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

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

#411

Post by Drip33 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #296
proverbialbunny wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, that's not quite true. Reddit's first wave of popularity came from a lack of censorship. There was a decryption code posted on a news story on Digg that allowed one to decrypt a bluray. Digg got a cease and desist, took it down, and people started protesting on Digg posting the code everywhere. During this time was the first wave where people started jumping from Digg to Reddit because of the lack of censor…

> Reddit is still very much anti censorship. // That doesn't appear to be true. Something like r/watchpeopledie, they don't have to censor, and it seems contained. I wouldn't want to visit it, not more than once, it may not be healthy in general, but taking it down seems to be "just" censorship? Other than pornography they seem to have markedly cleaned up and taken a much more advertising friendly focus; seems much l…

>Something like r/watchpeopledie, they don't have to censor, and it seems contained. I wouldn't want to visit it, not more than once, it may not be healthy in general, but taking it down seems to be "just" censorship?

I can say for me personally after spending some time on that subreddit that I am far more cautious and safe in everything I do. I always look out for falling objects, wear helmets and safety gear when appropriate, drive even more defensively etc. The sub opened my eyes to the dangers of planet Earth, all the ways it tries to kill us, and I don't think I'm alone on this.

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

#412

Post by stale2002 »

ryankemper wrote: post #229
proverbialbunny wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, that's not quite true. Reddit's first wave of popularity came from a lack of censorship. There was a decryption code posted on a news story on Digg that allowed one to decrypt a bluray. Digg got a cease and desist, took it down, and people started protesting on Digg posting the code everywhere. During this time was the first wave where people started jumping from Digg to Reddit because of the lack of censor…

> Reddit is still very much anti censorship. This is just not true. They are very transparently trying to kick off users/communities that they don't "like". For example basically any subreddit associated with the "alt right", except I believe /r/DebateTheAltRight or whatever it's called. It's very simple: (1) Identify community that you don't like, generally due to association with anti-leftist political views (2) Fi…

> They are very transparently trying to kick off users/communities that they don't "like".

They are now. But what we are saying is that reddit didn't used to be like this.

Reddit used to be much less moderated, and much more in favor of free speech, almost to a ridiculous degree.

They used to allow a subreddit called jailbait, for gods sake.

Things are very different now, obviously.

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

#413

Post by ww520 »

belltaco wrote: post #404
ww520 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The lower level mods were forced in by the Reddit admin a while back. There were warnings about these sock mods long ago. The subsequent banning of the top mods effectively put these sock mods in control.

I don't think that was the case but I am open to sources.

I am also open to the sources that the low level mods were "hired" by the top mods.

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

#414

Post by Gunax »

ant6n wrote: post #345
mantas wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many left-leaning subreddits were banned? There're several toxic commie subs with a lot of hatred thrown around, but nobody seems to care. r/politics was default for ages and it wasn't exactly a welcoming place.

I find it wierd what some Americans consider to be communist. A communist is not somebody who advocates for * equal rights for all people independent of ethnic origin, skin color, gender or religion * public transit * universal access to health care * affordable higher education * affordable housing * or even wealth redistribution via taxes, for example via welfare or a guaranteed minimum income A Communist is somebo…

And a white supremacist is not someone who advocates for bringing jobs back home, or enforcing immigration law. But people still feel free to call Trump racist because of those policies.

The reason is that people view him as having ulteriour motives beyond his stated ones.

Everyone is for affordable housing, so being in favour of that has no political bearing. But there are different proposed solutions to that. Putting a wealth cap of $10 million is a very communist-like solution, and I don't think it's unfair to describe the subs were those views are predominant as socialist or communist leaning.

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

#415

Post by deegles »

jlkuester7 wrote: post #222
duxup wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would something decentralized help? I don't think people want that. The_Donald involved a lot of spreading their message / fake news sites / spamming across other subs and etc. Do people want to be on a platform where other folks on the same platform are targeting their community with dishonest and often bigoted content? I'm also not sure how much The_Donald was as a community. The sheer volume of users at its height…

IMHO decentralization (via federated protocols) is the most viable option here. Taking Mastodon ( https://joinmastodon.org/ ) as an example, people are able to connect globally with each other, but you also have a moderation framework that allows for true decentralized control over content. You can join an instance with moderation policies that align with your ideals or even host your own instance.

