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Reddit Conducts Wide-Ranging Purge of Offensive Subreddits (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Wednesday, [Reddit] announced a new policy clarifying its rules against content that incites violence. "We will take action against any content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people," Reddit administrator landoflobsters wrote. Promoting harm to animals is also against the rules. Within minutes, moderators started to ban a long list of controversial subreddits, including /r/Nazi, /r/DylannRoofInnocent, /r/SexWithDogs, /r/WhitesAreCriminals, and /r/PicsOfDeadKids. The bounds of propriety remain fairly wide at Reddit, however. Commenters pointed out that /r/WatchPeopleDie -- which is exactly what it sounds like -- is still around. Landoflobsters said that site administrators have "no plans to remove it for now." The self-explanatory -- and horrifying -- /r/CuteFemaleCorpses is also still active. Evidently, merely depicting violence is fine as long as people in a subreddit don't glorify violence. In practice, of course, the line between these things is pretty thin. A subreddit devoted to merely discussing violent acts is naturally going to attract people who like to promote violent acts -- especially after bans of related subreddits where those people previously hung out. Reddit's new policy seems like the basis for an endless game of Whac-A-Mole as the Internet's creeps search for new places to exchange disturbing content.

330 comments

  1. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    I hope the relevant authorities have been using such filth as a honeypot and keep an eye on some of the people that post and/or consume that shit. Should get their heads examined.

  2. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If that's the bar, then when do we hold the eulogy for Slashdot? (Or did I miss it 10 years ago?)

  3. Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Finally they get some backbone, can't wait for all the simpering fools on /. to whine abut free speech once against where it doesn't apply

    If you want reddit to be a platform for hate you should have no issue with any social media being a platform for ISIS or literal nazis

    1. Re:Good by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you want reddit to be a platform for hate you should have no issue with any social media being a platform for ISIS or literal nazis

      I draw the line at figurative nazis.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    2. Re:Good by Presence+Eternal · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Freedom of speech has pretty simple limits. It shouldn't be used to attack one of the classic unalienables. In other words, one shouldn't be allowed to promote violence, murder, slavery, unending harassment, or directly create chaos by trying to incite panic. So I won't suggest you shut your whore mouth. I do suggest you have a whore mouth though.

    3. Re: Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm sure your definition of "platform for hate" is "somebody said something I disagree with". That seems to be the standard for crybaby millenials who can't figure out why they're not allowed to make anything they don't like go away.

    4. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      I draw line art figures of nazis.

    5. Re:Good by Iamthecheese · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Freedom of speech has pretty simple limits

      No. As soon as you limit freedom of speech to things you like (and yes your proposal damn well is that) you've severely crippled it. "hate speech" starts to obtain the definition of disagreeing with the status quo. "harassment" starts to obtain the definition of vigorous debate. I've seen those examples and more. The question at hand is who decides what hate speech and harassment are. When a certain disliked group on Twitter started to engage those posting a certain hashtag and winning them over that's when lively debate via twitter started to be called harassment. When "hate speech" became illegal that's when opponents of certain points of view defined them as hate speech. When the question of which speech is hateful is politicized the law against it becomes a tool for oppressing certain points of view, and that is unacceptable.

      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. -H. L. Mencken

      --
      If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
    6. Re:Good by dave420 · · Score: 1

      Seeing as your explanation of the issue is incorrect (it's not "things people don't like" which are being banned, but "demonstrably dangerous or illegal things"), it's safe to assume you might have made some other mistakes in your argument.

    7. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Put the pipe down. Words and pictures have never been demonstrably dangerous.

    8. Re:Good by Iamthecheese · · Score: 2

      That part of the comment I replied to (in fact the whole comment) was a general statement of support for this type of censorship, not just what Reddit is doing in this case. While the stated intent is to remove illegal and dangerous things (which in practice, in this case at least, mean one side of the political spectrum) the actual result is to provide a powerful tool for censorship. Whether or not this type of censorship, which the parent comment very much directly supports, has the stated intent of promoting Bad Things, this type of censorship actually removes disliked things.

      What Reddit is doing and has done is very politically biased. Right wing hate speech is immediately deleted and the user banned, and left wing hate speech is ignored. But even if it were not biased it would be unacceptable because of the downstream implications of providing this kind of tool. I know Reddit is a private company and the first amendment doesn't apply, but freedom of speech is a human right enshrined in the constitution, not a right because it's in the constitution.

      --
      If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
    9. Re:Good by stdarg · · Score: 2

      Many consider freedom of speech to be an inalienable right, so you shouldn't be allowed to use speech to attack freedom of speech? You should go to jail for your comment perhaps?

      (Not to mention, there's no such thing as an inalienable right. That's stupid. Inalienable rights come and go as society deems them appropriate.)

    10. Re:Good by omnichad · · Score: 1

      It's how you create or acquire the pictures that are dangerous. See: child porn.

    11. Re:Good by Megol · · Score: 2

      Yeah. People getting killed when some pictures of them in some situation (a guy kissing another guy, a member of a sect meeting the "enemy" of the sect etc.) never happen. Words have never caused people to be inspired to do the things the words describe.

      I wonder what kind of world you are living in. Either a fantasy or an overly abstracted world where e.g. opening a door doesn't demostrably enable access to the other side of it.

    12. Re:Good by Megol · · Score: 1

      Yes but the data itself isn't dangerous! The dangers are in the mind of the beholder but the electrons in themselves aren't dangerous! Information want to be free!

      (sarcasm for those that can't detect it)

    13. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I draw figure nazis of art lines!

    14. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I very much enjoy videogames allowing me to execute virtual Nazis in various cartoonishly gory ways. I hope similar Final Destination fates befall every single one of the IRL ones too.

      New Wolfenstein rules, btw.

      Cue some dumb piece of shit calling this "virtue signalling" while clutching Nazi pearls intensely and "literally shaking." OMG BIKELOCK IS ON PAR WITH GENOCIDE!!! AHHHHH!!!

    15. Re:Good by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      I suggest you look into the limits of free speech. There are quite a few and most have been around for generations. Not all slopes are slippery.

      OTH, Reddit is a private business not the government and they get to choose what content they will carry.

      You may still trade yer nazi porn via private sites or email and the government won't stop you (unless it involves underage people in which case yer free speech will be restricted by the government and your own freedom may be as well).

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    16. Re:Good by JesseMcDonald · · Score: 2, Interesting

      (Not to mention, there's no such thing as an inalienable right. That's stupid. Inalienable rights come and go as society deems them appropriate.)

      Inalienable rights are not defined by society, but rather by nature. Your right to your own body is inalienable, for example, because you can't stop controlling your own body or give control of it to someone else. Without your body you aren't you. The same goes for rights which are yours simply due to your existence as a sentient being, such as the rights to homestead unowned land, own property, and enter into contracts. (Rights to specific property are alienable, of course.) There aren't many things like that, however, and a number of rights which are often claimed to be inalienable aren't. Anything right which you can choose to transfer to another person, thus severing it from yourself, is not an inalienable right.

      Whether a right is inalienable is academic, of course, if the person in question does not choose to alienate the right. "Alienable" does not mean "optional" or "so long as others consent". Alienable rights are not any less important or worthy of respect than inalienable rights; they are simply rights which the right-holder can choose to forfeit at will.

      --
      "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
    17. Re:Good by OverlordQ · · Score: 2

      > Finally they get some backbone,

      Except they didn't.

      The_Dotard which has numerous actual murders is still open.

      --
      Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
    18. Re: Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I draw Nazi furs and show up to the con in a $4k Confederate flag fursuit then get mad when people spill drinks on it.

    19. Re:Good by sexconker · · Score: 2

      If you want reddit to be a platform for hate you should have no issue with any social media being a platform for ISIS or literal nazis

      I'd have no problem with ISIS or capital N Nazis having a free and open platform. That's the quickest way for people to see what they are.

    20. Re:Good by sexconker · · Score: 0

      Freedom of speech has pretty simple limits.

      Not in the U. S. of A. Not legally, at least. The highest law in the land plainly states there is no limitation on speech.

      You can hold people responsible for the direct results of their speech. But you can never legally restrict someone's speech. Yet it happens all the time. How do you expect ANY of your rights to be respected when you won't stand up for ALL of them?

    21. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're right, I do have no issue with any social media being used for any purpose, ISIS and Nazis included. This should be the position of any American. Has been for a long time. If you like people regulating your speech and safe spaces, they love that shit in Canada.

    22. Re: Good by sound+vision · · Score: 1

      If Twitter is so horrible, my advice is not to use it. I don't contribute to things I think are bad. I don't use Twitter, Facebook, 4chan, or serve in the Army. I have tracking scripts from all those sites blocked. Believe it or not, being "social" doesn't require a "social network", much less a particular social network. If you want one where white supremacists, jihadis, and whoever else are allowed, I'm sure it's out there. Demanding Twitter to donate their resources to support any kind of speech really falls flat as an argument. It would fall flat whether the demands were for them to allow Nazis, or Vegans, or SAAB owners, or anyone else. But as someone who's never used the site, it seems like most of the yelling comes from butthurt white supremacists, whining so hard that Twitter and society at large won't accept them. Never stopping to think that, just maybe, what they are saying is not acceptable in a free and fair society.

    23. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nazis draw line figures.

    24. Re:Good by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Freedom of speech needs to allow a lot of immoral crap. It needs to allow promoting illegal activity as long as that doesn't turn into inciting violence.

      However, this is not a free speech issue. Reddit has a right to police what's said on Reddit, much as I have a right to restrict what's said in my home. If it were illegal to start your own discussion site to promote the murder of all left-handed people, I'd be more worried.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    25. Re:Good by Killall+-9+Bash · · Score: 1

      In other words, one shouldn't be allowed to promote violence, murder, slavery, unending harassment, or directly create chaos by trying to incite panic.

      If this were applied retroactively with the aid of time machines, America would be a British colony.

      --
      "Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
    26. Re:Good by JesseMcDonald · · Score: 0

      A quick reminder to the moderators: Overrated is not meant to serve as a substitute for (-1, Disagree). There is no reason to apply Overrated (or Underrated) metamoderation to a comment which has yet to receive any other moderation. (The fact that this is even permitted by the system is a bug; based on its official purpose, metamoderation ought to be restricted to cancelling out prior normal moderation.)

      --
      "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
    27. Re:Good by ausekilis · · Score: 1

      The interesting part of speech is that it evolves. There's already a prominent double standard today - Use of the 'N' word (you know which one) by anyone other than someone of African descent is considered hate speech. In fact, it was once a word used solely for demeaning slaves, a way to consider them as less than human. Today it is (apparently?) okay for those of African descent to use the word to refer to each other. You'll see it plastered all over Twitter, in song lyrics, and has become part of the daily lexicon for some people.

      There is nothing "demonstrably dangerous or illegal" about a single word, but the connotation and history of that word is what gets folks fired up. My civics class had a pretty simple definition: "My rights end where yours begin."

    28. Re:Good by Altrag · · Score: 1

      While true to some degree, there's a difference between

      "Just fuckin' kill all those scummy Brits!"

      vs

      "Defeat the British army and liberate our colonies!"

      Right off the top, the latter is specifically dedicated to attacking British soldiers not just any dude who happens to drink too much tea. But more to the point, the first is advocating violence purely for the sake of violence, while the latter is promoting violence for an actual purpose. You may or may not agree with the purpose, but fighting with a cause is generally considered more worthwhile than just being a jerk because you can.

    29. Re:Good by Altrag · · Score: 1

      Except for that little annoying factor called anonymity. Its not really useful for anyone to know that "GayHater328" is a Nazi unless you can link that alias to a person (or even to other aliases that they not want to be associated with that level of negative attitude.)

    30. Re:Good by Dread_ed · · Score: 2

      More of the same I see. You really cannot accept that people are 100% responsible for their own behavior, can you?

      Input: "Love everyone as much as you love yourself."

      Output: "GOD HATES FAGS!"

      Conclusion: Religion is bad. (Wait, what?!?!?)

      See, that right there? What I am pointing to is simply this: It doesn't matter what words or pictures are used, humans will find a way to pin the blame for their unacceptable behavior on something or someone other than themselves. And, there are continually people who will let them get away with it.

