Reddit Bans Far-Right Groups Altright and Alternativeright (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Social media site Reddit has banned two of the largest far-right "subreddits" groups it hosts, altright and alternativeright. The subreddits have been used in the organization of America's resurgent neofascist movement but the final straw for Reddit was the two groups' participation in what is known as "doxing": sharing private personal information without permission as a form of online harassment. The subreddits were specifically banned for breaking Reddit's content policy, according to a message posted by the site admins, "specifically, the proliferation of personal and confidential information." Reddit did not make it explicit which content infringed its rules, but it is believed to be attempts to dox the protestor who punched a white nationalist during a TV interview at Donald Trump's inauguration. Speaking to the Daily Beast, one Reddit moderator claimed that the ban was instead a result of its "record monthly traffic" (Reddit moderators, like the creators of individual subreddits, are all volunteers with no official relationship to the site's staff). "It's clear that Reddit banned us because we were becoming very popular and spreading inconvenient truths about who's ruining our country and robbing our children of a future," the moderator said.

Comments

LOL

[Orgasmatron]

If you think that "alt right" means "far right", you have no idea what kind of shitstorm the left is busily trying to summon by calling for assassination, coup, and terror.

Re:LOL

[GLMDesigns]

Yes. But people self-label and not all people who label themselves as Alt-Right are White Nationalists.

Further there are people that lump Libertarians in as Alt-Right (as in they're not establishment conservatives).

So the phrase Alt-Right is not a simple == White Nationalists.

Milo, whether you like him or not, wrote an excellent article on what Alt-Right means.

Re:LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope.

The only thing that matters is the perception held by outsiders. Outsiders aren't going to interview the thousands or millions of members who identify as being part of your group, just to see where they all individually stand. No one is sifting through members of the KKK to see if there are members with views towards blacks, jews, etc that are different than the perceived views of the group as a whole.

It doesn't matter if you're not a White Nationalist, if you claim to be alt-right at this point in time, you are going to be labeled as a racist (among other things, like xenophobic, homophobic, anti-intellectual, etc). Just like you'd be labeled as a racist, anti-Semitic if you joined the KKK but only wanted blacks removed from civil society. No one is going to ask you about your position on Jews. You'd be a member of the KKK, an anti-Semitic group. Therefore, you are also anti-Semitic, from the public's perspective.

No one gives two shits about your personal interpretation. You can fabricate whatever reality you want, but you can't control how others perceive you.

Re:LOL

[bugs2squash]

Better informed than Donald Trump, who gets his "facts" from whoever is on Fox when he wakes up.

Re:Why yes, let's ban them

[AmiMoJo]

Reddit is in it for the money. Hosting far right extremists isn't good for business.

Re: Rad Left

[Anonymous Coward]

If you start publishing personal details it is.

Stop being fucking stupid.

Re: Reddit = a bunch of cowardly idiots.

[ooloorie]

Given that people like Bannon and papers like Breitbart have been denounced as white supremacists and anti Semitic, it's obvious that the term has lost all meaning. Frankly, I don't care anymore whether people call me a racist or white supremacist; it's about as ridiculous as calling me a zoophile or cannibal.

Banning these people from Reddit only means that progressives will be even more out of touch with mainstream America than they already are. That kind of ignorance doesn't hurt Republicans, it hurts Democrats and progressives. You can't effectively advocate your point of view from a position of ignorance, or by demonizing the people you want to persuade.

Learn to listen, people, or keep losing.

Re:There is only one thing I hate more than fascis

[Zak3056]

You are so concerned about some hateful shit of a girl getting pepper sprayed... where were you when peaceful protesters on college campuses were getting hosed down with pepper spray by an agent of the state for a simple sit in?

Some of us are appalled by both events. That's the problem here, and what people on "the left" keep missing: there are plenty of us out here who aren't racists, who aren't misogynist, who think Trump is a disaster-in-waiting, but who are frankly sick and tired of the political climate where we're called misogynist racists because we simply disagree with your "progressive" politics.

You lost the election because of people like us. Instead of taking the lesson to heart, you've doubled down on it.