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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.

240 of 410 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Frosty Piss by indy_Muad'Dib · · Score: 1

    at least its not hot grits.

  2. Hmmm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So, it's banning communities of people who draw distasteful pictures, and those who are racist against black people?

    1) Abhorrent as the former are, who are they harming? i.e. what is the objective justification for banning them, beyond, "These people are fucking sick" - probably true, but so what?

    2) While the latter appears may include some groups dedicated to posting gore videos posted without subject consent, there seem to be some fairly mild groups among that list when contrasted with other non-racist harassment groups that have not been banned.

    1. Re:Hmmm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They don't have to. Then again, as they keep changing the rules, it's difficult to argue against people who were perfectly compliant to the former rules that they did something wrong.

    2. Re:Hmmm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If sites had to cater for their visitors, you wouldn't have a point.

    3. Re:Hmmm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Well in that case we should close up this thread. Why bother having a conversation about what happened at all? It is their site, so it isn't our concern ..

      Or did I miss something?

    4. Re:Hmmm. by nanoflower · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

    5. Re:Hmmm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      1) Abhorrent as the former are, who are they harming? i.e. what is the objective justification for banning them

      It shuts up the screeching SJWs for a week or maybe two. Probably worth it for Reddit.

    6. Re:Hmmm. by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

      'Freedom of speech' is an awesome and wonderful thing. But where do you draw the line?

      It's simple: you don't. It's right there in the First Amendment: any speech is legal, as long as it isn't something along the lines of yelling "fire" in a theater.

      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.

      So, if you're talking about legality, the line is speech which constitutes an actual threat of harm or causes people to get hurt (this is case law dating back decades or more). If you're talking about privately-owned forums, the line is wherever the owner of that forum decides it to be. If the owner of that forum wants to just ban people and posts arbitrarily, for no good reason at all, that's their right.

      Freedom of speech doesn't mean you're entitled to use someone else's podium for your speech.

      So, to address your other points:
      Is it as OK for someone to have a discussion forum where they talk about all the sexual fantasies they have about children
      Answer: yes. It doesn't put anyone in immediate harm (the fire-in-theater-test), so it's legal. You probably won't find many public forums willing to host that kind of discussion, so you'll have to set up your own forum and pay for it yourself.

      Is it as OK to have a place where people are talking about how blacks and immigrants are awful and how they shouldn't be 'allowed' to live as well as white people

      Answer: yes, with the same caveats as above. Stormfront did exactly that; they have their own site, so no one can censor them there. If you want to participate in racist discussions with a bunch of low-foreheads, point your browser there.

      How about religious extremists promoting violence as a way of spreading their (version of their) 'faith'

      Answer: yes, with the same caveats as above. There's countless churches that preach this crap every Sunday in person too.

      There has to be a balance

      So you're arguing for government censorship? Are you forgetting that about half the people in Congress are from a party that sides with religious people who advocate violence? This is the government you want censoring things?

    7. Re:Hmmm. by Curunir_wolf · · Score: 1

      the anonymity of it just enables the absolute worst possible behavior in them

      He said anonymously...

      You can sit there all day long and say 'You have to take the bad with the good', and that's fine and dandy in the abstract, but the reality of that statement, completely unbounded, ends up destroying free speech: extremists end up being louder than everyone else because that's what extremists do.

      There are extremists on both sides that do that, and people learn to just tune them out. It doesn't destroy free speech at all. What destroys free speech is banning anonymity. You seem to enjoy it yourself. You've used it to post a thoughtful and interesting comment (even though your premise is wrong).

      Anonymous free speech is how the U.S. was founded (even The Federalist Papers were released using nom de plumes). It's how abolitionism took hold. It's how people in repressive regimes expose the extent of the oppression. It's how people with unpopular opinions (that are nevertheless often correct) get their messages heard without getting ostracized and forced into silence. Worse, demanding a positive identity for speech is a form of prior restraint - it can be intimidating.

      --
      "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
      --- Jerry Garcia
    8. Re:Hmmm. by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

      i.e. what is the objective justification for banning them

      Maybe you should RTFA?

      I know some of you are upset because we banned anything today, but the fact of the matter is we spend a disproportionate amount of time dealing with a handful of communities, which prevents us from working on things for the other 99.98% (literally) of Reddit. I'm off for now, thanks for your feedback. RIP my inbox.

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    9. Re:Hmmm. by ScienceofSpock · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

    10. Re:Hmmm. by lgw · · Score: 2

      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.

      Blatantly false. Freedom of speech is a basic human right, a founding principle of the USA, and an all-around good thing to have. The First Amendment only protects you from censorship by the federal government, and by other amendments, state and local governments (not that that stop state-funded universities from becoming the least-free places in America for speech).

      The owner of a website has every legal right to be an asshole to his users. Doesn't change the fact he's still being an asshole, and should be called out and criticized for it. (Only in the mind of progressives are "what I think is right" and "what people should be legally compelled to do" the same.)

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    11. Re:Hmmm. by Kierthos · · Score: 2

      But if Reddit (or any other site) bans a topic of conversation, they are not infringing on your free speech rights. You're still free to say it. Just not there.

      You have a right to free speech. You do not have a right to force others to listen.

      Furthermore, most sites have a "terms of use" agreement for people who post comments. If you agree to those terms of use, you are inherently accepting any limitations in those terms of use, and can't reasonably claim that they're denying you freedom of speech if they mute/ban you if you breach those terms.

      Reddit is not required to give you a forum for something they don't want on there.

      --
      Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
    12. Re:Hmmm. by lgw · · Score: 2

      But if Reddit (or any other site) bans a topic of conversation, they are not infringing on your free speech rights. You're still free to say it. Just not there.

      If a site used to allow X, and now they don't allow X, then I am now obvious, in practice, less free to express X than before. If it's a knitting site, and X has nothing to do with knitting, that's one thing. But if users has areasonable expection based on the history of the site that "here's a place we can talk about X", and the site then changes to ban X, then they're being assholes.

      If you create an online community, then destroy it, you're an asshole. Simple as that.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    13. Re:Hmmm. by jakimfett · · Score: 1

      If you create an online community, then destroy it, you're an asshole. Simple as that.

      Actually, it's not as simple as that. If you're being an ass online, and doing in a way that didn't used to be against the rules, but then the rules changed, and they retroactively cleaned up the vitriol you were spewing, that doesn't make you less of an ass, or the people who wrote the rules "assholes". Sometimes, it just means that there's a lot of toxic asshats, and you were lower on their list of "toxic stuff to clean up" than something else.

      Simply put, just because a bunch of toxic people have a community doesn't mean they're any less toxic.

      A site that used to allow X, but now prohibits X, doesn't make you less free to express your own special flavor of X. You're still free to say it. Or type it. "Freedom" doesn't mean "guaranteed platform".

      Keep in mind, I have concerns about how Reddit is managing their site. "Making it less easy for toxic nincompoops to spew vitriol" isn't one of the things I have concerns about.

      --
      Bits of code, random ramblings: jakimfett.com
    14. Re:Hmmm. by UncleTogie · · Score: 2

      But if users has a reasonable expection based on the history of the site that "here's a place we can talk about X", and the site then changes to ban X, then they're being assholes.

      This is exactly what Huffman's been doing. Basically, he's trying to turn in into San Angelo from Demolition Man... a happy-happy safe-place where no one ever hears a harsh word. That whirring sound you hear? It's Aaron Swartz spinning in his grave.

      --
      Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
    15. Re:Hmmm. by zieroh · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      Speaking as someone who runs an internet forum, I can appreciate their position on that point. If 2% of the people cause 90% of the problems, the obvious thing to do is ban those 2%.

      --
      People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
    16. Re:Hmmm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Unless that 2% is also include the 1% who post original content. The 99% will get bored of the old meme without weekly new contribution.

      Also what is the big deal with racist peoples? Everybody is racist. It's life. What is wrong is tolerating racism about white peoples while doing a crusade against racism about brown peoples (or PoC in SJW terminology). It doesn't make any sense, either accept that everybody is racist and tolerate all venting, or ban all racist speech. Else you are only an hypocrite.

    17. Re:Hmmm. by Ralph+Wiggam · · Score: 1

      It isn't about "harming" anyone. These subreddits got banned for the same reason that /r/jailbait got banned years ago- they bring shitty people to the site, who then vote and post in all of the other subreddits.

    18. Re:Hmmm. by Curunir_wolf · · Score: 1

      Back up the horse, AC. I was responding to your post, done anonymously, that criticized anonymous speech. It did. Quoting from your original post:

      The problem with the Internet in general is that for some people, the anonymity of it just enables the absolute worst possible behavior in them, ... ends up destroying free speech.

      No, you didn't call for a ban, specifically. However, you premise was clearly that it was anonymous posting that caused the problem.

      jackasses like the two of you being hypocrites yourselves. Either that, or you're just more of the rediculous trolls who infest the Internet, and are here for one reason only: To argue with people for the sole purpose of arguing. Which are you? Or are you part of the horde of hate-mongering assholes that Reddit is kicking to the curb?

      Nevermind - I see that you've decided to prove your own point that anonymous posters are typically hate-filled ranters hiding behind anonymity to launch personal attacks because they have nothing useful to say.

      --
      "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
      --- Jerry Garcia
    19. Re:Hmmm. by ScienceofSpock · · Score: 2

      Semantics. Clearly, I was referring to the First Amendment protection from government censorship, not freedom of speech in general.

      Another point that I want to make: A website telling you that you cannot speak about certain things is not in ANY way curtailing or abridging your right to free speech. They are not telling you that you cannot talk about a subject, just that you cannot talk about a subject HERE. That is an important distinction. Yes, you have the freedom to speak about whatever you like, whenever you like and wherever you like, however, If it's on my property, I have the right to make you leave if I don't like it and guess what? I haven't violated any of your rights.

      And lets be honest, if you are talking about a "touchy" subject on private property, and the owner of the property doesn't like it, who is really being the asshole? Your rights don't trump the owner's rights, and that's the part most people don't get.

    20. Re:Hmmm. by lgw · · Score: 2

      For every horror in all of history, every genocide, those who spoke against the horror were labeled as "toxic nincompoops who spew vitriol". Merely because the label is often correct is no excuse for banning it. Keeping it off the front page so people do see it by accident? Sure - do that thing.

      But Reddit has clearly changed from a place that built a community on the promise of free speech, to a place that's monetizing it's community. Wouldn't want anything offensive on the rails of the money train.

      Meh, I never saw the appeal of Reddit in the first place, but plenty of people did and I hope they find a better forum somewhere. Maybe people will return to the place we don't talk about? That would be lively.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    21. Re:Hmmm. by blue+trane · · Score: 1

      Yeah, let them run the site completely of themselves, by themselves, for themselves. We don't have to pay any attention to them at all.

    22. Re:Hmmm. by lgw · · Score: 1

      They are not telling you that you cannot talk about a subject, just that you cannot talk about a subject HERE. That is an important distinction.

      When Google caves to government pressure to remove something from search results, that's effectively government censorship. Yes, there are other search engines, but very few use them. When Facebook caves to government pressure to remove something, that's effectively government censorship. Yes, there are other social sites, but very few use them.

      One company off in the corner banning something? No problem. And Reddit might fall that way (they're still assholes though). But when one or a few places to talk dominate the choices most people are aware of, then if they all ban something that really does limit your freedom. Freedom in the abstract with no way to practice it is meaningless.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    23. Re:Hmmm. by Crashmarik · · Score: 1

      hypocrisy and kittens, they're what makes the internet go doncha know ?

    24. Re:Hmmm. by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Do they actually advertise that they have "free speech" forums with no restrictions whatsoever, and that anything goes? I doubt that.

      Besides, if you're unhappy with their service, you can always request a full refund of the money you paid to have an account there. I'm sure they'd be happy to do better, and refund you 1 million times your membership fee.

    25. Re:Hmmm. by ScienceofSpock · · Score: 1

      When Google caves to government pressure to remove something from search results, that's effectively government censorship. Yes, there are other search engines, but very few use them. When Facebook caves to government pressure to remove something, that's effectively government censorship. Yes, there are other social sites, but very few use them.

      Reddit isn't caving to government pressure. They've basically decided that discussions about certain topics are of little value to the operation of THEIR website. They are allowed to do that since they own the website. Is it censorship? You betcha. Is it a violation of your First Amendment rights? not in the least.

      You have the right to say what you want, they have the right to kick you off their property for speaking about things they don't like. If you don't like it, go to a public venue, or create your own website to do it. Just because you perceive this as a restriction of your freedom of speech doesn't mean it is. Just because you have a first amendment right to freedom of speech doesn't mean that any private entity has to facilitate it, or allow you to use their resources to exercise it.

    26. Re:Hmmm. by EndlessNameless · · Score: 1

      For every horror in all of history, every genocide, those who spoke against the horror were labeled as "toxic nincompoops who spew vitriol".

      No, they were usually labelled unpatriotic and often accused of secretly aiding the latest "enemy of civilization".

      But Reddit has clearly changed from a place that built a community on the promise of free speech, to a place that's monetizing it's community.

      That outcome was guaranteed the day it was sold to a publicly-traded corporation. I'm surprised it took as long as it did to become obvious. Maybe Reddit's owners are a bit more insightful or careful than Slashdot's.