      Don't be that guy.

      --
      When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
    31. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I, too, hope for movie plots to happen to the IRL Moon Nazis. Stay strong, brother; they can't cover this up forever.

    32. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The difference is the latter is propaganda.

      But more to the point, the first is advocating violence purely for the sake of violence, while the latter is promoting violence for an actual purpose.

      And not only does PETA pretend they're doing awful things for the benefit of animals, some of them may actually believe it. That doesn't mean jack shit when judging their actions; no amount of self-righteous cause justifies kidnapping peoples' pets and murdering them.

    33. Re:Good by KingBenny · · Score: 1

      it has none ... one should be educated in the fact that saying something is ok but beating someone up somewhat less, unless it's justified like police violence or left wingnuts beating up nazis ofcourse free speech is free, any censorship is bullshit, positive discrimination is still discrimination, gender equality is bias versus skilled people ETCETERA i wont have it, if you dont let them speak you'll never know where the nuts are hiding ... you think if you stop them they will stop speaking ? or they would maybe rather go huddle up and speak somewhere you are not but out of sight is good enough for hippiecrites i guess ... censorship does not address problems, it hides them but thats good enough for politicians with a 4year legislature i suppose its a band-aid on a festering wound, it achieves absolutely nothing, free flow of information is the one and only way to go, F-words don't kill people, if you just don't empower a stupid four letter word like nugger, then it doesnt mean shit (oh wait, lameness filter detected i guess, allow me to edit that ... your script doesnt seem to recognize making a point from making an insult and i dont see why i cant insult people ? why can't i insult people ? people insult me all the time

      --
      Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
    34. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When a certain disliked group on Twitter started to engage those posting a certain hashtag and winning them over that's when lively debate via twitter started to be called harassment.

      I'm curious. I don't generally pay attention to the goings-on on Twitter and I have absolutely no idea what you're referring to here. Would you mind elaborating?

    35. Re:Good by Zaelath · · Score: 1

      That's still a problem for government, not corporations. They've the right to limit whatever speech they care to.

      Mencken was also talking about government, might as well be a complete non-sequitur and quote:

      Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
      -H L Mencken.

    36. Re:Good by stdarg · · Score: 1

      Inalienable rights are not defined by society, but rather by nature. Your right to your own body is inalienable, for example, because you can't stop controlling your own body or give control of it to someone else.

      It sounds like that's a different definition than what is normally applied. For instance the US declaration of independence says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

      Now obviously "liberty" is not an un/inalienable right. People go to jail and are deprived of liberty. We had slavery in this country after these inalienable rights were defined. It's a joke.

      Likewise we have the death penalty, so there's no inalienable right to life.

      The pursuit of happiness is kind of in the realm you're talking about, you can't really stop someone from pursuing happiness even if you don't want them to be happy.. but you can identify the things that make people happy and target those. I think that's what the "right" is referring to, and in that sense it clearly doesn't exist, hence how things like certain sex acts and certain inebriating substances have been legal and illegal at different times.

    37. Re:Good by Killall+-9+Bash · · Score: 1

      A lot of the revolution gets glossed over. The Sons of Liberty were a terrorist organization.

      --
      "Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
  4. Re:Good bye, old friend... by BitterOak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I hope the relevant authorities have been using such filth as a honeypot and keep an eye on some of the people that post and/or consume that shit. Should get their heads examined.

    Precisely who are the "relevant authorities" whose job it is to police what people say or read and what do they do if somebody says or reads something they're not supposed to?

    --
    If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
  5. More Like Narrow-Banded by TrancePhreak · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They banned some small subs, but left out bigger ones like communism, anarchy, hittablefaces, antifa, etc

    --

    -]Phreak Out[-
    1. Re:More Like Narrow-Banded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      And /r/hillaryclinton that calls for the castration and murder of all Bernie Bros.

      I live in Seattle, and own a couple of Bernie shirts so I've run into their kind before.

    2. Re:More Like Narrow-Banded by sheramil · · Score: 3, Informative

      The Anarchism subreddit isn't a problem. They never do anything except argue about how to define anarchism.

    3. Re:More Like Narrow-Banded by TrancePhreak · · Score: 1

      Considering the sub has been purged recently, I don't think that would have held up a couple days ago.

      --

      -]Phreak Out[-
    4. Re:More Like Narrow-Banded by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 4, Informative

      They're also following the usual hypocritical pattern of retroactively banning everyone guilty of wrongthink while allowing latestagecapitalism, anarchy, SRS and its owned subs, and the like to get away with posting a sticky saying "Guys no more doxing and violence, we're super duper cereal this time"

      --
      A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
    5. Re:More Like Narrow-Banded by tehcyder · · Score: 2

      The Anarchism subreddit isn't a problem. They never do anything except argue about how to define anarchism.

      Splitter!

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    6. Re:More Like Narrow-Banded by tinkerton · · Score: 2

      That's because these things are incremental. You start with the extreme cases to introduce the principle. Then it's just an implementation detail to expand to any form of activism or voice of opponents/oppressed/disenfranchised.
      So when more pressure is applied to Reddit,Twitter,Facebook and so on they won't have much trouble complying.

    7. Re:More Like Narrow-Banded by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This argument over the relative badness of one sub to another is just a distraction. It's one of the most common logical fallacies these days - "he is terrible, but she is worse," or "okay Nazis but what about these guys?"

      It's not hypocrisy to not be omnipotent and capable of evaluating everything on a precisely calibrated scientific scale and then enacting a mass cull in one single hit for maximum fairness. It's just the nature of large web sites with limited resources to do a difficult job.

      --
      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:More Like Narrow-Banded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      On the contrary, it's absolutely vital for the reputation of such a forum that they apply their rules in an even-handed manner.

      I wonder: if Reddit blocked the communist subs, but allowed the neo-nazi ones to continue, would you be so sanguine?

    9. Re:More Like Narrow-Banded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Reddit open sourced its code. If you think you can do better, you're more than welcome to give it a shot. Me, I think there are elements outside societal norms that we don't have to put up with because of the ideal of free speech. Free speech is the inability to be locked up for telling the government they're a bunch of fucking clowns. It's not carte blanche to have verbal diarrhea in public.

    10. Re:More Like Narrow-Banded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      On the contrary, it's absolutely vital for the reputation of such a forum that they apply their rules in an even-handed manner.

      I wonder: if Reddit blocked the communist subs, but allowed the neo-nazi ones to continue, would you be so sanguine?

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...

      The irony of your post is duly noted.

    11. Re:More Like Narrow-Banded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This argument over the relative badness of one sub to another is just a distraction. It's one of the most common logical fallacies these days - "he is terrible, but she is worse," or "okay Nazis but what about these guys?"

      It's not hypocrisy to not be omnipotent and capable of evaluating everything on a precisely calibrated scientific scale and then enacting a mass cull in one single hit for maximum fairness. It's just the nature of large web sites with limited resources to do a difficult job.

      You assume the people implementing the policy have good judgment and good intentions, but do not have all information. The people who are upset about this are presenting evidence that at least one of those assumption is is false. If you can't explain *why* you assume the people implementing this policy are doing it in a fair way, you will not convince anyone who does not already agree with you.

      Suppose that Reddit decided to ban subreddits about religion. They disable 100 subredits about Islam in five minutes. They also ban one subredit about Christians who believe Jesus was a gay midget whose pet velociraptor had the power to fly. When asked why they implemented a Muslim Ban, they point out that they banned at least one subreddit from two different religions, so clearly they have no bias. No reasonable person would believe them, given the obvious bias in the way the "religion ban" is applied. If they claim it is "too hard" to grep the list of subredits for "jesus" and "christian", you would (correctly) call them liars.

      If you believe Reddit can get away with that argument, don't complain about Trumps travel ban :)

    12. Re:More Like Narrow-Banded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. Force the rules to be applied even-handedly, and they have to come for everyone simultaneously, and we can fight back. Or they come for no one, and the problem is solved.

      To exacerbate the irony: "First they came for the neo-nazis..."

    13. Re:More Like Narrow-Banded by sinij · · Score: 1

      You are arguing that they are not acting against ideologically-aligned bad actors out of ignorance. This it is demonstrably not true.

    14. Re: More Like Narrow-Banded by PaulRivers10 · · Score: 2

      Reddit's main code is no longer open-source. Sept 1st, 2017) https://www.reddit.com/r/progr...

    15. Re:More Like Narrow-Banded by david_thornley · · Score: 2

      If you don't like what Reddit is doing, and it isn't directly harming you, ignore it. If you want to start your own site with stuff I find offensive, I'll ignore your site. It's really, really easy to get set up on the net.

      Reddit has precisely no responsibility to do what you think they should do.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    16. Re:More Like Narrow-Banded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Commies don't ban other commies until after they gain full control and no longer need the useful idiots.

    17. Re:More Like Narrow-Banded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So its just a coincidence when groups that align with a certain groupthink are allowed to continue, while those that don't are shutdown? This is not a lack of omnipotence, its a lack of integrity and a backbone.

    18. Re:More Like Narrow-Banded by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 2

      it's absolutely hypocrisy for very public subs and major multi-sub-spanning groups, with years long histories of doxing and long-term severe harassment and abusive behavior, to ALWAYS be given a free pass to continue their utterly toxic behavior because of their direct association with the admin staff. And there's nothing fallacious about pointing out that people who openly organize real world violence and supposedly intolerable banworthy behavior like doxing have constantly gotten away with it while other subs whose only crime is being distasteful are shut down one after the other.

      --
      A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
    19. Re:More Like Narrow-Banded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh boo hoo. The_Donald's next, you dumb piece of shit.

    20. Re:More Like Narrow-Banded by Wolfrider · · Score: 1

      Niven pretty well answered the whole "anarchy" question with this story:
      http://www.larryniven.net/stor...

      --
      .
      == WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
    21. Re:More Like Narrow-Banded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That I would see the day that a MP:LOB joke didn't get modded straight to +5. Truly this place is a shadow of it's former self.

    22. Re:More Like Narrow-Banded by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh bullshit. They're protecting the same subs they always protect. It's been pointed out to them endlessly over the past few years and they refuse to respond. It's not that they "aren't omnipotent" -- it's that they're willfully blind.

  6. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think your view of the world is a tad bit too pessimistic if you think the only reason Reddit is able to stay afloat is because Nazis and people having sex with dogs.

  7. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    20

  8. Re:Good bye, old friend... by lucm · · Score: 5, Funny

    (Or did I miss it 10 years ago?)

    10 years ago people were saying the same thing. The only thing that happens more frequently than the death of Slashdot is the year of the Linux desktop.

    --
    lucm, indeed.
  9. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 2

    Precisely who are the "relevant authorities" whose job it is to police what people say or read and what do they do if somebody says or reads something they're not supposed to?

    For the most part. But things than might be considered some kind of threat or indicate an illegal action might occur, or libal... That sort of thing.

    But you're right, a lot (most?) of the objectionable material may be disgusting but not illegal...

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
  10. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It has been clear for the last year or two they are trying to clean themselves up to be sold to someone. They just are not sure who. They had a pretty sweet system going on. They have been caught a couple of times manipulating the system. Their advertisers HAVE to be saying 'if they can manipulate some stuff down then they can manipulate other stuff up'.

    When you build a 'free speech' platform do not be surprised when every wacko shows up and states whatever dribbles out of their mouths.

    I vote on Verizon buying them. They seem to be buying every other dying internet company out there.

  11. Not exactly by SuperKendall · · Score: 0

    The "relevant authorities" that have been monitoring crass subreddits are agents of other governments gathering material to blackmail U.S. politicians and people in important industry positions.

    Our own government agents couldn't even keep track of a few hundred machine guns it purposefully sold to Mexican drug lords. Where are the advanced government tracking chips the movies all promised us? Sheesh.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Not exactly by PopeRatzo · · Score: 0

      Our own government agents couldn't even keep track of a few hundred machine guns it purposefully sold to Mexican drug lords.

      Guns don't kill, people do. Remember?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    2. Re:Not exactly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's not the point. The point was that these sales were to be tracked and used as evidence in court if the guns ever came back across the boarder and used to commit a crime (which many did).

