Reddit CEO: Site Is 'Not a Bastion of Free Speech,' Change Coming

An anonymous reader writes: Reddit's new CEO, cofounder Steve Huffman, has made a statement regarding the site's controversial racism- and abuse-related community "subreddits." He said, "we don't have any obligation to support them." In the brief announcement, Huffman explains that a robust content policy is something they have "been thinking about for quite some time" and is in the cards in the near future. It has also come to light via former CEO Yishan Wong that ousted interim boss Ellen Pao was one of the few defenders of the controversial subreddits, favoring a strategy of coexistence over the board's plan to eliminate problem communities. Wong blames another co-founder, Alexis Ohanian, for strategy changes that led to the firing of "Ask Me Anything" administrator Victoria Taylor whose unexpected absence crippled that component of the site.

Comments

No Free Speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Means no more page views from me. I really enjoyed the idea of a site that managed to keep the racists corralled into their own little playpen while the adults had quality discussion.

Re:No Free Speech

[dugancent]

Then you haven't been to reddit. What you are asking for has NEVER been the way that site works.

Re:No Free Speech

[AmiMoJo]

To whoever modded the parent -1 Troll: the moderation system is not your personal disagree button. If you disagree, post. Make your case, explain your disagreement. Moderation is supposed to be factual, and the parent is clearly not a troll.

Don't ruin Slashdot. Moderation is what makes it great, use the power responsibly.

Re:No Free Speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that is how it works. Reddit brings down the hammer on any subreddit that tries to bring its presence over into other subreddits where they are not welcome.

This policy, for example, kept "FatPeopleHate" relatively benign. Now that they are on voat, they are free from those rules and routinely brigade reddit.

Re:No Free Speech

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I wonder how much, if any, of this is actually a personal reaction to the site's evolution; and how much is simply the decision that the bad press (Reddit: Nastier than StormFront!) needed to stop and it was time to monetize the better neighborhoods harder than in the past. Clearly the popular AMA coordinating employee didn't get sacked for bad performance in doing things as they had previously been done, which certainly suggests that change was in the air even before the real fuss started and Pao left.

Re:No Free Speech

[Falos]

GParent: Yes it is.
Parent: No it isn't.
Reply: [pending]

Are you requesting what I think you're requesting?

Re:No Free Speech

[cayenne8]

Hmm...I guess I need to look up what this reddit thing is. Not familiar with it.

I've heard like 1 or two people I know in meatspace mention it off hand once, but that's about all I've heard about it.

Re:No Free Speech

[bluefoxlucid]

You severely overestimate adults if you think racists aren't the grown-ups in the group.

Re:No Free Speech

[93 Escort Wagon]

Please let that "meatspace" meme die. It's time to move on.

Re:No Free Speech

[LWATCDR]

I never got into Redit. Everytime I tried kept stumbling into the nasty parts.
Shame because every once in a while I find some really good posts that link to Redit subredits.

Re:No Free Speech

[Rakarra]

When I've down-modded something for being non-factual, it's been for things that are actually non-factual and fact-checkable, as opposed to subjective statements like "Reddit has NEVER been about free speech!"

Even then, if something is factually wrong, Troll/Flamebait are inappropriate, since that wasn't the original intent. I use "overrated," especially if it was modded up, as the post is not a high enough quality to support its "high" (which might be the default) mod value.

Re:No Free Speech

[StikyPad]

No. You don't *have to* do anything. If it's indeterminate, then leave it alone and save your mod points for a more deserving post.

Re:No Free Speech

[geminidomino]

Well, to be fair, the "free speech" thing is fact-checkable in their own words: it's right on top of the damn rules page.

Re:No Free Speech

[geekd]

No. The first thing anyone should do when they join Reddit is *unsubscribe* to the defaults. Then subscribe to ones they are actually interested in.

I though this was common knowledge, but I guess it is not, because I see statements like yours all the time.

Re:No Free Speech

[lgw]

You severely overestimate adults if you think racists aren't the grown-ups in the group.

I dunno - I'd say 90% of the racism I've seen online has pretty obviously been kids looking for something, anything, that would offend their parents. I understand it's a bit different in other parts of the world, though.

A Citizen's Dividend of 17% would end poverty.

Have you ever explained your utopian idea? Every time I see your sig I think "oh, another nutter", but maybe I'm making some poor assumptions.

Re:No Free Speech

[PopeRatzo]

Hmm...I guess I need to look up what this reddit thing is.

Trust me, do something more important, like organize your sock drawer.

Re:No Free Speech

[invid]

Personally, I only down-mod for posts that are way off-topic or obvious troll being obvious. If it is non-factual and fact-checkable I reply with the facts. If someone has incorrect empirical beliefs it is better for everyone to see them corrected.

Re:No Free Speech

[istartedi]

I'm not sure how parent got moderated Informative. Reddit does a pretty good job of not allowing offensive subs to pollute non-offensive ones. If you log on with the default set of subs, it's mostly non-offensive stuff with NSFW tags working pretty well to prevent you from following porn links and stuff. Yes, people talk about and/or link to offensive ones; but the offensive content itself is not in the stock subs. If you follow those links, you can find yourself in some truly bizarre and/or offensive places; but it's not in your face day-to-day unless you *choose* to go there.

Re:No Free Speech

[alvinrod]

Limits to moderation is what makes Slashdot great. Look at Reddit where everyone can essentially moderate at all times and it's an utter mess.

Slashdot's system works as well as it does because the site's creators realized that people will not be responsible with the system and it's far better to design a moderation system that accounts for that rather than assuming that people will be on their best behavior.

Also, plain text makes implication and inference difficult on the internet, which can lead to inappropriate moderation. If you or I were to make a sarcastic or facetious post, and someone with mod points completed missed the sarcasm, they very well may believe it's a troll or flame; or someone else makes a post that we think is off-topic only because we don't get the reference.

That's why the only reasonable way is to browse at -1 and just accept that we'll have to scroll past a few comments that aren't worth reading.

Re:No Free Speech

[zieroh]

Moderation is supposed to be factual

You must be new here. Moderation at Slashdot has never, ever, ever resembled what you describe.

Re:No Free Speech

[Khyber]

"Have you ever explained your utopian idea?"

I guess you never paid attention to history class. Thomas Paine very clearly explained this.

Go back to school.

Re:No Free Speech

[gameboyhippo]

Nothing new here. On Slashdot and Reddit, this seems to be the norm. Anything that the moderator opines as non-factual gets modded down.

Re:No Free Speech

[Crashmarik]

Oh my god from AmiJoJo ?
The hypocrisy is beyond belief.

Re:No Free Speech

[bluefoxlucid]

I'd say 90% of the racism I've seen online has pretty obviously been kids

I've seen kids throw racism around as a joke, trolling, just being obnoxious. Some of them are pretty vicious attention whores, but they're approximately equivalent to Leopold.

Real, deep-seated racism? That comes from self-important assholes, the kinds of people who grew up already, have their own kids, and treat their children like the negro slaves they wish they owned. It comes from border conflict territories like Israel and Palestine, where everyone cheerfully acknowledges that they would definitely strangle those dirty arabs (the other arabs, not themselves) on the other side of the fence if they could just get a hand around one of their throats, even their children--especially their children. It comes from political opinions about rich white bankers or English-impaired Mexicans taking all our money and jobs.

Have you ever explained your utopian idea?

It somewhat requires a good grasp of economics; due to difficulty with this, I developed a unifying economic theory that's relatively simple to conceive of. For convenience's sake, I'll give a brief explanation of that first; it's enough for anyone determined enough to work out all the nuances, although I find the basic premises (like most truths) are offensive to most people.

My basic theory of wealth is simple: Economic growth requires a cycle of unemployment. Every cost is human labor. When you make huge bulk purchase agreements, your suppliers go to their suppliers, who go to their suppliers, all negotiating similar bulk agreements, all squeezing down their per-unit profit margins to gain a massive sale, bringing everything at every level closer to the human cost. In competition, your competitors can undercut your prices only if they can produce at lower cost, which means involving less labor in the entire production chain. In supply-side economics, the first units of a product--the so-called "low hanging fruit"--require less labor per unit than the later units, which eventually limits the supply (you can grow more oranges by using land in colder climates, but you need greenhouses and fuel and you produce less, thus more labor goes into every orange, and they become expensive, thus limiting supply of $2/lb oranges).

If you start with 1,000 laborers making a product with a one-year lifespan, each laborer making $10/hr, hand-making the product in 8 hours, you invest $80 in that product. Build an assembly line, and your efficiency doubles: 500 laborers make the same number of units per day; you invest 4 labor-hours per unit, and the product costs $40. That means you can make the same amount of profit selling it $40 cheaper; you can put $40 per unit per consumer per year back into every consumer's pocket, at the expense of firing 500 laborers--unemployment.

Now that every consumer has $40 per unit of residual wealth to spend (money is not wealth, but is a measure of wealth), you can sell them each any combination of products and services totaling 4 labor-hours for each unit they buy of the now-cheaper product. If they buy 4 of these widgets per year, for example, they all have $160 more in their pockets than they did before--you can sell them 16 more labor-hours of work.

Because of this, you can come up with new products and services to sell to consumers, who can now afford to buy them. Obviously, you will need labor. The amount of labor is, theoretically, exactly the amount you displaced: those 500 workers will eventually find jobs again. EVENTUALLY. Not immediately. Once they do, consumers will spend exactly what they did before--the same percentage of their income (or, really, of the total income in the economy)--and they will buy more and better goods. They'll have more, for the same amount of money; they'll have more wealth (like I said: money isn't wealth; suddenly, $160 has more buying power).

This explains all kinds of shit. Competition, su

Re:No Free Speech

[guises]

The GP made a factual claim, saying either that Reddit had never managed to keep racists corralled or that adults had never had quality conversation there (or both). If a moderator isn't allowed to mod down an inaccurate claim, the comments will just get polluted with uninformed or malicious detritus.

Also, how the hell is this not trolling? A one line statement, obviously intended to be insulting? Troll was the right mod for this post.

Re:No Free Speech

[Raenex]

To whoever modded the parent -1 Troll: the moderation system is not your personal disagree button.

You must be new here.

Re:No Free Speech

[hairyfeet]

I take it you have never played some of the more popular FPS titles? You'll quickly learn the average 15 year old has two favorite words, nigger and faggot, which they love to repeat more than a parrot saying "polly want a cracker" in those old cartoons.

Re:No Free Speech

[cfalcon]

Is that even true?

The defaults are visible to people not logged in on the main page, so in effect they are the "real" reddit that is visible to the universe from the front page. Further, they end up with a much larger buy-in from the userbase than the others.

I think this is just one of the many screwy things with reddit- if you pick just the content you are interested in, you get custom information that presumably you are interested in, and if you don't do that, you have access to all these high traffic things. Meanwhile, by picking your sub-boards yourself you shield yourself from other views that you might need to interact with from more than one point of view. I just think the whole thing is kinda dorked up, with no correct answer.

Re:No Free Speech

[cfalcon]

Generally if you follow links to there you can be safe. As a community though, it's wildly schizo. Their front page seems ok, subreddits devoted to specific video games or hobbies seem pretty solid, but goodness thar be dragons just off that map.

Re:No Free Speech

[Stan92057]

Moderation is being abused here. Many many people comment as Cowards because they can sign in and use their mod points and comment in the same postings, something that's not allowed. That is abuse and its cheating and why we have so many cowards posting here.

Re:No Free Speech

[rtb61]

Keep in mind on Slashdot they are not modded out of existence just modded zero and lower and people choose to see those comments or not based upon their choice of settings. Reddit is seeking a major policy change obviously with a view to monetising the site and selling it, active censorship of undesirable to others, subreddits. Likely a buyer is already in place but requires changes to be made prior to purchase to see whether reddit can be turned into a "DIGG" marketing via advertiser controlled comment approval and rejection. Reddit end users reaction to one of the key players being thrown out, Victoria Taylor, as far as they are concerned, means that a popularity site like reddit is now under threat.

Re:No Free Speech

[lgw]

17% of total income isn't that far off from the total the federal government spends mailing checks to people today (Social Security, Medi*, federal pensions, welfare, etc), though the deficit is unsustainable. So you're really saying we need to pay the elderly less and pay everyone else more. As the elderly tend to be wealthier than everyone else, that's not of itself a tragic idea, but it does set expectations for how much we're talking about. For people with no savings, Social Security + Medicare barely makes ends meet - it would be hard to make it work paying people less than that as their only retirement.

Look at the total income of various income brackets sometime - the total income made in the US by people making more than $250K a year isn't that much as a percentage of total US income, just too few people in that bucket, which is why whenever a politician says "tax the rich more" he means "tax the middle class more", as that's where the majority of total income is.

In any case, no tax system that has ever been tried (and the US has tried a bunch over the years) has ever sustained tax revenue above ~19% (it will bounce up and down around that). GDP and total income are similar (they have to be), so really 19% of total income is your sustainable budget for whatever scheme you have - and we do need to build the occasional road and fighter jet.

On the other, I've created a welfare system which causes total wealth to increase,

The only thing that causes per-capita wealth to increase is technology: the more efficient use of resources (materials, labor, power) to make stuff. Technological improvement comes fastest with those proven at making good investment decisions are the ones who get to make investment decisions. Capitalism is the nearest approach to that humanity has ever tried, imperfect as it may be. But ultimately that's that only thing that matters for increasing per-capita wealth, standard of living, or what-have-you: rate of technological improvement.

I'd rather see a flat tax system, where 10% of everyone's earnings (including dividends and capital gains) was the government's budget for caring for the needy, some amount around 5% was the budget for infrastructure and defense, and 10% of non-investment income was not taxed, but forced to be invested in some sort of 401K with conservative choices (end defined-benefit programs: they're a scam). The latter makes everyone actually wealthy, which no income redistribution plan can accomplish.

Re:No Free Speech

[lgw]

And what a ray of sunshine you are! You certainly make Slashdot better with comments like this. Why, everyone reading your comment certainly comes away enlightened (well, about your character, at least).

Re:No Free Speech

[Actually, I do RTFA]

the total income made in the US by people making more than $250K a year isn't that much as a percentage of total US income

Well, the top 1% (380k+) make 20% of income... and that doesn't count unrealized asset appreciation.

Technological improvement comes fastest with those proven at making good investment decisions are the ones who get to make investment decisions.

Assertion. Also would that mean that you favor a command economy (ala Soviet-style top-down economic control?) as long as we were good at identifying and promoting the right people?

Re:No Free Speech

[lgw]

as long as we were good at identifying and promoting the right people?

If we're wishing for impossible things, I have better wishes.

Every major tech company today competes with one another on the basis of their skill of "identifying and promoting the right people" - heck, that's the only real skill managers have. Investors compete at choosing the companies who are best at "identifying and promoting the right people". Once you get past the quarter-by-quarter speculation (a zero-sum game), it's already a quite competitive, even brutal system for finding thos best at finding those who are they best, and putting that decision-making power in their hands.

A better system for this may well exist, but it's not one humanity has ever tried. We may well be stuck near a local maxima (heck, that's almost certain), but focusing or removing bailouts, monopolies, and other props for bad decision makers is the only clear incremental improvement to the current process. I've yet to see a (radically different) proposal for a process for choosing who chooses who the best-and-brightest are better then the feedback-driven system we have today. Most people whacky economic proposals ignore this, when it's really the only important long-term economic problem (because in the long term, exponential growth trumps all other concerns, and tech growth is exponential).

Re:No Free Speech

[Actually, I do RTFA]

. I've yet to see a (radically different) proposal for a process for choosing who chooses who the best-and-brightest are better then the feedback-driven system we have today.

Well, if we're using evidence, the US federal government's green energy startup fund was really good at their job. Yeah, Solyndra failed, but it was the only large failure. And dozens others succeeded. That's a ratio that most private sector investors could not match.

Re:No Free Speech

[geggo98]

Limits to moderation is what makes Slashdot great. Look at Reddit where everyone can essentially moderate at all times and it's an utter mess.

The /. system is an old but proven system. The Reddit system works OK for the moment and might be great, as soon as they introduce machine learning (which was not possible in the past because too compute intensive to do in real time). Everyone gets a vote and the machine learns which votes have merit (and possibly for whom). Imagine this: A feminist sees votes from other feminists, a racist votes from other racists and programmer sees note from other technical people. The big advantage of "everyone gets a vote" + "the machine figures out what interests you" is that its more on the intuitive "votes are opinionated" and it automatically quarantines "toxic" people (e.g. trolls).

Re:No Free Speech

[jmcvetta]

fact
/fakt/
noun
a strongly-held opinion

Re:No Free Speech

[bluefoxlucid]

17% of total income isn't that far off from the total the federal government spends mailing checks to people today (Social Security, Medi*, federal pensions, welfare, etc)

In 2013, the Fed spent like $1.3 trillion on social security, unemployment, HUD assistance, and other welfares; Fed and State spent $1.62 trillion in total. Social Security was about $880 billion, with retirement benefits somewhat lower than that. I also leave medicare/medicaid alone, for stated reasons.

though the deficit is unsustainable.

Irrelevant. I pay out what I take in: the 17% tax takes trillions of dollars and hands out those exact trillions. I move the deficit out elsewhere in the government.

So you're really saying we need to pay the elderly less and pay everyone else more

Sort of, but not exactly.

If you save up your entire dividend and assume 20 years of retirement, you find you can pay yourself an annuity which, when added to the dividend, meets or exceeds Social Security. Further, Social Security pays more to the rich: a poverty-line individual making $12,000/year would get $757/mo; while someone like me, pulling a $75k salary, gets about $2100/mo (even starting at $12k and moving up over a decade).

My system still leaves the poor with less in retirement; however, it pays them the difference throughout their life: they have less because they spend their retirement money along the way, instead of stuffing it in a bank account or IRA. Since they can spend it throughout their lives, they can survive to retirement in the first place. If they just save it, they have the same or more.

For people with no savings, Social Security + Medicare barely makes ends meet

I did my computations based on what's profitable--on what would make me a billionaire if I started selling housing and food to people with no income. We're talking Warren Buffet under my heel. Our markets would change around some in response to a stable Citizen's Dividend, because all of the market risks become lower.

Further, people with no ability to save--those who are unemployed or underemployed, those on Welfare benefits because they only work 20 hours and make minimum wage (20*8.5*52 ~= $9000/year), those who have long swaths of unemployment because they're dirty and poor and nobody wants to hire a dirty, poor negro--get even less and less in retirement, as I pointed out above. They are least-able to save, and are least supported in retirement, even though their need is greatest.

Since the wealth of our economy increases over time, the buying power of 17% will increase as well. Over time, the benefit will increase; I don't predict a need to adjust the percentage down, but there is a risk that it will become a source of hyper-inflation as we enter a golden age of extreme wealth growth and 17% suddenly becomes equivalent to giving everyone a $40k salary today (so couples, families, are making $80k sitting at home watching cable all day).

Currently, 17% gets everyone about $7k/year, which is enough for us to make a damn good profit selling them apartments and food. To put this into perspective: even accounting only for the 600,000 unemployed and assuming a 1% profit margin, landlords alone would make $18 million per month, $216 million per year, of profit renting apartment space to the unemployed (currently homeless). I did my computations on 2013 numbers; yet the landlords made 3% profit margin even in the recession. Their profit margins were 3% in 2009, 4.5% in 2010, 5.33% in 2011, 7% in 2012, 10.5% in 2013, and 13% in 2014. My computations essentially assume about a 10.5% profit margin--$180 million per month, $2.16 billion per year, of profit. If we account for the 4.8 million HUD vouchers (these people can suddenly afford apartments?), we could project $1.62 billion per month and $19.44 billion per year of profit; but that's getting out of hand, and making a lot

Re:No Free Speech

[bluefoxlucid]

Assertion. Also would that mean that you favor a command economy (ala Soviet-style top-down economic control?) as long as we were good at identifying and promoting the right people?

You're missing it. His assertion was more along the lines that we should give more money to the rich so they can culture our economy. Trickle-down economics. It's a misguided ideal.

Re:No Free Speech

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I know that was his political goal. I want to know why he doesn't favor making the current richest guy dictator (or the richest oligarchs) in total control of all means of production. You know, Soviet-style control.

Because that seems to be what the actual solution he would actually arrive at if he were to try to solve the problem as he stated it.

Re:No Free Speech

[Rakarra]

I meta-moderate every once in awhile, sadly I've never gotten in my metas one of those obvious "clearly gaming the system" situations. :( I suspect it doesn't happen that often compared to all of the -other- moderating that goes on all the time, but that when it does, it's high-profile and visible.

Re:No Free Speech

[RyoShin]

Read his comment again:

it's been for things that are actually non-factual and fact-checkable

That is, if multiple "facts" given in a comment can be easily disproved with a quick Google search (with results that aren't Wikipedia) or, better yet, involve incorrect math (which many /.ers can correct/verify without having to search Google), then it's not "opining" anything.

"Yo momma is so fat she sits around the house" is likely non-factual, but it is not fact-checkable since we do not know who your mom is to even search for information. (If this is the basic premise of the post, I think the "overrated" mod still fits, but only if it's been rated up.) "Hillary Clinton is so fat she is incapable of sitting in a normal-sized chair with armrests" is non-factual and is easily fact-checkable with a quick search of any news site for recent images.

