Earlier quoted context omitted.
Compared to what? BLM is a terrorist hate group. It get's the full support of big tech.
Which BLM-related subreddit needs to be banned, and for which content? Can you link to it?
I believe in a free and open internet.
Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse
791–800 of 970 posts
Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse
#792Earlier quoted context omitted.
I definitely agree that it's tricky, and I don't think "Nazis" are the only threat we face today. Anybody whose approach to discourse is to shout down ideas rather than engage with them in good faith or just ignore them and walk away is suspect, IMO. For instance, after 2020 so far I'm definitely at the point where I have serious doubts about the judgment of any Trump supporter or even any Republican voter, but if th…
> Illiberalism seems to be winning, unfortunately. The purity spiral crap on the left is just as upsetting to me as the right's zeal for ignorance, even if I don't think it's doing nearly as much damage right now. That's why I'm terrified and why I want to support freedom of expression. Because if we start classifying ideas as "problematic" and shutting people out, then what is remaining to iron out differences? You…
> Because if we start classifying ideas as "problematic" and shutting people out, then what is remaining to iron out differences?
I don't want to iron out differences with a person who thinks that jews, queers, women, people with dark skin, poor people, or any other category that isn't defined entirely by hatred of the other are less than. I think I'd rather throw that person into the ocean.
Not because they say wrongthings but because they want to bring harm to me and those I care about because of who we are in regardless of anything we say or do. There's a difference between "freedom to speak" and freedom to desire to be an oppressor. I don't desire to throw them into the ocean. Hell, that might feel oppressive to them. But I do desire them to not want to be oppressors, and in the absence of that, I'll accept throwing them into the ocean.
> You don't "defeat racism" or "defeat Nazism" by
You absolutely do by shutting them down at every turn, because those ideas don't spawn en masse on their own. Those ideas are spread, and they only spread because people with libertarian "every voice is sacred" positions don't immediately stamp them out.
> I see a rise of an illiberal mob from both right and left
Let's see. So on one side you have people who are willing to get violent because they want within their lifetimes for everyone to have healthcare and a roof over their head and food to eat and equal pay and to not have to worry about nazis and they're angry that some people actively obstruct liberty, equality, and fraternity...and on the other side you have rampant ethnic, gender, or economic bigotry including real actual nazis...and your answer is "both sides". I mean...ok...that's one perspective.
Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse
#793Earlier 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…
> The_Donald involved a lot of spreading their message / fake news sites / spamming across other subs and etc. Yea, I gotta say, having to previously deal with r/The_Donald brigades on another large subreddit was incredibly annoying and depressing. Can't speak to spreading fake news, but massive influxes of r/The_Donald users spamming truly vile stuff in an ostensibly non-political sub really sucked (as a moderator,…
As a moderator in a smaller technical subreddit myself, I mostly agree with that assessment.
The best subs I've seen usually have small communities and/or strict enforcement of the community rules (doesn't always need to be through moderator action!).
Unmoderated or otherwise weakly managed communities just don't scale. They never retain any quality if you try anyway. The noise will always dominate.
With no way to set expectations that the vast majority of the audience understands (see least common denominator), expectations which they agree with and which you can meet, you'll get endless conflicts.
Strict moderation like in /r/netsec and /r/askhistory works when done well and consistently by competent mods. It preserves good discussions and gives people and incentive to maintain high quality in their submissions since that's a requirement to even be seen in the first place.
Smaller forums with tight healthy communities often don't need much moderation (usually niche communities with no significant controversies), and can often self regulate by typical social means (just telling people to behave).
All the best contributors are usually driven by some kind of intrinsic motivation, often an interest in the topic at hand and a wish to share their knowledge. If the forum is by far too flooded with low quality content for that to be seen, they will lose motivation to contribute, and as a consequence the signal to noise ratio falls. You're more likely to incentivize new competent contributors to join if the contributions from your existing competent contributors are among the most prominent submissions in your forum.
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As for centralized vs decentralized, I see decentralization of forums as a form of an escape hatch when the quality of a forum degrades. The ability to cleanly fork a forum and walk away to a new location with new rules, like in software projects, provides a motivation to work hard to maintain unity in the forum, or else the mods will have nothing left to be modded, and likewise for other prominent members whose bad behavior contributes to division.
Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse
#794Earlier quoted context omitted.