      But if DOJ can't keep the paperwork straight whats the point? You sell the gun, lose the paperwork, gun used in a crime in the US and then the whole reason for the program falls flat.

  12. Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    OMG a business is doing what they want with their own platform as is there legal right! Cue the masses of idiots to defend the 1st Amendment where it doesn't apply.

    1. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Calydor · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sure it's their legal right. It's just that sites like Facebook and Reddit are the new town square. You know, the place the 1st Amendment said - between the lines - you could go to say what you wanted.

      Censorship got outsourced to the companies.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    2. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by tinkerton · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So the way to get rid of the 1st amendment is to privatize.

    3. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A cookie for being insightful (out of mod points). I’m a believer in free markets, but I also believe that markets need some regulation to keep them functional, especially when it comes to mega corporations and monopolies or oligopolies. In this case I’d be in favour of a rule that says: if you’re one of the top 3 social media companies, then you are now a common carrier (or something like it) subject to additional rules, one of them governing what you can and cannot censor. In other words: free speech rules are applied and enforced on the largest public “town squares”.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    4. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by tehcyder · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's just that sites like Facebook and Reddit are the new town square.

      No, they're not. Simple as that.

      If you write to (say) the Catholic Herald newspaper, you can't seriously complain when they don't publish your "the Pope is a Paedophile and the Antichrist" cartoon. Similarly, they are under no obligation to accept adverts from condom manufacturers.

      You don't have to read the Catholic Herald, and you don't have to visit Facebook or Reddit. It's not some Stalinist state controlled monopoly.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    5. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by ChoGGi · · Score: 2

      social monopolies :)

    6. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Free speech rules don't allow "content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people", which is what we're talking about. If you were in an actual town square behaving that way, you'd be arrested. Being a common carrier does not make such speech legal.

    7. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Reddit already gives you far more freedom than a typical town square. How long do you think you would get away with displaying pictures of corpses and remarking about how hot they are in real life?

      The system as it stands is fine. There are sites like 8chan, Gab, even hidden sites on Tor where you can say literally anything. It might annoy you that those sites are not very popular like Twitter and Reddit, but that's how ideas work. If they have merit they spread, they become mainstream, if not then maybe you need to revise or articulate them better.

      You can't force other people to listen if they choose to visit Reddit instead of 4chan. In fact, even on 4chan there is segregation between the various boards, enforced by moderators.

      --
      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:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's why internet companies with more than a certain (large) number of accounts should be treated as government entities. Don't forget the third party doctrine: you have the right to challenge search and seizure of your stuff but a third party doesn't have the right to assert that right on your behalf. It's really true: the corporations perform Constitutional bypasses for government that it can't legally do itself.

    9. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nice try, Reddit is not congress, it's not the new town square.

    10. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Xyrus · · Score: 1

      No, no there not. They're commercial social spaces created to make money. They are owned wholly and fully by said companies.The companies can do whatever they want with them, including censoring. They can make them whites only, blacks only, jews only, etc. There are no laws anywhere stating otherwise.

      It doesn't matter what you think. Until the laws change, facebook and other such sites can do whatever they want with their sites.

      --
      ~X~
    11. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 1

      Reddit already gives you far more freedom than a typical town square. How long do you think you would get away with displaying pictures of corpses and remarking about how hot they are in real life?

      Isn’t that what anti-abortion groups do?

    12. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Occasionally, and around here they are asked politely by police to remove them and then arrested. In fact I read that even in the US it looks like a ban on protesting outside clinics is constitutional, because free speech has to be balanced against other people's rights to access medical services.

      I get it, they want people to see their important message about babies being murdered, but that has to be balanced against the rights of people to go about their lives without being subjected to disturbing imagery if they don't want to see it. You can't force people to listen to you just by turning you megaphone up and up until the whole town has no choice but to hear you, because it violates people's rights.

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

      Mostly correct. However some of the stuff we're talking about falls firmly on the side of what is permitted, or at least the illegality isn't clear as day (or contested in court). That is what GP meant by "censorship got outsourced". Governments can't forbid this speech, but they (or the public) can certainly lean on social media companies to "take social responsibility" for what appears on their site, rather than simply apply the law.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    14. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 1

      As another person in this discussion put it: being forced off the mainstream is a bit like being allowed to protest or hand out flyers, but not in the town square on main street; you're effectively forced into a back alley to voice your opinion. And no matter how valid or popular your opinion, it is extremely unlikely for that back alley to become a popular venue.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
    15. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You could almost say there's an argument for a strong federal government in there...

    16. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      There is a clear difference between handing out fliers promoting unpopular opinions, and publicly displaying distasteful or harmful images.

      This is why laws typically do not try to enumerate all possible disallowed behaviours. It's a judgement call, with a legal system behind it for disputes.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    17. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm just waiting patiently for somebody to make a parody website about you, and then watch you flail and whine about DMCA requests until your head explodes.

    18. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      publicly displaying distasteful or harmful images

      if it isn't illegal then it is no different than showing the realities of a authoritarian regime, or aborted fetuses, or slut walks, or examples of animal cruelty, or or or or. I have seen all those in public square and they were distasteful and arguably "harmful".

      It's a judgement call, with a legal system behind it for disputes.

      Yes, so if you allow it in a public square, why should you not allow it in a digital public square?

    19. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by jedidiah · · Score: 0

      No actually. The case law does not support that. The fact that "liberals" will gleefully use this idea to suppress ideas they dislike notwithstanding. Once your private mall becomes the town square, rules for public spaces get applied to it.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    20. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by omnichad · · Score: 1

      They can make them whites only, blacks only, jews only, etc. There are no laws anywhere stating otherwise.

      Yeah, there are. Just like I can't open a restaurant and put a "No Blacks" sign on the door.

    21. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like the six weeks when an AC posted hundreds of dick pics of Russian schoolboys with creimer's contact info and creimer issued hundreds of DMCA takedown notices? That shameful incident ended when the dick pics came down faster than could be posted.

    22. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by spire3661 · · Score: 1

      No, the internet is the town hall. There are no barriers to setting up your own booth in it. Facebook, etc are more akin to taverns and the barkeep always reserves the right to control the conversation to keep the peace.

      --
      Good-bye
    23. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If the Catholic Herald newspaper has 90% market share, then this does become a problem: they control public discourse by deciding what does and does not get said.

      We have dealt with this problem, in the past, not by government mandates on how newspapers select content, but by limitations on the degree to which media power can be agglomerated: if you try to buy yourself ownership of all the major newspapers of a single city, you'll quickly find yourself afoul of the law.

      Unfortunately, these laws were written narrowly, so they don't apply to the internet - so Facebook can control its 90% of the social-network market, which is the primary means by which many people get their news. Having government controls on Facebook's news-selection process is one way to respond to this - but if we go with the historical analogue, the correct response is to break it up into several smaller firms. (And I understand what a nightmare that would be, in its technical implementation.)

    24. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by interkin3tic · · Score: 2

      You couldn't incite violence in the town square either without getting arrested.

      There's nothing different here. Right down to the fact that after the "censorship," people whining about it will ignore the fact that calls to violence was the issue, not "I dislike your message."

    25. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Once your private mall becomes the town square, rules for public spaces get applied to it.

      Well, no, if it's a mall and it's open to the public than it was always a privately owned public space and regulated as such. If it's a mall and they want to keep it private, they can totally do that, and no amount of people showing up changes it into a public space. That idea is dumb.

    26. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Voyager529 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's just that sites like Facebook and Reddit are the new town square.

      No, they're not. Simple as that.

      That's sort of the difficult question at hand. Do we, as a society, have a "Town Square" anymore? A location where everyone goes to participate in a marketplace of ideas? If it's not Facebook or Reddit, then where is that place? Freedom of speech to state the 'approved' set of ideas is almost as useless as freedom of speech limited to the middle of the desert in Nevada - technically accurate, but practically useless. The implication that Freedom of Speech was both the very first entry in the Bill of Rights, and that it was written under the auspices that it can only meaningfully be exercised in isolation, frankly doesn't make sense. Freedom of speech does imply meaningful access to an audience of some kind. Now yes, that audience must also have the readily-available freedom to not-listen and I don't think the Bill of Rights guaranteed a particular or captive audience, but an audience, at some level, there must be.

      If Facebook and Reddit don't want to provide a true marketplace of ideas, that's kinda their right, but the question is "should it be?". These companies have plenty of regulations. Their buildings must have fire exits, they can't lie on their SCO filings, and they can't physically beat their employees until morale improves. Adding a requirement to not-stifle the first amendment would just be another requirement.

      The alternative is the realization that we do need a town square, where nazis and antifa alike can make their views heard on equal footing. Usenet used to fill this job well, and I'd argue that it's still about the best system for this (or at least the best model for one), but it suffers from the dark side of the network effect. I'd also be in favor of some sort of government hosted public forum system, but even ignoring the funding and spam issues, it becomes a potential point-of-failure if it is ever manipulated by the government maliciously, and would lack accountability to do so.

      So, if the government is not going to provide a digital town square, and private industry can't either, then someone is going to have to pay for it, either through donations or ads, which brings us, I guess, to the NPR model...but NPR is far from a 'marketplace of ideas' as I have yet to hear anything on my local NPR stations that vaguely resembled a conservative point of view - or, for that matter, something that wasn't political at some level, unless you count 'fundraiser season'.

      The final option is that we have no town square - Freedom of Speech, but nowhere to meaningfully exercise it. I don't think that's something worth fighting for.

      If you write to (say) the Catholic Herald newspaper, you can't seriously complain when they don't publish your "the Pope is a Paedophile and the Antichrist" cartoon. Similarly, they are under no obligation to accept adverts from condom manufacturers.

      You don't have to read the Catholic Herald, and you don't have to visit Facebook or Reddit. It's not some Stalinist state controlled monopoly.

      First off, the Catholic Herald does not have nearly the same userbase as Reddit. Second, the Catholic Herald is not understood to be a publication whose primary content is user-submitted. On the contrary, it is a topical periodical with editors and writers intended for a specific audience. Anyone reading it will assume it has gone through an editor who made choices as to what was deemed the most desirable content to distribute, a far cry from the community-driven aspects which are a primary feature of both Reddit and Facebook. Nobody would expect the Catholic Herald to publish an article called "the pope is a pedophile", and arguably /r/catholic probably wouldn't either as a function of the individual moderators on that subreddit....but are we ultimately arguing that there should be nowhere on Reddit that such an article *could* be posted? I'm not arguing for the front page, nor am I arguing for /r/sldkgfnw (the equivalent of the Nevada desert), but I am arguing that there does need to be a place for it.

    27. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OK we'll see what happens!

    28. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hey can make them whites only, blacks only, jews only, etc. There are no laws anywhere stating otherwise.

      Races is a class, discriminating blatantly against them is illegal.

    29. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Megol · · Score: 1

      Your understanding of the (US) laws is severely lacking. While creating group discriminating non-protected groups would be allowed (with some limitations) discriminating of protected groups would not.

    30. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Violence is NOT the issue.

      The only time speech has been limited based on inciting violence is if the violence is going to happen imminently, like within 30 seconds. This bullshit where you take a run of the mill nazi rant and say it's going to incite violence is NOWHERE NEAR that standard.

      Bad reddit.

    31. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People display corpse pictures as a form of protest routinely and they get nothing more than a few dirty looks and comments, AS IT SHOULD BE.

      I don't even remotely sympathize with any of the content reddit has censored, but the fact that they censor anything is enough for me to not trust the site, hence have no interest anymore. You can have your echo chamber, but realize that's all it is.

    32. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by interkin3tic · · Score: 1

      The only time speech has been limited based on inciting violence is if the violence is going to happen imminently, like within 30 seconds.

      This is fucking nonsense and you know it. Call for violence in a public place against a politician thousands of miles from you and test your theory if you don't.

    33. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey buddy finding a bullet proof host and putting up a website is kinda a lot of work for one guy just to tease creimer. We should pool our resources. It would only take like an hour of work each if we had 3 of us.

    34. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by sexconker · · Score: 0

      Free speech rules don't allow "content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people", which is what we're talking about. If you were in an actual town square behaving that way, you'd be arrested. Being a common carrier does not make such speech legal.

      Free speech rules? Which rules are those?
      There's only one. Go read it. It absolutely allows for all speech.