      --

      ---
      According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
    27. Re:Hmmm. by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      ISPs are a special case, because they're a telecommunications provider. Way back, before the internet, the phone companies ran into this issue, and they were legally deemed "common carriers". The deal was, they could not censor or hinder customers' communications in any way, and in exchange, they were immune from any legal liability for those communications. So if some terrorists used the phone network to plot an attack, the phone company was not liable for that, because it wasn't their job to listen in on everyone's communications (and instead, because of privacy, they're explicitly not allowed to; only police with a warrant were allowed to "wipe-tap").

      For some strange reason, this principle has been completely forgotten about in the Internet Age, and we're reinvented it with the name "Network Neutrality". But it's basically the same idea, and it's galling that this wasn't firmly established 20 years ago (with some possible exceptions for QoS: Skype packets should be prioritized over email and bittorrent packets, for instance).

      For ballpoint pens, that one is a bit ridiculous, because it's plainly impossible to enforce. It's also plainly illegal according to the First Sale doctrine. Companies can't sell you physical items and then tell you what you can and can't do with them, including reselling them to others (though they don't have to honor warrantees if they're "used" or not sold by authorized dealers). They can try to put up technical hurdles (like chipped printer cartridges), but there's no legal weight behind them, and depending on how reasonable those hurdles are, they can get sued for them if they weren't disclosed before (unfortunately, the claim that 3rd-party or remanufactured consumables are inferior is sufficient, since the printer and coffee maker companies both use this excuse).

      Ceasing to use one isn't that hard, but it does mean giving up your account and the reputation it's built up, the community including what may be a number of personal friends, etc.

      Yes, but this account is 1) free of charge and 2) on someone else's servers, which is costing them money in bandwidth, electricity, hardware, and administration. You are not entitled to getting a service for free; this is the fundamental issue here. If you don't like their service, you can demand a refund (of $0.00), and use a different service, or start your own. I guess you could try to get the law changed so that Reddit isn't allowed to ban anyone or censor in any way, and must give white supremacists their own forums, but 1) if that ends up costing Reddit too much, they'll just shut their doors, and you won't have a service at all, and 2) good luck getting politicians to push a law to help out blatant racists. Even the Republican politicians aren't dumb enough to get behind that; many of them support certain forms and amounts of racism, but they certainly aren't completely blatant about it.

    28. Re: Hmmm. by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Oh please. It's not like the racists are going to take over /r/movies or whatever. What are they going to do, start having conversations in some other forum? You don't think the mods there will swiftly ban them?

      And who cares if they're "hard to find"? They're simply going to leave Reddit and find some other forum, perhaps Stormfront (which happily allows that kind of talk). It's not Reddit's job to be the moral police, they just don't want to deal with racist scumbags, or have them tarnishing the site's image.

    29. Re:Hmmm. by EndlessNameless · · Score: 1

      Unlike the government, Reddit was not founded to protect your freedoms or to defend you. They have no obligation to provide an avenue for you to exercise your right to free speech.

      That is often the problem with unpleasant speech---finding an avenue and an audience. The burden is always on the deviant to prove his views are worthwhile, and I am perfectly fine with that. It's essentially a form of herd skepticism.

      If there are deliberate roadblocks with personal penalties for expression, that changes things. Refusing to provide a podium or choosing to ignore someone is one thing; punishing him for speaking is something else entirely.

      The guy thinking outside the box already has to demonstrate why his ideas are better than conventional wisdom and prevailing attitudes; there is no point in obstructing the dialogue.

      --

      ---
      According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
    30. Re:Hmmm. by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      There's nothing stopping you from paying $5/month somewhere and setting up a crappy Wordpress site where you and your racist buddies can chat all you want. The Google bit is apples-and-oranges. Google is not a forum (not the search engine part anyway), it's a way to find stuff. A forum is a forum, a destination, a "community". And finally, "caving to government pressure" implies a form of censorship. Reddit isn't "caving to government pressure", they're removing some assholes from their site voluntarily, because those assholes make them look bad and cost them a lot in administration time. Private companies have every right to select who their users/customers are, as long as they don't discriminate along federally-protected classes. If you're making a scene in a brick-and-mortar store, the manager has every right to force you to leave, and if you refuse, the police will take you to jail for trespassing.

    31. Re:Hmmm. by ihtoit · · Score: 1

      'Freedom of speech' is an awesome and wonderful thing. But where do you draw the line?

      It's simple: you don't. It's right there in the First Amendment: any speech is legal, as long as it isn't something along the lines of yelling "fire" in a theater.

      How quaint. But there is one problem for you:

      The First Amendment does not apply in MY house.

      If it were MY webserver, it would be subject to the same rules as my living room. Period. Which means, if you don't like my rules (no drugs, no alcohol, no shooting at the windows with a BB gun), then you're perfectly entitled to FUCK OFF. The first priority for me is me. The second priority for me is commercial obligations (ie catering to advertisers who might like my rules which is why they CHOOSE to advertise with me). YOU are pretty fucking far down the list.

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    32. Re:Hmmm. by ihtoit · · Score: 1

      bollocks. Actually, no. You are perfectly entitled to say what you want. I on the other hand, am perfectly entitled to kick you the fuck out of my house if I don't like what you have to say. Or my webserver.

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    33. Re:Hmmm. by ihtoit · · Score: 1

      THIS.

      You're in Reddit's living room. You insult the cat, they're gonna justifiably kick you the fuck out.

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    34. Re:Hmmm. by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      How quaint. But there is one problem for you:

      Actually, there's a much, much bigger problem for YOU: you can't read!

      Go back and read my whole post. I said basically the same thing as your rant. You just read the first few lines of my post, got mad for some dumb reason, and ran off at the mouth without even bothering to read the rest of my post, which explicitly made clear the difference between public and private ownership of a "podium" from which to speak.

      No wonder everything is going downhill in this society. People see one little soundbite and start screaming, instead of reading the whole thing for context. It's also no wonder religious fundamentalism is so strong in America, with attitudes like this: just read one little phrase out of the Bible, ignoring all the context around it, and make up a whole belief system based on it.

    35. Re:Hmmm. by ihtoit · · Score: 1

      From where do you draw the assumption (that I take serious offence to, by the way) that I'm American?

      --
      Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
    36. Re:Hmmm. by CauseBy · · Score: 2

      No it's not. Here's you you do it:

      "Previously the rules didn't ban your odious behavior. We've fixed the rules."

    37. Re:Hmmm. by epyT-R · · Score: 1

      That's true, and I think most people get that by now. There's nothing wrong with expressing their opinions about what they think reddit 'should' do.

    38. Re:Hmmm. by epyT-R · · Score: 2

      Haven't you heard? Words can 'trigger' people, now, somehow...someway. If it hurts 'muh feels' then it's wrong, end of discussion.

      Meanwhile, racial generalizations about white people are perfectly acceptable discourse. They must 'check their privilege' after all as whites 'can't be victims of racism'. For great social justice, we get signal boost!

    39. Re:Hmmm. by vux984 · · Score: 2

      This can't be stated enough. Freedom of speech is a protection from government censorship, not websites, stores, or other private operations.

      On the one hand. Yes. You are right.
      On the other hand, the entire internet is a collection of privately owned entities.

      Your web host doesn't HAVE to have you as customer. So you get your own server.

      Your data center doesn't HAVE to have you as a customer. So you host your server from your apartment.

      Your landlord doesn't HAVE to have you as a tenant. So you buy your own property to put your server on.

      Your ISP doesn't have to provide you service.

      The internet -should- be a basic right. But its not.

      I'm not saying reddit should have to carry a subreddit they don't like. But we should have a right to put our content online, even if private interests don't want it. And the internet today... if the right private interests don't want your content, its as good as censorship.

    40. Re:Hmmm. by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      The lack of reading comprehension and the jumping to conclusions. I guess we Americans don't have a monopoly on those things after all...

    41. Re:Hmmm. by ameoba · · Score: 2

      It's pretty simple. If you give racists a home on your site, they will start congregating on your site (because nobody else will let them post their openly racist bullshit). The thing is, they don't just stick to the explicitly racist forums, they'll start using the whole site, as any other user. When you have a sizable number of racist users, submitting links, making comments and voting to increase the visibility of content as an organized bloc (remember, all links & comments on Reddit are pushed to the top based on user votes, not admin/moderator/editor fiat), the result is that the entire site, even the "non-racist" parts gets regular doses of white supremacist propaganda.

      The core demographic of Reddit, young middle-class white males, is exactly who white supremacists want to recruit. They're naive enough to buy into the "oppression of the white race" narrative that white supremacists continually spew.

      To put this in perspective, it's been estimated that Reddit's racist subs currently have more traffic than Stormfront - historically the center of online white supremacist activity.

      --
      my sig's at the bottom of the page.
    42. Re:Hmmm. by ultranova · · Score: 1

      It's simple: you don't. It's right there in the First Amendment: any speech is legal, as long as it isn't something along the lines of yelling "fire" in a theater.

      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.

      And since everyplace online or offline is owned by someone, this ends up being a rather clever way to render that First Amendment null and void in practice while still paying it lip service in speeches.

      Oh well, there will be a new version of First Amendment taking into account the realities of modern world eventually or, preferably, a technical solution, for example in the form of one of those anonymizing p2p networks taking off for real.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    43. Re:Hmmm. by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      And since everyplace online or offline is owned by someone, this ends up being a rather clever way to render that First Amendment null and void in practice while still paying it lip service in speeches.

      Somehow, StormFront doesn't seem to have any problems keeping their site running.

      You can always set up your own server too; you just have to sign up for the appropriate service level from an ISP.

    44. Re:Hmmm. by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 1

      But where do you draw the line?

      When it comes to state censorship, to silencing people by government force, there is no "line" to be drawn. It's all wrong, period.

      Is it as OK for someone to have a discussion forum where they talk about all the sexual fantasies they have about children, as it is to be criticizing their government? Is it as OK to have a place where people are talking about how blacks and immigrants are awful and how they shouldn't be 'allowed' to live as well as white people, as it is to be discussing what is and isn't good about how TV shows are being written and produced? How about religious extremists promoting violence as a way of spreading their (version of their) 'faith', as opposed to discussion of whatever religious text you care to name?

      Yes, yes, and yes, provided that by "OK" we mean "legally OK." I have my own personal opinions about whether various of these topics is socially acceptable, but "socially unacceptable" is not the same as "should be forcibly blocked." Why is that so hard for some some people to grasp?

      That doesn't mean I have to let you hold that conversation about disgusting pedophile fantasies in my living room, or that my local bar has to let the KKK rent out their upstairs room for meetings. But on the other hand if I agree to provide a communication service and then start removing content, at best I have a broken service, a defective product.

      I don't use reddit, but there seems to be a very simple solution to the problem of subreddits with content you object to: don't read them.

      extremists end up being louder than everyone else because that's what extremists do.

      "Extremist" is a content-free label. Abolitionists were extremists in the 1830s, and William Llyod Garrison was kind of loud. He was also right.

      --
      Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
      You cannot wash away blood with blood
    45. Re:Hmmm. by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 1

      These subreddits got banned for the same reason that /r/jailbait got banned years ago- they bring shitty people to the site, who then vote and post in all of the other subreddits.

      So...they have to limit the "acceptable" topics of conversation because their voting system is broken?

      --
      Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
      You cannot wash away blood with blood
    46. Re:Hmmm. by kuzb · · Score: 2

      Actually, in 2012, that was what they were telling people.

      http://www.forbes.com/sites/ka...

      `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.`

      --
      BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
    47. Re:Hmmm. by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      If you create an online community, then destroy it, you're an asshole. Simple as that.

      If you create a general online community, and find that the overwhelming majority of your users don't like having racist shit on it, and you respond to this by getting rid of the racist shit, you are not being an asshole. The ones who introduced the racist shit are the assholes.

      I would not choose to waste my time on slashdot if it included thriving sub-slashdots dedicated to paedophilia, videos of tortured animals and race hate.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    48. Re:Hmmm. by teknosapien · · Score: 1

      I think this is a bad idea. When you oppress ideas you drive those ideas underground where they will fester over time.
      At least out in the open there is an ability to debate and possibly change a destructive mindset.

      --
      no matter how good it is, it is human nature always wants to make things better
    49. Re:Hmmm. by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      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.

      Blatantly false. Freedom of speech is a basic human right, a founding principle of the USA, and an all-around good thing to have.

      Just so we are certain, your interpretation is not the one in the first amendment to the US constitution:

      Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Whic is all to say that there can't be any law dictating your religion or keeping you from your religion. It means that the government cannot make speaking your opinion a crime, or peaceably assemble, and that you are allowed to criticize and try to change the government by way of petition.

      While there is deliberate room for interpretation, this does not apply to private entities. It applies to congress and lawmaking You'll get thrown out of a chuch if you insist you have the right to go in there and make speeches about how to field dress a deer, or insist everyone engage you in a debate about how you want the country to become communist, while they are there for the service they want to have.

      Now if you want to talk about the superiority of communists and their methods of field dressing deer, you do have outlets to do just that, and if you can't find one, you can write a book, open up your own website - where you control the content, or stand i front of the courthouse and thunderscreech what you want.

      But nowhere in the first amendment is there a provision that people have a constitutionally ordered obligation to listen to your crap.