>And it's not contradictory to have moral rules in favor of speech and against hate while also allowing the community to punch a nazi in the face for being a nazi. There it is again. Yes, it absolutely is contradictory to proclaim that you support freedom of expression while threatening to punch someone in the face when you disagree with their ideas!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance > Less well known [than other paradoxes Popper discusses] is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with t…
> if they haven't started the violence first
You mean physical violence. Physical violence is not the only kind of violence. It seems common for people in the "nazis get to talk too" camp to forget or ignore that.
Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse
#795I used to spend a lot of money on Reddit gold until few years ago when Reddit blocked any discussion about the gay club shooting at Pulse nightclub. The_Donald was the only sub which allowed discussion of it and seemed to be the only ones who could sympathize with the gay community on Reddit at that time. Before that, I used to believe right wingers were a bunch of homophobes and what not but if that was the case, wh…
This is my experience as well. I was fully liberal until election night. The veil was lifted watching CNN anchors react to their preferred candidate losing. I started digging and wound up at T_D. My experience there has been polar opposite of the perspective you hear claimed by many.
Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse
#796Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The only difference now is that we can't confront fascism with the truth any more. How effective has "confronting fascism with the truth" ever been? Especially on the web? My impression is that fascist/racist ideas aren't spread in open debates where the truth matters, but indirectly: through deniable memes and dog whistles initially, then slowly, as people's innate defenses are lowered, through many stages of more…
> How effective has "confronting fascism with the truth" ever been? When white people were afraid of black violence, Martin Luther King showed them black people peacefully hand in hand with ministers in their Sunday best, walking toward Selma and remaining nonviolent even as they were met with violence. When straight people saw gay people as dangerous deviants, Harvey Milk showed them gay people in their families, jo…
It is worth noting that MLK was not popular in his time:
> Back in the 1960s, when King was actually leading protests, just 36 percent of white Americans thought he was helping “the Negro cause of civil rights,” according to historical polling data compiled by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. In a 1966 Gallup poll, more than 60 percent of the public rated King more negatively than positively.
> After King was assassinated, two-thirds of Americans said their strongest reaction to his death had been sadness, anger, shame or fear, another survey found. Another 31 percent, however, said they “felt he brought it on himself.”
Harvey Milk was also not necessarily popular amongst Americans, and a few years after his death we would have total mainstream paranoia about AIDS. The end of the US's majority disapproval of gay marriage only came about in 2010. [1]
[0] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/in-1968-nearly-a-third-of-ame...
[1] https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-ga...
Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse
#797Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was referring to the language used in the press during the civil rights era, which referred to the protests led by MLK as “riots” as well. I posted a link to a reputable news source. The right wing militias are well known, and the “boogaloo” has been well documented. You have presented no evidence whatsoever. Who is the far left wing group you speak of? These folks? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-fascism I’m…
> which referred to the protests led by MLK as “riots” as well. Were there riots along with the protests? Because there are now. > I posted a link to a reputable news source. The right wing militias are well known, and the “boogaloo” has been well documented. Can you show me a reputable news source with an exposé on them before 2019? I can for example with other far right groups like the proud boys. > I’m on their si…
> Were there riots along with the protests?
Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse
#798Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gotta respect the iron fist of /r/askhistorians. Probably the best sub on reddit.
Yea wow, I don't moderate r/askhistorians but rather a different sub, and we sometimes pride ourselves on keeping this relatively clean. But then I stumble across r/askhistorians again and remember that no, no we don't have things under control by comparison. We can barely keep a lid on the vitriol and toxicity, and some of the more blatantly false/scammy advice. r/askhistorians is a whole 'nother level. Sometimes I…
> Too many people here on hn talk a lot of shit on stuff they don't really know much about beyond a cursory understanding
Amen, amen!
Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse
#799Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you used reddit at all within the past 10 years? Yeah, there's some smaller subreddits that have right-wing views, but every frontpage sub leans heavily left. For example, the most common political debate right now isn't Biden vs. Trump, it's whether or not Biden is left-wing enough to deserve a vote.
From the perspective of someone from Europe this is a very valid question, cause Biden is right of the center, so not really what somehow who describes themselves as "leftist" usually votes for. Even Bernie Sanders, often seen as the start of socialism in America, is only a bit left of the center in typical political quadrants. The problem is that US politics are very skewed to the right, so many there think clear ri…
People are referring to social politics when they say reddit is left heavy, which is certainly true.
Yes, economic politics in America is more right leaning than most of Europe but even still I have a hard time believing reddit pushes towards the right more than the left in any regard besides smaller subs
Re: Reddit shuts down subreddits including r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse
#800Worth 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…
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