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Reddit takes a new direction

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Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#141

Post by joering2 »

dkersten wrote: post #129
Jun8 wrote: post #118

I can't believe the narrow-minded approach a lot of comments here suggest. Most of the people seem to subscribe to the argument, which in simplified form says, (1) the subreddits were full of child pornography (2) the people who frequent these were "pedos" and therefore (3) it's a good thing that these got axed. The terms CP and pedophilia are being thrown around without much thinking, the same way the general public…

ADDENDUM: For (2), also consider the widespread use of young girls in... Don't forget child beauty pageants. That stuff is IMHO often borderline pedophilia.

I dont get this one. CBP does not reveal anything that would even remotely bring porn/nudity on my mind. I think its more a matter of your point of view. Same way I could say that an old man smiling at a 5 years old child on the subway has something dirty on his mind. There are chances but lets not get paranoid here.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#142

Post by potatolicious »

ugh wrote: post #91
sophacles wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* And I think we can all say the result is a lot more pleasant than a less tended place such as Reddit or 4chan.* I am honestly not sure we can say that at all. I thoroughly enjoy both hn and reddit, for completely different reasons . Sure, from a strictly legal standpoint, it isn't censorship or a constitutional issue, but at the same time, the "anything goes" attitude in places like 4chan and reddit allow for a lot…

For fucks sake. Is that really so hard to understand? Pedos can’t trade their images anymore (whether legal or not). That’s the extent of the limitation. How the fuck is that supposed to turn Reddit into something radically different? It’s this one tiny thing. It’s not some big change that changes Reddit. It’s not so hard. Some people just want to be deliberately obtuse. The slippery slope is a fucking fallacy!

> "The slippery slope is a fucking fallacy!"

Ugh. Here we go again.

The fact that the slippery slope argument can be a fallacy doesn't mean that all claims of slippery slope is automatically a fallacy.

People seem to think the fact that this word exists means they can use it in all contexts and be right.

[edit] And the slippery slope angle has materialized in this particular case. No sonner had the jailbait subreddits fallen did people start clamoring for the shutdown of /r/beatingwomen, /r/deadbabies, and various other reprehensible subreddits. This certainly hasn't been a we-banned-jailbait-and-now-everything-is-fine deal that people hoped it to be.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#143

Post by reidmain »

dkersten wrote: post #129
Jun8 wrote: post #118

I can't believe the narrow-minded approach a lot of comments here suggest. Most of the people seem to subscribe to the argument, which in simplified form says, (1) the subreddits were full of child pornography (2) the people who frequent these were "pedos" and therefore (3) it's a good thing that these got axed. The terms CP and pedophilia are being thrown around without much thinking, the same way the general public…

ADDENDUM: For (2), also consider the widespread use of young girls in... Don't forget child beauty pageants. That stuff is IMHO often borderline pedophilia.

This was the first thing that came to mind when I heard about this.

I've seen a lot of people say "we need to protect the young girls in these pictures". What about the 1-5 year olds who are being dressed up and paraded around by their parents?

Where is the similar outrage over sites like imgur.com (which retain most of the images hosted in a sub-reddit even after its deletion) or TV shows like Toddlers & Tiaras?

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#144

Post by reidmain »

redthrowaway wrote: post #77
kijin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, "latest change of policy" is not the best way to characterize Reddit's stance on CP. But breaking rules in a subreddit is different from having a subreddit where the only possible means of participation is to break the law by posting links to CP. If everybody obeyed the rules in /r/trees, that subreddit might still contain interesting content. If everybody obeyed the law in /r/jailbait, that subreddit s…

Way back in my 888chan raiding days, we took special pleasure in tormenting Kimmo Alm and his legion of pedopals over at anontalk. We regularly got hosts to dump him, payment processors to drop him, and when that failed (or we were just bored), we'd DDoS him. We'd have months-long trolling sessions where we would get ourselves promoted to wiseguys, then wreak havoc on the site in whatever manner struck our fancy. Thi…

I feel that simply upvoting this is not enough. Thank you for writing this redthrowaway. You've captured my thoughts perfectly.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#145

Post by shasta »

potatolicious wrote: post #142
ugh wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For fucks sake. Is that really so hard to understand? Pedos can’t trade their images anymore (whether legal or not). That’s the extent of the limitation. How the fuck is that supposed to turn Reddit into something radically different? It’s this one tiny thing. It’s not some big change that changes Reddit. It’s not so hard. Some people just want to be deliberately obtuse. The slippery slope is a fucking fallacy!