      If you think about it, it only makes sense. If someone comes into my electronics forum and starts going off about how The Present Occupant's administration has entered into a secret deal with Mexican illegal immigrants to cross the border in order to spread diseases to "white" Americans, and it starts the predictable flame war (this is something that actually did happen) I have every right to moderate the hell out of him. It's my forum, and it isn't the purpose of the forum. His weird jeramiad isn't at all related to the purpose of the group, and since it's been expressly stated that electronics is the topic of discussion, then I am allowed to turn on the moderation bit and block the resulting shitstorm until it goes away.

      This does not infringe on his right to tell his bizarre story. There are venues he can use. There is always alt.kooks, as well.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    50. Re:Hmmm. by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      If a site used to allow X, and now they don't allow X, then I am now obvious, in practice, less free to express X than before.

      So? Find another site, or make one of your own - Where you are allowed to say almost anything you want. You know the rules

      But if users has areasonable expection based on the history of the site that "here's a place we can talk about X", and the site then changes to ban X, then they're being assholes.

      If you create an online community, then destroy it, you're an asshole. Simple as that.

      No changes allowed, eh? Sounds like if your house gets a termite infestation you won't make a move to get rid of them.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    51. Re:Hmmm. by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      Well in that case we should close up this thread. Why bother having a conversation about what happened at all? It is their site, so it isn't our concern ..

      Or did I miss something?

      Because just like with Slashdot, their site with no or few users has little value. It's not the staff that makes up the website, it's the users.

    52. Re: Hmmm. by rbtechnosmack62 · · Score: 1

      Well,they should just close Reddit to the public and turn it into a website for Reddit employees.

    53. Re:Hmmm. by lsatenstein · · Score: 1

      So, it's banning communities of people who draw distasteful pictures, and those who are racist against black people?

      1) Abhorrent as the former are, who are they harming? i.e. what is the objective justification for banning them, beyond, "These people are fucking sick" - probably true, but so what?

      2) While the latter appears may include some groups dedicated to posting gore videos posted without subject consent, there seem to be some fairly mild groups among that list when contrasted with other non-racist harassment groups that have not been banned.

      Who are they harming? Have you thought out your comments. Here is an example. A guy puts up nude or porno pictures of his wife. --Disgusting.
      The wife finds out and divorces him. The internet is not a leakproof sieve, and before you know it, her picture is on the porn sites doing harm to her and her children. She can't remarry, and the jerk who did that has to fork over alimony and visit the bars Friday night looking for a pickup.

      How about Mr x badmouthing something or someone, and then Mr. x, you have established a reputation as a negative pessimistic jerk. The harm is to the guy, his career, his earnings, his wife, kids and neighbours. And yes, perhaps the good part is that Mr X will learn to keep negative, non-constructive comments to himself.

      --
      Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
    54. Re: Hmmm. by rbtechnosmack62 · · Score: 1

      They're getting ready to sell Reddit. Much in the same way one cleans a house before putting it on the market, Reddit is trying to tidy up their website before offering it up for sale.

  3. Truly authentic conversations* by NotDrWho · · Score: 5, Funny

    * but watch what you say

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    1. Re:Truly authentic conversations* by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

      Same thing is silently going on elsewhere as well - like on 4chan.

      The censorship canary is dead!

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    2. Re:Truly authentic conversations* by naich · · Score: 1

      Like real life then?

  4. Voat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Do what every other exile from Reddit has been doing, move on over to voat. It's a lot more reliable now. Every day there's more content. And the users aren't shitty (mostly)!

    1. Re:Voat by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Voat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Back in *my* day, we did go to a single "site" for everything. Usenet baby.

    3. Re:Voat by leonbev · · Score: 1

      Yeah, there are an amazing number of assholes on Reddit. Some people won't just stop at downvoting your comments in a single forum if you've posted something that you disagree with, but they'll go through your post history and downvote EVERY comment and post you've made in the last month or so.

      It's so bad that I have to use a different user name on other sites than on Reddit because some of those fuckers will track your username down on sites like Twitter and start badmouthing you there as well.

    4. Re:Voat by JoshuaZ · · Score: 1

      As someone who has been on both Reddit and Voat and got onto to Voat before the recent influxes, yes, Voat has a terrible problem with a much higher fraction of shitty people.

  5. the partial list, for the unititiated. by nimbius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
    1. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by Carewolf · · Score: 4, Funny

      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.

      What is CoonTown, it is like Arkham City only with Eric Cartman instead of Bruce Wayne?

    2. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Mostly it seems like a place where the assholes of the world can get together and continue being the assholes of the world.

      You know, the same assholes who show up here complaining about "SJWs" and acting like a bunch of petulant children because they have no lives and think being assholes makes them clever.

      And nothing of value was lost.

    3. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So anti-SJWs who point out that discriminating against white cis males is still racism and that any racism ultimately works against all groups of people get lumped in with /r/Coontown white supremacist dickheads.

      Flawless logic.

    4. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by tmosley · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm told it's a place where black on white crime is documented and discussed, since no-one in the media will talk about it, meanwhile any violent act, justified or not, by a white (or quasi-white) person against a violent black felon makes the national news for weeks.

      You can only push the pendulum so far in one direction before it starts to swing back, and violently. Sadly, that is now happening. The West has brought this on itself.

    5. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by DerekLyons · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Translation: It's a biased and bigoted subreddit where mental midgets 'justify' their racism.

    6. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Why not describe what's defective with these "anti-SJWs" instead of naming them for the good people they oppose. When you mean reactionary misogynists, just say so.

    7. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You were told wrong. It's a place for overt racism, nothing more. The claim that black people have some kind of "privilege" where their crimes against white people are ignored (LOL) and crimes by white people against black people are sensationalized is just a lame attempt to give it a veneer of credibility. If you read the actual posts on those boards (well, archived copies now) you can see that they are actually just full of abuse by white supremacists.

      As for why white on black crimes seem to make the news, I have two simple explanations for you:

      1. Often it's cops doing it, and cops murdering anyone running away from them or sitting in a car is news.

      2. Dog bites man != not news. Man bites dog == news.

      Screaming racist abuse doesn't solve either of these issues.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    9. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      >I'm told it's a place where black on white crime is documented and discussed, since no-one in the media will talk about it

      You were lied to by racists. The big question is, why did you buy their absurd claims?


      You can only push the pendulum so far in one direction before it starts to swing back, and violently. Sadly, that is now happening

      I expect a few stupid white supremacists to act out, and quickly be arrested or suicide by cop. Our brain-dead right-wing lunatics are not going to bring the country down to their level.

    10. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The claim that black people have some kind of "privilege" where their crimes against white people are ignored (LOL) and crimes by white people against black people are sensationalized

      Well, that does seem to be the trend on the national news these days. Stories of black on white crime, even some bad ones don't seem to get the publicity that white on black crime does. And, from what I understand, more whites are killed by cops annually than black are ?

      1. Often it's cops doing it, and cops murdering anyone running away from them or sitting in a car is news.

      I agree with this one..horrible. But horrible if a person of ANY race is killed by the cops unjustifiably. ALL lives matter.

      2. Dog bites man != not news. Man bites dog == news.

      Ok, this one, I'm hoping I'm reading your wrong, but this seems a VERY racist statement on your part?? Is the analogy of the role of Dog ==Blacks and Man == Whites? If so, you're saying the norm is for Blacks to kill/commit crimes on whites...which is so common place, it isn't really news?

      That's the translation I'm getting from it....? If not, what did you really mean?

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    11. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      It's not about numbers, it's about the specific problems that some predominantly black communities have.

      Also, my "man bites dog" point is based on an old refers to an old phrase. It's not a comparison, it merely highlights the fact that the media is more interested in uncommon events than in common ones. Maybe it's not a common phrase where you are, I thought it was fairly universal.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    12. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Good point, isn't it great to have this discourse to benefit of all who read it. Rather than censor those we disagree with, shouldn't we engage them?

    13. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by tmosley · · Score: 1

      Black on white crime is common? Much more so that white on black crime? And no-one talks about it? Those who do are racist?

      There is something legitimately wrong with you.

    14. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Most crime is not interracial. Black person is more likely to kill another black person, and a white person is more likely to kill another white person (FBI statistics).

    15. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Yes, they do tend to get lumped in with the white supremacists because instead of going to (or creating) subreddits for rational discussion of the issue they head over to /r/coontown to air their views.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    16. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by citylivin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes, all those poor oppressed white people by the black powers of the world. When will they get justice!

      Racists. Always think they are oppressed. Well they are, and for good reasons. Same as religious zealots.

      --
      As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
    17. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by Nrrqshrr · · Score: 1
    18. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by Some_Llama · · Score: 1

      they didn't have c4, biological agents or automatic rifles in 1865. (not to mention nukes, but i consider that somewhat unrealistic for a civil war)

    19. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by edjs · · Score: 1
    20. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by Some_Llama · · Score: 1

      how about we consider racism against all races instead of your favorites.

    21. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by Khyber · · Score: 1

      " 2. Dog bites man != not news. Man bites dog == news.

      Ok, this one, I'm hoping I'm reading your wrong, but this seems a VERY racist statement on your part??"

      You would think someone with a UID as low as yours would be old enough to know the old fucking phrase. Since you don't, shut up.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    22. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by Khyber · · Score: 1

      Go the fuck back to school you ignorant piece of shit.

      Man bites dog is a fucking journalistic meme - e.g. it's not newsworthy unless it's out of the ordinary.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    23. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by Khyber · · Score: 1

      " My definition of racism is discrimination based on race, regardless of the race"

      Considering there's only the human race, you're pretty narrow-minded and thus not likely qualified to even define ANYTHING.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    24. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

      How can you identify it as a problem if it's not actually visible in the numbers?

      Without numbers all you have is anecdotes.

    25. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      And, from what I understand, more whites are killed by cops annually than black are

      In absolute numbers, yes. Per capita (which is the relevant metric here), no, not even close.

    26. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by EndlessNameless · · Score: 1

      Considering there's only the human race, you're pretty narrow-minded and thus not likely qualified to even define ANYTHING.

      If there is only the human race, there can be no such thing as "racism". It's either misanthropy or nothing.

      Or maybe there's a third possibility---you knew exactly what he meant, and you decided to respond with a heaping pile of equivocation instead of forming a coherent argument.

      --

      ---
      According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
    27. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by tmosley · · Score: 1

      So talking about things that everyone already knows is racist?

      Talk about fucking Orwellian.

    28. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by tmosley · · Score: 1

      I see, so you are saying that black on white crime is common, while white on black crime is uncommon. This is a fact. And yet anyone who dares to speak about this fact is called a racist, or in your case "ignorant", which is fucking stupid when discussing FACTS. It is the literal OPPOSITE of ignorance.

      Do you fail to see your own racism here? Nevermind the implication that blacks are like animals, but the fact that you are talking about an evil, evil fact, just like those evil, evil racists?

      If you want to talk about whether or not the difference is caused by socio-economic status (it isn't) or culture (it might be), or some other factor (like how human brains perceive skin color, see "The Scary Sheep" on Youtube), then that is fine, but don't shut down the conversation by labeling people.

    29. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by tmosley · · Score: 1

      I wasn't alive in 1865. Racism is a subset of collectivism, and you have just proved yourself to be a collectivist. As such, I would not be at all surprised to find that you are yourself a vile racist.

    30. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by tmosley · · Score: 1

      I like how you advocate oppression of people based on their beliefs. Do you wear a swastika armband, or do you just talk like that on the internet?

    31. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by tmosley · · Score: 1

      He heavily implied that black on white crime rates are so high as to not merit reporting or outrage (ie that blacks are violent thugs who will kill or rob you at the drop of a hat), where white on black rates are so low that each incident makes the national news (and thus white people are wonderful angels who din do nuffin).

      Unlike liberals, I can see past the first level of an argument, and anticipate the implications (such as: liberals don't want to live anywhere near where blacks live--which is a fact. There are few libs in the South, where there are many blacks. They sequester blacks in ghettos in the cities too).

    32. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by Mashiki · · Score: 4, Interesting

      According to SJW's and the far radical left, racism = prejudice + power. Thus only whites can be racists.

      You can't forget all the crazy shit they're saying these days either, like ignoring someones race and basing actions on merit is racist. Merit is also racist, that's why github removed their meritocracy belief and inserted a CoC that directly targets whites. And before some radical nut starts with a 'lulz u white, u mad' post. Don't worry, you can call me a uncle tom, or something since I'm only half-white.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    33. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      I'm told it's a place where black on white crime is documented and discussed, since no-one in the media will talk about it, meanwhile any violent act, justified or not, by a white (or quasi-white) person against a violent black felon makes the national news for weeks.

      Yeah, being black is like having a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card tattooed on your forehead. That's why there is a disproportionately high number of white criminals in US prisons. Oh, wait...

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    34. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Black on white crime is common? Much more so that white on black crime? And no-one talks about it? Those who do are racist? There is something legitimately wrong with you.

      I imagine that, depending on where you live, crime is mostly black on black, or white on white. Most crime is economically based and fairly localised.

      A white person killing a black person simply because of the colour of their skin is as egregious as a black person killing a black person simply because of the colour of their skin.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    35. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Uhhh, you do realize that it is incredibly racist to say that whites are like humans while blacks are like dogs, right? I always find it hilarious when liberals show their true colors. "I'll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years." Go start another war in the Mideast.

