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Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

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Re: Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

#201

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

caslon wrote: post #174
esja wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is really no excuse for what he did and most other businesses would have fired him immediately. Reddit simply has a very immature corporate culture. Post-IPO (if they get that far) I would expect a massive clean-out.

What's the harm in such a pointless joke? It was silly, but it's not like the meme subreddit he did it to was a super serious one like AskHistorians is.

> What's the harm in such a pointless joke

The clear harm is that Reddit posts have been used in court cases. People have and will go to jail based on that content.

The unclear harm is they use “we’re being professional business” as an excuse to do unpopular and unfriendly things and also “it’s just a prank bro” when stealth editing posts... no dude. Can’t have it both ways. No one should trust this company at all, and they’re proving why.

Re: Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

#202

Post by lolsal »

caslon wrote: post #174
esja wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is really no excuse for what he did and most other businesses would have fired him immediately. Reddit simply has a very immature corporate culture. Post-IPO (if they get that far) I would expect a massive clean-out.

What's the harm in such a pointless joke? It was silly, but it's not like the meme subreddit he did it to was a super serious one like AskHistorians is.

The point is not the joke, the point is the betrayal. It eroded confidence that any post or comment on reddit is real or authentic.

Re: Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

#203

Post by mam2 »

esja wrote: post #140
Rebelgecko wrote: post #52

Reddit has addressed the situation here, in a mealy mouthed sort of way: https://www.reddit.com/r/modsupport/comments/mbqgx2 However they seem to be denying the accusations that admins (possibly including the individual in question) were manually editing contents containing her name. This whole situation is incredibly bizarre to me. In the first place, why would reddit hire a 23 year old admin whose greatest accompli…

I agree, but a minor nitpick: Aimee was forced out not just for being connected to pedophiles, but also for lying about and/or endorsing them (among other issues). A massive failure of safeguarding from the Greens and Lib Dems, and now from Reddit. It's astonishing to me that a person like this can become an admin on a website used by millions of teenagers. We already know that admins can access private messages and…

I am 100% convinced that the rate of pedophile is higher in:

- positions of power (we have had a few in france who were judges / party representatives etC...)

- any job close to children, which includes in particular schools, but also..

- church

Why ? Because if you woke up tommorow as a pedophile, without any morals, and wanted to maximise the "chances" to satisfy your sexual attraction, where would you go ? Exactly.

Re: Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

#204

Post by diogenesjunior »

the_snooze wrote: post #60
diogenesjunior wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem (from the very start) was censorship. Reddit has always had the ability to censor.

It seems like online companies go through all sorts of contortions to avoid saying what they need to say with respect to content moderation: > We will try to moderate our platform fairly, but we reserve the absolute right to do so arbitrarily and capriciously. Users are not entitled to any explanation or recourse. That should be the extent of any social media platform's content policy. I think we'd all be better off…

I agree. As long as they own the website, they will own the ability to censor. In the beginning, there wasn't a need to censor. In fact, anti-censorship views were held by both the admins and the users [0].

[0]: https://gawker.com/5950981/unmasking-reddits-violentacrez-th...

>Cries to censor it would sound out, to be almost inevitably beaten back by cries of "free speech!" The idea of free speech is sacred to many Reddit users, a product of the free-wheeling online message board culture from which Reddit springs.

Re: Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

#205

Post by raverbashing »

pen2l wrote: post #152
trident5000 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CEO himself admitted to going into The_Donald subreddit (before it was banned) and editing user comments. I don't think this guy is leading the charge to admin transparency. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reddit-ceo-edits-user-comment...

This gets brought up a lot. And it's a bit of a doozy to make sense of. First, consider the context: the CEO (spez) was an easy punching bag on the_donald subreddit, in fact it was a bit of a meme there to attack reddit's admins (and those in the know do know that the attacks were often crossing a line, like accusing them of being pedophiles and things of the nature). The change that spez made was a bit of a joke its…

Agreed

It's a bit ironic that the group that likes saying how other groups are "snowflakes" get the most offended by what was essentially a joke.

Re: Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

#206

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

ineptech wrote: post #157
trident5000 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CEO himself admitted to going into The_Donald subreddit (before it was banned) and editing user comments. I don't think this guy is leading the charge to admin transparency. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reddit-ceo-edits-user-comment...

You left out some context: he did that in a (failed) attempt at lulz. It was a long thread where (IMHO) he was fielding tough questions pretty frankly and honestly, as one might hope he would, but he ruined it by editing someone's post to troll them. In context, it was obvious that he did it, he wasn't trying to be sneaky. I'm not justifying it; obviously it was dumb, given that people are still using it to denigrate…

> this means he is more likely to have edited other peoples' posts surreptitiously is (again IMHO) not true.

In what way can you support this claim? We’re you provided any indication or proof that this is the first this has happened? Or is the first time they were caught?

Re: Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

#207

Post by hn8788 »

caslon wrote: post #174
esja wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is really no excuse for what he did and most other businesses would have fired him immediately. Reddit simply has a very immature corporate culture. Post-IPO (if they get that far) I would expect a massive clean-out.

What's the harm in such a pointless joke? It was silly, but it's not like the meme subreddit he did it to was a super serious one like AskHistorians is.

People have been arrested over reddit comments, and what he did showed that there are employees at reddit who can go in and edit your comments to say whatever they want, with no oversight.

Re: Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

#208

Post by sillysaurusx »

i_haz_rabies wrote: post #170
sillysaurusx wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused. Your comment talks about her father and her fiance. What did she do? "Amiee Chancellor is a despicable human being" is pretty heavy, but the only thing related to her in your comment is that "she forged documents in order to hire him as her election agent." Not cool, but is there more here?

"photos on her phone" is pretty damning.

Oh wow, I completely missed that. Sorry!

Regardless, during the trial photos of Aimee with the victim were discovered on Amiee's phone.

Thanks for pointing that out. Yes of course, that's completely different.

Does anyone know where to find more info about this? It's such a strange situation.

EDIT: There are some details here: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/coventry-captive...

though nothing about Aimee being in the photos. I'm curious how she wasn't implicated in that case. How weird...

Re: Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

#209

Post by smbullet »

javajosh wrote: post #197
smbullet wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> at worst, questionable Don't you mean at best?

No, I mean at worst. It doesn't sound like she was involved in anything illegal. She was never charged, let alone convicted. The allegations are all innuendo without proof, so yes, I meant "at worst".

> The allegations are all innuendo without proof

Unless you have proof that the allegations are false then you cannot say the absolute worst case is she has a questionable history.

Re: Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

#210

Post by sumtechguy »

nonplussed wrote: post #180
duxup wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit administration seems pretty ad hoc, undisciplined, at times weirdly disconnected from the community, and uncoordinated as it could possibly be. Then again so are all its subreddits, and the volunteer mods are about as opaque and strange as the admins, with the added excuse that they're doing it for free. The fact that the ecosystem has survived seems more like happenstance.

It'd be interesting to see demographics on moderators. My perception is that they must skew young because who else has time to do all that work for free? Volunteer moderation is one of those things that must baffle economists. Here you have people putting in a lot of work for free for a profit seeking enterprise.

Some economists maybe? Perhaps, if you think the only thing to gain is money? Some people do silly things because of other reasons (fame, ego, obligation, greed, retribution, etc). See recent 'stonks' as a good example of people actually spending money for non monetary gain. It is these other factors which feed into many economic models unknowingly. When those variables move they can radically change a model and cause it to do funny things.
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