    35. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by sexconker · · Score: 1

      There is a clear difference between handing out fliers promoting unpopular opinions, and publicly displaying distasteful or harmful images.

      No there isn't. If you allow that kind of bullshit then you're zero steps away from declaring the fliers to be distasteful or harmful.

    36. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      dick pics of Russian schoolboys

      Since when are heavyset 30-to-50-year-old men "Russian Schoolboys"? All of the photos I saw were:
      - old, fat, hairy gay dudes;
      - you

      I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine how much overlap there is between those two groups.

      You talk about it like somebody was spamming child porn all over the internet; in reality, it was just big men loving other big men, or loving themselves.

    37. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is not at all nonsense. Find me one single example of where a law was successfully applied to limit someone's speech in the way you're suggesting. It's never happened.

    38. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by eaglesrule · · Score: 1

      Freedom of speech to state the 'approved' set of ideas is almost as useless as freedom of speech limited to the middle of the desert in Nevada - technically accurate, but practically useless.

      Free speech zone in the middle of the desert? Was that what you had in mind?

      I wish I had mod points for your very insightful post, but I do thank you for it.

    39. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you even lawyer Bro? The human nature to game the system and exploit the undefined edges of our laws has required a constant re-definition, re-interpretation and refinement process. Is the process perfect, no, but it is well documented and attempts to stay consistent. As a result, things like the First Amendment (which I assume you are alluding too) have been re-assessed and re-defined based on human behavior that violates the spirit of the law, while not the letter of the law.

      A simple example is the freedom of speed to shout 'Fire' in a crowded movie theater, or 'bomb' in an airport. Legal action can be taken against you because, while you are free to express yourself, your risking harm to others with your action. The courts figured out you were abusing the spirit of the law to hurt people and we all decided (thru our representative government) to re-define 'freedom of speech' to not cover causing situation that may harm others. Which in turn started a whole set of debate over 'what will harm others,' like inciting riots...etc.

      So yes, the constitution in its unabridged form is a wonderful thing, but because of shitty human behavior it has had a lot of addendums and clarifications added over the years. And you can't just interpret the source document without understanding all the issues that have caused a need for refinement.

    40. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If Facebook and Reddit don't want to provide a true marketplace of ideas, that's kinda their right, but the question is "should it be?".

      Nope.

      That was easy.

      These companies have plenty of regulations. [...] Adding a requirement to not-stifle the first amendment would just be another requirement.

      Wait.. what?

      The First Amendment is a directive aimed specifically at Congress. Something about the number of laws that they are allowed to make about something prohibiting the free exercise of something.

      Are you suggesting that the business have a requirement to make sure that Congress does not stifle the rights spelled-out in the First Amendment? It seems to me that some businesses work very hard to ensure that Congress does not abridge their right to free speech.

      Ironically in this case, "free speech" includes a business's right to censor speech they found objectionable in a forum that they unambiguously own. The government can regulate CERTAIN speech (such as compelling a business to removal of child pornography from its forums, or compelling a business to print warning labels on a product that causes harm to the consumer and individuals around that person), because those forms of expression have been determined to violate other rights. But outside of that, the government can't tell a business what it can and cannot do with speech that does not run afoul of those certain things.

      So, no, I would not want the government compelling a business to treat its forums as if they were a municipally-owned region of free speech. (I mean, really, doing that would be akin to the government imposting rules that would de facto prevent a woman from terminating her own pregnancy.)

    41. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      This is the net. Facebook and Reddit, even if they are monopolies, have no power to stay monopolies. As long as you've got a valid credit card that isn't maxed out, you can start your own site, with virtual hookers and virtual blow. It won't be easy to get as big as Facebook, but it wasn't easy for Facebook to get that big either.

      Nor is this anything new. When I was young, the news sources had mainstream points of view. You had to know the right people or go to one of THOSE places to get anything more sexual than naked women with a list of turn-ons on the back of the centerfold. We survived, and we publicized different points of view.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    42. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      You're talking about giving people a license to troll on the top three social media sites. That'll kill them fast. It's actually not a bad plan if you want to destroy all social media sites.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    43. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by i286NiNJA · · Score: 1

      What kinda weirdo says "RUSSIAN SCHOOLBOYS"?
      If I knew anyone who talked like that IRL I wouldn't let them near my kids.

    44. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      We have a free public square. It's called the World Wide Web. If you want to say something that neither Facebook nor Reddit will allow you to say (for whatever reason), you can find another site or start your own. If nobody's interested in what you say, tough. Free speech is not an obligation to listen.

      The Nazis had their propaganda shut down by some DNS services and hosts. They found others, and kept spewing hateful nonsense. (You may notice that I don't like Nazis, but I do think they have the right of Free Speech. Just not anywhere I personally control.)

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    45. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by tinkerton · · Score: 1

      Libertarians would say this is the wrong type of privatization I suppose.

    46. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Medical Services"

      Satanists murdering babies is more of a religious service, and I think the First covers your right to protest religion. I'm sure someone like you who hates Christians would agree with that, right?

      Oh, and protesting outside a clinic isn't denying anyone access to medical service, either. But, as the disingenuous piece of shit that you are, you already knew that and are trying to frame something in the context of "right to not be offended", which none fucking exists.

      You have no "right" not to be offended, you have no "right" to be free from seeing disturbing imagery. All of this feelings bullshit have turned people into, well, you and that's too bad for the world. Why don't you just move to North Korea if you hate freedom and want government control of speech? I am asking you seriously, why do you continue to live in a free country if you hate it so much?

    47. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bunch of butthurt little shits in here, many probably looking to fill a quote over at Internet Research Agency since they've started hitting tech sites hard ... basically the same vatnik dumbasses who signal boosted nonsense about James Damore (that phony Ph.D. who wrote the high school essay thing on EVIL SJWS and got his ass rightfully kicked out of Google)

      Laugh, take note of the usernames and notice how consistently they post in Trump topics or try to discredit intelligence agencies. It's transparent, especially on this site, lol

    48. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The town square still exists.

    49. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by kristianbrigman · · Score: 1

      Freedom of speech does imply meaningful access to an audience of some kind. Now yes, that audience must also have the readily-available freedom to not-listen and I don't think the Bill of Rights guaranteed a particular or captive audience, but an audience, at some level, there must be.

      I lost you here.... the first amendment doesn't guarantee _anyone_ has to listen to you - it isn't saying "someone should be able to listen to you", it says "if the government happens to be in your audience, they can't retaliate based only on what you said".

      I.E. if you want to go drunkenly shouting [insert extremist position here] propaganda at 3 in the morning in a small town deserted for the winter, and the only one who hears you is the local cop - the first amendment means he can't arrest you just for _what you say_. If you make your own website that says Donald Trump is a pumpkin, and the only person who ever goes there is Donald Trump himself - the first amendment means he can't arrest you just because he doesn't like what you said.

      There is _no right to an audience_. A right to an audience would imply an _obligation_ for someone else to listen to you. And the Bill of Rights only creates obligations for the _government_, not for individuals.

    50. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      DreamHost is bulletproof against Slashdotting.

    51. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      . . . has 90% market share, then this does become a problem: they control public discourse by deciding what does and does not get said.

      Yes, liberal media has been a big problem for decades. We should regulate the hell out of the media until it is finally balanced.

      Sounds good right?

      Not liking the result of what free people do with their time and money isn't a reason for government intervention. The whole point of a free society is to be able to do and say things that other people, including and especially the majority, don't like (assuming the freedom of others is not infringed) without retaliation from others. People (especially liberals) need to start respecting the freedom and diversity of their fellow man. Isn't the kaleidoscope of humanity beautiful anymore?

      What a joke . . .

    52. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would you give Team Creimer even MORE free advertising?

    53. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't think Facebook and Reddit fit the town square analogy very well, and in fact I would argue Facebook and Reddit are the opposite of a town square. They're more like a convention hall, where every group can go have circle jerk in their own private conference room.

    54. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      These fuckers are looking for a job.

    55. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Altrag · · Score: 1

      FB and Reddit and other social media sites are not the new town square. In particular, they have liability (even if its just in the form of bad PR) when their sites are abused for distasteful purposes.

      If you want a "social" media site that hosts hate speech and Nazi propaganda, you're perfectly free to go out and build one. Nobody's stopping you. The internet in general is the town square. Reddit is just the popular coffee house that happens to front the town square but still is perfectly within their rights to limit who comes in their doors.

    56. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Altrag · · Score: 1

      There is a difference though: Its easier to ignore words than it is to ignore graphic imagery. Just like your freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose, your freedom of speech ends when I start gagging. Your freedoms don't trump mine no matter how much you think they should.

    57. Re: Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you (creimer) saying that youre ok if anyone makes a parody site based on your kicking the bitbuckt titled webpage parody making fun of you?

    58. Re: Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With the amount of idk and taunting you serve up to your trolls you've effectively authorized everything short of outright libel, slander and impersonation.

    59. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    60. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh wow, creimer, you're so clever!

      That dreamhost url contains the referrer ID that creimer has used in the past - 2903373.

      Try THIS link if you want a Dreamhost account - it's referrer bullshit free:

      https://www.dreamhost.com/

    61. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's great but it seems pretty hard to join? What's the fastest way to get an account on there?

    62. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks for outlining one of the biggest flaws of the American Constitution. This becomes especially relevant in the face of the continued blurring of the line between government and business.

    63. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, they are. Simple as that.

    64. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ok! registered!

      cdreimer@lolcow.email

    65. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "yet to hear anything on my local NPR stations that vaguely resembled a conservative point of view"
      Oh look, more conservative victimhood virtue signaling.
      Fuck off

      Conservatism is a mental disorder, one that needs to be eradicated

    66. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by HeckRuler · · Score: 1

      Insightful as FUCK about the town square portion. Bravo dude.

      It's their servers, but I'm not a fan of censorship. I'd like to see some sort of "truth in advertising" clause where Reddit, facebook, and news comment sections are expected to be "public squares" with user comments. And anyone advertising themselves as such have to adhere to.... respecting the first amendment in that regard.

      Also, there's a spectrum of censorship that ranges from black-bagging anyone violating thought-crime to frowning a little while you listen. Self-moderating systems where the masses are expected to downvote trolls IS a form of censorship.... but you know what? It's not that bad.

      The problem with regulation is that there's a billion different ways to screw it up, and frankly, we can't trust the people writing it. They're massively out of touch. Or worse, they trust the industry lobbyists to explain things to them. And more often than not, they just take a proposed list of regulations from the established industry players and turn around and propose it as a bill. And of course that garbage is going to be geared towards keeping the established players exactly where they are and to discourage competition.

    67. Re:Oh boo-hoo! by HeckRuler · · Score: 1

      You're conflating "Freedom of Speech" with "the first amendment". Yes, the first amendment limits what the government can do, and how much they can limit your right to free speech. But "Freedom of Speech" is an ideal that came out of the Enlightenment and pre-dates our government. It's not just something for someone else to uphold. I'm against censorship even when it's not the government doing it.

      No one is forced to read your post. You're not guaranteed anyone will read it. But if Slashdot simply black-listed and shadow-banned any post that mentioned "first amendment" then that'd be bloody bullshit and I'd feel betrayed and ditch slashdot. No one is forcing me to come here after all.

  13. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't worry. All those topics and more live on at your local USENET server.

  14. Now it's Twitter's turn by Gussington · · Score: 2, Insightful

    *cough* #realDonaldTrump *cough*

    1. Re:Now it's Twitter's turn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Will that be along side Profa... or as is often called, 'Antifa' accounts? you know, the sort which actually engages in politically based physical violence on a routine basis?

    2. Re:Now it's Twitter's turn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you really think it would be a good thing if Donald Trump's Twitter account was closed?

      He's burying himself with his tweets. Everybody should be asking Twitter *not* to close his account.

    3. Re:Now it's Twitter's turn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah, that's not violence. Bashing people's heads in with bike locks and rioting are just good old fashioned, harmless political discourse.

    4. Re:Now it's Twitter's turn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Do you really think it would be a good thing if Donald Trump's Twitter account was closed?

      He's burying himself with his tweets. Everybody should be asking Twitter *not* to close his account.

