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

Re:Rad Left

[Anonymous Coward]

If they're doxing, they will. You do realize of course that the bans were because of that and not because of their political leanings. I mean, you're a Slashdot user, so you of course read at least the story description.

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]

The difference is that the "alt-right" is not actually a political ideology.

It largely consists of 4chan anons and Twitter eggs saying outrageous things they do not necessarily fully believe in order to intentionally get a rise out of people because "fuck political correctness and fuck SJWs".

It springs from the fact that you are not allowed to question any part of the doctrines of politically correct ideology (e.g., third-wave feminism, the trans-acceptance movement) without being called a bigot by "hashtag activists" online, who may go so far as to target your real-life job just for questioning or criticizing their views. Even if you do so politely.

So if you're not even allowed to question politely, then let's just be as offensive and outrageous as we possibly can. Even if that means grossly exaggerating what we actually believe.

At its core, that's what the "alt-right" is. There are of course real bigots who have joined the movement, and there are also people who have attached their real-life names to the movement in order to make money (e.g., Milo). But at its core, the alt-right is simply a bunch of people talking shit trying to get you upset.

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.

Banned for Doxxing

[jxander]

The groups were banned for doxxing political opponents. That is, sharing personal information (name, phone number, home address, etc.) This behaviour is explicitly against the Reddit terms of service.

The political leanings of the groups are unrelated to the ban (unless you assume a correlation between "alt-right" mentality and disregard for the established rules of a privately owned website)

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.

Re:Make it fair

[DogDude]

In the last couple years, I have seen no valid reports of white supremacists out beating people

Oh, you silly, mis-informed little boy. What planet do you live on?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/14/...