for Voat, Voat crashes, and then everyone goes back to Reddit. Most people go to Reddit for their cat memes, not to hate on people.
HN's DNA is civil, professional discussion of the Silicon Valley based, VC-backed, millionaire-minting Ruby on Rails landing page creation industry. Users know what they're here for.
Reddit became popular as an irreverent place for free discussion of whatever. There's a big difference in expectation.
Since when has a company enforcing their TOS been discussion worthy? Their content policy clearly outlines what is considered "Unwelcome Content" and it seems like the majority of the alt-right thread would be classified as "Violent Content" under Reddit's terms.
I think a much more amusing enforcement of such policy would be for Twitter to ban Donald Trump, thereby also banning the @POTUS account for the term of his Presidency for "Abusive Behaviour" on Twitter such as openly harassing the cast of Hamilton.
> The Alt Right is a racial movement and has always been a racial movement. Race is at the very core of the alt right and there is absolutely no way to be alt right without discussing racial realism, especially from a white perspective
Just because you rebrand racism as "racial realism" doesn't mean you aren't racist and Reddit has no appetite for hosting racist speech. Go start your own Reddit if you don't like it. That's the wonderful thing about the web, its easy to make your own discussion forums.
I'm sure Voat will love these guys, meanwhile I don't have to deal with "racial realism" brigades and trolls on the subs I read. Seems like a win-win for all involved.
Yes! Lets silence the opinions of everyone we disagree with! Lets take away their places to talk so they have to skulk in the shadows! Lets pretend there's no merit to listening to the thoughts of millions of people!
Why stop with removing their access to Reddit? Why not make it downright illegal to talk about it? Why don't we make it illegal to think about it, too?
I'm exceptionally left-leaning and I don't agree with removing these people from Reddit, it's censorship of views we don't like, plain and simple. Are we really so childish that we believe that if we stop these people talking about it then the problem will go away? They'll just move elsewhere and common discourse will be more difficult, people will be more entombed in their own biased beliefs.
I don't think you're familiar with /r/the_Donald's rules. The number one rule is no dissenting. Not even polite discussion is allowed. They've already entombed themselves.
See, the problem with all of this is that they get the 'left-wing' people to fight for them. These people have not lost anything but an outlet to abuse people, and spread their sexist, racist philosophies (If you disagree with this, try reading through Breitbart without being disgusted at the contents).
Do not worry. These people still have their freedom of speech, they are free to spray paint swastikas in bathrooms and put threatening letters through the doors of American citizens, but they will no longer be able to preach their philosophies on Reddit.
> Why not make it downright illegal to talk about it?
To have any kind of discussion, you need to agree on a premise, a set of axioms, a base on which to talk.
In most countries, you take the constitution for that. Or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
That’s the minimal base on which you plan your society, and discuss politics and laws.
Usually, you add more, but it’s the required minimum.
What do you do with people who disagree with that? With people who disagree with the inalienable right to live? With people who disagree with the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" for some races or religious groups?
How can you form a society if you can’t even agree on the most basic ideas?
Maybe, you should actually separate society, split it, if there are people unwilling to make compromises, and holding immutable ideas that are incompatible with the rest of society.
Left needed a new boogyman because the old ones were getting stale. "alt right" is a perfect candidate.
If you believe people who agree with some of the alt-rightist views must be held accountable for the standard racists who use that worldview as cover, then logically you must also make it incumbent upon people of muslim faith to tug a forelock to "us enlightened folk" in shared outrage and be accountable for the extremists who act in their name, and for random jewish people to be accountable for settlements, for catholics to feel they owe you something for their Irish "freedom fighters," etc.
Readit News
Who cares? The overwhelming majority of redditors subsist on photos of animals and drawings of video game characters. Just leave if reddit isn't friendly to your particular proclivities. If you hate fat people, liberals, feminists and BLM activists there are many places on the internet where you can find common cause.
1) The alt right has become so hateful that regardless of your approach to free speech that allowing it to propagate is unacceptable
2) Societies view of free speech has changed in the face of things like the alt right.
3) The expected role of sites like Reddit has changed as those platforms are used to spread hate speech, false news etc.
Whenever the admins make any changes, a certain sub-section of the site goes completely insane and spams the site with tons of threads about how the site is fucking terrible and how the admins are fucking idiots with the common thread among these rabblerousers being that they always happen to hate a particular group that is ruining the site and destroying the indomitable reddit free speech ethos.
I think the biggest concern is when platforms start to police illegal speech, and countries make political dissent illegal.
But now that reddit has become something of a cultural focal point on the internet, it's started to draw attention from the media at large and suddenly the operators felt a little embarrassed that they had to defend subreddits such as /r/fatpeoplehate, /r/jailbat, /r/niggers etc. So I imagine they just said "fuck it, it's more trouble than it's worth", and despite a month or two of banhammer-whack-a-mole with fuck-stupid-dictator-sjw-cunt-ellen-mao subreddits, the site continued to flourish, and all the free-speech purists finally woke up to the startling truth that reddit.com was really just an internet startup and not a platform to empower the oppressed masses...
