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Reddit takes a new direction

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Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#191

Post by pyre »

TikiTDO wrote: post #151
ugh wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m worried about private subreddits. Admins, however, can see what’s going on inside them so I don’t see that as much of a problem.

From Wikipedia: "There are over 67,000 subreddits to peruse, with the default set being (as of October 18, 2011[4])." I could not find a specific number for the admin staff, but given the fact that wiki lists 11 staff members for reddit that number can not be particularly high; in fact the reddit admins steam group has 6 members. I sincerely doubt that anyone is capable of filtering 10,000 subreddits every day in sea…

I think that some people didn't want this stuff to end up on CNN, and having the media end up branding them guilty by association (i.e. "Reddit" == "Cesspool of pedos").

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#192

Post by Helianthus »

flomo wrote: post #155
phillco wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a little sad, because there was definitely a sense, a few years ago, that Reddit was pretty much user-centered and therefore fully unrestricted, content-wise. You can choose what subreddits you belong to, or make new ones for whatever subject you want. The admins simply created the platform and set the defaults. Freedom! But at the same time, everyone still felt like redditors, even if you were on /r/investing o…

That to me is exactly the core issue. It's not as if these people were staying in their obscure subreddit, they were leaking out into advice forums and posting IAMA pedo threads and so on, scoring upvotes due to typical young male contrarianism. It was all creating the general impression that this was acceptable behavior which was commonly discussed by Redditors. (I saw a post from a sixteen year old boy describing h…

This is definitely an oversimplification of the history. Censorship is an active topic of furious debate. r/SRS, which is for all intents and purposes Reddit's White Guilt, self-censors extremely rigorously even as it invades other subreddits (not officially, but essentially). r/lgbt splintered to r/ainbow due to heavy-handed mod censorship (with allegations of connections to r/SRS and its heavy-handed trolling).

You might say that this is all inconsequential board drama, and it is; but the arc of it ends with admin involvement. Until now, the admins have explicitly let mods handle their own subreddits.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#193

Post by drivebyacct2 »

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…

You start out by saying that reddit is not bound by US law, but then turn around and fault reddit for respecting and trying to stick with "full freedom of speech" for as long as they have? Come on, that's not fair at all. You win either way, you just have to mention and criticize their position by saying "haha, just look at it", there's hardly any real argument there at all.

Reddit's "slide" is a result of their respect for freedom of speech? Where's the connection there? The "spill over" of pedophiles (or non-CP closet pedophiles, whatever) from jailbait subreddits has caused the deterioration of /r/programming? ha.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#194

Post by drivebyacct2 »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #122
tomjen3 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right, in a legal sense, which is why there is no lawsuit over this issue. But reddit specifically said create your own subreddit and post what you want (as long as it is not spam). That is why this is such a big issue.

> But reddit specifically said create your own subreddit and post what you want (as long as it is not spam). That is why this is such a big issue. A big issue? They updated the minimal set of rules the site runs by. If users don't like it, they can go elsewhere. There's no issue here, just Redditors doing what they do best: creating a tempest in a teapot.

There's no issue here, just HNers doing what they do best, epitomizing the actions of a few or single person to enable them to look down their nose at the inferior "reddit".

The reaction at reddit has been OVERWHELMINGLY in favor of this ban, the last four days has been top post after top post asking for it to be banned.

Every tiny thing a single redditor does is grounds for dismissal and condemnation of the entire site by many here and it really just baffles me.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#195

Post by drivebyacct2 »

alecco wrote: post #43
kijin wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exchanging child pornography is illegal in the United States (as well as in many other countries). There's nothing unreasonable about stating in your TOS that you can't have a subreddit the very existence of which breaks the law. Sure, people can try to reopen these subreddits under different names, but once the rule is in the TOS, they can be reported on and shut down as a matter of routine. The same applies to ware…

What are you talking about? Reddit had a very strong stance aginst CP already. And there's a lot of rules broken on /r/trees so it's far from safe. Like meetups to exchange or people giving tips. That's not legal in US and happens quite often there. Same with /r/atheism, a lot of their content can be labeled hate speech under US law. (IANAL)

>Like meetups to exchange or people giving tips

Never once have I seen this. I've seen ONE meetup and it was in a state where medical use is legal and even then, there's no law against conspiring to meet up to talk about and or consume marijuana. "conspiracy to get high".

Give tips about what? Stupid ways to make a bong out of a gatorade bottle? Scandalous!