      Perhaps. That would force him to use the presidential twitter account for his opinions.
      It will remove the "It is only a personal statement, not an official statement from the government." when he threatens to shut down critical media if they don't shut up.

    5. Re: Now it's Twitter's turn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... and it's the conservatives who are accused of being dictatorial, censoring, thought police that seek to suppress any speech they don't agree with...

    6. Re:Now it's Twitter's turn by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Violent people should be arrested and charged for doing violent things. They should also have freedom of speech.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  15. All lines are thin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    That's kinda implicit in the definition of a "line".

    That doesn't mean you can get away without drawing one at all, though. Not indefinitely, at least.

    1. Re:All lines are thin by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      No, that is a geometric line, an abstract mathematical concept. A drawn line is never perfectly straight, and contains multiple dimensions.

      And a metaphorical line takes the metaphor from the drawn line, and is therefore only as narrow or straight as it is well drawn.

    2. Re: All lines are thin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I also understand that the sound of one hand clapping is "cl", or " ap", depending on which hand one uses.

  16. In progress ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    rm -rf *.*

  17. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Aighearach · · Score: 1

    Reddit was supposed to be the new slashdot, or so anonymous cowherd said.

  18. Doland Trump Offends Me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why won't they delete all Trump-related reddits?

    1. Re: Doland Trump Offends Me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Too much traffic. Value signalling only goes so far, advertisers aren't going to give up trump supporters for political correctness.

  19. Nelson by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ha. ha.

  20. Logic Time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Doesn't 'cute female corpses' necessarily encompass 'pics of dead kids'? I guess cute male corpses get no love.

    1. Re:Logic Time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess cute male corpses get no love.

      only if Catholic

  21. Re:Gesture by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It must burn when you pee, because so much of what you post seems to involve syphilis and your own misery.

  22. /r/SexWithDeadNaziDogs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ruff.

  23. welc toWizardchan hom'o'/new & R9k2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    :exploring the jewish roots of white supremacy and the statistic of nlack-on-black crime:

    1. Re:welc toWizardchan hom'o'/new & R9k2 by Suiggy · · Score: 2

      Oy Vey! SHUT IT DOWN!

  24. Re:Good bye, old friend... by rtb61 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Reddit is different. It is like a rocky coastline full of little tidal pools where tiny fish pretend they are giant sharks. Their tidal pool is the entire world, full of empty threads with little or no comments. Some of the tidal pools are not bad to dip into to get some specialist info out of but making your life a tidal pool, all the fish swimming in the same direction, in the same circle, really rather pointless, much like Reddit has become in the age of for profit censorship rather than leaving it to the courts and the justice system (yeah I know Reddit managements ego are way above the justice system and the law for the lessor people than Reddit censor). Reddit seems to believe the censoring more people and kicking them off will result in more end users because, I just don't know, they think people like to be censored and attacked randomly by the lamest of SJWs of which ever brand (hitler's brown shirts were SJWs, the Klu Klux Klan are SJWs, social justice activists good - social justice warriors really fucking bad, why can you not understand that the word war and social justice are mutually opposing, you can not win a war, you only lose less than the other guy).

    --
    Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  25. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Someone needs to because in order to have true freedom of speech, you must limit it.

  26. Reddit's biggest problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Reddit's biggest problem is lack of real moderation system.

    Go pick a random programming thread, and you'll find people having meaningful conversations without having the courtesy to upvote eachother. When I find those types of discussions, I usually just upvote everyone in the thread and silently move on to lurk in another thread. They were all contributing, but everyone's trying so hard to be right that they won't give anyone else credit for contributing, even when they're both half right and half wrong, or when they're clearly just stating a valid but unpopular opinion. This is especially bad in r/cpp lately for some reason.

    Next, go pick a random frontpage discussion and see people getting thousands of upvotes for literally repeating the parent comment verbatim. Remember the infamous disco ball thread? That still happens every day to a lesser extent.

    p.s. I stopped posting publicly on reddit because helping teach someone occasionally results in a downvote brigade for the entire thread. Instead, I just PM help to newbies that posted enough to let me know they're actually trying to learn and not just begging for homework help.

    1. Re:Reddit's biggest problem by swb · · Score: 1

      It does seem like Reddit's up/downvote system is broken somehow. I wonder if it could be improved by adding +1 to a parent (and grandparent?) post when a reply was added. In theory, a post which gains a reply seems to have an inherent discussion value even if the reply is a disagreement. Conversations in real life are better with some level of disagreement, it adds engagement and furthers the discussion.

    2. Re:Reddit's biggest problem by SunTzuWarmaster · · Score: 1

      I've thought a good deal about this, and there seem to be a few problems:
      1 - People don't upvote those they disagree with. As a byproduct, in a forum such as /r/bodyweightfitness, posts don't get a lot of upvotes (10 is high enough to be top rated in any thread). A post like this (https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/comments/6tmbf4/is_the_front_lever_taxing_on_your_elbow_joints) has a highest-rated upvote of 4for a 300-word, in-depth, properly formatted post. Discussions/Disagreements aren't properly rewarded.
      2 - Karma isn't attributed well. My highest karma post is a 7-word pun in a /r/jokes thread. My lowest karma post is one in /r/Jokes where I literally replaced "Trump" with "Obama", and was modded into oblivion (https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/44gmsu/this_is_how_bad_the_economy_is/czqe58m/).
      3 - Upvotes and karma are based on popularity *among the audience*. Saying "cast iron pans are a good idea" gets you a million upvotes in /r/bifl. Saying "cast iron pans are a good idea" in a cooking forum gets you a debate (see point 1) and no karma.
      4 - Reddit page content is "Hot" based. Reddit post content is "Top" based. This makes the most popular opinions the ones that rise to the top of any page. Naturally, opinions like "the Government should give us all money" become top-rated pretty quick. As an example, let's take current-top-post current-top-comment from MensRights and Feminism. The MR top 2 are "here is a link to donate" and "feminism will ruin this". The Feminism top post is "women need more access to abortion pills".

    3. Re:Reddit's biggest problem by omnichad · · Score: 1

      upvote everyone in the thread

      Effectively accomplishing nothing.

    4. Re:Reddit's biggest problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It is inherently broken. Everyone gets to vote on every message all of the time. This causes messages to be rated by popularity, and when they are sorted by popularity, the most popular posts are put where they can get even more upvotes. Those stupid vote buttons are there on every message, daring you to press them.

      Compare with Slashdot, where you don't even get mod points unless you're a regular reader (as I understand it, you slowly gain points by reading threads), then when you do get mod points, you only get five (or sometimes 15), you have to use them in three days or they go away (but you are still likely to get points again soon when that happens), and there are limitations on where you can spend them, in particular not in threads where you have already posted. (there are other limits like you can't mod the same person more than 10 or so times to avoid mod-bombing) No message can be moderated higher than +5, and messages are not sorted by rating.

    5. Re:Reddit's biggest problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When A and B each get an upvote from 1 to 2, they may think the other person upvoted them. This may change how they behave in the future.

  27. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    War is peace.
    Freedom is slavery.
    Ignorance is strength.
    Limited speech is free.

  28. r/PeopleFuckingDying is still alive. by Kaenneth · · Score: 4, Funny
    1. Re:r/PeopleFuckingDying is still alive. by Spasmolytic · · Score: 0

      And is hilarious!
      Sample post titles:
      KiTTy ViOLeNtly CUt IN haLF WItH kITchEn KnIvES
      MaN bRuTaLlY sTeAlS fOoD fRoM sTaRvInG cHiLd
      ShoALiN mOnK KiLls MAn wITh dEAtH gRIp
      INnOcenT hAmSTer fALls DoWn a CLiFf whiLE sLEEpinG aNd fUcKiNg diES

      Also see https://www.reddit.com/r/ChildrenFallingOver/

      --
      Stupid can opener! You killed my father and now you've come back for me!
  29. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I hope the relevant authorities have been using such filth as a honeypot and keep an eye on some of the people that post and/or consume that shit. Should get their heads examined.

    Precisely who are the "relevant authorities" whose job it is to police what people say or read and what do they do if somebody says or reads something they're not supposed to?

    Police, FBI, Etc. If someone makes a death threat verbally in a mall, the idea is for them to find out, catch the perpetrator physically, and send them through the courts. If someone makes a death threat via text post on a forum, same basic shit should happen. It's not actually more complicated than that. Though there are some dynamics of policing that become more apparent after you've watched all 5 seasons of HBO's 'The Wire'. Fiction, of course, but one wonders about how much of policing reality inspired that fiction. Be forewarned, you may encounter no small amount of offensive 'lockerroom talk'.

  30. Is Reddit still online? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They didn't go far enough. Period.

  31. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Policing infers they restrict or control what people say. Reading what is in plain sight to look for suspicious characters is no worse than sitting on a corner watching a group of masked men.

  32. No Clicking by quantaman · · Score: 2

    Nope. Not a single one. I am not clicking any link associated with story!

    --
    I stole this Sig
    1. Re:No Clicking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope. Not a single one. I am not clicking any link associated with story!

      It's not what you think. It's comedy - e.g. Man trampled to death by violent crowd is 5 kittens walking over his feet. Satire on click bait.

    2. Re:No Clicking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pussy.

  33. The more boring a site gets by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    the more fun the freedom of speech supporting US competition attracts.
    If a site just wants to offer government policy, political press conferences, positive big studio movie review, tourism news..

    Whats the point of using a social media site if people don't get to comment on policy, movies, news, history, music, arts, culture, sports?

    Users have to stay 100 % positive in how they write about a movie?
    Freedom of speech, freedom after speech is what made the internet fun and allowed some US sites to keep growing.
    Many nations did not have that freedom to post and respond.
    Thats why the US brands attracted so many users.
    Freedom is a great product to sell globally. Why alter the only aspect that allows a US social media site to be better and more fun than most of its global competition?
    Once a site gets extra boring why return? Follow the fun and rediscover the joy of using the internet on much better sites :)
    Read movie reviews by a section of fun, smart people? Freedom of choice, freedom of expression allows for a fun site.
    Read the only movie review that was allowed on a very boring site?
    Who gets the clicks? Who gets the views? Who gets the links? The site with the fun, creative and smart people talking about movies?
    The boring site with the "approved" review a few approved 100% positive comments...

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    1. Re: The more boring a site gets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At least they left r/Russianspretendingnottobe alone.

    2. Re:The more boring a site gets by Ksevio · · Score: 1

      That's not really the case here - this isn't about writing about a movie, this is about Nazis and white supremacists spreading hatred and propaganda. Nice strawman though

    3. Re:The more boring a site gets by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, this is about someone thinking they are qualified to know where to draw the line and that the line needs to be drawn at all.

      Pussies like you that can't take hearing hateful ideas will continue to get trampled.

  34. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As long as the owner can afford the server fees, websites don't "die", they just grow more fossilized and irrelevant.

    That said, Slashdot can take pride in knowing they pioneered the whole "user-moderation" thing that makes Reddit the giant waste of space that is today.

  35. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    +2 Insightful? Hardly.

    There are sites years older (fark.com comes to mind) that threw out their dumpster fire residents, and those people just take up residence somewhere else, so 4chan is the path of least resistance unless you're into furries or child porn, and those creeps go to 8ch.

    Just like a every other social media network before it, Livejournal threw off it's creeps, so people migrated. DeviantArt threw out its's creeps, and they migrated. 4chan threw out it's creeps, and they migrated. reddit is throwing out it's creeps, and they migrate.

    Slashdot hasn't done anything to throw out it's creeps, and that's largely because the subject material is high-level nerd interest moderated by humans, rather than the unmoderated cesspool that *chan sites are. reddit is actually moderated rather well as long as you're sticking to fandom and local communities. Where reddit falls apart is in attracting advertisers to pay for it's hosting cost. So like Youtube/Google (who has a very shitty ad policy in general (they will stop showing ads if you show a censored cartoon butt) is the one calling the shots in advertising.

  36. Re: Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Usenet is still around ?

  37. SCRUBALUBADUBDUB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Morty, I'm Reddit Rick!

  38. I miss Usenet. by Mal-2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Other than spammers, nobody bothered us when we used alt.binaries.pictures.grotesque for this purpose.

