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Reddit takes a new direction

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Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#181

Post by william42 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #176
ojosilva wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now, people looking at those pictures may be sexualizing these images in the head No, it's not only on their head. It's written right underneath the photos by redditors, ie: "my d * is so hard right now". So the picture by itself may be harmless, but the post as a whole puts children in a highly sexualized context. To make matters worse, threads sometimes include links to fully illegal material on some download ser…

Captions don't change the contents of an image, no matter how terrible they are.

No, but the image+caption is different from just the image.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#182

Post by Steko »

sophacles wrote: post #72
jasonkester wrote: post #63

People tend to think of online communities as democracies where the freedoms they're accustomed to from their normal lives apply. So when a post gets deleted by a moderator, people tend to think of it as a freedom of speech issue. There's a whole constitution out there specifically defending anybody's right to create a pro-Nazi subreddit, and to otherwise post anything they please on the site so long as it's not ille…

* 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…

"People instinctively recognize that while you may have to schlep thought he muck to find those gems, it is still important to have an "anything goes place"."

I do not think many people "instinctively recognize" this. What I do "instinctively recognize" is that as sites like this mainstream they uniformly clean up "the muck" and that any "creative gems" lost because the community no longer tolerates everything are a tiny price to pay. Whatever "creative gems" went on in /r/jailbait or /r/n*ggerjailbait we can only speculate...

"People will feel betrayed when they put time and effort into making the community what it is, and suddenly the rules are changed on them -- all their effort has been co-opted or may be co-opted, for something they don't want. It feels slimy."

What feels slimy is finding out the popular site you like is chummy with scum like Violentacrez the guy who started 90% of the worst of the worst subreddits. I got news for you, the tiny minority of pedosympathizers on reddit are not what made the site what it is. We aren't "coopting their effort", we're taking a break from construction to clean up a mess we didn't have time to focus on until now.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#183

Post by [deleted] »

icebraining wrote: post #138
cbs wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people tend to think of it as a freedom of speech issue First-amendment speech is only a subset of free speech. Unfortunately people seem to hear "freedom of speech" and think that the ONLY place that freedom exists is under the scope of the 1st. Its not. The Bill of Rights only says that our government can't take it away. Other people are still free to take it away. But when they take it away (and are within their r…

The Bill of Rights only says that our government can't take it away. Other people are still free to take it away. But when they take it away (and are within their rights to do so) it is a free speech issue. The difference is the argument is not a you can't or you shouldn't be able to, its just a you can but shouldn't. Well, it is a free speech issue, but whether one should or not is debatable. I'd prefer they didn't,…

[deleted]

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#184

Post by lwat »

ugh wrote: post #127
weavejester wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a third-party observer, I initially had the same reaction as sophacles, in that your comment appeared, at first, to be a strongly-worded straw-man argument. However, now that I re-read it I can see your point, but your use of profanity and the general lack of civility in your comment obscured your argument. The tone of your comment was more like an accusation than a reasoned response, even if the content (minus th…

It was supposed to be an accusation. Some things deserve accusations. And profanities. Sigh. I’m quite disillusioned about HN, actually. Not that it should surprise me, but damn. People here say the exact same things as on Reddit. If you squint a bit the reactions are the same. That doesn’t make me happy. I do recognize that I can’t do many constructive things here (short of screaming at people) so I’m going to excus…

> People here say the exact same things as on Reddit.

Perhaps it's because they are correct and you are in fact in the wrong here?

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#185

Post by Steko »

Alex3917 wrote: post #171
Steko wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This and your above comment constitute a wildly inaccurate extrapolation based on what's in your article.

How so? If this case sets a precedent that anyone who speaks out in favor of marijuana can be prosecuted as part of a criminal conspiracy, then by defition they would be eligible for the death penalty because that's how RICO works- you can get charged for any crime committed by someone else in your 'organization', regardless of what that crime is or what penalty it carries. I don't see how that's an extrapolation.

There's no "case" here.

You've extrapolated from a single question from a single investigator to a nonexistent death penalty case and pinned it all on an imaginary Obama administration mandate to charge everyone involved in medical marijuana advocacy. That's not the story here.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#186

Post by baddox »

kijin wrote: post #148
baddox wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Thi…

> When somebody else says things like that, we are often sceptical about that, and for good reasons.

