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Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

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Re: Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

#101
post #88

It seems to me that the same thing that happened to Reddit is happening to Hacker News now. I've seen an uptick of misleading titles, which make you question what is real. Another trend I've noticed is an increase in pro-drug/pro-medication posts, which aim to frame life's challenges as something that need medication.

This is honestly not something I can relate to. HN has always had a policy of using titles of the articles themselves, and apart from a small subset of them being editorialized by the mods (typically because they’re misleading!), this is still the case.

And I haven’t seen a noticeable uptake in pro-drug/pro-medication posts compared to, say, a decade ago, and frankly I don’t understand how that has anything to do with this.

Re: Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

#102
post #83
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the utterly ridiculous "paradox of tolerance" is just a bad cope for people who truly do not believe in free speech. "Free speech" which only applies to your predefined set of approved speech is not free speech, but a monstrous parody of it. The purpose of free speech is to enable dissent, not to affirm the status quo.

Nonsense. Do you think movies of child abuse are "free speech", or recruitment/instruction videos tot terrorist organizations, or inciting violence and hate? What about Assange, he published some stuff, could that be free speech? Or violations of copyright? To me free speech is like free markets. The word does not adequately cover the implementation as boundaries do apply. There are little to non truly free markets (…

You're mixing up a lot of things.

Child abuse is a physical act and isn't speech. Recruitment and instructional videos are speech. Assange is speech, but, he wasn't a journalist with protections for handling secret information. Copyright used to have a limited term before it dropped in to the public domain where it would become speech.

These are all different things with their own problems.

Re: Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

#104
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN isn’t exactly a bastion of free speech either

How so ? I can't recall any major free speech issues on HN. Being downvoted and having your comment hidden is not exactly something HN can do much about, seeing that it is up to the users.

There is also moderation by administrators of course, otherwise HackerNews would be a spammy free for all like the most visible parts of Reddit.

Re: Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

#105
post #99
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so ? I can't recall any major free speech issues on HN. Being downvoted and having your comment hidden is not exactly something HN can do much about, seeing that it is up to the users.

HN is heavily moderated and posts that cross lines are quickly removed. It is not even secret and HN does not pretend it is not so. The reddit rules are much more loose. The subs that were banned on reddit would not even had achange to start here.

For one there are no subs here.

Re: Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

#106

Reddit is very clearly not in favour of free speech: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/reddit-bans-thedonald-and-... . Aaron Swartz was very clearly in favour of free speech: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/becausewecan . I think the reasons for this are self-evident.

If you run a forum and a user is constantly making up lies, harassing other users, and spamming misinformation then I don't think banning them is "free speech" issue.

t_D should have been banned long before it eventually was imo. It actively spread misinformation and hate and made the website worse for other users.

And a question for you: You say that Reddit is not in favor of free speech because it banned subs like t_D, but t_D and similar subs were banned anyone who questioned the narrative that was being pushed by those subreddits' moderators. So is it not fair to say that t_D (and similar subs) were very clearly not in favor of free speech either?

Re: Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

#107

Just the one question: alternatives? Not necessarily already established and crowded platform, but also free and open, privacy friendly ones that can be slowly brought to self sustaining levels by enthusiasts, so that they can attract normal users.

> Just the one question: alternatives?

Voat: https://voat.co/

Re: Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

#108
post #83
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the utterly ridiculous "paradox of tolerance" is just a bad cope for people who truly do not believe in free speech. "Free speech" which only applies to your predefined set of approved speech is not free speech, but a monstrous parody of it. The purpose of free speech is to enable dissent, not to affirm the status quo.

Nonsense. Do you think movies of child abuse are "free speech", or recruitment/instruction videos tot terrorist organizations, or inciting violence and hate? What about Assange, he published some stuff, could that be free speech? Or violations of copyright? To me free speech is like free markets. The word does not adequately cover the implementation as boundaries do apply. There are little to non truly free markets (…

The line where free speech ends is pretty clearly delineated, and that's when it crosses over into criminal or violent action in the "world of atoms".

Almost all of your examples can be prosecuted based on their direct effect on the real world (or representation of a crime, such as with child abuse videos), not the content of their speech. The difference is crucial.

To take things to an extreme, if I say "all XXXX should be killed", that's very different from actually killing all members of the XXXX group, or even plotting to do so.

Re: Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

#109
post #60
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

honestly, i would say the banning of thedonald is clearly a response to The Paradox of Tolerance rather than not supporting free-speech. you cannot be tolerant of the intolerant if you want free speech to survive.

No, the utterly ridiculous "paradox of tolerance" is just a bad cope for people who truly do not believe in free speech. "Free speech" which only applies to your predefined set of approved speech is not free speech, but a monstrous parody of it. The purpose of free speech is to enable dissent, not to affirm the status quo.

>is just a bad cope for people who truly do not believe in free speech

I don't think this is the case; there are theories which are highly skeptical of free speech, and they are easy to turn to; one doesn't have to give up much in order to be a free speech skeptic. Further, even in the United States, the country with the fewest restrictions of free speech, there are still several kinds of speech prohibited by law. I'm not aware of any theory, liberal or not, which argues for purely unrestricted speech. There are always caveats in every theory proposed, whether it relates to incitement of violence, child pornography, threatening letters, hate speech, or pornography.

Re: Reddit’s About page doesn't include Aaron Swartz as a founder

#110
post #74
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that Reddit's own popularity was boosted by Digg's collapse due to unpopular changes and dysfunction, you'd think that Reddit would be more aware of the risks of pursuing an antagonistic relationship with their users.

But their success proves that they don't have to care... I mean seriously this "Diggs past will come for you"-line is being repeated for years but it's not happening. Meanwhile "alternatives" come up and and become irrelevant or nests of hate.

That’s true, just until when it’s no longer true. Just like Digg, MySpace and many networks before them.
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