Slashdot Mirror
Reddit Removes Communities To Address Harassment, Users Respond
New submitter sethstorm writes: As a change to their community management, Reddit administrators have banned multiple communities (known as subreddits) in a bid to remove harassment. In response, users have responded in different ways — some have pointed out the bias of Reddit admins for leaving known harassers alone such as those in the "SRS" subreddit, others have attempted to re-create the banned subreddit "FatPeopleHate", and many have gone to overwhelm Voat (a competitor).
should buy Slashdot so they'd finally have to deal with mr. apk hosts file and mikeeusa and that's going to be posting here pretty soon.
It's like the great fark meltdown of 2007 over there.
Who said, "The Internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it"? Yes. It's old. You've probably heard it a million times; but it's so apropos.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Seriously. You visit reddit? You're part of the problem.
There have been a lot of strange things going on for a while at reddit.
Banning people because they mentioned the alleged ponzi scheming of the CEO's husband,
Making a bunch of crappy sub-reddits defaults, removing other (crappy) sub-reddits as defaults.
This just seems to be the tipping point for a lot of people. I don't think most people really actually cared about the ban, but the way it was done and the obvious other sub-reddit targets that were just ignored, or had excuses made for them.
I just looked back at digg.com for the first time in a couple years from when it flamed out heroically on it's 2.0 launch. It's not horrible now, there doesn't appear to be too much drama on their front page. Looks like delicio.us Just a abc/cbs style repost of yesterdays "hot web news"
supposedly people flocked to voat.to so hard they took down the site.
The other thing people seem to be doing is re-enabling adblock on reddit, and voting with their purse strings by not purchasing gold anymore.
Reddit has an outrageously smug user community with a chaotic moderation system. I've been on Slashdot since the 90s, and I can at least say that it's a somewhat sane place to discuss tech-related and nerd-related topics (other than the typical political/religious commentary nonsense). The metamod system alone is a great balance, as is limiting the number of votes and randomizing who gets the votes prevents upvote and downvote brigading. It's pretty rare for factually-incorrect information to get upvoted or factually-correct information buried. Even when mods approve some article that looks like an advertisement, Slashdot users spot it and bring those comments to the top.
I occasionally read Reddit, but I get very frustrated watching completely factual information get downvoted or subreddits banned because it doesn't fit users' or moderators' view of the world. Between this and the Ellen Pao controversy, sites like voat might actually have a chance of doing to reddit what reddit did to digg. In fact, voat is doing the exact same thing to reddit that reddit did to digg when reddit posted the infamous shovel logo to welcome disgruntled digg users by welcoming the "fatpeoplehate" refugees. Oh how fickle the social media world has become...
I used to moderate a couple of forums about a few different video games, sizable at the time but nothing the size of Reddit, for sure. But there were some rigid things about our setup that I liked.
I feel like the backlash (maybe shitstorm is more appropriate) on Reddit is because the users don't feel the admins are playing by a set of rules. They haven't cited any specific rules the banned subreddits were violating, just "harassment" (which they didn't define.) Moreover, the punishment has not been doled out uniformly, with plenty of users pointing out subreddits that also should have been banned if harassment subs are banned.
The judgements being handed down seem, to apparently fucking everyone on Reddit, arbitrary. Like some far off god on Mt. Olympus has suddenly decided mess with people at random.
Maybe I'm just talking out of my ass because I've never had to manage a community the size of Reddit, but this just seems like an admin took offense to something ("got triggered," in the parlance,) and dusted off the ol' banhammer without thinking. I don't know if that's what happened, but that's how it seems, and that sort of abuse of power always triggers (the way the word is really used) a community schism.
I know, I know, the Web couldn't have a Usenet-type killfile because it would block ads.
But damn.
This is exactly why we need liberty-minded proponents setting up anonymous mechanisms of communications. Nobody should have the right to censor content online. I don't care who you are. Not even if its a death threat, a bomb threat, or a threat against the president himself. Threats don't kill people people kill people.Yes- words can take a toll, but it's not the same as actual physical abuse. You can get away from online harassment. You can't get away from a school bully. As a gay person I get words can hurt- but a solution is NOT worth the price of censorship. And I'm going to say the worst thing I could because nobody else will: feminists or whoever you are that's crying about nudes being published of you: suck it up. The problem is social, not the person who violated your privacy. Nobody is physically attacking you and if they did it's a social problem- not a communications problem. It's the people physically attacking- not the f'ing words.
