Reddit bans anti-vaccine subreddit r/NoNewNormal after site-wide protest • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit bans anti-vaccine subreddit r/NoNewNormal after site-wide protest

#51

Post by seattle_spring » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 10:02 PM UTC

mycodesucks wrote: post #12

beebmam wrote: post #11

It is not legal (and should not be legal) for people to force privately owned companies to publish speech that those companies don't want to publish. Hacker News itself does this all the time; there's plenty of topics and conversations that aren't allowed to be posted here. And people get banned/silenced all the time. And that's good! That's what healthy moderation looks like.

Reddit is the opposite of what good moderation looks like.

What are some examples of communities that employ good moderation, in your opinion?

Re: Reddit bans anti-vaccine subreddit r/NoNewNormal after site-wide protest

#52

Post by sinecure » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 10:06 PM UTC

TMWNN wrote: post #37

sinecure wrote: post #27

Reddit's procedure for communities that go against any mainstream progressive narrative is to quarantine them and then ban them under the accusation of "brigading". They have essentially trimmed all alternative thought or discussion from the website and turned places like /r/news, which used to be a moderate and balanced place of discussion, into a completely one-sided echo chamber of modern progressive politics. The…

>They have essentially trimmed all alternative thought or discussion from the website and turned places like /r/news, which used to be a moderate and balanced place of discussion, into a completely one-sided echo chamber of modern progressive politics. This has been going on for years. After the Orlando nightclub massacre in 2016, /r/news and /r/worldnews completely shut down postings about it because a Muslim was th…

Absolutely. It's been incredible watching it happen in slow motion over the last decade. What was once a bastion of free thought and discussion online (after the fall of Digg) has turned into another trimmed and controlled mainstream playground for only the "right" opinions.

Re: Reddit bans anti-vaccine subreddit r/NoNewNormal after site-wide protest

#53

Post by nescioquid » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 10:17 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #39

Reddit continues to insist that its sitewide administrative policies are based on behaviour rather than content , though it appears that this is a somewhat narrow distinction, and that behaviours which draw attention … tend to be associated with questionable content. I’m not criticising the action. I support it. (The reasons are complex and difficult to articulate, though what I had to say ... on Reddit ... about lim…

> ...the principles of “free speech” are not synonymous with the US first amendment (which concerns only government limitations)...

I think this is the nub of the problem. There are common carriers like the phone company, and there are publishers. A publisher will be responsible for what they publish, whereas a carrier really just gives access to their infrastructure.

We have a situation now that seems like social media companies want it both ways (none of obligations and all of the prerogatives), so we get something like a phone service that censors your calls when convenient to the phone company.

I really think this requires a political solution, though one often sees technological solutions suggested (peer-to-peer, federation).

> ...free speech itself is not an absolute principle but one existing in balance with other considerations...

Yes, political speech is the most protected variety. Curiously, money can be considered political speech. So while I think the only kind of real solution here is a political one, I don't expect that to ever happen.

Re: Reddit bans anti-vaccine subreddit r/NoNewNormal after site-wide protest

#54

Post by sinecure » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 10:18 PM UTC

b0sk wrote: post #46

sinecure wrote: post #27

Reddit's procedure for communities that go against any mainstream progressive narrative is to quarantine them and then ban them under the accusation of "brigading". They have essentially trimmed all alternative thought or discussion from the website and turned places like /r/news, which used to be a moderate and balanced place of discussion, into a completely one-sided echo chamber of modern progressive politics. The…

There's no rational discussion to be had between homeopathy doctor and an oncologist, for example. It's just a waste of bandwidth and source of misinformation which is killing innocents.

Assuming your position on any subject, especially novel viruses and novel vaccines, is 100% correct and immune to debate or criticism is irrational. When your position is "I'm right, they're wrong, they shouldn't be allowed to talk about it" you are the censor. If the facts support your position, why silence debate or criticism?

The scientific method requires hypothesis tested by experimentation. Have we fully proven via experimentation any facts about long term side effects from the Covid vaccine? Of course not, we have not had the time! As such, any true scientist would invite debate, discourse and discussion as we as a society attempt to balance the risk of Covid with the unknown risk of vaccinations. We must also analyze and discuss the vital topics of freedom over one's body, freedom of speech, and the intricacies of quarantine restrictions on our civilization.