Re:No Free Speech

[perryizgr8]

Voat.co is where it's at.

For an alternative

[Yosho]

If you're interested in a Reddit-like site that won't arbitrarily close your subreddit and shadowban you because they don't like what you're talking about, voat.co is shaping up pretty nicely.

Re:For an alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

They have tumblr for all of that.

Re:For an alternative

[LaurenCates]

The same Founding Fathers that owned slaves and being so imperfect likely held what we would probably consider politically incorrect beliefs?

For instance, I have no trouble believing that Benjamin Franklin was, in the common parlance, an "incorrigible poon-hound".

So, even if they didn't engage in that sort of behavior, I'm sure they at least ribbed each other with a joke or two of the variety.

I daresay they may have even had a good laugh about this sort of thing if they could see it.

Re:For an alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be so triggered by now.

Re:For an alternative

[Daemonik]

At least if Jefferson posted to /r/Coontown, it would be full of gravitas!

Re:For an alternative

[Krojack]

If you're interested in a Reddit-like site that won't arbitrarily close your subreddit and shadowban you because they don't like what you're talking about, voat.co is shaping up pretty nicely.

Not yet anyways. Once they get big enough and popular outside groups will start putting pressure on them to close various subs.

Also I have yet to see voat. It's always down when I go there.

Re:For an alternative

[AmiMoJo]

That's probably Reddit's plan. Push all the abuse and rage onto Voat, watch it turn into a festering cesspit like 8chan and keep the good stuff for themselves.

A quick look at Voat's subs suggests that it is working. The mainstream ones like IAMA are pretty dead, certainly nothing like the Reddit versions, but the fat people hate and GamerGate boards are booming. Smart move by Reddit there. Like 4chan before them, it probably won't hurt them at all once the shitstorm dies down.

Re:For an alternative

[cdrudge]

If you're interested in a Reddit-like site that won't arbitrarily close your subreddit and shadowban you because they don't like what you're talking about...

...for now. However once it gains enough mass and becomes a sufficiently large enough target, then things might change. As they have with Reddit.

Re:For an alternative

[Yosho]

Defending freedom of speech means defending speech that you don't agree with. I'm sure you're familiar with the Voltaire quote, "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

If somebody posts evidence of an illegal activity, by all means, prosecute them. Past that, things get more slippery. It's easy to say we don't like racist and sexist talk, but who's the authority that decides what is racism or sexism and what is valid criticism, and how do you ensure they're not biased? What do you do when you have a large group of vocal people who have legitimate complaints against specific people, but they're being dismissed due to mere accusations of sexism and racism? Shall we also start banning people who express antagonistic views toward certain countries, religions, or classes of people? Let's include anybody who criticizes the mods/admins and their decisions, too. And remember, just because you ban those people doesn't suddenly make them not exist. They'll just take their discussion somewhere that you can't see what they're discussing.

I can only speak for myself, but if I'm going to participate in a site that is all about public discussion, I would rather go somewhere that I know won't ban me on a moderator's whim. I can choose to ignore the people I don't like.

Re:For an alternative

[Yosho]

However once it gains enough mass and becomes a sufficiently large enough target, then things might change. As they have with Reddit.

And if it does, then people can move somewhere else. I don't see the point in staying somewhere where you know you might be banned on a whim for stepping out of line because you're afraid of another place that could possibly become that way sometime in the future.

Re:For an alternative

[captainkoloth]

Exactly. in order to grow, they'll need investment capital. Those investors will want a return on their investment and, they'll insist on a site that's capable of being monetized. Creepshots, vitriolic, racist hate speech, underage pics and, shaming fat people just are not anything that's good for a business in the long run.
Likewise, it doesn't occur to the users that they might be the problem. That's why Reddit is filled with ex Diggsters and 4Chan rejects. Good luck not having the exact same problem in 5 - 6 years at Voat.

Re:For an alternative

[pla]

You should visit Yishan's comments page - Although he remains loyal to Reddit-the-idea, he pulls no punches when it comes to calling out the hypocrisy of the current management at Reddit.

Re:For an alternative

[AmiMoJo]

Why was the parent modded "troll"? One of the first boards that Reddit banned was /r/jailbait. Other boards had to have content deleted because it was child pornography.

Re:For an alternative

[ScentCone]

What don't you get about free speech?

What YOU don't apparently get is that when we talk about "free speech," we're talking about your speech being free from government infringement. That has nothing to do with private businesses and gathering places. They have the freedom to assemble and conduct themselves as they see fit, without you telling them that they must support, for example, rape/race/kiddie forums, just because you think they should. That's the whole point. If YOU think that's the sign of freedom, YOU can run your own web site where those are the things that are celebrated.

The government isn't stepping in to say that Reddit must shut down race-baiting or fat-shaming forums. That's a personal editorial decision made by the people who actually own and operate the site. That you can't make the distinction between government limits on speech and editorial decisions made by private businesses suggests that you should really stop saying anything on the subject, because you're just poisoning the well. Also, please do not vote - you're too uneducated to do it safely.

Re:For an alternative

[dreamchaser]

Given the ignorance of the post you replied to I wouldn't be so sure that the person posting it has even heard of Voltaire.

Re:For an alternative

[Archangel Michael]

The politically correct crowd will willingly ignore horrible behavior as long as the person is otherwise supportive of their cause. I point to William Jefferson Clinton (Bill) as my defacto example of someone, who had they been had an (R) after their name, would have been judged completely differently by the PC (read, liberal) crowd.

So I take the cries of the PC crowd to be largely hypocritical.

Re:For an alternative

[ScentCone]

Defending freedom of speech means defending speech that you don't agree with.

No, defending freedom of speech means defending speech from interference by the government. It's not about controlling the editorial policies of publishers running private businesses.

Re:For an alternative

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I doubt you could get them on the record about it(and they'd presumably blame some twist in the advertising spot sales chain if pressed); but I'd be fascinated to know if, and if so, which, advertisers are actually interested specifically in the users that Reddit is attempting to shed. They likely aren't the highest value ones, by any means; but even demented abhumans buy things, so somebody must be interested in them.

Re:For an alternative

[TheRaven64]

Where do you draw the line? You can't post anything on the Web without using someone else's infrastructure - even if you host your own server, you still need to get it connected to a commercial ISP. Is it okay for them to refuse the connection because it would be giving you a platform to say something that you don't want to say? Free speech is pretty meaningless if you can only exercise it in your own home - you shouldn't be able to force everyone to listen, but you should be able to give everyone the opportunity to listen if they choose to, and that's pretty hard without someone giving you a platform.

Re:For an alternative

[king neckbeard]

The First Amendment is about government infringing that right. Private censorship is still censorship, and it can potentially become as big of a threat to social progress as speech repressed by the government. For example. lots of social issues have been avoided in mainstream media because of corporate/political incentives to stay quiet about the subject. On the flip side, there is censorship that most would find totally acceptable. I'm quite fine with not seeing the genitals of a man who was streaking through a stadium. But that's still censorship, and we need to acknowledge that, and consider it as such.

Re:For an alternative

[CrimsonAvenger]

Defending freedom of speech means defending speech that you don't agree with. I'm sure you're familiar with the Voltaire quote, "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

Yah, and I think I'm familiar with that saying....

Re:For an alternative

[Yosho]

No, defending freedom of speech means defending speech from interference by the government. It's not about controlling the editorial policies of publishers running private businesses.

I think you're misinterpreting what I said. I certainly don't intend to control the policies of private businesses -- but I also don't have to support businesses whose policies I don't like. One of those policies that I don't like is when a discussion-based site arbitrarily restricts discussions and bans people based on what the administrators find offensive. I will take my business elsewhere, and I will encourage other people to do the same.

Re:For an alternative

[ScentCone]

it always makes me laugh when some chucklehead tries to defend censorship and says censorship isn't taking place since the government is not the actor

I see. So, who is preventing you from voicing your opinions about, for example, rape and race-baiting? Is Reddit somehow preventing you from setting up a web site and hosting all the conversations you could possibly want on the subjects? No, they're not. They can't. They are unable to censor you. Censorship of your views is not taking place, and you're confused about the difference between being forced to be silent vs. having some third party not being in the mood to spend money to provide you a free platform from which to amplify your views. Amazed that you can't understand the difference, but you're in good company with a lot of other muddle-headed people. Again, please do not vote.

Re:For an alternative

[ScentCone]

I'm quite fine with not seeing the genitals of a man who was streaking through a stadium. But that's still censorship, and we need to acknowledge that, and consider it as such.

No, that's not censorship. That's an editorial decision being made by a private company as they choose what to include in what they publish - something that you are freely choosing to consume, or not. Their decisions have absolutely NO ability to prevent you from putting up your own web site, where all you show, 24x7, is anatomically correct sports event streakers. Censorship is when the government steps in and says you can't do that.

Re:For an alternative

[dave420]

Hint: There is more to the world than the internet.

Re:For an alternative

[Runaway1956]

Except - EVERYONE LOVES RACIST AND SEXIST TALK! Go almost anywhere on the web, and make a blatantly sexist or racist comment. Everyone comments. Left, right, male, female, young, old, black, white and in-between - EVERYONE CHIMES IN!

Maybe I exaggerate a little. There are some dignified souls who can just shake their heads, and go on about their own business. Not many, but some.

Re:For an alternative

[ScentCone]

Excellent. So there's really nothing to complain about, here. The first amendment as originally constructed and intended remains healthy in this regard, and the market economy takes care of you having places to talk about what you want to talk about. So nothing to complain about, especially when it comes a business providing you, at no charge, something you decide you no longer like.

Re:For an alternative

[mccrew]

it always makes me laugh when some chucklehead tries to defend censorship and says censorship isn't taking place since the government is not the actor.

It always makes me laugh when some chucklehead misinterprets his freedom of speech as a requirement for someone else to provide him a soapbox.

Re:For an alternative

[gstoddart]

Sadly, the lines are being redrawn ... as we pass laws making ISPs and carriers responsible for policing copyright, child porn, terrorism (infidelity, tax evasion, sedition) we create a world in which instead of being merely a conduit, entities are responsible for the crap their users access or do.

Industry is being coopted as an enforcement arm of governments, who in turn have been coopted as the enforcement arm for corporate interests.

And the more this happens, the more people will say "you can say anything you want, but not here".

But as long as the stuff people do on the internet can legally affect other entities (even if it's just to comply with a subpoena), this notion that other people will provide you a platform to voice your crazy is now quaint and antiquated.

Free speech means the government can't outlaw what you say. It does not mean, and never has, that someone else is responsible for providing you with the platform.

And when you're talking about a corporation who has to keep their shareholders happy, providing a forum for people to make unpopular statements isn't going to work if it negatively impacts their reputation/legal standing.

Censorship has now been outsourced, and has to be weighed against corporate interests.

Threats to rape people, racist rants, or posting underage photos ... well, not so much.

In the same way you can't go on private property in the real world and demand unlimited free speech, you also can't do it on the internet.

Re:For an alternative

[AmiMoJo]

Advertisers won't want to go near a site where their ads could potentially end up on /rFatPeopleHate or next to stolen nude photos of a 16 year old gymnast. By pushing those guys over to Voat, Reddit has not only made itself advertiser friendly but also managed to poison Voat's potential ad revenue in the process. Voat may not care for now, but one day they will need to make money, at which point they will have to offload those users on to the next sucker.

Re:For an alternative

[Blue Stone]

What you raise, is an often raised response to discussions about free-speech and censorship.

What is often left out of these discussions, however, is the pervasive nature of corporate control over speech in the 'real' world (as well as the virtual). Corporations (and rich individuals) own newspapers (which trumpet *their* voice) TV stations (which do the same). The space for the mass dissemination of people's voices is small, and relegated to small groups, public meetings and protests (often barely tolerated by our democratic representatives).

When it comes to the mass dissemination of individuals voices, the internet is similarly coralled. Get a blog, people scream, on your own website! And there, the footfall is often small in scope. On sites where many people come together, those sites are owned by corporations and businesses, often merely looking for a proft..

The stark fact is, there are no public spaces on the internet. It's all owned by someone.

Re:For an alternative

[bws111]

You seem to be confusing a right to free speech with a right to be heard. One (speech) exists. The other does not.

Re:For an alternative

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I definitely wouldn't want to admit that I wanted my ads there, and I'd probably even pull them if anybody made noise about it; but surely the people in /rFatPeopleHate have consumption preferences that can be modified. Do you suspect them of skewing young/poor/apathetic/something else enough that they simply aren't worth targeting; or would they be worth it if you could insulate yourself from any risk of blowback; but not worth enough to take that risk?

Re:For an alternative

[Blue Stone]

I would argue that if the places that exist to be heard are so small that they are barely noticed, that is an effective stifling of free speech.

Re:For an alternative

[schnell]

even demented abhumans buy things, so somebody must be interested in them

Sure, but how big is the market for Japanese sex robots anyway?

Re:For an alternative

[kilfarsnar]

So glad to know that the defenders of free speech still have a place to share pictures of underage girls, openly discus raping those underage girls, share racist rants and generally discuss how those uppity bitches are keeping men down. Our founding fathers would weep.

I am glad too, because that's actually what free speech is all about. Unpopular or offensive speech is the speech that requires the most protection. Otherwise the thought police will be trying to dictate what people are allowed to talk about. Our founding fathers were smart enough to realize this.

Re:For an alternative

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'm certain that I don't even want to know. Not how big, not how numerous, not what they are patterned to resemble, just no.

Re:For an alternative

[kilfarsnar]

What don't you get about free speech?

What YOU don't apparently get is that when we talk about "free speech," we're talking about your speech being free from government infringement. That has nothing to do with private businesses and gathering places. They have the freedom to assemble and conduct themselves as they see fit, without you telling them that they must support, for example, rape/race/kiddie forums, just because you think they should. That's the whole point. If YOU think that's the sign of freedom, YOU can run your own web site where those are the things that are celebrated. The government isn't stepping in to say that Reddit must shut down race-baiting or fat-shaming forums. That's a personal editorial decision made by the people who actually own and operate the site. That you can't make the distinction between government limits on speech and editorial decisions made by private businesses suggests that you should really stop saying anything on the subject, because you're just poisoning the well. Also, please do not vote - you're too uneducated to do it safely.

Calm down. The post was in response to Daemonik sarcastically saying that he's "so glad" that voat.co will continue to be a place where kiddie diddlers can discuss kiddie diddling. Voat.com seems to be more into free speech than reddit.com. That's fine; both are private sites, as you point out, and can make their own editorial decisions. I am actually glad there is a place where kiddie diddlers can discuss kiddie diddling. Not because I engage in that, or in any way approve or condone it, but because it is in line with the ideals and philosophy behind our Bill of Rights. It has nothing to do with private vs. government censorship.

Re:For an alternative

[Marc_Hawke]

That's a felony. You mean the people preventing it are breaking the law? I don't know exactly what your point was..since 'those in power' have already taken steps to protect your rights. I don't see the conspiracy.

Re:For an alternative

[Osiris Ani]

But when someone wants to kick the soapbox out from under you and sell it for a profit because you have used it to attract a lot of attention there is no problem at all?

If you want your own soapbox, then buy your own soapbox. You seem to be writing about someone else’s soapbox, to which you have no actual right.

Re:For an alternative

[Vermonter]

Are people within their rights to be upset that Reddit is changing their policies? Sure. But Reddit is also within their rights to do as they wish with the soapbox that they own, and let others stand on. Just remember, you have the right to be offended. You do not, however, have the right to *not* be offended.

Re:For an alternative

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Having a frisky dick doesn't make you politically incorrect.

If you're capable and able to have lots of consensual sex with lots of partners with out using coercion? GREAT!

It's when you get in the PUA level of WTF do things go wrong.

Re:For an alternative

[penguinoid]

Localized censorship is still censorship. Eg you might think you're being censored if you live in North Korea, but since you can always move to a different website/country then you're not being censored -- except there's a limit to how much trouble people will go through to express their views. And government laws vs social norms aren't a big difference -- for example, consider the difference in laws against copyright infringement vs social norms against picking your nose in public.

Re:For an alternative

[king neckbeard]

No, censorship is when something is censored. Government censorship is when the government censors something. Someone might even self-censor to avoid offending others, even out of pure politeness. That's what the word means. You do touch on one reason why we consider non-government censorship to be much less of a concern: competition. If one channel won't air something, another might not. Generally speaking, we don't have as many options regarding our government, so we take government censorship much more seriously.

Re:For an alternative

[penguinoid]

it always makes me laugh when some chucklehead tries to defend censorship and says censorship isn't taking place since the government is not the actor.

It always makes me laugh when some chucklehead misinterprets his freedom of speech as a requirement for someone else to provide him a soapbox.

It always makes me laugh when some chucklehead misinterprets censorship as the act or practice of controlling or suppressing the behaviour of others, usually on moral grounds

Re:For an alternative

[quantaman]

The politically correct crowd will willingly ignore horrible behavior as long as the person is otherwise supportive of their cause. I point to William Jefferson Clinton (Bill) as my defacto example of someone, who had they been had an (R) after their name, would have been judged completely differently by the PC (read, liberal) crowd.

So I take the cries of the PC crowd to be largely hypocritical.

In what sense?

I assume you're referring to his affair, I'd say the reaction seems mild because a) affairs are tough for the family and a personal indictment but not really a public policy issue and are generally ignored, b) Clinton never presented himself as an example of a perfect family man so it wasn't very hypocritical, c) the reaction of the Republicans was completely over the top.

I don't deny that the PC crowd can be hypocritical but I don't think they're moreso than any other group.

Re:For an alternative

[LaurenCates]

What I'm saying is that given the proclivities of the Founding Fathers, which were of varying levels of moral (in addition to a good number of the men themselves being involved in wars and the horrors occurring therein), I don't think they'd need a fainting couch about the worst corners of Reddit.

Re:For an alternative

[tompaulco]

I'm quite fine with not seeing the genitals of a man who was streaking through a stadium. But that's still censorship, and we need to acknowledge that, and consider it as such.

No, that's not censorship.

Yes, that is censorship. Censorship is a big boy and is capable of existing without the word government in its definition.
Non-government entities can feel free to censor all they want. But we don't have to change the definition of the word just because some people can't understand the concept that censorship is not always illegal or even always a bad thing.

Re:For an alternative

[quintessencesluglord]

Brilliant!

Similarly, being in prison doesn't prevent you from voicing your opinions. Nor does being fined millions of dollars (just earn more money, citizen, so you too can enjoy the same freedoms of billionaires!) Nor does it prevent you from setting up a website to discuss controversial opinions.

Except when it does (funny how credit card companies refused to process donations to Wikileaks right after the release of the Afghan War Diary. But that was just private companies exercising their rights not to make a profit, and had nothing to do with government collusion. Nosiree!).

You might be a little slow on the uptake, but the definition of censorship doesn't specify government and non-government, and as there have been numerous other websites that were harangued by both governments and private companies being leaned on by governments.

You probably think a private company contracted by the government to doesn't abridge 4th amendment protections because, get this, it isn't the government doing it.

Except for the legislative framework that made it legal in the first place.

Idiot.

Re:For an alternative

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

So people in the past acting shitty means that we shouldn't be outraged about shitty things happening now?

Seriously?

Re:For an alternative

[0100010001010011]

> If you're interested in a Reddit-like site that won't arbitrarily close your subreddit and shadowban you because they don't like what you're talking about, voat.co [voat.co] is shaping up pretty nicely.

But I'm not. What I'm looking for is a Reddit style site with Slashdot's moderation and accessibility through APIs and Usenet. I love Slashdot's moderation system and wouldn't want to discuss tech any other way. It also helps to slow down brigading since only a small number of users have mod points at any given time. Even then you got a choice between modding or commenting, not both. I'm wasting my points right now because I really want to post on this.

You also put a bit more effort into writing a post because everyone else put effort into "Should I spend one of my 5 points on this post". You also had throttling of how fast you could post. Posts were longer and more developed. I still go back and read comments I made from years ago because I put effort into writing them. (And it doesn't mean that you can't still have funny discourse).

Re:For an alternative

[pla]

No, defending freedom of speech means defending speech from interference by the government. It's not about controlling the editorial policies of publishers running private businesses.

This tiresome point comes up in every discussion on free speech and censorship.

We have a constitutional right to free speech in the US - Reddit's policies can't violate that, you have that much correct.

Reddit's policies can, however, violate the principles behind why we have the right to free speech enshrined in our constitution in the first place. Our culture doesn't believe in the ideal of free speech because of the first amendment; we have the first amendment because we believe in free speech.

Reddit absolutely has the right to ban whatever the hell it wants. And its users, in turn, have the right to call them out as hypocrites for it.

Re:For an alternative

[0100010001010011]

There are two kinds of free speech. It's not the 1st amendment free speech, it's Voltaire's "I disagree with what you say but will defend you to the death to say it" freedom of expression.

No one is claiming that the government is stepping in to censor Reddit. What they are claiming is that Reddit attracted users on the basis of "Free Speech" anything goes. Moderators volunteer their time (Free as in beer) to moderate based on the premise that Reddit allowed Free Speech.

