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.

Comments

the partial list, for the unititiated.

[nimbius]

among the list of banned subreddits:
/r/CoonTown, /r/WatchNiggersDie, /r/bestofcoontown, /r/koontown, /r/CoonTownMods, /r/CoonTownMeta.

not exactly sterling content that spurs thoughtful collaboration and debate. It harms the reddit brand, but id argue this is less censorship and more spam control. Reddits purpose is entertainment, social networking, and news. If you want flagrant unsubstantiated and indefensible racism, most routers still manage to handle connection requests to the servers at stormfront and about a hundred other different sites.

Re:the partial list, for the unititiated.

[Anonymous Coward]

It harms the reddit brand, but id argue this is less censorship and more spam control.

I'd argue that it is censorship, and ultimately it does damage the reddit brand.

People are being racist and horrible on your internet site. Get over it. Supporting free speech means defending people's rights and ability to speak, even if it is about things you do not like, be it pornography or racism. The increasingly shill excuses that these people in sites and subreddits most of us have never heard of people are "harassing" others is simply a hysterical veneer on a coldly calculated censorship drive.

Ban these racist sites today, what comes tomorrow? I'm sure there's a subreddit for so called "interracial porn". Is that racist? Does that get banned? What about subreddits promoting interracial marraige? Same sex marraige? Gay rights? You can easily find LOTS of people who think all of those are offensive. Do they get quarantined so reddit can maintain a cleaner media image? Go the other way in the US culture wars. What about subreddits against gay marraige? Against divorce? Promoting conservative religous values in society? Again LOTS of people are offended by those. Do we quarantine those too? Subreddits covering islamic terrorism? Incidents in the West Bank? Systemd criticism?

What is the condition for quarantine here? When does free speech break down? Answer: After a 2-3 year slow burn media campaign to demonize reddit for allowing subreddits to exist which offend media owners.

Reddit started off as a free speech site. Create the forum you want. For the last few years the presence of these relatively small racist or unpolitically correct subreddits has drawn the ire of those with media influence, and reddit has been placed under gigantic social and media pressure to effectively, enforce "basic standards of decency". Hence this quarantine.

You may agree that reddit was justified in conforming to the pressure in this case. But the next group to put media pressure on the site may not be the group you agree with. Reddit has made a decisive turn away from its free speech principles, and some of those applauding now will come to regret the loss of the promise that site once offered.

Re:Voat

[0100010001010011]

NO. Stop going to a single site for everything.

<Back in my day> There were forums dedicated to separate topics. I didn't have to worry about someone judging my post on VWVortex by what I said on Slashdot. I kept separate usernames. Now everyone uses the same username for *everything*. And now every site has a 'facebook' login. I *DO NOT* want all of that stuff linked.

Defending scoundrels

[claytongulick]

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

                — HL Mencken