Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there is a dichotomy here, one is rules, the other is ethics, both are different discussions. For instance, can an ethical case be made for watching people die? Is there any benefit to be gained from this beyond the first novelty factor. (A rhetorical question, just to note that the ethical debate precedes rule making)
Ideally an ethical debate would precede rule making. But last I checked nobody who didn't already work at Reddit was involved in making those rules; there was no site-wide referendum, no discussion with users, no warning that these decisions were being made. Every other social media giant operates the same way. To my knowledge no mainstream social network has ever polled its users for changes to its community policin…
I think the decision of users to continue to spend their valuable free-time using these social media sites is their vote in this scenario.
And I don’t mean that to come across as a flippant dismissal, I really don’t. When we consider those who like to say they simply want a place to explore unpopular ideas, people are correct to question why they keep coming back to these sites.
The wider internet has no shortage of places for these people to explore the craziest ideas imaginable, and if there isn’t a place for some idea, it takes minutes to spin a server up with already packaged freely available open-source platforms.
People are voting with their valuable free-time to go back to these platforms, it is personal preference in action.