All that ever happens from these anti-harassment laws is the government comes in and uses them against people it doesn't like. There are already laws against murder and other other forms of abuse. You don't need another law to tack on to someone whose murdered because they dislike some racial, social, sexual, or other group.
Has Voat been slashdotted?
The important thing here is that *everyone* feels like a special snowflake.
I was participated in are now banned, I only visit the site about once a week now. Censorship there is out of control. It's depressing to go to a forum you've participated in for years and suddenly see the "this subreddit has been banned" message again and again.
I have been around here a long time.
I can honestly say that I am dissapointed to see /. post gloating over a row brewing on another community site while at the same time censoring discussion and posts related to the recent and ongoing Sourceforge controversy. Choosing which subs stay and which go is going to upset a small but vocal set of users. They would be stupid not to know this.
In the case of Sourceforge, I think it's much worse to sell out and betry the trust of an entire community. But let's not talk about it!
There's a certain critical mass of dissatisfaction in a user base/community. Until that point the site can be salvaged. It takes more than an unpopular move by admins/community leaders. There has to be BOTH:
I think it can be generalized to other communities but for web sites in particular there has to be enough dissatisfaction to create a feedback loop of angry users being ignored leads to leadership blunders leads to more angry users. When meta-conversation overwhelms normal conversation there's a tipping point. Slashdot has almost been there. coughcoughbetacough But it takes more than that. At the tipping point administration must demonstrate such disregard for the users concerns that a revolt becomes meta-shared knowledge. Many users knowing isn't enough. They need to know that other users know. Only if that happens the site will descend into a digg-esque melt-down and hemorrhage users until admins capitulate or the site collapses.
I don't think Reddit has reached that point. In fact, I think this will serve as a safety valve. Users who strongly value freedom of expression will go to voat and everyone else will stay, and not see as many complaints. Obviously this makes the culture more brittle. Reddit is not in danger now but will lead to other problems down the road.
This is a big step toward Reddit becoming an echo chamber. New users will be less likely to stay and it will create its own cultural feedback loop. Those unwilling to toe the party line will find themselves shunned. Users will pretend to go along, hiding how they really feel, leading to a more intense echo chamber. Soon there will be prescribed viewpoints on almost any topic. Reddit will die then. Not with a bang but with a whimper.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Hence the cracking down on vaguely offensive communities. As Imgur attempts to commercialize itself, which is an extention of Reddit, they become more disgustingly politically correct and sterile until the innovators that provided exotic content to digest move onto greener pastures.
I suspect a better approach would be to slow down the page / post responsiveness of just those communities or posters (if they have a lot of complaints). The worse it is, the slower things get. This would have the advantage of not silencing people - but gently encouraging them elsewhere.
If by "respond" you mean "throw a temper tantrum because they can't hate fat people" then yes, users have "responded" to the decision to remove a few subreddits from reddit.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Tolerance means everyone gets to say things they like.
Many, many submissions critical of the new selectively-enforced policies were voted up and made it to the front page (and especially r/all). They've now vote-locked subreddits where those posts tend to come from, meaning those subreddits' users can't vote them up any more (nor can they even affect the order of posts in the subreddit itself).
This is blatant, shameful astroturfing by the admins and ownership hide content and opinions before they have a chance to take off. It couldn't be clearer that the reddit regime is afraid not of harrassment, but widespread, popular criticism.
fatpeoplehate got shut down for brigading and doxxing, not simple hate
imgur started removing fatpeoplehate images and in response the reddit sub posted pictures of (chubby) imgur staff and a thread topic about harassing them and identifying specific imgur personnel exploded
you can argue about imgur's removal of fatpeoplehate images as censorship, but you cannot call reddit's actions censorship, as removing threats and harassment is not logically the same as censorship
you could say there are double standards if and where other subs have engaged in doxxing in the past, or if and where other subs still do it, but on a smaller scale. but then the solution is to ban those subs as well, not let fatpeoplehate get away with abusive behavior
there are still plenty of repugnant and hateful subs on reddit that are not shut down. because they aren't doxxing
if voat is going to accept brigading and doxxing, then voat is going to get sued and shut down when, not if, someone gets hurt in real life because of ignorant internet hate
reddit did the right thing, as a matter of simple morality, and as a matter of self preservation in the face of legal standards
if you harass and threaten someone specifically, you're not engaging in free speech anymore, and you, and the forum you are doing it on, are culpable for any harm stemming from that. freedom of speech is not limitless. it is no longer free speech when you threaten specific people
any comment or discussion here about censoring hate is inaccurate
any comment or discussion here about preventing harassment and threats is on topic
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
it is no longer free speech when you threaten specific people
Amen. It's a good thing, then, that reddit provided specific evidence of such a threat in their ban announcement . . . oh wait . . .
