Reddit is still in turmoil

If everyone is flawed, then whats the point of having an arbitrarily selected group of flawed people censor all the other flawed people? That logic seems flawed, unless it is purely from a monetary interest.

Moreover, deeming people "horrible" is completely subjective. All of the great pioneers of human rights were considered "horrible people" by the majority.

>Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured. But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . ." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?

-Dr. King, Letter From a Birmingham Jail

I think this gets brought up a fair amount, with both the obvious examples (yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater) and the not-so-obvious ones (whether 'hate speech' should be protected is very divisive).

A larger problem really is that many people are in a pretty binary mindset, especially about the not-so-obvious ones: Either you're a monster who has no principles, or you're a monster defending neo-nazis, without acknowledging that "allowable speech" is a constantly moving target.

Yelling "DEATH TO " on a plane nowadays would almost certainly land you in prison (whereas 50 years ago maybe you would've just gotten a psych evaluation), and conversely talking about equal rights 200 years ago would've gotten you thrown in prison as a rabble-rouser inciting chaos.

Finding the acceptable level of "free speech" in a private community is something that's constantly going to be in flux, and successful communities will accept that ultimately neither group may be happy with the equilibrium: But it's still the equilibrium that maximizes happiness.

> More importantly there are categories of speech which are not put forward in good faith but are instead intended to do damage to communities that host them.

The dangerous part that you're omitting here is that "good faith" is an extremely subjective judgement. It's incredibly easy to imagine scenarios where dissenting speech = scrutinized HEAVILY for "not being in good faith".

For example, I'm pretty sure Erdogan has accused many opposition members of exactly that.

None of these cultures handle censorship well. They all originated in an environment where, to some extent, you could say whatever the hell you like.

Many of Reddit's early users came from these cultures, and they were responsible for the early culture of the site.

And now, Reddit is desparately trying to adapt itself, and attract people from Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr, whose cultures are radically different, and perhaps even to some degree less toxic than the pre-September usenet, whilst also being more toxic. I don't know how.

The point is, a culture that previously only dealt with unacceptability in relative terms - this is unacceptable in this context - is now dealing with absolute unacceptability - this is not acceptable, ever. This isn't a change that people will likely adapt to well. This is prompting a migration to sites like Voat, and others.

The problem is, Reddit is introducing censorship which is incredibly inconsistant to a site where the concept of censorship is anathema - Bans, yes, people get punished for breaking the rules. But having your posts quietly vanish without warning?

No wonder the userbase is pissed.

Unless I got it completely wrong, which is possible.