Slashdot Mirror
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.
The Anarchism subreddit isn't a problem. They never do anything except argue about how to define anarchism.
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."
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?
Put the pipe down. Words and pictures have never been demonstrably dangerous.
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.