      Is it "bring your retarded right wing friend to work" day here or something?

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    36. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by tehcyder · · Score: 1
      *golfclap*

      Yes, I was waiting for the old "Nazi" is German for National SOCIALIST, so all socialists are Nazis" gag.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    37. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by Revarg · · Score: 1

      I'm actually fairly certain that 5 of the 6 banned subs are about Eric Cartman. That last one is just to throw people off reddit's censoring of SouthPark.

    38. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by Shadowkahn · · Score: 1

      I take issue with the idea that Reddit must forever remain exactly what it was when it started. Things change. Audiences change. Advertisers change. Businesses that don't change to match external changes are doomed to failure. So even if Reddit started out as a bastion of free speech, there is nothing legally or morally compelling them to remain so.

      And I suspect the "free speech no matter what" thing has been overblown. In reading some of the CEO's posts, he's simply not good at writing, or thinking through exactly what he's saying. Starting up a chat site saying "We're for free speech no matter what!" sounds great, until you realize the racists, bigots, child pornographers, etc etc are going to take you seriously and start talking about what they want to talk about. Then you start thinking "gee, maybe 100% unfettered free speech isn't such a great idea, because I didn't really want this to become a child raping KKK fest."

      Or, in other words, Reddit may indeed have been created as a free speech platform, but as with any other right/privilege, retaining that free speech ability on Reddit required the users to act responsibly with it. And they didn't. And not only did they create their own little hate havens, but they started spreading that crap all over the rest of the site. I've even seen an uptick in racist comments in a localized city subreddit, and when I trace the username back, it turns out the little shit's a member of coontown and is actively trying to infect the rest of the site with his racist garbage.

      A prosecutor isn't going to give a damn that you're a champion of free speech when he's bringing you up on charges of hosting naked kiddie pics. An advertiser isn't going to give a damn about your free speech ideals when you're asking them to plaster their name all over a site that has people talking about lynching black people.

      The way I see it, Reddit can either be stupid and let these fringe idiot groups have a safe haven on the internet, get no ad revenue, and eventually go out of business, or it can be smart and get rid of the minority of users who are making the site look bad and therefore unattractive to advertisers, and in so doing can have a shot at staying in business.

      At any rate, no creator of any site anywhere on the internet is obligated to let anyone say anything. If you really want free speech on an internet site, then you need to create that site yourself. Don't rely on other people to do it for you and then whine when they don't create the site that you think they should have.

    39. Re:the partial list, for the unititiated. by tmosley · · Score: 1

      Not all socialists oppress people based on what they believe, but all Nazis sure do. And yes, Nazis were a subset of socialists.

  6. I'm opposed to censorship by Runaway1956 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    All kinds of forums, from Facebook on down to unheard of boards with a dozen members, have their rules. Some of them really piss me off, because they want only language, thoughts, and images that would be acceptable in kindergarden, or Sunday School. They REALLY piss me off.

    On the other hand - "/r/WatchNiggersDie" - WTF? Hey - you don't have to like black people. You don't have to love them. You don't have to live with a black person. You don't have to talk to them. If you're so bigoted that you can't abide a black person in your life, well, it's your loss. Hate, all you want. You have no right to expect normal people to accept, or even tolerate, the kind of shit I would expect on that forum.

    If you're that hateful, go post on Stormfront. You'll be welcome over there, I believe. But, they DO have some rules that you'll have to abide by.

    Funny - every community has rules to live by. Even a community of haters. Don't like the rules, go elsewhere, or make your own board.

    --
    "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    1. Re:I'm opposed to censorship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The difference would be if i invited you to my house, let you drink all the beer you wanted, told you itll be like this always, then changed the rules.

      THATS whats happening. Reddit was sold to a lot of people as a place you could express yourself freely. The creators stated as such. Now, as its gotten larger some people are upset because people who wanted free expression actually came, and it wasnt people THEY liked.

    2. Re:I'm opposed to censorship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A more fitting analogy would be:

      You invited everyone over to your house to pay for beer in order to make you incredibly rich. You started throwing certain people out because of stupid comments they made. The rest of the guests who don't make highly offensive comments are now becoming wary of you and looking for other house parties to visit and spend their beer money at. But that's okay, because they're all misogynist rape-monster privileged shitlords. You can just sit in the garage with your headmates, drinking racially responsible non-alcholic beer and cursing this big evil misognist racist world.

    3. Re:I'm opposed to censorship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > Literally "I'm opposed to censorship BUT" post
      > Give emotional justification "They REALLY piss me off"
      > Infantalises opposing argument "kindergarden"
      > Say moral majorty > speech rights "normal people to accept, or even tolerate"
      > Mentions Stormfront
      > Go somewhere else/Internet is private mall freedom excuse

      Basically 90% of the main social justice cultism in one post. It sounds reasonable, but suddenly now we're all OK with censoring others on the internet, even if we don't participate in their communities. I'm sure this won't come back to bite us in the ass later!

    4. Re:I'm opposed to censorship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You have no right to expect normal people to accept, or even tolerate, the kind of shit I would expect on that forum.

      In other words, you have no right to speech that I find really offensive.

    5. Re:I'm opposed to censorship by serviscope_minor · · Score: 2

      Reddit was sold to a lot of people as a place you could express yourself freely. The creators stated as such. Now, as its gotten larger some people are upset because people who wanted free expression actually came, and it wasnt people THEY liked

      Well that's just unacceptable. Reddit should offer those people a full refund of their membership fees!

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    6. Re:I'm opposed to censorship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "I disagree with you, therefore you must be a pedophile/misogynist/westboro baptist church goon".

      Great. We need to describe new types of fallacies for people like you. The old ones don't aptly describe your level of delusion, malice and inability to construct logical arguments or respond to them.

    7. Re:I'm opposed to censorship by alvinrod · · Score: 1

      It has less to do with not liking what someone is expressing and more to do with getting advertiser revenue. There's a whole lot of stuff that most advertisers don't want to have their product associated with, so Reddit just wants to sweep all of that under the rug so they can present a shiny-clean image to the world. If advertisers found kittens objectionable, you can bet they'd ban that as well, even if the owners were rather found of kittens.

      It's invariably the failing of a lot of new start-up products that start out without a good revenue model in place and then only end up alienating their users when they try to cram the revenue generating functionality in later (looking at you Dice) and it causes issues. You'd think people would stop throwing venture capital at companies that have no idea how to make money with their product, but apparently there's a good enough return there to keep doing it.

    8. Re:I'm opposed to censorship by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Reddit has grown up. They started out with the naive position that there should be absolute freedom of speech. Then they realized that legally they couldn't do that, because for example posting links to illegal material like child pornography would get them into trouble. Later they realized that in order to allow debate there has to be some other limits, like no doxxing, no harassing people, no raids etc. More than that, if the most popular boards were all about hating fat people and black people, most folks would stay away from their site and they would just turn into another shit *chan board full of trolls.

      Even 4chan eventually realized this and booted out the worst of the harassers, shutting down their threads. In fact even 8chan, the place where 4chan trolls went, has to have some limits. Reddit realized that they were hopelessly naive.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    9. Re:I'm opposed to censorship by Jack9 · · Score: 2

      > There's a whole lot of stuff that most advertisers don't want to have their product associated with, so Reddit just wants to sweep all of that under the rug so they can present a shiny-clean image to the world

      That seems ridiculous Statistically, NOBODY has a comprehensive understanding about all the subreddits that exist. There are literally too many to even visit them all. I didn't know about the ones being altered, nor did they list them all. Nobody has done a diff, because there's literally no way to iterate through all the private and public ones to know the exact changes. Conceptually, nobody can make a single association with an innumerable set of interests (especially a trivial minority of the traffic).

      They haven't swept anything under the rug, in making public policy changes and it hasn't affected the content, so I really have to wonder what data supports this conspiracy theory?

      Your views show a shocking ignorance toward digital advertising process. Advertisers don't care about "unwanted" audience segments, only the targeted ones (which can include exclusions among a targeted set) but it's never "they like cars but aren't bigots". Networks don't care about inventory (impressions) the way you are trying to characterize. Someone like Univeral Mccann drops millions of impressions on you and gives you the singular detail "here's our 500k sites, figure it out". Nobody manually prunes that with blacklists on some nebulous moral stance. The sites are all pooled because the content is a minor concern (usually you have quova or blue kai or digital envoy, etc etc do contextualization). If there is a budget from a DSP, they will look for those segments from the entire pool of inventory. The source is incidental, unless it's a vertical buy and then it's inclusive with explicit exceptions, as previously described.

      --

      Often wrong but never in doubt.
      I am Jack9.
      Everyone knows me.
    10. Re: I'm opposed to censorship by Khyber · · Score: 1

      "The normal, thinking individual understands that racism, sexism and discrimination are unacceptable in all cases."

      Want to know how I know you simply do not think?

      It's perfectly legal to discriminate against a minor when they're applying for a dangerous job that can deprive them of their life, or when they're trying to sign a contract. In fact, WE HAVE FEDERAL LAWS THAT EXPLICITLY ALLOW THIS because we originally WERE NOT DISCRIMINATORY ENOUGH and people got hurt.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    11. Re:I'm opposed to censorship by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      From trying to follow the discussions about all this stuff on Reddit itself (I'm not active there so I have very little context for all of it, and have to look things up as I go along), it seems that the majority of people who are annoyed at the changes are more annoyed at the admins dodging the discussion on what exactly the new rules are, as opposed to the rules themselves. E.g. a lot of people basically said that they're okay with r/coontown/ being banned, but that admins should just be honest and say they're banning them as hate speech, or because they bring undesired publicity. As opposed to beating around the bush with vague definitions such as "annoy other redditors" and all that, especially when many other subreddits that seem to also fall in the same bucket under a straight interpretation of what the admins say are untouched with no particular rhyme or reason.

    12. Re: I'm opposed to censorship by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1

      As already stated - you are not the norm. SJW is a valid description for a lot of activists running around the country making noise. Not only are they self appointed Social Justice Warriors, but they get to DEFINE SJW themselves. They get to define Social, they get to define Justice, they get it all.

      I say, "Fuck 'em all". They aren't putting bread and butter on anyone's tables.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    13. Re:I'm opposed to censorship by ameoba · · Score: 1

      If you're that hateful, go post on Stormfront.

      Stormfront doesn't even really want to be associated with the more extreme, violent individuals. They want to to keep a "clean" front and not be seen as promoting criminal activity.

      That's right, Reddit was harboring the racists that even Stormfront wasn't going to let inside. Their posting guidelines (archive link so your browser history is safe) prohibit obscenity, racial epithets, threats of violence, general shitposting & other crap that fills Reddit's racist subs to the brim.

      --
      my sig's at the bottom of the page.
    14. Re:I'm opposed to censorship by SirLordGodfrey · · Score: 1

      Everything you've mentioned are explicitly ILLEGAL according to state AND federal laws.

      Doxxing is often abused as a term - if you're famous, you can't exactly be doxxed. But it also often implies or even outright states some intent for others to do something horrible to the people that are being mentioned in the doxxing. Illegal.

      They're going beyond simply removing what was already illegal and needed to be removed/banned, they're removing subreddits and people with ideas that are slightly different or counter to what the administrators and moderators believe.

      No one really knew about "Fatpeoplehate" until they made it into a big fucking deal, all I know about it is that it was a subreddit that made fun of overweight people, and mocked the (now twisted) body image movement that has gone from stopping the shaming of obese people to trying to redefine what is medically healthy for the average individual to something that may not be healthy.

      Why are you SO invested in this? I've seen you constantly commenting, along with Poperatzo and serviscope_mirror, you're not actually helping people with real body image issues, or real weight problems, or people dealing with actual (physical/emotional) abuse, nor are you helping anyone whom is actually trying to alleviate the problems so many various peoples suffer.

      You're so invested in the idea, whether inadvertently or not, that non-white male heterosexuals are delicate flowers that will wilt and die without your help, that are perpetually the victim and never anything else. It is more hilarious when these same types of people, like you, lump ALL white people in as one "identity" when you ignore thousands of years of human history of people of the same damn skin color hating each other for trivial differences, of peoples of different regions but similar skin colors having their own histories and problems.

      You're either a GNAA troll, or you're drowning in the kool aid that the authoritarian left are giving out so freely. Eventually, the authoritarian right will be ascendant (again), what will you do then? Not that I want ANY authoritarians to have power... Since I'm using labels, libertarian liberals and libertarian conservatives are always better in my mind. But seriously, are you going to double-down and be more of an "underdog" than before, or will you "switch sides" so to speak, to continue to attack from a position of authority?

      --
      "Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment."
  7. Maybe a reddit user can provide more insight by bangular · · Score: 2

    I've spoken with reddit users and have heard accusations that shadow bans are being abused. What's involved in shadow banning someone? Are people being shadow banned for being involved in unpopular sub-reddits?

    1. Re:Maybe a reddit user can provide more insight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "shadow banning" is a bizarre "banned not banned" situation. The shadowbanned person can post, and to them it looks as if their post goes through but nobody can see the post aside from admins and the poster.

    2. Re:Maybe a reddit user can provide more insight by tapspace · · Score: 3, Informative

      I've spoken with reddit users and have heard accusations that shadow bans are being abused. What's involved in shadow banning someone?

