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Reddit Updates Content Policy, Bans More Subreddits
AmiMoJo writes: Reddit's new CEO, Steve Huffman, announced new a content policy and the banning of a small number of subreddits today. Additionally, some subreddits will be "quarantined", so users can't see their content unless they explicitly opt in. "Our most important policy over the last ten years has been to allow just about anything so long as it does not prevent others from enjoying Reddit for what it is: the best place online to have truly authentic conversations.I believe these policies strike the right balance."
The names of the nixed subreddits make clear that they're not exactly neighbors exchanging pleasantries.
Essentially, the commenter was complaining about a double-standard. Why are communities focused on hate for a group removed when other communities that focus on brigading (actively downvoting comments in a thread on a different community) and attacking people for their views. The OP posted a comment 4 years ago about r/rapingwomen and r/beatingwomen and how they should not be banned. This was in the context of reddit standing for freedom of speech. His logic was "if you want a truly free reddit, you can't ban communities like these, despite how terrible they may be." Someone dug up his comment, reposted it in ShitRedditSays, and people started attacking him from all angles - calling him a rapist, etc. He's feeling like reddit is picking and choosing which "harassing" subreddits are ok, and which aren't.
SRS (/r/shitredditsays) is a subreddit (forum) in which users post links to comments in other subreddits they find "offensive." The other users then follow that link to exact bloody revenge. And I mean bloody. They do not just "brigade" (which is also against the rules), downvoting en mass and posting insults. They go through somebody's post history and downvote everything they've ever said. They go farther still, "doxxing" people, breaking their pseudo-anonymity by going through their post history to try to uncover their real identity. Then they go further still, harassing that person in real life, and contacting their employer and trying to get them fired for opinions they expressed on the internet. It is the definition of harassment, in violation of the terms of the service of reddit and common human decency. Yet, SRS is never disciplined, never banned.
And in case you're wondering "well maybe these people deserve it!" No. Not by any stretch of the imagination. It's not like they're uncovering child abusers or something. They take anything that even maybe hints of "privilege" or insensitivity and spin horror stories out of whole cloth. In Warlizard's case (the guy who wrote the comment the GP reposted), he, talking about censorship, said that if reddit stands for "free speech" as they claim to, then no they shouldn't ban offensive subreddits like /r/rapingwomen. He goes on to say that if he had a private forum that he hosted, and someone made a subforum for that topic, he would ban it in a heartbeat because it's horrific and offensive. However, SRS took the first part of that and ran with it, called him a "rapist," followed him around, harassing him, and leaving nasty reviews on Amazon of the books he's authored.
They do this to lots of people. They want to be Social Justice Batman, but they're kind of like Batman if he were mentally retarded and high on crystal meth, programmed to punch anybody who utters certain words, regardless of context.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
The rules are that anything that causes Reddit headaches or additional work is subject to be banned, or so the CEO has said in his latest comments on this round of quarantining/banning. Though their new policy doesn't exactly make it clear that's the case. So anything they don't like or that makes them work is subject to being removed from the site.
However, the thing everyone keeps missing is that some random internet site (in this case, Reddit) is owned by some other person or entity, and they can censor stuff on their own site as much as they want. If you don't like it, find another site, or buy your own.
This can't be stated enough. Freedom of speech is a protection from government censorship, not websites, stores, or other private operations. It amazes me how many people just don't get that.