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Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

arstechnica.com

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Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#251

Post by sooheon »

lifeformed wrote: post #222
sooheon wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not bullying, it is you taking offense to pixels. Which you are perfectly free to do, but nobody is bullying you by putting their art online.

Why is it so important to accommodate trolls and nazis? If a stranger in my house at a party drew a swastika on my wall, I'm kicking him out. If someone on my website did the same, I would also remove him. It's not me getting offended, it's just curation of the community. If someone doesn't want to follow the social norms of the community they're in, fine, but they'll pay the consequences. They can form their own com…

I don't want to accommodate trolls and nazis, I don't really care about their agenda and would probably delete such a comment if it was posted in my blog.

The only thing I take offense to is the victimizing language of "bullying" being used here. Putting up free speech online, if it's not targeted to specific people, chronic, and abusive, is not "bullying". It's just in poor taste or offensive. If you own a space online and want to remove distasteful or offensive material, that's completely your right. But don't frame it as bullying, or any sort of persecution.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#252

Post by zouhair »

rmccoy6435 wrote: post #6

I think this was a pretty neat experiment. For the first 24 hours everything was chaos, then it settled down in the middle as communities formed, then at the end it was just annoying as every subreddit was trying to take over real-estate, and far too many people were taking it way too seriously. It got annoying going to certain subreddits that I subscribe to for content started getting flooded with "Man the decks, we…

> The other thing this author tried to make this about was politics.

I don't get this way of thinking. Human are a political beast. Everything we do or say is political.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#253

Post by pbhjpbhj »

lifeformed wrote: post #239
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If a stranger in my house at a party drew a swastika on my wall, I'm kicking him out. // So you say "draw what you like on the walls" and then punish a follow of Vishnu because you associate the symbol differently to them. Don't invite strangers to draw stuff on your walls then? >If someone doesn't want to follow the social norms of the community they're in // Such as free speech. Don't give people freedom of speech…

Context is important. Communication is as much about interpretation as intent. If you draw a swastika in an environment where a swastika represents nazis, without taking the care to establish the context in which you would not be misrepresented, then sorry, I'm erasing it. 99.999% of the time an unadorned swastika is drawn anonymously in public in a Western environment, it's not the religious kind. So save it for a s…

>99.999% of the time an unadorned swastika is drawn anonymously in public in a Western environment, it's not the religious kind.

Ok, so drawing it is an act of rebellion that tells us something about people, in a piece of public, open, collaborative art that's a good thing.

I want to hear opposing views to my own, if someone sincerely rallies behind a swastika/flag/emblem i want to see, learn why, not usher them away. Reddit has much more abhorrent content than a simple emblem.

You're of course right, you don't have to give free speech. But it helps to do so occasionally especially when the medium prevents any actual harm coming from it.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#254

Post by zouhair »

the_watcher wrote: post #56
baby wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When are we going to see this beautiful sign back in our culture as a positive symbol :( that and the Hitler mustache. I'm guessing we need a few hundred years before we can use these things without it being associated to Nazism.

To be fair, Michael Jordan spent a few years trying to rehabilitate the Hitler mustache in his Hanes ads. The problem is that Hitler's become so associated with it that it's now broadly known as the Hitler mustache (as opposed to the toothbrush mustache - thanks DanBC!), which makes it pretty hard to dissociate it with the man for most people.

And Michael Jordan is not the paragon of nice.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#255

Post by dwaltrip »

Coincoin wrote: post #210
stouset wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If so, even better IMO.

Yes! Let's prevent them from expressing themselves so they will never debate their ideas and never realize they might be wrong. Let's ostracize them until they have no choice but fester their frustration, hidden from the rest of world. Let's make those ideas illegal so that any of our parents, sibling and children, if they ever entertain them, will keep it their most sacred secret, protected from scrutiny. All that,…

Not being able to express your idea without intense backlash is a pretty strong signal you might be wrong.

Of course, there are many exceptions to this in history.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#256

Post by lacampbell »

namlem wrote: post #216
lacampbell wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too am always baffled about how much more accepted communist imagery is than Nazi imagery. Mao and Stalins death counts far outstrip Hitlers. Also anyone advocating nazism in public would be rightly shouted down but you get heavily upvoted posts here advocating all sorts of nonsense proven to kill millions.