      A shadow ban is a ban that is difficult for a bot to figure out (in theory, but it doesn't seem difficult to me). The user cannot tell the difference when logged in. However, their content is not being shown to anyone else. It should be as easy as clicking a permalink to one of your comments, then logging out and viewing the same permalink. If the comment is there when logged out, you are not shadow banned. I believe you can be shadow banned on both a subreddit and sitewide basis.

      I have one non-throwaway reddit account, and I keep it away from the front page or anything controversial. For front paging, I used to use throwaways. Nowadays, I pretty much try to avoid reddit. But, yes in the past, shadow bans seemed to be quite zealously applied. Sure, I've said some controversial and even borderline trolling things. You can basically get shadow banned from a subreddit for offending a moderator. In my experience, shadow banning happens usually because you merely expressed an opinion that diverges from the normative or expected normative position of userbase at reddit, the so-called hivemind. It's permanent. That account is effectively toast.

      Are people being shadow banned for being involved in unpopular sub-reddits?

      That I do not know. Maybe someone should do some experiments.

    3. Re:Maybe a reddit user can provide more insight by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 1

      Shadow banning is something admins do when they just don't like you.

      I posted a google search to someone's username, apparently to kids this counts as 'doxxing'.

    4. Re:Maybe a reddit user can provide more insight by OakDragon · · Score: 1

      Username : kafka

    5. Re:Maybe a reddit user can provide more insight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Shadowbanning is rampant on Reddit. You see signs of that all the time: a new article on /all with say "3 comments" and if you open it, there's none visible, or it says "5 comments" and when you open it, there's only 1 or 2.

      This is nothing new: whenever ideologies take over reality, the escalation routine is similar to this: complaining, lobbying, banning, shadowbanning and ostracizing first, then destroying reputation publicly, destroying careers, destroying livelihoods, reducing life to a minimum standard second. Not long after that. people will be outright persecuted, jailed or disappeared or murdered.

      First ideas, then symbols, then flags, books and lastly, people.

    6. Re:Maybe a reddit user can provide more insight by nanoflower · · Score: 2

      I agree that it does it happen as you state, but the latest statements from the new (old) CEO state that shadow banning should only be used in the case of spam. Now, will that actually be the case? Probably not, but at least you can rest easy in the knowledge that the CEO thinks spamming should be the only reason for shadow banning.

    7. Re:Maybe a reddit user can provide more insight by ReallyEvilCanine · · Score: 2

      > Are people being shadow banned for being involved in unpopular sub-reddits?

      Yes. It first became apparent in various Middle East-related subs. Participation in any "undesirable" or "enemy" thread would get an account banned in all the "friendlies" (much like how passport stamps work over there), and due to the power and pettiness that some mods have amassed, this could become a site or shadow ban.

      The shadow ban is truly insidious in its dishonesty. It may have been a way to combat bot recognition at first but that was long ago cracked. What we have now is a site eager to cash in and clearly having made the decision on how it will do so: through the highly vocal, easily offended SJWs. The lessons taught by decades of evolution witnessed in USENET, Slashdot, kuro5hin and others are being ignored.

      I'll go out on a limb and call the ouroboros flame-out and decline here, to become more visible by late '16. The offense grows exponentially, as does the self-entitlement, so it's going to be a bumpy ride. At that point figure some of the advertisers finally getting tired of the blackmail and other threats because they didn't send a private army to take on some AC for a joke that wasn't moderated away inside 30 sec. Whether reddit will recover will come down to whether the SJWs manage to retain control.

    8. Re:Maybe a reddit user can provide more insight by Forgefather · · Score: 1

      Are people being shadow banned for being involved in unpopular sub-reddits?

      I don't know, but there was period where offensive sub-reddits were locked and required an email address and consent to view. During an interview with the CEO one user asked whether this was a tactic to identify any people who were involved with the sub-reddits. While it remains unsubstantiated it raises an interesting question. I am sure that Reddit logged the email addresses, and we will know within the next couple of weeks whether this was a plan to out visitors for shadowbans or overt bans.

      --
      "There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
    9. Re:Maybe a reddit user can provide more insight by TWX · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Shadowbanning is probably the stupidest form of moderator action. It doesn't address the behavior that caused a need for moderator or administrator action. If anything, for users that don't know that they're shadowbanned it makes them think that their abhorrent behavior is okay because they're still allowed to do it.

      The only positive thing that shadowbanning does is to push-off the confrontation so that mods and admins don't have to deal with the day to day pushback from addressing site issues. I suppose that for sites reliant on ad revenue for traffic it also continues to allow that user traffic until the user realizes that they're banned, but it's still a poor way to go about it.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    10. Re:Maybe a reddit user can provide more insight by ttucker · · Score: 1

      Not long after that. people will be outright persecuted, jailed or disappeared or murdered.

      I did not realize Reddit was this serious...

    11. Re:Maybe a reddit user can provide more insight by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      He obviously wasn't making suggestions, right or wrong, that people wanted to hear. It's a place where following mainstream opinion is more important than being educated and having real world experience.

    12. Re:Maybe a reddit user can provide more insight by nine-times · · Score: 2

      My understanding is that the intended purpose of shadowbanning was for things like spam bots, with the idea that the bots can detect a normal ban and automatically switch to another non-banned account. At least based on some reddit conversations I've seen, you're not supposed to shadowban real people, but some mods and admins have been misusing the feature.

    13. Re:Maybe a reddit user can provide more insight by sethstorm · · Score: 1

      Are people being shadow banned for being involved in unpopular sub-reddits?

      Yes, but that's the least of it. The site has gone from open discussions to a history-revised narrative - favored subreddit groups (ShitRedditSays) get immunity from enforcement while everyone else gets the deaf ear when reporting abuse.

      About the only thing that would save it would be for Reddit (or its parent) to be bought up, the staff given its own purge, a purge of the social justice warriors, and a clearing of all bans (user, subreddit, shadow).

      --
      Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
    14. Re:Maybe a reddit user can provide more insight by Khyber · · Score: 1

      " If you want to detect your shadowbanning you'll need to log out and specifically go to the location of your comment in the thread manually."

      Wrong, just go to your userpage. If you're shadowbanned "Oops, there appears to be nothing here" will pop up. Even if you're logged into the account.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    15. Re:Maybe a reddit user can provide more insight by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 1

      Which was going to work for all of a day before they started to code around it. What's left is a weapon used against normal posters.

    16. Re:Maybe a reddit user can provide more insight by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 1

      It's not even a conspiracy theory anymore, Spez has publicly admitted that SRS is receiving preferential treatment and will not be treated like other hate subs.

      --
      A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
    17. Re:Maybe a reddit user can provide more insight by Mashiki · · Score: 2

      Shadowbanning isn't a moderator action, it's an admin action. You can ban someone from your subreddit, but it takes an admin to shadowban you. Though they say there are 'automated tools' that do it as well, of course the new CEO just finished say that "shadowbans are abused" then turned around and then a former FPH mod was shadowbanned asking why they they banned FPH when it broken none of the rules.

      But hey, SRS is still there...and the vast majority of redditors know why. It's the home of ex-admins and at least one ex-ceo who all have moderator privilege.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
  8. Top voted post of that thread, interesting point by vivaoporto · · Score: 5, Informative
    The top voted comments on that thread, an interesting enough point that is not being dealt with in these last rounds of purges. Reposted here without changes for benefit of the Slashdot audience.

    Last week an SRS user went nearly four years into my history and posted this in /r/ShitRedditSays:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitRedditSays/comments/3fkp3m/010212_petition_to_ban_rrapingwomen_sorry_cant/

    Taken with zero context, and without considering this happened in the midst of Reddit banning a few subs and /u/violentacrez getting doxxed, SRS users decided that I was tolerant of rape, or beating women, that I was lazy, a shit-poster, pandering to my "audience", suggested SRS users go to Amazon to see what a piece of shit I was, that I thought "rape" was "freedom of speech", and that I was objectively wrong and thought "freedom of speech" was moderating a website.

    They hadn't bothered to read the rest of my comments, where I said "If this were MY company and these subreddits were on MY board, I'd delete them in a heartbeat, because I find them personally offensive."

    I was banned from SRS years ago (not for commenting, just because one of the mods thought I should be -- that's their prerogative) so I messaged the SRS admins and asked for a chance to respond, considering this post was #1 in SRS.

    http://imgur.com/Z8EJh1c

    As you can see, the only response was "ROFL".

    /r/Fatpeoplehate was created to mock people based on a subjective perception.

    /r/Coontown was created to mock people based on a subjective perception.

    /r/Shitredditsays was created to mock people based on a subjective perception.

    This is their stated purpose:

    "Have you recently read an upvoted Reddit comment that was bigoted, creepy, misogynistic, transphobic, racist, homophobic, or just reeking of unexamined, toxic privilege? Of course you have! Post it here."

    They exist to mock and harass Reddit users.

    we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else.

    Your words.

    Please explain to me how holding other people up to ridicule without even allowing them to respond is good for reddit, encourages participation, and makes Reddit a safe place to express our opinions and ALSO differs from the subs you've banned.

    EDIT: And this comment was already linked in SRS:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitRedditSays/comments/3fx49i/meta_spezs_new_content_policy_unveiled_ctown_and/ctsvdrb?context=3

    mfw /u/WarLizard[1] pulls the "WHAT ABOUT SRS" card after being linked here. He regularly contributes to /r/KotakuInAction [2], not sure why he feels like he'd be welcome here at all. He's also complaining about the existence of SRS, so yeah right there he'd be banned. Oh no, a sexist/racist/homophobic/transphobic post was made and got linked here. WOULD ANYONE THINK OF THE RACIST'S FEELINGS?

    This is a perfect example.

    I have posted in KiA, and it has been fascinating to talk with the people there. Much like it has been fascinating to talk to the people in GamerGhazi.

    But without context, someone might assume that because I've posted or commented there that I'm racist, mi

  9. Redundancy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    That's exactly what I figured, too. There's already perfectly good places on the Internet for these folks to go. Maybe these sites aren't as cool 'n hip as Reddit, but then, coolness and hipness aren't so much of a concern for racists, are they? :-)

    I kind of can't help but wonder if the older-school douchebags on Stormfront et al. will be happy to get the influx of new blood, or if it'll be their equivalent of Eternal September....

  10. Oy Vey! by ZankerH · · Score: 3, Funny

    Your rights end where my feelings begin! Shut it down, goyim!

    1. Re:Oy Vey! by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Your rights end where my feelings begin! Shut it down, goyim!

      Yep, Reddit's right to host whatever the hell it wants ends where the feelings of the inhabitants of /r/coontown begin!

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    2. Re:Oy Vey! by siphonophore · · Score: 1

      The left is nothing if not adaptable. Their message for 40 years was consumer protection from corporate actions in every case, for every slight (no matter how slight). Now, as corporate power-brokers themselves, it's the consumers who should fall in line for these corporate angels. A little "four legs bad, two legs good" in the 21st century, all with the same hysterical tone that voiced the opposite just a few years earlier.

      --
      Dance like you're hurt, Love like you need money, and work when somebody's watching.
      -Scott Adams
    3. Re:Oy Vey! by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      The left is nothing if not adaptable.

      I don't really understand how "reddit can do what the fuck they want, quit whining" is a left wing issue. If anything, corporate freedom is a right wing thing. ...

      And in today's message you realise that those with power want more of it regardless of political affiliation.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    4. Re:Oy Vey! by ZankerH · · Score: 1

      I don't really understand how "reddit can do what the fuck they want, quit whining" is a left wing issue. If anything, corporate freedom is a right wing thing.

      It's the hyperleftist thought police that's forcing Reddit to shut down things that trigger them, though - which, for the most part, includes anything that's even slightly to the right of them on the political spectrum. They're working their way down the list, the only way this ends is they're either told to fuck off or the purges continue until they eat themselves.

    5. Re:Oy Vey! by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      It's the hyperleftist thought police that's forcing Reddit to shut down things that trigger them, though

      No it ain't. It's the almighty dollar. They are doing this because they want advertising $$$ and they want to grow the place. They believe this is the best way forward to maximize their revenue and growth.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    6. Re:Oy Vey! by ZankerH · · Score: 1
      That's funny, if this were really about advertisement (it isn't), I'd think the inevitable horde of comments taking a giant dump on the slightest suspicion of corporate shilling would be higher on their list than political opinions the radical left takes emotional exception to.

      It's a political play for power, pure and simple. They can't win the argument, so their natural response is to shut it down.

    7. Re:Oy Vey! by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      They can't win the argument, so their natural response is to shut it down.

      Ah yes, "they". And how precisely are they shutting it down? Sure they're making a fuss, but the board and managementof Reddit are the ones actually making the decision. And they're doing what they think is best for the site, in terms of money.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    8. Re:Oy Vey! by ZankerH · · Score: 1

      They (reddit) are capitulating to their (the triggered, offended, mind-raped weaklings') remorseless public and private pressure in the hopes that it'll go away. Hint - it won't. All the sub-reddits dedicated to lying about how reddit is a disgusting racist sexist patriarchal shithole are still there, and they're still howling for blood. Appeasing thought-policing thugs never works.

    9. Re:Oy Vey! by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      They (reddit) are capitulating to their (the triggered, offended, mind-raped weaklings') remorseless public and private pressure in the hopes that it'll go away.

