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Reddit is banning any Aimee Challenor mention. UK public figure and Reddit admin

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Re: Reddit is banning any Aimee Challenor mention. UK public figure and Reddit admin

#351

Post by LudwigNagasena »

lamontcg wrote: post #345
true_religion wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe they just don't want it to be talked about on their platform. They're not trying for general censorship. In fact, the person's name is already listed in newspapers.

Pretty obviously what happened is they've had incidents in the past where a blogger would publish an article on one of their employees and then redditors would start spamming that article on reddit to dox them -- in a coordinated action so the blog article was written for the purpose of doxxing the employee. So they have a bot which bans links to article which mention reddit employees by name which hands out auto-ban…

You can’t doxx a public politician by “revealing” their name...

Re: Reddit is banning any Aimee Challenor mention. UK public figure and Reddit admin

#352

Post by nobody5050 »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #107
outworlder wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or in private messages We do know that there's nothing 'private' about any social media platforms, but some people still believe that to be the case. Now they are blatantly publicizing that private chats are being read. Anyone remembers the outrage when gmail was analyzing emails to provide ads? What happened to that?

Yes of course the platform can read them. Everyone knows that. It's obvious from context that when people talk about private messages they mean messages that other users on the platform cannot see. It's one thing to prevent people from saying something on a part of your platform anyone can see it but if they want to talk about it one on one with someone else (someone who presumably has a block button at their disposa…

Also, private letters and parcels are frequently checked for contraband.

Re: Reddit is banning any Aimee Challenor mention. UK public figure and Reddit admin

#353

Post by lamontcg »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #351
lamontcg wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty obviously what happened is they've had incidents in the past where a blogger would publish an article on one of their employees and then redditors would start spamming that article on reddit to dox them -- in a coordinated action so the blog article was written for the purpose of doxxing the employee. So they have a bot which bans links to article which mention reddit employees by name which hands out auto-ban…

You can’t doxx a public politician by “revealing” their name...

You can doxx a reddit employee that way.

The problem comes up when you've hired a politician as a reddit employee, and you're written an algorithm that only cares about if someone is a reddit employee.

Re: Reddit is banning any Aimee Challenor mention. UK public figure and Reddit admin

#354

Post by sunsetMurk »

stickfigure wrote: post #262

The ELI5 context for those (like me) that were very confused: Aimee Challenor is a trans (MTF) woman who was very active in UK green party politics. She appointed her father as an official in her election campaign after he had been arrested for rape and torture of a 10yo girl. For which he would subsequently be convicted and sentenced to 22 years. Adding additional color to the narrative: Aimee Challenor is very acti…

can you provide some (good)links so I can read more about each of these points? Thanks!

Re: Reddit is banning any Aimee Challenor mention. UK public figure and Reddit admin

#355

Post by dang »

phpnode wrote: post #329
dang wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users are flagging them. The only thing moderators have done is decline to turn off the flags. We turn off flags sometimes when (a) the article contains significant new information ( https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... ) and (b) it can support a substantive HN discussion. Neither of those seems true here so I don't think it's a hard call. There have been countless threads on the generic to…

if there's an interesting conversation to be had it's about governance and transparency in how online spaces are moderated, given the depth of their influence, the broadness of their reach and the relative power wielded by those who control the platform (hello there!). Unfortunately that conversation is mostly absent from these threads.

That conversation in general has been and continues to be had over and over again on HN, so even if this is a good occasion for substantive discussion (which I doubt), it's not as if there won't be countless opportunities in the future.

Re: Reddit is banning any Aimee Challenor mention. UK public figure and Reddit admin

#356

Post by dang »

Taurenking wrote: post #284
howinteresting wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one is saying transition is a "regrettable outcome". Actually a lot of people say that, cf rhetoric about "a lifetime of hormones and surgery". As someone who has had surgeries and expects to be on hormones for the rest of their life, I think what I did to my body was good, not bad.

dilate

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Re: Reddit is banning any Aimee Challenor mention. UK public figure and Reddit admin

#357

Post by krrrh »

zozbot234 wrote: post #341
StargazyPi wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But wouldn't the experiences of an actual trans person be much more relevant to this discussion than our cis asses? We're never going to have experiences of our own that can inform our judgement on this, so shouldn't we just listen to and trust trans people to work out how to best to make their way in the world?