>Same with /r/atheism, a lot of their content can be labeled hate speech under US law.

I just spit onto my keyboard a bit. Besides the fact that hate speech is not illegal, I can't think of anything that is purely hateful enough to be deemed hate speech in that subreddit.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#196

Post by drivebyacct2 »

Locke1689 wrote: post #156

I'm not against Reddit's move, but I do think they're being more than a little naive if they think it will stop here. hueypriest (Reddit admin) says: /r/trees isn't in remotely the same legal area as CP stuff. Not even close. They'll ban /r/trees when they pry it out of our cold dead hands. And yet, facilitating a drug transaction is almost definitely illegal. Posting torrent links is at least legally dangerous. Sure…

I'd love to see a single "facilitated drug transaction" in /r/trees. No really, it would be relevant to my interests. Also, it's a load of nonsense, as are most of the comments about /r/trees, /r/atheism and other subreddits that are being compared to CP in this thread.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#197

Post by pyre »

throwawaymar2 wrote: post #2

I confused about why he thinks it ironic that Nabakov is banned... I mean, it got grandfathered in when child porn laws were written, somehow, but it is certainly fiction about a paedophile, right? Anything that bans other kiddie-fiddler fiction while allowing _Lolita_ is quite obviously inconsistent, and those in favor of this inconsistency probably ought to examine why they like _Lolita_.

  > I confused about why he thinks it ironic
  > that Nabakov is banned...
It's not ironic that something that is considered 'classic' literature gets banned in a rush to ban all 'pedo' material? If you want to play it up, I'm sure you could conjure up images of Nazis burning books.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#198

Post by drivebyacct2 »

tptacek wrote: post #51
alecco wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? Reddit had a very strong stance aginst CP already. And there's a lot of rules broken on /r/trees so it's far from safe. Like meetups to exchange or people giving tips. That's not legal in US and happens quite often there. Same with /r/atheism, a lot of their content can be labeled hate speech under US law. (IANAL)

There's no such thing as "hate speech" under US law. You can, for instance, proudly march down the streets of Skokie in Klan regalia bellowing about the need to "exterminate the Jews", safe in the knowledge that the First Amendment implications of doing so have already been litigated. There are (dubiously) "hate crime" laws, but they pertain to violent crime. In a similar vein, I'm not so sure about your legal analys…

Why is it "repulsive" to see people in arms about it? The construction of that last line, that is supposed to appeal to reasonableness, is unfair from it's very phrasing. You, as many have sought to do in this issue, try to portray ANYONE who disagrees with the decision or rationale for the decision as a pedophile or a pedophile apologist. It's disingenuous and rude.

I don't agree with the decision because it's apparent that it was a simple reaction to pressure from, well, lots of different places. I disagree with it because there isn't a solid brightline defense of this decision in light of other subreddits that they not only tolerate, but openly endorse.

To write a post discussion the speech implications of this decision and to end it with "repulsion" of those who disagree is insulting.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#199

Post by DannoHung »

jquery wrote: post #162
DannoHung wrote: post #95

Y'know, it's one thing to be against laws that are ostensibly made in favor of prosecuting child pornography because they can be abused to censor things that are politically unpopular... it's a whole other bucket of beans to be against removing stuff that's basically child pornography because you think something that's politically unpopular might be removed.

> basically child pornography Nothing that got banned was "basically child pornography." That's why there is blood in the water.

It was a collection of subreddits for the purpose of eroticism focused on children. It wasn't child porn, but it's as close as you can come without actually getting arrested.

You're full of shit if you're trying to tell me otherwise.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#200

Post by william42 »

Anderkent wrote: post #31
blhack wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh for crying out loud... The stuff that was allowed on reddit would get you an instant, permanent ban on pretty much every website on the internet. Do you even know what SOPA, PIPA or ACTA do? Reddit has voluntarily taken the stance they won't allow the trade and index of child pornography on their website. That has got nothing to do with DNS takedowns for linking to copyrighted material. It was a private decision m…

He mentioned SOPA PIPA and ACTA because somethingawfuls stance of these reflects its general trustworthiness. No one argues that illegal content should not be removed, and uploaders banned. Which was already being done. Child pornography was never allowed on reddit, and was removed as it was reported. This is not preventing 'exploitation of children', it's just a majority censoring topics it finds inconvenient/distur…

Link me to Something Awful actually supporting these laws.
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