Who does the moderation? Some really messed up stuff gets uploaded to basically every social media platform [0] and I sure as hell do not want to deal with that.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebo...

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

#416

Post by nullc »

abellerose wrote: post #318
gtk40 wrote: post #255

/r/gendercritical was also banned, an active and well-moderated radical feminist sub. I am not a radical feminist, nor was I particularly welcomed there as a man, but I found the sub interesting to expand my perspective.

What did that subreddit do besides hating on trans people? I never saw anything but countless posts targeting hate against trans people.

People see what catches their attention.

Some people would go there and read articles about gay women being attacked for choosing whom they took on as sexual partners. (I found it quite surprising and extremely rapey that anyone would consider it appropriate to be critical of anyone for choosing their consenting sexual partners however they like-- but it happens sometimes.)

Or read about people being displaced from scholarships because the top spots in track in their community were held by hormonally advantaged persons.

Or learn about cases where tomboyish young women were told that they were actually men because they were interested in science or sports.

Personally, I find it too easy to be extremely self righteous in ethical proclamations if I never even get exposed to the corner cases where there can be a truly difficult conflict of rights.

Now-- taking fringe events like the above examples and exaggerating them as some kind of endemic phenomena absolutely can fuel hate. It isn't always an easy line to walk.

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

#417

Post by opportune »

Chapo was the only interesting subreddit remaining, or at least the only one that still brought me to the site, but I’d gladly take losing it so that reddit can use a “both sides” narrative to deplatform racists.

TD was pretty much in zombie mode since they replaced all the mods and the users moved to other conservative subs. I also think many of the more extreme/active users graduated to 8ch. This is probably just reddit getting ahead of the election to be extra sure they can keep it advertiser friendly as it heats up

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

#418

Post by tarsinge »

williamgrant wrote: post #314
bitexploder wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you had any doubt about the character of TD and what it has become at its new home, just cruise around it. It’s full of conspiracy theories, misogyny, racism, and outright calls to violence. It is a common sentiment there that the only good Democrat is a dead one. These “edgy” takes receive many upvotes.

> It is a common sentiment there that the only good Democrat is a dead one. A similar sentiment is commonly expressed by far left individuals and groups on Twitter, Facebook and other mediums. "the only good Tory is a dead Tory" has been the popular refrain for decades. It's depressing these sentiments are carelessly amplified and approved by so many. Edit: Apparently this has caused a stir. I encourage others to not…

This isn’t even about picking a political side. Being racist, misogynist, or calling to violence is not an opinion, it’s even downright illegal in some countries. There are plenty of subreddits on the political spectrum for example on economic theories, socialistic or capitalistic, or the pro/limiting immigration. But the line is clear with hateful content.

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

#419

Post by forgingahead »

dangus wrote: post #383
koolba wrote: post #167

This final banning of /r/The_Donald is part of a concerted effort to eliminate any sense of normalcy for being pro-Trump. Even with no content for the past few months (after the mod removal), it stood out as a historical reference point to show thousands of people that supported Trump's 2016 campaign and presumably would continue to support him in 2020. They had a choice to leave it up and locked, but instead chose t…

As a counterpoint to that, there is really nothing “normal” about supporting Trump. He really is just as bad as his critics say. This is the guy that retweeted a video of someone yelling white power in support. This is the guy who called COVID-19 the “Kung flu.” This is the guy that said there were “fine people on both sides” where one side was neo-Nazis. This is the guy that encouraged both police and rally-goers to…

I'm still amazed at how effectively the media has brainwashed half of the voting public in the US that the other half are literal monsters.

I say this with complete sympathy and sincerity - please seek professional help, from a declared non-political therapist. You need to break out of the daily "two-minutes of hate" conditioning, and just relearn to live in a society with different viewpoints.

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

#420

Post by carry_bit »

lucasmullens wrote: post #169
kylebenzle wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. You could imagine a world where there's multiple apps that access the same decentralized platform, where the censoring happens at the application level. So if your favorite community gets banned in one app, if you want, you could switch to a different app. Not a perf…

The likely outcome of that is that any app that didn't some communities would itself be banned from the Google and Apple app stores.
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