Comments, moderators, content is all built by the users. Users that were told "This is a free speech zone". The 1st amendment equivalent would be 'free speech zones' and then censoring what people said in them.

I disagree with FatPeopleHate, I loathed the subreddit. However I defend their right to exist. The freedom of expression exists in many other forms than just the US Government's interpretation of it.

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, states that:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

England’s Bill of Rights 1689 legally established the constitutional right of 'freedom of speech in Parliament' which is still in effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Reddit claimed it was a place for freedom of expression and then backtracked on it. And with it users such as myself will find other places.

Re:For an alternative

[mccrew]

"The sky is blue!!!"

"No, the grass is green!!!"

Censorship is censorship. There is no misinterpretation. This is censorship. The question is, so what?

Does a private entity have the right to control - "censor" - speech in its forums? Absolutely yes. END OF STORY. People are still free to express displeasure (like here, I suppose), but the private entity doesn't owe them a soapbox or public forum.

Please knock off the straw man argument about censorship in the private sphere like it is something novel and some egregious violation of personal freedom. It happens everywhere all the time. When you buy Oracle you sign away your free speech rights (publishing benchmarks is prohibited). When you live in a condo, you sign away your free speech rights to display the U.S. flag (appearance standards). Employment contracts and severance agreements contain non-disparagement clauses.

<disclaimer>Government, political speech is obviously a different story</disclaimer>

Re:For an alternative

[lgw]

Your personal definition of "censorship" simply isn't shared by most people. You can admit that and move on, or keep insisting "words mean what I want them to mean", but the latter won't lead to successful communication on the topic.

Re:For an alternative

[TheRaven64]

Okay, so no free speech on the Internet. And, obviously, no free speech on broadcast TV and radio, because they're all privately owned (or, at least, leased). I guess you can have free speech on CB radio and in your living room, and maybe if you stand on a public street (as long as it really is a publicly owned street).

Re: For an alternative

[TheRaven64]

Okay, so in a world where pretty much everything is private property, where do you think that free speech lives? Or are you the kind of libertarian who thinks that freedom is what you get when you privatise oppression?

Re:For an alternative

[preaction]

You mean they've come up with a reliable way to distinguish DDoS attacks from real traffic they were unprepared to handle in the wake of mass upheaval at Reddit? Color me impressed! Also, why have they chosen to waste this clearly magical talent on a startup?

Re:For an alternative

[Pfhorrest]

So free speech for anyone who can afford to buy themselves some, then?

(Note that I am not advocating that the government force anyone to share their soapboxes with anyone; just commenting that, if all the soapbox-owners won't allow certain things to be said on their soapboxes, then that's hardly any better than the government prohibiting those things itself, and criticizing prominent soapboxes for shutting out some people is one way to prevent that from occurring).

Re:For an alternative

[preaction]

Free Speech costs money. Reddit was no longer willing to pay the bill. That is the way of these things. Reddit won't be the last instance of this.

Re:For an alternative

[lgw]

Advertisers won't want to go near a site where their ads could potentially end up on /rFatPeopleHate or next to stolen nude photos of a 16 year old gymnast.

Oh, sure, there's no reason at all for a "barely legal" porn site to want to advertise on a teen selfie board, or for a weight-loss product to advertise on fatpeoplehate. Nope, those groups simply have no common interests that can be monetized.

But then, you're still trying to sell the narrative that gamergate is about "abuse and rage" after all these months, so I doubt many of your posts are sincere.

Re:For an alternative

[Trailer Trash]

The politically correct crowd will willingly ignore horrible behavior as long as the person is otherwise supportive of their cause. I point to William Jefferson Clinton (Bill) as my defacto example of someone, who had they been had an (R) after their name, would have been judged completely differently by the PC (read, liberal) crowd.

So I take the cries of the PC crowd to be largely hypocritical.

In what sense?

I assume you're referring to his affair, I'd say the reaction seems mild because a) affairs are tough for the family and a personal indictment but not really a public policy issue and are generally ignored, b) Clinton never presented himself as an example of a perfect family man so it wasn't very hypocritical, c) the reaction of the Republicans was completely over the top.

I don't deny that the PC crowd can be hypocritical but I don't think they're moreso than any other group.

His "affair"? No, his multiple affairs, his predatory sexual assaults on subordinates, and his perjuring himself in a lawsuit (while also suborning perjury through witness coaching) were the issues that the liberals overlook and continue to try to obfuscate (as you've done above). Had a Republican done even half of that we would still be reading about it in the press.

Re:For an alternative

[ScentCone]

Your still a chucklehead. Deleting subredits =/= censorship in your deranged universe.

So when you write a flaming letter to the editors of the New York Times, explaining how they're complicit in hiding the fact that there is an alien base on the far side of the moon, and they choose to delete your message because they don't feel any obligation to give, at their expense, you a platform for your nonsense ... you consider that censorship? Be specific.

Re:For an alternative

[ScentCone]

Which is why it's usually called "editing," so that idiots who think a publisher is being Teh Eevil Fashists for not giving them a platform can wrap their heads around the fact that junking their troll posts is not a Free Speech issue. And that's where all of the whiners on this thread are confused. It's coming up in the context of free speech, and that isn't even on the table with private publications.

Re:For an alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess would be the sense that somehow because Clinton was supportive of abortion and working women he carried a pro-feminist image. Fucking the interns isn't exactly considered empowering women however, so his stance was largely party derived and not his personal morality.

The PC crowd is absolutely more hypocritical, hence the need to silence opposition.

Re:For an alternative

[lgw]

Even without a "right to be heard", an uncensored public place is still a good thing. Reddit has ever right to change it's nature, but it's still a bad thing. After all, the only important rights are the rights to do things other people see as bad!

It's good for society to have at least one place to congregate without censorship - best of luck to voat, hope they succeed in being that.

Re:For an alternative

[PopeRatzo]

but surely the people in /rFatPeopleHate have consumption preferences that can be modified.

But it's their parents that have the purchasing power.

And "Mom, I saw this great thing on /r/FatPeopleHate. Can you buy it for me?" is not going to fly in a lot of homes.

Re:For an alternative

[meta-monkey]

I think Bill would have been characterized as a misogynist and sexual predator. It's one thing to have an affair. It's something else to have sex with your subordinates.

Re:For an alternative

[PopeRatzo]

What is often left out of these discussions, however, is the pervasive nature of corporate control over speech in the 'real' world (as well as the virtual). Corporations (and rich individuals) own newspapers (which trumpet *their* voice) TV stations (which do the same). The space for the mass dissemination of people's voices is small, and relegated to small groups, public meetings and protests (often barely tolerated by our democratic representatives).

The space for mass dissemination of people's voices has always been small. How many people do you think got to see Ben Franklin's or Thomas Jefferson's speeches?

You have a right to say whatever you want. There is no constitutional (or natural) right for your voice to be disseminated to the masses. You can always start your own newspaper, or do what the Founders did and print pamphlets on your ink jet printer. Though I'm pretty sure the Founders only had dot matrix.

Re:For an alternative

[Rakarra]

Nobody said Reddit was the government. Free speech is exactly what it means - it always makes me laugh when some chucklehead tries to defend censorship and says censorship isn't taking place since the government is not the actor.

Freedom of speech does not mean that others are required to support your speech.
Freedom of speech means that, should they choose to, others may support your speech without government interference.

Freedom of speech does not mean that someone else has to pay for your ability to reach as many people as you can with your speech.
Freedom of speech does mean that if others agree with you, they can pay for your ability to reach as many people as you can with your speech.

Re:For an alternative

[bws111]

So, some people are allowed to exercise their rights, and that is 'a good thing', but other people exercising THEIR rights is 'a bad thing'?

What you seem to be saying is that Reddit, for example, should give up it's rights - explain why that is true. And if you DO think that is true, then surely you would have no problem with me painting 'death to all (any group)' on your car or house, right? After all, if you were to object or otherwise remove it that would be interferring with my free speech, and we can't have that, right?

Re:For an alternative

[ScentCone]

But that definition has no place when the context of the conversation is "free speech" - which immediately limits the scope to the first amendment's protections from government infringement, and has no bearing on private publications. And the whiners on this thread are conflating "free speech" with "nobody should be able to delete my personal rant space on Reddit" - which is complete nonsense.

Re:For an alternative

[Forgefather]

No the point is that some shitty behavior is not relevant to issues at hand. Yes, Benjamin Franklin loved his prostitutes, but that didn't make him any less of a brilliant inventor and leader.

The question that needs to be answered isn't how to stop people from being shitty, but when does being a shitty person begin to infringe on the rights of others. Take a few examples: In scenario 1 someone calls me an asshole. Certainly if said with n provocation that is a shitty statement to make, but it doesn't infringe on my rights in any way. Even if that person calls me an asshole I do not have to change my way of going about my life to accommodate their behavior.

In scenario 2 an anonymous individual on the internet tells me that they will feed me feet first through a wood chipper. Without any other supporting statements this still does not infringe upon my rights because by itself it is not a credible statement. despite being a shitty thing to say it is indistinguishable from basic hyperbole, and doesn't require me to change my life style.

In Scenario 3 some tells me that they will be waiting out side my house (providing a specific address) with a gun on xxx date at xxx time. THIS is where my rights are infringed because the threat is credible. It has tangible specifics about time and location, and assuming the threat resulted from a heated discussion (not a far fetched idea on the internet) there is motive. A threat like this is when I have to legitimately change my behavior to accommodate their speech out of fear for my well being.

As for shitty behavior in general, why should we be outraged? Are you or I under any obligation to listen to them? Of course not. They are free to speak, and we are free to ignore them, as long as their speech does not infringe upon our own rights.

I had never heard of r/FPH/ before this fiasco, and out of curiosity I went to check it out. Needless to say most people are right when they said the place was truly a den for some of the shittiest people imaginable, but that didn't matter because no matter how hard I looked I couldn't find a instance where the rights of others were being violated. The site shames fat people. I'm sorry but an individual being ashamed of being called fat is not and infringement of their rights no more than it is infringing on someones rights if I call them an asshole. You don't have a right to not be offended, and you are not obligated to be outraged at the words of shitty people.

Re:For an alternative

[Yosho]

Just so we're clear -- would you be ok with, say, if Reddit decided to ban everybody who says something opposing gay marriage because they consider that to be hate speech?

What if it's the opposite way and they decided to ban people who support gay marriage?

How about if a bakery decided to refuse service to bake a cake for a gay marriage because they didn't want to support that point of view?

What if an apartment complex decides to kick out and ban all gay tenants?

What if every apartment complex and housing community in the city decides to ban gay tenants? And every restaurant, and grocery store, and internet provider, too? Nobody's stopping those gay people from going outside the city and farming their own vegetables, generating their own electricity, building their own houses, and making their own internet, after all.

I'm trying to figure out where the line should be here. It seems like there are a lot of people here who completely support removing people who have unpopular views as long as the government isn't involved.

Re:For an alternative

[AmiMoJo]

How does that relate to reddit? Are you suggesting that owners of popular web sites (and maybe TV channels or newspapers) must be burdened with publishing everyone's speech?

Or is the existence of 8chan and voat enough?

Re:For an alternative

[Yunzil]

It's cute that you think the politically correct crowd has some kind of monopoly on ignoring horrible behavior.

Clinton would have been judged completely differently by the anti-PC (read, conservative) crowd too. Do you think the GOP would have been so gung-ho about investigating the Lewinsky scandal if Bill was a Republican?

Re:For an alternative

[meta-monkey]

Yes, you can and should still complain. It's perfectly fine to tell the Reddit admins you think their policies are stupid, arbitrary, in conflict with the core values of their founding, and in conflict with the sensibilities of their users who expect free discussion on a discussion web site. Nobody's suggesting Reddit be forced to continue their hands-off approach to content policing, but you can absolutely tell them they're fucked up for abandoning it, and you won't be patronizing their site if they continue.

Re:For an alternative

[Yosho]

How does that relate to reddit? Are you suggesting that owners of popular web sites (and maybe TV channels or newspapers) must be burdened with publishing everyone's speech?

I don't see anybody suggesting that Reddit should be forced to allow everyone to speak. That seems to be a leap that all the anti-free speech here are making -- that because somebody is opposed to Reddit's actions, they must think Reddit should be legally compelled to allow everything.

No, people are saying that Reddit's actions are in the moral wrong. They're within their rights to do it, and we are all within ours rights to say we disapprove of it and that if you actually care about free speech (the concept and ideals behind it, not the legal enforcement of it), you should support other sites that don't filter out opinions they find distasteful.

Re:For an alternative

[russotto]

Weep? Ben Franklin would be shitposting and bragging of his threesome with women a third of his age. Jefferson would be posting about how slave girls were the best. Hamilton and Burr would be having a heated argument that would end with a realspace meeting in Weehawken. Sam Adams would be trying to recruit a mob. Only Washington would be above it all; he would not deign to take notice.

Re:For an alternative

[lgw]

So, some people are allowed to exercise their rights, and that is 'a good thing', but other people exercising THEIR rights is 'a bad thing'?

Yes, exactly! What part of "the only important rights are the rights to do things other people see as bad" was unclear? You don't believe in free speech unless you believe in the right to vile, despicable speech. You don't believe in the freedom of a business owner to run his business unless you believe in the right for that business to make decisions you think are harmful, or stupid.

What you seem to be saying is that Reddit, for example, should give up it's rights - explain why that is true.

I see the things Redditt is doing as bad. Is some part of "the only important rights are the rights to do things other people see as bad" still unclear?

then surely you would have no problem with me painting 'death to all (any group)' on your car or house, right?

Non-sequitur. I support your right to paint those things on your car, even though I have a problem with them, because the only important rights are the rights to do things other people see as bad.

This isn't about rights, it's about the fact that free speech is better for society than "freedom from being offended". I applaud sites that stand for "post anything legal, just keep it in the right place (or create a new place for it)". It's bad when those places change to be less free.

Re:For an alternative

[meta-monkey]

No. The definition of censorship is not limited to government interference. Anytime someone forcibly shuts somebody else up, that's censorship.

"Editorial decisions" are about what someone chooses they themselves will or will not say.

If I choose not to post racist rants on my blog, that's a wise editorial decision on my part. If I choose to delete your racist comments from my blog, I've censored you.

And justifiably so. You have no expectation that you can say whatever you want on my blog. But I've still censored you.

So I dislike this whole "no no it's not censorship!" dodge. That's just twisting language so things sound more palatable. I'm reminded of Orwell's Politics and the English Language. "No no, it's not torture! These are 'enhanced interrogation techniques!'" "No no, this isn't censorship! It's 'editorial discretion!'" Call it what it is and deal with it.

Re:For an alternative

[Iamthecheese]

festering cesspit like 8chan

Your bias is showing.

Re:For an alternative

[Forgefather]

You are right that in terms of boards for certain topic Reddit does not have monopoly, but that is not the only way the censorship happens. When you provide a forum for discussion as open as Reddit, and then in the midst of a discussion you actively prevent only a certain subset of stakeholders from making their point (through stuff like shadowbans) then I'm sorry, but that is censorship.

Whether you stop someone from speaking with a gun to their head or by denying them to speak on the only relevant platform for discussion, the result is the same: potentially relevant ideas that are not popular with the controlling entity are suppressed and group think is perpetuated. Being denied the ability to be heard by potentially interested parties is just as damaging as being denied the ability to speak.

Also, in your response please refrain from attempting to associate me with racism or child pornography in an attempt to discredit my points as you did with the previous poster.

Re:For an alternative

[penguinoid]

The government isn't stepping in to say that Reddit must

How would you know? A government official could privately encourage/threaten Reddit, and they can even send them a NSL.

In any case, government involvement has nothing to do with free speech -- it's all about consequences. Free speech is when you are free to speak. If the government says it's illegal but doesn't enforce it ever, then you still have free speech. If the government says it's legal but it is enforced by non-government agents (eg getting people fired from their job) then you don't have free speech.

Re:For an alternative

[ScentCone]

"Editorial decisions" are about what someone chooses they themselves will or will not say.

So when you submit an op-ed piece to the New York Times, and they decide it's not in keeping with their plans for that day's op-ed page, you've just been censored? How about letters to the editor? Have you just been censored when they put you in with the 99% of the rest that they elect not to publish? How about when you call an NPR talk show that's on the subject of international relations, and the call screener doesn't put you on the air, because you've explained that you want to talk about the alien moon base's mind control system ... have you just been censored? Is that really how you see it? Be specific.

Re:For an alternative

[bws111]

Non-sequitur? Not at all. YOU are the one claiming that Reddit is doing bad things by exercising their property rights. So why is it 'bad' for Reddit to exercise their rights to prevent me from using their property to make a speech, but not 'bad' for you to prevent me from using YOUR property to make a speech? It is exactly the same thing.

The total non-sequitur is your claiming that you support my right to write on MY car. Reddit is not stopping anyone from posting anything on their own web sites.

Re:For an alternative

[Damarkus13]

Wow. You're equating travel outside a country (which you can only do with said country's explicit permission) with typing a different address into a text box. Do you realize how absurd that is?

Re:For an alternative

[lgw]

The primary purpose of my car is not a venue for public speech, or for any kind of public use for that matter, but if I e.g. owned a hotel and banned "social justice" conventions, then, yes, I'd be doing a bad thing. A mighty tempting thing, but then many bad things are.

Re:For an alternative

[mccrew]

Reddit banning unpopular views one way or the other - Their prerogative. I'm not necessarily ok with it, but their forum, their rules.

Bakery - more of a "right to discriminate as free practice of religion" than free speech issue, but I think the courts are (mostly) going in the right direction where a business cannot necessarily possess religious views (Hobby Lobby decision is an exception).

Apartment - in many places orientation is a protected class, so they can't discriminate based on it.

Other citatations - more issues of discrimination and fair housing than free speech, and separate from the only point that I am making: free speech for you does not create an obligation on the part of another to create a forum for you.

Re:For an alternative

[asdfman2000]

Do you really not understand the concept of "free speech" exists outside of the First Amendment? The free exchange of ideas is kind of a cornerstone of western culture.

Believe it or not, there's a world outside of the US.

Re:For an alternative

[Khyber]

Bullshit. Voat's already blocking shit. Also their servers are absolute ass.

Re:For an alternative

[Khyber]

" By pushing those guys over to Voat, Reddit has not only made itself advertiser friendly but also managed to poison Voat's potential ad revenue in the process."

Bullshit. I won't touch any advertiser that supports the blocking of freedom of speech. There goes LOTS of money from my pocket (and three bank accounts) they'll never see.

Also, Voat has zero problems getting advertisers. Plenty of companies that don't give a flying FUCK, they just want that money.

Re:For an alternative

[zieroh]

There's a really funny flaw in your argument. Who is preventing people from creating their own websites? Why don't you ask the SJW's who keep DDoSing Voat. (That's a felony for those of you playing the home game!) I think we're at, or passed 5 separate DDoS attacks so far.

ScentCone is pointing out that Reddit banning certain subreddits is not actually censorship. Unless Reddit is the one DDoSing voat, your point is utterly moot. Even if Reddit were DDoSing voat (which I very much doubt) that still does not amount to censorship, since the individuals who would otherwise post on voat are still able to speak elsewhere, or to put up their own website. So your point is doubly moot.

TL;DR: Private parties are generally not obligated to give individuals a soap box on which to stand. That does not mean the private parties are preventing free speech, it just means the private parties don't have to foot the bill.

Re:For an alternative

[zieroh]

Similarly, being in prison doesn't prevent you from voicing your opinions. Nor does being fined millions of dollars (just earn more money, citizen, so you too can enjoy the same freedoms of billionaires!) Nor does it prevent you from setting up a website to discuss controversial opinions.

Except when it does (funny how credit card companies refused to process donations to Wikileaks right after the release of the Afghan War Diary.

[snip]

All of your points are mooted by one simple fact: private parties are not obligated to give every person on the planet a soap box on which to stand. And if they were, we would be talking about a tyranny with much larger implications than censorship.

Re:For an alternative

[Khyber]

"That is the stupidest goddamn argument I've seen here since 8am."

So I guess you forgot about 'free speech zones' eh?

Start paying more attention to what's actually happening in the real world.

Re:For an alternative

[Stolovaya]

They're censoring (what someone called kettling) content regarding Reddit in v/news, so...we'll see if they truly are a good alternative...

Re:For an alternative

[painandgreed]

The politically correct crowd will willingly ignore horrible behavior as long as the person is otherwise supportive of their cause. I point to William Jefferson Clinton (Bill) as my defacto example of someone, who had they been had an (R) after their name, would have been judged completely differently by the PC (read, liberal) crowd.

So I take the cries of the PC crowd to be largely hypocritical.

Well, that goes both ways. If he had R next to his name, all the people (like my family members) who were talking about how "he is obviosly sick in his sexual predatoriness", would be going "it a private matter we shouldn't be worrying about" just like they have done for the other Rs caught in such things. When you mix political parties you are invoking knee jerk factionalism that will color everything else.

Re:For an alternative

[zieroh]

Private censorship is still censorship, and it can potentially become as big of a threat to social progress as speech repressed by the government. For example. lots of social issues have been avoided in mainstream media because of corporate/political incentives to stay quiet about the subject.