They created new rules very recently about reddit being a "safe space". This is something that is, of course, extremely vague. What the hell is a "safe space"?
So suddenly some long time subreddits are getting banned for violating that. They are all shitty splaces, but then other shitty places seem to get left alone. As such people are rightly saying "What the fuck?"
Basically the rule is an arbitrary one. They are saying "We can ban you if you say things we don't like." Now its their site, they can do that if they wish, of course, but that is why users are reacting so negatively. It isn't a clear rule that is being consistently applied, rather it is deliberately vague and being targeted in a scattershot fashion.
Your rights end where my feelings begin! Shut it down!
So if I doxx or harass someone, and post it on a forum, that forum is culpable too? Nice logic there.
To take it to extremes ... If I were to stab someone in Chicago, is the city of Chicago culpable?
This is going to lead to false flag activism. Sign up to a subreddit. Doxx and harrass people on it. Get that subreddit banned. Mission accomplished.
Sorry, you don't get to set the topic. What are you, some kind of Reddit Admin? And, if you're right, why's this listing other subreddits too? Or this, where it's apparent the CONTENT is being banned, not the behavior. Otherwise they would give a 'sucessor' subreddit a chance to proove the mods there would keep a lid on behavior. /not stupid enough to use an account on a site //old school
Just do it in the name of feminism and the admins will let everything slide.
if there were a bulletin board in chicago where people would post names of people to stab, yes, the bulletin board would be culpable and would be removed
that's an actually valid analogy, unlike the crap you wrote
i can frame someone for murder
therefore, we should never pursue justice against murderers?
that people can abuse a justice system is not a valid argument against the existence of a justice system. the search for justice is a human endeavour, and prone to error, incompleteness, and malicious manipulation. and yet no justice system at all is 10,000x worse
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
sure, talk about whatever you want
but offtopic is still offtopic, and inaccurate is still inaccurate, and i can call you out for doing either
not because i'm some sort of bullshit self-appointed authority. simply because of logic and reason
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Multiple subs. NeoFAG was at least meanspirited and full of /b/-tier edgelords. NeoGAFinaction broke zero written rules, but "don't criticize a website that advertises here even if the guy who runs it committed sexual assault" is apparently reddit's current policy.
Who did /r/NeoFAG dox?
Why are r/shitredditsays r/againstmensrights and r/gamerghazi not banned for doxxing?
i don't know, and i don't know
there are double standards and hypocrisy. not out of malice, but probably out of simply not paying attention
if and where other subs have engaged in doxxing only in the past, like SRS, before the policy was announced
or if and where other subs still do it, but on a smaller scale
but then the solution is to ban those subs as well
not let fatpeoplehate get away with abusive behavior
"hey i heard about a guy who murdered someone once, so this guy should be able to get away with murder too"... that's not actually how morality or the real world works
two wrongs don't make a right
even if you can show me some sub that does nothing but doxx all day, it's existence does not mean fatpeoplehate should get away with abuse. in a truly fair and moral world, fatpeoplehate AND the other sub would be banned. not one or the other, not neither
and perhaps those subs will be banned shortly if they really deserve to be
why don't you complain to reddit admins and show the doxxing in those subs and get them banned?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So you don't know who the subreddits banned other than fatpeoplehate doxxed (the answer is no one) but feel comfortable in saying people complaining is off-topic?
FPH deserves a ban, but reddit admins are hypocrites and the story summary is accurate.
> fatpeoplehate got shut down for brigading and doxxing, not simple hate
You forgot to provide the evidence for this. Perhaps because the evidence does not exist.
The worst you can say about them is they're annoying and shrill. They do have a "don't touch the poop" policy, and while this isn't enforced by the admins, it is part of the culture.
a small oligopoly of corporations
That might be a major reason for this crackdown. Reddit has unbelievable traffic and reach, so stuff that earns popularity there gets spread to virtually everywhere and everyone.
