Reddit Is Banning Users That Post Star Wars 7 Spoilers (softpedia.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A few naughty users have started spamming Reddit with Star Wars 7 spoilers, but also hoaxes. Some known Star Wars fans with Reddit accounts were even bombarded with PMs about the upcoming film, with trolls trying to ruin the movie before they saw it. As a result, Reddit is now banning any user that posts Star Wars 7 spoilers. The movie officially launches tomorrow; do you plan to see it? Do you care about spoilers?

Comments

What about me?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, how about people who like other movies and don't like getting spoilers?
Or is this a Star Wars Master Race thing where everyone else are second class citizens that doesn't deserve protection?

Re: What about me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reddit is shameless about who they take bribes from.

Re:What about me?

[Rei]

I'm curious as to how Slashdotters would react if I were to post a giant Star Wars spoiler here.

Re:What about me?

[MisterSquid]

So, how about people who like other movies and don't like getting spoilers? Or is this a Star Wars Master Race thing where everyone else are second class citizens that doesn't deserve protection?

Encountering new narratives is one of narrative's fundamental pleasures. Novelty is so important to narratives that in many cases entire classes of aesthetic effects and domains of hermeneutic structures depend on an audience's relative ignorance about what happens next.

So, it's not just courtesy to label narrative "secrets" spoilers if they are unexpected; doing so protects the value of narratives for future audiences, and the act of people coming to their own understandings about a narrative is worth protecting because, in many ways, our very identities are constructed from the kinds of narratives we encounter and the lessons we learn as we experience (and later reflect on) the things we experience as we discover a narrative that is new to us.

I take a pragmatic approach. If I'm on the web and writing about a recently-produced (within a year) narrative, I label my reveals with clear ***SPOILER ALERT***s. On the other opposite hand, if I'm writing for (say) a literary journal about Thomas Pynchon's _The Crying of Lot 49_, I don't bother with them because the target audience understands they are expected to have already read the narrative I'm discussing.

But most discussions which contain narrative "secrets" fall somewhere in the middle, like a 400-year old story called _Romeo and Juliet_ which is one of the cornerstones of Modern aesthetic culture. Or maybe you're discussing a 2500-year old story about a king searching for the cause of the plague across his kingdom called _Oedipus Rex_ (well, the spoiler comes up front in that play, but you get the idea). My habit is to label those middle-ground reveals as spoilers, too, something I think everyone should do to protect the value of those narratives for future generations.

In other words, be a good human being and care for those who come after you by labelling your spoilers and being sensitive to the audience who will encounter what you write perhaps in an entirely different context.

I applaud Reddit's decision to block (banning may be a little extreme) users who want to destroy the aesthetic and epistemological value of a long-awaited narrative. I wish Slashdot and all my other Internet favorites would do something similar not only for Abrams' _The Force Awakens_ but for ALL narratives.

For my part, I knowingly took a risk even coming here to post, given that Slashdot is (rightly) renown for allowing all speech to flourish (to various degrees subject to the moderation system). But that uncritical acceptance of all speech also means that I will not come back to this thread until AFTER I've seen Abrams' contribution to the Star Wars franchise.

See you at the movies!

Re:What about me?

[c]

Encountering new narratives is one of narrative's fundamental pleasures.

Then there's Hollywood, which prefers to substitute explosions for new and novel narrative.

Re:What about me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reddit is not banning anybody.
The mods of the general movies sub-reddit are banning people who post them in the area they control. The PSA linked in the summary tells people to avoid certain other sub-reddits where the spoilers are also being posted.

Or is this a Star Wars Master Race thing where everyone else are second class citizens that doesn't deserve protection?

Goood, gooooood, let the Butthurt flow through you.

Re: What about me?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Slashdot is trying to get bought by Reddit.

Thanks for the spoiler warning, you insensitive clod!

Re:What about me?

[Austerity Empowers]

I'm curious about the Star Wars spoiler ban as well, is it universal or just this one?

I don't know about this ban, there is a thread on reddit whose entire purpose is star wars spoilers. You can find out who lives, dies, and does or does not appear... if you want to do it. The threads are still there, I won't link them for a number of reasons. My opinion though is if a movie survives only because of "spoilers", it's probably not worth paying theater prices.

Re:What about me?

[Rei]

That's not the difference between a spoiler and a wing. A spoiler is a device designed to "spoil" unwanted air flows and reduce drag, while a wing is a device designed to create downforce (at the cost of drag).

Spoilers are often integrated and wings often on supports, but that's not the difference between the two.

Re:What about me?

[Cederic]

They wont, following their conviction for assault and possibly battery.