Not exactly. Sure, corporations could collude and tend to reduce the audience that one has access to. But those corporations, in all likelihood, would be unable to stop that individual from standing in a public square (on a proverbial soap box) and delivering their message directly to the unwitting public. So the individual still has an audience, but the audience may not be as big as the individual would like. Is that still censorship? No, I don't believe that it is. The person still has all the elements of free speech. The fact that the individual doesn't have as large an audience as they would like is really very much secondary.

On the flip side, if the corporations were obligated to help every individual reach as large of an audience as they would like, what do you think the practical consequences would be? To start with, we as fellow individuals would be drowning in a sea of literally billions of unwanted messages.

I know which side you are arguing for. But I am fairly confident that if you thought about it for more than 10 nanoseconds, you wouldn't actually want what you're arguing for.

Re:For an alternative

[Cro Magnon]

and maybe if you stand on a public street (as long as it really is a publicly owned street).

Unless you get shut down for noise violations.

Re:For an alternative

[ScentCone]

Hey, if choosing what to air isn't censorship, then choosing who to hire (and how much to pay them) isn't discrimination! It's my company! You're not entitled to a job or equal pay!

You make that sound like a bad thing. If you actually got around to running your own business, would you want to choose your own employees, or have to hire someone that's been chosen by someone else? Or someone who insists on being paid twice what your budget can afford, and you've got no choice but to pay that? What are you saying ... that it's a bad thing to be able to make choices and set budgets? That if you choose one prospective employee over another, you're "censoring" the person who doesn't get the job? Of COURSE you're discriminating when you hire someone - you're making a choice between multiple people based on your criteria for who you think is going to be the best place to spend your money. Companies that don't see any difference between possible hires are generally out of business and providing NO jobs in very short order.

As for Reddit having "unlimited" room ... is that really how you make your personal, ethical decisions? By the standards of billions of people around the world, you have practically unlimited personal resources. Should their preferences for how you spend your money thus trump your own? Are you being an Evil Discriminator when you take your sandwich business to one restaurant instead of another? Shouldn't you buy sandwiches from ALL restaurants just so there's sufficient Restaurant Justice? No?

Regardless, Reddit does NOT have unlimited resources. Their ability to stay online making a free service available to untold millions of people is in fact dependent on their not sliding into a morass of BS content so foul and so pronounced that rational users simply get up and go away in the face of being seen using a platform that embraces just plain evil shit. They DO have their limits, as too much of that will drive them out of the mainstream so far that they can no longer sell the ads that allow them to provide the free service everyone demands.

allow to demonstrate

You haven't demonstrated anything except sliding scale moral relativism.

Re:For an alternative

[zieroh]

No, censorship is when something is censored. Government censorship is when the government censors something. Someone might even self-censor to avoid offending others, even out of pure politeness.

I think most of the semantic confusion here boils down to the fact that censorship isn't precisely the opposite of free speech.

Even when a corporation engages in censorship, that does not in fact strip an individual of their right to free speech. It just means that the corporation isn't willing to help the individual exercise their right to free speech. There may be other corporations that are, and there may be other avenues (i.e. the public square) where the individual is still free to engage in free speech.

In order for censorship to be the precise opposite of free speech, it would have to take place in all contexts, not just the context that a given corporation happens to control. Hence, the reason why the First Amendment is focused on prohibiting government censorship, and why censorship in other contexts is so much less important.

Re:For an alternative

[ScentCone]

Do you really not understand the concept of "free speech" exists outside of the First Amendment? The free exchange of ideas is kind of a cornerstone of western culture.

Right. And one of the most important aspects of that freedom is the freedom to communicate what YOU want to communicate, not what other people force you to communicate. You are 100% free to run your own web site so that you can communicate whatever the heck you want to. And you can't be forced to let me monopolize your private web site, at your expense, for my own agenda. Not being a slave to people with whom you disagree is the sort of cornerstone you should be thinking about.

No, "free speech" doesn't exist outside the context of the first amendment. Why? Because the first amendment's ONLY PURPOSE is to remind everyone what the government is NOT allowed to do. It doesn't define what you can do, or should do, or shouldn't do. It just limits the government's power to interfere with what you have to say, or with whom you can assemble, etc.

The first amendment is totally silent, as it should be, on whether you can choose the content, atmosphere, voices, and communication that is represented in your own publications, groups, etc. Yes, you have freedom of speech and assembly, and that doesn't mean you get to whine about someone else's editorial policies, it means your get to set your OWN editorial policies, when you go to the same trouble as someone else to set up a publication or other similar platform.

Re:For an alternative

[zieroh]

I would argue that if the places that exist to be heard are so small that they are barely noticed, that is an effective stifling of free speech.

Would you in the same breath argue that you have the same right to be heard as everyone else on the planet (or the country of your choice)? If my posts aren't elevated to the front page of reddit, does that mean that censorship is occurring because my voice isn't being heard as widely?

Re:For an alternative

[Khyber]

"You mean they've come up with a reliable way to distinguish DDoS attacks from real traffic they were unprepared to handle in the wake of mass upheaval at Reddit?"

It doesn't take shit to look at the NORSE site and see if you're actively being attacked or not. That's the whole fucking point of http://map.ipviking.com/

Re:For an alternative

[Khyber]

"Does a private entity have the right to control - "censor" - speech in its forums? Absolutely yes. END OF STORY. "

When they EXPLICITLY ADVERTISE Freedom of Speech, No. Either live up to your word or go the fuck away. END OF STORY.

Re:For an alternative

[king neckbeard]

Yes, it's still censorship. Censorship isn't inherently a bad thing. It certainly can be, and we should be careful of it, especially from the government, but it's not a bad thing in and of itself. "Censorship" is a much broader term than the way you are thinking of it, just like "discrimination" would be describing which of the billion messages you want to air.

Re:For an alternative

[Stolovaya]

Non-consensual? I think some people would say inappropriate, but...you have a source on that?

Re:For an alternative

[asdfman2000]

No, "free speech" doesn't exist outside the context of the first amendment.

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/7...

Re:For an alternative

[quintessencesluglord]

And your entire argument is essentially framing the discourse into something no has demanded.

However, there is a bit of misrepresentation, as reddit originally posited that they were a bastion of free speech. And while it is fashionable to view it as reddit, out of the goodness of their hearts, provided a free platform for miscreants to corrupt the youth, the other side to that is users operated in good faith that reddit would keep their end of the agreement in creating free content.

Not like they can take their ball and go home now is it?

And regardless, criticizing reddit does fall under free speech, does it not? The government aspect is just a red herring.

Re:For an alternative

[ScentCone]

In other words, you think that your personal freedom is found in forcing other people to provide you with a platform to say what you want to say. At least, it seems that way, since you can't bring yourself to actually address the substantive particulars. Which is typical of people who are asked to reconcile what they're complaining about with the actual principles involved.

Re:For an alternative

[Raenex]

Reddit used to have a policy that allowed sub-Reddits to talk about all kind of shit, as long as it was legal. They changed that policy to a more restrictive one. That is a form of censorship -- totally within their rights, and you can try to spread your message elsewhere, but Reddit has become a less free place. It really isn't that hard to understand unless you insist on a very narrow view of what censorship is.

Re:For an alternative

[Yosho]

Out of curiosity, what have they blocked that isn't illegal?

Not being facetious, I haven't seen anything get blocked from any of the places I usually go to.

Re:For an alternative

[soap_and_dish]

Well people can come to my subverse if they like: /v/completegames. No abuse and rage so far.

The ability to be abusive and rageful if you want to be aren't the only things Voat has going for it, the improved site design and the small size of the community can both work in its favor in some respects. I started the sub there because it seemed like an opportunity for something new at a site which was comparatively empty. Then, because it takes almost no additional effort, I started a mirror subreddit on the same day: /r/completegames. The differences between them have been a little bit interesting, but I don't have enough subscribers on either to draw any conclusions. Ah well.

Treating Voat like a free speech panacea seems like a big mistake though, since it has all of the same problems that Reddit has - a centralized organizational structure subject to lawsuits, need for income, and greed. If and when Voat goes down the same path it isn't going to be so easy to just flip sites again and bring the community along.

Re:For an alternative

[dissy]

No, that's not censorship.
That's an editorial decision being made by a private company as they choose what to include in what they publish

http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/censorship

Censorship: Censorship blocks something from being read, heard, or seen.
To "censor" is to review something and to choose to remove or hide parts of it that are considered unacceptable.

A decision made by a private company to "choose what to include in what they publish" is *exactly* the act of blocking something from being read, heard, or seen by reviewing it and choosing to hide (not publish) it.

How do you figure that isn't censorship? It is literally the dictionary definition of censorship!

Censorship is when the government steps in and says you can't do that.

No definition anywhere of that word involves "government" - anywhere

The first amendment in the US even proves that. That is the amendment that says censorship performed BY the government is illegal.

Why specify censorship by the government if no other forms of censorship existed or were possible?

Re:For an alternative

[Yosho]

I'm not talking about what is legal, but what is moral. Merely being part of a "protected class" does not make it moral or immoral to deny services to certain classes of people.

Setting legality aside, why would it be wrong to refuse to provide an apartment or cake to a gay person but not to ban them from Reddit?

You're still misconstruing what everybody who is upset about this is saying. Reddit is not obligated, in the legal sense, to provide a forum for anybody. But if they tout themselves as being a place that values freedom of speech and open discussion -- which they previously have -- then it is hypocritical of them to exclude certain classes of people just because they find their views distasteful.

Re:For an alternative

[Trailer Trash]

and yet... NOBODY (but you) GIVES A DAMN.

He was stripped of his law license in Arkansas as a result of perjury. Somebody besides me cared quite a bit - including a judge and the AR bar association.

It's always interesting that folks like yourself think sexual harassment is the absolute worst thing a guy can do - unless he's a Democrat.

Re:For an alternative

[mccrew]

I'm not misconstruing anything. I think where iyou're going off to the weeds is advancing the false equivalence of a right (free speech, fair housing) with a private sector terms of service. Changing the terms of service != denial of a basic right.

So if Reddit promised you something, and then later takes it away, then yes, it sucks. Arguably not moral. Hypocritical, even. So you win that point...

But file it under "Life In The Big City." Times change, they're growing up, and want to monitize their property, which means making the site "safer" for investors and advertisers.

Yes, they may have promised you all the free speech, but they are under no obligation to keep the status quo.

No rights violations here. Assuming Reddit doesn't go back on their policy, it's time to either accept it or move along.

Re: For an alternative

[cyber-vandal]

Whatever would m'lady do without you white knights riding to the rescue.

Re:For an alternative

[david_thornley]

Multiple affairs? Been done by others. Predatory sexual assaults on subordinates? Didn't see a sign of that. He was definitely a jerk to subordinates when they didn't want to have sex with him, but that's neither predatory nor assault. Perjury? On an irrelevant question in a court case that should have been thrown out (plaintiff's claims didn't amount to sexual harassment).

Honestly, Republican sexual misconduct tends to die out of the press too. The media can't keep a specific scandal going forever.

Re:For an alternative

[Archangel Michael]

and yet... NOBODY (but you) GIVES A DAMN

The problem is, nobody on the LEFT gives a damn when one of their own does it. See Bob Packwood for Liberal views on anyone with an (R) after their name doing the exact same thing (milder version) that WJC did.

Re:For an alternative

[Archangel Michael]

You assume I am an (R), I am not. Additionally, there is a power imbalance with the Media following a story. Since the media tends to side with liberal causes, they get more airtime. Take for instance the case of a thug being shot by a cop, and the case of a woman being shot by an illegal alien in "Sanctuary City".

The coverage on nightly news was vastly different. And this comparison is repeatable. Want another example? HRC lying about email.

Re:For an alternative

[david_thornley]

You thought wrong. It's something of a legal risk, and can damage morale, so many organizations discourage it.

Basically, it's illegal to condition any aspect of employment on sex between employer and employee. Therefore, giving any sort of preference, however deserved, to whoever's having sex with the boss is a potential lawsuit.

Re:For an alternative

[Zalbik]

The difference is Reddit is not banning people based on race, color, religion, sexual orientation etc.

They don't care who you are, they are banning certain forms of speech. Equally, from everyone.

That is entirely within their prerogative.

The equivalent would be a bakery refusing to bake a cake with a swastika on it. Or an apartment not allowing people to hang rainbow gay pride banners from their balcony.

Reddit is not "certain classes of people", they are excluding certain opinions from their site. As to this being hypocritical, perhaps, but I believe both people and organizations should be allowed to change their opinions on certain matters.

Based on the comments from their CEO, they are no longer a place that values unfettered free speech. This in itself is not an immoral thing.

Re:For an alternative

[david_thornley]

Has Reddit been going out and taking out other people's websites? If not, how have they been violating the principles behind free speech? Freedom of the press doesn't mean I get to publish anything I like in the local newspaper, it means I can say what I like in my own paper.

Re:For an alternative

[david_thornley]

This is one place where the idea of ISPs as common carriers comes in handy. As long as you can connect to the Net with whatever legal content you like, you've got free speech on the net.

Re:For an alternative

[david_thornley]

Of COURSE I believe in protection for vile, despicable speech. What I don't believe is that anybody has to provide a forum for it. You are proposing that Reddit should provide a place for people to say whatever they want, and I disagree with that.

You want to paint "Death to Furries!" on your car, fine. I'll consider you an asshole, but that's not relevant. You want to paint something on my car, you got a problem. You want to put up a neo-Nazi website, go ahead, jerk. You want to put neo-Nazi propaganda somewhere I control and which is associated with me, you have another think coming.

Re: For an alternative

[penguinoid]

associated with the government thus the 1st amendment doesn't apply

There's social norms against private censorship, and those norms apply to Reddit just fine. See also: recently fired CEO.

Re:For an alternative

[tsotha]

Then people will go somewhere else.

Re:For an alternative

[penguinoid]

If you are OK with people having to leave their community in order to express their views, don't come crying to me if someday you too have to leave your community in order to express your views.

Re:For an alternative

[Nrrqshrr]

Well, you know the new adage: "Your freedom ends where my feelings begin".
We have to thank our liberal friends for that.

Re:For an alternative

[lgw]

What I don't believe is that anybody has to provide a forum for it.

Has to? No. Should? Yes. At least, anyone providing a forum for public speech should (and it really helps for forums to have a gutter, where unpleasant stuff can be swept, as many vile posters will simply migrate there). While progressives don't see any difference between "what I think people should do" and "what people should be forced to do at gunpoint if necessary", rational people do see the difference.

Your car is not a forum for public speech (though it might be for your speech) and so it's irrelevant.

Re:For an alternative

[jmcvetta]

This is the same line of reasoning that says it's okay to ban free speech in "privately owned" public places such as shopping malls, outdoor plazas, etc. From a legal-formalist perspective that is willfully blind to reality and cares not a whit for freedom, such bans on speech are A-okay. But in practice it means that outside a few old city centers, today there is nowhere in the USA where controversial speech is permitted in public.

Re:For an alternative

[jmcvetta]

And users of the internet, in turn, have the right to call them out as freedom-hating douche nozzles for it.

FTFY ;)

Re:For an alternative

[jmcvetta]

What YOU don't apparently get is that when we talk about "free speech," we're talking about your speech being free from government infringement. That has nothing to do with private businesses and gathering places.

No, that's what you are talking about when you say "free speech". The rest of us are talking about, like you know, actual freedom.

Re:For an alternative

[LaurenCates]

No. The person I originally replied to claimed that the Founding Fathers would be ashamed of allowing some of the nastier elements of Reddit to exist, as if they were somehow so holy that they never would have engaged in that kind of behavior (or in some cases, worse).

Re:For an alternative

[pla]

I approve this correction. :)

Re:For an alternative

[tehcyder]

I certainly don't intend to control the policies of private businesses -- but I also don't have to support businesses whose policies I don't like.

No, you don't.

But it's interesting how on the other side, people complain about the calls to boycott Mozilla or Chicken-fil-A because of perceived homophobic comments by their directors.

Re:For an alternative

[tehcyder]

Where do you draw the line? You can't post anything on the Web without using someone else's infrastructure - even if you host your own server, you still need to get it connected to a commercial ISP. Is it okay for them to refuse the connection because it would be giving you a platform to say something that you don't want to say? Free speech is pretty meaningless if you can only exercise it in your own home - you shouldn't be able to force everyone to listen, but you should be able to give everyone the opportunity to listen if they choose to, and that's pretty hard without someone giving you a platform.

If you look at the sheer volume of crap and filth on the internet, I really don't think you can pretend it's hard to get your stuff published somewhere.

The point is that the world does not owe you a soapbox.

Re:For an alternative

[tehcyder]

The First Amendment is about government infringing that right. Private censorship is still censorship, and it can potentially become as big of a threat to social progress as speech repressed by the government. For example. lots of social issues have been avoided in mainstream media because of corporate/political incentives to stay quiet about the subject. On the flip side, there is censorship that most would find totally acceptable. I'm quite fine with not seeing the genitals of a man who was streaking through a stadium. But that's still censorship, and we need to acknowledge that, and consider it as such.

If a school forbids teachers from watching child porn videos at their desks during lessons, that's censorship. If I decide not to call my boss at work a fat fucking cunt, that's self-censorship.

Your point is true, but so wide ranging as to be meaningless.

Re:For an alternative

[tehcyder]

Your personal definition of "censorship" simply isn't shared by most people. You can admit that and move on, or keep insisting "words mean what I want them to mean", but the latter won't lead to successful communication on the topic.

But if you extend "censorship" to mean "any time someone doesn't publish something that someone else says" then almost anything can be called censorship, so the term becomes meaningless.

Re:For an alternative

[tehcyder]

To "censor" is to review something and to choose to remove or hide parts of it that are considered unacceptable.

But by that definition, if I write an essay advocating anarchist revolution to a conservative newspaper and they decide not to publish it in full on their letters page, they are "censoring" me.

Re:For an alternative

[tehcyder]

The problem is that people who are angry with reddit on this are saying that it is morally wrong for anyone to censor anything, and are trying to say that exercising editorial discretion is censorship. They then extend this to say that anyone who opposes this total freedom is against "free speech", as though it's an either/or thing.

I agree that racists and paedophiles should be allowed to write whatever rubbish they want without facing imprisonment by the government. Apart from that, I hope that no one listens to them at all.

Re:For an alternative

[tehcyder]

I am actually glad there is a place where kiddie diddlers can discuss kiddie diddling. Not because I engage in that, or in any way approve or condone it, but because it is in line with the ideals and philosophy behind our Bill of Rights

And equally, I am free to avoid those places. And if they are associated with a particular website (say by being a sub-site) I am also free to avoid that particular main website altogether.

Not supporting something is not the same as banning it.

Re:For an alternative

[tehcyder]

Localized censorship is still censorship. Eg you might think you're being censored if you live in North Korea, but since you can always move to a different website/country then you're not being censored -- except there's a limit to how much trouble people will go through to express their views

The point about North Korea is that (a) it is the government doing the censoring and (b) no you can't move to a different website/country if you're locked up in a labour camp.

Whereas, if someone takes away your /r/paedophileracistsagainstwhales sub-reddit you can find a million other places on the internet to post your interesting ideas. With little effort and no money.

Re:For an alternative

[dissy]

But by that definition, if I write an essay advocating anarchist revolution to a conservative newspaper and they decide not to publish it in full on their letters page, they are "censoring" me.

Yes, exactly, they would be censoring you.

Not illegally censoring you, not censoring you in violation of any constitutional amendments, but they would certainly be censoring you.

In fact as the topic of discussion at hand is about, they arguably are not even in the wrong for that form of censorship.
It is their conservative newspaper, their soapbox so to speak. They have the moral right to decline letting you use their soapbox.

They likely have the legal right to do so as well, although that can be trickier depending on the details. Certain forms of discrimination Are after all illegal for citizens to perform.

Also if it was an issue of the newspaper controlling ALL the soapboxes that could be available, that would certainly have a good argument for not being legal. It may need a monopolistic practices charge from a judge first, but that may certainly be possible.
Since you defined "conservative newspaper" that does imply there are other sub-types of newspaper out there, and assuming they are each controlled by different parties (IE no monopoly issues) it would very likely not even be considered a problem legally. You would have other soapboxes to use, and in that example could very well find one more in line with the anarchist theme which would publish the paper.

It also matters a lot if you can make your own soapbox or not.
In the case of the press, you can make your own soapbox to use, so being denied the use of other peoples soapboxes isn't a legal issue.
If that was practically or fully impossible to do, that would be a valid and good argument that it is illegal censorship.

I don't believe in your example it would be illegal discrimination or censorship, but honestly there are so many laws out there and so many differences state to state that I could very easily be wrong.

But legal or illegal doesn't really matter, the act itself is still called "censorship".

Re:For an alternative

[tehcyder]

So free speech for anyone who can afford to buy themselves some, then?

While this is true to some extent, fortunately the internet has made the barriers for entry so low as to be effectively zero.

But if you're, say, the proprietor of a national newspaper, you most certainly have more weight and volume of free speech than a teenager in his bedroom posting on a forum with three users.

Re:For an alternative

[houghi]

The problem with competition is that is is not driven by the idea of what you can say. i.e. Reddit will start censorship for some reason. Probably money. They make more money and others will see that censorship means money. And they will follow as soon as they need the money.