Communist death tolls are mostly due to economic mismanagement, whereas the Nazis were intentionally exterminating people. Obviously many people were killed in the gulags, but that number is far smaller than the numbers killed in Nazi death camps or in the famines which resulted from the aforementioned mismanagement.

FYI Holocaust revisionists make similar arguments.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#257

Post by wfo »

Coincoin wrote: post #210
stouset wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If so, even better IMO.

Yes! Let's prevent them from expressing themselves so they will never debate their ideas and never realize they might be wrong. Let's ostracize them until they have no choice but fester their frustration, hidden from the rest of world. Let's make those ideas illegal so that any of our parents, sibling and children, if they ever entertain them, will keep it their most sacred secret, protected from scrutiny. All that,…

Yes, the horrible life of the persecuted right wing racists. We MUST let them spew any racist garbage they wish at all times on any platform, otherwise they will throw a hissy fit and vote for Trump again. It's very important we let ourselves be held hostage to that idea. We need to constantly consider the feelings of the persecuted few outspoken racist conservatives. Can you imagine their plight and how bad they have it? They only control every branch of the united states government. Well, they don't control the judicial branch... yet.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#258

Post by [deleted] »

sooheon wrote: post #251
lifeformed wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it so important to accommodate trolls and nazis? If a stranger in my house at a party drew a swastika on my wall, I'm kicking him out. If someone on my website did the same, I would also remove him. It's not me getting offended, it's just curation of the community. If someone doesn't want to follow the social norms of the community they're in, fine, but they'll pay the consequences. They can form their own com…

I don't want to accommodate trolls and nazis, I don't really care about their agenda and would probably delete such a comment if it was posted in my blog. The only thing I take offense to is the victimizing language of "bullying" being used here. Putting up free speech online, if it's not targeted to specific people, chronic, and abusive, is not "bullying". It's just in poor taste or offensive. If you own a space onl…

[deleted]

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#259

Post by lifeformed »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #253
lifeformed wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Context is important. Communication is as much about interpretation as intent. If you draw a swastika in an environment where a swastika represents nazis, without taking the care to establish the context in which you would not be misrepresented, then sorry, I'm erasing it. 99.999% of the time an unadorned swastika is drawn anonymously in public in a Western environment, it's not the religious kind. So save it for a s…

>99.999% of the time an unadorned swastika is drawn anonymously in public in a Western environment, it's not the religious kind. Ok, so drawing it is an act of rebellion that tells us something about people, in a piece of public, open, collaborative art that's a good thing. I want to hear opposing views to my own, if someone sincerely rallies behind a swastika/flag/emblem i want to see, learn why, not usher them away…

Nazis had their moment; we as a civilization already "rebutted" their arguments and decided their worldview is incompatible with ours. If they think they have a better case now, they better present it more eloquently than with provocative symbols.

If someone is wrong a 100 times, why listen to them the 101st time? Also, if their first 50 arguments involved massacring millions, why should we entertain _any_ future argument of theirs? In fact, perhaps entertaining the first 50 ones is what lead to such violence. If we give unlimited room to violent ideas, how can we be surprised when violence takes form?

Why give speech to those whose goal is to deny speech and life itself? I would argue that giving free speech to ideas that goes against the principles of a free society is not only a huge waste of time, but a big danger.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#260

Post by lifeformed »

sooheon wrote: post #251
lifeformed wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it so important to accommodate trolls and nazis? If a stranger in my house at a party drew a swastika on my wall, I'm kicking him out. If someone on my website did the same, I would also remove him. It's not me getting offended, it's just curation of the community. If someone doesn't want to follow the social norms of the community they're in, fine, but they'll pay the consequences. They can form their own com…

I don't want to accommodate trolls and nazis, I don't really care about their agenda and would probably delete such a comment if it was posted in my blog. The only thing I take offense to is the victimizing language of "bullying" being used here. Putting up free speech online, if it's not targeted to specific people, chronic, and abusive, is not "bullying". It's just in poor taste or offensive. If you own a space onl…

It's provocative - it taunts free society and those who suffered for its sake, for a cause that our society has nearly unanimously condemned. It's overtly disrespectful and intended to cause distress or annoyance. Some would define that as bullying and some wouldn't; either way, I wouldn't care to accommodate those people on my sites.

If someone wants to defend a controversial view, they need to learn how to effectively communicate it, rather than expect others to graciously welcome it. Let the idea's merits be its own defense. If it's only defense is, "well at least it's not technically illegal to say", then maybe it wasn't worth saying in the first place.

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