> "The slippery slope is a fucking fallacy!" Ugh. Here we go again. The fact that the slippery slope argument can be a fallacy doesn't mean that all claims of slippery slope is automatically a fallacy. People seem to think the fact that this word exists means they can use it in all contexts and be right. [edit] And the slippery slope angle has materialized in this particular case. No sonner had the jailbait subreddit…

I believe this is known as the slippery slope fallacy fallacy.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#146

Post by jshen »

smokeyj wrote: post #65
jshen wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"now the masses (and/or governments) dictate the content you are allowed to post" Isn't this an exaggeration? There is a lot of room between "everything goes" and North Korea. Stopping exploitation of kids is one notch up from "everything goes".

I can't help but feel this policy only serves lip service to "Stopping exploitation of kids". Personally, I think Reddit has the right to have whatever policies it wishes -- but this 'think of the children' argument is the same one that will be used to pass SOPA like regulation. I don't think a sane person would suggest that exploiting children is acceptable, but the answer then becomes -- to what degree to we sacrif…

"but this 'think of the children' argument is the same one that will be used to pass SOPA like regulation."

I have no idea what your point here is. You seem to be implying that because someone may dishonestly use a "protect the kids" argument, that others then shouldn't really try to "protect the kids".

If that isn't what you are saying then I have no idea what you intended to convey.

"to what degree to we sacrifice our autonomy to satisfy the regulator's thirst for a censored communications."

WTF are you talking about? reddit had bad shit on their site, and they took it down. There is no boogeyman here.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#147

Post by dgabriel »

Anderkent wrote: post #121
revdinosaur wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if someone finds a box of photos containing some of your children in their underwear and scan them and trade them around the internet? Not all photos online were intended that way by the person who took them. To assume this is very convenient to your argument but not realistic in the broader view of what is being discussed. More to the point, you are misunderstanding the stage at which the girl is victimized; wh…

But that is a different case all together. If she didn't publish those photos, okay. Then publishing her photos is definitely reprehensible, ridiculing her is reprehensible, and trading those photos... Is probably wrong, but has no direct consequences on her, so I wouldn't be this quick to judge. The probability that someone who knows her will find the photos on the internet is not very high, is it?

Tell that to Angie Varona. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/angie-varona-14-year-unwill...

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#148

Post by kijin »

baddox wrote: post #100
kijin wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that the admins are painting their policy with a broader brush doesn't mean that the policy is any less about child pornography than it was before. If "creepy" was the new standard, /r/creepy and /r/wtf should be on the chopping block, too. If "no nudity or sex" was the rule, /r/nsfw wouldn't have survived. What a subreddit's policy says is less important than what actually gets posted there and/or what peop…

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know, the high-profile subreddits under scrutiny didn't contain child pornography regularly or at all. The jailbait one was depicted on Anderson Cooper's show as having pictures likely grabbed from Facebook: e.g. teenagers in swim suits. There was also mention of a single commenter claiming to have more revealing pictures of an underage ex-girlfriend (which sounded like they w…

Of course it's not purely about legality. Administrative burden was cited as the main reason. Also, the new policy is not only against child porn, but also "all subreddits that focus on sexualization of children", including pictures of teenagers in swimsuits. That's an unabashedly moral stance to take.

But I still don't think this means that reddit from now on will readily bow to public accusations of creepiness. This time, illegality, administrative burden, creepiness, and moral principles all happened to coincide. I don't think the same set of circumstances will easily obtain with respect to /r/trees or /r/atheism, which @alecco worries about. Illegality alone would not justify blanket censorship of "grey area" stuff. Creepiness alone, or moral qualms alone, would not justify censorship, either.

From the announcement: We will tirelessly defend the right to freely share information on reddit in any way we can, even if it is offensive or discusses something that may be illegal.

When somebody else says things like that, we are often sceptical about that, and for good reasons. But I think reddit admins have earned enough trust among its regulars over the years to merit a more charitable reading. I doubt that they would ban entire subreddits for a small number of nefarious links if the subreddits themselves had other legitimate purposes. Maybe they'll tell the mods to take better care of their communities, but delete them unilaterally? Unlikely. That's the point I was originally trying to make; sorry for the diversion.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#149

Post by Alex3917 »

wnoise wrote: post #107
Alex3917 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Exchanging information about marijuana is not." Except for that now the Obama administration is trying to charge anyone who speaks out in favor of drug reform under the RICO laws, which carry a possible death penalty. Some Montana legislator was just charged a couple weeks ago.

[citation needed]

http://coloradoindependent.com/111645/pro-marijuana-montana-...

Apparently she hasn't been charged yet, she's currently being investigated, but it seems that RICO is the framework that they are considering using to charge her.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#150

Post by sien »

It's surprising how people have these discussions and don't discuss Metafilter - the discussion site that works.

What has set Metafilter apart from slashdot, K5, Digg and Reddit was that after the initial burst of building a good community it became $5 to join.

That keeps out the morons and pays for moderators to get rid of the asshats.

If HN wants to keep up the quality before the hordes arrive it'd be a good move here too or it will be a matter of time before the idiots kill the place.

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