Another is the other media. TV is basically self-sensored. A lot of bleeping if you say the wrong word.

So no, competition is not the anser to censorship either.

Re:For an alternative

[houghi]

I can even f*cking do sensorship or I can fucking not if I don't want to.

Re:For an alternative

[antdude]

I'm waiting for Reddit and /. to turn into Digg v4 before I jump ships. ;)

Reddit BETA Coming Soon!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they move stuff around the site just for the sake of moving stuff!

Obligations

[mwvdlee]

"we don't have any obligation to support them."

Nor do the redditors have any obligation to keep visiting the site.

This isn't about obligations, it's about ethics.

Re:Obligations

[AmiMoJo]

If it's about ethics then I don't see a problem with no supporting /rFatPeopleHate. It's not like they are being silenced, Reddit just declined to offer them a free platform for their content, following their own ethical code.

There is a difference between defending someone's right to say what they like, and actually setting up a soapbox for them. There are people I'd never help spread their message, but I wouldn't want the government to ban them from saying it either. Freedom of speech does not imply an obligation to facilitate other's speech, or listen to it.

Re:Obligations

[bfandreas]

"we don't have any obligation to support them."

Nor do the redditors have any obligation to keep visiting the site.

This isn't about obligations, it's about ethics.

I don't see how one can construct an argument that puts "fatpeoplehate" on the proper side of ethics.

Re:Obligations

[renderhead]

This isn't about obligations, it's about ethics.

It is absolutely about ethics. The question is, is it more ethical to preserve unencumbered freedom of expression on your site or to prevent a radical few from using your platform to harm others?

If you're prepared to blurt out an answer as though it were obvious, you haven't given it enough thought. Ethics is a subtle and complicated subject, and there are many situations where different ethical standards must come into conflict.

Re:Obligations

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I wonder if that is why the post simply contained an assertion and omitted the argument?

Re:Obligations

[davek]

If it's about ethics then I don't see a problem with no supporting /rFatPeopleHate. It's not like they are being silenced, Reddit just declined to offer them a free platform for their content, following their own ethical code.

There is a difference between defending someone's right to say what they like, and actually setting up a soapbox for them. There are people I'd never help spread their message, but I wouldn't want the government to ban them from saying it either. Freedom of speech does not imply an obligation to facilitate other's speech, or listen to it.

Very well said. "Free Speech" means the GOVERNMENT can't make certain speech illegal, or ban books, or silence dissent (even though all those things do happen, even China enshrines free speech in their constitution). It DOES NOT mean I have to support you, or help you disseminate that speech.

(Still with me... you won't be in a moment)

It's the same reason a Jewish printer can turn away business from a pro-Palestinian group, and the same reason a Christian baker can^H^H^H should be able to refuse to make a gay wedding cake.

Re:Obligations

[dave420]

I hope you were being sarcastic, otherwise you just demonstrated the exact attitude which is driving people to try to strike back against people who think it's perfectly acceptable to use childish attacks in lieu of a coherent argument.

Re:Obligations

[jittles]

If it's about ethics then I don't see a problem with no supporting /rFatPeopleHate. It's not like they are being silenced, Reddit just declined to offer them a free platform for their content, following their own ethical code.

There is a difference between defending someone's right to say what they like, and actually setting up a soapbox for them. There are people I'd never help spread their message, but I wouldn't want the government to ban them from saying it either. Freedom of speech does not imply an obligation to facilitate other's speech, or listen to it.

Very well said. "Free Speech" means the GOVERNMENT can't make certain speech illegal, or ban books, or silence dissent (even though all those things do happen, even China enshrines free speech in their constitution). It DOES NOT mean I have to support you, or help you disseminate that speech.

(Still with me... you won't be in a moment)

It's the same reason a Jewish printer can turn away business from a pro-Palestinian group, and the same reason a Christian baker can^H^H^H should be able to refuse to make a gay wedding cake.

Right. Or a KKK member baker from making a black person's wedding cake. Or for a eugenics supporter to not serve a handicapped person. And the list goes on and on. There's no reason to protect any of those people from discrimination. It's not like there has been a history of any of these groups of people being oppressed, or anything like that... oh wait.

Re:Obligations

[Carewolf]

"we don't have any obligation to support them."

Nor do the redditors have any obligation to keep visiting the site.

This isn't about obligations, it's about ethics.

I don't see how one can construct an argument that puts "fatpeoplehate" on the proper side of ethics.

It could be humourous, ironic or a deliberate attempt to test freedom of speech. Well, too bad it isn't any other those things... I didn't say it was a good argument, but you made it a challenge ;)

Re:Obligations

[Microlith]

Yeah, because abusive, horrible people are in desperate need of protection from those who tell them to grow up!

a KKK member baker from making a black person's wedding cake

Being a member of the KKK isn't protected, mainly because it's optional. They have to serve the public regardless of their immature, childish opinions - not that it'd matter, most KKK members wear their hate on their sleeve.

That's why they're all running to 8chan or Voat - they need somewhere that caters to their emotional immaturity.

Re:Obligations

[renderhead]

Some of the very same "very smart people" who wrote the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights were responsible for the Alien and Sedition acts of 1798. One of the effects of those acts was to restrict speech that was critical of the federal government.

There has never been a NON-moving goalpost when it comes to free speech, not in America or anywhere else. If it were so simple, there would never be any debate about the subject. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" is a high ideal, but it is not written in any legal document in any nation (it was invented by a biographer of Voltaire as an explanation of Voltaire's views on free speech).

The most dangerous lie in all of politics is "the answer is simple." It discourages deep thought and thorough research, and makes compromise impossible. The truth is, everything about governance is extremely complicated as it involves the weighing of hundreds or thousands of priorities.

Unless free speech is worth preserving at literally any cost (and I daresay there is a line that even you would not cross, e.g. the extinction of the human race), then a line must be drawn *somewhere.* The debate over where to draw that line is ongoing and important.

Re:Obligations

[renderhead]

I think I follow you, but I'm uncertain if you're disputing what I said or agreeing with it.

Re:Obligations

[AmiMoJo]

You are confusing two different rights.

There are laws against discriminating based on a person's attributes that they cannot change. Race, gender etc. A business can decide to not serve someone because of their political views, for example, but not because they are gay. The right to refuse service ends where someone else's right to not be discriminated against begins.

It's hardly a unique or unusual situation. The right to swing your fist ends at the other guy's nose.

Re:Obligations

[PopeRatzo]

I'm agreeing with it. Every definition of "ethics" includes mention of morality.

Hatred, harassment, exploitation can in no circumstances be considered moral. If someone is trying to support ethics by defending immoral behavior, they're doing it wrong.

Re:Obligations

[Archangel Michael]

You miss the point. Letting people express themselves, makes it much easier to deal with the problems they create. Let the assholes hate, let them spew their shit and let those that like that shit congregate there. Much easier to deal with them once you have identified the assholes.

I saw you have posed on FatPeopleHate Sub, buhbye!

Re:Obligations

[Archangel Michael]

Ethics of "fatpeoplehate" isn't up for debate. What is up for debate is allowing people to have vile speech protected, because all it takes to silence speech is to label it "vile". It is what is happening right now in Political Correctness circles. If I disagree with Obamacare, I suddenly am "vile" and bam, I cannot express myself.

Tell me, if someone equates (using term "vile") two things (not liking ObamaCare, fatpeoplehate), how do YOU distinguish between which one is vile and which one is vile?

So, the result is that we must allow "vile" speech even if it is distasteful. THAT is the most ethical way to proceed. Anything less than that is simply vile censorship ;)

Re:Obligations

[Actually, I do RTFA]

That is truly an excellent argument from definition, or something. While it's true that as enshrined free speech means from government interference, it in no was precludes expanding the definition.

I certainly think it's reasonable to force free speech like rules on Google, Facebook and such.. including Reddit.

Re:Obligations

[serviscope_minor]

First, sexual preference is a choice

Go suck a cock. I mean literally. If sexual preference is a choice, prove it by going and being gay for a whole year.

Re:Obligations

[quantaman]

If it's about ethics then I don't see a problem with no supporting /rFatPeopleHate. It's not like they are being silenced, Reddit just declined to offer them a free platform for their content, following their own ethical code.

There is a difference between defending someone's right to say what they like, and actually setting up a soapbox for them. There are people I'd never help spread their message, but I wouldn't want the government to ban them from saying it either. Freedom of speech does not imply an obligation to facilitate other's speech, or listen to it.

Very well said. "Free Speech" means the GOVERNMENT can't make certain speech illegal, or ban books, or silence dissent (even though all those things do happen, even China enshrines free speech in their constitution). It DOES NOT mean I have to support you, or help you disseminate that speech.

(Still with me... you won't be in a moment)

It's the same reason a Jewish printer can turn away business from a pro-Palestinian group, and the same reason a Christian baker can^H^H^H should be able to refuse to make a gay wedding cake.

Right. Or a KKK member baker from making a black person's wedding cake. Or for a eugenics supporter to not serve a handicapped person. And the list goes on and on. There's no reason to protect any of those people from discrimination. It's not like there has been a history of any of these groups of people being oppressed, or anything like that... oh wait.

The Jewish printer, Christian baker, KKK baker, and eugenics supporter are all guilty of discriminating against a group. That's not allowed nor should it be.

But that doesn't mean the Jewish printer should have to print holocaust denial posters nor the KKK member print "kill all whites" posters, you're allowed to ban offensive speech.

Re:Obligations

[tsotha]

The question is, is it more ethical to preserve unencumbered freedom of expression on your site or to prevent a radical few from using your platform to harm others?

Harm? What harm do you experience when someone says something you don't like on a subreddit nobody is forcing you to visit?

Re:Obligations

[tehcyder]

So, the result is that we must allow "vile" speech even if it is distasteful. THAT is the most ethical way to proceed. Anything less than that is simply vile censorship ;)

Look, no one is saying that it should be a criminal offence to insult Barack Obama or fat people, or whoever. You can be as vile as you like. But you can't expect everyone to give you a platform for your vileness, and say that if they won't they oppose free speech and are evil because censorship.

A site like reddit is perfectly entitled to say that being associated with borderline child porn, stalking, hate speech or whatever they like is wrong and you'll have to go elsewhere to say it.. They're not the government.

MOAH POPCORN

[squiggleslash]

This would be amusing if there wasn't so much awfulness in what people are doing.

So... a virtual lynchmob went after Pao because they decided she must be an "SJW" because she once sued a former employer for sexual harassment. They interpreted a closure of a subreddit that was harassing people in real life as being content based, and by Pao, because they assumed that was what a straw-SJW would do. When a popular employee was subsequently fired, Pao's attackers assumed it must have been her that did it, because the previous day there'd been a not-terrible-pleasant IAMA with Jesse Jackson, and as a straw-SJW, Pao would be very upset that Reddit might have possibly offended Jackson. This theory made no sense whatsoever, but the virtual lynchings got worse anyway.

And it turns out that Pao was supporting them all along - that is, arguing against a board that did actively want to remove the more offensive subreddits, and not actually the person who pushed out the fired employee.

I'm seeing a hell of a lot of people who:

1. Label someone who says something that makes them slightly uncomfortable an "SJW".
2. Assume that because their victim is an SJW (because they labelled them one), they must be a straw-SJW
3. Ascribing positions and acts to their victims, misinterpreting the words they say, and creating the most absurd conspiracy theories about their victims, simply because that's what a straw-SJW would do.

Maybe the outrageous way Pao was dealt with will make a few people stop and think about the wisdom of that. Unfortunately, I suspect many will just dig further, unable or at least reluctant to question their assumptions, for fear that their behaviour might have been wrong.

Re:MOAH POPCORN

[Anonymous Coward]

So... a virtual lynchmob went after Pao because they decided she must be an "SJW" because she once sued a former employer for sexual harassment.

Not really, no, it was the endless wave of mass media news articles about how she was tackling misogyny in Silicon Valley and standing up to those patriarchal neckbeards, a wave she was all too happy to ride, that did that.

They interpreted a closure of a subreddit that was harassing people in real life as being content based, and by Pao, because they assumed that was what a straw-SJW would do.

What appeared to be a hardline feminist was put in charge, next thing you know subreddits are being shut down and people are getting fired. Of course members were getting agitated.

And it turns out that Pao was supporting them all along - that is, arguing against a board that did actively want to remove the more offensive subreddits, and not actually the person who pushed out the fired employee.

We only have one person's word for that.

I'm seeing a hell of a lot of people who:

1. Label someone who says something that makes them slightly uncomfortable an "SJW".

2. Assume that because their victim is an SJW (because they labelled them one), they must be a straw-SJW

3. Ascribing positions and acts to their victims, misinterpreting the words they say, and creating the most absurd conspiracy theories about their victims, simply because that's what a straw-SJW would do.

SJWs hate it when their own tactics are turned back on them.

Re:MOAH POPCORN

[Noah Haders]

So... a virtual lynchmob went after Pao because they decided she must be an "SJW" because she once sued a former employer for sexual harassment. They interpreted a closure of a subreddit that was harassing people in real life as being content based, and by Pao, because they assumed that was what a straw-SJW would do. When a popular employee was subsequently fired, Pao's attackers assumed it must have been her that did it, because the previous day there'd been a not-terrible-pleasant IAMA with Jesse Jackson, and as a straw-SJW, Pao would be very upset that Reddit might have possibly offended Jackson. This theory made no sense whatsoever, but the virtual lynchings got worse anyway.

this is the best summary I've seen of the events.

Re:MOAH POPCORN

[ageoffri]

Exactly, which is why I've come to prefer the term Social Justice Bully (SJB). Just like school yard bullies, when they are confronted they cry like little babies.

Re:MOAH POPCORN

[Anonymous Coward]

So... a virtual lynchmob went after Pao because they decided she must be an "SJW" because she once sued a former employer for sexual harassment.

I notice you omitted a vital fact in your rant - that she sued *and lost*. If she had sued and won, then at least it could be argued that she was actually the victim of discrimination. However to play the gender card, and subsequently be shown to be bullshitting, firmly puts her in the SJW camp.

And that's before we even get to her ban on salary negotiations in reddit, because one gender is supposedly better than the other at them, thus giving an unfair advantage. Equality through handicapping. Sounds pretty SJW to me.

They interpreted a closure of a subreddit that was harassing people in real life as being content based, and by Pao, because they assumed that was what a straw-SJW would do.

Again you've got it wrong. They assumed that she was responsible because she was the CEO. Nothing to do with gender, or politics.

And it turns out that Pao was supporting them all along - that is, arguing against a board that did actively want to remove the more offensive subreddits, and not actually the person who pushed out the fired employee.

Please, please don't tell me you're now believe the bullshit that's coming out of that clusterfuck of an organisation. You're like the global warming denialists, cherry-picking the starting point for your data. "See, the latest line to come out of reddit HQ is that Pao was fighting for you all along! You're all idiots I tell you, IDIOTS!"

Give it a couple of days, we'll hear some other bullshit line by then.

Re:MOAH POPCORN

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's especially curious because she came in to management from the VC world after Reddit's sale. Not all of them refrain from letting emotion cloud their judgement; but those are exactly the variety of management figures who are brought in when somebody has to do some ruthless but pragmatic organizational restructuring. Apparently they were so worked up about the fact that the VC was female that they forgot to check for acid blood and a willingness to cut perceived deadwood.

Re:MOAH POPCORN

[Mal-2]

Jusers (spelling deliberate, pronounced like "juicers"). If pressed for what kind of juicers by someone who doesn't understand, SOCK juicers. They gain validation by forcing people to conform to their own view of how the world should be, and abuse it like the juice being referenced. And like many of the trolls they wish to silence, they drink up your salty, salty tears (as long as you are a shitlord).

Re:MOAH POPCORN

[Anonymous Coward]

Wong's comments basically confirm a lot of the reasons that subreddits closed in protest, which had the most to do with transparency, communication, and the way that volunteer moderators were being treated. If it were only free speech issues, this wouldn't have blown up as much as it has.

What else would they think if (1) a person with a controversial history becomes CEO, (2) the company starts closing subreddits in a seemingly arbitrary and capricious manner under a vague harassment policy, (3) fires one of the most popular employees of one of the most popular subreddits (AMA) without any explanation or communication, and then (4) blames and starts strongarming volunteer moderators?

It's not unreasonable for them to start advocating for Pao's removal. Maybe we find out later that Pao was actually defending the Reddit position, but does it matter if she didn't communicate that, or wasn't allowed to? Is it better that there were some men behind the scenes using her and playing off her feminist cred to avoid their own leadership responsibilities?

Victoria wasn't the only one who left under mysterious circumstances; another did as well, and from what's been published, the reasons for it basically amount to "Reddit management is lying to its users." So, once again, blaming the customer as it were.

The leadership could have been transparent all along, sincerely solicited opinion about how to rigorously adhere to free speech principles while being ethical about it, been consistent in implementing it, and then been transparent and communicated with everyone about why everything was being done as it was, why people were fired and so forth, and then thanked the volunteers to high heaven for all they put into the site. Instead what we get is some vague gleamings of corporate conspiracies and soap operas behind closed doors, a former CEO basically telling his customers to screw off, and that they were manipulating everyone all along, including people in management at the highest levels.

If this were any other industry, the people in administration would be eliminated in a heartbeat, and kept as far away from the company as possible. The question isn't why Pao was pushed out so quickly, its why everyone else wasn't too.

Re:MOAH POPCORN

[Vermonter]

Maybe the outrageous way Pao was dealt with will make a few people stop and think about the wisdom of that.

Unfortunately these types of people are also the type who rarely, if ever, "stop and think"

Re:MOAH POPCORN

[nine-times]

I feel like there's a bit of irony here.

The thing that bothers me about "social justice warriors" is that there's a sort of contrived generation of outrage against imagined slights, and if someone is successful in getting that outrage to catch on, it has the potential to turn into a sort of witch hunt. There's a real reason to be concerned that, to give an example, if you post a random off-color joke, it could go viral with your name attached, and that could result in losing your job and having a hard time getting another job. Online, there's no sympathy. If you say something that people don't like online, it's rare that anyone tries to find a deeper understanding of who you are. In their mind you become a two-dimensional villain without any redeeming qualities, and you deserve to have your life ruined. At least, that's the kind of thing that worries me about the whole SJW phenomenon.

So what I find ironic is, the people who get most upset about the SJW thing also have a tendency to do the same thing. If a woman has a blog describing sexist tropes in video games, the anti-SJW crowd will be outraged that she's questioning the quality of their favorite games, and that she's questioning the developer's intentions. It's like, "How dare she imply that Super Mario Bros is oppressing women! She should have a more nuanced understanding of what's going on!" On the other hand, they might also be failing to understand the nuance of that woman's blog. In a way, they're generating the same kind of contrived outrage and the SJW.

And I think that's a component of what happened here. I don't have any behind-the-scenes knowledge to tell you whether Pao was a good or bad CEO, or which decisions were hers. I support the reddit community's right to stand against inappropriate policies-- if you don't like what's going on with the site, you have every right to refuse to participate, including shutting down the subreddits that you moderate. However, it doesn't really seem like the reddit community knew enough about what was going on to warrant so much hatred of Pao. I still haven't heard an explanation as to why Victoria Taylor was fired. Do we know?

It seems like there was a major fuckup in managing the relationship between reddit, the moderators, and the user base. Things weren't communicated well, changes were made that seemed arbitrary, and from that I would agree that there needed to be a change in leadership. However, the kind vitriol leveled at Pao seemed childish and... kind of fucked up.

That's my feeling anyway. I won't claim to be thoroughly knowledgeable about the whole thing, but as a bystander, I thought it was cool that the user base is able to strong-arm the corporation when they feel they need to, but I still didn't like what I was seeing.

Re:MOAH POPCORN

[k6mfw]

what is SJW? I know I know, it is something everybody knows and I don't. I guess I'm too lazy to google it (like most stuff I get contradictory descriptions or links to hotrussianbabes and gogetbids) or read through tons of drivel to find were somebody actually spelled it out.

Re:MOAH POPCORN

[guyniraxn]

Considering all the facts, was Pao hired just to be the fallguy all along? Or was the board stupid enough to force all these changes on a new CEO all at once and expect her to survive?

Re:MOAH POPCORN

[lgw]

"Social justice warrior" - a mashup of "social justice", which people often self-describe as being concerned with, and the derogatory "keyboard warrior". The term was orginally used to describe people whose concern with social justice seemed to end at the keyboard, and trivial first-world problems that affected themselves, not real problems in the world.
 

Re:MOAH POPCORN

[Jarwulf]

Given how they've already been exposed for their freespeech comments I wouldn't trust their word on Pao being some stalwart defender of the controversial subreddits given how all her actions gave no indication of it. More likely this is just a way to tweak the users who got rid of her and get some revenge by doubling down even harder on them.

Re:MOAH POPCORN

[lhowaf]

"make a few people stop and think about the wisdom of that" It's so cute when people are optimistic. That sentiment didn't even survive the direct remarks. Members of the mob will always believe they carried out "justice" - regardless of how bright is the light of retrospect.

Re:MOAH POPCORN

[Raenex]

It's almost like free speech is more of a social justice value than a meathead one.

*snort*

http://thoughtcatalog.com/andr... :

God help us if we have to rely on conservatives to defend free speech.