Until they banned another subreddit.
Except it's not that simple. There's a substantial amount of judicial precedent that you can't refuse service to customers just because you disagree with their ideology or background, otherwise it would be okay to refuse service to supporters of gay marriage for example.
It's appalling that you would even suggest that.
Reddit isn't refusing to service people because of their ideology or background, they are limiting certain kinds of speech. A private organization is entirely allowed to limit certain kinds of speech.
Way overbroad interpretation. The Civil Rights Act prohibits refusal of some kinds of service based on race, color, religion or national origin, and it's pretty much the only national law (in the US) that's relevant here (I'm not counting the 14th amendment or more specific laws e.g. for disabilities).
Notably, there's no federal law protecting supporters of gay marriage. They're state-specific laws, and not at all universal.
Ideology isn't a protected class. Sexual orientation is, at least in some states.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class
Regardless, you are not refusing anyone service - you are not banning people from your platform, you are designating your platform as something not be used for certain purposes.
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Once Voat is overrun by the enemies of free expression, someone else will take the helm and continue. Such is the nature of a free Internet.
Yes. The alt-right and the_donald reddit community members can move to a less-popular platform, but that doesn't necessarily mean that platform has just become more popular. It means the loudest, most-obnoxious people have just lost their Reddit audience. When 1% of commenters are making 90% of the posts, that's no longer a dialogue and that drives away readers. Encouraging polite dialogue and policing abusive behaviors are smart business moves for Reddit and Twitter.
I can choose which communities to ignore, lurk in and participate with. I dont support extinguishing communities I choose to ignore.
You get what you get when you choose to congregate at the firehose nozzles of twitter and /r/all
No advertiser is interested in putting out their message right where a random guy can immediately reply with "LIAR!" for everyone to see.
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So it's no about censoring free speech, it's about making the idiot shouting his opinions with a megaphone on the street to do it somewhere else, or at the very least to drop the megaphone.
Why hasn't he outright deleted the subreddit?
I don't see anyone fleeing for greener pasture.
Reddit became popular as an irreverent place for free discussion of whatever. There's a big difference in expectation.
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I think a much more amusing enforcement of such policy would be for Twitter to ban Donald Trump, thereby also banning the @POTUS account for the term of his Presidency for "Abusive Behaviour" on Twitter such as openly harassing the cast of Hamilton.
https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205701105https://www.reddit.com/help/contentpolicy#section_unwelcome_...https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311
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Just because you rebrand racism as "racial realism" doesn't mean you aren't racist and Reddit has no appetite for hosting racist speech. Go start your own Reddit if you don't like it. That's the wonderful thing about the web, its easy to make your own discussion forums.
I'm sure Voat will love these guys, meanwhile I don't have to deal with "racial realism" brigades and trolls on the subs I read. Seems like a win-win for all involved.
Why not? People have been rebranding racism for years.
Why stop with removing their access to Reddit? Why not make it downright illegal to talk about it? Why don't we make it illegal to think about it, too?
I'm exceptionally left-leaning and I don't agree with removing these people from Reddit, it's censorship of views we don't like, plain and simple. Are we really so childish that we believe that if we stop these people talking about it then the problem will go away? They'll just move elsewhere and common discourse will be more difficult, people will be more entombed in their own biased beliefs.
Do not worry. These people still have their freedom of speech, they are free to spray paint swastikas in bathrooms and put threatening letters through the doors of American citizens, but they will no longer be able to preach their philosophies on Reddit.
If I see a bully insult someone, I'm not going to sit around and tell the victim to just accept it as "free speech."
And if a bully does that in my house, I'm going to kick him out of my house.
To have any kind of discussion, you need to agree on a premise, a set of axioms, a base on which to talk.
In most countries, you take the constitution for that. Or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
That’s the minimal base on which you plan your society, and discuss politics and laws.
Usually, you add more, but it’s the required minimum.
What do you do with people who disagree with that? With people who disagree with the inalienable right to live? With people who disagree with the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" for some races or religious groups?
How can you form a society if you can’t even agree on the most basic ideas?
Maybe, you should actually separate society, split it, if there are people unwilling to make compromises, and holding immutable ideas that are incompatible with the rest of society.
If you believe people who agree with some of the alt-rightist views must be held accountable for the standard racists who use that worldview as cover, then logically you must also make it incumbent upon people of muslim faith to tug a forelock to "us enlightened folk" in shared outrage and be accountable for the extremists who act in their name, and for random jewish people to be accountable for settlements, for catholics to feel they owe you something for their Irish "freedom fighters," etc.
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