    For the record, I was in no way responsible for the "Di Death Pic" hoax... but I know who was, an a.b.p.g regular. It was an accidental hoax anyhow, it was not meant to be taken seriously. We didn't know lurkers would forward it without the disclaimer.

    --
    How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
    1. Re:I miss Usenet. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Usenet worked, back in the day, precisely because of the user base.

      Network access was very expensive, granted to professors, researchers, college students and a select few businesses with smart people in the technology domains. That self selected a higher-educated, well-rounded, generally busy with more important things user base.

      Network access is now very cheap, in some cases even free. Every unemployed, uneducated idiot who has all day to do nothing but be stupid, obnoxious, and troll. That's why it all went to shit, including Usenet.

  39. wpd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    WPD is about as violence generating as the smurfs. Wait let me smurf that back, the smurfs are the only reason to smurf together and go on a smurfpage!

    1. Re:wpd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      generating? WPD is something that made me much more aware of how easy it is to die, therefore I'm much more careful now.
      No idea why/how you believe it generates violence.

  40. Re:Good bye, old friend... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

    For the most part. But things than might be considered some kind of threat or indicate an illegal action might occur

    If the police have enough time to investigate every post that has a 0.000001% chance of being a real threat, then we have way, way too many police.

    or libal...

    Libel is a civil matter, and the police have no business getting involved in it.

  41. Voat is being DDOSed at the same time. by Jarwulf · · Score: 1

    So much for the 'you don't like it leave' procensorship talking point. https://voat.co/v/announcement...

    1. Re:Voat is being DDOSed at the same time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >Same time
      >thread is 25 days old

      Try again you lying sack of shit.

  42. Re: Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All the major chan's are honeypots for pedos, 8chan is no exception.

  43. pretty much what I have been saying for years by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Teh danger to free speech or liberté d'expression, whichever country you live in, is that today , nobody look at what is not on new media (internet) and the new media is nearly fully private with all its venue with high traffic regulated by private company for their own agenda. Heck even hosting can become in some cases difficult. Soon real free speech , the one from groups I hate, will be relegated to non hosted server, no high traffic townsquare/board like facebook, potentially no indexing. It is like as if you had flyer but were relegated to some small street , and forbidden to go to the high traffic street. The danger to free speech is not the government in western country, but private companies.

  44. Offensive and expendable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What they really do is cull the subs that are offensive *and* expendable because they are low-traffic, or it doesn't suit their tastes. OK... so nazi sub is bad, but communist subs are OK? Even if they want to get rid of commie subs, they know they can't because there are a bunch of them on reddit and ironically they'd lose too much of the userbase and ad revenue if they got rid of communist subs.

    1. Re:Offensive and expendable by Z80a · · Score: 2

      Well, they got rid of the "whitesarecriminals".

    2. Re:Offensive and expendable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which had no traffic and no posts.

      Nobody cared about /r/whitesareciminals.

      Now, /r/Anarchism on the other hand...

  45. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I agree, now that /r/SexWithDogs is gone there is no longer any reason to go there.

  46. Re: Question (lmao)... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Similar to Sauron, Voldemort, Bannon etc, saying Dullard Trump's name out loud opens a gateway through which his stupidity can enter.

  47. Re:Good bye, old friend... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

    Some of what they post is illegal, so it's law enforcement's business. Some of it could open them up to being sued too, and in some countries the state can take an interest on behalf of citizens under certain circumstances.

    For example, the subreddit posting pictures of corpses is likely breaking some privacy laws in Europe. Yes, dead people have some right to privacy too, as do their families who probably don't want Reddit users masturbating over images of their recently deceased relatives.

    The bestiality board likely has posts discussing criminal activity, possibly conspiracy to harm animals or something.

    Not saying that I agree with all this, merely that there are laws covering this sort of thing. I actually posted a story from the BBC about this sort of thing in the UK, but the submission system is broken and randomly marks stories as spam these days.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  48. Re:Good bye, old friend... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You have unrealistic expectations of what a business will do to protect free speech. On the individual level it's likely that someone high up in the organization will decide they don't want to host that stuff, like someone high up at Cloudflare decided they didn't want to provide services to Nazi sites. On a corporate level they can't exist on their own, they need ad revenue, they need sales revenue, they need hosting and peering.

    And the real kicker (for you) is that Reddit's purges work. They move most of the asshats over to the Voat cesspit and the majority of Reddit users find that there is less trolling and abuse on the 99.99% of boards that are not affected.

    https://arstechnica.co.uk/scie...

    What you need is some billionaire to run a free speech site at a loss. But even then you won't be happy, because it will be like Gab or 8chan - small, few people pay any attention to it and it quickly becomes an echo chamber for extremists rather than a paradise of reasoned debate.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  49. Re: Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Grab them by the pussy?

  50. Re: Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    8chan is also moderated to a degree. Child porn gets (or at least last I checked) instantly deleted. The 'child porn' section was just pedos drooling over swimsuit-clad toddlers or such - disturbing, but not exactly party-van-time.

    So get it right: chans are moderated cesspools. The report buttons on posts aren't just for show.

  51. Re:Good bye, old friend... by houghi · · Score: 1

    Precisely who are the "relevant authorities"

    Ministry of truth. Remember:"War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength"
    And listen to me. I tell the truth. All others are lies and fake news. My news is the true news. It is the best news. You'll see.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  52. Re:Good bye, old friend... by houghi · · Score: 2

    The year of the Linux Desktop is now. Linux is just called Android.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  53. Any content, eh? Then remove all military content by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But wait, let me guess: the official violence is OK because its makers are not 'little people', am I right?

    Reddit is yet another forum for pretentious double talking scum. We western people can not hide from the fact that our nations do bad stuff all the time and we won't stop it from happening. We try these powerless gestures of goodwill thinking maybe these balance out our collective shitty existence.

  54. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well aren't you the busybody? Have you ever thought that your life could be better if you focused more on it than on what other people are doing?

  55. Was I the only one who thought by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "So Reddit's been wiped?"

  56. Unibomber by sycodon · · Score: 0

    Someone gave the Unibomber access to the internet.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  57. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I hope the relevant authorities have been using such filth as a honeypot and keep an eye on some of the people that post and/or consume that shit. Should get their heads examined.

    Precisely who are the "relevant authorities" whose job it is to police what people say or read and what do they do if somebody says or reads something they're not supposed to?

    Well, a few years ago, in the first such Reddit purge, there was a /r/Ephebophilia. Now there's simply /r/legalteens and /r/legalteensxxx. You want to guess what was in the first?

  58. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Reddit seems to believe the censoring more people and kicking them off will result in more end users because, I just don't know, they think people like to be censored and attacked randomly by the lamest of SJWs of which ever brand (hitler's brown shirts were SJWs, the Klu Klux Klan are SJWs, social justice activists good - social justice warriors really fucking bad, why can you not understand that the word war and social justice are mutually opposing, you can not win a war, you only lose less than the other guy).

    Reddit believes that some people have toxic attitudes and that them being around ruins other peoples' days. Reddit also believes that, the DMCA safe harbour provisions notwithstanding, some topics of discussion are illegal or at the very least in a legal grey area, and really don't want the hassle of having to deal with the FBI.

    You are free to setup your own discussion board (with blackjacks and hookers even). You can even use the same code that Reddit used to use:

    * https://github.com/reddit/reddit

  59. /r/watchpeopledie by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 1

    Is still alive and kicking it seems.

    1. Re:/r/watchpeopledie by ichimunki · · Score: 1

      Soon to be replaced with /r/watchsubredditsdie

      --
      I do not have a signature
  60. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    nice try.

  61. Re: AOL Chatrooms of this generation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Catwatch01 is watching.

  62. Re:Good bye, old friend... by magzteel · · Score: 0

    . We all know that there is a world wide movement on the right to establish fascist government, quite possibly driven by Russian propaganda money.

    "We all" don't know any such thing.

  63. I know... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...but there's also a bad side to it.

  64. Subject is incorrect by wardrich86 · · Score: 1

    More accurate: "Reddit makes the news because some crazy The_Donald lunatic killed his dad. As a response, Reddit decided to close down several (but totally unrelated) subreddits... again"

    Seems to happen every 2 or 3 years. Nothing new here.

  65. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    or libal...

    Libel is a civil matter, and the police have no business getting involved in it.

    Until it becomes a court order, then the police are involved, as it were, as they are in most things judicial.

    Besides, your objection is fallacious, as the reference was not to "the police" but to actions of policing. Like it or not, you can, nonetheless, "police" incidents of libel against you (or others), without being "the police" if you take my meaning.

    Relevant authorities is an ambiguous term, after all.

  66. So if I promote... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...that we should go out, hunt down and kill ISIS members, you would limit me?

  67. two thoughts: by buddyglass · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Reddit's new policy seems like the basis for an endless game of Whac-A-Mole as the Internet's creeps search for new places to exchange disturbing content.

    1. The folks interested in these things will definitely find other places to congregate, but here's the key: possibly not at reddit. Which is reddit's goal.

    2. In terms of it being Whac-a-Mole, it shouldn't be too hard if they implement a user-based reporting / flagging system. Let your users flag suspect subreddits, then every day a reddit employee looks at the top few "most redported" and determines if they meet the criteria for removal. Users who abuse the flagging system lose the ability to flag.

  68. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I don't set my phone up on my desk very often. The year of the Linux hand held was a few years ago when Android overtook the iPhone in market share, but the year of the Linux desktop is probably never coming.

  69. Re:Good bye, old friend... by GLMDesigns · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Precisely who are the "relevant authorities" whose job it is to police what people say or read ...

    Podesta. and Harvey Weinstein of course. duh. Haven't you been keeping up with the news?

    --
    If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
    Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
  70. Re:Good bye, old friend... by GLMDesigns · · Score: 0

    good. So now you agree that Libertarians are not fascists.

    For a while now people were lumping Libertarians in with Fascists. You know: "Bash a Fash" and all that.

    Nice to know Libertarians are no longer considered fascists.

    --
    If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
    Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
  71. Gross shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why are people interested in seeing corpses or deaths? Honest question

  72. Re: Any content, eh? Then remove all military cont by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please stop being a glorified pussy. Life is hell, we stabilize things for ourselves, not others

  73. Re:Good bye, old friend... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 0

    It's amazing how easily the Free Speech Warriors are triggered. -1 troll from someone who apparently was offended and finds that unacceptable.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  74. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    I have never understood the Libertarian philosophy. They don't want roads, schools, electrical power, sewage, or running water because that is "socialism". They don't believe in social programs. Then, they wonder why people and companies leave for countries that have more civilization, making their country's economy continue to falter. Even the stupidest farmer knows that to get a harvest, crops need to be planted, but the Libertarian expects a bountiful reward from a field they have zero interest in planting.

    From what I've seen, the Libertarian ideal is Somalia, where everyone fends for themselves. However, I don't see a massive exodus of Ayn Rand followers to that country... but they want to bring that to our soil.

    No successful country can run on the Ayn Rand philosophy, or Libertarianism. It just ensures a slide to eventual chaos and revolution as people lose hope and take up arms (that, or go quietly into the cold, dark night.)

    tl;dr... look at California and compare it to West Virginia or a southern state that has Libertarianism as a value. Guess which is more prosperous? Guess what makes the history books? The proof is in the pudding.

  75. Ummmm..... by MerlTurkin · · Score: 1

    ...."Offensive" according to WHO? We're turning into China or North Korea folks. Little by little. Remember "freedom"? We're losing it little by little. It's the pussification of America.

    1. Re:Ummmm..... by Baron_Yam · · Score: 1

      It's difficult to define a line between 'unacceptable' and 'merely offensive'... and both those who want to behave unacceptably and those who are easily offended will use any uncertainty as justification for pushing the line in their preferred direction.

      Ultimately, it'll come down to some individual's personal preference which may simply be to let a stupid algorithm do it and live with the problems that causes (for instance, try discussing racial slurs on Slashdot without getting blocked by the 'lameness filter').