A list of such censorship is basically endless, so I will have to suffice with a not-so-brief list of some of the more egregious examples:

• A student at Purdue was found guilty of "racial harassment" for reading a book called Notre Dame Vs the Klan. (The Klan is the bad guy in the book.)
• A candidate in the European elections was arrested in Britain for quoting a passage from Winston Churchill about Islam.
• Gert Wilders, a politician in the Netherlands, was tried on five counts including "criminally insulting Muslims because of their religion."
• Both Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant were dragged in front of the Canadian Human Rights Commission for being Islamophobic.
• Conservative radio host Michael Savage was banned in Britain.
• The group Women, Action and Media convinced Twitter to allow them help report and censor harassment and hate speech. Twitter subsequently suspended the accounts of the anti-feminist Youtubers Thunderfoot and Mykeru (they were later reinstated). Both of them are liberals, by the way.
• Adam Weinstein at Gawker wants to "Arrest Climate-Change Deniers."
• Brendan Eich was forced to resign as CEO of Mozilla for opposing gay marriage. Another guy was fired because someone eaves dropped on his joke about dongles.
• A group called Color of Change was able to get Patrick Buchanan fired from MSNBC for expressing his incorrect opinions (that have been pretty consistent for the last 50 years) in his book Suicide of a Superpower.
• Allegedly, a man was banned from an Oregon college campus for "resembling a rapist."
• The "Pickup Artist" Julien Blanc was barred from entering the UK for making sexist comments.
• The mayor of Massachusetts banned the word "illegal" when referring to, umm, immigrants who came into the United States without going through the proper, legal channels. The Associated Press did

Re:MOAH POPCORN

[quantaman]

So... a virtual lynchmob went after Pao because they decided she must be an "SJW" because she once sued a former employer for sexual harassment.

I notice you omitted a vital fact in your rant - that she sued *and lost*. If she had sued and won, then at least it could be argued that she was actually the victim of discrimination. However to play the gender card, and subsequently be shown to be bullshitting, firmly puts her in the SJW camp.

Given the US justice system someone suing a company and losing is hardly firm evidence they were in the wrong.

They interpreted a closure of a subreddit that was harassing people in real life as being content based, and by Pao, because they assumed that was what a straw-SJW would do.

Again you've got it wrong. They assumed that she was responsible because she was the CEO. Nothing to do with gender, or politics.

True, but that doesn't necessarily mean she was calling the shots if the chairman of the board was pushing hard enough.

And it turns out that Pao was supporting them all along - that is, arguing against a board that did actively want to remove the more offensive subreddits, and not actually the person who pushed out the fired employee.

Please, please don't tell me you're now believe the bullshit that's coming out of that clusterfuck of an organisation. You're like the global warming denialists, cherry-picking the starting point for your data. "See, the latest line to come out of reddit HQ is that Pao was fighting for you all along! You're all idiots I tell you, IDIOTS!"

Give it a couple of days, we'll hear some other bullshit line by then.

It's not coming from the organization but from a former CEO who doesn't seem to have an active role any more (but presumably still gets the office gossip). I don't think it makes sense for Reddit to defend the scapegoat and shift blame to their Executive Chairman.

Re:Cue the assholes ...

[Anonymous Coward]

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Re:Cue the assholes ...

[Anonymous Coward]

>And now all the whiny punks who insist on their right to be assholes and douchebags will come out of the woodwork

They do have a right to be whoever they want, whether you disagree with that or not.

>And a bunch of morons will demand their right to be offensive and threatening for no other reason than it's fun.

They have a right to be offensive. You have no right protecting you from being offended. Put on your big boy/girl pants and grow up already.

How about adult subreddits?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about adult subreddits? Fetishist subreddits? Political subreddits that you might find offensive, such as Men's Rights? Religious subreddits that you probably find offensive, like Scientology? Do we ban vaccine deniers and conspiracy theorists? People that talk about piracy?

In Reddit's quest to become mainstream, it has lost something.

Re:How about adult subreddits?

[kcwhitta]

And is well on its way to possibly lose everything.

Re:How about adult subreddits?

[fafalone]

The drug-dealing subreddits are still open too. I'd imagine. Allegedly. So I was told. By someone I don't know. Nevermind, such a thing doesn't exist and if it does I don't know about it! Now leave me alone.

Re:How about adult subreddits?

[AmiMoJo]

Their policy appears to be to ban subreddits that are actively harassing people. Discussion is fine, posting stolen pictures of fat people from social media, or stolen celebrity photos from iCloud, or organizing raids, or doxxing people is not.

Can you really not see a difference between saying "disgusting obese people should do more to control their fucking weight" and posting a photo of an obese person take from their Facebook page (copyright infringement) along with a torrent of abuse purely designed to shame and injure them?

Re:How about adult subreddits?

[dwpro]

2 things:

Their policy appears to be to ban subreddits that are actively harassing people.

That policy seems to have been implemented unevenly enough that the justification is questionable.

posting stolen pictures of fat people from social media

if you post a photo to social media and someone that's been given access to see the photo shares it, that's not 'stealing' in my book.

Re:How about adult subreddits?

[ezdiy]

Fun thing about that: Ross Ulbright got nailed by FBI thanks to one such drug subreddit, where a redditor posted that silk road servers leaked IP through phpinfo().

Taken to the extreme, the user unwittingly (or not? :) doxxed Ulbright (that is a big nono on reddit).

I imagine feds will never object to drug markets related subreddits now, as it's a convenient crowdsourced insider info.

Re:How about adult subreddits?

[Yunzil]

it has lost something.

The biggest assholes?

Re:How about adult subreddits?

[epyT-R]

Yeah, define 'harass' though. Anti 'fat shaming' SJW types would not see a difference at all.

Re:How about adult subreddits?

[JanneM]

It is stealing, though. They retain the copyright. Saying it's not stealing is like saying taking an unlocked bicycle off the street isn't stealing.

Re:How about adult subreddits?

[coolsnowmen]

The person you responded to said two things which distracted you. The core problem is harassment. Saying "Fat people shouldn't be fat" is a general statement. Saying, "this bitch is ugly", is harassment.

PS Of all the places on the internet you use "stealing", /. is pretty sensitized to understand the difference between stealing and copyright infringement.

Re:How about adult subreddits?

[dwpro]

I guess my sense of this is out of the mainstream then. I'd never think that expressing an opinion on a forum is harassment. Uncouth and childish, but not harassment.

Re:How about adult subreddits?

[dwpro]

Though I disagree, I'm not interested in debating the topic. All I mean to say is that if someone is willing to share something on social media, it's hard to be too sympathetic of it being spread across the internet.

Re:How about adult subreddits?

[tehcyder]

if you post a photo to social media and someone that's been given access to see the photo shares it, that's not 'stealing' in my book.

I'm not sure if anyone's ever mentioned it before on slashdot, but copying any digital object isn't technically stealing

Hmmm Huffman

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/02/reddit-co-founder-alexis-ohanians-rosy-outlook-on-the-future-of-politics/3/

Speaking of the founding fathers, I ask him what he thinks they would have thought of Reddit.

"A bastion of free speech on the World Wide Web? I bet they would like it," he replies. It's the digital form of political pamplets.

Change You Can Believe In!

[xdor]

As long those changes reflect the values of Jesse Jackson and Hillary Clinton.

Thank you, Reddit-man!

Re:Change You Can Believe In!

[gstoddart]

Nobody says the people who wish to express different values can't do it. Reddit is just saying it's not their job to provide the platform for it.

By all means, start your bigoted trolls and crazy people website. I'm sure it will be very popular.

Do you think Reddit somehow has a responsibility to provide a venue for such things?

It is your right to be as bigoted and offensive as you choose to be. It isn't your right to have someone provide you the platform, or to have it be free from consequences.

Re:Change You Can Believe In!

[xdor]

I agree that Reddit may do what it wishes with its platform. I'm merely decrying another venue being swallowed by The Politically Correct Puppet Masters ®.

The attempt to censor a question to Jesse Jackson which Victoria refused to do -- resulted in her firing. Ellen Pao took the heat for making the brave stand to uphold politically correct standards and censorship and now Steve Huffman looks like he will continue on the road to sub-Reddit into 1984.

I care little for hosting illegal and exploitative content -- but it was nice to have a venue where controversial subjects could be broached and discussed. Huffman indicates such attempts at actual discussion in future will be met with shadow bans and censorship. The resulting product will allow the Reddit view of the world to be molded as MSNBC would have it -- just with cats.

But yes, entirely within their rights to do so.

Re:Change You Can Believe In!

[gstoddart]

Reddit knows what's best for us. Let it rise and save us from ourselves.

Here's a little hint: Reddit doesn't give a fuck what is best for anybody except Reddit.

If popular opinion was that they should allow all sorts of crap because it's good for free speech, they'd do that.

Reddit is simply reflecting that they get the bad PR and don't want that because it interferes with their business interests.

They're not saving us from ourselves, they're saving themselves from their users and distancing themselves from behavior they don't want to be associated with.

Re:Change You Can Believe In!

[Archangel Michael]

people who wish to express different values can't do it. Reddit is just saying it's not their job to provide the platform for it.

Where are the full and complete guidelines and rules for what is tolerated and what is not. Until they have a community standard outlined and in place, such is pure sophistry and reverse-engineering of their excuse.

What is the platform for? I'm not sure Reddit board has even a vague definition they can use at this point. Platitudinous statements don't a platform or definition make.

Re:Change You Can Believe In!

[tehcyder]

I care little for hosting illegal and exploitative content -- but it was nice to have a venue where controversial subjects could be broached and discussed.

Yeah, you've only got the other 99.999999% of the internet to use. Literally Hitler.

A more complete summary of the situation

[vivaoporto]

A more complete summary of the situation below, based on a rejected submission of the same story.

Reddit policy to be updated, CEO says site was not created "to be a bastion of free speech"

After a string of dramatic events like the removal of the Fappening and FatPeopleHate subreddits, the dismissal of Victoria Taylor and the subsequent AMAgeddon culminating in the resignation of the former CEO Ellen Pao, the recently returned Reddit CEO and site founder Steve Huffman announces that a comprehensive Content Policy and the tools to enforce it are currently in development motivated in part by the media and internal repercussion of "the more offensive and obscene content" on their platform.

Mentioning without specifying some communities "whose purpose is reprehensible" and disclaiming that they "don't have any obligation to support them" the CEO announces an AMA (Ask me Anything) next Thursday 1pm where they "as a community need to decide together what our values are".

The CEO states that "Neither Alexis nor I created reddit to be a bastion of free speech, but rather as a place where open and honest discussion can happen.".

In a top comment in the announcement a site user refutes this claim point to a Forbes article from 2012 where Ohanians, answering a question of what the founding fathers would think of Reddit, replies: "A bastion of free speech on the World Wide Web? I bet they would like itâ. Alexis himself, in a Google Plus post from 2012 (archived version), says that he is "really, really proud of these quotes".

Re:A more complete summary of the situation

[jargonburn]

The CEO states that "Neither Alexis nor I created reddit to be a bastion of free speech, but rather as a place where open and honest discussion can happen."

[not] a bastion of free speech, but...open and honest discussion

Wow! Steve's gonna want some Tylenol after all the cognitive dissonance!

Re:A more complete summary of the situation

[phantomfive]

"Neither Alexis nor I created reddit to be a bastion of free speech, but rather as a place where open and honest discussion can happen.".

I don't think you can have "open and honest discussion" without free speech. That seems like a necessary prerequisite.

Re:A more complete summary of the situation

[FreeUser]

The CEO states that "Neither Alexis nor I created reddit to be a bastion of free speech, but rather as a place where open and honest discussion can happen."

Wow! Steve's gonna want some Tylenol after all the cognitive dissonance!

Yup! Double-plus ungood.

Re:A more complete summary of the situation

[fwarren]

"as a community need to decide together what our values are".

I am pretty sure that is the same kind of "community" that Mark Shuttleworth had. We vote on everything and we all have a voice. Till he moves the window controls from the top right hand side (windows style) to the top left hand side (mac os style). The community voted to move them back. At which point Mark said he listens to community input but ultimately it is his decision.

The board of directors at Reddit have decided what their values are, and the new CEO has agreed with them to get the job. Now they will do an AMA where they put forth as many of their values as possible in such a way that it looks like the community came up with them. The remaining values they will Mark Shuttleworthed on the community.

Thank you for playing.

Re:A more complete summary of the situation

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to play devil's advocate for a moment, let's say there's an overly aggressive "sports board" on reddit or whatever site with 10,000 users. There is also a "technology board" with 1000 users.

After some time, the "sports board" people decide they don't like the "technology board" people. Any time anyone on the "technology board" tries to have a discussion on their board, the "sports board" people respond to all of their posts by insulting them and then talking about sports.

I would argue that preventing the sports board people (whether via board-specific shadowban, general banning, or other mechanism) from posting on the technology board would be more conducive to open and honest discussion. And it would have little to do with "sports" as a subject.

Re:A more complete summary of the situation

[phantomfive]

The mechanism depends.....but in most cases you are going to have humans doing the moderating. As soon as there are humans involved, you will have people trying to avoid the wrath of the moderators. They will be focused on that, instead of having a good conversation.

Of course there will be trolls, but there are ways to deal with that instead of outright banning them, as the slashdot moderation system shows.

Re:A more complete summary of the situation

[0100010001010011]

Some other great reading:

"We're a free speech site with very few exceptions (mostly personal info) and having to stomach occasional troll reddit like picsofdeadkids or morally quesitonable reddits like jailbait are part of the price of free speech on a site like this."

-/u/Hueypriest Comment

"We stand for free speech. This means we are not going to ban distasteful subreddits. We will not ban legal content even if we find it odious or if we personally condemn it. Not because that's the law in the United States – because as many people have pointed out, privately-owned forums are under no obligation to uphold it – but because we believe in that ideal independently, and that's what we want to promote on our platform. We are clarifying that now because in the past it wasn't clear, and (to be honest) in the past we were not completely independent and there were other pressures acting on reddit. Now it's just reddit, and we serve the community, we serve the ideals of free speech, and we hope to ultimately be a universal platform for human discourse (cat pictures are a form of discourse)."

-/u/yishan Gawker article + interview

Re:A more complete summary of the situation

[AmiMoJo]

It's hard to have an open and honest discussion when one side is just screaming profanity at you, or keeps posting child porn, or harasses you into not participating. That's why traditional debates have moderators and rules, and so does Reddit.

Name one developed country in the world where you can say literally anything. Shout fire in a theatre, spend all day following someone around screaming abuse at them, distributing child porn and stolen photos etc. No such place exists, and if it did no one would want to live there. Your standard is ridiculous.

Re:A more complete summary of the situation

[Archangel Michael]

"Neither Alexis nor I created reddit to be a bastion of free speech, but rather as a place where open and honest discussion can happen.".

Um, anyone notice that the two phrases in that sentence are mutually exclusive?

Here is the equations

Reddit Free Speech (Not a bastion on free speech), Reddit = Free Speech (open and honest discussion)

Pick a Lane

Re:A more complete summary of the situation

[epyT-R]

People start to bitch about the lack of free speech when ideologues start demanding the silencing of reality that conflicts with the ideology. Modern societies (used to) understand that in order give reality a chance to be explored and understood, the trolls and idiots must also be given the same right. The way to handle this is to debate the 'troll' positions as though they were genuine for the benefit of other participants, and/or for individual participants to ignore them. Authority enforced hugboxes create rabid conformity, with very little rational discussion that leads to any new understanding. When the stupid has you shadowbanned or modded -1 every time, there's no real discussion at all.

The issue isn't whether reddit (and other sites) were created as free speech havens or not, but that they are moving further AWAY from that, much further in some cases. This is part of a culture war that's been pushed over the last 60 years (more?) and is now impacting online culture. Like many of these proponents, you conflate mass censorship of 'undesirable' expression as no different than rules against shouting fire in a theater or filtering irrelevant spam. This is fallacious and you know it.

Re:A more complete summary of the situation

[epyT-R]

Stopping one board's users from spamming other boards is not the same thing as a system wide policy that effectively bans certain speech. A lot of times it's the self-claimed victims who actually aggress in this manner. They do this by shaming authority (in this case reddit's sysops/owners) into silencing other boards critical of their position, calling it 'hate' or some other undesirable thing, and then try to 'expose' it to the world in order to get compliance. A typical example that's been a hotbed on many sites lately would be feminism vs men's rights. If the bid for victimhood status is successful, feminism is discussed openly, but criticism of it is not.

Re:Cue the assholes ...

[Merk42]

The problem is that the definition of "punks, assholes, douchebags and morons" can change.

Free speech has no meaning

[waspleg]

until you defend someone else's right to say something you disagree with. As for the pictures, if they're real, then that's already illegal and I have no doubt a dozen TLAs are already watching.

Having an outlet in text for these kinds of things is far better than having none and then having these people act it out for real in their areas. It can also give people a head's up since some of these people post their manifesto before they act out.

Life is full of unpleasant things. Making it illegal to talk about them does not make them go away; it just allows them to grow in the dark.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[LaurenCates]

Indeed. No mod points, but you said it better than I could.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[AmiMoJo]

Do you understand the difference between defending someone's right to say something you disagree with, and providing them with a soapbox and megaphone?

There are plenty of places where people can say what they like (anonymous Slashdot posts, 8chan etc.). Reddit has no obligation to be one of them, yet can still fully support people's right to type "8ch.net" into their browser instead of "reddit.com" and even lobby the government to protect that right.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[Daemonik]

I'd like to offer some counterpoints:

Having an outlet for these kinds of things is not necessarily better. It gives disparate people a platform to share their ideas, normalize their behavior and validate themselves and each other. It's a double edged sword.

As far as giving people a heads up, that's nonsense because most of these people spew their idiocy under anonymous accounts. You could be sitting next to an otherwise seemingly normal person and never know they spend their days upvoting pictures of 9 year olds in sexually suggestive poses. If the accounts were tied to their real names and addresses, there would be far far fewer people creating these sorts of forums.

Who said anything about illegality? It's not illegal to say "No thanks, your behavior is not welcome here."

Allowing things to grow in the dark is a lot of the problem! That's how you get ISIS or the KKK.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[Yosho]

you should be defending Reddit's right to exercise whatever editorial policy they choose to put in place on their own system

I've never said otherwise. I certainly think they can have whatever policies they want. I am 100% behind that. I am also exercising my right to walk away from them and encourage other people to do the same.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[phantomfive]

Free speech has no meaning until you defend someone else's right to say something you disagree with.

Well said, I will definitely be quoting you on that one.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue is that they claim they are there for open, honest discussion/debate but NOT "a bastion of free speech". I think one might find the two concepts are quite inseparable.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[quantaman]

until you defend someone else's right to say something you disagree with. As for the pictures, if they're real, then that's already illegal and I have no doubt a dozen TLAs are already watching.

Having an outlet in text for these kinds of things is far better than having none and then having these people act it out for real in their areas. It can also give people a head's up since some of these people post their manifesto before they act out.

Alternately providing a forum allows people to develop their views and nurture them in a community.

Maybe I'm a non-practising paedophile who has kept it in check because I know it's wrong. But then I find an online community which shares my attraction and suggests it's perfectly fine, and since I have all those people who seem to think I'm not doing anything wrong by looking at these pictures of young girls then going a step further and looking for child porn can't be that bad either...

Same thing with any kind of extremism, it's the communities around them that develops them into dangerous people. The one thing in common with virtually all these lone gunman type terrorists or spree killers is their involvement in extremist online communities. It's a positive feedback loop.

Life is full of unpleasant things. Making it illegal to talk about them does not make them go away; it just allows them to grow in the dark.

There's a difference between making it illegal to talk about and giving them a forum.

Reddit is a community, it has no obligation to cater to any specific topic.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[kheldan]

Places like Reddit are not non-profit organizations dedicated to promoting freedom of speech, they're for-profit sites. Expecting no bias is silly of you; if something is going to negatively affect the financial viability of the business, they'll get rid of it. If you can't handle that then I suggest you go start your own discussion forum website. Chances are it'll end up like 4chan, and all the other *chan sites, though: a complete and total shit-hole, with trolls, troublemakers, pedophiles, and other criminals running rampant through it. On the other hand you want real conversation between people? Try doing it in the real world, in person, with other live, in-person people. There's not enough of that anymore.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[drinkypoo]

The issue is that they claim they are there for open, honest discussion/debate but NOT "a bastion of free speech". I think one might find the two concepts are quite inseparable.

While you're right, that still doesn't make this a free speech issue. It does make it a reddit is full of shit issue, but that's a whole other thing.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[Pseudonym Authority]

What's your real name and address then?

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[Pseudonym Authority]

The one thing in common with virtually all these lone gunman type terrorists or spree killers is their involvement in extremist online communities. It's a positive feedback loop.

Sources? I know that the church shooter guy was interested in neo-nazis online, but what other ones are you talking about? I actually think that you're just making that up, though, so you don't have to respond.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[qeveren]

Free speech isn't limited to the First Amendment, really. The First limits what the government can do in regards to speech, certainly. However, a private website disallowing certain types of speech is still impinging on 'free speech'; it's just perfectly legal for them to do so.