It's exposure that marketers (of anything: products, politics, whatever) would kill for. They want to buy their way in, but not if some dirty peasant can tell the truth and (through sheer merit) get voted up and be taken just as seriously (or more seriously) than their bought & paid for message.
So Reddit sees advertisers chomping at the bit to throw money at it, but first Reddit has to demonstrate that it can crush contrary opinions at will.
You forgot to provide evidence for the evidence not existing this, perhaps because it doesn't exist...
> This is going to lead to false flag activism. Sign up to a subreddit. Doxx and harrass people on it. Get that subreddit banned. Mission accomplished.
No, they'll believe it's a false flag whenever they agree with the subreddit and shut it down when they don't agree with the content.
However, this also implies that Reddit agrees with every single thing they haven't banned, including all the doxxing in all the forums that was infamous but which happened a "long time" ago. And by a "long time" I guess they mean a few months back.
This is not something about harassment.
Board critical of the neogaf forums was killed and no public notice was given out.
Coontown is still up.
I guess reddit loves to be considered "gnaa" central, right?
> fatpeoplehate got shut down for brigading and doxxing, not simple hate
You have no credibility and I don't believe a word you say. Fuck off back to SRS.
facts:
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
you're a pridefully ignorant moron who doesn't care about credibility or truth
first, understand what the fuck you are talking about on the topic, *then* open your ignorant mouth
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You linked me to something about FPH. I don't care about FPH. I do care about Reddit shutting down criticism of a particular gaming forum. I want to know who you claim NeoFAG doxxed and why Neogaf in action was banned. Linking a non-sequitur and calling me a lying moron and a prideful idiot doesn't explain why Reddit chose to ban criticism of Neogaf.
a bunch of new users.
I don't get why why the GIMP weenies are getting all worked about about this.
GIMP is released under the GPL. The main goal of the GPL is to allow GPLed software to be freely modifiable and redistributable by anyone.
As I understand it, SourceForge didn't really even modify GIMP's source code. It just compressed GIMP binaries, and then wrapped this compressed data with an installer that also does some things that the GIMP weenies don't like.
If the GIMP weenies didn't want their software to be redistributed by others, then they probably should not have used a license like the GPL!
Reddit: the cesspit of the internet
Reddit banned several subs. I doubt they were all doxxing and brigading like you could be suggesting, but you make a fair argument otherwise. I wish I had proof, but I can't go to those subs to find out what went on there. They never affected me, including /r/transfags, in which someone in my shoes should probably stay far away from anyways. It got banned, and I'll never know if they actually did anything wrong other than pick on people like me.
To the people they doxxed.
I was never a user of fat people hate. But i watched it play out overnight.
The way they did it with instant ban. While giving the disingenuous hypocritical bullshit excuses they did.... Just dumb.
Don't the people running reddit know how the internet works? How people work?
Instead of having 'those hateful FPH users' in one contained easily ignored spot. Now they're spread all over and multiplying.
And have the support of most everyone who really hates censorship too.
And all the random users who think they should have been left alone, contained in their own sub.
They've since deleted HUNDREDS of subs that sprang up from the fatpeople users. An ongoing fight they can never 'win'.
It's just so bizarre.
You're allowed to hate and make fun of gays, trans, blacks, asians, jews, women, men. and every other group.
Talk about raping women, little kids, animals. And exchange tips on how to do it.
But oh lord you better not offend some fat people who had to intentionally opt in to your sub!
Seriously. Look at the subs that DIDN'T get banned.
http://www.reddit.com/r/SomeRandomReddit/wiki/sickandweirdsubreddits
Why do those still exist? They've proven they can and will ban a sub for 'reasons'.
I think reddit might be run by morons. Or at least clueless about how people/theinternet works.
I'd say it's days are numbered now. It's jumped the shark. It'll be a geocites in 5 years.
I think everyone is trying to educate here through debate. It's your choice if you want to partake.
Wait, what? You don't believe that the people that go through the effort of creating and maintaining their own forum should have the ability to exercise some control over the content being posted on that forum? The comments they host become a reflection of that site and mold its reputation.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely hate censorship and I think Reddit is doing a great job of tearing itself apart from the inside out. But if you really believe in liberty, then you also have to recognize the liberty of the owners and moderators to shape their content and the liberty of the users to migrate to other forums.