      And why are they capitulating? Why do they care what those people say? Because they thing iof they don't capitulate they'll lose money.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    10. Re:Oy Vey! by ZankerH · · Score: 1

      ...because it's bad press for them, and they hope doing what the thought policing thugs want them to do will make it go away. That's clearly not the case, nothing short of becoming a thought policing thug yourself satisfies those people.

    11. Re:Oy Vey! by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      ...because it's bad press for them

      Any why do they care about what the press say? Because $$$ that's why!

      It's kind of hilarious people defending their free speech on Reddit and then turning around and whining how other people are using their free speech to criticise reddit.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  11. Animated/imaginary CP by Gaygirlie · · Score: 2

    Banning this one sounds like a bad idea to me. I know there are people who e.g. have issues with rage and are unable to control it, even with medication and therapy, unless they can find a safe outlet for it every now and then and for some of them violent videogames have been a great alternative. I would imagine imaginary CP could serve as a similar outlet. The people who get tickled too much about such and then go and do things for real will do it anyways, so banning such won't stop those people, but providing an outlet for people whom such content would help control themselves might, indeed, prevent them from taking it out on a real person. Of course, IMHO, there should still be some sort of therapy in addition to such, but our society makes it really difficult for people to admit such a problem even to professionals.

    1. Re:Animated/imaginary CP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Urm, I like lolicon, but I hate chilren. So this doesn't make me a pedophile.

      That said, I'm willing to defend this because it's artwork and literature. The fact that pedophiles and child molesters could use this to satisfy their urges is nothing more than a "bonus."

    2. Re:Animated/imaginary CP by meta-monkey · · Score: 1

      I agree in principle. I think more research needs to be done to find a way to "treat" (for lack of a better word) pedophiles (those who are sexually attracted to children) so they do not become molesters (those who act on their attraction). But we don't know for a fact that animated CP helps or hurts in that regard.

      And in general, I'm fairly sure it's still illegal in the US. I didn't think it was the last time I had this discussion, but someone linked me to a case of a man who was imprisoned for importing Japanese hentai comics featuring children. So I can understand banning a sub for something that's actually illegal.

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
    3. Re:Animated/imaginary CP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      How is that any different from those who try to "cure" or "treat" homophiles just because they dislike how they're attracted to another member of their sex?

      That said, for the sake of devil's advocate, please prove that someone having photos and recorded footage (read: not animation or drawings) of children engaged in sexual situations is going to cause the person to go out and molest children.

    4. Re:Animated/imaginary CP by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      Stop being the voice of reason, Gaygirlie, there's no room for that here! :)

      If I had mod points, they'd be yours.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    5. Re:Animated/imaginary CP by Gaygirlie · · Score: 1

      How is that any different from those who try to "cure" or "treat" homophiles just because they dislike how they're attracted to another member of their sex?

      Sex between consenting adults is quite different from sex between an adult or adults and underage children. And treating someone doesn't mean curing them; when you're treating someone with e.g. those rage-issues I mentioned in my post you're trying to help them control the rage, not trying to make them magically not feel the rage anymore. Treating a pedophile would be the same thing; trying to help them find ways to cope and control the urges so that they don't become totally overwhelming and to help them with any possible associated depression and such.

      That said, for the sake of devil's advocate, please prove that someone having photos and recorded footage (read: not animation or drawings) of children engaged in sexual situations is going to cause the person to go out and molest children.

      Red herring: meta-monkey never claimed anything such.

    6. Re:Animated/imaginary CP by Gaygirlie · · Score: 1

      I've actually tried to talk about this a few times in the past, but people tend to get offended as soon as I open my mouth, they just can't accept the idea of treating pedophiles -- persecution is the only Truly Acceptable(TM) way. I find that kind of appalling. We are already treating a lot of people with all sorts of generally untowards and socially possibly destructive traits and behaviours, why should pedophilia automatically be any different? Someone getting help for it without being subjected to overbearing hatred, threats of violence and whatnot could prevent cases of abuse and could make these people's lives more enjoyable.

      Certainly, someone who does not seem to be able to control themselves even despite help should be placed under intense scrutiny and not be let around children by themselves -- I totally am not saying they should just get a free pass --, but at the same time those who would be willing to seek and accept help should receive humane treatment and respect. But perhaps my view on the matter is just too radical for the world to accept it yet..

    7. Re:Animated/imaginary CP by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 2

      I agree.

      Pedophiles have a disorder that's not of their choosing, and they should be helped to control their orientation by whatever means are available- therapy and finding an outlet for their urges. Persecuting them does nothing to help them or the community in which they reside. If persecution does anything, it drives them underground where they may be more likely to offend.

      I know this is a "hot button" topic for many if not most people, but gays used to be treated similarly. Persecuting gay people was idiotic, ineffective, and it ignored the fact of who they are. (Granted, it's not the same as pedophilia because of the obvious issue of consent.)

      But here's the thing: no one, and I mean no one deliberately chooses to be a pedophile; it's simply the way they're made. Just like none of us chooses to be gay or straight or bi or whatever. It's just the way we are, it's almost never a "choice".

      None of us chooses our sexuality, but we can choose who we have sex with. Pedophiles are at one end of the spectrum, and I think it's clearly not something of their own choosing, it's simply baked into them the way heterosexuality or homosexuality is baked into the rest of us.The same way some of us prefer vanilla and some of us prefer mint chocolate chip- it's just what we happen to like and 99.9% of the time it's not something we get to consciously choose.

      I have sympathy for pedophiles in that they're saddled with a socially unacceptable desire, and what they desire is never going to be socially acceptable. It's far better to find ways to help them deal with it and mitigate the problem than to simply demonize them for the way they're "made", if you will.

      And before everyone jumps on me for "defending" pedophiles, please understand I am not defending or minimizing what they do. I'm simply cognizant of the fact that they didn't choose to be attracted to children, and I think it makes far more sense to recognize that and deal with it as effectively as possible (therapy, sex dolls, comics, whatever).

      Anything that keeps them from engaging in actual sex with actual children is infinitely preferable to shunning them and leaving them to try and deal with it on their own (which is obviously ineffective).

      Eventually society will grasp this, and hopefully promote treatment instead of ineffective persecution.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    8. Re:Animated/imaginary CP by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Germany has the right idea. Free and confidential therapy. Legally protected, can't be used against you. High profile advertising to encourage people who have those thoughts and feelings to take it up.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    9. Re:Animated/imaginary CP by modemboy · · Score: 1

      Hehe, reminds me of this Louis C.K. bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    10. Re:Animated/imaginary CP by meta-monkey · · Score: 1

      You could very well ask if photos and recorded footage does that?

      One could ask that. But it doesn't matter, as I explained, because the photos or videos of real children are completely off the table because their production hurts children. So, yes, one can ask "do photo and video pornography of real children help 'sate' molesters' desires, preventing further harm to children?" But I'm not asking that, and I don't care what the answer is, because it's never okay to definitely harm the child in the video in order to maybe, sort of, statistically, prevent some future hypothetical harm to hypothetical children sometime in the future.

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
    11. Re:Animated/imaginary CP by meta-monkey · · Score: 1

      How is that any different from those who try to "cure" or "treat" homophiles just because they dislike how they're attracted to another member of their sex?

      Because homosexuals can and do engage in consensual intercourse. The object of their desire can be had consensually, so there is no valid reason to prevent homosexuals from doing so. Children, however, are unable to consent to sex. Hence, there is no valid reason to allow pedophiles to engage in sexual activity with children, and instead a duty to prevent them from doing so. Punishment after the fact is one way of dealing with them, but it is not ideal, as the harm done to the child cannot be undone. It would be better if society could find a way of preventing pedophiles from molesting children in the first place, and one possible method is behavioral therapy or behavior modification. For lack of a better word, "treatment."

      please prove that someone having photos and recorded footage (read: not animation or drawings) of children engaged in sexual situations is going to cause the person to go out and molest children.

      That is only one reason for banning such material and punishing those who create or consume it. It may or may not be valid. The incontrovertible reason for banning such material is because it is de facto proof of child abuse. It can only be produced by abusing a child, so its production must be banned. And consumption fuels demand for production, so consumption must be banned as well.

      However, drawings or animation that are not of a real child do not have that same problem. No one was harmed in the production of the material. Therefore, it should be legal. But it would also be worth learning if such material is helpful in preventing actual child abuse, or harmful in encouraging actual child abuse.

      --
      We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
    12. Re:Animated/imaginary CP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      http://cphpost.dk/news14/national-news14/report-cartoon-paedophilia-harmless.html

      There is significant evidence that lolicon/shotacon (which some like to refer to as "cartoon CP", which has obvious negative connotations) is harmless. Aside from this study, consider the fact that such material is freely available and accessible by normal internet users. That alone indicates that law enforcement doesn't really give a shit, even in countries that explicitly ban it. The current US law would only make *obscene* works criminal. And obscenity laws are already quite dubious... technically I should go to prison for drawing a picture of 2 girls 1 cup, but no one in their right mind would waste time prosecuting such a thing.

      The common argument against it is that it actually promotes child abuse, which doesn't make sense in multiple ways. First of all, just like a straight man will not look at gay porn/yaoi and turn gay, a person will not look at loli and decide to become a child molester. Second, this is the same argument they tried to use with violent videogames a decade ago - so why should it be any different here?

  12. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Can you summarize the point? I read all you pasted and am still confused what the point is.

  13. Re:Obviously. by Nidi62 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If I own a restaurant or some other type of public establishment and people come in and have a discussion that is upsetting other customers I have a right to ask them to leave, correct? That is not censorship and that is exactly what Reddit is doing. They are not prohibiting people from expressing themselves, they just aren't allowed to do it on a website provided and maintained by Reddit. If they want to set up their own website they can feel free to do so.

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  14. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by Dan+East · · Score: 1

    Can you summarize the point? I read all you pasted and am still confused what the point is.

    Slashdot: News for redditors by redditors. I've only stumbled across reddit a couple times, and so I also have no idea what the significance of any of that is, or why I should care.

    --
    Better known as 318230.
  15. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by vivaoporto · · Score: 5, Informative

    /r/Fatpeoplehate being banned for harassment of individual redditors while /r/ShitRedditSays/ not being banned while their stated purpose is harassment of individual redditors.

  16. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  17. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by meta-monkey · · Score: 2

    Came to post this.

    Admins must be trollin'. There is absolutely no way they are not aware that SRS is the most toxic sub there is. They do more direct damage to individual users than every other sub combined. And not a peep from the admins. Double-U Tee Eff.

    --
    We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
  18. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 1

    Reddit lets some people brigade (SRS) while banning others. You can do anything you want as long as it agrees with their new direction.

  19. Re:Obviously. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just because it's not government censorship doesn't mean it's not censorship. It's legal, because Reddit doesn't owe anyone the use of the site to say what the owners of Reddit don't want to be said, and you may even agree with them, because after all they did start by banning truly despicable stuff, but it's still censorship.

    There's this old joke that has been attributed to many famous people:
    A man asks a woman if she would be willing to sleep with him if he pays her an exorbitant sum. She replies affirmatively. He then names a paltry amount and asks if she would still be willing to sleep with him for the revised fee. The woman is greatly offended and replies as follows: "What kind of woman do you think I am?" To which he responds: "We’ve already established that. Now we’re just haggling over the price."

    It's all too easy to give up principles, but there's no coming back from it.

  20. But the other patrons cannot hear the conversation by Marrow · · Score: 1

    Somebody will always be annoyed about something. Are they going to ban religion or atheism boards next? If they want to protect sensitive ears, then they should set-up an opt-in flag that will hide inflammatory reddts from searches and casual browsing.

  21. Re:Obviously. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    To carry your analogy further, your restaurant would have to be called "Anything Goes" and be launched on the idea that anyone can say anything and that freedom of speech is paramount - superseding all other concerns. The press interview you and have you on record saying that you're proud of the restaurant being a place that is uncensored and self-moderating (in that if people don't like the conversation at a table they are welcome to move to another), with each table out of earshot of all other tables, thus underlining how accepting of all opinions your restaurant is. Jump forward to the present and if you're surprised that patrons are upset that you're banning certain conversations on the basis that you don't like them, perhaps you shouldn't have opened this kind of restaurant in the first place.

  22. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by meta-monkey · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.
  23. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by meta-monkey · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Because reddit is the largest news aggregation site on the Internet, and censorship on the internet, whether done by governments or private corporations, is a hot button issue.

    --
    We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
  24. Re:But the other patrons cannot hear the conversat by Nidi62 · · Score: 2

    If they want to protect sensitive ears, then they should set-up an opt-in flag that will hide inflammatory reddts from searches and casual browsing.

    Sound slike that is exactly what they are doing with the quarantine feature, where you have to explicitly opt-in to see the content.

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  25. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

    The original post, right at the very top, explains this. Shame you scrolled down too fast to read it... I guess Reddit is like Slashdot, no-one reads TFS, just the headline.

    The banned the boards that give them the most grief, and quarantined the most popular ones with objectionable content. The boards that were unaffected are either not causing their staff to waste a large proportion of their time on them, or they are not popular enough to bother quarantining.

