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Reddit Bans Nazi Groups and Others in Crackdown on Violent Content

nytimes.com

41–50 of 276 posts

Re: Reddit Bans Nazi Groups and Others in Crackdown on Violent Content

#41
Stop with this "Nazi" nonsense. This is not 1930's Germany, there are no Nazi's. People can dress as them sure, but if I dress as an elephant from the costume store this does not make me an elephant. Also, where are the articles of the Islamic-group crackdowns? I do not see any, even though the Islamic invasion is happening ever so slowly and the Islamists are extremely violent. That's the real threat, not this pretend "Nazi" rubbish.

Re: Reddit Bans Nazi Groups and Others in Crackdown on Violent Content

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they banned Far_Right but https://www.reddit.com/r/farleft/ is ok? What a cool place Reddit is! /s

Maybe take it as a mark of grim respect. Far left and anarchist groups are generally considered to be unsuccessful in the arc of modern history, with even China partially adopting western aspects of governance to remain competitive. Their successes are almost entirely in appealing to moderates and with heavy appeasement of capitalism. One of the most famous attempt at true communism ended spectacularly, with a bulk v…

> Far left groups are generally considered to be unsuccessful in the arc of history

Um, what? China, the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea, just to name a few of the more famous ones. Tens of millions killed in the name of a communist utopia.

Re: Reddit Bans Nazi Groups and Others in Crackdown on Violent Content

#43
post #13

Why has free speech fallen out of favour with SV? Ironically, it happened rather silently. It's not just an Eternal September-like phenomenon. The very same people who used to support it not only don't any more but pretend they never did in the first place. Speaking of the founding fathers, I ask him what he thinks they would have thought of Reddit. "A bastion of free speech on the World Wide Web? I bet they would li…

The answer is easy - because people came face to face with the downsides of free speech, and also how it has been gamed to promote the very worst of humanity, culminating in the election of the most dangerously, maliciously unqualified person to ever lead America. New evidence can lead to reevaluating opinions.

But there was no reevaluation. It was just silently dropped in favour of "safety."

And of course free speech is being used to promote the worst. You don't need much protection to discuss your favourite brand and their amazing products.

Re: Reddit Bans Nazi Groups and Others in Crackdown on Violent Content

#44
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's a better way to deal with the mentally ill and disenfranchised Enabling them is not a good way to deal with them. Allowing easily discoverable safe spaces with which to reinforce their neuroses and paranoia only adds to the problem as new users can more easily be recruited, preyed upon, etc. This goes for much more than just violent white supremacists, it also applies to things like pro-ana, which creates an…

I'd argue they have no moral obligation to do any such thing. However, they should probably make a pretty clear warning sign. I fear we will digress too far. In short, I'm very pro freedom of expression. I'm glad voat exists, for example. The people there are often horrible, that is true. But, they still deserve to express themselves freely.

I don't understand why anyone deserves server space and labor resources. They are free to express themselves, but the cost of running a service is not free, and they have no right to those costs.

They can stand in a public square and say what they like. They can have debates in their own living room. They can print up manifestos on their own dime. They have a right to do all of that, and nobody's arguing against that.

Re: Reddit Bans Nazi Groups and Others in Crackdown on Violent Content

#45
post #6

It's really, really not easy to stand up for the rights of Nazis. If you're a Nazi, you can use voat.co as they are very free speech oriented. You don't have to be a Nazi to participate, but it's a good idea to have a thick skin if you do go there. I go there and talk to the White Nationalists. They are pretty much Nazis. They know I'm not white and that I don't agree with them. They don't scare me. They are scared a…

there's a better way to deal with the mentally ill and disenfranchised Enabling them is not a good way to deal with them. Allowing easily discoverable safe spaces with which to reinforce their neuroses and paranoia only adds to the problem as new users can more easily be recruited, preyed upon, etc. This goes for much more than just violent white supremacists, it also applies to things like pro-ana, which creates an…

The effect your are talking about seems legit. The flip side about that is if you force these groups out of the public and then into the shadows, that's only proving the paranoia. Does that radicalize things even more? The same kind of viewpoints existed in the mid 90s, underground, and that lead to OKC which was one of the worst terrorist incidents in US history.

Is it better or worse that this is happening in public?

Re: Reddit Bans Nazi Groups and Others in Crackdown on Violent Content

#46
post #22
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't ban all Nazis. They banned subreddits that posted content (not comments) advocating violence. That included one or two "nazi" subreddits. The article says this in the first paragraph. That said, thanks for trying to find positive ways to deal with things.

The effect is largely the same, now isn't it? In fact, they recently published a study showing the efficacy of their sub closures from a couple of years ago. People leave, effectively silenced. They can do that. It is their right. It's okay.

I would guess that people left because there weren't many other subreddits with similar topics to the ones that were banned. But there are other nazi subreddits, and the mods made it clear that it's acceptable to be a nazi as long as they're not advocating violence too much. So I would be surprised if that many people actually left this time compared to last time.

Re: Reddit Bans Nazi Groups and Others in Crackdown on Violent Content

#47
post #35
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no shade of gray here? Either you host nazi propaganda, or you're "anti-free speech?"

Reddit, Twitter and others have banned a much wider selection of posters and communities than nazis. Of course they lead with NAZIS! but then it's anything from r/coontown to voting in the wrong thread. To answer your question, you're not running a bastion of free speech if you ban people for their political opinions.

Fortunately reddit is banning communities that advocate violence, not communities with certain sets of politics. It just so happens that there's a major overlap of political views to inciting violence.

Even the first amendment recognizes that there are limits to free speech- namely when they infringe on other people's rights.

Re: Reddit Bans Nazi Groups and Others in Crackdown on Violent Content

#48
post #25
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That place promotes violence and hate on a daily basis.

Care to give some evidence for your claims?

Crap, tried to reply to your message and replied to another one instead. Check my comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15563490

Re: Reddit Bans Nazi Groups and Others in Crackdown on Violent Content

#49
post #17

Hmm. This is going to be interesting. I mean, nearly everyone should be fine with banning Nazis. After all, they're vile and in my opinion don't deserve any place on the world except the inside of a jail cell... The problem is: where will the line be drawn? What about Black Lives Matter? The more, uh, militant parts of the Antifa movement? Militant animal rights groups (which actually are treated as domestic terroris…

I think everyone is freaking out about the headline unnecessarily here. From the first paragraph: has started to implement a new policy to ban content that glorifies and incites violence, and among the first to go were forums for Nazi, racist and white supremacist groups. They aren't banning Nazis because they are Nazis. They are banning Nazis that glorify or incite violence. And anyone else that glorifies or incites…

A huge portion of the banned subreddits were zoophilia related too. This was just general housecleaning.

Re: Reddit Bans Nazi Groups and Others in Crackdown on Violent Content

#50
post #6

It's really, really not easy to stand up for the rights of Nazis. If you're a Nazi, you can use voat.co as they are very free speech oriented. You don't have to be a Nazi to participate, but it's a good idea to have a thick skin if you do go there. I go there and talk to the White Nationalists. They are pretty much Nazis. They know I'm not white and that I don't agree with them. They don't scare me. They are scared a…

Everybody is running into the same issue. Even voat is is banning "subreddits". Turns out managing UGC is a really hard problem. https://voat.co/v/announcements/163288

Yeah, that was a couple of years ago and a clear line in the sand. No illegal content. A good choice. Free speech doesn't include illegal content.

Well, it doesn't to most rational people.

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