GP is quoting GGP which didn't provide evidence. So that is the evidence that GGP didn't provide evidence.
On top of the numerous alternatives to Reddit, you can get a VPS for $1 a month if you look hard enough. I'm struggling to see how Reddit's actions to control what's said on their website constitutes censorship in any meaningful definition of that term.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Your post was informative, but damn man, hit the shift key every once in a while.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Apparently I've missed something. What precisely got censored?
Today, you win the internets in the "illustrative statement" category for demonstrating to us what's wrong with censorship.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
IMGUR.com has begun aggressively enforcing heretofore unenforced content bans (the non-enforcement of which has grown them into the community they now are). It's apparent this change is motivated by advertisers, as ads-as-content have begun appearing that are immune from the same moderation that regular content is subject to.
IMGUR also hosts the images from Reddit, so there's lots of porn on their servers making it very ironic that they now ban any NSFW content.
FARK.com went through a similar "cleansing" a while back, again motivated by the desire for advertising revenue. I moved to IMGUR as an alternative to FARK.
So if Voat is an alternative to Reddit, what is an IMGUR-like alternative to IMGUR?
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Naw, that can't be allowed. It can never be okay to legitimately make others fear for their lives. It can never be okay to call in a bomb threat to a school. That cannot be protected speech, because it cannot be ignored. Merely offensive speech can be ignored, or countered with better speech. But truly threatening speech cannot be ignored, and therefore must be a crime.
But, you really, really have to go all out to say things that are threatening enough to constitute a "true threat." There are lots of boxes you have to check off to make something truly threatening, and not merely offensive, or hyperbole, and the courts have done a good job of telling the difference (the current insanity with Reason commentators not withstanding).
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
And I'm going to say the worst thing I could because nobody else will: feminists or whoever you are that's crying about nudes being published of you: suck it up. The problem is social, not the person who violated your privacy. Nobody is physically attacking you and if they did it's a social problem- not a communications problem. It's the people physically attacking- not the f'ing words.
Careful with that one there, buddy. Saying "the problem is social" exacerbates an existing problem; that being, you can label someone to be part of a group (let's say "witches") and it's a shortcut used to bypass individual judgment ("Burn the heretic! Damn the lack of evidence!").
I'm a firm believer in personal responsibility. Prove that I, me, this person writing the post, did something wrong. Do not attempt to make me look guilty by association with a group you can tie me to, however loosely. It's intellectually dishonest, at a minimum.
All that ever happens from these anti-harassment laws is the government comes in and uses them against people it doesn't like. There are already laws against murder and other other forms of abuse. You don't need another law to tack on to someone whose murdered because they dislike some racial, social, sexual, or other group.
Now this I agree with.
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
well thanks for your comment, mr fattie fatterson
So you support terrorist propaganda. Got it.
"fatpeoplehate got shut down for brigading and doxxing, not simple hate"
Apparently yes. But the announcement by the admins did an extraordinarily poor job of explaining that.
They banned fatpeople hate but these subreddits still exist: (And I'm not directly linking to them for your own safety)
Then if you want to talk about specific hate speech there is /r/CoonTown and a few anti-Semite ones.
Nothing personal, but I have a distaste for posts like this one that begin to dissect the legal meaning of the word censorship whenever it's brought up, when it clearly has uses outside of a legal context. Otherwise, self-censorship wouldn't be a thing.
Users are being muzzled on a site that was founded upon, took pride in, and apparently still advertises itself as protecting free discussion. Reddit is now trying to reshape the community that made it what it is, all the while claiming to be serving them. I don't care much for buzzwords like SJW or MRA that get thrown around so carelessly on social sites or the conspiracy theories those people hatch, but this is undeniably censorship through displacement. The prevailing culture, if you could call it that, on these sites are being eroded.
Here's one: 8chan.net
If instead Reddit was saying that they would ban all homosexual users, would you then see what is wrong with it?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
A classic case of trying to swap other people into an argument and finding that that doesn't actually prove your own point, it proves mine and suggests you haven't even thought for a second why Reddit is taking these actions.