First Amendment =/= Free Speech. Particularly since not everyone on the internet is a USAian. :)

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[PopeRatzo]

Making it illegal to talk about them does not make them go away

This story is about Reddit, not the government. If Reddit decides to block /r/coontown, it doesn't actually make being racist illegal.

Nobody is going to take away your God given right to hate. Don't worry.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[PopeRatzo]

It's possible that "venting" dangerous desires in a controlled setting prevents people from acting on them, but it seems equally possible that it could lead to the escalation of those desires through exposure to new fantasies and the support of like-minded people.

Escalate like this?

http://betanews.com/wp-content...

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[PopeRatzo]

I am also exercising my right to walk away from them and encourage other people to do the same.

Reddit is making it pretty clear that they're OK with you walking away.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[renderhead]

Yes. Sadly, that is exactly what I mean.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[meta-monkey]

There is some. There are studies that indicate that the abundance of porn, including violent porn, drives down rates of actual sexual violence. Men who would otherwise act on their violent sexual desires are mollified by watching somebody else pretend to do it and jerking off.

It's why I also think erotic literature and drawings of children that are not based on real people should be legal. It doesn't harm any actual child (since the child in the drawing or story doesn't actually exist) and it gives pedophiles an outlet that may keep them from abusing an actual child. Making it illegal just puts it in the same category as photographs of the real thing, and if it's all the same...

Kind of like how marijuana is a gateway drug. It's not necessarily that using marijuana makes you want to use heroin. But, if marijuana is illegal, you have to talk to a guy who may also sell heroin in order to get it. If marijuana were available at the drug store you'd never met somebody selling heroin.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[meta-monkey]

The difference is that at its founding free speech was one of the core values of the site. Here's a place where you can go, and say whatever you want. And people can discuss things openly. And who knows, maybe seeing some other opinions will change some minds. It does happen.

But now that it's popular, they want to change it, and pretty much entirely to be advertiser friendly. It has nothing to do with responding to cries of offense and oppression from the user base. There are no such cries. Brigading is already banned, and people saying nasty things in one subreddit doesn't impact anyone in another subreddit. Don't like /r/CoonTown? Don't go there. I don't.

But I don't want to see /r/CoonTown banned, either. I want them to stay there, and say the stupid shit they want to say to each other. And when I'm talking with someone and I check their profile and see they're subscribed to /r/CoonTown, I know I'm dealing with a shitbag. It's useful information.

So, yes, I'd protest the shutting down of /r/CoonTown, because on a platform where everybody gets a soapbox, they should have theirs, too. AniMoJo, I disagree with 90% of your posts, but I'd protest if /. banned your overly-sensitive, trigger warning needing ass, too.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[renderhead]

I've heard of some of those studies. I can't comment on their specifics not having read them, so let's just accept their conclusions for the sake of argument. What then? Is it true of all harmful impulses, or it it specific to pornography? How does it affect pedophiles vs. those with a sexual response to violence? The same? Different? What about people who fantasize about violence in a non-sexual way? Are people in a fat-shaming community more or less likely to fat-shame a person to their face than before they joined the community?

Just because the idea sounds sensible on its face doesn't mean that it is true, or that the truth might not be the exact opposite in some cases. Bold claims require strong evidence, and it doesn't seem like there is enough evidence for this hypothesis to justify making policy decisions based upon it.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[ScentCone]

However, a private website disallowing certain types of speech is still impinging on 'free speech'

How? Are they running that web site on the same server as YOUR web site, and using really badly written code to kill performance on that server, thus silencing the communication you're engaged in on your OWN web site? No? So how IS that private web site legally preventing you from engaging in any sort of speech you want to go out into the world and produce? Specifically.

Oh, I get it. You mean that it's wrong for them to not provide you, at their expense, a platform for anything YOU want to say to the world.

Are you actually listening to what you're saying? Them choosing what is said (or not) on their own web site IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF FREE SPEECH. Because they're getting to decide what's said with the web site they run. Just like you can decide what's said on a web site you run. See? You're both completely free to speak. Not sure how this isn't clear to you.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[Whorhay]

Even if it is true that all spree killers were motivated by some evil online community, does it actually matter? If allowing them to have that community actually prevents more attacks than it precipitates it is still a net win for society.

This same crap comes up with every article that claims some school shooter did it because the creep played GTA. Crime rates have actually been falling for decades despite the rise of graphically violent video games. Even if some people turn to violence because it works in their favorite murder simulator it would seem that even more people don't resort to violence despite enjoying the same games.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[renderhead]

A fair argument, I'll grant you.

Lolicon is an interesting case because it doesn't have a non-consenting party, but that does not automatically mean that it harms no one. It serves no purpose other than to enflame desires that can and must never be acted upon.

Lolicon could be considered "obscene," according to the terms established by the U.S. Supreme Court, specifically in that it depicts sexual behavior that is illegal and that it "lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."

Whether you agree with the necessity of obscenity laws or not, they do exist. It is not a bold claim to suggest that they be applied in this case, and thus the burden of proof you refer to returns to those who would argue either that lolicon is not obscene or that obscenity laws ought to be abolished entirely.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[Khyber]

Let's put it this way,

Any major policy change (porn, drugs, stuff oriented towards social progression) that has decriminalized or legalized various things (expressions, usage of plants, etc.) has always seen the rate of incidents related to that social measure drop. You add in support for those things (no jail for heroin users, just some rehab, therapy for porn addicts,) and the rates drop even further.

The reduction in harm is absolutely measurable every single time.

You have an entire COUNTRY that did it (Portugal and drugs) and look at what happened. Usage rates on the hard drugs actually fell, rehabilitation rates went up, net positives all over the board.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[Khyber]

"Do you understand the difference between defending someone's right to say something you disagree with, and providing them with a soapbox and megaphone?"

Being a real American, I not only support their speech but I have a soapbox and microphone already fucking handy for them.

Hey, if they want to broadcast their idiocy to the rest of the world, who am I to stop them? In fact, I'd encourage it so the smart people know who the hell to avoid.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[dissy]

Escalate like this?
http://betanews.com/wp-content...

If Reddit allows that, next thing you know it may escalate up to the Dyson gangstas siphoning the dirt out of our cars for their pics:

http://dbagging.com/wp-content...

Then where would America be!

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[Khyber]

I have. Day after day. I have a nice FBI file that comes with it.

How about you, coward?

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[david_thornley]

Free speech means you can say what you like. It doesn't mean anybody else has to provide a forum for it. If you're free to set up a website and fill it with your neo-Nazi underage furry fantasies, then you've got free speech. It doesn't mean you get to force your speech on other fora where it might interfere with other people's speech.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[david_thornley]

Moreover, I'd rather not ban any form of speech, no matter how disgusting I may find it, without a darn good reason. I haven't seen evidence that pornography about children that doesn't involve actual children is harmful, therefore I don't want it made illegal.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[kheldan]

Implying that 4chan has any redeeming qualities whatsoever
Implying you're not just another skeezy troll
Implying implications

Do the rest of the Internet a favor, will you please? Go back to /b/, and stay out of the rest of the Internet.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[quantaman]

The one thing in common with virtually all these lone gunman type terrorists or spree killers is their involvement in extremist online communities. It's a positive feedback loop.

Sources? I know that the church shooter guy was interested in neo-nazis online, but what other ones are you talking about? I actually think that you're just making that up, though, so you don't have to respond.

Well Elliot Rodger is one but I was mostly thinking about lone wolf terrorists or people like Luka Magnotta (though he wasn't a spree killer). However it's hard to find good sources in part because it isn't really mentioned. When people do something crazy like go on a killing spree or post a murder video people assume they'll be part of some screwy online communities and papers don't want to get flack from readers for posting the name of a really disturbing site.

But at a more abstract level no one disputes the fact that people can fall in with a bad crowd in the physical world, why would you dispute that it's possible to fall in with a bad crowd on the Internet?

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[quantaman]

Even if it is true that all spree killers were motivated by some evil online community, does it actually matter? If allowing them to have that community actually prevents more attacks than it precipitates it is still a net win for society.

It that the case though? If the community is bad enough to get banned I don't think it's moderating people.

This same crap comes up with every article that claims some school shooter did it because the creep played GTA. Crime rates have actually been falling for decades despite the rise of graphically violent video games. Even if some people turn to violence because it works in their favorite murder simulator it would seem that even more people don't resort to violence despite enjoying the same games.

That's a very different topic.

Games are fundamentally escapist, GTA doesn't actually endorse violence, it just lets people enjoy some fantasies.

But communities shape people's views and what they perceive as typical or right. I don't see why making the community online would change this?

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[Khyber]

It's called REAL LIFE. My megaphone and soap box are literal physical objects.

You fools and your 'internet action' give me a fucking laugh.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[Pseudonym Authority]

Because crazy, paranoid people, in my experience, tend to not want to let anyone in on their delusions. Even if you agree with them, they'll call you a CIA\Jewish\Alien plant setting a trap for them. They are arrogant and believe that they are the center of the world, and everyone is out to hurt them.

Besides that, let me rephrase my question: what evidence do you have that this is a common theme in "virtually all" cases? Naming three of the dozens does not establish a trend. Furthermore, claiming that there it just doesn't get reported on doesn't release you from that burden. It just comes off as an old man blaming the ills of the world on that damn Satanic rock-and-roll music.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[quantaman]

Because crazy, paranoid people, in my experience, tend to not want to let anyone in on their delusions. Even if you agree with them, they'll call you a CIA\Jewish\Alien plant setting a trap for them. They are arrogant and believe that they are the center of the world, and everyone is out to hurt them.

Besides that, let me rephrase my question: what evidence do you have that this is a common theme in "virtually all" cases? Naming three of the dozens does not establish a trend. Furthermore, claiming that there it just doesn't get reported on doesn't release you from that burden. It just comes off as an old man blaming the ills of the world on that damn Satanic rock-and-roll music.

I concede "virtually all" is an overstatement and I'm not sure how to find evidence other than anecdotes and a general impression, but I do think there is a definite pattern with people falling into extremist bubbles which is a lot easier on the internet.

As for the reporting aspect I do think I have some evidence of it being under reported. Luka Magnotta was very active on social media and extremist sites like Stormfront, posted multiple videos of himself killing animals and uploaded the video of his murder of Justin Lin to a gore website. However, the only mention of this you ever saw in the media was that he had uploaded videos of the kitten killings and murder and that the owner of the gore website was arrested.

It wasn't even made clear that Magnotta uploaded the video himself, the fact that he was extremely active in social media (and probably the gore website as well) was almost unreported in an extremely sensationalized case. It follows that there's a lot of other cases where it's likely under publicized as well.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[tehcyder]

Life is full of unpleasant things. Making it illegal to talk about them does not make them go away; it just allows them to grow in the dark.

You do know that there is a difference between a media outlet imposing certain community standards and making something illegal?

If reddit (or my local school newsletter) decline to publish someone's racist rant, that is up to them. It is another matter entirely if the government arrest that person for writing and publishing the racist rant.

Your right to free speech covers the latter case only. It has never meant that anyone can be forced to publish your views.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[tehcyder]

Don't like /r/CoonTown? Don't go there. I don't.

Fine, but a lot of people just won't go to reddit at all. And that's their free choice too.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[tehcyder]

Free speech has no meaning until you defend someone else's right to say something you disagree with.

Well said, I will definitely be quoting you on that one.

I think Voltaire has prior art on that one.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[tehcyder]

The one thing in common with virtually all these lone gunman type terrorists or spree killers is their involvement in extremist online communities. It's a positive feedback loop.

Sources? I know that the church shooter guy was interested in neo-nazis online, but what other ones are you talking about? I actually think that you're just making that up, though, so you don't have to respond.

Anders Breivik is an obvious example of a neo nazi.

More generally, surely you are aware of the influence of ISIS's social media campaigns in recruiting terrorists?

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[tehcyder]

There are studies that indicate that the abundance of porn, including violent porn, drives down rates of actual sexual violence. Men who would otherwise act on their violent sexual desires are mollified by watching somebody else pretend to do it and jerking off.

Surely on that basis there would be pretty much zero rape nowadays, since everyone outside places like North Korea has access to as much porn as they could ever need?

Rape is about more than sexual gratification, as even without porn anyone has always been able to jerk off if that's all they want.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[Khyber]

You're free to use my lawn. If you sound like an idiot, don't be surprised if people (myself included) ostracize you!

I had a group of people at my place protesting the fact that the 4th of July celebration was happening in a graveyard. I let them grab the megaphone and start talking. They didn't last very long as the crowd that was present for the fireworks show booed them away.

"Also, maybe a good idea to ease up on the "real life" remarks, given your penchant for furries."

I'm still far more grounded in reality than most of you, fetish aside.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[Bathroom Humor]

I don't think AniMojo is a dumb person, but they certainly love a good moral panic and catering to the equally destructive polar opposite end of the overly offensive asshole spectrum; the ultra fragile crybaby.

I understand that allowing these people who make bigoted or disgusting posts a free speech zone turns a few platters of the server rack into a vile pit of shit, but getting a balance between what is acceptable or what is not is REALLY hard, and certainly shouldn't be left to the people who's lives get crushed by mean words on a computer screen. Not only that, but just because a person might unwind by saying shitty things on the Internet doesn't mean they aren't generally OK people, or just have a crude sense of humor that doesn't cause them to hate the people they joke about. I fit into that category, laughing at some people but not showing any real hatred.

People like that undoubtedly rag on Voat and 8chan (even though generally hateful sections of the sites aren't even the most prevalent, last I checked) for being too lenient on hate speech, but when it comes to open platforms for free thought, you're GOING to end up dredging up some fucked up opinions, even if the site has generally normal people posting on it. Even gold nuggets end up sitting next to rotting fish corpses at some point before someone pans them out of the riverbed. Being too "nice" to a certain subsection of the population will keep some communities from becoming interesting and diverse, if not crude.

Re:Free speech has no meaning

[Whorhay]

I haven't played the GTA series so I can't say with absolute certainty that it endorses violence, but if it is much like nearly every other FPS or RPG then yes, it absolutely does. When all or the vast majority of the carrots in the game are designed as rewards for simulated violence then it is definitely endorsing those actions. That isn't to say that any of these games endorse real violence outside of the game. The point though is that they serve as a safe means of release.

Online communities could very possibly be fulfilling the same purpose. Whether some arbitrary person felt a community was bad enough to deserve banning doesn't really serve as a good benchmark for whether or not it was moderating potential bad behavior. For instance I knew many concerned christian mothers at the church I grew up in who would have banned Dungeons and Dragons if they had the power to do so.

I agree that communities can shape people, whether online or offline. And I don't see any reason to ban a community. Perhaps they should be moderated in some way if they are found to be actively empowering their members to violate other peoples rights. But banning them just pushes the community out of sight, it is pure fantasy to think they'll just vanish.

In Reddit's case they are hoping that those communities will just go elsewhere. They are afraid of brand damage basically. The funny part of that though is that for many of us that damage was already a part of their image and had been for years.

Same old same

[buk110]

Site builds large user base.
Site gets some VC money and thinks they can make a profit.
Site realizes they need to make changes but changes cheese off the majority of it's user base and they go elsewhere.
Site becomes a ghost town.

Remember Fark? Remember Digg? This is what will happen with Reddit. First they came for the fatties, and I didn't care because I don't have condishons. Then they came for the racists and I didn't care because I'm not racist. But then they came for the rest of the site and no one was left

Re:Same old same

[tekrat]

Remember Fark? Remember Digg?
------

Yeah, I never went to those sites either....
(Yawn) Wake me up when we get to Web 3.0

Remember Myspace? Remember Geocities?
Remember when Yahoo was a just a bunch of links?
Remember Netscape and Mosaic?
Remember Telnet and Gopher?
Remember Kermit?
Remember... nevermind.

Re:Same old same

[turp182]

Digg, that brings back some fond memories.

It's interesting to look back, I recall the downfall started with a UI redesign (cough, cough, Slashdot owners). I know that's when I stopped visiting the site.

Which side of his face did this come from?

[pla]

2012: Speaking of the founding fathers, I ask him what he [Alexis Ohanian] thinks they would have thought of Reddit. "A bastion of free speech on the World Wide Web? I bet they would like it," he replies. It's the digital form of political pamplets."

2015: "Neither Alexis nor I created Reddit to be a bastion of free speech, but rather as a place where open and honest discussion can happen."

Re:Which side of his face did this come from?

[Carewolf]

2012: Speaking of the founding fathers, I ask him what he [Alexis Ohanian] thinks they would have thought of Reddit. "A bastion of free speech on the World Wide Web? I bet they would like it," he replies. It's the digital form of political pamplets."

2015: "Neither Alexis nor I created Reddit to be a bastion of free speech, but rather as a place where open and honest discussion can happen."

I think when he says it is not a "bastion of free speech", what you need to add in your head is: ..not anymore.

Reddit is a Business with Business Needs

[eepok]

I hate the idea of major sites like Reddit, Fark, etc. giving up what made them popular: being a sanctuary for people to communicate things as they see fit. But I also accept that once an online community becomes sufficiently large, they will need to:

(1) Bring in revenue to support the people maintaining the site and to pay for the hardware/bandwidth required to actually have a site to support.
(2) Those who provide revenue will impose requirements upon the site that will erode what previously defined the community.
(3) When a community gets sufficiently large, they attract people who weren't part of the original concept and they will demand to be catered to. This will require further erosion of the community's core principles to facilitate because, since revenue's needed, those managing the community must make everyone feel welcomed.
(4) Be ready for lawsuits from people who do not accept the original principles, but want to be part of the community regardless.

This happens with ALL communities and this looks to be Reddit's semi-collapse. Reddit won't die-- not by a long shot. But many will leave and what made Reddit most distinctive from other sites will be watered down. That's called death by success.

Re:Reddit is a Business with Business Needs

[avandesande]

I might be dating myself but you would see this all the time with radio stations- they would play lots of alternative rock or metal and when they had enough listeners to attract advertisers slowly poison everything with heavy rotation music.

Re:Reddit is a Business with Business Needs

[eepok]

That's a 100% appropriate comparison. I'll even throw out Sci Fi's adoption of reality shows leading up to their full transition to "Syfy".

Re:Reddit is a Business with Business Needs

[maccodemonkey]

(4) Be ready for lawsuits from people who do not accept the original principles, but want to be part of the community regardless.

I don't think it's legal problems but social problems that are the issue. If you have a site that is known for having a section where people say offensive things about fat people, you might eventually have problems attracting fat people to your site. Which might conflict with wanting to grow. There's nothing legal going on there, it's all business.

Reddit is not trying to be some gated community and people are trying to force the gates open. That much is becoming clear. Rather Reddit itself wants to attract a more diverse community. And as a company, that's their right. I don't have a Reddit account because some of the content hosted there makes it seem like a site I wouldn't be interested in, and they're trying to pull people like me back into the fold. I don't think it will work for me, but that's at least what they're trying.

Re:Reddit is a Business with Business Needs

[eepok]

Your argument works with "fat" people because the courts do not recognize having X lbs. of fat as a suspect class. But when you have sub-forums specifically formed to be a place to discuss racist/sexist/prejudicial/discriminatory/etc. topics, the community leaves itself open to allegations of supporting, facilitating, or giving shelter to hate speech. And, unfortunately, even if you have a rock-solid liability waiver, defending one's self in court will cost money and reputation. Note that I'm not saying that either having such forums or getting rid of such forums is a good or bad thing, but simply that this is the course of evolution of a community. Gather people, get popular, need funding and thus compromise principles, need more people to get more funding and thus further compromise principles. Clubs, online forums, governments, etc. Everything develops away from highly-held ideals towards "the highest held ideals that angers the fewest number of people".

Re:Reddit is a Business with Business Needs

[maccodemonkey]

Hate speech is only illegal if it's basically a physically threat. Even then, proving Reddit is liable would be a tougher case (and not the individual user.)

I haven't seen anyone suggest Reddit itself is under any sort of legal threat, besides paranoid Reddit users themselves. And there's nothing to indicate that's Reddit's strategy here. Rather it seems to be based around people like me who simply don't care about the site because it doesn't seem like a community I'm interested in. I'm not sitting here going "Gee, I really should sue Reddit to force them to be something I'd participate in." I'm just plain not interested.

Who cares?

[xenotransplant]

Does Reddit have power to amend the constitution? No? Then why are you all crying? You can still speak all the hate you want to elsewhere on the internet. Heck you could even do it in public, you cowards. Go outside and talk to other humans, you'll be interested to know that most of them are not going to put up with your bullshit.

Re:Who cares?

[martas]

reddit became as popular as it is in large part because it allowed everyone to talk about anything they wanted. And it confuses you why people might be angry that they are now not only changing that, but also taking their users for idiots by lying about what's really going on? Let me put it this way -- if you found out your girlfriend of 10 years has started fucking your rich neighbor, wouldn't you be a tad ticked off? Or would you be perfectly satisfied by someone telling you you can go find another girlfriend?

First They Came For The Racists....

[CanHasDIY]

I think we all know where I'm going here...

Re:First They Came For The Racists....

[renderhead]

First they came for the racists and we all celebrated because we were not racists and racists suck.
Then they came for the pedophiles and we all celebrated because pedophiles hurt children, and seriously what the f*** is wrong with you?
Then they tried to come for the socialists and we said "WTF, dude?! That's a valid political viewpoint that isn't explicitly about hate and harming others!"

