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Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies”

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Re: Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies”

#42
post #12
post #6

So, if people don't vote the way the Reddit admins want, the Reddit admins will replace the voters. That is definitely a way to get only the things the Reddit admins want upvoted, upvoted. But it seems to me to be the opposite of free discourse. I can sympathise with the admins, because a) there are a lot of terrible, toxic people b) there are a lot of bot armies. The latter is probably easiest to combat, but it is s…

How so? Calling for someone to be murdered is understandably against their policy. As is doxxing someone. The user accounts that upvote the call for murder or upvote the doxxing details KNOW that the post is against their policy and decided to participate anyway. I hate how these conversations always devolve to "well they're just trying to control what everyone says!" as if it's black and white and not shades of gray…

Yes, it's shades of gray.

For example, lets compare a similar service. Twitter is currently censoring some of the President of the US's tweets. They were not doing that a few months ago. So it's not black and white where twitter and acceptability is, and, like with society, it changes over time. Thus, people are concerned that merely interacting with something is enough to be labelled anathema, because of the shades of gray.

Re: Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies”

#43
post #37
post #2

Reddit admin message: > Your account has been suspended from for breaking the rules. Your account has been suspended for 3 day(s). >> You recently upvoted a post or comment that was determined to be against our policies. Abusive content is not acceptable on Reddit nor is engaging with it. Please be thoughful about the content that you interact with. Interestingly nothing in the Reddit policies seems to mention voting…

This is super stupid. If they're so against the content why allow it to exist in the first place?

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Re: Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies”

#44

I don't really get reddit's efforts to clean their site. They sometimes come up with measures like this, while routinely ignoring the development of horrible communities that they're aware of (since some users take any possible opportunity to mention them to the admins and are met with silence or half measures). They even came up with the concept of quarantined subreddits. I honestly can't think of a single honest re…

[deleted]

Re: Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies”

#45

I don't really get reddit's efforts to clean their site. They sometimes come up with measures like this, while routinely ignoring the development of horrible communities that they're aware of (since some users take any possible opportunity to mention them to the admins and are met with silence or half measures). They even came up with the concept of quarantined subreddits. I honestly can't think of a single honest re…

If you let a bad community be bad in their dark corner, they won't spread as easily to the rest of the site. You can easily see that the accounts are toxic by seeing that they participate in garbage communities. And it's a great honeypot for authorities, be it for political astroturfing and nationstate stuff, or for borderline-illegal content.

Re: Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies”

#46

I don't really get reddit's efforts to clean their site. They sometimes come up with measures like this, while routinely ignoring the development of horrible communities that they're aware of (since some users take any possible opportunity to mention them to the admins and are met with silence or half measures). They even came up with the concept of quarantined subreddits. I honestly can't think of a single honest re…

Because competitors exist

Re: Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies”

#47
post #8

Eventually reddit will go the way of digg and fade into irrelevance.

I read digg multiple times a day.

It is far better than it was over a decade ago.

As an aggregator, it is nearly perfectly aligned with my interests (except for the year they spent heavily promoting Jimmy Fallon).

Re: Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies”

#48

I don't really get reddit's efforts to clean their site. They sometimes come up with measures like this, while routinely ignoring the development of horrible communities that they're aware of (since some users take any possible opportunity to mention them to the admins and are met with silence or half measures). They even came up with the concept of quarantined subreddits. I honestly can't think of a single honest re…

The missing component of your thought process is who, exactly, deems subreddits not worthy of existence. Many people view pornography as an extremely damaging problem and addiction, would you want all 18+ subreddits removes because somebody “can’t think of a single honest reason for them existing”?

Re: Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies”

#49

There is an alternative to the group think/hive mind called https://gab.com/ but it’s also a cesspool or horrible people sharing horrible ideas. Not sure what makes sense.

> it’s also a cesspool or horrible people sharing horrible ideas. I tend to follow Voltaire's ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.' I agree with your assessment of the quality of ideas thrown around there, but I'd prefer a world where the internet allowed sites like that to exist, rather than one that's increasingly owned & distributed by giant corporate conglomerates wi…

There's nothing wrong with Reddit not wanting to facilitate and provide a platform for that sort of content, though.

It's a massively popular site with mainstream appeal. They don't want to let that popularity and audience be taken advantage of to spread ideas that are hateful and likely to incite violence.

Quarantined subreddits are dumb, but it's a sign that their afraid of the backlash of outright banning them - they are already getting accused of heavy handed censorship.

If people want to talk about that stuff, then yeah, go to gab and voat and ruqqus or 8chan or other sites that allow for it. There's no shortage of places on the internet to talk about anything you want. Reddit doesn't have to be one of them.

Re: Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies”

#50
post #12
post #6

So, if people don't vote the way the Reddit admins want, the Reddit admins will replace the voters. That is definitely a way to get only the things the Reddit admins want upvoted, upvoted. But it seems to me to be the opposite of free discourse. I can sympathise with the admins, because a) there are a lot of terrible, toxic people b) there are a lot of bot armies. The latter is probably easiest to combat, but it is s…

How so? Calling for someone to be murdered is understandably against their policy. As is doxxing someone. The user accounts that upvote the call for murder or upvote the doxxing details KNOW that the post is against their policy and decided to participate anyway. I hate how these conversations always devolve to "well they're just trying to control what everyone says!" as if it's black and white and not shades of gray…

https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy

Calling for murder and doxxing isn't the only thing against the content policy. Lots of those policies will have a very subjective line in the sand.

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