If Reddit banned homosexuals for being homosexual I would say they're being jackasses, both because homosexuals aren't actually hurting anyone, and are a minority commonly subject to horrific abuses that a "ban" would legitimize, whereas trolls that doxx and otherwise harass minority groups hurting people, and are not in any way a group that suffers unjustified persecution themselves.
Note though that the complaint would be that they're being jackasses, not that they're "censoring" anyone. I appreciate that on a forum where the word "rape" is commonly used to mean "charged a whole $10 for a music CD" that the idea words matter might seem quaint and absurd, but believe me, they do.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Then you've failed Reading 101 because I didn't mention any legal context. I said it's not censorship because it isn't, Someone refusing to allow THEIR voice to be used to amplify yours is NEVER censorship under any definition of the term.
There is no set of circumstances in which someone has some moral responsibility to repeat the words of those they find objectionable and reprehensible. You don't get to do that. If Reddit had some kind of monopoly on speech, you might be able to suggest they have some kind of quasi-legal responsibility to do so, purely because free speech would be impossible if someone has somehow managed to be the gatekeeper of all thought. But they don't. You have alternatives. You don't get to call them banning the use of their infrastructure to discharge your point of view "censorship".
As for your displacement complaint, this is about blocking forums, not blocking individuals. There's little difference between someone saying "Well, let's go to KIA to find out what Gamergaters think!" and saying "Let's go to 8chan to find out what Gamergaters think!". They're equally easy. Reddit doesn't make one harder than the other. Indeed, in many ways, it's the opposite, with direct links between opposing Reddit forums frequently discouraged by moderators of both sending and receiving subs.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Not feelings, perhaps, but legitimate fear for one's safety, and not the "we need to packet capture the whole internet in order to keep you safe, citizen" type.
There's a difference between "we made fun of X" (which is unkind) VS "we made fun of X, then posted his/her address and personal information with suggestions to cause harm" (which is legitimately threatening).
I used to read fatpeoplehate. They had explicit rules about no brigading or linking to other sub-reddits (to prevent brigading). They even had rules about censoring out usernames and pictures (sure, a Google text search could find the post in question, but users had to work for it). There no rules about censoring out just random pictures of fat people, though (probably because there's no name attached and no way to actually harass them). Note: this didn't apply to public figures like fat activists or models like Tess Holliday/Munster.
Reddit are censoring the speech that they permit on their site, by removing that speech.
Why are you so opposed to using the term in that context?
Ah, now there's a bastion of 'unfettered free speach'. No moderation system, no blocking of anything anyone wanted to post. Sure it was/is chaotic & sure you had to learn who & what to ignore but at least it wasn't 'owned' by anyone. In fact the little I looked at reddit it strikes me as simply a different implementation of 'newsgroups' with 'subgroups etc.' (alt.sex.with.tigers anyone?) it just seems to be run by a coorporate entity. Newsgroups aren't 'owned' by anyone, hard to commercialize that but so what? I'm not in to trying to commercialize 'users'. (and doing a search it seems that there are companies 'commercializing' NNTP by simply supplying access to the newgroups & presumably 'serving the content' (as someone has to do it).
I haven't used a newsgroup client in a long time but I"m betting there are ones that make filtering content easier (say filtering by text in the posts, by usernames etc.), they probably even have 'ad blockers' to help weed out those posts from cmpanies trying to 'sell stuff'.
There's no moderation system of course so you have to actually decide for yourself who & what to read...ooo, some 'personal responsibility'.
Anyway, it simply occurs to me that places like Slashdot, reddit etc. are simply a rehash of newsgroups & if people flock to such websites it must be for a reason that there is some sense of 'community' or 'control' even. But when that corporate entity comes in and starts to capriciously apply rules then the users will leave as the 'sense of community' will be destroyed. People do have the right to 'vote with their feet' (or their 'eyeballs' in this case).
found the fatty.
You just restricted the word to its meaning in law, which clearly isn't its only meaning. There was a policy change, and some users could no longer express their views as they had before. What do you not get about this?
Huh? What are tools like 'Adblock Plus' for than? Same thing different implementation for a different protocol.
The only difference between 'the web' or really sites like Slashdot & especially Reddit & newsgroups is that people want their 'content for free' (or really commoditze their personal info & eyeballs rather than pay with their wallet). Think about it, how is a 'subreddit' any different than a 'subgroup' (e.g. 'alt.xxx'?) anyone can start a newsgroup, in theory some of them are 'moderated', the only difference is that it's not centralized or 'owned' by a single company so now you have multiple companies serving 'newsgroup content' & you pay for it...probably keeps the trolling down too.