And then the rest of the speech kind of fall apart because seriously, not all viewpoints are equally valid.

Re:First They Came For The Racists....

[renderhead]

There's "mainstream viewpoints," and then there's viewpoints that are unambiguously in favor of hating people and/or deliberately bringing them harm. There are reddit groups that exists solely to express hatred for a given race, sex, sexual orientation, or body type. I'm not talking about "we think homosexuality is a sin," or "we believe that culture is too permissive of unhealthy lifestyles." I'm talking about "[type of person] is garbage, and we want to hurt them, shame them, and ultimately exterminate them."

There is no slippery slope connection between that type of viewpoint and the universe of unpopular but legitimately held viewpoints out there. If we ever reach the point where the majority of Americans support the extermination of a particular race, it won't be because we stopped enabling racist speech.

Re:First They Came For The Racists....

[renderhead]

One more comment, to specifically address your 1960s socialists example:

I am not arguing that popular opinion cannot veer dangerously into censorship of dissenting political ideas. It can, and it has, many, many times in human history.

What I AM arguing is that shutting down racist subreddits is not moving us closer to that scenario. There is a big difference between dissenting political speech and truly hateful speech. Everyone can see the difference, but hateful speakers like to make a false equivalence between the two, and they can use that argument to convince well-intentioned people that shutting down one is the same as shutting down the other.

Re:First They Came For The Racists....

[renderhead]

Congratulations, you totally missed the point of the original speech.

I don't think I did, and I sincerely believe that trying to apply it to the Reddit situation at all is disrespectful to its meaning.

When the speaker said "First, they came for the socialists", they meant something very specific by "came for." The Nazis were rounding people up, putting them in camps, stealing their property, and killing them. As they go down the list of types of people that "they came for," there is no confusion about what was going on. Everyone knew that it was bad, but they were unmotivated to act to stop it because they hoped they would be spared if they kept their mouths shut. The only way it could have been stopped was through the collective actions of people who were not yet targets, but they did not act.

What is happening at Reddit is not remotely similar to what happened in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. Not only are people not being harmed by those in power, they aren't even being silenced. I don't care if Reddit shuts down racist subreddits, but it's not because I'm not a racist. It's because there is nothing Reddit could ever possibly do that would harm me in any way. They have no power to make the world worse. They CAN, however, make it a little bit better by removing this particular platform for people to threaten, harass, and intimidate people because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or body type.

In whose reckoning or opinion?

In REDDIT's opinion. It's their site. They make the rules. Because not all viewpoints are valid, they are within their rights to make their own determination about which viewpoints should be represented on their site.

I'm not advocating shutting down groups because of their viewpoints, I'm advocating shutting them down for their specific actions. Threatening someone isn't just speech, it is an action. Encouraging someone to commit suicide is an action. Promoting violence is an action.

Re:First They Came For The Racists....

[renderhead]

Because I might hurt the feelings of the pedophiles?
No. Here is where I draw the line. I will never self-censor to protect the feelings of people who are sexually attracted to young children. I pity them, I wish them the best in their attempts to fight their urges, but I will NOT care about their *feelings.*

Re:First They Came For The Racists....

[jmcvetta]

There is a big difference between dissenting political speech and truly hateful speech. Everyone can see the difference

I can't.

Re:First They Came For The Racists....

[CanHasDIY]

I really don't think "I dislike people of different colors" is tantamount to "I fuck little kids." Is that always your go-to comparison?

If so, then I have to ask... what the fuck is wrong with you?

Anyway, there's a world of difference between a racist asshole who never harms anyone and a fucking pedophile. Just like how there's a difference between people who do actual good in the world and douchebag SJWs who spend all day attacking other people on the internet for having a different viewpoint.

Steve Huffman is a lying sack of shit.

[Khyber]

https://www.reddit.com/r/annou...

http://reddit.com/r/BoFS

We're catching these fuckers in their lies left and right.

"We don't have any obligation to support them"

[sound vision]

"We don't have any obligation to support them" - but do you have an obligation to remove them? How about this: don't fuck with the content unless it's a legal liability, something like child porn. (Providing it, not just discussing it.)

Re:"We don't have any obligation to support them"

[Anonymous Coward]

How about this: don't fuck with the content unless it's a legal liability, something like child porn. (Providing it, not just discussing it.)

How about this: we Americans start voting and otherwise getting reasonably non-evil people into offices, so that companies like Reddit don't have to worry about the fact that their users merely discussing things, may pose liability risks to Reddit.

It's easy to be for free speech, when you're not the guy looking at your piece-of-shit users (because, yes, that is the subset of users that will be on your mind) and wondering which one of them is going to cost you money or (theoretically) prison time.

Child porn isn't an exception: it's a model for censorship expansion. Even before the "terrorism" panic, we had laws like DMCA where in fact, sometimes people get dragged into court, threatened by lawyers, etc, for merely discussing things. This happened and is happening; it's not some theoretical dystopia. And we have done JACK SHIT to repeal it and scorch the earth with promises of vengeance against future censorship attempts. If you run a discussion site, then for the last couple decades the political wind has been blowing the wrong way and The People of America are not going to come to your rescue when the shit hits your fan.

I expect companies like Reddit to be defensive. The only people who aren't defensive when hosting other peoples' content, are too stupid or too inexperienced. And once you get into looking at things that way, then the question about whether to wait for problems and do "takedowns" (as you suggest) versus preemptively avoid certain topics, is merely a matter of strategy and how much of your own money you want to spend. And I'm sorry, but sometimes preemption is cheaper (i.e. smarter).

It doesn't have to be that way, but WE are choosing that legal environment for speech hosts to live within. Don't like it? Whaddya gonna do, vote? As if! I guarantee that 99% of the Americans here, are either not going to show up at the polls again, or else they're going to pick Rs and Ds. Virtually nobody stands up for free speech, and that's a survival fact that Reddit has to live with.

So much for "an open conversation about race"

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

So much for "an open conversation about race."

Although the process usually involves butt-hurt, every once in a while, you DO get someone who hates [group] (blacks, Republicans, gays, Christians, whatever) to moderate their viewpoint (and often become an advocate within their community) after ENGAGING them in an open forum like reddit or Slashdot.

In fact, that's the whole principal behind America, the UN, etc. - let's TALK it out in public rather than wall ourselves off in a bunch of isolated bomb-throwing communities.

Re:Cue the assholes ...

[Oligonicella]

Indeed. I've seen those terms applied to opposite sides of many a disagreement.

Re:Cue the assholes ...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

What is particularly pathetic about the whining about oppression and SJW political correctness conspiracies is that this move is presumably just business.

People so ghastly that they are considered to be of less than zero value to the business running their hangout; all convinced that being shown the door because they are annoying the useful customers is some grand conspiracy.

Re:Cue the assholes ...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Yup. First the SS closes your subreddit. Then the death camps. True facts. Definitely not somebody's unhinged sense of victimhood collapsing into a singularity. Not at all.

Digg-ing themselves a hole

[Atrox666]

If people see it as just a corporate forum it will implode.
Free(ish) expression is the bait, the lured users are the product and the advertisers are the customers.
If you don't have good bait, no users and soon no advertisers.
Giving the hive mind a lobotomy is not going to work, we'll just put a pillow over its face.
If you do Web 2.0 correctly the users are the star of the show. Reddit is taking centre stage here and it's a bad plan.

I wish I was a reddit regular

[AndyKron]

I wish I was a reddit regular so I could stop going there.

Re:Fucking SJW

[war4peace]

Pretty much this.
I access exactly ONE subreddit - it belongs to a rather small EVE Online alliance. All posts there are nice, positive, interesting, it's a warm little community and I enjoy being a part of it.
To me, Reddit is that little corner and nothing else. Of course, I could make the effort of searching for other subreddits and finding one that's uncool, but what's the point?

'Open and honest' downvoting

[TraumaFox]

Neither Alexis nor I created reddit to be a bastion of free speech, but rather as a place where open and honest discussion can happen.

Looking past the fact that those things are intrinsically connected, I can't understand why anyone is concerned about free speech on Reddit when it has yet to succeed at facilitating the "open and honest discussion" its founders apparently wanted. With its favoritist voting system turning every discussion into a popularity contest and inconsistent moderation based on feelings and biases rather than a set of unambiguous rules, Reddit has never been anything more than an echo chamber for dedicated users to be able to stifle opposing views and bully users who dare to express them.

Regardless of what content its administration decides to allow or support, or whatever policy changes they may or may not make, Reddit's users inherently oppose free speech themselves by simply using the site as intended. To suddenly rally and act like you care about free speech is unabashed hypocrisy; you should never have been using Reddit in the first place.

Re:'Open and honest' downvoting

[bluefoxlucid]

I initially read this as a "bastardization of free speech" and thought he was going to fix Reddit's oppression problem; instead, he's upping the ante on shaping the discussions.

freeddit.org

[CanEHdian]

The freeddit.org domain is still free. Pop a webserver/database/forum on it, declare it a Free Speech Zone, and you're done. You run a site, you decide what you want on it, and what not.

Obligatory XKCD

[coldsalmon]

https://xkcd.com/1357/

Re:Obligatory XKCD

[nickweller]

@coldsalmon: Free Speech

Some time ago, before the Ellen Pao controversy, I took a look at Reddit and, after what I saw, dropped out just as quickly. Hosting a user generated forum and then banning people because they disagreed with some moderator. At the same time allowing such shit as the Fappening and 'humorous' posts such as this. All pilots after the German Wings accident ref. I feel soiled by proxy that I once associated with the human garbage that posted the above.

Re:Obligatory XKCD

[martas]

Public service announcement: "free speech" is a concept that exists outside the context of the US constitution. Here's some more thoughts on that, from reddit of all places (http://www.reddit.com/r/TiADiscussion/comments/2h53ov/the_irony_in_xkcds_free_speech_comic/):

You've all probably seen it before, but in case you haven't, here it is: http://xkcd.com/1357/
It's about free speech, and how some idiots think free speech means you can say whatever you want without any repercussions. Of course that's not true, as Randall points out, the first amendment just means that the government can't persecute you for simply having an opinion, people however are free to react to you however they want.
However I've noticed this comic being posted by people solely as justification for censorship or as a simple reply to a complaint about censorship. Instead of making an actual argument for censorship specific to the situation at hand they post this... but what does the comic say then? That the most compelling thing you can say for censoring is that it's not illegal to censor? Ironically this is a mirror image of what the title text of the comic says about defending your argument with free speech, only you're defending your censorship with the lack of free speech.
Picture this:
Person A censors Person B
B: "Freedom of speech! It's literally not illegal to say something so I should be able to say what I want without repercussions."
A: "XKCD comic! It's literally not illegal to censor you so I'm going to censor you."
And no one gives any legitimate arguments for justifying their actions or opinions.

Re:Obligatory XKCD

[jmcvetta]

The cartoonist who does XKCD is a skilled humorist, but a lousy political philosopher.

O RLY

[russotto]

And here's Alexis Ohanion, in 2012, calling Reddit... yes.... "a bastion of free speech".

I wonder how high they had to stack the bags of money to get this sort of backpedaling?

They've Digg'd themselves

[areusche]

I love corporate drama like any other guy, but this is starting to get ridiculous.

The corporate body is clearly WAY out of touch with its userbase. By banning the, "not so nice" content for an IPO they've alienated not only the trolls but the live and let be crowd which is way larger than the troll base could be. Imagine Slashdot pulling some stunt like that, there would be a massive move to the exit.

I foresee Reddit becoming a former shell of itself much like Myspace and Digg. Shame because there's quite a bit of archived content on it worth reading.

Censorship isn't just for Lewd/Bitching Comments

[TooManyNames]

This story only recently broke, and already there are several comments intended to preempt objections, ostensibly by lonely white males yearning for an open forum to complain about SJWs and discuss fantasies, as if that preemption had a deep grounding in some service to civility. It's both amusing and saddening to see that type of naivete on display.

While it'd be nice if people would abide by "community guidelines" for civil communication in a public forum, both in terms of proposing arguments and reacting to them, any time such standards are imposed as a filter, broad abuses of those guidelines soon follow. I mean, one of the few things as enticing as spreading your own idea is quashing those ideas you think are wrong. When argumentation fails to combat a competing idea, either because the idea actually has merit or because its proponents are unrelenting in their dogged adherence to it, few people possess the ability to just set the argument aside and move on. When there's a mechanism in place to censor those arguments, right or wrong, people will use it, justifying their censorship with all manner of rationalizations.

For example, lets consider something like the deservedly maligned Atheism+, a group ostensibly meant for atheists who care about social justice issues. At the heart of their charter is a divisive "us vs. them" mentality for anyone opposed to their exact ideology, complete with community expulsion and censorship of opposing views. I won't go into detail regarding their practices, since others have already done so, but I will pose this question: Is a movement so bent on communication controls really their to promote understanding, or domination?

Finally, while I don't necessarily think that Reddit will become something nearly so toxic as Atheism+, I think it's important to understand how Atheism+ got where it is, and understand that the principles that got it there don't have to be relegated to minor movements. Though I don't personally go there often, Reddit is important, and is important for several people. To undermine the foundations of free speech upon which it is built is to empower those seeking domination (who don't have to be governments), and it can happen faster and on a broader scale than many of us would care to consider.

Re:Fucking SJW

[jimbolauski]

assaults? How does one assault another person when they don't know where they live or who they are? I think the term you are looking for is harassment, which can only be achieved if the harassee looks at the harassment. Comparing mean things people say on the internet to the civil rights movement shows a giant ignorance on your part when the mean people of reddit start spraying fire hoses at people that are strong enough to peel of skin, burning down houses, lynch people, or have their dogs attack other people then you can make that comparison.

Is there a furry version of Coontown?

[tepples]

Why aren't there any raccoon pictures in Coontown?

Re:Cue the assholes ...

[interiot]

B..but slippery slope! And "asshole" is subjective, people disagree on what it means!

Sure, but racist threats are excluded from quite a few countries' free speech laws. And reddit isn't a country. So banning racism isn't that controversial.

Re:What does "SJW" mean?

[TooManyNames]

It's an acronym for Social Justice Warrior.

The Magic Warding Words

[Pseudonymous Powers]

I think the main problem for Huffman here is that, substantive issues aside, he completely blew off the accepted protocol for making announcements like these. You're SUPPOSED to say it like this:

"I support free speech, BUT [thing that totally undermines free speech]."

If you deviate from the formula even slightly, the incantation doesn't work. Your ass is uncovered. He might as well have gestured to his genitals and said "I got your free speech right here."

Re:Fucking SJW

[Microlith]

I think the term you are looking for is harassment, which can only be achieved if the harassee looks at the harassment.

Which is hard not to do if you're on the internet and the target of a hate campaign. Guess they should just leave the internet when the hate mob decides it's time for them to go?

A simple plan

[ThatsNotPudding]

They can offer to keep all the horrific subreddits open, BUT everyone from mods to posters can ONLY join by using their real, independently-verified name, which will be permanently and permanently displayed.

You want to scream racist, misogynist crap or advocate mass-murder or man-boy love in the town square? Do it with a 'Hello, My Name Is' tag.

And no, this would not chill unpopular free speech; into would chill unpopular cowardly speech of those that don't have the courage to match their ignorant hatreds.

Re:A simple plan

[reve_etrange]

It would also chill speech by anyone who's physical safety is protected by anonymity. A homosexual teenager of disapproving parents or a stalking victim should be able to benefit from online speech as well.

Re:A simple plan

[Yosho]

That sounds awesome. Also, whenever somebody commits adultery, let's brand them with a big "A" so that everybody else will know about it. I think you've stumbled on a great idea here.

Re:A simple plan

[epyT-R]

..and, of course, the social status quo is known for its objectivity in determining what qualifies as cowardice, misogyny, and racist, right? I'm sure it would be handled with the wisdom and rationality of the Salem witch trials. The Scarlet letter also comes to mind, but it's only white, straight men, so who cares? Let us all burn them at the stake for great social justice!! Hate is great when you're the state!

Re:North Korea is Best Korea

[renderhead]

Assuming free speech should be banned to control what people can talk about within the public eye is more dangerous.

You say that as though it's a universally agreed-upon truth. It's not. That's why we have these discussions to begin with.

How do we determine what's most harmful? Public opinion poll? Scientific study?

I'm no lawyer but i would guess

[Stan92057]

I'm no lawyer but i would guess the people who would use voat from the USA are still bound by its laws meaning no uploading of X-girlfriend images without permission, underage nudes being uploaded whatever the law may be. Maybe a lawyer could answer that?

Re:Dice Holdings buying Reddit?

[narcc]

So ... you're saying that Reddit was okay when you could go there for racist discussions and kiddie porn, and it's ruined now that that content is no longer available?

Okay...

Re:Cue the assholes ...

[Archangel Michael]

Define "hate".

Because your definition of "hate" and mine are probably different. I disagree with a person philosophically, and I get charged as a "hater" all the time.

The problem isn't the haters, those people tend to be rare and easy to spot. The problem are the Politically Correct Crowd that defines "disagrees" as "hate". I must be a "hater" because I have a different viewpoint, even if I have no malice towards anyone or any group in particular. But the PC class defines hate in such a way that it is designed to quash free expression of ideas.

Re:Fucking SJW

[AmiMoJo]

Harassment can include things like doxxing, distributing stolen photos, contracting the person's employer/friends/family, attacking their web site/blog etc. They don't have to read it necessarily.

Oh, and when people do try to avoid reading the harassment with something like ggAutoblocker then suddenly it's censorship and an attack on free speech and the sky is falling. Which is it?

Re:Cue the assholes ...

[Archangel Michael]

The definition of "punks, assholes, douchebags and morons" doesn't really change. What changes is we classify as ""punkery, assholeary, douchebagary and moronic".

"Historic oppression" is not an excuse

[MikeRT]

There's no reason to protect any of those people from discrimination. It's not like there has been a history of any of these groups of people being oppressed, or anything like that... oh wait.

So what if there is? Do you really think making a skin head or klansman who owns a bakery bake a cake for a black family is anything other than a power play to force them to accept society's values when they're otherwise content to leave the people they hate alone? Does it even make sense to want to be served by someone who hates you? No, it doesn't. You are playing Russian Roulette with the possibility of them doing something spiteful, if not evil, to you. Particularly so because you are smugly forcing them to "accept you" and do business with you.

Speaking of wedding cakes, ever notice that gay rights activists are only going after Christians? Plenty of Muslims sell baked goods and cater weddings too. The difference is that if a Muslim version of Sweet Cakes by Melissa were attacked by gay rights activists, the gay community knows that someone in the Muslim community might at least burn down the couple's home, if not murder them in retaliation for attacking a Muslim business.

Re:"Historic oppression" is not an excuse

[jittles]

There's no reason to protect any of those people from discrimination. It's not like there has been a history of any of these groups of people being oppressed, or anything like that... oh wait.

So what if there is? Do you really think making a skin head or klansman who owns a bakery bake a cake for a black family is anything other than a power play to force them to accept society's values when they're otherwise content to leave the people they hate alone? Does it even make sense to want to be served by someone who hates you? No, it doesn't. You are playing Russian Roulette with the possibility of them doing something spiteful, if not evil, to you. Particularly so because you are smugly forcing them to "accept you" and do business with you.

Speaking of wedding cakes, ever notice that gay rights activists are only going after Christians? Plenty of Muslims sell baked goods and cater weddings too. The difference is that if a Muslim version of Sweet Cakes by Melissa were attacked by gay rights activists, the gay community knows that someone in the Muslim community might at least burn down the couple's home, if not murder them in retaliation for attacking a Muslim business.

So what is a business owner going to disclaim all of their proclivities and hatreds in a profile so that I know I need to go to Bob's Bakery instead of Alice's Bakery to get handicap service? How am I supposed to know that a business doesn't support gay marriage? It's not like they usually advertise that information. And my guess is that they just didn't find a Muslim bakery that they wanted to make their cake. Even in cases where the business owner's views are well established (see Chick Fil A), I guarantee you a gay couple would still be served there.

Re:An intern. Sexual Harassment by definition.

[Stolovaya]

1) That's...not sexual harassment. If she did not want his advances and he repeated them, that is sexual harassment.

2) Everyone's of legal age of consent. You can age-shame if you want, but it just makes you look like a wacky puritan.

3) ...wait, stylized rape? Okay, I'm done.

Re:Cue the assholes ...

[serviscope_minor]

So?

No one is stopping these people from saying their punky, assholey, douchey and moronic things. They are still free to host their own servies or head over to 8chan and voat. Mainstreal places are never going to want to have punks, assholes, douchebags and morons around.

But who cares? The right to free speech ensures they'll always have somewhere to go even if they make it themselves.

Re:Someone hand me the chlorine

[epyT-R]

I assume you're talking about social justice warriors?... or are you talking about the ones they label bigoted haters? The ambiguity of your post makes me wonder.

As far as I'm concerned, the people who demand censorship to silence expression their feelings cannot abide are the ones ruining it for everyone else. On my internet, you're free to disagree and voice that disagreement, anonymously if you choose. I'm not so sure the other side would be so generous towards those with differing views to their own.