Imzy wants to be a kinder, gentler version of Reddit • Hacker News Board

Re: Imzy wants to be a kinder, gentler version of Reddit

#121

Post by glenra » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 7:29 PM UTC

zzzeek wrote: post #55

jdavis703 wrote: post #26

I signed up on their website, went through the onboarding flow and joined a couple of communities. Without them knowing anything about my political leanings they suggested a bunch of anti-Trump communities. I guess they're not trying to solve the "filter bubble" issue, but rather becoming the Reddit for liberals? I mean it's their business for them to run as they like, but I hope somebody can take us past the Breitba…

It sounds like a fair amount of statements directly made by Trump on the campaign trail (mocking a disabled person, telling people to check out the "sex tape" of a former Miss universe he didn't like, many other statements) would themselves not be allowed on this site, so it's not surprising it would be naturally anti-Trump. I highly doubt it would have any such attitudes towards people like Jeb Bush or Rand Paul who…

Trump didn't actually "mock a disabled person", at least not for their disability. Trump does do sort of a stammering spastic schtick in speeches to poke fun at people who have had to retrench after a misstatement. But:

(1) Trump does that same impression for anyone who has had to correct a misstatement about Trump.

(2) The time Trump was accused of doing it to mock a disabled person, his impression was the exact opposite of that disabled person's actual mannerisms. The person Trump is alleged to have "mocked" does not stammer and is not spastic and doesn't move his hands around at all, rather than waving them around wildly.

The meme claiming Trump "mocked a disabled person" was only plausible to people who had never met or seen video of that disabled person. (It was helped to spread via a single-frame screen capture; video would have given the game away.)

Re: Imzy wants to be a kinder, gentler version of Reddit

#122

Post by jasode » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 7:31 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #78

veddox wrote: post #74

I am staggered by the amount of people here who object to Imzy's "Be Nice"-policy on the basis that it limits free speech. To me that seems to be a rather flawed argumentation: a) The First Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees free speech, explicitly does so in a political context ("Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech"). Imzy is not the US Congress, they don't have jurisdict…

There is more to the idea of free speech than simply the first amendment. This essay explains it well: http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/12/29/the-spirit-of-the-first... The general gist is: imagine a world where women who advocate for suffrage and women's rights are ostracized from society, rejected from conferences and fired from their jobs. Those of us who favor a broader concept of free speech feel this is a bad sta…

>imagine a world where women who advocate for suffrage and women's rights are [...], rejected from conferences

Your expanded idea of free speech is noble but it's not possible for society to provide.

Free speech allowed by the government is possible.

Free speech hosted and paid for by private commercial entities is impossible -- in any long-term sustaining way.

The "free speech on commercial entities" would require 2 extra draconian laws that citizens would never agree to:

1) a law to force private entities to pay for speech they disagree with on their private platforms and in their private conferences even if that opposing speech causes them to lose the funding that allows for them to pay for it in the first place.

2) a law to force web surfers' eyeballs[1] to view content they don't agree with, and force people to buy tickets to conferences with speakers they don't want to hear

Free speech with private commercial entities creates a contradiction of priorities. I've written about this impossibility before.[2]

To make it relate to HN readers, imagine after creating a Digital Ocean account and paying $9/month for VPS to host a blog about photography or enthusiast forum about cars, you must now pay for opinion pieces about Trump or Clinton (whichever you disagree with). The draconian law requires you pay for it because nobody's opinion is allowed to be marginalized. Also, the web users visiting that new site are required to show video proof (maybe via iPhone/Android camera) that they've read the marginalized opinions. (To satisfy the proverbial "if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" ... if no visitors go to the web page and read it, it's effectively not free speech.)

[1] Ludovico technique: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange_(film)#/med...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12158682

Re: Imzy wants to be a kinder, gentler version of Reddit

#123

Post by JoeAltmaier » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 7:33 PM UTC

glenra wrote: post #121

zzzeek wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like a fair amount of statements directly made by Trump on the campaign trail (mocking a disabled person, telling people to check out the "sex tape" of a former Miss universe he didn't like, many other statements) would themselves not be allowed on this site, so it's not surprising it would be naturally anti-Trump. I highly doubt it would have any such attitudes towards people like Jeb Bush or Rand Paul who…

Trump didn't actually "mock a disabled person", at least not for their disability. Trump does do sort of a stammering spastic schtick in speeches to poke fun at people who have had to retrench after a misstatement. But: (1) Trump does that same impression for anyone who has had to correct a misstatement about Trump. (2) The time Trump was accused of doing it to mock a disabled person, his impression was the exact opp…

Greeeat! The guy who is now spokesperson worldwide for all of us here in the USA, does a spastic schtick all the time and doesn't have a clue why that would be amazingly insulting and demeaning.