For those coming from the SJW-friendly sectors of Reddit (such as SRS,Ghazi):
Quit trying to harass the non-SJW population while you're still behind.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Can't edit as an AC.
The shadow ban was innovative when I first saw it done on a Minitel network in 1993, today it's nothing new and very effective when used sparingly. (It was called "isolation" back then)
Sparingly is the key word, moderators don't seem to understand the concept of moderation lately. In-fact, I actually think moderators encourage trolling by being heavy handed.
> and no where is it required that no consequences will come to your life (your job, your reputation, etc.) for saying hateful things
There are laws that protect you from consequences, we call them anti-discrimination laws. But they only protect certain classes of people and not everyone.
http://danluu.com/slashdot-sou...
People need to man up and stop getting upset about words. We should be free to post anything we like.
FARK.com went through a similar "cleansing" a while back, again motivated by the desire for advertising revenue. I moved to IMGUR as an alternative to FARK.
That was done with a few other sites in an attempt to contain the GamerGate controversy. It failed.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
What about when harassment leads to someone not feeling they can speak their mind? (Which I think is often the goal with harassment.)
Hi guys! I'am find site http://adulter.club/ - this is place for porn fans who like download only new porn videos as they say and really find more interesting video. But! I have question, is it safe to download ?
REDDIT officially worked out it is just USENET before BINHEX
"I have a dream where a discussion platform exists, in which people are evaluated not by the volume of sockpuppets in their possession, or their ability to pander to group-think: but by the quality of their ideas and those idea's respective presentation. "
Me too.
The current web discussion forums are basically a form of centralized, authoritarian control. Certain folks out there love this system; particularly ones who have invested time into gaining power within this system, amplifying their own ideas and using underhanded tactics (like the use of sockpuppet accounts, or general crowd-based idiocy) to shout someone down and censor them.
Their day is coming to an end.
I've been working on a new type of discussion system that ensures all viewpoints are given representation....even and especially the "trolls"....without allowing in obvious spam. No viewpoint will ever be allowed to completely drown out the others.
It's the worst nightmare of the little people who love to censor and shut down discussions.
In case you happen to actually read this response, and are working on such a system yourself, the essence of the idea is use peoples 'likes' and 'dislikes' to identify the various 'cliques' that exist on the forum, and the 'leaders' of each. Then posts can be identified and sorted accordingly, especially the more polarizing comments, which should always be made visible.
In other words, 'likes' and 'dislikes' mean a lot more to your sorting algorithm when you know which clique it's coming from....and the social value of the person making that judgment call, within that clique. If leaders from both cliques hate a post, with little or no likes from 'reputable' members, it's probably a trash posting. But if a few people really do like it, it's probably just an extremely unpopular opinion....which needs to be seen.
I can already hear a small, scattered collection of brain cells firing to life inside the hollow innards of some dumb fuck's skull, as he furiously clicks the Reply button to tell me why I'm stupid and wrong.
To that person I say:
Don't waste your energy, moron. Learn to run, instead. That is a skill you will be needing some time in the near future. Then go fuck yourself.
captcha: pansies
As to what is and is not anger... you have no insight into my psychology.
Actually, any intelligent person reading this thread does know a great deal about your psychology.
To put it simply, you're a moron. Morons literally cannot think for themselves or evaluate an idea objectively. Everything has to be subjective, tied to a particular name or face, so that your pea sized brain can sort and categorize those people.
Morons do not have the intellectual capacity to evaluate ideas; you evaluate people--and quite poorly at that, since your focus is actually on attacking and proving yourself superior, not in getting to the truth of anything. Which is of course why you fail time and time again to make any kind of logical argument, preferring instead to be an insulting asshat who cries bitterly about people "hiding" in anonymity.
Your favorite argument, the ad hominem (followed closely by the sockpuppet downmod) loses a considerable amount of power when a person's comments are not neatly indexed by their name for you to label, and demonize accordingly. That's why it enrages you so much that people post anonymously. It makes you feel powerless against them. Which you are.
Learn to respect and worship the power of God, rather than your own pathetic self, if you'd like to begin to understand why people in this world do know a hell of a lot more about you than you give them credit for.