Reddit started banning accounts that voted for content “against their policies” • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by majormajor » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 6:00 PM UTC

NOGDP wrote: post #248

majormajor wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But they shouldn't expect to be able manipulate and control discussion and face no backlash from users. You're saying they should face backlash from government regulators not from users. If there's a big user backlash, those users are already free to move to whatever site they want, or make their own. --- Re: your comment about trolling, etc, not being illegal: yes, exactly. So if a site wanted to enforce some sort…

> You're saying they should face backlash from government regulators not from users I never said that. But it's probably a good idea to have some sort of oversight for a massive platform that censors and manipulates discussion of millions of people. You may think their policies are totally justified and correct (they aren't), but the specific opinions they choose to promote may change to something you are against. >…

> But it's probably a good idea to have some sort of oversight for a massive platform that censors and manipulates discussion of millions of people. You may think their policies are totally justified and correct (they aren't), but the specific opinions they choose to promote may change to something you are against.

Think through the mechanics of how this oversight would work.

Someone will have to decide "is this site sufficiently neutral in how they moderate UGC." So let's spin up a government department more that, maybe call it part of the FCC, maybe make it a new one, who knows.

Now let years, maybe even decades go by. Now let's say some site you like gets essentially taken out - since massive sites aren't going to be able to do manual moderation of everything - by a regulator who leans to the opposite side of the political spectrum you do.

Now you don't have much resource, since you aren't free to go off and try again - the regulator would just get that site too.

I have a hard time seeing how this is better.

And this is a weird stance for conservatives to be preaching, since the previous similar thing, the fairness doctrine, was no favorite thing of theirs.

This is one of those things where you can't say "only the government can solve this problem" unless the only speech you want to see protected is fairly-mainstream government-endorsed speech.

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

#292

Post by trcollinson » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 6:01 PM UTC

cwhiz wrote: post #111

I don't think Reddit should be able to censor lawful content and also claim protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. If they want to police lawful content that is fine but then they are no longer an open platform and they should forfeit their Section 230 protections. I dislike the ability for online platforms to have their cake of protection against lawsuits and also eat their cake of policing…

Unfortunately, I don't think you understand the extent to which you, as an individual user, would be under obligation if Section 230 wasn't in force. Section 230 protects you, the "user" as much as it protects the platform or "provider of interactive computer services". It is very likely that without the protections of Section 230 you, the "user", would have to decide whether my comments on your Reddit post, Youtube video, Facebook post, or even this post, do not bring you under undo liability, and thus would have to police those comments. If you are prepared to do so, then go ahead and remove Section 230 protections. I have a legal background and I am certainly not prepared to decide if all content related to my content is lawful content.

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

#293

Post by humblebee » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 6:01 PM UTC

abtom wrote: post #37

manfredo wrote: 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?

They are trying to train their user base to moderate content correctly. If it's against the sites policy, users should down-vote the content and report it.

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

#294

Post by falcolas » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 6:01 PM UTC

torben-friis wrote: post #22

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…

> I don't really get reddit's efforts to clean their site.

That's easy - advertising.

The same reason YouTube cleaned up it's act. And Gifycat. And a dozen other sites who found themselves at the wrong end of their advertiser's ire.

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

#295

Post by csunbird » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 6:02 PM UTC

downerending wrote: post #193

defertoreptar wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether they intended it this way or not, users will now be worried they're upvoting the "wrong" thing and will be less likely to vote unpopular opinions and political views, just in case.

Arguably in 2020, you should be very careful about expressing any opinion that is in any way unpopular. Or that even could be construed as such.

I feel like people have forgotten what free speech is.

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

#296

Post by MaxBarraclough » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 6:04 PM UTC

cthalupa wrote: post #35

godzillabrennus wrote: post #15

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.

>but it’s also a cesspool or horrible people sharing horrible ideas This is not coincidental. The same thing happened with Voat, the same thing is happening with Ruqqus. I'm sure some not-awful stuff will end up as collateral damage here, but Reddit is attempting to target the communities of people that are promoting and engaging in some pretty heinous activities and lines of thought. When those are the people leavin…

> same thing is happening with Ruqqus

Can confirm. Checked out Ruqqus out of curiosity. Racist content right there on the homepage.

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

#297

Post by non-entity » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 6:05 PM UTC

bradlys wrote: post #289

zozbot234 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wouldn't characterize far left content as hateful. You're not familiar with, e.g. tankies, I take it?

The term has evolved over time. The people going by tankies now are likely not the same as decades ago. So, it's unclear what you think it is. https://www.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/comments/hb0xep/wtf_... https://www.reddit.com/r/ChapoTrapHouse/comments/hb0xep/wtf_...

Tankie feels like it became a near useless term. Some well known liberal paper (maybe NYT?) published some article that insinuated that maybe US cold war era propaganda on the USSR wasnt nessicarily always true and someone linked it to me referring to it as a tankie article.

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

#298

Post by yew » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 6:07 PM UTC

marricks wrote: post #56

An obvious concern of this would be just silencing content which isn't violent or morally wrong but just not wanted in a large commercially viable website. This is obviously polarizing but something I'll be watching is what happens to /r/chapotraphouse. CTH has some posts that violated a rule but most don't, the admins claim their quarantining was never well communicated and intentionally vague, posting screenshots o…

What seems to be happening with CTH looks like a positive sign. They're not really less toxic than the others getting the boot, and the admins kicking abusive buddies while they're cleaning up everyone else says they have a (somewhat) functional internal process. Less room for toxicity in the world!

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

#299

Post by dmonitor » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 6:08 PM UTC

tantalor wrote: post #278

elpocko wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The post you are referring to was deleted by the user who made the post not the mods.... Not true. The post body says [removed]. If the user deleted it, it would say [deleted].

It says "Sorry, this post was deleted by the person who originally posted it." https://imgur.com/a/8ZeyR7N

Old reddit says “removed”, which implies it was done by the moderators https://imgur.com/a/jowwaq6

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

#300

Post by trcollinson » Mon, Jun 22, 2020, 6:08 PM UTC

NOGDP wrote: post #222

majormajor wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So no site should be allowed to have moderation policies that include things like "no trolling," "no flaming," "no swearing," or anything like else like that for things that don't cross into "illegal" abusive speech? Without becoming a target for filling up with illegal shit to overwhelm the moderators and cause legal trouble for the owners? So HN is gone, too, then.

> So no site should be allowed to have moderation policies that include things like "no trolling," "no flaming," "no swearing," or anything like else like that for things that don't cross into "illegal" abusive speech? Any site can have any rules they want. But they shouldn't expect to be able manipulate and control discussion and face no backlash from users. > Without becoming a target for filling up with illegal sh…

That's actually not the point of Section 230. The point is that if you remove Section 230 and then you accuse someone of trolling, flaming, or swearing, that could be considered libelous.

If you would like to learn more, and see exactly what happened when Section 230 was not in effect, check out this case:

Stratton Oakmont, Inc. and Daniel Porush, v. Prodigy Services Company, "John Doe", and "Mary Doe".

Stratton Oakmont (yep, the one that was made by Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street), won that case against Prodigy and, yes, John Doe and Mary Doe. You, the user, are John Doe or Mary Doe. Section 230 protects you.