    Their approach is to simply deal with issues as they arise, rather than methodically go through every board looking for ones to ban or quarantine. Some simpletons see this as being inconsistent, but total consistency isn't Reddit's goal. Why expend resources trying to actively moderate the entire site and pissing people off when you can just deal with the worst offenders that generate (according to TFA) 99.98% of the problems.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  26. Re:Obviously. by Triklyn · · Score: 1

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09...

    sauce for the goose and all. It's a pretty grey area, but in my mind, people are reddit's customers, and reddit is serving as a mass messaging tool/communication device.

    we already have protection in the US that protect voice calls from tampering by phone companies.

    How comfortable would you be with comcast screening your traffic?

    reddit has the right to refuse service, just as comcast does, just as verizon does. should they though?

    corporate self-censorship is so much more insidious in my eyes than government censorship. How soon until censorship as a concept no longer has any meaning, because nobody has an unwelcome thought?

  27. HERE'S AN IDEA... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why not allow the USER to decide what they do or do not want to see, rather than using corporate sponsored censorship? I dunno maybe some kind of "block list" they can set for their own account?

    The point of free speech principles is that you can't protect the important speech without bringing along all forms of speech, even stupid ones, because the alternative is the slippery slope of censorship and deciding who should have the power to do it. But even in the ideal case, it is the right of *each person* to decide what they want to listen to.

    Crazy idea, I KNOW!

  28. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    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.

    So, 'merica, fuck yeah?

    Everyone knows Reddit is toxic. Why is this news?

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  29. Re:Frosty Piss by TWX · · Score: 2, Funny

    I love 'em so much I have a beowulf cluster of hot grits down Natalie Portman's pants...

    Never thought I'd be nostalgic for Slashdot trolls.

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  30. As a lurker at CoonTown by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    As someone who visited the place on a few occasions, I can say a lot of the users are pretty extreme and obnoxious/spammy with their hate, but there were a lot (including non-whites, and even some blacks) who wanted to get to the truth and argue facts and logic. FWIW, their main list of 'facts' can be seen here.

    Personally, I don't think silencing them will help, as it won't stop people from being racist, and certainly won't help debate (they've just moved anyway - their new place is at Voat which is like a non-censored version of Reddit).

    As for own view, well, I guess evolution shows that humans didn't evolve perfectly, and so despite the fashionable cultural relativistic worldview a lot have today, it isn't inconceivable that there are qualities such as IQ, beauty, strength or aggression which are more pronounced in one subset of humans compared to another. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm a little worried that over the next few centuries there won't be any whites as we'll all have mixed into a single homogeneous people (well in previously white countries anyway, since white people aren't exactly flooding Africa, India or Asia...)

  31. Defending scoundrels by claytongulick · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

    --
    Drinking habits can be dangerous. You can choke on the cloth and the nuns will wonder where their clothes are.
    1. Re:Defending scoundrels by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Except the scoundrels aren't under attack. If there were serious attempts to prevent said scoundrels from hosting/posting this stuff anywhere online, then yeah there would be a problem. Reddit doesn't want to spend money to give a platform to these people and that is 100% fine.

      If these people want a platform they can pay for it themselves, for example by going over to Dreamhost. I have no affiliation except that they host several small websites of mine. For a rather small amount of money per year they will host literally anything protected by the first amendment in the US. And, since you're paying them, they are contractually obliged to do what you've paid them for.

      They even provide a nice web panel which allows simple installation of various types of forum software along with automatic security updates. Dreamhost is not the only free-speech hoster out there, it is one of many.

      Or just go to one of the existing bigot forums and hate away.

      So, the barrier to entry for these people is somewhere between zero and miniscule. Reddit kicking them out doesn't change that.

      So scoundrels are free to be scoundrels and they are not being oppressed.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    2. Re:Defending scoundrels by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1

      ...and this is how it begins. Once people have been judged to be so disgusting as to be beyond any protection, they can be subject to anything. Quick question: when in history has this ever happened before, and how did it turn out?

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    3. Re:Defending scoundrels by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ...and this is how it begins. Once people have been judged to be so disgusting as to be beyond any protection,

      You didn't read my post. They're not beyond protection. The law still allows them to be scoundrels and there are many, many places which will host them, some free, some not.

      Like I said already in the post of mine which you clearly didn't read: if they were under attack there would be a problem. But they're not.

      Or do you think the solution is to force reddit to host them? If not reddit then why not my small forum?

      Quick question: when in history has this ever happened before, and how did it turn out?

      You mean at what times in history did people reserve the right to eject people from private places for being obnoxious? Just about throghout the entirety of recorded history. How did it turn out? absolutely fine.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    4. Re:Defending scoundrels by wickerprints · · Score: 1

      I will see your H.L. Mencken and raise you a Karl Popper:

      "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. – In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal."

      -Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies.

      For more information, refer to "the paradox of tolerance."

    5. Re:Defending scoundrels by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 1

      Except that IS exactly what they're doing by way of the scarlet letter, with the added hypocrisy of publicly admitting they're granting special treatment to the single most toxic subreddit on the entire website.

      --
      A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
    6. Re:Defending scoundrels by LordLimecat · · Score: 2

      It blows my mind that someone would be able to read that paragraph without an ominous chill going down their spine. What hes really saying is, "some people have disgusting philosophies that are at the same time difficult to unseat. Therefore we should have the right to deem them outside the law so that such dangerous ideas do not proliferate."

      The very notion that there are "dangerous ideas" that cannot be allowed is chilling, moreso because some apparently believe it.

    7. Re:Defending scoundrels by wickerprints · · Score: 1

      So, you are suggesting that it is okay to allow ideas and ideologies such as those held by ISIS? That the idea in which one should enforce a caliphate in which people, both children and adults, can be arbitrarily accused of "apostasy" and thereby summarily executed by beheading, is not a dangerous one and that it should be allowed?

      Moreover, you are so appalled by Popper's view that you find it "chilling," implying that this quote is in itself a dangerous idea--yet fail to recognize the contradiction.

      The notion that there are no dangerous ideas, only dangerous acts, is fundamentally flawed; one that is (and has been) correctly rejected by logically sound philosophical discourse.

  32. PC Echo chamber by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Slowly but surely, Reddit has deliberately reformed itself to be a politically correct echo chamber. The policies only touch those who voice politically incorrect opinions. This is nothing more than thought policing.

    This will ultimately be its undoing, and will significantly improve the quality of discussion in whatever follows, as the signal to noise ratio will be considerably higher when the usual parrots are left to their own devices.

    This kind of behavior is normal in media once it reaches certain traction, and has happened here in Slashdot as well. This is no longer news for nerds in the sense it used to be, but much more focused on egaliatarian, progressive policies etc nonsense.

    See you on the other side.

    Sincerely,
    -Nearly two decades of Slashdot.

    Ps. Captcha: Expelled

    1. Re:PC Echo chamber by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

      OK, we get it, you love Macs.

      Just stop trying to push your OS choice on us. We'll use Win 7 if we want to.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  33. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by vivaoporto · · Score: 2
    This exchange seems to contradict that they don't consider /r/ShitRedditSays/ a problem but the remedies they are willing to try on that subreddit are very different from similarly problematic ones.

    spez -944 points 18 hours ago

    For the the time being we believe that brigading is best fought with technology, which we are actively working on.

    Synsc 894 points 18 hours ago

    What does that mean exactly?

    spez -772 points 17 hours ago

    It means that we can see downvoting brigades in that data, and we are working on preventing them from working. We used to do this in the past, and it worked quite well.

    Ultimate_Cabooser 1479 points 17 hours ago

    That still doesn't mean anything. They're blatantly violating the "exist solely to annoy other redditors" and they make Reddit a lot worse for everyone who isn't them.

    The "we don't need to remove them because we're developing technology that won't let them break the rules" could be said about a shit ton of subreddits that were removed.

    I'm not in the "fatpeoplehate shouldn't have been removed"-circlejerk, because I agree it was shitty and was rightly removed, but the "it doesn't need to be removed because we're working on technology that doesn't let them break the rules" argument could have been used for that. If you remove subreddits like that, you have to remove SRS.

    spez -601 points 16 hours ago

    We take banning very seriously. I believe we can combat negative actions like theirs by improving our own technology without banning them, so that is what we'll try first.

    As mentioned in another comment the behaviour of that subreddit goes way beyond simply brigading but in the realm of raiding, doxxing and harassing individual users.

    The difference in remedies here is what makes this interesting: if Reddit is not banning for ideas but for behaviour what is the difference between SRS and FPH that justifies the difference in treatment?

  34. Reddit technology monopoly by Snufu · · Score: 4, Funny

    If Reddit shuts off the supply, how will anyone express an opinion on the internet? Nobody has the capability to reverse engineer the decades or proprietary research and technology that enables posting comments on an internet forum.

    1. Re:Reddit technology monopoly by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 1

      Good god man, you're right! Reddit Technology(tm) represents a massive investment of R&D. I guess the only way anyone could compete would be to install the open source code of Reddit itself!

    2. Re:Reddit technology monopoly by rdnetto · · Score: 1

      Voat seems to be doing pretty well...

      --
      Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
  35. Re:Obviously. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://dictionary.reference.co...

    1. the act or practice of censoring.
    2. the office or power of a censor.
    3. the time during which a censor holds office.
    4. the inhibiting and distorting activity of the Freudian censor

    http://dictionary.reference.co...

    1. an official who examines books, plays, news reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams, etc., for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds.
    2. any person who supervises the manners or morality of others.
    3. an adverse critic; faultfinder.
    4. (in the ancient Roman republic) either of two officials who kept the register or census of the citizens, awarded public contracts, and supervised manners and morals.
    5. (in early Freudian dream theory) the force that represses ideas, impulses, and feelings, and prevents them from entering consciousness in their original, undisguised forms.
    verb (used with object)
    6. to examine and act upon as a censor.
    7. to delete (a word or passage of text) in one's capacity as a censor.

    look up what the word means

    Done. Do you have a better argument or are you just butthurt that other people are butthurt and you feel that you just have to spit as much shit into the shitstorm as them?

  36. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

    I don't see how that contradicts the top post. What they are saying is that they want to improve Reddit generally by preventing block voting, rather than having to fire fight individual issues on certain subreddits.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  37. Re:Obviously. by OverlordQ · · Score: 2, Insightful

    > I have a right to ask them to leave, correct?

    Sure you do, but stop claiming your restaurant is a bastion of free speech.

    --
    Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
  38. Its their site by Stan92057 · · Score: 1

    Its their site they can make creat the rules as they damn well please. They also are not your rights defenders. The only thing i don't like is where can you go and be as hateful as you wish? You cant run websites from your own PC ISPs don't allow it so you have to rent a server and then abide by their rules as well so.... I think we should all be allowed to run a non commercial web site from our own PCs so we can trustfully have free speech. That,s what the Internet was all about in the first place right not just so corporations can make billions and make all the rules.

    --
    Jack of all trades,master of none
    1. Re:Its their site by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'm tired of this idiotic apologist line of comment. "It's their blah and they can do what they want!".

      Yes, and you're their customer or potential customer, so voice your fucking opinion.

      When you claim to be the front page of the fucking internet and you have supplanted almost every major community and online forum and discussion facilitation on the entire web with your fucking single point of failure shitty website, you have some ethical obligation to adhere to free expression at all costs. Because you are SUPPLANTING ALL OTHER AVENUES WHERE IT COULD OTHERWISE OCCUR.

      Of course, I'd prefer to see reddit burn the fuck down. After all they started as a shady site where its founders faked conversation with bots and fake users to lure a community into participating and growing around it. They haven't changed what they really are, internally, ever since.

      Dump it and let's go back to usenet, where we don't have this centralized corporate bullshit.

  39. Re:Obviously. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If I own a restaurant or some other type of public establishment and people come in and have a discussion that is upsetting other customers I have a right to ask them to leave, correct? That is not censorship and that is exactly what Reddit is doing.

    Um...posting AC because of my job, but that's the very definition of censorship. You're mixing up whether censorship is allowed/OK with whether it's actually censorship.

    The question really is whether the censorship is OK, good for reddit, good for users, and if it fits within their currently established brand (or how people think about reddit). The government, due to the 1st amendment, is not allowed to censor you. A company, on their property, is.

  40. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by vivaoporto · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The complaint is about the difference in the treatment of two similar problem subreddits: FPH and SRS, along with the current batch of banned ones.

    The former got banned (according to the official explanation) not because of their ideas but because of the behaviour of their members (doxxing, harassing). The current batch was banned because (according to the official explanation) they "are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else".

    SRS exhibits the same behaviour that got FPH banned (brigading, harassing) and arguably exhibits the same behaviour that was used to justify the banishment of the current batch: existing "solely to annoy other redditors".

    The above posted explanation from the admin admits SRS is a problem but only touches the brigading and anti brigading measures.

    It gives the impression that existing "solely to annoy other redditors" was not the real reason for banning the current batch and that "doxxing and harassing" was not the real reason for banning FPH.

  41. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

    As Reddit has explained, the criteria is not just the content, it's how visible the subreddit is and how much work it creates for Reddit staff. In the specific case of ShitRedditSays they prefer to work on a more general solution to brigading.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  42. Re:Have to by hackwrench · · Score: 2

    The funny thing about having to do something is that you only have to do something if you want something and his statement is perfectly valid in trying to identify what results in the best outcome for them and society at large. That's right, society at large. If you want to participate in a society, you have to learn how to be responsive to the constantly changing situation of that society.