Re: Imzy wants to be a kinder, gentler version of Reddit

#124

Post by Sir_Cmpwn » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 7:41 PM UTC

veddox wrote: post #74

I am staggered by the amount of people here who object to Imzy's "Be Nice"-policy on the basis that it limits free speech. To me that seems to be a rather flawed argumentation: a) The First Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees free speech, explicitly does so in a political context ("Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech"). Imzy is not the US Congress, they don't have jurisdict…

The reason people raise issues of free speech is that Reddit-style sites act more like a public utility and less like a single community. Reddit is a community of communities. The argument is that Reddit itself shouldn't limit speech, but that the individual communities within it can decide for themselves how to regulate discussion.

Re: Imzy wants to be a kinder, gentler version of Reddit

#125

Post by andrewflnr » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 7:42 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #117

frou_dh wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People talk about free speech like it's some goal, but in reality all people seem to do with it is make fun of fat people and post stolen naked pictures of celebrities. All people do in reality ... if for some reason you choose to disregard the huge number of fairly autonomous communities on Reddit? If I used that ultra-broad brush for HN, I'd say that all commenters here seem to do is post links to xkcd 927 and th…

The problem with Reddit (the company) is that it chooses to represent its service as a single community, and thus allows all of its communities to be tarred by the same brush. If Reddit was more like, say, StackExchange, or Wordpress.com, or Discourse—a hosting site for "communities" which happened to use the "Reddit engine"—then it wouldn't have nearly the PR problem it has now. Nobody blames Wordpress.com for the c…

I think reddit accurately represents the fact that both factors are present, lots of specific communities and also a larger reddit-wide community. At least I was never confused about that.

Re: Imzy wants to be a kinder, gentler version of Reddit

#126

Post by tscs37 » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 7:45 PM UTC

I don't think this would be a really successful model.

For one, once this scales, it's either gonna cost a ton to moderate unless you have it do people voluntarily, in which case you'll get moderators that don't care or alternatively you won't scale.

On second, I'm having serious doubts if such a community could grow a honest and public forum wherein opinions and statements are calmly discussed and properly evaluated.

Especially the second one is a huge problem, it makes any discussion platform essentially worthless, no matter how hard you try to be nice.

Re: Imzy wants to be a kinder, gentler version of Reddit

#127

Post by vivekd » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 7:46 PM UTC

I know some subreddits have "be kind and respectful" built into their rules, but this is often gamed by some redditors who will make carefully worded passive aggressive statements at ideological opponents and then quickly call for banning them when they react. There are also moderation issues with volunteer moderators sometimes using different standards of "kind and gentle" based on whether they agreed with the views of given posters. It seems hard to maintain standards like "kind and gentle" in any objective manner.

Re: Imzy wants to be a kinder, gentler version of Reddit

#128

Post by Neliquat » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 7:46 PM UTC

This is the opposite of why people are leaving reddit. Neat idea, but misguided.

Re: Imzy wants to be a kinder, gentler version of Reddit

#129

Post by dom0 » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 7:47 PM UTC

gkya wrote: post #120

DanBlake wrote: post #46

Why dont they call it what it is? A safe space for the left. Looking at the official "politics" section is just liberal-based editorials: https://www.imzy.com/politics I lean left on the political spectrum for most things, but I cant help but think all this "safe space" stuff is what pushed the country into electing trump in the first place- It makes america look and feel weak. Also, the site is ungodly slow and supe…

It may be because right politics usually include hate speech, mocking, personal attacks, lies etc.

I don't think that's true - at least not in every country / society.

Re: Imzy wants to be a kinder, gentler version of Reddit

#130

Post by tedks » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 7:47 PM UTC

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #124

veddox wrote: post #74

I am staggered by the amount of people here who object to Imzy's "Be Nice"-policy on the basis that it limits free speech. To me that seems to be a rather flawed argumentation: a) The First Amendment of the US Constitution, which guarantees free speech, explicitly does so in a political context ("Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech"). Imzy is not the US Congress, they don't have jurisdict…

The reason people raise issues of free speech is that Reddit-style sites act more like a public utility and less like a single community. Reddit is a community of communities. The argument is that Reddit itself shouldn't limit speech, but that the individual communities within it can decide for themselves how to regulate discussion.

This is the same tired justification of injustice that "states rights" advocates trot out.