Yes, the good reason is that this announcement is doing exactly what that sentence promises they won't do. Of course, they have the right to do whatever they want with their site, but that line is a blatant lie without the added clause "except for this case."

The administrative burden excuse seems half-hearted and almost a throwaway line. Also, regardless of the reddit admins' views, the views of many top commenters is that this is an appropriate moderation whether or not it's illegal.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#187

Post by owenmarshall »

squirrels wrote: post #112
owenmarshall wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As plenty of people have said plenty of other places, there's a huge difference between illegal content and distasteful but protected speech. Further, the legal definition for child pornography is, in many cases, not what people expect. The EFF has a primer that touches on this: https://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/adult If reddit begins cracking down on protected speech like you'd find in /r/trees and /r/atheis…

You're right, there is a huge difference between between illegal content and distasteful but protected speech. Yet you seem to be lumping them together in your post... Inside your link it says, for something to be considered "obscene": >The Miller test stems from Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), in which the US Supreme Court held that material is obscene if each of the following factors is satisfied: >1) Whe…

That's one test. But it's not the only one.

The Dost test establishes if an image depicts lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area. If it does, it's considered child pornography.

Read on the six Dost factors. Note that it's not a bright line test -- you don't need all six to be true for an image of the genitals to be considered lascivious.

The Wikipedia article on the Dost test is quite apropos:

>Concerning the lascivious display of clothed genitalia, the Department of Justice described use of the Dost test in child pornography and 2257 documentation regulations in a 2008 rule, writing that the precedent United States v. Knox, 32 F.3d 733 (3d Cir. 1994) did not prohibit ordinary swim team or underwear model photographs, but "although the genitals were clothed in that case, they were covered by thin, opaque clothing with an obvious purpose to draw attention to them, were displayed by models who spread or extended their legs to make the pubic and genital region entirely visible to the viewer, and were displayed by models who danced or gyrated in a way indicative of adult sexual relations."

The distinction is not nearly as clear as you claim it to be.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#188

Post by pjscott »

kiba wrote: post #168
jasonkester wrote: post #63

People tend to think of online communities as democracies where the freedoms they're accustomed to from their normal lives apply. So when a post gets deleted by a moderator, people tend to think of it as a freedom of speech issue. There's a whole constitution out there specifically defending anybody's right to create a pro-Nazi subreddit, and to otherwise post anything they please on the site so long as it's not ille…

Agreed. Gardens die by extreme pacifism.

A phrase coined in this insightful article:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/c1/wellkept_gardens_die_by_pacifism/

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#189

Post by pyre »

Steko wrote: post #182
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…

"People instinctively recognize that while you may have to schlep thought he muck to find those gems, it is still important to have an "anything goes place"." I do not think many people "instinctively recognize" this. What I do "instinctively recognize" is that as sites like this mainstream they uniformly clean up "the muck" and that any "creative gems" lost because the community no longer tolerates everything are a…

The point people are making is that once we start making judgement calls like this there will be more and more calls from the community to make more judgement calls to increase the net and shutdown other types of sub-reddits that they disagree with.

Much in the same way that once we give the government a censorship filter on the Internet to 'stop child pornography,' they've got their foot in the door to censor other things as well. Building censorship infrastructure to shut down the websites of people we don't like might not be palatable, but once that infrastructure is already in place, all we have to do is add to the list of banned sites. It becomes so much easier to cross that line when we're standing right next to it, than if we make sure to give it a wide berth.

I'm not saying that I disagree with the shutting down of these sub-reddits -- especially since it seems to only make sense for consistencies sake since they shutdown /r/jailbait already -- but let's not act like this doesn't come with possible consequences.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#190

Post by Helianthus »

Steko wrote: post #182
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…

"People instinctively recognize that while you may have to schlep thought he muck to find those gems, it is still important to have an "anything goes place"." I do not think many people "instinctively recognize" this. What I do "instinctively recognize" is that as sites like this mainstream they uniformly clean up "the muck" and that any "creative gems" lost because the community no longer tolerates everything are a…

This is the morality police attitude, satisfied that its ideal of justice has been served and unable to recognize the subtlety of the argument.
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