  43. Re:Reddit is for cows. by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    Yes, but what does the fox say?

  44. Re:Being shadow-banned by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    Life is somewhat more complicated, and a mixture of things can result in a shadow bam.

  45. Still Being Hosted != Ban by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    Clippy pops up: "I see you're trying to ban a subreddit"

    Making it less visible is not banning it.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  46. Re:Obviously. by Grishnakh · · Score: 2

    Actually if you own a shopping mall in the USA and a self-appointed preacher enters and starts to sermon about the end of world being nigh, you have to tolerate that. Since the mall floor is open to the general public, including those who just want to admire the shop window displays for free, you can't discriminate

    That's total bullshit. If that were true, there's be tons of preachers at malls every night, bothering shoppers. No, the mall does not have to tolerate that; that's why they have private security. Anyone who causes a disturbance (and public speaking is a disturbance in a mall) is thrown out. Malls are private property, no different from a Walmart. You're not allowed to go into a Walmart and preach either. You're only allowed to stay there as long as the management decides you're not a problem. Every business open to the public in America is like this.

    This is why you only see those annoying preachers on street corners in areas with lots of pedestrians. Those are actual public spaces where people are allowed to exercise their freedom of speech. Not on privately-owned property.

    The "private club" thing only affects who you can allow in. If you're "open to the public", you can't discriminate. That's why some golf courses are "private clubs", so they can only have white people.

  47. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by ArylAkamov · · Score: 2

    Pretty good summary. I made a comment on it and within the hour I had SRS harassing me along with somebody making a new account with a nearly identical username as mine.

    Not really worth my time so I just deleted my account. They started threatening to "dox" me, but considering I currently use 6 different unrelated usernames for websites along with following the golden rule of never giving the internet personally identifiable information, they're going to have fun wasting their time.

  48. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by nine-times · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.... 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.

    I had something very much like that happen on reddit a few years back. I forget the context, because the context was so amazingly innocuous. It was something like: Someone said of a suspected child rapist, "This guy doesn't deserve rights. He should just be dragged out into the middle of town and beaten to death." to which I responded, "No, obviously everyone should get a trial. We don't know what happened or what extenuating circumstances there might have been, which is why we have trials."

    There was no response for a couple of hours, and then my inbox got flooded with people threatening me. I found that someone had responded to my post claiming that I was defending child molesters, and therefore must be one. The response was upvoted a couple hundred times, and there were a bunch of responses like, "Yeah, this guy is a piece of shit. How dare he defend child molesters."

    The whole thing was so insane to me that I didn't even bother responding. I immediately deleted my account. It was one of those moments that makes me a little terrified of the Internet. I don't know exactly why my post became a target, whether someone linked to it on another subreddit or something, but I was pretty disturbed by the experience. I had the distinct feeling that if any personal information had been associated with my account, I would have been harassed and possibly assaulted in real life, simply because I made the mistake of advocating for due process and rule of law in a public forum.

  49. Yet again, /r/ShitRedditSays is missing by sethstorm · · Score: 2

    Like the last few purges of counter-narrative content, SRS continues to exist despite violating every rule in the book.

    If you're an SJW, harassment/doxxing/etc. is encouraged - especially if it causes RL harm. Reporting it to the admins does nothing.

    --
    Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
  50. Reddit is NOT Anti-Harrassment by Kunedog · · Score: 1

    He's feeling like reddit is picking and choosing which "harassing" subreddits are ok, and which aren't.

    And the CEO (user "spez") has pretty much confirmed it (which of course means Reddit is NOT anti-harrassment, btw):
    http://i.imgur.com/e5ZTdhl.png

    So SRS is demonstrably violating the rules (hell, that's in its mission statement), yet admins make excuse after excuse about how they won't ban them. Does anyone think spez would spout this bullshit about "improving our own technology" if SRS didn't align with him politically?

    This is exactly the problem the new Reddit regime. There effectively are no public, written rules, just whatever the admins feel like doing. Every vaguely worded "content policy update" is therefore rendered totally meaningless, and everyone (rightly) calls them out on it. Because they're obviously just trying to do away with any inconvenient transparent rules in favor of the secret, biased, politically- and monetarily-motivated ones they'd rather enforce (but can't admit to).

    Props to /. for remembering the censorship icon this time.


    P.S. http://i.imgur.com/fT11pIg.png

  51. Two of those three, courtesy of ShitRedditSays by sethstorm · · Score: 1

    Jailed, no.
    Persecuted in the sense of losing one's job for being doxxed? Yes.
    Murder through causing a suicide? Yes.

    Arguably, Reddit is that serious.

    --
    Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
    1. Re:Two of those three, courtesy of ShitRedditSays by ttucker · · Score: 1

      Murder through causing a suicide? Yes.

      That is probably a stretch, but you do have a point kind of... people take this stuff really seriously sometimes.

      Persecuted in the sense of losing one's job for being doxxed? Yes.

      Definitely a serious victimization that people are experiencing.

      Our law enforcement agencies that can not find any serious mitigation against swatting are kind of Reddit's overzealous police intimidation force too.

  52. That's back, courtesy of Quarantine. by sethstorm · · Score: 1

    Not-Safe-For-Work subreddits aren't the target, but Narrative Breaking subreddits are.

    --
    Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
  53. Re:Does anyone else notice? by bobbutts · · Score: 1

    So run your own white supremacist website. Don't cry when the people you inaccurately criticize don't give you exactly what you want, baby.

  54. Re:Frosty Piss by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 1

    I'm impressed this is still going on

    Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of these.

  55. Re:Frosty Piss by epyx · · Score: 1

    While she is naked and petrified?

    Sometimes I miss the simpler times..

  56. Diamonds vs Mirrors by Wraithlyn · · Score: 1

    Hear hear.

    One of the most eloquent expressions of this came from (of all places) the founder of 4Chan, Chris Poole at a "Web 2.0" conference a few years back:

    "Google and Facebook would have you believe that you're a mirror, but in fact, we're more like diamonds." (eg, multi-faceted).

    Source

    --
    "Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
  57. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by Some_Llama · · Score: 2

    just ignore amimojo, the person obviously has a vested interested in reddit and srs specifically.

    you're trying to explain something to someone who already knows fully what a crappy thing is that is going on but defends it anyway.

  58. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

    If you are a social justice warrior of their SRS board, you are authorized by Reddit management to dox, harass, libel, to anyone outside the SJW realm.

    Any attempt to complain gets you banned with no way to defend yourself.

    Basically it is the internet-lynch mob. Reddit management is aware of this and fully supports it.

    --
    I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
  59. Why does this reply keep coming up? by foreverdisillusioned · · Score: 1
    It never ceases to amaze me how often this comes up, on slashdot and everywhere else, and it's immediately modded way up despite the fact that no one is arguing Reddit is legally bound to allow people to say whatever they want. Pointing out that the first amendment doesn't apply to private corporations would be a fine and extremely salient point... in some other debate. But it is irrelevant here.

    If I own a restaurant or some other type of public establishment and people come in and have a discussion that is upsetting other customers I have a right to ask them to leave, correct? That is not censorship

    Yes it is. It is fundamentally different from governmental censorship, but... jesus I don't know, let's just do a thought experiment here: Forum A removes posts that they deem offensive. Forum B allows pretty much all posts to remain (perhaps with user tagging and filtering or whatever.) If you really object to the word "censorship" to describe what Forum A is doing, then please provide us with an acceptable synonym. It doesn't matter where you fall in this debate; the thing we are debating *is*, in fact, a thing.

    For my own anti-censorship $0.02 here, I would say that if we must live in a web dominated by walled gardens, it would be nice if we had at least one social network that had an absolutist free speech policy. But I understand that any advertiser-supported site is going to have an extremely hard time pulling this off.

  60. Re:Obviously. by Khyber · · Score: 1

    "Actually if you own a shopping mall in the USA and a self-appointed preacher enters and starts to sermon about the end of world being nigh, you have to tolerate that."

    Wrong, it's called Tortious Interference and it's illegal.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
  61. Re:I'm opposed to censorship ... Meh. by thewebsiteisdown · · Score: 1

    As a long time redditor myself, I've watched all of this with mild interest. There are at least 3 sides to this, and that's not counting the mods/users of the banned/quarantined subs (you can pretty much guess their position in any case). The Braveheart faction just wants everything to be free. Stop censoring me man. Live and let live. M'FREEDOM! These people are idiots. The largely shouted down (and thus usually silent) faction of Social Justice Warrior subs of which SRS is arguably the figurehead but which think that an internet forum that allows people to register, post, and comment anonymously should somehow be a "safe space" and that through cutting wit and calling out the evildoers that this can be achieved and change can be realized!. These people adopt the exact same tactics and attitudes of the hate groups in the process, which would be irony except its probably just a coincidence. These people are idiots. The admins and for the most part the moderators of most popular subs, that want to a) make money off these groups if at all possible and b) have them behave like rational human beings towards one another in the process. These people are idiots. Its a dumpster fire, but its fun to watch when there is nothing new on Netflix.

  62. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 1

    Translation: They don't care about doxing, brigading, and on or off-site harassment no matter how severe or how blatant as long as it's from people that pander to them politically.

    See... this is why nobody takes your claims of "it's about equality!!!!11eleventyone" seriously, if you truly gave a single fuck about equality or opposing harassment and abuse you'd be all over reddit for having constantly enabled and excused SRS.

    --
    A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
  63. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 1

    Because it's the website's most prominent feminists, in charge of the collective "fempire" (their name) of subreddits, doing this in the name of feminism and social justice.

    --
    A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
  64. Re:Obviously. by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 1

    Your argument relies a fundamentally faulty premise..

    --
    A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
  65. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    Because it's the website's most prominent feminists, in charge of the collective "fempire" (their name) of subreddits, doing this in the name of feminism and social justice.

    Yeah, here's the problem with that little special snowflake analysis of yours: before it was attacked by the SJW fempire, it was well-known as a bastion of sexists, racists, and other shitposting fuckheads. If you didn't want to be invaded by them, perhaps you shouldn't have waged war so impotently.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  66. Re:Reddit is for cows. by ihtoit · · Score: 1

    Yes, but what does the fox say?

    rhymes with "vagina".

    --
    Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
  67. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by modemboy · · Score: 1

    Because reddit is basically the slashdot of the next generation of web users.

  68. Re:Frosty Piss by Nermal · · Score: 1

    Excuse me, that creaking sound you heard was me just dying of old age.

  69. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 1

    You all use those adjectives so interchangeably and so freely they've lost all meaning. Anyone that isn't participating in the witch hunt vocally enough gets slapped with all of those labels.

    --
    A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
  70. You get over it. by westlake · · Score: 1

    People are being racist and horrible on your internet site. Get over it.

    I am not obliged to build out and pay for a platform for the Aryan Nations. I am not obliged to accept the disruption of my site or the abuse of its readers to please the geek's perverted sense of free speech.

    1. Re:You get over it. by Shadowkahn · · Score: 1

      I don't. It's his site. If he doesn't want people talking about homosexuality on it, that's his prerogative. Look, I have a website. It's for a car club. I don't have an LGBT rights subforum on it not because I don't support LGBT rights, but because it's a car forum and we are there to talk about cars. We don't talk about LGBT issues, or for that matter politics, or economics, or camping, or trains, or knitting either. If the members want to discuss homosexuality or any of those other topics there are plenty of other sites available to them in which to do so.

      People think that because the US government is constitutionally forbidden to interfere with our freedom of speech, that everyone living in the country is equally obligated. That is not true. When you're on my internet site, you are in my house, and you will follow my rules. I'm under no obligation to let you do or say anything you want. The same goes for any other privately-held website on the planet.

  71. Re:Top voted post of that thread, interesting poin by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    You all use those adjectives so interchangeably and so freely they've lost all meaning. Anyone that isn't participating in the witch hunt vocally enough gets slapped with all of those labels.

    Good. Now the rest of Reddit gets to know what it feels like. I have no fucking sympathy for you whatsoever, because Reddit users already used those adjectives so interchangeably and so freely that they had no meaning... and they shit them all over Slashdot. Now we get to point and laugh as you have done to you what you've done to others. Maybe not you personally (maybe, though, for all I know) but it's what Reddit has come to be known for. No great loss.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  72. As usual a few people take it upon themselves by ToddInSF · · Score: 1

    To attack people they disagree with, and do it in a dishonest and cowardly manner.

    Yes, the internet is like a HS popularity contest. It's ugly, it's deceitful, it's false, and you're a fool for valuing it at all.

    Social media exists primarily to make people who are essentially worthless do-nothing pieces of shit feel good about being worthless do-nothing pieces of shit.

    Lowest common denominator always wins. Look at the recent GOP "debate" if you doubt it.

  73. Reddit may soon be on the auction block. by rbtechnosmack62 · · Score: 1

    I think the site's owners are getting ready to sell, much in the same way one readies a house before posting it on the market. This involves tossing out the rubbish, and cleaning everything before the Open House. Look at what happened with moot, 4chan and Gamergate. Moot sold off the site to another party, and now no longer runs it. But, to do that, he and the mods had to do some housecleaning.

  74. Ban r/India by NewYork · · Score: 1

    Ban r/India;
    They're the most racist people on Earth;
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/...