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Reddit Bans Subreddits Related To Selling Guns, Drugs, Sex, and More (bloomberg.com)
New submitter cornholed writes: Yesterday, Reddit updated their Content Policy forbidding transactions for certain goods and services. From the formal announcement on Reddit: "As of today, users may not use Reddit to solicit or facilitate any transaction or gift involving certain goods and services, including: firearms, ammunition, or explosives; drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, or any controlled substances (except advertisements placed in accordance with our advertising policy); paid services involving physical sexual contact; stolen goods; personal information; falsified official documents or currency." Bloomberg has an interesting write-up on how Reddit is wading into the gun control debate. See this post on Reddit for a full-list of all subreddits banned. "Reddit has been something of a Wild West for users building communities by curating and commenting on content in subreddits," reports Bloomberg. "Sometimes, as in the case with gun sales, marketplaces emerge in the course of conversations within specific communities. With Reddit's increased popularity -- the site is the sixth-most-visited in the world -- has come introspection and stricter content guidelines. The company recognizes its responsibility for having provided a platform for hate groups to flourish and, more recently, the possibility that Russian propaganda on the site may have played a role in influencing the 2016 presidential election."
USENET is/was a purely peer-to-peer system with no effective censorship. The downside to this, of course, was massive quantities of spam, which killed it. If someone could effectively solve the spam issue without censoring...
A lot of these have dropped in the last few days.
YouTube Bans Firearms Demo Videos
Citi sets restrictions on gun sales by retail clients by adding arbitrary rules (can only sell to 21+ years-old, no standard capacity magazines, etc)
Guns are not illegal. The purchases on gundeals were all above board NFA licensed businesses that required NFA transfers that included background checks. So, there was no illegal activity going on there. What's next? They ban communities where people hookup because some people consider it immoral? So posting pictures of your genitalia is ok, but getting a good deal on a scope isn't?
It's definitely trying to make the news cycle, and if there are any lessons to be learnt from gamergate, it's being orchestrated, and, I'm not surprised to see some of the same companies involved again.
The rhyme of history is sounding again. When the printing press was invented in Europe, it didn't take long for establishments to see that sharing information was not always in their interests, books got banned, notably political ones. I think we're just in a similar phase as then; some companies are taking it on themselves to consolidate and control what gets shared.
Just like Google, err,, cough cough utube cough, you are clearly showing your political bias.
// never bought a GF an abortion
/// I must be a D
Doesn't matter if you are for or against gun control, you can't deny utube and reddit are left wing.
/ don't own any guns
"Reddit has been something of a Wild West for users building communities by curating and commenting on content in subreddits,"
FALSE. They censor those who have right-wing viewpoints.
Maybe if the right-wing viewpoints were expressed with less frothing-at-the-mouth fervor, the rest of us would take the viewpoints more seriously. As it is, most of the right-wing stuff has become so radical and offensive over the last few years that it shouldn't be surprising to anyone that those viewpoints are getting pushed out as fringe.
In other words, if you want to have a meaningful conversation about any given topic, regardless of what side of the issue you're on, it would help if you didn't start with an obviously crazy and offensive standpoint (e.g. "lock her up" and other similar bullshit).
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
As of today, users may not use Reddit to solicit or facilitate any transaction or gift involving certain goods and services, including: firearms, ammunition, or explosives; drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, or any controlled substances (except advertisements placed in accordance with our advertising policy); paid services involving physical sexual contact; stolen goods; personal information; falsified official documents or currency
If I read correctly, one can still trade chemical weapons. Elephant's tusks seems fine. Human organs trafficking seems to be in a grey zone because of physical contact.
The Wild West internet is gradually coming under the thumb of the Pompous Puritans
Except these 'Pomous Puritans' are now from the hard left instead of the religious right.
46137
FALSE. They censor those who have right-wing viewpoints.
Nonsense. I'm frequently attacked by the "right" on Reddit.
...now right-wingers do have to deal with Redditors responding to them by brandishing pesky 'facts' which they often interpret as "attacks" but the fact that they can rarely rebut the facts proves they're not "attacks."
No one censors them.
Alas, given that some people consider the Second Amendment to be "crazy and offensive", it's pretty much impossible to avoid the label.
The "Crazy and Offensive" comes when supporters of the second amendment consider the deaths of children to be a reasonable price to pay for the right of crazies to buy assault weapons. In most people's world, there's no way that's not 'crazy and offensive.'
I think the problem is, the government is letting shootings slide. I mean, earlier this week was another one, much smaller but still, it happened.
When there was a democrat in the house, he could say grand things, knowing that Congress would never approve it. But at least He Was Doing Something About It. He managed to work both sides quite well - make the big evil Republicans the reason he can't pass anything, and at the same time, gun owners were nervous, so every time they'd buy more guns, simulating the economy more.
Now that the entire government is republican controlled, there is no more excuse. Trump can't say he can't do anything about it because Congress won't let him, and everyone knows he loves his executive orders and he's famous for his Get Things Done attitude.
Problem is, he didn't. He made some noise about it, and let it peter it. Then it happened again. And people are at their breaking point. Businesses see that, they realize that it isn't business as usual and they need to Do Something to appeal to the silent majority who do want some form of dun control. (I believe the stats have it around 75% or more. It seems less, but the NRA has a whole pile of money they spend buying politicians and in fact, if one wavers in their support, all that money suddenly goes to their opponent.
The political climate has shifted, and businesses are simply stepping into the vacuum, realizing that while the NRA business is nice, it's not actually necessary, and they get a nice PR boost from being seen as Doing Something.
As long as mass shootings keep continuing to happen (and there's no indication it's going to stop), this is going to get worse. As long as the guy in the White House does everything else other than be seen doing something about the issue, companies are going to reconsider their support. The irony is, the NRA may have one the battle (Trump does nothing), but they might lose the war (popular opinion turns against gun owners, even being brandished as idiots of a barbaric age).
As long as kids are dying in the streets, no amount of tariffs or trade wars matter.
Disarm the common people! Down with freedom and democracy! The Social Justice reich shall last a thousand years!
Reddit - come for the bigoted elitists lecturing everyone about their moral superiority - stay for the censorship!
Before all the alt-right Nazis go blaming liberal companies blah blah blah - someone should mention the Republican Congress passage of FOSTA. The bill makes it so that website owners can be held liable for posts of their users. Right now it is supposed to specifically target sex trafficking but broad language in the bill and the likelihood of increasing liability is making a lot of companies panic.