Maybe you're the sort of cunt that thinks violence is justified in such situations. The courts disagree.

Re:What about me?

[lgw]

I've been the victim of that level of violence several times (hopefully not because I was being a dick). No one was ever held legally accountable. Unless you have the name of your assailant, so that there's no work for the police to do, it seems they won't bother. It really pisses me off.

Meh.

[waspleg]

The movie officially launches tomorrow; do you plan to see it? Do you care about spoilers?

No. No. Who wants to pack in like that anyway? If I go at all it'll be at an off hour hopefully long after the crowds have dwindled. If it's another Lens Flare the Final Frontier movie I won't have any interest anyway.

J.J. Abrams isn't terrible but he is all about fan service and playing it safe so I don't expect much in the way of interesting. I'm sure Disney wants their money's worth.

Re:Meh.

[aaaaaaargh!]

I was planning to watch it, but the aggressive marketing has really put me off. I'll probably skip this one or watch it much later.

The same thing happened for me with the Hobbit movies and Fallout 4. I have no problem with normal amounts of advertising, but too much is just too much.

Re:Let's see where Voat comes down on this.

[RogueyWon]

It's not really a freedom of speech issue, surely? Reddit is a privately owned and operated forum and it's entirely up to them which users they want to ban and which posts they want to delete.

Now if we got the point where Reddit was so omnipresent in modern life that it was impossible to find a job or take out a mortgage or order a pizza without being on Reddit, I might start to get concerned.

But it isn't. It's a fairly daft forum filled with a lot of people who mostly talk crap (so entirely different from Slashdot, of course). Being banned from it will not ruin your life. You want to post there, you follow their rules.

It does raise questions about how best to moderate a large forum. But not about freedom of speech.

Mace Windu isn't dead!

[jcr]

He's teaching a yoga class at Tatooine Community College, and selling "Jedi Force Crystals" on the Trade Federation shopping channel.

-jcr

Re:Spoiler alart!

[jcr]

Who's Kylo Ren? Is he Darth Stimpy's friend?

-jcr

Um

[damicatz]

Reddit isn't banning anyone. The moderators of that particular subreddit are and they are not Reddit employees. Someone doesn't seem to understand how Reddit works.

Re:Um

[radarskiy]

The Cossacks work for the czar.

Re:Spoilers

[malditaenvidia]

I could care less

So you do care. You care-bear, you.

Re:Spoilers

[JBMcB]

So you do care. You care-bear, you.

On a scale of 1 to 100, I care 2, so yes, I could still care less.

Spoiler bullies

[radarskiy]

Worse than any people that post spoilers are the spoiler bullies that try to define anything as a spoiler to manufacture indignation. At least with spoiler posters everyone can agree on the fact that what they are posting are actual spoilers.

I have recently seen spoiler bullies claim that posting the name of a character is a spoiler. I've seen people claim that discussion of what has not yet happened in a series is a spoiler. There is no way to have a rational discussion with people like that.

Perhaps I should call them Spoiler Justice Warriors instead.

Ultimate spoiler

[The-Ixian]

I'll tell you what the real spoiler is: Seeing the movie.... it gives away EVERYTHING!

I guess I understand why people don't want spoilers.. intellectually, anyway.

But seriously, do spoilers *really* ruin a movie? Are you not entertained because someone told you about a piece of the story? I mean, you know that there is going to be wookies and droids and the force... you know what you are getting into.

What about movies that do that whole backwards in time style that show the ending first?.... that is technically a spoiler, right? Yet it doesn't detract from the movie because it is out of context.

I mean, people still watch shows about WW II and we all know how that turned out... but it doesn't seem to make it any less of a good story...

Re:Sounds like

[Austerity Empowers]

Rey is Luke and Leia's daughter, the product of a breeding program designed to produce superior Jedi. Han and Leia are estranged as a result, with Han realizing that women are always unfaithful, but a Wookie's grip is always firm but gentle. It will be revealed in episode 9 that Finn is actually Leia and Lando's son, when she was going through what she describes as "a thing" when Han was frozen in carbonite. Finn develops strong mommy issues, after learning exactly how much of the Star Wars universe are his half brother & sister.

It will later be revealed that C3P0 is Kylo Ren's father (Leia, of course, his mother, who was going through another "thing" back in A New Hope), Finn turns to the off-white side upon learning this and slays himself after Leia gives him bedroom eyes.

Re:There are only THREE Star Wars movies

[Locke2005]

Actually, it's a trilogy of trilogies, I believe Lucas announced that back in the 70's. The only characters that were supposed to be in all 9 movies were the robots; I forget which Japanese folk story Lucas was stealing from,