That conversation is important and should not be casually censored off the internet under the guise of "protecting innocents from misinformation".

Re: Reddit bans anti-vaccine subreddit r/NoNewNormal after site-wide protest

#55

Post by h0p3 » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 10:26 PM UTC

I would like to take a moment and pray with you fine folks about the possibility of https://getaether.net/ (it is non-trivially in the right direction). We don't have to outright silence people in mere political games. Until at least the users get to moderate who (or what, and given which conditions?) will be their moderators on a platform owned and computed by the people who use it, [[power|https://philosopher.life/#Power]] will centralize, and we'll see the same problems again and again. We must distribute governance of The Great Human Conversation, and even my worst enemies deserve to have voices and a vote. Decentralize until it hurts, then federate until it works.

Re: Reddit bans anti-vaccine subreddit r/NoNewNormal after site-wide protest

#56

Post by sigotirandolas » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 10:28 PM UTC

betwixthewires wrote: post #41

Remember when it was a slippery slope fallacy to suggest that this sort of thing would go beyond banning fatpeoplehate? I haven't used reddit in 2 years. I'm not a vaccine denier or anything like that, but why would I want to use a public discussion tool that disallows public discussion? I think though this points to an architectural problem with the multi community link aggregator/forum concept. Fact is, when you ha…

Architecturally, I don't think 1.000 subreddits and that different from 1.000 separately hosted forums/chans/Reddit clones (and indeed, many of those exist and the level of conflict and brigading among those separate communities doesn't ever reach the same level as among subreddits).

I'd rather say the difference comes from keeping the same identity across communities, which allows you to easily gain fame/disgrace in one community and use it to influence another one, and an administration/moderation team with a bias and a willingness to cave to pressure.

Re: Reddit bans anti-vaccine subreddit r/NoNewNormal after site-wide protest

#57

Post by croutonwagon » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 10:30 PM UTC

postalrat wrote: post #49

rex-mundi wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you find a replacement for reddit you like?

HN?

HN is nice but historically the topics had to be very specific to tech, startups, etc.

Recently it seems to have been a little easier on the political and social commentary stuff which i think is pretty nice and refreshing.

Though I understand why some aren’t as much of a fan. It does attract more drama and flame baiting.

Re: Reddit bans anti-vaccine subreddit r/NoNewNormal after site-wide protest

#58

Post by abstractbarista » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 10:36 PM UTC

Asraelite wrote: post #43

abstractbarista wrote: post #15

It is time: I've deleted my account after clearing all posts and comments. Don't want to leave anything of value behind.

I can't count the number of times that I've come across a would-be useful comment that would solve exactly the issue I'm having, only for it to have been deleted. Hating the site is fair, but honestly what you're doing is really shitty. Thank god Pushshift exists.

I respect what you're saying and honestly it is shitty. It is true, I deleted the many technical posts I made because I did not want to leave that value on the site to support what is has become.

I feel bad about it. I hope people are able to find my posts in archived formats somewhere. But I just didn't feel comfortable on there any more. Reading around there is just gross now. I think I will concentrate on posting on my own website now.

Re: Reddit bans anti-vaccine subreddit r/NoNewNormal after site-wide protest

#59

Post by praisewhitey » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 10:40 PM UTC

betwixthewires wrote: post #41

Remember when it was a slippery slope fallacy to suggest that this sort of thing would go beyond banning fatpeoplehate? I haven't used reddit in 2 years. I'm not a vaccine denier or anything like that, but why would I want to use a public discussion tool that disallows public discussion? I think though this points to an architectural problem with the multi community link aggregator/forum concept. Fact is, when you ha…

>Remember when it was a slippery slope fallacy to suggest that this sort of thing would go beyond banning fatpeoplehate?

It started earlier than that with the ban of r/jailbait. It always comes back to "protect the children"

Re: Reddit bans anti-vaccine subreddit r/NoNewNormal after site-wide protest

#60

Post by hn-jw » Wed, Sep 01, 2021, 10:49 PM UTC

abstractbarista wrote: post #15

It is time: I've deleted my account after clearing all posts and comments. Don't want to leave anything of value behind.

I did the same for my 15 year old account and added reddit to my DNS blacklist. It's as close to voting with my dollar (data?) as I can muster at this point.