    2. Re:Ummmm..... by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Offensive according to whoever's providing the forum that you want to use. That's how it's always been.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  76. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Android on "the Desktop" exists, but isn't particularly popular. Linux absolutely dominates personal computing devices in general (primarily as Android on smartphones and tablets), in addition to servers, routers and just about everything else, but "the Desktop" is still pretty focused almost entirely on Windows

    A reasonable argument is that the term "the Desktop" perhaps should be interpreted as referring to consumer personal computing devices in general as opposed to desktop PCs specifically. Another reasonable argument would be pointing out that "the Year of Linux on the Desktop" was actually referring to the 1998's surge in consumer availability and investor attention, and that the current meme is actually moving the goalposts by several miles by shifting the meaning to "the year when Linux becomes more popular than all other OS options combined, provided that you count only ATX form factor computers using only IBM-PC-derived architectures." in order to make a joke.

    But today, "the Desktop" has a fairly narrow meaning, and trying to expand on that will probably get you accused of moving the goalposts instead, because you're right in principle but "mobile" isn't "desktop".

  77. Re: Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Furries are thriving on 4chan. Come visit the /trash/can sometime.

  78. Re:Good bye, old friend... by XXongo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Conservatives want less government. Interesting that liberals think that we want government control of anything.

    Conservatives claim to want less government, but in fact whenever they have power they expand the powers of government.

    (I think you may be confusing conservatives with libertarians, who would prefer a corporate dictatorship with no government oversight.)

  79. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    to say all of reddit is a cesspool is ignorant, there are a lot of subreddits like r/baseball and game subreddits that are not, some like the_donald are, can't group everyone into the same categorization

  80. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Just like a every other social media network before it, Livejournal threw off it's creeps"

    No they did fucking not. LiveJournal was bought by SixApart, a Russian company, and most of us jumped ship after that.

  81. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think specifically The_Donald has a high probability of being a honeypot. I can't fucking wait.

    Those rotten turds need to be flushed, hard.

    P.S.: Trump is a piss-drinking, vatnik faggot.

  82. Re: Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Netcraft confirms it.

  83. I'm so happy by sproketboy · · Score: 1

    I adblock reddit.

  84. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    +5 Insightful for asking obvious questions?

    the relevant authority is the CIA / the relevant response is murder.

  85. Re:Good bye, old friend... by jedidiah · · Score: 1

    It's like the old adage about TV being a vast wasteland. It's not. It's a mirror. How you view it is reflection of yourself. If you can't find something redeeming on TV (or streaming) then you simply never bothered to look.

    Same goes for reddit.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  86. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The site owner's, you dumb ignorant bitch. But if they're unwilling to do that when they've become a festering hive of white supremacy and Russian propaganda, then it's time to involve the federal authorities and thus counterintelligence.

  87. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're right. Lets start by limiting your ability to say exactly what you just said, since it clearly is detrimental to freedom of speech.

    Oh, you meant limiting other people's speech. My mistake.

  88. Re:Good bye, old friend... by omnichad · · Score: 1

    In what way is Six Apart a Russian company? It is a Japanese company that acquired Livejournal and then sold that to a Russian company (SUP Media). Six Apart is still not a Russian company.

  89. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The year of the Linux Desktop has already arrived. The powers that be don't like this fact and as such, they've simply not told you. If you review the REAL desktop numbers, the Linux Desktop has been here for a while.

  90. Hate crimes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Freedom of speech is quite fragile. It is also something to be cherished. I reject that "classic unalienables" (sic) should be taken as exceptions. As despicable as I find NAMBLA, I choke down my revulsion and resist the call to censor them. But if they arrange/facilitate pedophilia, that is not free speech. There is a line between speech and criminal acts. Hate crimes laws muddy criminal acts. To beat a gay man, tie him to a fence and leave him to die in the Wyoming cold is a crime for their acts, not because they were homophobes. To drag a black man to his death chained to a pickup truck in Texas is a crime for those acts, not because they were racists. There is no need to clasp at our pearls, swoon, and define exactly what are the "classic unalienables" to be exceptions.

  91. Re:Good bye, old friend... by interkin3tic · · Score: 1

    >Reddit seems to believe the censoring more people and kicking them off will result in more end users because, I just don't know, they think people like to be censored and attacked randomly by the lamest of SJWs of which ever brand Reddit's whole thing is being upvoted or downvoted by the crowds. It's not outright censorship, but groupthink is the dominant force there, as it is on slashdot.

    In the main subs, groupthink tends to go against SJW.

    Furthermore, for fucks sake, you're making an idiotic slippery slope argument. First line, they banned them for allowing calls for violence. THAT'S A BIG FUCKING DIFFERENCE FROM LETTING SJW RUN THE SITE.

  92. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 4, Informative

    corporate dictatorship with no government oversight.

    Nice Strawman. It is exactly wrong too.

    Remember who grants Corporate Charters? It isn't the Corporation, it is the Government. As a Libertarian, I have a simple solution to Corporate malfeasance, the Corporate Death Penalty. I also support the incarceration of Corporate Boards and CxOs when systemic abuses occur. If both of those were real legal options after a court decision, you'd find a lot lot less of the kind of crap you see today.

    As a Libertarian, I support laws that protect people from harm done to them. That is the purpose of government, not control and regulation which actually causes harm.

    Here is a simple test. When government fails, who pays? When Corporations fail, who pays?

    THAT, in a nutshell, is why I support way less government. Most of the problems we see in Corporations are caused by government rules that prevent competition.

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  93. Free the slaves by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    was once an unpopular opinion.

  94. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, it's Usenet with a face lift.

  95. Re:Good bye, old friend... by rtb61 · · Score: 0

    Well if it is true and Reddit is not straight up lying, let the courts handle it, that is what they are there for, bullshit for profit corporate censorship is the foulest thing imaginable. If crimes are being committed let the courts handle it.

    --
    Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  96. Re: Good bye, old friend... by sound+vision · · Score: 1

    The crime isn't what they read, it's what they do after they read it. Setting up a honeypot lets you identify these people and watch for when the crimes do occur. I thought that would have been obvious... But it sounds like you are more angry that Twitter is refusing to promote violent ideologies.

  97. the elephant in the room by XXongo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    libertarians, who would prefer a corporate dictatorship with no government oversight.

    Nice Strawman. It is exactly wrong too.

    Unfortunately, it's not a strawman. It is the elephant in the room for libertarian philosophy. Governments limit corporate power. Without governments, there would be no limits on corporate power. Once corporations own everything that can be owned, this is dictatorship. Game over: corporations own everything, you do what they tell you.

    Remember who grants Corporate Charters? It isn't the Corporation, it is the Government.

    Exactly. Governments are the limit on corporate power

    As a Libertarian, I have a simple solution to Corporate malfeasance, the Corporate Death Penalty.

    Show me one citation -- just one single citation-- to a libertarian source suggesting that "the corporate death penalty" is something that is considered a good idea anywhere in libertarian philosophy.

    But: a citation to somebody other that yourself.

    1. Re:the elephant in the room by ArylAkamov · · Score: 0

      Why do you and the AC above seem to think that libertarians want no government?
      Libertarian =\= Anarchist.
      Limited government =\= no government.
      I see this strawman constantly.

    2. Re:the elephant in the room by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Downboated because I disagree with you. Haha nerd

    3. Re:the elephant in the room by ArylAkamov · · Score: 1

      I guess when you can't respond with reasoning, flagging as troll works just as well.

    4. Re:the elephant in the room by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't need to 'death penalty' what you never give life to:

      "Capitalism", as anarcho-capitalists employ the term, is not to be confused with state monopoly capitalism, crony capitalism, corporatism, or contemporary mixed economies, wherein market incentives and disincentives may be altered by state action.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      Posted because you're obviously a disingenuous mother fucker - like most the people that want to define what libertarians are while ignoring what they are actually told, by libertarians. DIAF.

  98. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Lots of Russian shitposting all over tech sites. Slashdot isn't really doing much, but then again, I don't imagine they'll have to bother in a few months. The Internet Research Agency is about to implode, hehe!

  99. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Ksevio · · Score: 1

    Android isn't really used on the desktop though

  100. Re: Good bye, old friend... by JudgeFurious · · Score: 1

    Every Goddamn chance I get!

    --
    Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
  101. This is vile and deceitful on Reddit's part by mysidia · · Score: 1

    Lawful speech people don't like is still free speech.

    Announcing a new policy is fine.... disrupting communities and purging content within hours of the announcement is not.
    The proper thing is to allow those subs time to modify their rules and require submissions to conform to the new policies or
    decide to move elsewhere WITH REASONABLE NOTICE, As in 30 days notice, not 5 minutes notice.

  102. Re: Question (lmao)... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The President's name is DONALD Trump not "Doland" Trump. Keep drinking booze and posting or learn to spell please. While you're at it, get out of fantasy land. This is reality. Your stupidity entered there with your child mind.

  103. Community defines standards by e432776 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Its been interesting to read that apparently some of the limits reddit instituted last time (amid much controversy and gnashing of teeth) were in reducing hate speech.

    The take-home to me is that groups online should define and enforce their standards; doing so will determine what sort of people participate and whether the site is a "cess pool". Seems obvious now.

  104. Re: Good bye, old friend... by sound+vision · · Score: 1

    So what, you want the courts to investigate and subpoena Twitter for these peoples identities? How much louder will you be hollering when *that* happens? Also, "for-profit censorship"... Lol

  105. Libertarian corporate death penalty by XXongo · · Score: 1
    That is your quote referencing a libertarian citation to your purported libertarian "solution to Corporate malfeasance, the Corporate Death Penalty."?

    I don't think you even are a libertarian, or for that matter even know anything about it; it just gives you an excuse to troll on the internet.

    1. Re:Libertarian corporate death penalty by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 0

      I am for Liberty to live one's life in peace, unafraid of government interventions into all aspects of my life choices, provided that I do not harm anyone else.

      The Corporate Death Penalty is based on the fact that 1) Harm has been done, 2) it was malicious or grossly negligent, 3) Proven in a court with the understanding that a Corporate Charter, granted by government, can be revoked under said conditions.

      Because unlike citizens, whose rights exceed that of the government's, a corporation is a creation of the state, and therefore subject to the limits of that charter, one of which should be ... corporate death sentence. The screwed up view of the world we have, is caused by government granting citizen rights to its creation, which subverts the actual rights of citizen by default.

      Citizens create their government (see Declaration of Independence, Constitution) Government creates the corporate charter. There is no corporation if the government didn't grant its charter, and there is no standing in courts for corporations except that which is defined in Corporate law all of which can be changed.

      This is subject to understanding that contracts are mutually agreed upon as is a free commerce system (Free Enterprise/ Capitalism). The idea that government can compel people to participate in a free and open economy (Obamacare) isn't liberty, it is fascism. Because once a government can compel people against their own conscience is a violation of the basic tenants of liberty.

      But we've strayed so far away from Liberty, that it now looks evil to those that like the comforts of the gilded cage they are living in.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  106. Millenials are scared of free speech. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They should move to Canada. This isn't how we do it here. We're not fucking pussies afraid of words.

  107. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Either way, libertarians would be opposed.

    Well, that's nice that they would be opposed,shame they wouldn't be able to do jack shit about it.

    --
    Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
  108. Re:Good bye, old friend... by erapert · · Score: 1

    Isn't it interesting how the anonymous coward is demanding that someone keep an eye who is posting what to the internet?

  109. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Health insurance? You know the US pays twice as much, per capita, and total, for health insurance as the next country on the list, Norway. Libertarianism actually is costly, and highly dangerous.

    As for college, the countries that give taxpayer funded college are running rings around the US. China, Germany, even Chile, and Russia are curb-stomping the US economically, because they make new things. The US doesn't anymore, and you can partially thank the Libertarian ideals of funding nothing for that.

  110. Re:Good bye, old friend... by ckatko · · Score: 1

    You really think Slashdot is still full of intelligent people and not mindless drone posts? Have you ever looked at an archived shot of how amazing this place used to be ten years ago?

    When was the last time you saw an actual industry expert like John Carmack chime in on a post here?

    Yeah. Exactly.

    In case you didn't know, he (and many experts) used to.

  111. Re: Good bye, old friend... by sound+vision · · Score: 1

    What the TV reflects isn't the viewer, it's the average viewer.

  112. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    but did netcraft confirm either?

  113. Re:Good bye, old friend... by sexconker · · Score: 1

    DeviantArt threw out its's creeps

    DeviantArt threw out DeviantArt?

