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Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse

washingtonpost.com

71–80 of 970 posts

Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse

#71
I wonder how someone like Hitler would have been treated. I guess free speech advocates would have helped him to spread his sick ideas and rise to power? Free speech needs to have limits somewhere. If others are insulted, smeared, de-humanized, if hate is spreaded, if under the protection of free speech people rise to power who poison the political climate, then the whole system is in danger of falling apart, with all the good elements, even the right for free speech.

Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse

#73

Whether you agree with the move or not, it's funny how Reddit's stance has changed over time. Under the old ownership, 2012: "At reddit we care deeply about not imposing ours or anyone elses’ opinions on how people use the reddit platform. We are adamant about not limiting the ability to use the reddit platform even when we do not ourselves agree with or condone a specific use. We have very few rules here on reddit;…

The Donald would have been deleted under the old leadership too...

They got in hot water not for supporting Trump (there are plenty of pro-Trump subreddits) but actively breaking the most basic rules of Reddit, maybe you should actually look at their history.

Spamming the same images to the subreddit, interfering with other subreddits, trying to out whistleblowers in federal cases, gaming the content discovery system with sticky posts.

I'm tired of this narrative that The Donald was banned for censorship reasons, they were banned for being a virus that was infecting Reddit.

They could have been supporting the Dalai Lama and their behavior would have been against the basic expectations of Reddit, and that's exactly why they were quarantined/banned

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/The_Donald#History

In true fashion of people trying to push a made up point, every reply is nitpicking over which one of their many incredible misbehaviors was the deal breaker, from doxxing people to brigading other subreddits, instead of actually providing a rebuttal

It doesn't matter which one broke the camels back, anyone who can read their history of behavior and pretend Reddit didn't have a reason to take action, even by those 2012 rules, is in denial.

Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse

#74

Both Reddit's and /r/The_Donald speech protected from the outcome. From the article is that that the moderators/participants already have a new place to discuss whatever they want on a reddit clone. Reddit as a platform/company doesn't have to choose to be associated with this hate speech. Both sides have free speech rights and both have outcomes that support that speech...

Is there a "real" definition of hate speech? It seems like a hard to define rule. I also hate Trump but am allowed to say any horrible thing I want to about him, but if I were to same the same things about Hilary (I also hated her as a politician) it would be hate speech.

Its subjective. The side who has more power get to define the meaning of hate speech.

Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse

#75
post #7

Worth taking note that in today's climate, you really cannot win when you are in a position to moderate important things that a lot of people use. There is constantly tremendous pressure on you to perform opposing actions, and even making no decision at all will cause you significant mental stress and harassment, regardles of what the issue is. You have to pick who you want to cave to, and to what extent, and no matt…

Users won't allow for (use) decentralized platforms until there is a good way to censor them. Once that happens, what would be the point of switching. Facebook and Reddit are successful BECAUSE they are censorship machines. Facebook spends far more man hours on "curating" content compared to engineering. Same with Reddit. Add up all the "moderation" time spent removing negative or controversial posts and I bet much m…

Reddit particularly used to be a free speech platform where anything could go and then used network effects to gain dominance. Now that they have dominance they now implement censorship of right wing views comments. This is true for Facebooks deboosting capabilities.

Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse

#76

I have no love for the political ideology or behavior of this group but they weren't breaking any laws or even any more rules than other groups on reddit that still operate. They were just politically unviable. Centralized corporate means to communicate (like, say, this one we're using) always go bad eventually. It's the natural lifecycle of online forums. Once money involved it's only a matter of time before the pro…

> They were just politically unviable.

We all know reddit leans a bit left, but the ban also included /r/chapotraphouse which is a leftist subreddit that was also notorious for rule breaking. Frankly, it seems reddit went out of its way to accommodate the_donald for a while now.

Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse

#77

I have no love for the political ideology or behavior of this group but they weren't breaking any laws or even any more rules than other groups on reddit that still operate. They were just politically unviable. Centralized corporate means to communicate (like, say, this one we're using) always go bad eventually. It's the natural lifecycle of online forums. Once money involved it's only a matter of time before the pro…

> they weren't breaking ... any more rules than other groups on reddit

Do you have data that backs this assertion? Because it seems to run counter to the stated reasoning for the removal of the subreddit.

Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse

#78

Both Reddit's and /r/The_Donald speech protected from the outcome. From the article is that that the moderators/participants already have a new place to discuss whatever they want on a reddit clone. Reddit as a platform/company doesn't have to choose to be associated with this hate speech. Both sides have free speech rights and both have outcomes that support that speech...

> Both sides have free speech rights and both have outcomes that support that speech... "Free speech rights" don't apply between two private entities, only between the government and a private entity.

To repeat a trite argument, that is the case for the free speech that is guaranteed under the US constitution. Free speech advocates usually claim that either reddit does indeed violate that constitutional right (similarly to how it applies to federally funded private companies) or that the human right of free speech is violated.

This second version is assumed to exist a priori from any state/law similarly to how international human right conventions Recognize human rights rather than Create them.

Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse

#79

Whether you agree with the move or not, it's funny how Reddit's stance has changed over time. Under the old ownership, 2012: "At reddit we care deeply about not imposing ours or anyone elses’ opinions on how people use the reddit platform. We are adamant about not limiting the ability to use the reddit platform even when we do not ourselves agree with or condone a specific use. We have very few rules here on reddit;…

AKA: Please come over to our platform and contribute content so we can profit. Once we have profited, we will make sure to virtue signal on the highest level. I created /r/lifeprotips and got shadowbanned for promoting a website I built around it after fostering the community for YEARS/spending my own money to give "gold" to reward community members. reddit is a scam.

No post body was provided.

Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse

#80
Why is the article so cagey about mentioning what the successor is, while mentioning two other sites, Gab and Parler, that are equally controversial? It seems like a basic failure of factual journalism to say "[r/The_Donald's] volunteer moderators and much of the community had left in recent months, moving to a website that mimics Reddit’s system of conversation and user voting on content but appears to have fewer rules." If they're trying to preemptively de-platform thedonald.win, then why mention Gab and Parler?
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