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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”

#341

Post by wildmusings »

majormajor wrote: post #195
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…

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.

Free speech is not so daft a concept. Where some restrictions are necessary, the principle of “viewpoint neutrality” still works to prevent censorship. This is the approach that First Amendment jurisprudence takes. So, where the government allows pro-abortion expression, it must also allow anti-abortion expression. But it can still set volume limits and control crowd movements and so forth, as long as it does not discriminate on the basis of viewpoint. And this applies even where its more general obligation to allow all expression does not hold.

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

#342

Post by mikeyouse »

wnoise wrote: post #332
mikeyouse wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Slide to dystopian horror"? For banning a bunch of garbage subs and the people that upvote the garbage? Hyperbolic much?

The problem is that there's no reason to believe that this policy will be limited strictly to obvious garbage. Unpopular, but not garbage views will inevitably be hit too. Maybe that's worth taking out the garbage, but collateral damage is still a negative.

It's amusing how much HN mocks the police for their stance that everything that enables privacy could enable child exploitation imagery while at the same time insisting that anything that resembles moderation will end in dystopian thought policing.

Sometimes slopes just aren't that slippery.

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

#343

Post by jodrellblank »

serf wrote: post #166
gnulinux wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to register zillions of forums and manage my passwords. I contribute to hundreds of subreddits. If reddit dies I'll find a replacement like reddit and move on.

>I don't want to register zillions of forums and manage my passwords. and I don't especially want the admins of any one site to be able to erase my entire existence off the net on a whim. single/token login from known net authority agents is common. I'd rather embrace that kind of thing than the idea that any one site should be our de facto forum and communications standard. I was reminded of this recently when a per…

> “Reddit will disappear one day, and it's up to them to be a good actor towards the archival group, providing data bandwidth during a time when”

Reddit’s content is already dumped and cloned in near-real-time. https://pushshift.io/

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

#344

Post by [deleted] »

globular-toast wrote: post #326
kache_ wrote: post #27

Reddit has been compromised with actors who do not have free speech in their best interest. The other day there was an illuminating ask reddit post about transexuals who decided to transition back and their experiences. That post got promptly removed by moderators; even though there was no hateful content within it at all. They effectively silenced the transexual population due to an ever so slight conflict of ideolo…

It's easy to see why that post was removed. The current reddit "truth" is that transsexuality is perfectly normal and even common. But the real truth is it's not common and it should be treated like any other mental illness. But what tends to happen is certain people like the idea of transsexuality so encourage mentally ill people to make permanent and devastating changes to their body, often leading to eventual suic…

[deleted]

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

#345

Post by jodrellblank »

minkzilla wrote: post #320
qq11ww22ee33 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1984 1984 and its consequences has been a disaster for the human race. Read another book

I’ve read many books in my time and I liked 1984 both for its entertainment value and as a warning about government power and limiting free speech. What is wrong with 1984? Is there a similar but better book I should read?

What’s wrong with 1984 is people sign up for a private service, post something against the ToS, get their account banned by a volunteer user-moderator, then call it “punishment” and cite 1984 as if “piss off, troll” from JimBob moderator of /r/WhippetFanciers is exactly the same as living in North Korea and being forced to speak NewSpeak on threat of having caged rats eat your face in Room 101.

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

#346

Post by [deleted] »

nebulosa wrote: post #319
kache_ wrote: post #27

Reddit has been compromised with actors who do not have free speech in their best interest. The other day there was an illuminating ask reddit post about transexuals who decided to transition back and their experiences. That post got promptly removed by moderators; even though there was no hateful content within it at all. They effectively silenced the transexual population due to an ever so slight conflict of ideolo…

I think the core of a lot of these issues is the distinction between universal findings which almost always are in favour of "progressive" worldviews and anecdotes which aren't necessarily. The example of trans people detransitioning is a good one here - the general truth that transgender people are very happy with their decision to do so (regardless of what that may mean for them) conflicts with individuals and thei…

[deleted]

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

#348

Post by luckylion »

yusyusyus wrote: post #304
luckylion wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point, that gets moved up a few levels though, if the BBS allows for groups that get moderated by other people, is the BBS still "the moderator" or is it those people that set up the group? And if you don't agree with their decisions, should you be able to launch a rival group on the BBS (it being a platform and all)?

I simply disagree that it moves up. We have had a clear delineation between what is "restrictive private property" and what is "open access private property". That separation is clearly delineated at the IP network + related necessities. This model has worked well, and I don't see how it is breaking now. Someone else mentioned as well, but some very specific monopoly/necessity cases could change this delineation, how…

I think it's reasonable to argue that we have a bunch of local monopolies today, only that "local" on the internet is interest-based-local, not geographically local.

You mentioned Google Search, I'd add Youtube for video content, Twitch for streaming, FB for social network etc. Sure, you can broadcast video content without Youtube, there's vimeo or you could host it yourself, but it's really not a feasible approach. Much like you don't really have to rely on the local utility company to provide you with electricity and water, you could totally run a generator in your back yard and have trucks bring in fresh and move out waste water ... but it's not a realistic approach.

> To this end, I say "nope, you're not entitled... we have an open internet, drive your own damn traffic".

I'd respond that we don't have an open internet, but more importantly: you don't have to be a platform, nobody is stopping Reddit from being a publisher.

The reason why they don't want to legally be a publisher is simply that their low-cost approach doesn't work if they have more responsibility for what they publish. They very much want to be able to pick and choose what is published, but they don't want to be considered a publisher.

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

#349

Post by tandr »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #71
gnulinux wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to register zillions of forums and manage my passwords. I contribute to hundreds of subreddits. If reddit dies I'll find a replacement like reddit and move on.

A "log in with Google/Apple/Github/whatever" fixes that issue easily enough.

I think it just shifts it to Google/Apple/Github/whatever "owns" id management.

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

#350

Post by koheripbal »

klodolph wrote: post #110
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…

My take on quarantined subreddits is that it’s just a tool to remove certain communities from the mobile app so they don’t get in trouble with Apple / Google (mostly Apple, I’m sure).

...and also how to avoid the media talking about it.
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