Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
"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.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
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.
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.
Then you haven't been to reddit. What you are asking for has NEVER been the way that site works.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
The problem is that the definition of "punks, assholes, douchebags and morons" can change.
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.
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.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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.
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.