More relevant than the experience of a single cis person? Quite possible. More relevant than actual hard data reflecting the collective experiences of a large plurality of trans folk, with relevant variation in such factors as e.g. age and social milieus? No way.

An important example of where debate and information can be foreclosed upon is that /r/detrans, a vital support community for detransitioners, has been temporarily banned in the past by overzealous admins, and the mods had to appeal and institute much stricter moderation than most subs have to be able to get it back up.

Re: Reddit is banning any Aimee Challenor mention. UK public figure and Reddit admin

#358

Post by krrrh »

howinteresting wrote: post #337
Causality1 wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Affirmation-only in the form of behaving as if women and transwomen are indistinguishable is not always productive. For an example, if you write a feature telling people to watch and cheer on women speedrunners but you only include people who were successful male speedrunners before their transition you are not encouraging more women to join the hobby.

Obviously cis and trans women are not completely indistinguishable -- they have overlapping but distinct medical needs, for example. This is a strawman position. However, GCs tend to believe in an oppositionally sexist view of the world, where your assigned sex at birth puts you in one of two firm categories, and any sort of crossing over or breach between categories is impossible. That's how GCs construct their cate…

> puts you in one of two firm categories, and any sort of crossing over or breach between categories is impossible

I find this debate interesting so I try to read a lot of different perspectives. I think the /r/gendercritical position was more nuanced than you make it out. They think that while humans can’t change their sex, rigid ideas of what it is to be a man or woman are one of the things that causes some people to feel like they need to. They would say that society should accept a and encourage a broader range of expressions of femaleness and maleness than it does now.

The GC position, as I understand it, decries the idea that a butch dyke should feel the need to live under a male identity just because she is far outside of the “firm category” of feminine or has many traditional masculine traits. It’s why they use terms like “butch erasure” [1]. It’s something interesting that I learned reading a now-banned subreddit which helped me to have more compassion and understanding for people who haven’t always had the easiest time in life.

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IrnJOSk-3kA

Re: Reddit is banning any Aimee Challenor mention. UK public figure and Reddit admin

#359

Post by jhanschoo »

minusSeven wrote: post #290
ping_pong wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aimee Challenor is apparently a Reddit employee. This is why Reddit is banning her mention. Seems extremely sus to me and why we can't rely on private companies to protect things like free speech and equal access to information.

I guess they don't understand streisand effect. If you explicitly ban people will follow that rule but what happens when people get around by using some made up name different from original. Are admins going to read every comment on the platform to uphold this rule?

I don't think it applies in this case: the rule was already in place and unnoticed until a high-profile incident drew attention to it: they are not trying to suppress mention as a response to newfound notoriety.

Re: Reddit is banning any Aimee Challenor mention. UK public figure and Reddit admin

#360

Post by howinteresting »

krrrh wrote: post #358
howinteresting wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously cis and trans women are not completely indistinguishable -- they have overlapping but distinct medical needs, for example. This is a strawman position. However, GCs tend to believe in an oppositionally sexist view of the world, where your assigned sex at birth puts you in one of two firm categories, and any sort of crossing over or breach between categories is impossible. That's how GCs construct their cate…

> puts you in one of two firm categories, and any sort of crossing over or breach between categories is impossible I find this debate interesting so I try to read a lot of different perspectives. I think the /r/gendercritical position was more nuanced than you make it out. They think that while humans can’t change their sex, rigid ideas of what it is to be a man or woman are one of the things that causes some people…

Of course society should accept a broader view of maleness and femaleness. Of course butches should be able to live as women if that's what they are. That is exactly the direction I want the world to go in. Why in the world would you think I or any other trans person would think differently?

My problem with GCs (in their strongest firm) is the policy prescriptions. Making medical transition harder. Making it harder to get updated documents. Opposing anti-harassment laws in our workplaces and schools. Not letting us use the bathroom in peace. GCs do a really slimy shift from policy to philosophy and back that indicates a deep disrespect for our experiences.

I know trans women who present quite masculine while being on estrogen and having changed their name and pronouns. They're butch dykes living as women, not men. They're literally exactly what GCs claim to want. But would GCs think so? No, because their brain is warped by oppositional sexism.

The GC position is absurd, untenable, and simply does not fit with the available evidence about humanity.

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