  114. Re:Good bye, old friend... by MMC+Monster · · Score: 1

    Who has jurisdiction?

    NY State Police? NYC?

    Which federal police? US (FBI)? Russia (KGB)? Chinese?

    --
    Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
  115. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Aighearach · · Score: 2

    You have unrealistic expectations of what a business will do to protect free speech.

    Lets not be quite this confused; when a business chooses what you can say on their website, that is literally them defending their free speech. Why is that so hard to comprehend?

  116. How Soviet of them... by edgedmurasame · · Score: 1

    At some point, it'll just be a few niche communities and corporate-approved content. Just like Digg 4.

    --
    "Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
  117. Creimer was trolled by a Tokyo cafe maid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't say "one of my trolls"
    Say "a tokyo cafe maid that I tried to dox"

  118. Re: Good bye, old friend... by mmcleod · · Score: 1

    If you look long enough, you probably will find laws against almost anything that someone might wright. Is that a reason to outlaw writing?

  119. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Lord+Kano · · Score: 1

    I understand why Rusty was so pissed but yeah, his reaction killed kuro5hin.

    LK

    --
    "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
  120. Libertarians and Taxes by TiggertheMad · · Score: 2

    The idea that government can compel people to participate in a free and open economy (Obamacare) isn't liberty, it is fascism. Because once a government can compel people against their own conscience is a violation of the basic tenants of liberty.

    Is Obamacare 'Slaver' as a Libertarian would claim, or is it a commons? If people are truly able to opt in to every aspect of society, then there really no such things as commons.

    Take a park as an example. A public park is paid for by taxes collected from everyone, and is available to be used by everyone. Buy if you allow people to opt in to each and every government program ala cart, isn't then the park owned by the select few that chose to allocate their 'tax' money for it? Moreover, unless there are rules that prohibit non-contributors from using a commons, then what incentive is there to personally fund anything? Why not just let others fund it, and use the commons for free? If only the contributors can use each commons they give to, haven't you just in effect created a corporation that owns private property?

    Public healthcare is the exact same thing. If you aren't getting everyone to contribute to lower costs, then you are just creating another private health care plan. Libertarian idiots howl about taxes being slavery, they are not, UNLESS you have no option to choose another society to be a part of. You can renounce your citizenship at any time you wish and emigrate to a country where the rules are more to your liking. Slaves do not have that option.

    --

    HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
    1. Re:Libertarians and Taxes by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

      If people are truly able to opt in to every aspect of society, then there really no such things as commons.

      This logic can be applied to everything, and thus, tyranny is born. Nicely done !

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  121. Re:Good bye, old friend... by dj245 · · Score: 1

    Where reddit falls apart is in attracting advertisers to pay for it's hosting cost.

    Why is that? Lack of imagination? Advertisers love targeted marketing, especially if you can reach the target at the moment they may be open to making a purchase. Reddit is a place where people self-segregate themselves into targetable groups. You don't need to rely on Facebook or Google's guess of what their users are interested in. Each reddit has fairly obvious indicators. Domino's Pizza should be all over r/whoarude. Canon and Nikon could be advertising on the various photo-related reddits. GoPro and Red Bull on r/holdmybeer.

    --
    Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
  122. Well, goodbye to /r/HoldMyBeer then... by Doctor+Memory · · Score: 1

    Nowhere is (self-) violence against rednecks more glorified and "physical (self-) harm against an individual or group" more celebrated!

    --
    Just junk food for thought...
  123. Re: Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    nope. not until the court finds someone in contempt or when the court orders the police around do the police get involved. In rare instances courts will have marshalls (which are different from regular police) enforce an order, but this is uncommon.

  124. Re:Good bye, old friend... by david_thornley · · Score: 2

    This isn't a free speech issue. If you can't say what you want on Reddit, either find some place else or set up your own website and advertise it. (It's easy to set up websites on AWS, and presumably other services.)

    Free speech has never included the right to use somebody else's podium. Freedom of the press has never included the right to own your own printing press.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  125. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "I support laws that protect people from harm done to them"...
    wtf do you think regulations *are*?

  126. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who cares what one of fifty thousand equally qualified people think?

    There aren't any "industry experts" anymore. Or more accurately, what every other industry went through when they matured happened to tech too. There are so many experts and so many more people claiming to be experts that the term loses meaning. There are still "celebs", but that is nothing more than bluster. The more time people spend in the public space the less time they spend working, thus the value of what they say is inversely proportional to how many people know their name beyond typical contacts.

  127. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Employees screened and trained by relevant manager tasked with "making reddit more family friendly". The salarieds setup the honeypots, collect the userids, IP addresses, & zip codes, and then manually determine who needs to get booted, until an algorithm can produces the worst X percent.

  128. Re:Good bye, old friend... by molog · · Score: 1

    I agree with the other poster stating that libertarians preferring corporate dictatorship being a strawman. A corporation is almost entirely reliant on the government enforcing rules which allow it to exist. Specifically the enforcement of contracts. I am also a libertarian and I do not support the existence of a limited liability organization, or corporate "personhood". If you are an owner, you should have liability. There should be no corporate shield. Personal responsibility at its finest. Would this mean that mega sized business would never form, or that the economies of scale we see might not flourish? Possibly however I don't care, and anything which shields individuals from the cost of choices they make is unnatural and has no place to be enforced through violence as all things done by the government are.

    --
    So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
    The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
  129. CREIMER REFERRER SPAM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Make sure you clear your cookies if you click that link.

  130. Glorifying violence by HeckRuler · · Score: 2

    Good job Reddit, that'll really give those NAZI's a black eye. ....wait.

  131. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Then you're either blind, stupid, or both.

  132. Re:Good bye, old friend... by CaptnCrud · · Score: 1

    Fark didn't just purge trolls, they purged their entire community. That place isn't even a shadow of its former self.

  133. Libertarian Lawyertopia by XXongo · · Score: 1

    I asked for a citation showing that this is a libertarian position, and you respond with an essay justifying your personal opinion.

    You missed the part where I asked for

    But: a citation to somebody other that yourself.

    But, OK, so you have an ad-hoc, jury-rigged fix to corporate power suggesting that a very powerful corporation could have its power curtailed by individual citizens suing in court, nonwithstanding that the corporation has, to first approximation, roughly a billion dollars to spend on lawyers, and thus the only "people" who could possibly afford such a suit would be other corporations. So, in your lawyertopia we have corporation-to-corporation death battles, with the most well-funded corporations killing the smaller ones. I don't think this is much of a fix for anything, actually, but the main point is that this is your opinion, not anything in libertarianism (other than the fact that I have often heard libertarians suggest that lawsuits are the way to solve most of the world's problems).

    By the bye, you said earlier that libertarians want less government, but I'll point out that the "corporate death penalty" doesn't currently exist, and thus you're proposing expanding the power of government, not shrinking it. You just happen to propose expanding it by making lawyers more powerful.

  134. bianca by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can you? I don't think you can cuz you are not skilled enough to have it done only or unless you are a skilled personnel trained to have it done, I was in need of a way to solve the above question until I saw an endorsed post about Bianca, I almost ignore this post but my intuitive reaction won't let me.
    Well the post later worked for me, so I decided to endorse her too on my own way. by advising you to talk to Enrique Lewis
    Enriquehackdemon11@gmail.com
    Or text
    +1(628)203-7005
    Since I'm doing this as a method of endorsement, please tell Bianca I recommend

  135. Re:Good bye, old friend... by XXongo · · Score: 1
    But your objection is irrelevant.

    Corporate power is not dependent on corporate "personhood".

  136. So when is. . . by smooth+wombat · · Score: 1

    Tumblr going to remove the numerous rape videos they're hosting?

    --
    We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
  137. perfect libertarian society: perfect dictatorship by XXongo · · Score: 1

    (I think you may be confusing conservatives with libertarians, who would prefer a corporate dictatorship with no government oversight.)

    "Corporate dictatorship" is an oxymoron. If an organization is behaving as a dictatorship then they are either a government (if they are claiming "legitimacy") or a criminal organization, not merely a corporation.

    Why do you say that? Libertarians say that on my property, I am allowed to require you to obey my rules. If "my property" expands to include the areas you are trying to live in, I become a dictator. That's not an oxymoron.

    What, you say you can just move somewhere else? You're making an assumption that other places will always continue to exist, and won't get swallowed up by corporations. And you're saying you have the resources to move elsewhere.

    The first rule of money is that people with money use it to get more money, and people with more money use it to control essential goods and services. The more essential goods and services become controlled by monopolies, the less liberty individual people have. In the end case, corporations control all the essential goods and services, own all the property, and individual people control nothing, own nothing, and have no rights other than what corporations grant them.

    A perfect dictatorship-- one person owns everything-- is also a perfect libertarian society.

  138. Re:Good bye, old friend... by lucm · · Score: 1

    the year of the Linux desktop is probably never coming.

    Maybe. But installing Linux on a new desktop used to be a weekend ordeal. Now it's a 20 minute process (at least with Fedora) including the specialized nvidia drivers update and picking a new desktop wallpaper.

    --
    lucm, indeed.
  139. Re:Good bye, old friend... by lucm · · Score: 1

    2006 called, they want their unreliable survey website back

    --
    lucm, indeed.
  140. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are you a moron because you're a libertarian or are you a libertarian because you're a moron? It's hard to tell.

  141. Re:Good bye, old friend... by silentcoder · · Score: 1

    Regulation is literally the ONLY thing that has ever protected people from harm by the rich.
    It is also, the only viable option that has ever been PRPOSED to do so.

    It's possible there is another thing that can, it's possible it's better than regulation - but since, in all of human history, nobody has yet managed to think of - let alone implement- this hypothetical thing, I'll accept the downsides of regulation in the meantime rather than the uncountable deathtoll that all deregulation inevitably produce.

    --
    Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
  142. Re:perfect libertarian society: perfect dictatorsh by silentcoder · · Score: 1

    The end result of libertarianism (if it can somehow avoid degenerating into feudalism as it always has before) is one corporation (or possibly even -just one single man) owning literally every square inch of land on earth, and every resource within it - and all of humanity effectiely enslaved to the one true owner of all, and since property rights are absolutely sacrosanct in libertarian thinking - absolutely no way to ever change that situation.

    Coincidentally - it also provides the perfect thought experiment to the question of whether it's good to limit levels of economic inequality. Not unless the idea of living in a world where one person owns everything that exists sounds like a bad idea to you. After all if THAT level of inequality is not tolerable - then you've conceded that there IS an intolerable level of inequality - and now we're only arguing about where that level is, you can no longer argue that it doesn't exist.

    --
    Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
  143. Wow, 19? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Galaxy better watch out! The monkey boys from Earth are starting to colonize the Universe!

  144. Re: Good bye, old friend... by Reverend+Green · · Score: 1

    Dude bro, look out! There's a fascist under your bed, and Vlad Putin is hiding in your closet!

  145. Re:Good bye, old friend... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Though there are some dynamics of policing that become more apparent after you've watched all 5 seasons of HBO's 'The Wire'.

    Don't mind me, I'm just preserving this wonderful little sentence for posterity.

  146. Re:Good bye, old friend... by molog · · Score: 1

    Corporate power depends entirely on the government enforcement of their artificial rights. For example, no monopoly could exist without a government protecting it from competitors entering the market.

    --
    So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
    The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
  147. Monopolies by XXongo · · Score: 1

    Corporate power depends entirely on the government enforcement of their artificial rights. For example, no monopoly could exist without a government protecting it from competitors entering the market.

    Good lord, learn a little bit of economics beyond that bare-bones summary you got in high school social-studies class, please. Even Adam Smith knew better than that, and he wrote his book 240 years ago.

    Some monopolies can be made by government enforcement, but by no means all. Economies of scale, for example, create natural monopolies: a smaller entity can't compete against a larger one if the cost of production is dominated by an expensive factory and the marginal cost per unit is small. (Note that in the decreasing cost to scale case, free-markets aren't even Pareto efficient!)

    And, even WITHOUT economies of scale, large corporations use their power to drive small competitors out of business by selling at a loss until the less-well-funded entities go bankrupt (they then make their money back after they have driven everybody else out and can charge monopoly prices).