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Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

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Re: Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

#691

Post by marvin »

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #579
gleenn wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Language isn't about beating people over the head about "mis-using" words, it's about conveying meaning. https://www.thoughtco.com/descriptivism-language-term-169044... I'm going to make an argument for linguistic descriptivism. I've never once thought, in the WSB subreddit, someone calling another an "autist" or a "retard" was ever intended to harm or disrespect people with those literal issues. It's a niche audienc…

„Retard“ has evolved and is universally regarded as an insult these days. Denying this entirely obvious fact is rather hard to square with your claim of being a linguist. The science tends to take a more descriptive approach, and to acknowledge the changing nature of language.

That's obviously incorrect. When someone on wallstreetbets says "What's up retards", they are obviously not intending to insult everyone reading it. Context matters.

It's a very convenient excuse for banning a controversial community, though. With the sea change we just had in corporate censorship, no one should be surprised.

I hope we get plausible alternatives with a more principled stand towards censorship.

Re: Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

#692

Post by Cthulhu_ »

timendum wrote: post #648
boruto wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cannot they have two or three bots moderating?

Reddit limits API usage mainly for IP, so you need multiple IPs to avoid this issue. It's not impossible to have multiple instance of the same bot running in parallel, but there are too many race condition and it became too much to handle.

But then the onus is on Reddit to slacken these restrictions; WSB threads get 100K responses, which is the amount of engagement many social media can only dream of. If Reddit doesn't lift the limits and helps the WSB team out with moderation, they're shooting themselves in the foot because Reddit HAS to act if the WSB team can't moderate effectively.

It's why Twitter held off on banning Trump for so long; not so much because of public interest, but because Trump alone kept the platform up, running, active and profitable. Social media loves controversy like that.

Re: Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

#693

Post by toxik »

montagg wrote: post #588
technick wrote: post #474

Discord would claim its “hateful and discriminatory content” for anything in the fucked up reality we are currently living in. For instance, if you call someone retarded and a mod doesn't step in, that is considered hateful. Even though retard is in the dictionary and a widely accepted term by many people. Then saying that only retards buy the shit hedgefunds are peddling would also be considered discriminatory. I'm…

I’d really like to underhand this: Why should you be allowed to be an asshole anywhere you want? And why should everyone else support that idea?

The WSB community calls each other a bunch of names as a form of... I don’t know, acceptance? It’s not meant to hurt. It’s a David versus Goliath mentality, the little guy, the underdog. That’s why they call each other these names.

I think it’s complicated, and that banning them is just another sad example of how sensitive the world has become to these things.

Re: Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

#694

Post by nickthemagicman »

Semaphor wrote: post #444

For those wondering why the sub went private for a time: > We have grown to the kind of size we only dreamed of in the time it takes to get a bad nights sleep. We've got so many comments and submissions that we can't possibly even read them all, let alone act on them as moderators. We wrote software to do most of the moderation for us but that software isn't allowed to read the Reddit new feed fast enough and submit…

"We blocked all bad words with a bot, which should be enough, but apparently if someone can say a bad word with weird unicode icelandic characters and someone can screenshot it you don't get to hang out with your friends anymore"

Re: Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

#695

Post by Blueskytech »

ithkuil wrote: post #584
drak0n1c wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idiot, stupid, moron, immature -- these terms are all much the same as retard in their origin as a neutral clinical label. These were terms referring to impairments that patients often had through no fault of their own. Why are some of those words still acceptably used negatively in a serious fashion, while others are taboo to be used even affectionately or in a neutral context? Why is your deliberately negative labe…

Words change meaning, my dear egregious etymologist. By that reasoning every nice woman is an ignorant queen. (Nice comes from latin "ne scius", and queen was the general word for woman) EDIT: egregious also flipped it's meaning; I clearly meant the old meaning of "remarkably good" You cannot just pick and choose. We live today and we understand each other based on a shared under ding of what words mean and what they…

By virtue of the fact that numerous people disagree with your assessment. Should it not be obvious that you could be living in your own private Idaho sharing a belief that all humans experience your gestalt. People have been finding ways to call both themselves and others mentally handicap since communication began. The irony of the current cultural dialogue is that the real negative experience of an expressive and living word is assumed to negate substantial positive aspects which are well documented by those of good humor and cheer. Your line of reasoning attempts to censure peers much as a child would demand of a playmate when in disagreement.

Re: Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

#696

Post by ttt0 »

ohyes wrote: post #613
drak0n1c wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idiot, stupid, moron, immature -- these terms are all much the same as retard in their origin as a neutral clinical label. These were terms referring to impairments that patients often had through no fault of their own. Why are some of those words still acceptably used negatively in a serious fashion, while others are taboo to be used even affectionately or in a neutral context? Why is your deliberately negative labe…

> Why is your deliberately negative label of "shit-for-brains" any better? It doesn't have as rich a history being used as a slur against people with intellectual disabilities. Also, I was pretty mad. Even if we determine I am a hypocrite that doesn't necessarily make me wrong.

> It doesn't have as rich a history being used as a slur

"Queer" does. And people use it today.

Re: Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

#697

Post by christophilus »

newswasboring wrote: post #618
WA wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Small nitpick: retard in WSB context is not entirely an insult. You can swap letters and come up with trader. It’s WSBs special way of saying you belong to it’s retail trader group that does stupid bets.

This is a revelation to me. I lurk on WSB but never picked that up. Can you point to a few examples where someone explicitly used it like that?

100% of the uses I’ve seen are like that. You’d be harder pressed to find a usage that wasn’t like it.

Re: Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

#698

Post by loceng »

WA wrote: post #582
newswasboring wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even though retard is in the dictionary and a widely accepted term by many people. All curse words are in the dictionary. Dictionaries are for looking up meaning, not moral arbiters. What are you on about?

I agree. Small nitpick: retard in WSB context is not entirely an insult. You can swap letters and come up with trader. It’s WSBs special way of saying you belong to it’s retail trader group that does stupid bets.

It's intended as endearing self-deprecating humour.

Re: Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

#699

Post by marvin »

ve55 wrote: post #14

And they chose today as the best possible time to enact this ban? Really? I really think they should have put more thought into the timing of this decision; a lot of users are going to be upset and will suddenly start to realize that a single company has a monopoly on their online social life (this may seem like an exaggeration, but it feels quite true to me colloquially, especially if you're a younger US male and/or…

The Discord ban was clearly because the community itself is controversial from a legal point of view. That's why the ban happened today. But I think this is an unwise move. Each community that is censored over something legal but controversial, pushes the creative citizens of the Internet towards building more open platforms.

Hope we end up there soon, this constant censorship of communities I might want to have a look at to satisfy my curiosity gets mighty tiring.

Re: Discord bans r/WallStreetBets server, subreddit went private for a while

#700

Post by richrichardsson »

echelon wrote: post #619
non-cotton wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discord isn't on your side. They're an unprofitable (so far) VC-backed company whose only customer-facing product is a well-designed chat client. They're clearly trying to build a platform for PR- and ad-friendly discourse. Nobody should be surprised when weirdos get the ban.

They made $120 million in revenue last year from selling Nitro custom user ids, emoji packs, etc.

100 million MAUs can't be cheap to maintain. You're probably getting downvoted because revenue != profit.
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