Reddit takes a new direction • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#201

Post by Karunamon » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 1:53 AM UTC

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…

>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.

Then perhaps you need to realize that some of the things people are saying have some merit and you're looking at them wrong. I realize ad populum isn't a valid form of logic, but when the great majority of people are telling you you're wrong, it could never hurt to re-examine your position.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#202

Post by drivebyacct2 » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 1:56 AM UTC

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…

>What is legal and morally right usually does not overlap 100%.

This is the key issue that almost NO ONE here understands and it's evidenced by high profile HN members calling people they disagree with "disgusting" because they don't understand that morality is relative and that slippery slopes are only absurd until they come true.

I, along with most everyone here it seems, have no desire for peoples' children to be posted online for other people to fap to. That having been said, reddit has historically deferred to the law for making decisions about what IS and IS NOT allowed.

With this decision, they're asserting that their feelings of morality are now grounds for moderating content. HN always surprises me how anti-drug it is. Would HN call those opposed to shutting down other subreddits "repulsive"? What if reddit decides to shutdown /r/drugs where discussion of "hard" drug use occurs. There is a morality argument that can be made.

The problem is that the bright-legal-line has been broken and from now on censorship becomes a question of appealing to the reddit admin's sense of morality.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#203

Post by Karunamon » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 1:57 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #117

Confusion wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of response, using words like 'repulsive', is a form of thoughtless polarisation. I expect better from someone always up-in-arms about the quality of posts here. This is just flamebait. There are several possible discussions here that you can't just sweep under the rug by declaring those opposing you as 'repulsive' beforehand. Here's a simple question: should they also ban the lolicon subreddit? The childre…

I agree that my wording isn't persuasive. It is, on the other hand, clear, which is my priority on this thread. Again, to be clear: I am repelled by any argument that suggests that it is unfortunate that Reddit is cracking down on child pornography. I couldn't be less interested in discussing Gaiman's take on the subject. What drew me into the thread was a comment about NNTP. NNTP is a sore point with me; the repurpo…

>it is unfortunate that Reddit is cracking down on child pornography.

And that's where a great many people have gotten confused. Child porn was already against the rules and already reported to authorities and the perpetrators banned. That hasn't changed.

What has changed were the subreddits like /r/jailbait - where there was absolutely nothing illegal going on. Creepy and skeevy perhaps, but not illegal.

Let me repeat this again: This is not about child porn.

Comparing the content of /r/jailbait to child porn is akin to comparing the sights of an average day at the beach to the set of a hardcore porno shoot. It's completely bogus.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#204

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 1:59 AM UTC

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #198

tptacek wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 appar…

[deleted]

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#205

Post by drivebyacct2 » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 2:01 AM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #204

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 appar…

[deleted]

>Oh well

So in the spirit of most people in this thread, you're going with "you disagree with my moral framework so you're wrong".

Except it's even worse than that because no one (I think) thinks that these pictures are a good thing, we're just not comfortable with installing a select fews' morality as guidelines for censorship. But rather than have that discussion, you drag it into "well you either agree or you like pedophilia".

As long as you're proud of that, more power to you. I looove people preaching morality and especially absolute morality. There's a lot of people who would love to see a LOT of subreddits banned. Hell, there are people that would see me KILLED for how I live aspects of my life. You going to tell me "oh well" when that becomes the popular sense of morality?

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#206

Post by pyre » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 2:13 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #117

Confusion wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of response, using words like 'repulsive', is a form of thoughtless polarisation. I expect better from someone always up-in-arms about the quality of posts here. This is just flamebait. There are several possible discussions here that you can't just sweep under the rug by declaring those opposing you as 'repulsive' beforehand. Here's a simple question: should they also ban the lolicon subreddit? The childre…

I agree that my wording isn't persuasive. It is, on the other hand, clear, which is my priority on this thread. Again, to be clear: I am repelled by any argument that suggests that it is unfortunate that Reddit is cracking down on child pornography. I couldn't be less interested in discussing Gaiman's take on the subject. What drew me into the thread was a comment about NNTP. NNTP is a sore point with me; the repurpo…

  >  I am repelled by any argument that suggests
  > that it is unfortunate that Reddit is cracking
  > down on child pornography

What Reddit is banning now is not child pornography, at least not in the cut-and-dry sense. They were already filtering clearly illegal images, and reporting them to the authorities.

They are now banning things like teen/preteen girls in bathing suits. Whether or not these things are 'child pornography' is more more up in the air than photos of children having sex, or being raped.

Trying to group this in with children being raped comes across as disingenuous because it implicitly claims that anyone that takes issue with this is somehow automatically in favor of child rape.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#207

Post by spindritf » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 2:15 AM UTC

tomjen3 wrote: post #83

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 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.

> reddit specifically said create your own subreddit and post what you want (as long as it is not spam)

I think moderators can approve spam so you can even post spam to your own subreddit if you wish.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#208

Post by Locke1689 » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 2:16 AM UTC

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #196

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.

/r/atheism I agree -- I have no idea where that came from.

r/trees -- come on. They're currently walking a very thin line but it's just a matter of time until people start crossing it. Case in point: http://www.reddit.com/r/NYCtrees/comments/mw8h0/someet_up/

It was one cautious commenter away from being a thread all about where to meet up to do and buy illegal drugs. You think that just because you say "share" with a wink and a nod everyone's immune from prosecution?

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#209

Post by drivebyacct2 » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 2:19 AM UTC

Locke1689 wrote: post #208

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

/r/atheism I agree -- I have no idea where that came from. r/trees -- come on. They're currently walking a very thin line but it's just a matter of time until people start crossing it. Case in point: http://www.reddit.com/r/NYCtrees/comments/mw8h0/someet_up/ It was one cautious commenter away from being a thread all about where to meet up to do and buy illegal drugs. You think that just because you say "share" with a…

So a 2 month old post (that wasn't even in /r/trees) whose TOP comment says specifically "do not talk about actual trading of drugs" is your evidence that /r/trees is illegal? Besides, there's nothing inherently illegal about me claiming "I sell lots of drugs". Yes, it's (not) true, drivebyacct2 sells massive amounts of marijuana. Come persecute me and everyone else in this thread!

Even the second comment is how to be safe and not attract too much attention. The third top comment suggests that it be a "treeless" meetup.

In the interest of fairness, I've never been to /r/nyctrees before and it's certainly a different style than trees. I'm still not sure anything there looks like dealing and again, I don't really see "hey, let's get high and meetup in [some] park" as being that dangerous or scandalous.

Re: Reddit takes a new direction

#210

Post by fluidcruft » Tue, Feb 14, 2012, 2:19 AM UTC

repsilat wrote: post #152

potatolicious wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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…

The "slippery slope" argument can be made more strongly here - a few months ago /r/jailbait was shut down by the admins. There was a lot of hand-wringing about it, but they were eventually swayed by opinion and some media attention. This time around there was a post on SomethingAwful talking about a few more subreddits, and they were all (including several that were explicitly 18+ content only) shut down immediately.…

/r/jailbait was shut down by the /r/jailbait moderators, not the reddit admins.